“Freedom and independence are today in jeopardy the world over. If the forces of conquest are not successfully resisted and defeated there will be no freedom, no independence and no opportunity for freedom for any nation.” Thus did Franklin Delano Roosevelt commemorate the first anniversary of the Atlantic Charter, which had been agreed between him and Winston Churchill on August 14 1941. Half a century later, with the fall of the Soviet Union, it was at least reasonable to hope that these ideals might be realised across much of the globe. That was not to be. Today, not only are autocracies increasingly confident. The US is moving to their side. That is the lesson of the last two weeks. Freedom is not in as much danger as it was in 1942. Yet the dangers are very real.
Three events stand out. The first was a speech on February 12 by Donald Trump’s secretary of defence, Pete Hegseth, to the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Nato in which he told the Europeans that they were now on their own. America was now principally concerned with its own borders and China. In sum: “Safeguarding European security must be an imperative for European members of Nato. As part of this Europe must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and non-lethal aid to Ukraine.”
The second was a speech by JD Vance, vice-president of the US, at the Munich Security Conference on February 14 in which he declared that “what I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values — values shared with the United States of America”. An example he gave of such a threat was that “the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election”. To this one might respond that Europeans know better than Americans what happens when the enemies of freedom come to power through elections. But they also know that his boss, Trump himself, sought to annul the outcome of the presidential election four years ago. “Pots”, “kettles” and “black” come to mind.