By F. Andrew Wolf, Jr.
The EU’s illusions have been shattered – the US appears to be moving on with Realpolitik, the political realities in the world. The Munich Security Conference held this past week was in some ways similar to one almost 20 years ago. At that time, it was Vladimir Putin who caused a stir; this time, it was US Vice President JD Vance. These two addresses share a common theme: Both challenged the transatlantic order built on the legacy of the Cold War. And, in both instances, the Western establishment offered little in the way of credible response.
In 2007, the Russian president’s caution about NATO’s western expansion was essentially dismissed as the voice of a declining power. A few in the West urged caution, but the prevailing view in Washington and Brussels was complacency – Russia, they believed, would ultimately alter its position to one amenable to Western interests. The consequences of that miscalculation are now painfully evident in Ukraine and the BRICS+.
Today, the US vice president has issued a different appeal to the Western establishment. His candor revealed a serious ideological fissure within the West itself – one that EU leadership seems ill-prepared to confront. In response, French President Emmanuel Macron held an emergency summit to establish a common position.
But does the EU truly appreciate the scale of the challenge before it? Early reactions, like that of the French president – to talk but not act – suggest otherwise. The consensus amongst the EU hierarchy (however misguided) is that this storm can simply be waited out.
Several explanations come to mind for Vance’s remarks in Munich. Some have suggested that the most immediate is retaliation. Western European leaders have spent years openly disparaging Trump and his allies, assuming they could do so without consequence. Now that Trump is back, they are facing the reality that their words have not been forgotten.
But there is a more fundamental ideological divergence at play. In many ways, Vance’s critique of Europe echoes the grievances that led the settlers of the New World to break from the Old World centuries ago: tyranny, hypocrisy, and complacency. He and others, like Elon Musk, are unapologetic about interfering in European affairs.
Today, the debate as to what democracy actually entails has crossed the Atlantic – beyond the US – to include the entire Transatlantic Alliance. This ideological discourse (perhaps struggle would be a better term) will shape the West’s geopolitical engagement in the coming decades.
The third and more significant factor emanating from Vance’s speech is the broader transformation of global power dynamics. The world has changed since the 1950s. While it is premature to suggest a new world order fully, one thing is clear: The old ways no longer work. Demographics, economic shifts, competition for innovative technology, and military realignments are reshaping the global political balance.
At the heart of this transformation is a key question for the West: Will it finally end the Cold War as it has been understood for over seven decades, or will it perpetuate the struggle under new parameters?
Western Europe’s response, so far, has been to hold fast to a confrontational approach – largely because it has not integrated former adversaries in a manner that secures its own future without strife and the potential for conflict. The US, it seems, is signaling a willingness to move on, beyond the predisposition to confrontation politics. US presidents since George W. Bush have, in varying degrees, deprioritized Europe in favor of other regions (e.g. Obama’s Pivot to Asia Policy). Trump has merely been more categorical about it.
How will Western Europe respond? For now, it appears committed to preserving the status quo – the ideological and geopolitical framework of the Cold War. But its response is not about security, alone; rather, it is about preserving its own relevance in the world. The EU is a product of the liberal world order, and it requires a defined adversary to justify its cohesion. Its perennial enemy for centuries – Russia – serves this purpose far better than one like China due to their considerable integrated economic relationship.
For the US, the situation is more complex. On one hand, moving beyond the old Cold War framework would allow Washington to focus on what it sees as the real challenges of the future – China, the Pacific, North America, the Arctic, and, to a lesser extent, the Middle East. Western Europe has little to offer in these theaters. On the other hand, completely abandoning the continent is also inadvisable to America. Irrespective of the labels foisted upon him, Trump is not an isolationist; he simply has a different model of hegemony – one in which the US extracts more benefits and assumes fewer burdens.
Vance’s call for Western Europe to “fix its democracy” should be understood in this context. It is not about spreading democracy in the traditional sense, but about improving governance in what the US increasingly sees as a dysfunctional “provincial region.” In fact, Vance’s stance on European sovereignty is arguably even more dismissive than that of his liberal predecessors, who at least paid lip service to “transatlantic unity.”
Vance’s speech in Munich was not just another rhetorical volley in the US-EU disputation. It was a pivotal juncture in the evolution of Atlanticist thought. For decades, the Transatlantic Alliance has operated on the assumption that the Cold War never truly ended. The question before it, today, is whether to forego this rather dated assumption and recognize the geopolitical realities in the world – before another miscalculation occurs that could have devastating consequences.
For now, the gap in the transatlantic divide is widening. The choices made in the coming months will determine whether this fissure leads to a permanent fracture or the beginning of a new geopolitical order where Western Europe finally learns to stand on its own – without using Russia to predicate the need for its unity and relevance in the world.
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Andrew Wolf, Jr. is director of The Fulcrum Institute, an organization of scholars dedicated to the classical liberal tradition. He has also been published stateside in American Spectator, The Thinking Conservative, and American Thinker, as well as abroad in International Policy Digest, Times of Israel, and The Daily Philosophy, among others.