Naturally, there’s a German word that perfectly captures Angela Merkel’s dry, unemotive rhetorical style: vorsichtigkeit, which means, roughly, prudence. The German chancellor, who at age 63 is vying for a fourth term, has been underestimated her entire life, starting with her upbringing in East Germany. She went on to earn a doctorate in quantum chemistry, and she approaches politics with the exactitude of her scientific training: sizing up a situation carefully, weighing her options exhaustively and only then deciding on a course of action.

Today, not only is Merkel, as the leader of the world’s fourth-largest economy, the most powerful woman on the planet, she’s also a bulwark of stability in a time of global turmoil. Merkel is often dubbed “the leader of the free world” in a dig at Donald Trump, an American president she has greeted with eye-rolls in person and firm rebukes on issues from climate change to refugees to neo-Nazis. And the label seems to fit: As populism rises in Western countries and the United States retreats from the world, it’s Merkel who is offering the steady, strong leadership that once emanated from Washington.

Merkel’s somewhat mocking nickname in German politics is mutti—“mommy”—and it speaks to her appeal as a kind of political comfort food: dependable, unflappable, unimpressed by the childish antics of those around her. But don’t mistake her matronly demeanor for softness: Merkel has stood up firmly to Kremlin strongman Vladimir Putin, who once tormented his cynophobic German counterpart by bringing his Labrador to their meeting. Her response was typical in its precise deconstruction of an adversary. “I understand why he has to do this—to prove he’s a man,” Merkel said. “He’s afraid of his own weakness.”

As for Trump, Merkel has turned his Euroskepticism into a strength—urging her fellow continental leaders earlier this year to “fight for our future on our own, for our destiny as Europeans” and stop looking to Washington for answers. And with a kindred spirit next door in French President Emmanuel Macron, a fellow centrist and unabashed fan of greater integration, she looks poised to steer Europe away from populist ideologues like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.

Merkel once seemed vulnerable when her poll numbers dipped over her handling of the Syrian refugee crisis, but she now looks like a lock for re-election. If she indeed wins, many in the nervous West will celebrate—but Merkel will likely just put her head down and get back to work, as she’s always done. —Blake Hounshell