A quote from Mark Helprin in The Wall Street Journal, 12 November 2007

As the Soviet Union dissolved, much of its military capacity followed it into oblivion. But as Western Europe dismantles its militaries, Russia builds, encouraged as much by European pacifism as by the Russian view of America's struggle in Iraq as a parallel to the Soviet's fatal involvement in Afghanistan. Like Germany between the wars, Russia is now eager and determined to reconstitute its forces, and with its new-found oil wealth, it is doing so.

How fortuitous for it, then, that the United States is expending military capital without replenishment, and Europe has spiritually resigned from its own defense, with Germany, for example, now devoting only 1.4% of its GDP to the task. Having been deeply humiliated in recent years, Russia is sure to seek redress if not in action then at least in the power to act. Nations behave this way, it has always been so, and as the balance of power in Europe and the world is shifting, Germany, the strategic gate to Western Europe and by its nature and position that which stabilizes or disrupts the continent, sleeps and dreams unaware.

Germany must fascinate the Jihadists, too – not for displacing America as the prime target, but as the richest target least defended. […] Unlike the U.S., Europe is not removed from them by an ocean, and in it are 50 million of their co-religionists among whom they can disappear and find support. […]

But, more importantly, the variations in European attitudes and capabilities vis-à-vis responding to terrorism or nuclear blackmail are what make Germany such an attractive target. Unlike the U.S., France, and Britain, Germany is a major country with no independent expeditionary capability and no nuclear weapons, making it ideal for a terrorist nuclear strike or Iranian extortion if Iran is able to continue a very transparent nuclear policy to its logical conclusion. […] Looking at Germany, then, Iran sees a country with nothing to counter the pressure of merely an implied nuclear threat. Jihadists see the lynchpin of Europe, easy of access and inadvertently hospitable to operations, that will hardly punish those who fall into its hands, and that can neither accomplish on its own a flexible expeditionary response against a hostile base or sponsor, nor reply to a nuclear strike in kind.