Source: Yascha Mounk
by Yascha Mounk
“American displeasure at ‘European free-loading’ is long-standing, bipartisan, and perfectly reasonable; Barack Obama and Joe Biden also tried to cajole America’s allies into doing more for their own defense. Even Vance’s infamous speech at the Munich Security Conference could, at a stretch, be interpreted as blunt but ultimately well-intentioned advice towards a wayward friend. … Vance’s private comments feel qualitatively different to me. They suggest that his goal isn’t merely to animate Europeans to take responsibility for their own defense, nor even to strengthen the right-wing populist forces he clearly sees as Trump’s natural allies on the continent; it is to weaken and to punish Europe.” (03/25/25)
https://yaschamounk.substack.com/p/for-jd-vance-europe-really-is-the