© James Ferguson
Published
1139
The US national security strategy published in December singles out the failings of its European allies. Its text is brutal.
It claims that Europe’s “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 birth rates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.” It also says that the US “will oppose elite-driven, anti-democratic restrictions on core liberties in Europe, the Anglosphere, and the rest of the democratic world, especially among our allies”.
Denmark
Header logo

Freedom of speech in European countries looks superb compared with that of elsewhere

V-Dem Freedom of Expression index (0-1 range)

All series are visible.
1994
2004
2014
2024
In sum: “Our goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory.”
The main way in which the US intends to do so is to help “patriotic European parties”. No leader of such a party is more admired by Maga than Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. So, how has he done in promoting freedom of expression and liberal democracy, more broadly?
According to the respected Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) database, the answer is very poorly: the country’s index of “liberal democracy overall” fell from 0.77 (out of 1) in 2009 to 0.32 in 2024. Maga’s beloved Hungary is a corrupt and authoritarian state. But it is nothing like as bad as Russia, whose leader, Vladimir Putin, is among Donald Trump’s heroes. That is hardly surprising. A man who tried to overthrow an election cannot be convincingly concerned about democracy.
Line chart of V-Dem Electoral Democracy index (0-1 range, 1 = most democratic) showing Hungary and Russia have turned out to be dramatic backsliders on democracy
Then consider freedom of speech more narrowly. Again, according to V-Dem, many European countries, including the UK, France and Germany, protect freedom of speech and what it calls “alternative sources of information” better than the US. That was in 2024. Does anybody imagine this will have improved in 2025, not least given the administration’s assaults on universities and the media?
This is not to say that all is well in Europe. There exists a host of potent concerns, including the state of free speech even in the UK, though Nigel Farage’s comparisons with North Korea are grotesque. Yet anxieties about those “patriotic” parties are also reasonable. Europe, after all, has a history. This tells us with brutal clarity that “patriotic” parties, and indeed nationalism more broadly, can all too easily be roads to ruin. The two world wars taught us that. Thus, by failing to throttle Adolf Hitler’s “right” to free speech, Germany ended up losing 5.5mn soldiers and between 1.1mn and 3mn civilians in the second world war. Worldwide, the losses were 75mn in the two world wars.
liberties
Header logo

Under Viktor Orbán, Maga's model European, almost all political and legal rights have declined sharply

V-Dem indices for features of democracy in Hungary (0-1 range, 1 = most democratic)

Hitler was also one of those “patriots” terrified by what the NSS calls “civilisational erasure”. In May 2025, Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) was designated “rightwing extremist” by the country’s federal office for the protection of the constitution. No doubt, it is not a Nazi party. But it does have neo-Nazis within it. Should Germans who know their history just smile and say, “Why not? Freedom of speech is after all sacred.” It takes cocksure Americans to spout such idiocy. Alas, similar backgrounds and ideas can be seen in other rising European rightwing parties.
Equally foolish is the assault on the EU. Here, too, there are many confusions. Nation states are not natural political features of Europe. They were created, many of them quite recently (just as the US itself was created). What is more, they were also created largely through bloodshed. Thereupon those imagined identities led to more disasters.
20
Header logo

Unlike the US, Europeans know that irresponsible rhetoric can cost tens of millions of lives

Second world war fatalities as a share of prewar populations (%)

The EU was created in order to manage and, ideally, eliminate any chance of a repetition. The idea was that co-operation and open markets would be better than war. This, the NSS tells us, is folly.
Yet there is another powerful reason for preserving the EU. As the Belgian Paul-Henri Spaak, one of the EU’s founding fathers, said long ago: “There are only two types of country in Europe: small countries . . . and countries which are small, but don’t yet know that they are.” In a world dominated by superpowers and a continent threatened by a nuclear-armed Russia, it is a case of unify or become a victim. There is no doubt which Trump wants. But why should the Europeans do so, too?
Bar chart of showing US murder and incarceration rates do not look very 'civilised'
This brings us to the fear of imminent “civilizational erasure”. It is rooted in an identity politics more extreme than that of the left. The identities in question are national, racial and chauvinist. It is linked to the fear of a “Great Replacement”, which many in Maga embrace. To be “erased” then is to become less “white”, less “Christian” and less numerous. Vice-president JD Vance, though the husband of an Indian woman, seems to share this vision in an intellectualised version. It is also, alas, where the future of the Republican Party might lie.
If so, what the NSS says is a projection upon Europe of what animates the administration itself — a burning hatred of the way the US has been changing, demographically and culturally.
4.5
Header logo

Some European countries do need to spend more on defending themselves

Military spending as a % of GDP, estimate for 2025. US, Canada & selected European countries

I do agree that states must exercise control over their borders: their values may be universal, but citizenship cannot be open to everybody in the world. Yet liberal democracies can be beacons. What has emerged painfully (and often hypocritically) over many centuries is indeed a great civilisation. It is based on ideals of individual freedom, equal rights of citizens, rule of law, the pursuit of knowledge and fairly elected government. None of this is rooted in race or religion. But every citizen of a liberal democracy must accept those values.
In brief, this administration wishes to erase the republic itself, in its 250th year. That is why Europe is its enemy. It is also why Europe must defend itself.
Follow Martin Wolf with myFT and on X
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026. All rights reserved.

Promoted Content

Follow the topics in this article

Comments

Comment guidelines

Please keep comments respectful. Use plain English for our global readership and avoid using phrasing that could be misinterpreted as offensive. By commenting, you agree to abide by our community guidelines and these terms and conditions. We encourage you to report inappropriate comments.

Right Wolfman - it's the end of the world as we know it. The US is bound to completely self destruct and Europe will rise up and once again be the envy of the world. I wouldn't bank it. First of all - MAGA is a movement - destined for the junk heap (just like the former Tea Party Republicans) once Trump is out of office. He is MAGA - an no one, JD Vance on down - will be able to replace his cult following. On the other hand, the rise of far right parties in Europe (outside of Hungary) is quite significant - especially in Italy, Hungary, Finland, Slovakia, Croatia, Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Austria. If history is any kind of teacher at all, I would be much more concerned with the growth extreme nationalism in the EU than the US. Even now, the tolerance of Trump's extremism within the US is waning significantly, but that extremism is gaining traction in the EU.
(Edited)
I can't shake the feeling that 99% of "civilizational erasure"-concerned Americans are childless closeted homosexual 20-somethings from the Midwest who couldn't tell apart a Burgundy wine from a Bordeaux one. This sort of creepy guys with a Plato avatar on Twitter. Please let me enjoy my europoor life.
Just one phrase comes to mind: demography is destiny. In this regard the EU is indeed in trouble with more deaths than births an average age of 44.7 and 104 women per 100 men as an average. It's not a good mix.

The last chart is likely the most revealing. Many EU countries don't even pay 2% for defense to this day. In total the US has paid more, $8T since WW2, for the EU's defense, than has Europe, $5T. To say nothing the many US lives lost in two Euro centric WW's. By contrast the EU has contributed about $120B to US defense.

Yes, Trump and Co., are vulgarians at the gate, but when it comes to demography, and defense they do have some points even if they have few principles other than hard power, and cash. If the world's other major powers are going that route, or tying up developing countries resources with unpayable generational loans, what should the appropriate civilized response be?
"The last chart is likely the most revealing. Many EU countries don't even pay 2% for defense to this day."
You may want to look at that chart again: everyone listed is at 2% or higher.

There's also a kerfuffle over here that Spain aren't spending more.
Just one phrase comes to mind: demography is destiny.
I really struggle to see how anyone can seriously believe that to be true. Doubtless it's one factor, but one among many.
A message to Musk and Co,

The US Dollar is in the late stages of a Major Currency collapse - Government Debt is higher than after WW2.
Your economy and everything is in parallel to
1920s Weimar Germany.
I would advise you all to read
Adam Ferguson's book
When Money dies - as a matter of Urgency

Your wealth inequality is Appalling - and Canada is a far more sophisticated country than the US . Lived and worked in Vancouver 20 years ago for 4 years and went down into Washington State regularly.
The West coast towns were falling apart 20 years ago and I can only imagine what it is like now.

The Currency collapse is now killing off the Middle Class.
Look to
Alice Waters , Martha Stewart, Lauren Lauren and female Horticulturalists for a reliable helping hand - its women who will save America.



Lived and
The EU was created in order to manage and, ideally, eliminate any chance of a repetition. The idea was that co-operation and open markets would be better than war. This, the NSS tells us, is folly.
Not only because of this the EU was created: a European Confederation is a good and beautiful idea.
This despicable NSS document is nothing more than a projection of the US‘s own anxieties onto a European canvas of their own making.
We have nothing, absolutely nothing, to learn from today‘s America as to what constitutes a true democracy.
The biggest Anglosphere liberty Trump's administration enjoys is the use of the English language. He and his proud boys should cease to mouth untruths at the UK's and at Europe's dwindling cultures, and be more aware of the bricks the EU and the UK can throw at the US, and at its seeming lack of hight culture, too, but is more polite than the American Admin is to think yet of doing so. It's getting to the point in the USA when the English-language speaking minority there will be taught Spanish to speak and write. Why doesn't Trump and Rubio show the way forward for his citizens, and tweet in Spanish only.
Trump‘s own command of the English language is truly appalling.
The man is barely able to string a sentence together.
Worth noting that Netanyahu met Viktor Orban in 2005, which was 11 years before Trump was elected in the U.S. The role of Netanyahu and the Likud Party in promoting and supporting far-right parties globally is something that needs to be noted. Netanyahu's billionaires in particular have funded and promoted anti-Muslim bigotry, which they see as a politically useful cudgel for advancing a far-right agenda (and rallying support for Israel). e.g. see the Middle East Forum, based in Philadelphia, PA in the U.S., which has funded far-right politicians like Geert Wilders and a street hooligan like Stephen Yaxley-Lennon in the UK (aka Tommy Robinson).

