LONDON — Donald Trump has launched a crusade to convert European politics to his cause, mobilizing the full force of American diplomacy to promote “patriotic” parties, stamp on migration, destroy “censorship” and save “civilization” from decay.  The question is whether Europe’s embattled centrists have the power, or the will, to stop him. In its newly released National Security Strategy document, the White House set out for the first time in a comprehensive form its approach to the geopolitical challenges facing the U.S. and the world. While bringing peace to Ukraine gets a mention, when it comes to Europe, America’s official stance is now that its security depends on shifting the continent’s politics decisively to the right. Over the course of three pages, the document blames the European Union, among others, for raising the risk of “civilizational erasure,” due to a surge in immigrants, slumping birth rates and the purported erosion of democratic freedoms.  “Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less,” it says. “As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies.” With its talk of birth rates declining and immigration rising, the racial dimension to the White House rhetoric is hard to ignore. It will be familiar to voters in Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Germany, where far-right politicians have articulated the so-called “great replacement theory,” a racist conspiracy theory falsely asserting that elites are part of a plot to dilute the white population and diminish its influence. “We want Europe to remain European,” the document says. “Over the long term, it is more than plausible that within a few decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority non-European,” the document reads — making it “an open question” whether such countries will continue to view an alliance with the U.S. as desirable. The policy prescription that follows is, in essence, regime change. “Our goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory,” the strategy document says. That will involve “cultivating resistance” within European nations. In case there is any doubt about the political nature of the message, the White House paper celebrates “the growing influence of patriotic European parties” as a cause for American optimism. In other words: Back the far right to make Europe great again. FIGHTING SHY Since Trump returned to the White House in January, European leaders have kept up a remarkable performance of remaining calm amid his provocations, so far avoiding an open conflict that would sever transatlantic relations entirely. But for centrist leaders currently in power — like Emmanuel Macron in Paris, Keir Starmer in London and Germany’s Friedrich Merz — the new Trump doctrine poses a challenge so existential that they may be forced to confront it head-on.  “We are facing the same challenges, or versions of the same challenges, and we do talk about it,” Starmer said. | Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images That confrontation could come sooner rather than later, with high-stakes elections in parts of Britain and Germany next year and the possibility of a snap national vote ever-present in France. In each case, MAGA-aligned parties — Reform U.K., the Alternative for Germany and the National Rally — are poised to make gains at the expense of establishment centrists currently in power. America, it is now clear, may well intervene to help.  On current evidence, European officials whose job it is to protect their elections from foreign interference have little appetite for a fight with Trump. The European Commission recently unveiled its plans for a “democracy shield” to protect elections from disinformation and foreign interference. Michael McGrath, the commissioner responsible for the policy, told POLITICO recently that the shield should be drawn widely as Russia is “not the only actor” that may have “a vested interest” in influencing elections. “There are many actors who would like to damage the fabric of the EU, and ultimately undermine trust in its institutions,” he said.  In light of the new National Security Strategy, Trump’s America must now surely count among them.  But McGrath played the diplomat when asked, before the strategy was published, if he would rather U.S. leaders stopped campaigning in European elections and criticizing European democracy.  “They’re entitled to their views, but we have our own standards and we seek to apply our own values and the European approach to international affairs and international diplomacy,” McGrath replied. “We don’t comment or interfere on the domestic matters of a close partner like the United States.” PATHETIC FREELOADERS Even before the strategy was published, Trump administration figures had already provided ample evidence of its disdain for Europe’s political center ground. So far this year, Vice President JD Vance launched a broadside against Europe over free speech and democracy; Elon Musk intervened in the German election to back the far-right Alternative for Germany; and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth privately savaged “pathetic” Europeans for “freeloading” on security.  The difference this time is that Trump’s National Security Strategy is official. “It was one thing for them to think it and say it to each other (or in a speech in Munich),” said one EU diplomat, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “It’s something else to put it into a policy document.” What is worse for leaders like Macron, Merz and Starmer is that the Trumpian analysis — that a critical mass of voters want their own European MAGA — may, ultimately, be right.  These leaders are all under immense pressure from the populist right in their own backyards. In Britain, Nigel Farage’s Reform U.K. is on track to make major gains at next year’s regional and local elections, potentially triggering a leadership challenge in the governing Labour Party that could force Starmer out.  In Paris, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally tortures Macron’s struggling administrators in parliament, while the Alternative for Germany breathes down Merz’s neck in Berlin and pushes him to take ever harder positions on migration.  The British prime minister disclosed in an interview with The Economist this week that he spoke to Merz and Macron at a recent private dinner in Berlin about the shared threat they all face from the right. “We are facing the same challenges, or versions of the same challenges, and we do talk about it,” Starmer said.  If America makes good on Trump’s new strategy, private dinner party chats among friends may not be enough.

