A breather, not a breakthrough
Canada, Australia, and Germany have handed liberal democracy a few wins—but don't pop the champagne yet.
By Brian O’Neill
This past week offered defenders of liberal democracy something rare: a few wins that didn’t come with an asterisk. In a year full of democratic backsliding and bad headlines, elections abroad delivered a rare breath of fresh air, with voters choosing stability over grievance, alliances over isolation. Canada stuck with a liberal government. Australia handed a Donald Trump-style conservative a crushing defeat. Germany, after a couple of rocky months, swore in a chancellor committed to rebuilding Europe’s security footing.
These victories matter. But they don't mark a global turning point. They buy time—maybe just enough time—to hold the line as the world adjusts to the hard reality of the Trump presidency.
In Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney's Liberal Party pulled off a comeback on April 28 nobody had predicted back in January. His campaign framed itself around preserving stable U.S.-Canada ties and rejecting Trump's bullying. But underneath the win, the electorate keeps drifting: Working-class suburbs and immigrant communities are showing slow but steady conservative gains, just like in the United States.
In Australia, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese won big on May 3 in a landslide against center-right Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton, whose campaign felt like a cut-rate Trump rally at times. Albanese played it smart: focusing on economic stability, avoiding direct fights with Trump, and letting Dutton self-destruct. Still, beneath the celebration, cracks are clear. Only about a third of Australians picked Albanese’s center-left Labor party as their first choice. And even with Labor’s win, doubts about America’s leadership are growing: a March poll found only 36% of Australians trust America to act responsibly—a 20-point decline from last year.
Meanwhile, Germany has a new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, who took office on Tuesday. He talks tough about European security and rebuilding NATO. He could become a serious voice at the G7 and NATO summits next month. But Germans aren't betting the house on him; only about a third approve of his leadership overall.
Merz’s shaky coalition with the center-left Social Democrats nearly fell apart before it began—Merz lost the first parliamentary vote earlier in the day before rallying enough support in a second round. His government enters office exposed, and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is watching closely for the next opening.
Put simply: The center is holding in Germany. But it's a center under siege.
Merz succeeded in stopping the far right from grabbing control, but it’s not exactly a wall of strength. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is gaining ground, but Merz’s style—more confrontational than that of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, who long embodied Europe’s cautious consensus—could just as easily split Europe as unite it if the wrong crises hit.
France isn’t much better. President Emmanuel Macron is still standing, but barely. The National Rally—France’s main far-right part—keeps chipping away at the center. His government is holding things together with duct tape and luck.
That’s the world these elections are dropping into: Shaky alliances, wary leaders, and a U.S. president who still treats international relationships like a reality TV show.
What these elections ultimately mean will depend on what happens over the next two months. Several key meetings and political developments will signal whether the new governments are prepared to hold the line or whether the cracks in the democratic world will widen.
The G7 summit, hosted by Canada in June, will offer the first test. Carney might set the tone, but it will be leaders like Macron and Merz who have to decide whether to confront Trump's destabilization directly. The others will have a choice: Accept a bland communiqué to preserve the appearance of unity or push through language that forces a public split. Either way, the meeting will reveal whether the democratic core is willing to stand its ground—or whether it is already buckling under the pressure.
At the NATO summit in The Hague later that month, Merz and Macron will be under pressure to deliver more than rhetoric. Europe's strategic credibility—already frayed—will depend on whether Germany and France can present a clear, credible plan for reinforcing collective defense. Allies will be watching whether the new German leadership can turn strong words into a cohesive strategy or whether the summit reveals the lingering divisions that adversaries are eager to exploit.
How Trump himself approaches the G7 and NATO gatherings will be critical. His performance at the Munich Security Conference in February—sending surrogates Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to publicly chastise allies—showed how easily he can turn major summits into displays of dominance rather than partnership.
However, Trump faces a more complicated landscape than he did just a few months ago. Tariff escalations have triggered economic blowback. Russian advances in Ukraine have not been reversed. The minerals deal with Ukraine—which Trump has pointed to as a future economic win—depends on stabilization, not further chaos. These factors could press him, however reluctantly, toward a less combative stance at the G7 and NATO.
Even so, few leaders are betting on a full reversal. Allies are preparing for both possibilities: another round of public beratings that weaken alliances further or a tactical pause in hostility aimed at preserving the illusion of control. Either way, the tone Trump (or his surrogates) sets at these meetings will ripple far beyond the conference rooms. It will shape how much maneuvering space remains for those trying to keep the democratic world stitched together.
Each of these signals, taken together, will determine whether the recent electoral wins can be turned into a real strategic recalibration—or whether they were simply a temporary pause before the next breakdown.
The elections in Canada, Australia, and Germany kept the worst-case scenarios at bay. They bought time. Maybe a little breathing room.
But they didn’t rebuild alliances. They didn’t fix the cracks. And they didn’t change the fact that America’s partners are preparing for a world where they might have to go it alone.
If these leaders use the next two months wisely—if they show up at G7 and NATO ready to push back and hold firm—there’s still a chance to steady the ship.
If not, the next crisis will hit with no safety net underneath.
The clock’s ticking. Again.
Brian O’Neill, a retired senior executive from the CIA and National Counterterrorism Center, is an instructor on strategic intelligence at Georgia Tech.
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Thank you for such an informative column, Mr. O'Neill. Good to learn about what to look for in the near future with these three countries.