halfheartedness

And though that approach is widely acknowledged as one laid out by the chancellor, who has repeatedly insisted on not “going it alone,” the face of this seeming halfheartedness was often his departing defense minister, Christine Lambrecht.

“When they are onstage, there is no waste, no moment of halfheartedness.”

Norbert Röttgen, a lawmaker from Germany’s center-right Christian Democratic Union, accused Scholz of pursuing a “policy of deliberate halfheartedness.”

“The policy of halfheartedness toward Eastern Europe was justified by realists in European capitals as a desire not to upset Russia, because upsetting Russia would have caused instability,” said Rosa Balfour, director at the research institute Carnegie in Brussels.

That has struck some critics as reminiscent of the early stages of the pandemic, when halfheartedness characterized Mr. Johnson’s approach at almost every step of the crisis.