The alliance between the Israeli far-right and Trump has been largely opportunistic. However, in 2016 in particular, I don't think Trump necessarily becomes president without the support. An aspect of this too is obviously, if not primarily, motivated by money and greed. There is always a market for bigotry and stoking racial resentment and divisions. Colonial powers have made use of these divisions to maintain their power. During the turn of the last century, bosses in coal mines in the U.S. used similar practices when they assembled a labor force out of different immigrant populations who spoke different languages (e.g. making it harder for people to organize against the bosses). Fundamentally, greed and corruption are at the heart of these politics.

What has allowed these kind of politics to gain a foothold was the neo-liberal turn back in the 1980s, which contributed to mass inequality in the decades that have followed. Inequality in wealth and power ends up being reflected in other ways. Instead of focusing on redistributive policies, which might alleviate the sources of anger, the only outlet that neo-liberalism provides is a fight over social policy and the culture war, so here we are.
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding on what to have for dinner.
Welcome back Rand. You been making it big in the WH ?
(Edited)
The US is no longer any sort of democracy and has been failing for decades. Even before Trump 2 the World Democracy Matrix ranked the US at No 37 - one place behind apartheid Israel. The Top 10 were all European and European countries made up 16 of the top 20.

It has been easy for Trump to destroy US democracy and instal himself as leader - constrained not by law but, as he said, only by his conscience. God help us.

The anti-democratic vectors in the US really kicked off with the Bush-Cheney junta when international law, human rights, civil rights and domestic freedoms were trashed. The lies that made their way into the culture were never really re-examined in any serious sense.

Today the anti-democratic vectors in the US are too numerous, too varied and too deeply embedded to be reverse engineered. En plus, there is too much blatant dishonesty and cowardice - masquerading as loyalty - and too much poor education - bearing down on a dreadful culture of "every man for himself" - the culture of the sinking ship - for there to be any hope that things will ever return to a semblance of decency. It's finished.
The US is not a democracy. We are a constitutional republic. Big difference.
And now an unconstitutional republic.
By Executive Decrees.
The USA's Constitution has been redacted by one presidential pen - Trump's.
Google AI says,
"A constitutional republic is a government where citizens elect representatives to make laws, but these representatives and the government itself are bound by a supreme, written constitution that protects individual rights and limits power, preventing rule by pure majority or unchecked authority. It blends democracy (rule by the people through election) with republican principles (rule of law, often with separation of powers)."
If the Santa's Elves Federation told you the most healthy skin is green, and that 100% of the healthiest beings on the planet are elves, would you believe that?

So then when a partisan European institution with a political agenda and a ton of bias decides to tell you what a democracy is and then decides to rank them for you, are you surprised that the top 10 were all European?

Europe isn't free. It's a continent comprised of nanny states. Freedom and paying more than 40% of GDP in taxes are mutually exclusive.

Then there is the unrelenting regulation. I can't check into a hotel in Europe without making sure I get an extra key in the summer if I don't want to come back to a steaming hot room later in the afternoon because European "experts" have decreed that unoccupied hotel rooms must be kept hot. Where does that fit within the World Democracy Matrix rubric?
Meanwhile, some US forces are being withdrawn from the Al Udeid airbase in Qatar presumably because Trump is happy to encourage Iranians to pit themselves against the meat grinder of an oppressive regime but doesn’t want expensive kit being damaged should the oppressive regime lob a few bombs in that direction. The Qatari people may be questioning the value of being a US ally, in much the same way that those of us in Europe are…
You lost me at "Putin is one of Trump's heroes". It's a shame because up until then, the article seemed ok.
Poor old Martin chucked everything but the kitchen sink into this article. Why not tell us about the number of hamburgers consumed in the US compared to healthy Europe. Sorry mate, it just doesn't cut it. Europe is spiralling down the plug hole of history and the US is doing just fine.
Are you the Moscow or the St Petersburg crew, or from Washington ?
Same thing. No more need for either/or.
The US is not wrong about Europe. Europe is wrong about Europe.
Not enough like Silicon Valley then ?
Based on efforts to subjugate and silence dissent in America too, the MAGA war is against democracy as a whole, not just European democracy.
Good article Martin.

Many on the far right want to follow the final solution as do parties in Austria and Germany. Which Vance of all people court. Do Trump and Vance want family erasure.
Wolf builds a cogent argument that Europe doesn’t match the description that appears in the NSS, but he ends with the non sequitur: “In brief, this administration wishes to erase the republic itself, in its 250th year.” Whether or not the current administration wants to “erase” the republic, that conclusion does not follow from Wolf’s argument. Someone at the FT should be willing to act as an actual editor of Wolf’s pieces.
Actually the last sentence follows logically from the preceding paragraph, which describes what the US, above all other countries, professes to be.
The destruction of the US has been an underlying aspect
of a tiny minority in the US Republican Party,
as seen in their friend Nozick's vision.

The POTUS reflects a part of that,
and his friends in Silicon Vally
are in favour.
(Edited)
The "Liberal democracy index" is not a measurement of democracy, that thing globalists fear so much that they insist upon the misnomer "populism".

The veneer of democratic Britain is crumbling, how absurd we look. Attacks on liberty, free speech, sovereignty and privacy grow daily, and yet the author would have believe that it is Trump who is attacking our democracy! The enemy of freedom is very obviously within.
yes yes Moscow, we hear you
Attacks on liberty, free speech, sovereignty and privacy grow daily
From different directions.

Labour are attacking privacy and free speech. Tories and Reform attacking liberty and sovereignty. Greens attacking free speech. Lib Dems attacking none of the above, merely preventing anything being built anywhere, ever.

There is no liberal party in the UK right now sadly.
Reform and MAGA will fit that bill, helped by Moscow
Immigration is the big problem for wealth white, Christian countries. The FT should admit this first and foremost to put the debate in its correct context.
What? America's economic foundation is African slavery.
The same as Africa.
(Edited)
The images coming out of American cities are more like the images coming out of Iran. The difference is of scale but not of kind. The US is not really a free country, not lately. Their citizens just keep telling themselves they are.

They know nothing about Europe, which is why they keep lumping all European countries together into some sort of homogenised monolith. The truth is this however, there has never been a better time or a place to live than in almost any modern European countries, in the history of human civilization. We are freer, richer, better educated, have better health care, live longer, experience more equality, etc. etc. etc., than anyone ever. This appears to drive Americans crazy who don't look at the real Europe and strive to achieve what has been achieved, but project the worst of themselves onto us and now want to destroy us.

The thing is though, Europe has spent most of its existence at war. The current long spell of peace is a historical outlier. But history shows us that war in Europe is detrimental to all powers involved. Ignite a war with and in Europe at your peril. Russia has spent four years learning this lesson...
It's because Trump and his mates don't want to see democracy working.
This whole thing is ridiculous. The post war deal between the US and Europe was massive advantageous for the US. In exchange for the US paying for defence (which they had to do anyway vs Russia) the US got basically free access to European markets, and support worldwide in all sorts of things. If you look at the freehand us tech, consumer and financial firms have in Europe they have a lot to lose as Europe removes its end of the bargain and shuts off its consumer and financial markets from US firms.

This is going to work the same way as Brexit. Everyone loses but the ones making an emotionally driven decision are going to lose the most.
Worldwide, the losses were 75mn in the two world wars.
This chart ignores civilians in the colonies, inc those killed in the Bengal famine,
Also the 180,000 African and Asian soldiers were conscripts
I am very thankful for all the fellow readers of the FT that seem to have a genuinely good and liberal stance on the matters we are presented with these days. It is no longer natural for people to agree on things which would have previously been obvious points of agreement across political and social lines. In these days of madness, courage and righteousness are highly valuable and we should take pride in upholding these values.
I mean wow! This article is almost willfully obtuse. The US ask is not to enact Hungary’s issues; it’s to do the following:
- Remove hate speech laws
- Deregulate
- Increase defense spending
- Restrict immigration

None of these are ludicrous proposals
Why does the US care about immigration in other countries 3000 miles away across an ocean?
(Edited)
Because they're projecting internal "fears" onto other countries' problems.
If only someone could write an article saying that ;-)
Because they, unlike so many FT readers, can see the way failed multiculturism will cause extreme harm to the UK, France and Germany.
It's "multiculturalism".
And why just the UK, France and Germany?
Are those the only countries in Europe that you know about?

And quite a lot of people like multiculturalism. Doesn't look like it's failed. Certainly much better than the alternative.
(Edited)
Personally, I agree, none of those are ludicrous proposals ("deregulation" excepted). But, bar increasing defense spending, none of them are the US' business either.

Tightening gun control regulations to reduce the number of mass shootings in America isn't a ludicrous proposal either. But I imagine the current US administration wouldn't take too kindly to Europe not just demanding they do so, but also announcing they would be supporting political forces within American that advocate for gun contol...
What has any of that got to do with the US?

