There are two ways to view JD Vance’s speech in Munich. One is as a plea to allies – a warning to those who, despite shared history and interests, have chosen a path that leads to ruin. A sincere call to course-correct before it is too late.
The other is as a scathing attack from the puppet of a monster, a man sent to humiliate former allies and score cheap points with false accusations and bad-faith rhetoric.
Europe’s elites – at least those quickest to find a microphone to denounce Vance and the administration he serves – have chosen the latter interpretation.
That Vance’s actual intent was obvious did not deter them. The people in that room, and those who share their mindset, cannot conceive that they have made fundamental errors. They do not, perhaps they cannot, entertain the possibility that they are on the wrong side of history – not just due to some tactical misstep, but in the very foundations of their governance.
So rather than considering whether his words might be true, they recoiled in outrage. Not because they were shaken, but because they are so blind to their own failings that they can only interpret a hand offered in friendship as a slap in the face.
And in their outrage, one is reminded of a quote attributed to Genghis Khan:
“If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.”
Vance is not their punishment, nor is America. Their punishment is reality itself. It is the democratic backsliding of European countries. It is the speech laws they pass in the name of tolerance. It is the violent consequences of mass migration they refuse to acknowledge. It is the rise of populism, the rejection of the ruling class, the decay of institutions, and the slow erosion of public trust in their rule – all of which they blame on an expanding list of external and internal threats: Russia, hate speech, radical ideologies, disinformation. Anything but themselves.
And so, confronted with a man who seemed to tell them they had indeed sinned, they lashed out.
Vance made the point plainly: “If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you.”
That should have been the key takeaway from his speech, but it was not. The irony is that the Munich Security Conference – the annual forum which the great and good of Europe attend to make their ritualistic grand defences of democracy and the ‘European Way’ – banned lawmakers from populist parties across Europe, both left and right. These are parties that hold significant electoral support in their respective countries, yet their representatives were excluded entirely from discussions on Europe’s future.
Vance pointed this out directly. Regardless of whether one agrees with these parties, they represent millions of voters. In a real democracy, their voices should be heard. This is not a radical position – it is the bare minimum for a functioning political system. And yet, for saying so, Vance was smeared as a supporter of the AfD, as though acknowledging a political constituency exists means endorsing every position it holds.
The same pattern plays out in Ireland. The ‘parties of government,’ Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, refuse to deal with Sinn Féin, even as Sinn Féin continues to eat more and more of the vote share. What does this refusal accomplish? It ensures an endless cycle of FF and FG, FG and FF, forming governments together, alternating roles but never relinquishing control. Eternal power for both parties for the low, low price of the effective disenfranchisement of a now rather considerable share of the electorate.
The Irish media, afflicted with its own particular form of blindness, rushes to set the terms of the debate from the first question of every election cycle: “Will you talk with Sinn Féin about Government Formation? Will you go in with them?” The answer is always the same – arrogant certainty that Sinn Féin is unacceptable. As if it were not the voter’s role to decide who is in a position to govern.
Whatever one thinks of Sinn Féin – its historical ties to the IRA, its aggressive brand of republicanism – the republican movement was brought into the peace process on the basis that if it engaged in peaceful negotiation, it would be welcomed into the democratic system.
And yet now, the very same parties who insisted on that bargain refuse to engage with Sinn Féin, treating them and their voters as untouchable. It is a familiar pattern: democratic legitimacy exists when it produces the right outcomes. When it does not, it must be circumvented. They may even see it as Sinn Féin’s own fault for refusing to simply politely disintegrate once ‘Official Ireland’ got what it wanted from them.
Democracy, of course, is sacred – so long as the right people win. If not, well, that’s what emergency measures, NGO pressure campaigns, and the courts are for.
When the public votes ‘incorrectly,’ democracy must be saved from the voters. The EU speaks of democratic values while threatening to cut funding to Hungary and Poland for electing the wrong people. Brexit? A mistake that had to be punished. Italians voting the wrong way? A problem to be ‘handled.’ ‘Democracy’ means one thing: the right people staying in power
The European ruling class does not see itself as undermining free speech, civil liberties, or democratic norms. It sees itself as refining them, perfecting them.
Every restriction, every redefinition of speech, every expansion of state power is seen as an improvement – an adaptation to the modern world that they, and only they, are wise enough to understand.
