JD Vance’s criticism of Europe is hard to take

JD Vance certainly knows how to grab people’s attention. In a landmark address to the Munich Security Conference, he accused Europe’s leaders of being scared of voters and failing to defend democracy. In a fiery speech, he criticised Europeans for abandoning their roots as ‘defenders of democracy’ and of shutting down dissenting voices. Vance even went on to claim that  the demise of free speech posed a far bigger threat to Europe than Russia. Harsh words indeed.

Vance’s criticisms came as something of a shock to his audience, who had been expecting to hear more from him about the US administration’s priorities for the transatlantic alliance, military spending, and President Trump’s approach to negotiations for ending the war in Ukraine. Vance only deigned to talk about Ukraine in passing – saying that Europe had to ‘step up’, but gave no defined goals for a negotiated settlement beyond a comment that the US administration ‘believes we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine’.