I don’t like Americans gunning down school kids and ICE agents gunning down innocent citizens - but I also realise it’s got FA to do with me.
I must admit this is the best summary of the problems with Europe that I've read:

"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 birth rates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.”

But Martin Wolf forgot your regulatory bodies that so burden your industry as to make it uncompetitive in the world economy–which causes your people undo economic harm. On the question of Freedom of Speech it is clear that no matter the justification it does not exist in Europe. As one who loves Europe I find that very distressing.

On the issue of essentially outlawing your far-right parties, I am blown away that you all can essentially get rid of your opposition because of some wrongs they committed in the past. It's no wonder you have lost so many other Rights. But please do not speak to loudly about that issue as the Dems in the US would love to ability to get rid of the Republican Party. I guess the only reason they have not is that the Dems were the party trying to maintain Slavery in our Civil War.

I was surprised about the National Security Strategy until I became more familiar with the document and have found, as time goes by, that it has more wisdom in it then I first thought. All in all Europe is due for a rude awakening by Russia, China and the US. Russia because it makes apparent Europe's lack of defense, China because it is eating Europe's lunch economically and the US because we are sick and tired of propping up it up.
(Edited)
What do you mean by "essentially outlawing" and which parties are that where?
You know full well what he is referring to, we've seen it in France, Germany, Romanian, the Netherlands, and at a local level now happening in the UK.
(Edited)
I don't. So what does it mean?
It means you do not allow any other party to form a Coalition government with a (what you all call) a far-right party. Essentially blocking the party from ruling.
(Edited)
Do you think parties should have a right to be part of governing coalitions (at what size)? Who is not allowing it other than party choice?
See above
Countries with Legal Mechanisms for Banning Parties
  • Germany The German Basic Law (Article 21) allows for parties that aim to abolish or impair the "free democratic basic order" to be declared unconstitutional and banned by the Federal Constitutional Court. The Socialist Reich Party (SRP) and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) were banned in the 1950s.
  • Spain Spain has laws allowing the government to ban extremist and violent groups. The radical Basque nationalist party Batasuna and its successors were banned in the early 2000s due to their links to the terrorist group ETA.
  • Turkey The Constitutional Court of Turkey has banned several political parties, often Kurdish or Islamist parties, for actions against the state's integrity or secular principles.
  • Austria The National Socialist Workers' Party was banned after World War II under anti-fascist legislation, and the National Democratic Party was later banned for violating anti-Nazi laws.
  • Belgium, France, Czech Republic, and Slovakia These countries have all, at various times, banned far-right or communist parties that were deemed a threat to democracy or public order.
  • Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and Moldova These countries banned their respective Communist parties in the early 1990s following the fall of the Sov
As of 2026, nations that utilize or have recently utilized informal political agreements to isolate parties include:
  • Belgium: Maintains one of the most enduring cordons sanitaires. While it began as a formal written pact in 1989 to isolate the far-right Vlaams Blok (now Vlaams Belang), it has transitioned into a persistent verbal and social agreement among mainstream parties.
  • Germany: Mainstream parties at both the federal and state levels maintain an informal "firewall" (Brandmauer) to exclude the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) from governing coalitions.
  • France: Political parties frequently use a strategy called the "Republican Front" (Front républicain), an informal agreement where candidates withdraw from three-way races to consolidate the vote against the Rassemblement National (National Rally), effectively isolating them from government despite high vote shares.
  • Sweden: Historically maintained a cordon sanitaire against the Sweden Democrats. While this has weakened in recent years (notably after the 2022 elections), mainstream parties long held informal agreements to never negotiate with them.
  • Netherlands: Parties have often used informal agreements to exclude specific populist or extremist parties from cabinet formations. However, these agreements have become increasingly fragile as far-right groups have grown in popularity.
  • European Union (Parliament): Centrist-leaning groups within the European Parliament maintain an informal cordon sanitaire to bar radical-right groups, such as Patriots for Europe and Europe of Sovereign Nations, from holding leadership positions or influential committee seats.

Reference AI
(Edited)
Martin Wolf has offered us a very compelling and well-founded rebuttal of the racism and illiberal ideological aspirations that underpin the Trump administration’s “National Security Strategy”.

Well done.

I especially liked the following passage:
Should Germans who know their history just smile and say, “Why not? Freedom of speech is after all sacred.” It takes cocksure Americans to spout such idiocy. Alas, similar backgrounds and ideas can be seen in other rising European rightwing parties.
Spot on!

PS: It is not surprising that this commentary forum is littered with remarks intended to redirect attention away from this issue, and to otherwise disrupt the discussion.

A pox on those “warriors” who volunteer (or are paid) to do this.
Half a dozen fake account flags in this one.
Someone tell these arrogant people to mind their own business.Thank you
(Edited)
The best way to establish a dictatorship is to do it as a way to protect democracy. That's been the rule since modern democracy emerged in Europe in the 19th century, and a good number of dictators imposed themselves and removed free speech as means of protecting the will of the people, freedom and free speech.
None of the issues about the US highlighted in Martin Wolf’s article comes as a surprise to realists. Indeed, in 2002 David Bowie gave an interview, where he shared prescient views on American exceptionalism and its deeply engrained ‘America First’ tendencies – see Link A.
For realists who remember US President Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell address, warning about the power and influence of the industrial-military complex that had emerged from World War II – see Link B - it was inevitable that the U.S. whose military spending matched that of the rest of the world combined would eventually use its economic and military might to dominate all others.


There are several reasons why the views of realists have been held in disdain by liberals. Indeed, in 1996 Robert Gilpin, lamented that ‘No one loves a political realist’. This is because realism drives home the point that adopting a realistic approach towards the world does not consist in always reaching for a well-worn toolkit of timeless verities so as to inoculate oneself forever against liberal enthusiasm. Realism, when taken seriously, entails as I know form commenting in this parish is a never-ending cognitive and emotional challenge.

It involves a daily struggle to understand a complex and constantly evolving world, in which we are ourselves immersed, a world that we can, to a degree, influence and change, but which constantly challenges our categories and the definitions of our interests. These aspect of realism rub liberals the wrong way, as many - including many in this parish - tend to get caught up in group dynamic.

What cannot be denied by liberals is that realists have been right about the fact that the behaviour of the US has always been shaped by power and material interests.

Just listen to the feeling in David Bowie's words!
The behaviour of
the UK
has always been shaped by power and material interests.
Yes and is worth remembering that the great imperial power of the 19th century, Britain, did not fare well in the 20th century. Indeed, it has sunk further in the 21st to the point where India - one of its former colonies - now has a GDP (in PPP terms) that is four times that of the UK
The UK helped create and finance and populate the USA, and it helped create and finance India as well.
But the Realists and the Nationalists are unwilling to countenance that as their historicism finds it inconvenient.
All countries are self serving as it is the nature of Nationalism, and the function of the EU is to rise above that. Which is why the Realists in America, and the tyranny of Russia, wish to undermine the EU.
Helped crate India? You should read Shashi Tharoor’s “Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India” - see Link A


Historians have examined the complex and brutal impacts of British rule, which included economic exploitation by British East India Company and later the British government which extracted vast wealth from India, and contributed to deindustrialisation, famines, and poverty. that led to the death of millions.

British colonial rule in India and other counties (e.g., Kenya, Malaysia, South Africa, etc) also involved the systematic dismantling of political structures and the use of force to maintain control via strict racial and social hierarchies, using sexualised violence as a “weapon" to police racial boundaries.
(Edited)
Yes, I recognise the argument.
Now give us the details about which modern nations have not used violence and repression in state building.
There were some excellent long form comments on here yesterday - one by a risk manager. Great if they could be put back up as I’d like to re read them.
Poland lost the most lives in ww2 and is now ahead. So not a good example for the authors woke thesis.
What a delusional take in the first chart on free speech! Is this suppose to impress an American who doesn’t have to deal with hate speech laws?
(Edited)
"The United States needs military access to Greenland, which it already has, to defend the Arctic, which it already does, from Russian and Chinese ships, which aren’t actually there, and this is so important we ( the USA ) should destroy the Western alliance to get it, do I have that right?"
Nicholas Grossman: Professor International Relations University of Illinois

Step 1: You have correctly identified the logical incoherence.

Step 2: Next, you have to believe it.