Take the UK’s abortion safe access zones, which Vance highlighted in his speech. These laws make it a criminal offense to silently pray outside an abortion facility – or, in some cases, even within private homes located inside designated zones. This is not an exaggeration; British authorities have already enforced these laws, prosecuting individuals for nothing more than standing still with their eyes closed in the wrong place.
Not to be outdone, the Irish government recently passed its own Safe Access Zones law, criminalizing speech, protest, or even silent prayer outside abortion clinics. And the very organizations that once championed civil liberties, such as the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), openly advocated for, and celebrated, the passing of the law – a sick parody of what a civil liberties organization should be.
One does not need to be pro-life to see the danger in these laws, or in the principles that underline them. Strip them down, remove the emotion from the debate, and you will see that what these laws say is simple:
The government has the right to declare certain political, philosophical, or theological views illegal to utter or communicate in whatever areas of the country that it chooses.
That is not a slippery slope. That is the broken body of free speech and association, lying at the bottom of a ravine.
For years, European leaders assumed America would always be there. That U.S. military presence was a given. That NATO guarantees would remain ironclad even as European countries refused to meet the obligations that were meant to safeguard those guarantees. That they could continue on their current trajectory without consequence.
It was on that basis that one of the more amusing responses to Vance’s speech was the suggestion that EU countries should push for the closure of American military bases within their borders. This, apparently, was considered some form of punishment.
These people fail to notice that Europe and Russia are no longer Washington’s primary concerns. Losing bases – many of which serve more as defence subsidies to their host countries than as vital American strategic assets – does nothing to harm America.
America is reorienting itself. Restructuring itself to deal with China – to contain it, to corral it, as its only near-peer or peer opponent. Europe, in contrast, still believes it is the centre of the world.
European elites speak as if Europe and the US are equals, yet Europe cannot even secure its own borders, let alone project power, at least beyond France’s declining military activities in their former colonies. European military capacities are hollow – vast bureaucracies with dwindling armed forces, underfunded and demoralized. The vaunted European ‘strategic autonomy’ is a fiction, a polite way of saying they expect America to pick up the slack while European militaries draft policies on gender quotas in defence ministries.
To wit, an Irish general is about to become the head of the European Union Military Committee, the EU’s top military body. That’s quite something given that a) Ireland is not a NATO country, b) Ireland is a (quasi) neutral country, and c) Ireland doesn’t have, at least in the sense of an organisation capable of protecting the state or projecting force, an actual military.
Nor does European economic power justify Europe’s arrogance. Europe, once a global economic engine, is stagnating. Germany, the continent’s industrial core, is in decline – crippled by ideological energy policies, the slow strangulation of its productive sector, and the entirely foreseeable consequences of its own political decisions. The EU’s regulatory obsession throttles innovation while China overtakes it in every field that matters. The illusion of strength persists only because of inertia; remove American protection, and the weight of Europe’s own dysfunction will become so clear to see that even the European elite won’t be able to miss it.
Many Europeans, and left-wing activists globally, have long called for the end of the American era. The end of unipolar power. They believe that America stepping back will mean a more equitable world, a post-national utopia where Europe asserts itself as a leader or global governance rules in perfect harmony.
They believe this because they are fools, incapable of distinguishing strength from stability, or power from inertia. They see peace as the natural order, rather than a brief historical exception granted to them by American force of arms. They do not understand that Europe lacks the power, the influence, the unity, or even the will which it would take to step forward when America steps back.
They dream of a world of shared values and cooperation, but what replaces American dominance will not be a liberal order. It will be a world of interests, not friends. Legitimacy will be dictated by power, and institutions will survive only within the spheres of influence that sustain them.
The simple truth is that, when America steps back, the void will not be filled by a coalition of enlightened European bureaucrats. It will be filled by states willing to wield hard power, with no patience for polite fictions about ‘shared values’ or international norms. Europe dreams of diplomacy. The world they seem likely to inherit demands force.
As things stand, the most likely outcome is that, when the Leviathan puts down his burden as global hegemon, like Atlas shrugging off the world, the global peace and prosperity of the Pax Americana will collapse region by region.
Vance’s entreaties should be understood in that context. America wants allies who can project power and align with their interests. They would help against China – but for an ever increasing number in Washington, Europe is a luxury, not a necessity.
Europe remains blind to what’s coming. But history doesn’t do ‘polite warnings.’ Reality will introduce itself, whether they like it or not.
On that basis, European leaders who took offense at Vance’s speech would do well to consider the words of Louis XV of France, who, looking towards the future, simply said:
“Après moi, le déluge.”