BERLIN — Alex Bruesewitz, an adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, told leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD — a party labeled extremist by German authorities — that he sees them as “bold visionaries” shaping the country’s future. Speaking to a room packed with AfD parliamentarians and supporters in Berlin on Wednesday night, Bruesewitz declared that MAGA conservatives and members of Germany’s rising far right are united in a common fight along with other nationalist forces around the world against “Marxists” and “globalists” that he framed as “a spiritual war for the soul of our nations.” Bruesewitz, a social media guru credited with helping Trump return to the White House, is now a senior adviser to Never Surrender, Trump’s leadership political action committee. His speech to AfD parliamentarians comes at a time when German far-right figures are increasingly looking for legitimacy and support from MAGA Republicans in the U.S., particularly for what they frame as a struggle against political persecution and censorship at home. It’s something of a turnabout for AfD politicians, who have historically exhibited a strong anti-American streak, viewing the U.S. as having infringed on Germany’s sovereignty in the postwar era and seeking instead to build closer relations with Russia. But since Trump’s return to the White House, AfD leaders have made a concerted effort to get close to MAGA Republicans. Beatrix von Storch, an AfD politician who has been at the forefont of the party’s efforts to build connections with MAGA Republicans, said Bruesewitz’s visit was about “reaching out to be closer to our American friends.” Bruesewitz echoed that message during his talk on “the global battle for truth,” as the event was dubbed. “We are in this together,” he said. “The globalists fear united patriots more than anything.” WHO’S THE ANTI-DEMOCRAT? The AfD is now the strongest opposition party in the German parliament, and in many recent polls has surpassed German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s ruling conservatives. The party’s growing popularity comes despite the fact that earlier this year, Germany’s federal domestic intelligence agency, which is tasked with monitoring groups deemed to be antidemocratic, declared the AfD to be an extremist organization. This designation fueled debate among mainstream German politicians about whether the party ought to be banned under provisions of the German Constitution designed to prevent a repeat of the Nazi rise to power. Centrist parties in Germany have so far refused to form national coalitions with the AfD, maintaining a so-called firewall around the far right that has been in place since shortly after World War II. But AfD politicians argue that German mainstream politicians are the true antidemocratic forces and are seeking to suppress the will of the German people through the state apparatus. They have often found a sympathetic ear for that argument in MAGA circles. When Germany’s domestic intelligence agency declared the AfD to be extremist, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the move “tyranny in disguise.” During the Munich Security Conference earlier this year, U.S. Vice President JD Vance urged mainstream politicians in Europe to protect free speech rights of anti-immigration parties and to knock down the “firewalls” that shut out far-right parties from government. The AfD is now the strongest opposition party in the German parliament, and in many recent polls has surpassed German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s ruling conservatives. | Clemens Bilan/EPA AfD politicians have repeatedly visited Washington in recent months to make the case that they are the victims of political persecution and to solicit American support. Last week, German right-wing influencer and AfD ally Naomi Seibt said she had applied for asylum in the U.S., claiming to be “facing persecution” in Germany for her views and saying she is the target of “severe government and intelligence surveillance and harassment.” LOST IN TRANSLATION During his Berlin speech, Bruesewitz suggested MAGA Republicans had faced a similar experience of persecution in the U.S., likening criminal indictments against Trump and past social media deplatforming of right-wing figures to the same kind of leftist, anti-democratic suppression AfD leaders claim to be facing. “As I sit and watch what’s happening all over Europe with the censorship concerns, the same thing happened in America,” said Bruesewitz. “You can let it happen here. You have to protect free speech,” he added to a round of enthusiastic applause. Not all aspects of Bruesewitz’s message were met with equal enthusiasm. His defense of Trump’s tariffs, which have hit Germany’s export-oriented industries particularly hard, did not win applause. Bruesewitz also repeatedly invoked passages from the Bible and called on Germans to embrace a distinctly American brand of Christian nationalism that, while embraced by some AfD politicians, is largely alien to Germans, who are broadly less pious. At one point, Bruesewitz called faith “our greatest weapon,” and said the killing of conservative American influencer Charlie Kirk had made him realize that conservative nationalists are not just engaged in a political battle, but rather a “spiritual war” that extends beyond the U.S. “The forces arrayed against us aren’t just ideological opponents, they’re manifestations of evil, seeking to extinguish the light of faith, family and freedom,” Bruesewitz said. “This spiritual battle isn’t confined to the United States. Oh, no. Germany and America may be separated by thousands of miles of ocean, but we face the same exact enemies, the same threats, the same insidious forces trying to tear us down.”

Police in Berlin on Thursday searched the home of prominent conservative political commentator and former university professor Norbert Bolz over a social media post he wrote in 2024 that contained a Nazi-era slogan. On Thursday morning, officers arrived at Bolz’s home and questioned him about a post on X that featured the Nazi-affiliated expression, “Deutschland erwache!” (“Germany, awake!”). Bolz confirmed his authorship of the post, avoiding the seizure of his laptop, he told POLITICO.  “The friendly police officers gave me the good advice to be more careful in the future. I’ll do that and only talk about trees from now on,” Bolz sarcastically commented in a separate post on X. Bolz is a regular commentator for WELT, a sister publication of POLITICO in the Axel Springer Group. A Berlin public prosecutor confirmed that police carried out a search in connection with an investigation into the “use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations.” Bolz had shared a post from the left-wing newspaper taz that read, “Ban of the AfD and a petition against Höcke: Germany awakens,” and added ironically: “A good translation for “woke”: Germany awake!” The German case comes after U.K. authorities arrested “Father Ted” co-creator Graham Linehan on suspicion of inciting violence with a series of social media posts about transgender people, amid a wider debate over hate speech laws and free expression in the U.K. and other European countries. In February at the Munich Security Conference, U.S. Vice President JD Vance lambasted European leaders, arguing that free speech was increasingly under threat on the continent, though the Trump administration has itself also clamped down on some commentary posted on social media.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Heute Abend tagt der Koalitionsausschuss – und die Stimmung zwischen Union und SPD ist nicht die beste. Nachdem SPD-Chefin Bärbel Bas die Warnungen zum Sozialstaat des Kanzlers als „Bullshit“ bezeichnet hat, steht vieles auf der Kippe. Rasmus Buchsteiner analysiert, was auf der Agenda steht und ob eine Einigung überhaupt möglich ist. Im 200-Sekunden-Interview: Matthias Miersch. Der SPD-Fraktionschef über seine schwierige politische Partnerschaft mit Jens Spahn, wieso er Bärbel Bas „Bullshit” nicht unangemessen findet und warum er an möglichen Steuererhöhungen festhält. Außerdem: Das Klassentreffen der Diplomaten in Berlin. Gordon blickt auf die Botschafterkonferenz kommende Woche und auf einen Beinahe-Eklat um einen Frauenempfang im Auswärtigen Amt. Und: Rixa Fürsen nimmt euch zum “Family & Friends”-Treffen der Münchner Sicherheitskonferenz in Berlin mit. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren. Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski.

