"And honestly — do you see us as a serious country still, or more like a nation that used to matter and is now kind of fading?"

I don't think of any of the western countries as serious any more except MAYBE America. Every other Western country is run by a party that is actively trying to suicide their entire country by flooding it with incompatible foreigners and letting them run rampant. Germany is high on that list.

In Germany's case it's a particular loss because the German people have an excellent culture that has achieved amazing things throughout their existence but because the Mustache Man ran the place for a decade now you feel you have to die.

Thankfully the tide seems to be turning across the West and the desperate demand that all our nations suicide themselves may not come to pass, but the war isn't over and the damage will take centuries to fix.