Trump gives us hope for a better world
Niclas Vent
Reporter
This is a commentary text.
It was certainly not the intention, but Donald Trump has accidentally shown us the way to a better world.
Now there are signs that some of our leaders actually want to take it.
"Each of them hopes," Winston Churchill said in 1940
He could have been talking about us Europeans today.
We have lived in a sheltered dream world, where questions of war and death have almost always been something for others, far away.
Under American protection, we have mumbled our way through the end of history, while the returning tsunami of history has drowned the land around us. An island of order in an increasingly stormy world ocean.
We have treated international law and rules not as laws, but as sympathetic ideals to be applied selectively, when it has been convenient and not inconvenient for ourselves.
The rules have been good in theory, but in practice for the others, not for us.
This is of course completely understandable.
Who among us has really thought that our freedom, our prosperity and our lives could be seriously threatened?
On what a truly lawless world actually means?
The crocodile has come home to brood.
In the end, it is our necks that his jaws close around.
The constant noise of the news may make it difficult to take in, but how completely our new world has been turned upside down is perhaps best understood by listening to the voices of the old one.
Take Richard Shirreff, British general and former deputy supreme commander of NATO.
Could he ever have imagined that he would have to
Take Eliot A. Cohen, American conservative former advisor to George W. Bush’s Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is
Was it on his bingo card for 2026?
Nothing is unthinkable anymore.
The sense of failure is beginning to recede. Many politicians are beginning to find the words to speak out.
It is even possible to begin to sense the contours of the path from here.
The clearest is
In his speech in Davos on Tuesday evening,
That we knew that the talk of a rules-based world order was partly false, but that we were silent because we profited from the illusion.
American supremacy provided open trade routes, stable financial systems, collective security, a framework for resolving conflicts.
But the handshake between hypocrisy and hegemony is over now. The deal is dead.
– We understand that this rupture requires something more than just adaptation. It requires honesty about the world as it is, says Mark Carney.
– The powerful have their power. But we also have something: The ability to stop pretending, to describe reality, to build our strength at home and act together.
1. Building real independence
Europe is too dependent. On Chinese raw materials, on American military and technological platforms. That makes us vulnerable. We must upgrade our defenses, secure access to critical raw materials and energy, and reduce our dependence on American technology.Rules that exist only on paper are worthless. But they can be powerful tools – if we can mobilize people and countries to defend them. The uphill battle is long, and Europe’s credibility in large parts of the world is minimal. A first step is to stand up for the laws. Always, not just when it’s convenient.
None of this will be easy. It will take time, cost money, be arduous, and require sacrifice.
We must all together want it, demand it, work for it, even if it will temporarily disadvantage ourselves.
I am not sure we can do it.
But I have a hard time seeing what the alternative would be.
If we really want to, now could be the moment when things turn around.
Before it is too late.
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