Microwaves, GPS, drones, duct tape, the PC. That’s just a short list of household goods that trace their origin to military research labs.  Their dual-use functionality is known as “military-civil fusion” in the parlance of the defense sector. Now, with Europe about to unleash a flood of money into its defense sector, reversing decades of underinvestment, hopes are high that the continent’s dismal productivity record could tap into similar military ingenuity to turn things around. Projects underway in Europe are already beginning to rival those of the United States in terms of ambition: from continental antimissile defenses to low Earth orbit satellite constellations that could provide alternatives to an increasingly unreliable Elon Musk’s Starlink. The hope is that eventually all the investment drives technological innovation that spills over into the civilian economy, boosting productivity and paying for itself.  But is that realistic, or just wishful thinking? There’s no doubt that in the short term, economic strain is unavoidable, and will require cuts elsewhere. “This is about spending more, spending better,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said in a speech at the start of the year, acknowledging Washington’s long-standing complaints about Europe not doing enough for its own security. While two-thirds of NATO members now meet the alliance’s target of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense, it’s still “nowhere near enough,” Rutte said. Rutte is getting his wish. The European Commission has opened the doors to €800 billion in military spending. In parallel, Germany, Europe’s largest economy, announced a plan to spend a trillion euros to upgrade its rickety national army and repair its infrastructure.   ROBOWARS Where public money goes, private business follows, and there is a burgeoning crop of new defense players emerging to meet Europe’s defense needs. Loïc Mougeolle is a defense contractor whose ties to the military go back a generation. His father worked in nuclear deterrence for the French navy; he, in turn, worked nine years for a defense firm until co-founding his own defense company, Comand AI, in 2022, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “We will never be able to produce more than a strategic adversary like China,” said Mougeolle, who is chief executive of the Paris-based Comand AI. “What we need to do is to be able to conduct operations, 10 times, 100 times more efficiently than them. This is the starting point of Comand AI.” “This is about spending more, spending better,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said in a speech at the start of the year, acknowledging Washington’s long-standing complaints about Europe not doing enough for its own security. | Erdem Sahin/EFE via EPA Mougeolle said he’s developed an artificial intelligence-based platform that can parse orders, develop task sequences and analyze terrain, all with the aim of greatly accelerating military response times. With Comand AI, “one staff officer can do the job of four,” he said. For now, Comand AI only focuses on the defense sector, but Mougeolle said the technology his company has developed has civil applications as well. For example, it could help fleets of delivery robots navigate terrain to reach their destinations. Or it could help deal with coordinated cyberattacks on private businesses. OFF TO THE SPACE RACES But entrusting new inventions that benefit everyday Europeans to innovative players like Comand AI, or European satellite and missile defense initiatives, is a gamble. While there is plenty of historical precedent, there is no certainty. “Defense spending has been an important driver of technological advances in the U.S.,” said Chris Miller, professor at Tufts University and author of Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology. “The Defense Department often funded basic research and prototyping that was then picked up by private firms and turned into world-changing civilian technologies, such as [micro]chips, GPS, or display screens.”  Research from the Kiel Institute published ahead of the Munich Security Conference in February estimated that Europe’s long-term productivity could rise by as much as 0.25 percent for each 1 percent of GDP spent on military research. “There’s increasing evidence that some of the biggest breakthroughs, particularly in the high-tech area of computation, are associated with R&D that was developed during the Space Race,” said Ethan Ilzetzki, author of the paper and professor at the London School of Economics.  The competitive nature of war and the existential stakes at play encourage efficiency and innovation. While it’s perhaps not a precedent today’s EU would want to repeat (another Thirty Years’ War, anyone?), the intense rivalries of early modern Europe helped give rise to its technological supremacy in the 18th and 19th centuries. “There is an incentive here to be at the technological frontier, and even to push the technological frontier,” Ilzetzki said.   PLOWSHARES TO SWORDS Plans to boost continental defenses have already drawn criticism, notably from those on the left who stress the importance of preserving the welfare state to avoid populist backlash.  “While military expenditures no longer know fiscal limits, social benefits and support for parental leave are already on the chopping block,” economists Tom Krebs and Isabella Weber argued in a column for Project Syndicate. “This is bound to further fuel dissatisfaction.”  The United Kingdom’s Labour government is a straw in the wind. It recently announced £4.8 billion in welfare cuts even as it boosted defense spending by £2.2 billion.  It’s not all pain. Military spending will give the economy a short-term boost. Defense contractors’ revenues will rise, manufacturing jobs will increase, and workers’ wages will cycle back into the economy. Daniel Kral, lead economist at Oxford Economics, said the scale of the plans is so huge that they could help “break Europe out of stagnation through domestic demand-led growth.”  French President Emmanuel Macron has called on governments to replace U.S. Patriot missiles and F-35s with European alternatives like SAMP/T systems. | Joe Klamar/AFP via Getty Images But while the production of guns and bombs is counted in GDP figures, there is no long-term productivity boost from landmines that just lie in the ground, or howitzers under wraps in barracks. They may guarantee the system that generates GDP by protecting it from invasion, but their contribution to the final numbers is unquantifiable. That’s a problem, given that Europe’s rearmament plans are going to be funded largely through debt. Government debt is already high, and adding to it could very well damage the economy in the long run.  CHOICES, CHOICES One way to square the circle is to invest smarter. To keep as much value in Europe as possible, the bloc will need to develop the products itself that it currently buys from the U.S. — and do so without further antagonizing a protectionist White House. More than half of European spending on procurement flows to U.S. firms. French President Emmanuel Macron has called on governments to replace U.S. Patriot missiles and F-35s with European alternatives like SAMP/T systems and Rafale jets. The Berlaymont is explicitly backing local industry as part of its rearmament efforts.    But front-line countries like Poland or Finland want to prioritize immediate needs — even if that means buying from the U.S., South Korea or Israel.   “The Baltics see fire, Central Europe sees smoke, everyone else doesn’t see anything,” said one European diplomat who asked to remain anonymous to speak candidly. At present, too much of Europe’s defense spending goes to entrenched, slow-moving national champions. By contrast, Ilzetzki’s paper describes how the U.S. Department of Defense promotes competition through dual sourcing — purchasing weapon systems from more than one company at once to encourage competition. Often these tenders are more open-ended: Rather than favoring a certain technology with very fixed specifications that in effect favors established players, it will put out a call for open-ended solutions to a certain military problem.  Such tenders “reached a broader set of firms that are smaller, younger, and more technology-oriented … [and] also led to more patents and dual-use spillovers,” the Kiel report reads.  Partly because of that, about 16 percent of U.S. military spending goes to R&D, compared to only 4.5 percent in Europe. That helps U.S. companies keep their technological edge and makes them more likely to invent something useful in civilian life. As such, to succeed in the long run, any coordinated European rearmament push will require capitals to do more to embrace new entrants — many more nimble and at the technological frontier, said Dan Breznitz, an expert in state-run innovation policy at the University of Toronto.   “You need to be able to disrupt the system,” he said. “You need to have an understanding that there will be new players. And some of those new players will become the new giants. And that’s what may be something that I’m not sure that the EU is very good at doing, to be honest.” 

