HAMBURG, Germany — Two things make Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany look like an exemplary head of government: Donald Trump and Boris Johnson. Measured against the poorest of benchmarks, Ms. Merkel’s chancellorship, even after 14 years in office, appears stable, wise and exemplary. Measured against the leadership Germany and Europe need, it lacks all of the above.

To describe Ms. Merkel’s current term, which began in 2017, as strategic fatigue would be a friendly understatement. The chancellor appears to not only have lost interest in decision-making. She also shows little resolve to steer the country through a new era of staggering change.

While America retreats from Europe, China is pushing to get in the door, applying a divide-and-conquer strategy against the European Union’s 28 member states and its applicants in the Balkans. These are epochal tipping points that demand big answers. Ms. Merkel doesn’t appear to have any.

Domestically, the split among voters over mass migration, which Ms. Merkel helped instigate in 2015, has yet to heal. And now a new cleavage is polarizing our society: Will demands to tackle climate change prove too much for German industry, or too little to prevent humankind from suicide?