At which point you will have achieved MAGA status.
Oh poor Europe, it's ok slaughtering the in the middle east but to threaten us!
Russia,
your friend,
would be happy to slaughter in Europe,
and your other friend the POTUS
would stand by and clap.
With his little puffy hands
(Edited)
A little history for those who want to learn is linked below. Did "irresponsible rhetoric cost tens of millions of lives" or was lax enforcement of laws against actual violence a bigger problem in Germany? Everyone should read what actual lawyers and legal historians can tell you about Weimar censorship and law: https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/eternally-radical-idea/would-censorship-have-stopped-rise-nazis-part-16-answers
The "60 minute TV Show in America" interview in 2025 with 3 German Government employees that monitor the internet 100% shocked a lot of Americans. The reporter asked them if someone criticized a high government elected official by saying something that happens in the US every minute, would you consider that a potential crime you needed to investigate. All three of them said yes. Europe has a limited and potentially dangerous freedom of speech policy is what most Americans got out of the interview.
Fine. There is a genuine debate to be had. But all we are experiencing of US free speech at the moment is the right to tell incendiary lies and generate pornography. And that case is undermined by Musk throwing Hitler salutes and supporting "Tommy Robinson".
You'd be singing a different tune if your opinions were blackballed as conspiracy theories or disinformation. It is really sad to see how pathetic our long-loved British values really are, people arguing for freedom of their own speech and silencing those they disagree with, and then claiming to be free or a democracy!
(Edited)
We've had politicians in the UK murdered by people (two in fact) in recent years for their opinions. MPs regularly get harased online and sent death threats but its morphed into real life threats so much that they need security - previously they could hold meetings with their constituents without this fear. I'm glad the police monitor these things... in Murica btw, Trump has two attempts on his life while campaigning and the right's beloved Charlie Kirk got murdered for his beliefs. I'd say Murica has a much more dangerous freedom of speech policy.
Maga is completely delusional and not in contact with reality or facts. This is the fundamental problem.
Why Europe is so obsessed and worried about what Trump is saying about Europe’s democraties and its economy ?
Either we fear there is some truth in what is described or we are worried of loosing the market, the defense support and the legitimacy that we crave and ask the USA to give Europe !
Europe should stand on its own feet and strive to beat the USA in all the fields from economy to technology to social help and art etc.
WAKE UP EUROPE !
That’s not going to happen. We would be squeezed geographically and metaphorically between the two superpowers - USA and China (+Russia). If we had spent this century working towards independence we might be able to go it alone now, but we wasted the last 25 years appeasing the US and embracing servitude under neo-liberalism. The choice now is between trying to persuade the US not to abandon us, or to embrace Chinese overtures and pivot to the east.
(Edited)
The irony is that the non western countries like China and Iran are way more terrified that their 'culture' is being washed away and homogenised into a sort of anglo american substrate that includes english, social media, taylor swift and premier league.
Thank goodness the Americans see what is so obvious in Ostrich Europe.
I’d rather have my head in the sand than right up Donald’s posterior!
another Moscow supporter, from ReformUK
Why is China missing from the "murder" and "incarceration" chart?
Because the chart is looking at the homicide and incarceration rates in democracies? Which, despite histrionic claims to the contrary from both sides Atlantic, both Europe and the US are. And China obviously isn't.
Because China has an incarceration rate similar to the UK and a homicide rate similar to Italy?
It's quite simple really. Despite what they say, MAGA is fundamentally opposed to both democracy and freedom of speech. Europe on the other hand is the most democratic continent on the planet, and the one where free speech is protected the most. That's why MAGA hate Europe so much - it embodies everything they are against
And look where its got us
(Edited)
Safe, educated, healthy and wealthy?
However freedom of speech is measured is extremely flawed if UK, France, Germany, are close to or above the US. People literally getting arrested for speech in the UK and France and Germany have very explicit laws against some speech.
Examples please...
Hitler-related speech is probably the best example.
Robert Moss, Rosalind Levine & Maxie Allen
"Germany have very explicit laws against some speech" -- e.g. denial of the Holocaust. Is a law that prohibits the 'freedom' to deny the Holocaust 'flawed'? Only if you are a Holocaust denier yourself. Are you, None of the Above '24?
Nonsense. Freedom of speech does not depend on the content of the speech.
Of course it does. If you shout "fire" in a theatre that is reckless endangerment but shout "fire" at the civil war re-enactment society and you will fit right in.
Only if you are a freedom of speech absolutist and think it should not be constrained by (e.g.) the right not to be called a 'paedo' if you are not, or the right not to be crushed because someone shouts 'Fire' in a crowded theatre.
It is freedom of speech, with reasonable exceptions.
There is a big difference between freedom of speech and propagating hate speech! I hope you can tell the difference.
There is no difference to tell.
Yes, we can tell the difference, Freedom of Speech is objective and hate Speech is subjective, which is it's problem.
There is an alternative - that all those agencies who specialise in monitoring freedom of speech are right and freedom of speech is higher in those countries than in the US and you're being played by your X feed.
EU would be able to stem the tide of economic migrants from Africa if it invested in African countries so that the people there could make a living.
Willy Brandt had this vision in the 1960s.
More recently the NGO, Give Directly, has shown that small amounts of money given directly to the people helps them start small businesses and leads to improvement in their standard of living.
People do not choose to migrate, they do so when there are no other options to make a living.
They are extremely corrupt countries. Extremely low level of support for using tax dollars for handouts to poor people in Africa. Compassionate colonialism would do far more. They need the rule of law.
All colonialists think they are compassionate.
Needed to be said, and well said. Kudos!
Europe must federalise at the soonest. I recognise we won't until it is too late.
The US tactic to keep Europe divided is long planned with the creation of spheres of influence with Putin.
By keeping us weak, divided and dependent we are at the mercy of the Russians as they nibble away at the east and USA takes Greenland.
If we don't create our own sphere of influence NOW we will become but vassals of USA/Russian spheres.

When Putin attacks the Baltics, NATO won't come running. It will be each country for itself as they are all too vulnerable to face Russian consequences alone or in small groups without the armaments or nukes. Russia only needs to take a few countries before its population = that of the European rump. And then Europe will federalise. But sadly far too late.
'when Putin attacks the Baltics'. The idiocy continues. If there's one thing the Russians have been, it's consistency - they want the Russian speaking Donbas part of Ukraine. Which they haven't managed in nearly 4 years.

The only nation threatenibg Europe is the US.
Did you miss the Russian assault across the entire country?
(Edited)
Maybe you also missed the 19 neighbours they invaded in the last century? (and that's with the existence of NATO!)
Russia is the threat, and America supports Russia in that threat.
Europe needs its own atomic weapons to attack Russia when required, Frank
Trump does. But he has less and less support in America with each passing day.
This POTUS has three years to run, and he shall use that time to destroy the EU.
The question is, who and what will replace him, and will that person continue with the same anti-Europe policy ?
Well probably have a good idea about that by December.
UK has freedom of speech at max levels?
Von der Leyen election, which was elected unopposed, is democracy?
Yes, UK has freedom of speech. Note that freedom of speech <> freedom from consequences if you're breaking the law.

VdL was nominated by the Council and ratified by the EP - that system has come about from low turnouts for direct voting. Council and EP a both elected bodies (one directly, one indirectly).
Yes, but his President (Putin) was elected with 88%! Honest...
(Edited)
Don't be absurd - the Robert Moss case.
(Edited)
Mr Wolf misses a very important motive for the MAGA attack on european democracies : ECONOMIC
If the moron and his weathy sycophants can weaken Europe insitutions ,democracies and economies firstly there will be rich pickings for the wealthy vultures in Washington and beyond .
Secondly, the EU will be less able to defend itself against demands from this so called ally .
The ultimate aim of course with these goals in mind is to destroy the EU and the € thereby weakening Europe to the point where the US and the $ have only one true competitor : China
Plenty of Farage promoting ReformUK voters here,
telling lies and supporting the Anti-European American President.
More likely Farage-promoting paid Russian trolls IMO. Not sure if your average Reform voter can be *rsed to post on the FT. Or how many even pay for access.
As always, well said, Martin Wolf, thank you.
I’m not criticising the article, but I do want to raise an objection about how valid the V-Dem Freedom of Expression index is as a measure of freedom of expression in the way the term is commonly understood. The index is not a proper proxy for state tolerance of individual speech, but rather a composite capture of the wider media environment and individual access to alternative sources of information.

The index is constructed in a way that allows a country to employ rather draconian measures on one important axis (for instance, frequent and invasive crackdowns on speech by individuals) and still rank relatively highly overall, so long as it also scores well on other facets such as an adversarial press, low harassment of journalists, and low government censorship of media.

Example: imagine two otherwise identical Russias exist simultaneously (as if one doesn’t cause enough headache). In one of them, there is no adversarial press; in the other, there is. The Russia with an adversarial press will rank materially higher on this index, yet from the perspective of a Navalny adjacent figure, nothing has changed. Any speech by the individual will trigger the exact same consequences.

It may well be that the V-Dem Freedom of Expression index is the most coherent benchmark the author could have used for this purpose. So I’m not critiquing the choice. But, for anyone that might find e.g. the UK’s high placement in this index odd in the midst of the comparatively high frequency of this or that person ‘investigated/arrested over a post’ stories compared with rest of Europe, then it’s good to know that’s a different dimension than what this index weights most heavily; it’s not what this index really cares about.
There are other sources (eg, the Economist democracy index) on democratic backsliding that show the same result.
Everyone in the echo-chamber is saying the same thing. It must be true.
Some echo chambers put a lot more effort into trying to be objective.
(Edited)
I think the point might have gotten a bit lost here. Just to be clear, my message wasn’t meant as an assault on the UK. Additionally, it especially was not to defend the language that the US has used around this issue.

Rather, it was to highlight that the methodology of this index is such that it does not weight heavily what constitutes freedom or speech or expression as it’s commonly thought of. That is not an opinion, but a mathematical reality that flows out of the index construction methodology: under this index, a country can simultaneously employ restrictive measures around individual freedom of speech, whilst still ranking high on the index as measured, if such country simultaneously ranks highly on elements such as the freedom of the wider media.

