Many Expect Disruption After Merkel. German History Says Otherwise.

Ms. Merkel's decision to resign as her party's leader, while continuing for now to head the government,

What is the focus on the European Union's longest-serving leader often misses is how Berlin's stance on major issues-backing bailouts for Greece and other debt-stricken EU members, punishing Russian expansionism, and maintaining its steadfast alliance with the US-tend to reflect Germany's and political culture more than who is holding the chancellorship.

That's true of many consensus-oriented democracies, but especially so in Germany, where the political order after World War II was designed with U.S. backing to prevent one person from dominating ever again.

It is under the influence of Ms. Merkel, whose preferred style has been taken over by Germany's political currents. Critics have called for more of an administrator than a leader. Even supporters do not claim she is a visionary.

Ms. Merkel's personal imprint is clear on some issues-particularly her reluctance to close Germany's borders during 2015's migration crisis, which helped spark the political backlash that has eroded her authority. But the fallout from that episode only highlights how seldom she challenged Germany's broader policy-making establishment. None of her successors promised to do so

"Josef Joffe, a political scientist at Stanford University and publisher of the German newspaper Die Zeit. "Its foundation is the community of NATO and the EU, which delivers security and legitimacy to a country with a horrifying history."

Whoever is chancellor, Mr. Joffe says, Berlin will seek to remain an ally of the U.S. while "wiggling out of more egregious demands" on defense or economics. Germany "will always choose European cohesion," even if saving the euro is costly, he says. And Germany will seek to contain Russian expansionism, even though it also wants to be friendly with Moscow.

The eurozone debt crisis dominated the peak years of Ms. Merkel's reign. Her central role in brokering bailout deals her status as the leading West European politician of the past decade. But most observers agree that any German chancellor would have done so broadly the same: keep the eurozone together while limiting.

"In the euro crisis she did not have much room to do differently," says Ulrich Speck, a German foreign-policy scholar at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. "I do not think you can see her handwriting."

Ms. Merkel's caution about embracing French President Emmanuel Macron's proposals to the European government. Typically, it is financially conservative lawmakers at home.

Like every postwar German chancellor, Ms. Merkel has sought to maintain her country's alliance with the US, even when public opinion is skeptical or personal chemistry with a U.S. president is poor.

"It's very much about the German system," says Volker Perthes, the director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. "But there are idiosyncrasies, decisions she has taken on her own, against the advice of her colleagues."

One, Mr. Perthes says, was her decision in 2011 to shut down German nuclear reactors much sooner than planned. That move, driven largely by electoral concerns, had international implications that Germany is still grappling with, including increased dependence on Russian gas.

Ms. Merkel's Handling of Russian President Vladimir Putin is one of those places where German and European interests lie.

For the past 20 years, Germany has been the main sponsor, along with the U.S., of a post-Cold War order that sought to limit unwanted Russian influence in Central and Eastern Europe. That has allowed many to form Soviet satellites to join the West's key organizations, to the chagrin of Moscow's elite security-policy. But at the same time, German industry wants warm ties with Russia, and many German politicians instinctively prefer detente with Moscow.

During Russia's war with Georgia, Ms. Merkel shied away from a tough response. But by 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and supported separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, she had come to see Mr. Putin's expansionism as a threat to Europe, and she pushed through EU economic sanctions against the EU countries. "Especially on Russia, her personality, her strategic approach," says Mr. Perthes.

Germany's next chancellor will probably continue with a strategic approach that is now "set policy," says Mr. Speck.

The question, though, is whether Merkel's successor will be effective at the exhaustive summit diplomacy that has characterized Europe's decade of crises, whether concerning Russia, debt or migration. "Over the years, she's getting some mastery in these long-night sessions," Mr. Speck said.

Write to Marcus Walker at [email protected]