You should not forget that Saddam Hussein was absolutely no problem for France and Germany. Believe it or not - Chirac loves money and voters too. To run a force of 20.000 soldiers in a hostile country with a truckload of caskets being sendt home each week, is not very funny. It is especially not funny, if your voters are absolutely not convinced of the necessity. Chirac is of course an idiot, but he has a feeling for the existential orientation of the French people. This is the reason why they voted for him. It would have been political suicide if he would helped the US with 20.000 soldiers. Same thing with Schröder.
The Americans already started to calm down. I do not care if Germany is treated like an "equal" partner from them, because sooner or later they will follow the realities. The current US-administration knows very well that we are the key to many projects of them. They need our help in Iran for instance. France (8.6 %) and Germany (11 %) are by far the biggest import partners of Iran. We are the market where the Iranians buy nearly everthing. If we do not want to give them technology or whatever, we just have to stop the exports. Iran hasn't got too much options to purchase anywhere else, since China and Russia need our machinery or technology also to keep up with the current world standarts. Germany is still the biggest exporter in the world (yes we export more than the US or Japan!). That fact maybe doesn't give us a superpower status but a really loud voice that is heared in Washington too. Have you ever wondered why the Americans are so mad about those two "irrelevant cheeseeating surrender monkeys/krauts"? Do you think they would have been as mad about us if we would have really the importance of two small irrelevant countries? It will be better for this world if both sides of the Atlantic work togehter. Therefore some things have to be changed - in Europe and America.
"...More possible will be conflict between Poland and Germany over Kaliningrad (who should take it) than Poland once again dominated by Russia..."
Very unlikely. You can keep Kaliningrad if you want to. We got East Germany back. That was already more than a real nightmare...
Russia is dangerous. Not for Poland anymore, but for the other east European countries like Ukraine, Lithuania, Lativa and Estonia. It is not that sure that NATO will be that self contained in the wider future. First indices for a beginning decay are on their way. What will be, if NATO mutates into a debating club like Schröder proposed?
The future will be interesting...
BTW - If the EU could take part of the Russian natural resources in exchange for development it would be a wonderful business. I do not want to have the Russians as an enemy. I want them as a partner.