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday warned that the United States cannot afford to neglect its commitment to mutual defense to its NATO allies in the face of Russian provocations. Speaking at a POLITICO event on the sidelines of the Munich Leaders Meeting in Washington, the former House speaker acknowledged that President Donald Trump has spoken “frivolously” about the alliance in the past. Yet the San Francisco Democrat insisted that the U.S. has to support the alliance — and the commitment to mutual defense enshrined in its Article 5 — because the U.S. also needs to know it will have help in future crises. “If we as the United States of America do not honor our commitments. I don’t know how we expect people to honor their commitments to us,” Pelosi said. She noted that NATO countries came to the United States’ defense following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, saying, “They didn’t ask us how much we were giving to NATO or anything else. They just honored Article 5.” Those attacks were the only time that the alliance has invoked Article 5. In reference to Canada, Pelosi blasted Trump’s comments about mutual defense for countries that haven’t met the alliance’s 2 percent of GDP defense spending target. “I don’t think that the president of the United States should say to a NATO country, if you haven’t paid 2 percent, I say to Russia, have at them,” she said. Pelosi also said that “I don’t think the door has been shut on” repairing ties between the U.S. and NATO member states. Yet she also needled the White House in more humorous ways, striking a more sardonic tone for other Trump administration moves toward the alliance. Dismissing the Trump administration’s efforts to potentially annex Greenland, Pelosi quipped that there are “more people [who] think that Elvis Presley is alive in the United States than Greenlanders who think they want to be part of the United States.” She also voiced some measured praise for more conciliatory comments from Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday regarding the transatlantic alliance and peace in Ukraine. Vance had shocked allies in a February speech to the Munich Security Conference — which also organized Wednesday’s meeting — where he assailed Europe for encroaching on free speech and being lackluster partners to the United States. When he spoke to the group Wednesday, Vance instead insisted both Europe and the United States are on the “same civilizational team.” He added, “It’s completely ridiculous to think that you’re ever going to be able to drive a firm wedge between the United States and Europe.” “It was a better approach,” Pelosi said about Vance’s comments. “I would say it was well received.”

PARIS — European leaders knew Donald Trump’s second term as U.S. president would be a challenge. But the magnitude and speed with which Washington broke from decades-long defense policies forced governments across the continent to confront the unthinkable: Is the U.S. now more of a threat than a partner? POLITICO reporters have dug deep into the events of a couple of weeks in February when everything changed. Europe experienced a series of Trump-induced geopolitical shocks that shook the transatlantic relationship to its core and rattled Europe’s faith in its most crucial ally. It prompted leaders in Berlin and Warsaw to reverse — in a matter of days — their security doctrines, and diplomats to try to salvage what remains of the post-World War II order. Since Trump entered the White House for the second time in January, Europe has had to ride a rollercoaster that’s swerved from policies on Gaza to Greenland, from Ukraine to a trade war. While actual policy announcements have been hard to follow, especially as they’re often blurred or reversed by overnight social media posts, the key message on the transatlantic relationship was sent loud and clear soon after Trump took office: Europe should fend for itself and America’s military umbrella, extended over the continent since 1945, shouldn’t be taken for granted. And what European leaders were even more worried about, according to the officials POLITICO spoke to, is that much of Trump’s rhetoric felt to them hauntingly close to the Kremlin’s own messaging. Top of the list: The inaccurate claim that Ukraine was responsible for starting its war with Russia. THE GOODIES AND BADDIES The first sign of the drama to come happened mid-February when U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth traveled to Brussels to deliver Europe bad news. At a meeting of NATO defense ministers, Hegseth said Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy should give up hope of taking back all the land Russia has seized and returning to pre-2014 borders. It’s “an illusionary goal,” he said, as he quashed Ukrainians’ hopes of joining the military alliance in the near future. Two seats to Hegseth’s left was the United Kingdom’s Defense Secretary John Healey, who had little time to process what he was hearing. Later in the afternoon, as Healey was halfway through a press conference after meeting NATO chief Mark Rutte, details of a call between Trump and Putin started to emerge. An aide rushed up to Healey once he’d finished speaking and showed him Trump’s Truth Social post on his phone.  “We agreed to work together, very closely,” the U.S. president had posted. “We have also agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately, and we will begin by calling President Zelenskyy, of Ukraine, to inform him of the conversation.” After Hegseth had given his counterparts from NATO governments a blunt heads up about what the substance of Trump’s plans for Ukraine were, he tried to reassure them behind closed doors. The first sign of the drama to come happened mid-February when U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth traveled to Brussels to deliver Europe bad news. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Don’t worry, he told them, according to a senior European official. “We know who the goodies are. We know who the baddies are.”  As panic started to envelop the continent’s defense-watchers, the U.K. delegation found solace in a brief festive moment: The second day of the NATO gathering was Healey’s 65th birthday. After the ministerial meeting he went with aides to the fourth floor of NATO HQ, where Britain has its base, and officials presented him with a birthday cake.  