That is also to say my personal view isn’t that the UK is draconian on this axis, but rather that regardless of whether it (or any other country) were or weren’t, it would not be properly captured by the index because of the methodology. Again, that’s neither an attack on the UK, nor a defence of the aggressive language that the US has employed against Europe, but a criticism of the index methodology as it pertains to this specific issue.

In short, I’d recommend taking a second look at the specific point I was making about the methodology instead of resorting to cheap accusations around ideological underpinnings that are not even there to begin with.

Finally, on echo chambers, I suggest you take another look at how you all mirrored each other perfectly and the irony of that considering the nuance of my comments.
Great post.
I think you've misunderstood my point.
That's exactly what someone in an echo-chamber would say.

"Really, it's not a cult..."
I'm not in the echo chamber. The "echo chamber" being referred to is one containing those who monitor and measure free speech, the choice being their similar methodologies.
So, everyone in your echo-chamber say that Europe is a draconian hellhole, so it must true?
My following response to you assumes you’re referring to the point I made about the UK(?) - feel free to clarify your stance if you were pointing toward something else.

I don’t dispute that the Economist Democracy Index shows similar result, but that’s beside the specific point I was making.

The Economist’s index is an even broader composite than V-Dem’s expression measure. It explicitly attempts to score “overall democracy” across an even broader spectrum of categories including elections, institutions, participation, political culture; civil liberties, which includes freedom of expression, reduces to an even smaller role as a mere one bucket among several. That makes the index even less suited as a proxy for the specific question I raised, which is state tolerance of individual speech in practice.
Trump is in relentless pursuit of failure - he has no concept of his own capabilities and vulnerabilities and is just a bull in a china shop but eventually he’ll hit the final wall
Did y’all really arrest a man because of what he was thinking about when he was praying silently to himself in an area close to where humans, yet to be born, where being exterminated? If that is not Orwellian “right-think”, I don’t know what is.

In terms of criticism of America’s involvement when it doesn’t have its own act together… a fair point. American social fabric has weakened substantially since the well-meaning, but clumsy and malaligned war on poverty beginning in the 60’s. 9/11, the Great Recession, very poorly directed federal response to Covid, and rise of crazies in social media accelerated societal fragmentation.

Biden was.. well.. he may have been elected, but he wasn’t running his administration. Trump is a mercurial, tempestuous, self-aggrandizing bull in a china shop. But, he has the testosterone to address some things that really do need addressing… like supporting Israel against what appeared to be a certain demise. Like changing the status quo in Venezuela. And like getting Europe to take its own defense seriously.

Brits and Europeans lecturing America when they arrest a person for silently praying, don’t defend themselves, haven’t an economic model that innovates enough to prosper, and are slowly being replaced by populations that don’t share western values also takes some chutzpah.
And yet, the chutzpa of an American who doesn't even have a non-negotiable right to live, worrying about other people's right to speak.

I think you have bigger problems, my friend.

Today, your government is killing and disappearing your people for being snarky or not having their papers while brown, tomorrow, it could be you. Tables always turn.
(Edited)
I don’t understand the first part of your first sentence, Tyra.

In terms of speech, yes folks should be able to speak. But, here the man was arrested for what he was thinking while praying. Thought police do not belong in western civilization.

In terms of arresting people who entered the country illegally… situations can vary because of lax enforcement in earlier administrations, but countries get to control their borders. That is true in Europe, the US, India, Russia, China.

And being a foreigner in a country and denigrating its system or breaking its laws should get you thrown out. Foreigners are guests.
He wasn't arrested for what he was thinking. The problem was what he was doing.

Surely you understand that and aren't just trying to "win"?
My recollection was that when the man was stopped by police, he was asked what he was thinking about whilst he was praying. It was because he was thinking about his offspring that his partner aborted that he was arrested.

Beyond that, should someone be banned from silently praying in front of any particular building?…. He wasn’t blocking access.
my recollection?
Please try to base your comments on the facts of the case.
You know what he was doing and why he was arrested.
It's not thought crime, it was a physical act with intent.
Which part of the UK's legislation do you not understand regarding harrassment near abortion clinics? - you cannot do so within 150 meters of one, and that includes 'silent praying' against those going to the clinic. Especially when it's been done several times and a warning has been issued. Law is law, deal with it murican.
mere silent presence is “harassment”? Bonkers!The land of Orwell is alive, but dying.
It is when the women going to the clinic know precisely what the person praying is doing and why. It raises their stress levels and makes what is already a very personal decision even worse. And as I said, respect our laws - thankfully we aren't all bigoted ultra-Christian nutjobs who think they have a right to tell other people what to do with their bodies.
(Edited)
I'll tell you what the land of Orwell is - it's when you are walking down the street minding your own business and some ICE officer asks for proof of your nationality and then shoves you in the back of a van when you aren't carrying anything to prove it. It's not a requirement in the US to carry it.
Please read Matthew 7 v 3-5
And then, summon the courage to ask your president to read it as well.
If I stand behind you and follow you around I'd guess there's a limit that would be reached after which you would consider it harassment? If not, fair enough, your comment stands. If there is, you probably understand why the point you're making is silly.
Hey Aurelius, how bout if you haven't suffered permanent organ damage from not receiving quick enough access to an abortion while someone is outside trying to make you feel guilty for saving your own life, don't comment about freedom? Those trying to take our freedom of choice and freedom to live should have zero rights.
Well, you would still have survived better than the baby not born with the knowledge that you’d at least given the baby reflective consideration.

Zero rights are what you offer the baby, at the same age as you were at some point before your being born.

Freedom of choice and freedom to live…. Well the first doesn’t always lead the second.
Early stage foetuses are not human beings.
(Edited)
We have a legislation in this country that protects women going to abortion clinics (within 150 meters) and 'praying' near one and consistently doing so, despite being told not to is in breach of that legislation because it is deemed harrassment of the women using the clinics. And I don't care if you are a MAGA nut who doesn't believe in abortion - it's our law not yours. I suggest you respect the law, because you'd tell us to respect Murican ones.
"Did y’all really arrest a man because of what he was thinking about when he was praying silently to himself in an area close to where humans, yet to be born, where being exterminated? If that is not Orwellian “right-think”, I don’t know what is."

He was free to say and think what he wanted. He was not free to breach a PSPO put in place specifically because of historic harassment.

So, nothing to do with Orwell or "right-think".

Happy to clear that up for you.
Great comment - my thoughts exactly
Mr Wolf’s defense of Europe against attacks from the administration across the pond seems right to me. Elon Musk’s enabling a free speech platform via X seems right to me. The UK detaining people for opinions voiced seems wrong to me (as much as their copying personal phone contents / interrogation at will at border entry points). Elon Musk’s closing of Voice of America seems wrong to me (was an alternative source of news for the people in Iran, among other places). The Washington Post owner’s contribution to White House ballroom construction seems wrong to me (and his defending this via an op-ed in his paper). Elon Musk and the US admin attacking European institutions seem wrong to me. The press in Europe defending their part of the world seem right to me. But opinion makers and newspapermen not being enough of a pain for their own administrations whereas they more readily conduct attacks across the pond seem wrong to me. It is complicated.
"Elon Musk and the US admin attacking European institutions seem wrong to me."
.
So you're saying that European institutions are above criticism from the US? But the US President is fair game to be criticized by Europeans?
.
Either you agree that anyone can criticize anyone or you're not in favor of free speech.
There was a misunderstanding. It is wrong to me, because the European institutions have many positive aspects in their favour, such as enabling some form of unity, long lasting peace etc. Sure you are free to criticise, I just don’t have space here as to why it is wrong, the way it is done, and in the case of the US admin, (not Musk) this is backed by threats.
time wasting ramble
Hate speech. Not opinions. We've had hate speech laws here since 1965. It's just more visible now because Musk has given people a platform to break those laws more frequently, requiring those laws to be enforced more frequently. Understand this.
What is "hate speech"?
We have hate speech well-defined in law, that took years of debates in parliament to be defined, since 1965. I don't need to define it for you again.

Feel free to read our legislation, or ask ChatGPT to summarise it for you. This is not a point of debate.
The fact that there is something called "hate speech" encoded in law proves that Europe doesn't have Freedom of Speech.
Thanks for your concern. But we have hate speech laws for reasons we deemed necessary, and through our experiences from the many millennia for which we've been in existence, we decided that the brand of Free Speech™ popular in your immature and new country, isn't right.

You're just wrong and we're just right.

Now let's talk about your bigger problems, you don't have an inalienable right to life. I think that's a much bigger and more fundamental concern, don't you?

Get your own house in order before worrying about or "free speech".
"You're just wrong and we're just right." Sounds like a faith-based statement.

European anti-blasphemy laws AKA "hate speech" laws are right for Europe. OK. Got it. Don't say you have Free Speech.
And yet, free speech (with exceptions) is probably still better than no free speech at all. In any case, they are not the same.

As an American, I prefer my free speech with fewer exceptions, but I happily live in a country in which the people have drawn the line in a different place.

There is no country in which free speech is absolute.
People in the UAE are happy living and getting rich in a country that doesn't allow criticism of the royal family. They've drawn their free speech line differently.

