The New World Order

"Now it's clear, Vance's speech in Munich and the many tweets of President Trump have become official doctrine of the United States, and we must act accordingly."

"[Europe must understand that postwar alliances] have changed [ and to be read to] protect ourselves not only against our adversaries, but also against the allies who challenge us."

"What we cannot accept is this threat of interference in Europe's political life."

"The United States cannot replace European citizens in choosing which are the right parties and which are the wrong parties."

European Council President Antonio Costa 

 

"There is a growing recognition that their strategy did not work."

"It's becoming clearer that, obviously, it's expressed by the Trump administration, but there seems to be a bigger MAGA sort of world view in which Europe is identified as Public Enemy No. 1."

Nathalie Tocci, director, Institute for International Affairs, Rome

 

"On the question of Europe and President Trump's comments, what I see is a strong Europe, united behind Ukraine and united behind our longstanding values of freedom and democracy."

"And I will always stand up for those values and those freedoms."

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer  

U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin before a joint news conference following their meeting at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, U.S., August 15, 2025. (Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/Pool via REUTERS )

 

Continental Europe has been losing share of global GDP—down from 25 percent
in 1990 to 14 percent today—partly owing to national and transnational regulations
that undermine creativity and industriousness.
But this economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of
civilizational erasure. The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the
European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and
sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating
strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering
birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.
Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or
less. As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have
economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies. Many of these
nations are currently doubling down on their present path. We want Europe to
remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its
failed focus on regulatory suffocation.
This lack of self-confidence is most evident in Europe’s relationship with Russia.
European allies enjoy a significant hard power advantage over Russia by almost
every measure, save nuclear weapons. As a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine,
European relations with Russia are now deeply attenuated, and many Europeans
regard Russia as an existential threat. Managing European relations with Russia
will require significant U.S. diplomatic engagement, both to reestablish conditions
of strategic stability across the Eurasian landmass, and to mitigate the risk of
conflict between Russia and European states.
It is a core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious cessation of
hostilities in Ukraine, in order to stabilize European economies, prevent
unintended escalation or expansion of the war, and reestablish strategic stability
with Russia, as well as to enable the post-hostilities reconstruction of Ukraine to
enable its survival as a viable state.

National Security Strategy of the United States of America, November 2025 

 

 

Across the  pond, European leaders are furiously debating the new American national security strategy, in particular that portion that focuses on Europe and consigns it to a fast-fade  into past history, berating it for not paying sufficient attention to its immigration policies and positing that Europe is on its way to losing all it holds dear, its history, culture, values. Yet, since America is so besotted with Europe it still hopes it can 'regain its civilizational self-confidence', so there is yet hope for poor, degraded, fumbling and weak Europe. 

 

The offending document, according to European officials, has made formal policy from the Trump administration's critiques of European democracies. In very particular, Europe has been no  help to the White House in its selfless bid to stop the war in Ukraine. A Ukraine, by Mr. Trump's reckoning that deserves to forfeit great chunks of its territory because it was too weak to defend itself from the  territorial imperative of a strong neighbour, attached to a man whom Mr. Trump admires. 

 

If Europe, much less the world at large, does not yet know that Donald J. Trump, president of the great United States of America has a keen admiration for strongmen, then perhaps there is no hope for any nation or nations that haven't yet grasped that they must counter a force of the nature of a man who sees much to admire in autocrats, dictators, even terrorists. Say, for example, President Trump's accommodation with such global menaces as Russia's Vladimir Putin, North Korea's Kim Jong Un, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Qatar's Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Syria's new president Ahmed al-Sharaa (a 'nice' young man).

 

Alluding disparagingly to the presence of malign Middle East actors in Europe who have immigrated, migrated, refugee'd themselves throughout France, Britain and Germany to dilute and imperil by sheer force of numbers in their genteel jihad of citizen-occupation as the death knell of Europe proceeds, President Trump conveniently overlooks the very fact that the United States of America has a more-than ample presence of the same in a stealth yet observable quotient, where even some infamously virulent anti-American Somalis and Palestinians have been voted into Congress.

 

It is the stinging rejection of European powers to the U.S. 'peace plan' for Ukraine that generates much of the current umbrage by the American president to Europe, which has made its way into the national security strategy, alongside the disregard that exudes from some key members of the Trump administration who have little but contempt for their European counterparts. Understandably, Ukraine rejects outright the brilliant plan brought to him courtesy of Mr. Trump, to demean himself and his nation by handing over territory to a rapacious enemy.

 

Strangely enough, Europe, fearing Vladimir Putin's greedy eye, has no wish to be party to rewarding him for his invasion of a neighbour, by supporting the 'peace plan', which is, after all, a complete repudiation of Ukraine's human rights and international right  to sovereign protection. Downplaying NATO, and forcing the defence alliance to exclude Ukraine in the future, sternly advising that there be no NATO presence to guarantee a post-peace security for Ukraine, is in actual fact, Vladimir Putin's terms to end its vicious war, along with an insistence on Ukraine agreeing on reducing its military and armaments. 

 

Then there are strictly financial/economic considerations; Europe has no 'right' to fine powerful and intrusive social media giants; after all, who do they think they are to interfere with American reach and profit? The American technology industry is answerable only to the United States, not to the European Union, and if Europe doesn't believe  Mr. Trump, then Elon Musk's voice should surely make them tremble as he recommends their abolition.

 

Europe, still in a state of disbelief over Vice-President JD Vance's February speech at the Munich Security Conference -- accusing governments in Europe of censoring political opponents, the far right in particular through the restriction of hate speech, and they created 'horrors' through the acceptance of too many immigrants -- recognize that earlier attack as a forerunner of the new national security document. Injury after penalty, following on the surprise imposition of punitive tariffs in trade with the U.S. A U.S. at war with its own Democratic opposition party, fully invested itself in far-right ideology.

 

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz chat outside 10 Downing Street following a meeting, in London on Dec. 8. (Adrian Dennis/Pool/Reuters)

"[The U.S. strategy describes the continent as] the only world region apparently in which democracy is under threat [and] buys into a narrative [on Russia, which has blamed Europeans for its war in Ukraine]."

"The whole thing is completely, I mean, off the bender."

Nathalie Tocci