Nobody was in much of a mood to celebrate, though. Behind closed doors, Hegseth told his NATO counterparts that any lasting peace deal would have to include so-called security guarantees, meaning a commitment from other countries to protect it from future aggression by Russia. Europeans were counting on some form of U.S. participation, with the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, telling reporters: “We shouldn’t take anything off the table before the negotiations even started because it plays to Russia’s court.” Yet Hegseth ruled out the strongest, most protective option for Ukraine — NATO membership. It was music to the Kremlin’s ears. On the night after the Trump-Putin call, Russia attacked Ukraine with 140 drones, shelled residential buildings in the city of Kherson and carried out 10 aerial strikes on communities in the front-line region of Zaporizhzhia, according to Ukrainian authorities. THE THREAT FROM WITHIN Germany’s Munich Security Conference took place over the following days. It has seen many tensions and flare-ups over the years as presidents, generals, diplomats, and power brokers have discussed the world’s fate under the grand chandeliers and polished wood panels. Even so, attendees this year were bracing for impact. Among the most high-profile guests was U.S. Vice President JD Vance, a staunch advocate of Trump’s America First foreign policy. He was making his debut on the international stage. They were right to be worried. Europeans “understood in a day in Munich that Ukraine’s survival and Europe’s survival are in their hands,” French Senator Claude Malhuret said. But Vance went further than Ukraine. He chastised European governments for supposedly ignoring the will of their people, ignoring religious freedoms and refusing to act to halt illegal migration. “The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia. It’s not China, it’s not any other external actor,” he told the audience. “And what I worry about is the threat from within.”   The fiery speech, lasting 19 minutes and referencing various hot-button issues, included punches aimed at the U.K., Romania and Germany, among others.  JD Vance chastised European governments for supposedly ignoring the will of their people, ignoring religious freedoms and refusing to act to halt illegal migration. | Johannes Simon/Getty Images “What the fuck was that? I had my mouth open in a room full of people with their mouth open,” a former House Democratic staffer said. “That was bad.” The interference in European countries’ domestic affairs brought the audience of diplomats, policy wonks and defense experts to a standstill. A German official watched on aghast as Vance put into words some governments’ worst fears: “This is all so insane and worrying.” It prompted European leaders into action — with an unusual dose of improvisation. The day after Vance’s shock address, Feb. 15, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski broke the news on the conference’s main stage that an emergency meeting of leaders in Paris was in the works. “I’m very glad that President Macron has called our leaders to Paris,” he said during a panel discussion alongside his French counterpart Jean-Noël Barrot. Barrot grinned nervously as Sikorski spoke. Plans for the impromptu summit weren’t public yet, and the French wouldn’t confirm it for another 24 hours. ‘ONCE IN A GENERATION MOMENT’ But it did happen. The crisis meeting, held in Paris on Feb. 17, followed by another two days later, kickstarted two weeks of frantic diplomacy, with European countries scrambling to get a seat in discussions on how to stop the war in Ukraine, cajole Trump back into what they saw as reason — and sketch out a plan for their own security. Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer each played host to meetings, and both planned trips to Washington. Meanwhile, leaders in countries closer to Russia ramped up the pressure on their peers to increase defense spending. The format for the meeting was strange, with leaders from France, Poland, Germany, Italy, Spain, the U.K., the Netherlands and Denmark, as well as senior EU officials, in attendance, but ― breaking with the EU’s obsession with consensus in the name of greater efficiency ― not representatives from countries on the Eastern border, such as the Baltic States. Dubbing it a “once in a generation moment,” Starmer raised the stakes by announcing hours before that he was “ready and willing” to put British troops on the ground in Ukraine to enforce a peace deal, rallying Macron’s idea for sending peacekeepers. As his peers were crossing the Elysée’s front yard that late afternoon, saluted by red-crested gardes républicains, Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs pitched in from afar with some concise advice. “Never stop panicking,” he said.  The crisis meeting, held in Paris on Feb. 17, followed by another two days later, kickstarted two weeks of frantic diplomacy. | Amaury Cornu/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images A fresh salvo fired from the other side of the Atlantic soon justified his advice. Speaking to reporters from his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump launched an attack on Zelenskyy, after the Ukrainian president raised worries about being excluded from talks. “Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years,” Trump said on Feb. 18. “You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.” Trump further derided Zelenskyy the day after, describing him as not only an incompetent leader but “a dictator without elections,” borrowing from the Kremlin’s talking points. Trying to keep cool heads amid the fury, Starmer and Macron kept in touch with Trump throughout. The former was scheduled to visit the American president the week after. Macron called Trump and lobbied for his own trip ― jumping the queue to become the first European leader to visit the White House since his inauguration. While the U.K. and France coordinated closely, there was the slightest hint of rivalry. A U.K. official said Britain had deliberately avoided scheduling Starmer’s visit on the anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But this left a window for Macron to sweep into, they said. INTERRUPTING TRUMP In Washington, where he slept at Blair House, the U.S. president’s guesthouse on Pennsylvania Avenue, Macron sought to rekindle what his advisers described as a special relationship with his American counterpart. But between all the pleasantries and manly hand-holding, tension broke through when discussing substance. After Trump inaccurately described European aid to Ukraine as being just a loan, Macron leaned over to interrupt Trump and contradict him. In private, Macron lobbied hard for Trump to also welcome another leader, according to one of his aides: Zelenskyy. That was to prove fateful. Over in Kyiv, top EU officials and leaders of Spain, the Nordic and Baltic countries, along with other NATO members, staged a show of force, designed to signal that the bloc stood firmly behind the Ukrainian president. In private, Emmanuel Macron lobbied hard for Donald Trump to also welcome another leader, according to one of his aides: Volodymyr Zelenskyy. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images And back in Washington, a group of EU lawmakers witnessed for themselves the badly damaged state of the transatlantic relationship. Eight conservative members of the European Parliament had arranged meetings with think tanks, transatlantic players and policymakers interested in the defense sector. But barely one day into their trip, doors started shutting. “The general message was, démerdez-vous [just deal with it],” French lawmaker François-Xavier Bellamy, who was heading the delegation, said.  A Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives canceled them with 24 hours notice, his staff said. “It was a general policy,” Bellamy said. “The line was, ‘you can’t meet with Europeans. You can meet with French, British or Italian [politicians], but not ones with the EU label.’” Meanwhile, the U.S. sided with Moscow in a high-profile U.N. vote aiming at condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. SLASHING AID In London, Starmer made his own surprise move in an effort to woo Trump ahead of his own trip to Washington. On Feb. 25, he announced what he described as the “biggest sustained increase in defense spending since the end of the Cold War” — paid for in Trumpian style by slashing funds for international aid. Defence Secretary Healey rushed from Starmer’s parliamentary statement to his department to call Hegseth, who told him the policy was “a great leadership step,” according to a person with knowledge of the discussion. Starmer had been privately discussing the plan with his finance minister, Rachel Reeves, for weeks but deliberately kept other ministers out of the loop — even his closest allies who were helping him gameplan the U.S. visit. His minister for humanitarian aid, Anneliese Dodds, was only told the day before the announcement. She decided to resign from government but delayed making that public until Starmer met Trump. On the flight there, walking to the back of the plane for a customary off-camera interview with travelling journalists in Adidas trainers, a dark blue shirt and black blazer, Starmer made a point of saying he would “keep his answers pretty tight” because the meeting with the U.S. president was so critical.  He said he’d press Trump for a security “backstop” to protect European peacekeeping troops in postwar Ukraine. Officials later confirmed the intended format of this was aerial intelligence, and air cover as a last resort if Russia attacked western troops.  On Feb. 25, Keir Starmer announced what he described as the “biggest sustained increase in defense spending since the end of the Cold War” — paid for in Trumpian style by slashing funds for international aid. | Leon Neal/Getty Images But around an hour after he had spoken Trump pulled the rug from under his feet. “I’m not going to make security guarantees beyond very much,” Trump told his Cabinet. “We’re going to have Europe do that.”  Downing Street officials simply had to watch news of Trump’s latest comments appear on their phones midway across the Atlantic. Starmer — behind a gray curtain at the front of the plane — did not come down to speak to journalists again, and aides declined to comment further. “A lot of them [U.S. officials] wake up in the morning just waiting for what [Trump] is going to say today,” said a senior U.K. official. As Starmer and his delegation were bracing for the high-stakes visit, Macron in Paris was making friends with someone he hoped would become a key ally in the tumultuous times ahead, Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz. He traveled to Paris fresh off his election victory for an intimate dinner with the French president. Just minutes after winning Germany’s vital snap election the weekend before, the conservative leader vowed “independence” from Trump’s America — a startling shift away from his country’s historic pro-American position and something that, by his own admission, he “never thought [he] would have to say.” PULLING OUT THE STOPS Starmer spent several hours preparing for his Trump meeting at the U.K. embassy. In his half hour in the Oval Office with Trump, in front of a table laden with gold coasters and with a map of the “Gulf of America” in the corner, he took a leaf out of Macron’s book by touching Trump on the arm — and adopted the president’s hyperbolic language when whisking a letter from King Charles III out of his pocket inviting the president for a state visit.  Trump made positive noises but, ominously, he said British peacekeeping troops could “take care of themselves” if attacked by Russia.  Despite the warning signs Starmer was upbeat on the flight back to the U.K. He came briefly to the back of the plane, gave a thumbs-up and said he was “happy.” ‘I HAVE TO TAKE THIS’ He had reasons to be at least slightly optimistic. Two days before, in between Macron’s and Starmer’s visits, the Ukrainian presidency confirmed what was thought to be a significant breakthrough: Washington and Kyiv had “agreed on the text” of a minerals deal, with Trump hinting that Zelenskyy could travel to Washington to sign the day after Starmer’s visit.  As Zelenskyy prepared to fly to Washington, Ukrainian aides were full of optimism, briefing lawmakers and journalists about the positive step this represented. In Brussels, a senior Ukrainian official was giving an interview to POLITICO when news of Zelenskyy’s trip was confirmed via the president’s office. The official’s phone rang. “I have to take this,” they said, disappearing into another room.  A few minutes later they returned to announce that Zelenskyy would be going to Washington, then he would meet leaders in London. “It’s a win — he is meeting Trump before Putin meets him,” said the official. After nearly 40 minutes of polite exchanges with Donald Trump and JD Vance, Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s insistence on guarantees was partly what set off the now infamous fiery exchange between him and his U.S. hosts. | Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images What’s more, the “sequence” was beneficial for Ukraine, the official said. Zelenskyy would sign the minerals deal, hopefully extract some language on security guarantees for Ukraine, then present the results to European and U.K. leaders in London. As it turned out, the part on security guarantees was ill-fated. After nearly 40 minutes of polite exchanges with Trump and Vance, Zelenskyy’s insistence on guarantees was partly what set off the now infamous fiery exchange between him and his U.S. hosts. ‘THIS IS REALLY BAD’ “It made me want to throw up,” a Paris-based ambassador said of the Oval Office spat. “On a very human level … it shows nothing is sacred.” Because the news broke on a Friday night in Europe, many U.K. officials had to start working at home. “There was a lot of WhatsApp traffic,” said the British official quoted above. “It was people at home trying to have a night off, but then instantly realizing — fuck me, this is really bad.” One French minister, whose portfolio is not directly impacted, was in his constituency in a remote part of France when a friend pulled him aside to flag what just happened. “I went back home and got stuck in front of my TV until 1 a.m.,” he said. Macron, on a visit to Portugal, was in the middle of a TV interview when wire reports started to drop. After the interview, he immediately watched the footage and, as he was shuffled to his plane to get back to Paris, picked up the phone to call Zelenskyy from the aircraft. Merz was sent the footage by a member of his staff as he made his way home to the Sauerland, a three-hour car ride from Hamburg, German magazine Stern reported. Merz immediately made several calls from the car, and wrote a solidarity post for Zelenskyy on X.  