Does that sum it up?
The UAE is not a democracy, so it's more a question of where their government has chosen to draw the line, but apart from that detail, spot on.
Try saying something against immigrants or immigration policy that can be construed as "hateful" in the EU. See how quickly your life unravels. No thanks.
No one has the "right" to be unoffended. If you think otherwise, you have fascist tendencies
It takes a special skill to be afraid of things one imagined to be true.
So, say something against EU's immigration policy of taking in whatever washes ashore.
You just dehumanised immigrants by referring to them as "whatever". I assume your life hasn't changed?
Dude, there are politicians who came to power in some European countries who are opposed to immigration and some have been saying pretty vile things about immigrants. Think Kaczynski, Meloni, Orban or Friedriksen. None of them had their life unravel, on the contrary.
So stop trying to portray yourself as a victim of some made-up cenzorship.
You have just done so and I presume your life has not changed yet?
OK. I think the immigration policy of the UK is flawed.

I'll keep you updated on any visits from the free speech police, though I suspect it may be a while.
You will realise what nonsense you are spouting when you read the blatantly xenophobe and/or racist blather in the comments sections of British newspapers.
No doubt the Trump administration hostility rocked Europe. But to be fair, European democracy has been severely challenged even before Trump's second term: the media censorship across the continent, the manipulations in French elections, the incarceration of thousands Brits simply because their online postings are not in agreement with their PM's policy. I am sorry this will upset many Europeans here, but Europe has been failing democracy with or without Trump.
If you base your opinion on made up things then sure!
I think it's not just that; people like "LeVie" base their opinions on what's served up to them in their feeds as they distrust the "MSM". No wonder they think as they do.
Nothing said here is made up. All facts from various news channels with many being independent. Understand there has been complacency among Europeans. But in reality, Europe democracy has been seriously eroded for years, just like in my country the US.
it all sounds made up , to me
Fine. Keep your head in sand, like many Europeans do here.
So you're an American, you've been watching some youtube videos, and therefore you think you know the situation in Europe better than Europeans actually living there? Got it.
Are you speaking for America or for Moscow, they seem the same to me.
More European guns for Ukraine!
I think one person has been incarcerated for online incitement to violence in the UK. That's it. Any stories about thousands of Brits being locked up for not agreeing with the PM are total rubbish.
But then I live in the UK. What would I know?
(Edited)
There have been hundreds if not thousands of people arrested simply for holding signs expressing support for a prescribed protest group with the initials PA.

Were my circumstances different I would consider holding such a sign in public, not because I support PA, but because I support FS. I think that UK govt policy has gone much too far. As objectionable as it is, however, it is still very much an exception.
(Edited)
"the incarceration of thousands of Brits"
How many times does this lie need to be repeated? I truly don't understand the levels of misinformation that people will swallow.

Freedom of speech in the UK needs to be guarded.

The UK has historically pretty much always had higher levels of freedom of speech than the US. It's part of the national psyche.
Maybe the US voters/influencers just don't understand it as instinctively as we do.
Difficult to believe how misinformed you are. Nobody in Britain has been jailed for disagreeing with the Prime Minister. There is no such crime. A few people on the other hand have been found guilty of incitement to serious violence. In the US by contrast the President is guilty of precisely that, and yet remains free to intimidate whom he pleases.
"...incarceration of thousands Brits simply because their online postings are not in agreement with their PM's policy."
Thousands? Please provide data and source.
How is it possible that a super power is lead by people who don’t know these facts and experiences from history?
They know full well and are trying to replicate the German part of 20th century history.
Probably know but don't care, its about profiting. The US mainland has never, thus far, been realistically threatened so there's no real skin in the game, just talk. Even if it were, does anyone think Trump (or fam), JD Vance, etc. are going to be on the front lines?
Because knowledge and expertise are not necessary qualifications. All that matters is whether you can persuade (or fool) enough of the people at election time. And Trump is masterful at that.
Bravo!
V dem is not an unbiased source. Do better ft!
RT is available!
A column designed to get Mr Wolf's FT ratings up
A topic which some FT readers would rather avoid
Mr Wolf's ratings are already very high, and for good reason
Really good . Thank you.
Excellent article, saying clearly what all Europeans should be saying.
Well said Martin
MAGA lecturing Europe on civilizational erasure is particularly ironic. US is a malfunctioning model of the European democracy and civilization. Neofascism, Televangelists, wrestelmania, Burger King, and “gofundme” healthcare are hardly markers of a well positioned civilization.
What's wrong with Burger King? Are you some kind of McDonald's fascist?
The argument is endless, is salt good or bad, should it be added by the cook or left to the consumer to choose. We endure endless unresolvable polarising discussions about taste subtleties, oblivious to the certain fact that too much salt will kill you, whatever side you take.
Relativism ?
That is, kind of, what "too much" means.
If Trump ever had one good idea, it was that the US should keep out of the internal affairs of other countries.
Suggestion: Why don't the Americans focus on solving their own problems: illiteracy, homelessness, opiates, the highly skewed distribution of income and wealth, the regular massacres at schools and elsewhere, the slide towards dictatorship etc. etc.?
We don't need them, neither for defence nor for anything else. Besides, in case of a Russian invasion of the Baltic or Poland, we will need to deal with that without American support in any case.
Have to cut the bad habit, and arm up against the US, Russia, and CPC tyrannies.
Who cares what the current administration says, clearly they don’t think. What good can come of all this, is that the ally, good guy mask of the US has finally come off, despite the massive propaganda over many decades supporting these notions. The US has never done anything that did anything other than support its own interests. That’s ok, except for the very thick dollop of sanctimonious exceptionalism religion capitalism democracy freedom crap ladled on everything.
Europe needs to break away from the always selfish US view and look to the rest of the World.
Tax, regulate all of their endeavors, we can do without them quite easily.
.... and Europe has to build a big defence force to counter the bad guys on the borders.
We'll need to do something about our nuclear deterrent though. Perhaps give up Trident and pool our resources with France.
To me the EU is not a 'trans-national body'. The cover of my passport says European Union. I vote in European elections, use a European currency, and participated in a European university programme. I would more likely fight for an EU army than for my country's.

My nation is Europe, which does not exclude feeling an attachment to my country and region.

If anything I want more EU not less. It's time to federalise. The US is frightened of this since they know that a federal EU would quickly become the only superpower capable of rivalling it.
Well said! And this needed to be said!
Another European wanting deeper integration and ultimately a united states of Europe, whilst allowing room for our respective cultures to be maintained.

It can't happen fast enough and ultimately it's that or having terms dictated to us by the US and China, with Russia a potential ally of both authoritarian regimes.
So as to allow us to ignore the European sicknesses a little bit more, Martin Wolf concentrates on the side effects of the remedies offered.
What if that “National Security Strategy” had been published during Biden’s reign and not Trump’s?
Bizarre comment
(Edited)
We'd have raised more than eyebrow and wondered why a flawed but generally sane administration had done such a thing.

But context is important. This is part of a more general slew of odd and antagonistic behaviours.
The interesting upcoming will be the next US Administrations opinion of the Strategy.
(Edited)
Yet liberal democracies can be beacons. What has emerged painfully (and often hypocritically) over many centuries is indeed a great civilisation. It is based on ideals of individual freedom, equal rights of citizens, rule of law, the pursuit of knowledge and fairly elected government. None of this is rooted in race or religion. But every citizen of a liberal democracy must accept those values.
Exactly. The defining feature of the West is not that it is white and Christian.

It is its universal values and that it has transcended religion or race as defining feature. Rule of law, science and equality.

Maybe there should be a land for those who don't understand that, a sort of white Christian version of Iran where all those anti Western nutcases can migrate to and live in a traditionalist zoo where the rest of us can watch them.
With the rise of media and corrupting platforms like Tik Tok, ‘the rest of us’ seems likely to become a minority.
Do these same 'universal values' cover hatred towards ones fellow man as expressed in your comment?

It seems to me record numbers of people in the West who are suicidal, depressed, lost and lonely, the unemployed, those hopelessly addicted to drugs, many at the margins of society........ might not agree we are in such a utopia. Still, they don't really have a voice on here do they.
Are you saying the cure for that is religion?
(Edited)
Ask how people feel in religious places such as Afghanistan and Iran and if they're any happier.

Look at the list of happiest nations on Earth: almost exclusively Western nations embracing universal non-racial, non-religious values. Amongst them the Netherlands, according to the KOF index of globalisation, the most globalised nation on Earth.

Nationalism does not only make poor, it also makes unhappy.


And to answer your question: there is no tolerance towards the intolerant. Those racial, religious nutcases want to oppress everyone else and lead us backwards into poverty and superstition so zero sympathy or tolerance for them. None. The same of course applies to Islamists or any other religious or racial nutcase.

We need to fight for these universal values because they are what made the West great. Europe, after the fall of the Roman empire, was a backwards s... hole despite being all Christian and white. We only rose when we left religion and superstition behind and embraced Western universal values.
Europe’s recovery from the so called ‘dark ages‘ depended largely on the knowledge passed on and developed by Arab scholars whose Muslim rulers had the foresight to salvage and translate ancient Greek scientific and medical texts. That knowledge was in turn usually conserved and further transmitted by monastic libraries.

