Thomas L. Friedman, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for The New York Times, became the paper's foreign-affairs columnist in 1995...Previously, he served as chief economic correspondent in the Washington bureau and before that he was the chief White House correspondent...Friedman joined The Times in 1981 and was appointed Beirut bureau chief in 1982...In 1984 Friedman was transferred from Beirut to Jerusalem, where he served as Israel bureau chief until 1988...Friedman was awarded the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting (from Lebanon) and the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting (from Israel)...His book, "From Beirut to Jerusalem" (1989), won the National Book Award for non-fiction in 1989. His latest book, "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" (2000) won the 2000 Overseas Press Club award for best nonfiction book on foreign policy and has been published in 20 languages. He also wrote the text accompanying Micha Bar-Am's book, "Israel: A Photobiography."..Born in Minneapolis on July 20, 1953, Friedman received a B.A. degree in Mediterranean studies from Brandeis University in 1975. In 1978 he received a Master of Philosophy degree in Modern Middle East studies from Oxford...Friedman is married and has two daughters.(CREDIT: Josh Haner/The New York Times)

BERLIN —

A week at the American Academy in Berlin leaves me with two contradictory feelings: One is that Germany today deserves a Nobel Peace Prize, and the other is that Germany tomorrow will have to overcome its deeply ingrained post-World War II pacifism and become a more serious, activist global power. And I say both as a compliment.

On the first point, what the Germans have done in converting almost 30 percent of their electric grid to solar and wind energy from near zero in about 15 years has been a great contribution to the stability of our planet and its climate. The centerpiece of the German “Energiewende,” or energy transformation, was an extremely generous “feed-in tariff” that made it a no-brainer for Germans to install solar power (or wind) at home and receive a predictable high price for the energy generated off their own rooftops.

There is no denying that the early days of the feed-in tariff were expensive. The subsidies cost billions of euros, paid for through a surcharge on everyone’s electric bill. But the goal was not simply to buy more renewable energy: It was to create demand that would drive down the cost of solar and wind to make them mainstream, affordable options. And, in that, the energiewende has been an undiluted success. With price drops of more than 80 percent for solar and 55 percent for wind, zero-carbon energy is now competitive with fossil fuels here.

“In my view the greatest success of the German energy transition was giving a boost to the Chinese solar panel industry,” said Ralf Fuecks, the president of the Heinrich-Boell-Stiftung, the German Green Party’s political foundation. “We created the mass market, and that led to the increased productivity and dramatic decrease in cost.” And all this in a country whose northern tip is the same latitude as the southern tip of Alaska!

This is a world-saving achievement. And, happily, as the price fell, the subsidies for new installations also dropped. The Germans who installed solar ended up making money, which is why the program remains popular, except in coal-producing regions.

So if that’s the story on renewable power, how about national power? Two generations after World War II, Germany’s reticence to project any power outside its borders is deeply ingrained in the political psyche here. That is a good thing, given Germany’s past. But it is not sustainable. There is an impressive weight to Germany today — derived from the quality of its governing institution, its rule of law and the sheer power of its economy built on midsize businesses — that is unique in Europe.

When you talk to German officials about Greece, their main complaint is not about Greek fiscal policy, which is better lately, but about the rot and corruption in Greece’s governing institutions. The Greeks “couldn’t implement the structural reforms they needed, if they wanted to,” one German financial official said to me. Athens’ institutions are a mess.

With the United States less interested in Europe, Britain fading away both from the European Union and the last vestiges of its being a global military power, France and Italy economically hobbled and most NATO members shrinking their defense budgets, I don’t see how Germany avoids exercising more leadership. Its economic sanctions are already the most important counter to Russian aggression in Ukraine. And in the Mediterranean Sea, where Europe faces a rising tide of refugees (and where Russia and China just announced that their navies will hold a joint exercise in mid-May), Germany will have to catalyze some kind of EU naval response. The relative weight of German power vis-à-vis the rest of Europe just keeps growing, but don’t say that out loud here. A German foreign policy official put their dilemma this way: “We have to get used to assuming more leadership and be aware of how reluctant others are to have Germany lead — so we have to do it through the EU.”

Here’s my prediction: Germany will be Europe’s first green, solar-powered superpower. Can those attributes coexist in one country, you ask? They’re going to have to.

— Thomas Friedman is a columnist for The New York Times.