Three days later, Merz informed the party leadership of his CDU during a video conference about one of the biggest U-turns in recent German history: the planned relaxation of the debt brake for defense spending and a €500 billion special fund to stimulate the economy. British Foreign Secretary David Lammy was blindsided too. He landed at Heathrow Airport, upbeat after a meeting with his U.S. counterpart Marco Rubio that aides felt had gone well. His team spent much of the day dealing with the news that Dodds, the aid minister in his department, had resigned. But this frenzy was soon forgotten after Zelenskyy’s Oval Office trip. Starmer studiously avoided publicly criticizing the Oval Office scene, instead picking up the phone to call both Trump and Zelenskyy within four hours of it happening. The Ukrainian president traveled to London the next morning, where he was greeted by Starmer on the steps of No. 10 Downing Street. The British PM walked towards him and immediately threw his arm around him. Starmer used the London summit to try and rally European countries to form a “coalition of the willing,” announcing that he and Macron would take the lead on coming up with a draft peace plan to bring to Trump. Keir Starmer used the London summit to try and rally European countries to form a “coalition of the willing,” announcing that he and Emmanuel Macron would take the lead on coming up with a draft peace plan to bring to Donald Trump. | Pool photo by Toby Melville via AFP/Getty Images Zelenskyy went straight from the summit to meet and pose for photos with King Charles III — days after Starmer promised royal-loving Trump a trip to see the monarch. Such meetings are arranged by royal palaces, but tend to be done in coordination with the U.K. government. “People definitely saw it,” one U.S. official said.  Trump was said to have been rankled by the events of that Sunday — not merely Zelenskyy’s royal visit, but the sight of Europe hugging him close. A U.K. official said Trump’s team “didn’t like the look of it … the way the whole love-in landed,” and suggested the U.S. reaction pushed Britain toward putting more pressure on Ukraine to come to the table in the days that followed. Zelenskyy freshly enraged Trump that Sunday evening by holding a 72-minute interview with journalists in a small room at London’s Stansted Airport, just before he left the U.K.  In it he said a peace deal was still “very, very far away.” Some officials believe this was the “trigger” that prompted Trump to halt military aid to Ukraine barely 24 hours later. STILL ON EDGE As the weeks have gone by, top diplomats in Paris, London and Berlin have sweated over how to try and repair the badly damaged relationship between Trump and Zelenskyy. As Starmer held calls with both leaders and sent his top national security adviser to Washington and Kyiv, French diplomats worked as mediators to negotiate the terms of Zelenskyy’s conciliatory letter to Trump, according to a French official. The relationship between the American president and his Ukrainian counterpart are still on edge. While Moscow and Kyiv both agreed in principle over a U.S.-brokered, limited 30-day ceasefire on civilian and energy infrastructures, it soon proved moot. Ukraine has somewhat faded from the headlines since ― although, to add to the confusion, Trump has turned his ire on Putin ― to be replaced by the U.S. president’s obsession with tariffs. But the wounds caused by those few days in February are still open, and will be for a long time to come. Dan Bloom, Sam Blewett and Esther Webber contributed to this article from London; Nette Nöstlinger from Berlin; and Nicholas Vinocur from Brussels.

A United States official, asked about a French court’s decision to ban far-right leader Marine Le Pen from seeking public office, said Monday it is “concerning” when people are excluded from politics. In a bombshell verdict Monday, Le Pen, who is the leader of France’s far-right National Rally party, was found guilty of embezzling European Parliament funds and barred from running for office for five years. The sentence means she will likely be unable to run for French president in 2027. Asked about the guilty verdict and sentence, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters the American foreign policy department was “aware of reports regarding her sentencing.” “Exclusion of people from the political process is particularly concerning given the aggressive and corrupt lawfare waged against President [Donald] Trump here in the United States,” Bruce said, declining to comment specifically on Le Pen’s case. Bruce did, though, say she “might disagree with” a reporter’s description of the French politician as “a far-right individual.” “I don’t know if that’s meant to be derogatory,” she said. Le Pen herself has rejected the term far right as she seeks to normalize her National Rally party and bolster her electoral chances. She fiercely opposes immigration and is one of the most famous far-right politicians in Europe. Bruce pointed to U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s fiery speech at the Munich Security Conference in February, in which he blasted Europe for what he claimed were incursions on free speech. “We have got to do more as the West than just talk about democratic values. We must live them,” she said, paraphrasing Vance’s remarks. Vance has repeatedly refused to acknowledge that Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. In his Munich speech, Vance criticized Europe’s “old, entrenched interests” for “hiding behind ugly, Soviet-era words like ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation'” to suppress alternative viewpoints and quash the possibility of an outsider winning an election. “We support the right of everyone to offer their views in the public square, agree or disagree,” Bruce said, parroting Vance. Le Pen’s conviction has elicited a wellspring of support from other far-right figures, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Italian League party boss Matteo Salvini and Dutch populist Geert Wilders. Le Pen could still appeal her sentence. If her bid fails, she will get a four-year prison sentence ― two of which were suspended and two to be served under house arrest.