You suggest that “ we only rose “ by leaving religion behind. While the misuse of religion has undoubtedly caused misery, the core teachings of the major faiths ( not just “western” ones) remain the basis for tolerant, peaceful living together.
(Edited)
Translation of their strategy: the US is at the end of its ability to BS it's people, needs some help to set up a massive blame game on everyone deemed 'unamerican', to start a war on the rest of the work to establish a glorious 1000 year Reich. For that it needs some nationalist allies abroad, like the Italians and Japanese in WW2.
Should Germans who know their history just smile and say, “Why not? Freedom of speech is after all sacred.” It takes cocksure Americans to spout such idiocy.
I have never voted for trump, only against him. Please do not lump all Americans into the same group.
Completely fair comment. Hopefully most Europeans recognise that what we see in the media about American politics are fairly extreme views which hopefully do not represent how many/most American people think.
(Edited)
“To be “erased” then is to become less “white”, less “Christian” and less numerous”

It seems like a valid and reasonable concern that citizens should be free to believe in, if we are saying free speech is indeed properly free.

I note the article doesn’t mention Israel which ranks very poorly on V-Dem (recently), but assume that’s because free speech has its boundaries, when it comes to Israel.
Why would you expect them in that list of European/NATO + major nations? It'd be anomalous.
Not every absence is censorship.
100% prediction:
We will have federal supervision at the midterm elections in several US States. ICE and FBI checking your credentials at the polling stations.
Eloquent cartoon.
Why?
(Edited)
It claims that Europe’s “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 birth rates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.”
I hate to point out the obvious, but the U.S. National Security Strategy's diagnosis of Europe is 100% accurate - and Europe's only response is to deny that this is happening.
You evidently do not live in Europe.
(Edited)
I am in Europe 6-7 times per year. I have deep friendships in the UK and Netherlands and close colleagues in Spain. I enjoy the people and culture, but I gave up trying to move there when it became clear that no European company can pay an American salary, because Europe has been falling behind economically for decades, rapidly becoming the East Germany to our West Germany. And the suicidal migration policies are just the cherry on top. I have given up on expecting you to wake up, so I just enjoy what is left of the continent while it lasts.
LOL - yeah because Murica isn't a nation of immigration. Built on it and now your demographics are changing much faster than in Europe. White people are becoming a minority. I have no problem with that but please stop lecturing us. Also Murica has huge issues with poverty and drug use - all the rich people seem to live in their own world and keep their fingers in their ears. European social policies mean homelessness and drug abuse is much lower than in Murica.
(Edited)
I never said America was perfect, but don't forget that America endured a brutal civil war in the 1860s and still went on to become the leading global power two generations later. Some problems are fixable. And I'm sorry to say that the bottom 20% of Americans enjoy many luxuries that the median European lacks, like air conditioning, because we are indeed just wealthier and more productive.

Moreover, by equating immigrants from Latin America with immigrants from the Islamic world, you are the one that is obsessing about race. In reality, Latin American immigrants are far more assimilatable than those from Islam - because of culture.
Utter rubbish
We thank the US people for the interest in EU, but have no need for self proclaimed know-it-alls that think freedom of speech means :"repeating what the orange guy says". The arrogance of the likes of you and MAGA republicans in general is not just sickening, but a testominy of the loss of (self)criticism and failure to accept other opinions exist. The continuous cries of national security being jeopardized in the US, should perhaps force you to look internally first. Although we all know that it is most easy to put the blame elsewhere (just like children tend to do) and use that as excuse for more wrongdoing. I think it is time for the EU to start rattling the US some more to steer them back to civilization!
(Edited)
self proclaimed know-it-alls that think freedom of speech means :"repeating what the orange guy says"
I'm sure it's fun to argue with figments of your imagination, but I'm a real life person, right here, who bears no resemblance to your imagined stereotype - and I held the above opinion long before Trump descended the escalator.
I think they used to say in the DDR that "Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Under socialism, it's the reverse".

Its a statement worth considering .
Do you mean paying a straight currency conversion of your salary or on a PPP basis? Even if the latter, are you factoring in different perks e.g., a private healthcare plan alongside free healthcare? Differences in car insurance costs, cost of living, etc.?

Also, what about the soft perks e.g., is food cheaper and healthier for me? Am I living in a culturally rich environment that makes me happy, etc.?
(Edited)
Europe has plenty of things to recommend it. As a history buff, I love the culture and traditions and architecture - but they seem to come with a sense of complacence. As a very sociable person, I love the strong communal bonds in friendship groups there - but they come with collectivist politics that I abhor. I even enjoy being the token American that Europeans tease with the thousand unfair stereotypes they have accumulated. Surely the food is healthier, although many deficiencies in American food come directly from government interventions - like that awful food pyramid - that are currently being corrected.

However, what Europe lacks is long-term economic prospects and civilizational durability. If I moved to Europe, my salary would fall by more than half. No, a mediocre single-payer healthcare system does not make up for that.

It is genuinely heartbreaking to see what is happening to our cousins. And Europeas have this baffling sense that, if only they consolidate further into the E.U., their unsustainable economic model and ideology will somehow work themselves out. It's simply not the case. Europe is sick and scale is not the solution.
👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻
Not only denial, but a doubling down on the crazy policies which have accelerated the demise, with zero ownership for past failures.
(Edited)
How's all the homelessness and poverty going for you. Why are so many American cities full of people living in tent cities and addicted to drugs? Why are you doing nothing to help them? Where's your ownership of these huge issues?
That’s not really true, but for the dystopian liberal blue run sanctuary cities, it is more true (LA, Denver as examples). Why I do to help is vote and push for a return to law and order, closure of the border and illegal immigration which crushes the ability for low paid American workers to find jobs, the elimination of narco funded regimes and drug cartels, and fight back against China and the other freeloaders (Europe) who are hurting the American economy.
More MAGA nonsense. It's an issue across the land from LA, to Vegas, to Washington, to New York and everywhere in between. Having nutjobs from ICE assault people and the national guard temporarily arrest people does nothing for long term distopian looking tent towns, and massive poverty across the nation. You just choose to ignore it but the only way to fix it is with social policies and money - attempting to stop drug cartels is just a big headline maker and Murica has been trying to do it for decades with little long term success.
ICE are doing their jobs, which they have a clear legal mandate to perform. The nut jobs are liberal mayors trying to pit local police against the federal government and encouraging their citizens to break the law.
(Edited)
I want to point out that Chinese production lines have maintained US economic growth in the last 40 years. The country the US is today is thanks to ‘freeloading’ off of China’s output boom.
Agreed. But it’s time to move on from that trade it has swung from a huge benefit to a huge risk. That was always going to happen. Trump is trying to course correct. Harder to do given the inertia around those risks from previous administrations on both sides.
That, and his unpopularity.
Fighting back against freeloaders: it is an accepted argument that Europe needs to increase defence expenditure. They are.

Why all the other stuff? What part of being in the winning position do US voters not like and why do they wish to leave it?
I’m not aware of Americans wanting to leave other than the leftie celebrities we all read about. I think those who are winning, or in the path to winning are very supportive of the economic policy. But big change is hard and complicated, and far too many are left behind. What we do know is the old plan of welfare checks wasn’t working across the board, we must try new things.
Yes, but why does that entail trampling on the alliances that have helped enrich the US and having an official document which states that the US will try to destabilise those allies?
Low pay could be solved with a higher federal minimum no (states vary)? US federal minimum if around $7.50 isn't it?
Potentially capping interest rates on credit, stopping Wall Street from buying up homes are good policies. Policies that traditionally would belong with the Dems, why is no one asking why Biden and co didn’t do these things when they had the chance?
Trump hasn't done it, either.

Like most of the other things he promised, they will never happen.
(Edited)
I live in a major city in a deep blue state. The government pours billions into "homelessness" crisis. The only homeless people left are addicts who would prefer to be high on the street than sober in government housing, plus genuine mentally ill cases - and the only way to address either is to forcibly commit them to treatment. Not only are left-wingers wholly unwilling to do that, but they prefer to have rampant homelessness to feed their narcissistic delusion that they are in a righteous crusade against evil capitalism. That is why homelessness is atrocious everywhere they are in charge, including California, which has spent ungodly sums on homelessness to no discernable effect.
You are absolutely right. Some Europeans are just too complacent and arrogant, they refuse to face the reality. Just look at all these replies you got here. Amusing:))
Yep. A lot of the commenters don’t realize they’re the mirror of the “MAGA crowd” they attempt to deride. Using the same worn out stereotypes with little actual understanding.
I for one am happy to live in a civilised European country rather than in the dystopian hellhole that the US is.
It's interesting - I've spent the past six months receiving chemotherapy at the Mayo Clinic (I'm cured, thanks). I've noticed an incredible amount of "civilised" Europeans lining up clamoring for treatment. Why is it that your own "civilised" countries cannot match our expertise in cancer research, treatment and cures? Perhaps you should stay at home to receive treatments rather than come to out dystopian hellhole.
(Edited)
so much anger…
The very rich have it very good in the US. No-one is denying that.

Topics such as universal healthcare have less impact on them.
How much did that cost?

There's always a trade-off between cost, quality, and access wrt healthcare. US is angled towards highest cost, ostensibly high-quality, and lowest access.

