MUCH has been written in recent years about America's retreat from the world stage. Books like "The Frugal Superpower" by Michael Mandelbaum, "The Limits of Power" by Andrew Bacevich and "The Dispensable Nation" by Vali Nasr all chart the country's inward turn and its reluctance, relative to previous decades, to wield influence on the world stage. Mr Nasr even claims that American foreign policy is now “completely subservient to tactical domestic political considerations.” Today's speech by Angela Merkel to MPs and Lords was a reminder that, these days, much of the same can be said about Britain. The German chancellor’s one-day visit to London follows days of optimistic briefing from Downing Street that she would help David Cameron in his attempt to placate backbenchers by repatriating powers from Brussels. Predictably, Ms Merkel’s comments did not live up to the hype. Her speech was friendly enough, and briefly nodded to shared priorities like liberalisation and economic competitiveness. It even hinted at the need to find appropriate legal instruments to enact the necessary changes—echoing the prime minister’s insistence on treaty change. But it was also spectacularly vague. It barely mentioned Britain’s current debate on Europe. Nor did it come close the sort of commitments that would enable Mr Cameron to convince many of his MPs (and some in his cabinet) of the case for EU membership. Instead, the German chancellor used a sweeping account of European history to discuss the need to integrate the euro zone, the violent geopolitical convulsions on Europe’s eastern borders and the union’s common security and defence policies.

To the Britain of the turn of the millennium, this order of priorities would not have come as a surprise. Back then the country was arguably the most influential in the union. The Lisbon Agenda to make the EU “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world”, launched in 2000, was a triumph for liberal British reformism (a fact often forgotten amid today’s breathless talk of unilateral vetos and repatriations). The 2004 expansion, too, was a great victory for British diplomacy. Even after the prospect of British membership of the euro zone faded, London continued to set the agenda—in the choice of Jose Manuel Barroso over the federalist Guy Verhofstadt to lead the 2004-2009 and 2009-2014 Commissions, for example. In short: Britain was at the forefront of debates about the future of Europe and its neighbourhood. But today, as the oddly unrealistic expectations of Ms Merkel’s speech showed, it is narrowly focused on squeezing concessions (currently so vague as to be virtually meaningless) out of its partners, all while threatening to flounce out of the union all together.

The same pattern is true of other policy areas. Britain led the push for helping Kosovo in 1998. Fifteen years later Mr Cameron pulled back from making a similar intervention in Syria (oddly, as a majority of MPs voted in favour of keeping military action on the table). The country is a bit-player in international efforts to solve the Ukrainian crisis—in PMQs yesterday the prime minister received not one question on the subject. Britain’s armed forces are shrinking and demoralised, its policies and rhetoric on immigration are damaging its universities and weakening commercial links with other countries and its export policies are puny. France is now Europe’s leading military actor. Germany now dominates its economic policies. Poland is the main force for enlargement. In some of the big debates, Britain has not only relinquished its leading role, but barely features at all.

Ms Merkel’s speech should not only serve as a wake-up call alerting Britons to how parochial their policy on Europe (and much else) has become. It should also serve as a guide for how they can reverse their slide into dispensability, to paraphrase Mr Nasr. Between the lines of the German chancellor’s carefully calculated comments was a simple formula for influence: look outwards, not inwards; don’t lose sight of the bigger picture; be able to speak a few words in your partners’ languages (literally and figuratively); keep your options open; get your priorities right. Britain would do well to heed them.