The speech of Vice President JD Vances on February 14th at the Munich Security Conference was not only the most important speech that the early ripe young virgin gave in his political career. It was also a speech that summarizes an entire geopolitical era – that of a return to caution, sobriety and nationalism as a trademark of American Foreign Ministries.
This departure from universalist liberalism after the Berlin Wall was a long time in production, and Vances precise complaints from the European elites brought the point very home. In the foreseeable future, US European relationships will not be the same and that is a good thing.
Vance took a soldering lamp to capture the European elite sensitivities. Among other things, he has recently spoken the latest censorship of Europe about the censorship of the perceived “dissidents” and the mass immigration of nations such as Syria and Afghanistan. As expected, the diplomats gathered in Munich were horrified. A German official broke out in tears from the Redner Prize. In truth, Vance gave the many Europeans the voice that voted everywhere from Great Britain to the old iron curtain for nationalist-populist anti-immigration parties.
But Vance spoke more than just for these Europeans – and especially as a young American nationalist statesman. And here we see how US European relationships can be reset for a decade or longer.
For the previous generation of American leaders, the term would be unthinkable to go into the belly of the European Union and to deliver high -ranking European leaders such a strict reproduction. For Americans who came from political age during the Cold War, the United States and Western Europe were simply expected to be allied in Lockstep fashion for a long time. In contrast to the Soviet Union and other communist nations, we finally shared the same values.
Vance's speech underlined the growing gap between American and European values. The United States prices freedom of speech; Europeans are increasingly not doing it. The United States, especially since January 20, prizes again sovereignty and nation; European elites are increasingly not doing it.
But the wider Trump -Vance “America First” criticism from Europe goes far beyond a growing “values”. There is also a massive “national interest”. Unless and until Europe appreciate that realism in MAGA style in foreign policy in the style of American national interest remains above all other persecution of US European relationships.
The foreign policy Trump doctrine, which goes back to his first term and has come out for the Vance as an articulated speaker, is based on a sober assessment of the geopolitical map of the 21st century. We live again like in the Cold War in a multipolar world. This time the power is to concentrate on communist china. Accordingly, America's overwhelming imperative is to devote our limited resources – at least those outside of our own hemisphere – to devote the containment and handling of China. But of course America has different interests in the world; We Are Threatened by radical Islamism, and we depend on the freedom of navigation on the seas as well as any power.
The relevant question about the structuring of American external relationships is therefore: How can we best enable competent, generally self -sufficient allies to patrol and protect their own regions of the world in this way and the United States itself?
The Abraham takes over peace shops that were mediated by Trump's first term in the last year and show how this can work in practice. Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, has brought together the Agreements that have brought Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan together in a strategic Iran-Containment alliance. (Saudi Arabia, although officially marginally, supports the agreements.) The Iran and its countless proxy militias put a persistent threat to the United States from their bang, American-national center to contain the mullahs To encourage yourself to take care of the problem in its parts of the world.
There couldBe a similar situation in theory in Europe. The United States is finally threatened by Russia – if not nearly as much as Europe. But European elites are too often trying to have it in both directions with Russia. They are hopelessly dependent on Russian energy, and Germany was primarily the leading supporter of the Vladimir Putin expansion north stream 2 natural gas pipeline. Despite their dependence on Russian energy, they ironically claim to be fatally afraid of Putin's territorial ambitions. While the EU energy buys the war machine from Power Putin, many of the European NATO members are still Do not note your obligations for the contract contracts for defense expenditure.
There is a real “national interest” golf between the United States and Europe in the urgent question of Russia, including the settlement of war in Ukraine. If Europeans are so seriously about the exact nature of the newly drawn Donbas border in Eastern Ukraine, they can, for example, invest more of their own military and diplomatic resources to pursue this settlement itself. But Europe should not stand in the way of a solution for war in Ukraine.
The unipolar moment after the Berine Wall is long gone. Nationalism and realism are not just the flavors of the day; They are the aromas of the century. It would have Europe to come with the program. JD vance is right.
Josh Hammer is a senior editor-at-Large for Newsweek. This article was produced in cooperation with the Creators Syndicate. @josh_hammer