I say ostensibly given cases like Charles Cullen - where the US system can incentivise cover ups and negative patient outcomes to avoid liability.
(Edited)
It’s what’s called post code lottery here in U.K. I live in London N.1. And get for free what is acknowledged to be the best treatment in the world.
Just out of curiosity: The Royal neurological institute monitors my brain since an epileptic seizure 15 years ago, they’ve asked me back for my 2 yearly brain scan. The Royal Neurological is acknowledged the best in the World. How much that scan in USA.?
I’m not trying to score points. We have different systems.
And p.s. at 93 I’m a waste of time and effort it I do have a bunch of students from all over the world poking me with a stick. So to speak.
I should add: The hospitals that treat me are teaching hospitals massively endowed over centuries. for instance a nearby Barts was St. Bartholomews Priory and Hospice and although massively rich from people buying ‘penances’ was not broken up by Henry Vlll because it rendered services, charitable and medical, such as it was, to Londoners. I don’t know how the NHS was achieved after the war but everyone was socialist then and all our senior politicians who had worked with each other during three war had established close personal friendships
Episode 477 of the rest is politics touches on these topics, an excellent episode
US has absurd criminal stats, crippling student and health debts and a democracy in risk, more and more people living in the street and their current president is toying with the idea of having a 3rd mandate, against their law.

And they want to help Europe?
Why not use all your riches and solve your local issues first?
I have said, and continue to believe, that the present PotUS, who has given himself dictatorial power, will successfully seize for himself continuance of that power for his lifetime.
Yes there will be opposition, as there is now to his dictatorship.
He's too old. Surely even he realises that.

If he was 20 years younger, maybe.
I’m 93. I’d like dictatorial power to get Islington council to replace the pavement outside my house broken up by Trad Scaffoding 35 years ago. Then I could snuff it a happy mam .
But seriously, Stalin wielded an iron fist till he was what? I think his D.O.B. Was unknown.
Seems to be going more senile of late, talking gibberish, getting side-tracked, etc. Though maybe for JD or Trump JR?
Thanks for reading my comments. But gibberish is a bit strong. It’s just that I do like semi-colons.
Switzerland wake-up!

Denmark is doing better for freedom of expression !
To check before it is too late!
Almost a textbook example of a full range of TDS symptoms:

- comparison to Hitler and fascism (which is not at all "grotesque")
- baseless allegations that "Putin is Trump's hero" (i hope Trump will sue the FT at some point as well)
- newspeak - "we control your speech to defend your liberties and freedom".

Mr. Wolf conveniently ignores:
- the two-tier policing in the UK (I guess this is for our own benefit?)
- the cover-up of the grooming gangs (you are obviously a white supremacist if you bring this up)
- 12,000 people arrested yearly for online speech

I guess LC should be proud that her country stands guard to protect her freedom of speech by affording her (a first-time offender) a 31 month prison sentence. So should TR for his 18 month term in solitary confinement for showing a film.

Can I ask at what point exactly did "European Democracy" produce a democratic mandate for the government to resettle millions of men from dangerous middle eastern and african countries to the UK? When exactly did we agree that our electricity prices should be the highest in the world? Did we consent to the rising crime in our major cities?
What would you then need for a "democratic mandate" to be there in a representative democracy?
Both Labour and the Conservatives have, for the last 10-15 years, promised to bring immigration (legal and illegal) down to manageable levels. The democratic mandate that successive governments received from the electorate was for something exactly the opposite of what they chose to do in practice.

Similarly, we never had a "net zero" referendum or an honest debate about the financial impact of these green policies. Both parties simply rushed into implementing these ideas without telling the public that they could bankrupt the country and impose severe costs on families.
(Edited)
Are members of parliament bound to the vote that way in the UK?

The second point sounds more like you want more direct democracy - which is a broader point, I think.
No, the point is that the ruling elites act based on their own entrenched views and beliefs and ignore the democratic mandate that is actually given to them by the electorate. So, the criticism of this version of the "European Democracy" is absolutely justified.

Direct democracy is not a cure here. The Brexit vote was an act of direct democracy in 2016. The process was sabotaged by every means possible, required a replay of the arguments across multiple elections and government resets, and was eventually delivered 5 years later.
Not sure I understand what you want then - some sort of bound delegates? (And, for example, new parties can and have been formed for decades in Europe).
Fulfilling the demand for an end to immigration is easy isn’t it? We should drown them before they reach our shores. Yes has to be your reply. Yes?
I comment the obvious.
I never get a reply.
Oh right. One of those people.
Any thoughts on why Russia supports Reform?
You've written a lot. And I'll indulge you and respond point by point, only if you promise to respond back, point by point. What do you say? Otherwise I won't waste my time.
Go ahead!
I took the time to do so. Now you respond to every single paragraph or be forever blocked.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Will reply.
That's just 'Emil'. Don't bother.
I did. So tired of these right wing trolls just being intellectually dishonest all day long.

They can't possibly believe the nonsense they spout. I imagine they know they're trolling and they know that low IQ NPCs will just believe their nonsense, and they're just smirking all the way through.
Here’s the problem with that comment. It stacks half-truths, category errors, insinuations and hysteria, then treats the pile as evidence.

First, the grooming gangs point. Yes, there were appalling failures and, in some places, deliberate institutional cowardice twenty years ago. That is now widely acknowledged, investigated, prosecuted and publicly condemned. Saying “it happened before” is not proof of an ongoing cover-up, nor does it justify turning a real historical failure into a permanent rhetorical weapon. If the claim is that it is still being covered up today, show the evidence.

Second, “two-tier policing” is a slogan, not an argument. Policing outcomes vary by offence type, location, resourcing, crowd dynamics and public order risk. If you believe policing is systematically biased in a specific way, the burden is on you to demonstrate it with data, not YouTube compilations and selective anecdotes.

Third, the free speech hysteria. Quoting “12,000 arrested for online speech” without context is classic misdirection. Arrest is not conviction. The figure bundles harassment, stalking, threats, hate crimes, breach of restraining orders and other offences into the vague category of “speech”. You can oppose poorly drafted laws without pretending the UK has become a Soviet satire state. Here you are, crying about TDS and "Hitler", but there you go with your own hysteria. Be consistent, even if you struggle with being honest.

TBC
Grooming Gangs

"Deliberate institutional cowardice" was never investigated / prosecuted. You are conflating two different things.

Yes, some individual perpetrators were prosecuted. But not a single police chief, councillor, social worker, or mayor has ever been prosecuted for misconduct, negligence, or participation in a cover up. Those responsible for institutional decisions faced, at most, criticism and internal reviews.

The grooming gangs scandal raises two issues:

a) Cultural factors within the Muslim community - this is not merely a matter of isolated bad actors! We are talking about a pattern of dehumanizing non-muslim women and incentivizing their sexual exploitation. Muslim communities are well-structured and hierarchical; any serious investigation should ask: who knew, who enabled, who discouraged reporting, and obstructed justice? Community leaders, imams, heads of families cannot simply be treated as irrelevant bystanders.

b) The cover up by the State. The crimes occurred over decades, across many towns, yet the institutional response was strikingly consistent: inaction, minimisation, and suppression. That consistency itself demands explanation. How were senior officers briefed? What guidance was issued internally? Were officers discouraged from acting? By whom?

Neither of these issues has been credibly investigated.

The current government's inquiry lacks trust and legitimacy: survivors have refused to cooperate, openly describing it as biased and compromised. That alone should trouble anyone claiming the matter has been "dealt with".

Finally, your instinct to say "let's not turn this into a permanent rhetorical weapon" is telling. If the demographics were reversed - if white men had systematically groomed (say) black girls because they were black - there would be endless academic literatures, documentaries, school curricula, and activist movements built around it. No-one would be arguing that continued scrutiny was excessive.
On Lucy Connolly, this is where the argument becomes outright dishonest. She was not jailed for wrongthink, unpopular views, or criticising immigration. She was jailed for explicitly encouraging murder in a volatile context. That is not protected speech in any functioning legal system, nor has it ever been. Incitement is treated as conduct because it is meant to produce real-world harm. Dressing that up as “free speech being crushed” is hysterical, and it relies on pretending a clear legal boundary does not exist. You can argue about sentence length if you want, but you cannot plausibly claim she was punished for mere opinion without lying to yourself and others.

The Tommy Robinson example is the same bad faith pattern. He was not jailed for “showing a film”. He was jailed for repeated contempt of court after multiple warnings, in circumstances where his actions risked collapsing an ongoing trial. Contempt exists to protect due process, not to silence dissidents. Plenty of journalists manage to report aggressively without breaching it. Presenting Robinson as a free speech prisoner requires stripping away years of context, prior conduct, and explicit judicial instructions - do you smirk to yourself when you tell such barefaced lies? I imagine you smirked while writing that nonsense.

TBC
The immigration point is where the comment tips fully into entitled fantasy. The government does not require your personal permission to admit immigrants, nor does a modern state run a referendum every time it adjusts labour supply, asylum policy or visa rules. That is what representative democracy is. You elect governments to make complex, often unpopular decisions on your behalf, then you hold them accountable at elections. Demanding a bespoke plebiscite after the fact because you dislike the outcome is just you and your ilk tantrumming.


And the economic reality you conveniently ignore is that the UK has an ageing population, a shrinking worker to retiree ratio, and chronic labour shortages across health, care, construction and services. Immigration is not a moral indulgence or a conspiracy against voters. It is a structural necessity unless you are proposing lower growth, collapsing public services, or radically higher taxes.


You can argue about numbers, integration, enforcement and competence. Those are legitimate debates. But framing immigration as something smuggled in without “consent” is hysterical and dishonest. The consent was given at the ballot box, repeatedly, by governments that were explicit about needing migrants to keep the country functioning. Got it?
Thanks, be interesting if Emil responds.