A behind-the-scenes foreign policy disagreement between President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance spilled into public Monday, an extraordinary example of Vance breaking with Trump and other members of his administration and calling the timing of a recent military operation in Yemen “a mistake.” The private dispute was made public in a stunning report in The Atlantic out Monday in which the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was inadvertently added to an encrypted group chat of senior Trump administration officials as they planned airstrikes on the Houthis in Yemen. It marks the first reported incident since Trump took office that Vance has butted heads with the president and other top officials in his hard-line isolationist stance against Europe. “I think we are making a mistake,” Vance said to the group chat, which included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, national security adviser Mike Waltz and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, according to the report. It doesn’t appear that the president was included in the group chat. “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now,” Vance added. “There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.” Vance sent the message March 14, the day before Trump announced he had authorized a series of “decisive and powerful” airstrikes on the Houthis, an Iran-backed, U.S.-designated terrorist group in Yemen that has for two years targeted commercial and military shipping in the Red Sea. Two days before, Trump had announced 25 percent steel and aluminum tariffs and the European Union swiftly retaliated, launching the allies toward a trade war. About 30 minutes after he delivered the message, Vance told Hegseth: “if you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.” (The administration has argued that America’s European allies benefit economically from the U.S. Navy’s protection of international shipping lanes.) “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC,” the Pentagon chief replied. Still, he added, “I think we should go.” Buckley Carlson, Vance’s deputy press secretary, declined to comment to POLITICO. Will Martin, Vance’s communications director, told The Atlantic that Vance “unequivocally supports this administration’s foreign policy.” “The Vice President’s first priority is always making sure that the President’s advisers are adequately briefing him on the substance of their internal deliberations,” Martin said, adding that Vance and Trump “had subsequent conversations about this matter and are in complete agreement.” Vance has emerged as the administration’s attack dog on Europe, leading the charge on the GOP’s once-niche and now-accepted stance that the U.S. need not continue to support Ukraine. Last month, Vance stunned the European political establishment in a speech at the Munich Security Conference, delivering a harsh reprimand of the continent for losing sight of its values. Other top officials in the group chat agreed with Vance’s distaste for helping Europe, whose economy is far more affected by Houthi attacks on shipping routes than that of the U.S. Waltz said he was working with the Pentagon and State Department “to determine how to compile the cost associated and levy them on the Europeans.” And a person with the username “S M” — presumably White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller — said it would be necessary to “make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return.” On the morning of March 15, Hegseth in the group chat detailed the forthcoming strikes, which Trump announced on Truth Social about three hours later. “I will say a prayer for victory,” Vance replied.

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has spent years eroding democracy, stifling dissent and purging the country’s army and civil service. Now, it looks as though he’s chosen this geopolitical moment to bury the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the secular founder of the Republic of Turkey.
 How else to interpret the Islamist populist’s moves against the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP), which was founded by Atatürk, and the incarceration of the party’s popular Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu — an opponent with a real chance of winning the next presidential election? Erdoğan’s political rivals have little doubt this is exactly what the man who would be caliph is aiming to do — ditch what’s left of Turkey’s democracy by neutralizing the country’s main opposition and shift to full-bore autocracy. As hundreds of police officers converged outside his home last week, İmamoğlu video-messaged his supporters: “We are up against tyranny, but I will not be discouraged,” he said. His detention came just a day after authorities shabbily revoked his university diploma — a move aimed to disqualify him as an electoral contender, as Turkish law requires presidential candidates to be university graduates. However, since formally removed from office, İmamoğlu still appears poised to win his party’s primary on Sunday to become Erdoğan’s main challenger in the next election. From one perspective, the timing of his arrest was curious: Stripping İmamoğlu of his university credentials would have been sufficient to exclude him from running and, anyway, the presidential election isn’t due until 2028 — although there’s been chatter it could come sooner. So, why move against him now and launch the arrests of 106 others, including officials from İmamoğlu’s CHP? Some argue Erdoğan didn’t want to wait and allow the Istanbul mayor’s candidacy the opportunity to gain more steam. But Gönül Tol, author of “Erdoğan’s War: A Strongman’s Struggle at Home and in Syria,” suspects the explanation lies in what’s happening beyond Turkey’s borders: The Turkish leader likely felt emboldened by the unfolding geopolitical shift toward autocracy, and so felt this was an auspicious moment to strike. “[U.S. President Donald] Trump’s anti-democratic actions at home have fueled a global climate where autocrats elsewhere feel empowered to further crush dissent,” she said. Trump, who regularly calls for his political opponents to be locked up, is hardly likely to lecture Erdoğan, publicly or privately, over İmamoğlu’s incarceration. And in an interview with the MAGA-loyal Tucker Carlson last week, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff described a recent phone conversation between the two leaders as “great” and “transformational.” So, why move against him now and launch the arrests of 106 others, including officials from İmamoğlu’s CHP? | Yasin Akgul/Getty Images Admittedly, that was before İmamoğlu’s arrest, but the U.S. president has hardly taken pause himself, continuously striking at political foes since his inauguration. Visiting the U.S. Justice Department last week, he called his adversaries “scum,” “savages” and “Marxists,” before adding they’re “deranged” and “thugs” for good measure. It’s all in keeping with the vow of retribution he took at his first official campaign rally in Texas. So, of course, Erdoğan would harbor no worries as to Trump’s disapproval. The two have lavished priase on each other for years, and the Turkish leader has said he supports his American counterpart’s peace initiative in Ukraine — no doubt music to Trump’s ears. Erdoğan isn’t alone among the once embattled autocrats — and would-be autocrats — sniffing the change in the geopolitical air, and reckoning they’re on the cusp of a new era, able to erase the rules and norms of old and replace them with ones more to their liking. It’s influencing their behavior as they look to each other for inspiration and new ideas for running their respective countries — whether it be weaponizing policies affecting sexual minorities, scapegoating migrants, sharpening attacks on independent media, transforming public broadcasters into government mouthpieces or just closing them down. And seemingly, they’re ready to giving each other a helping hand too. As Turkish authorities banned public gatherings and restricted public access to social media, Trump’s “best buddy” Elon Musk suspended Turkish opposition accounts on his platform. The organizing principles once again seem to be that might is right and “great” leaders know best, as the era of liberal technocrats — which, of course, had its own problems — gives way to a new era of strongmen, utterly brazen in shaking off any restraints. At times these strongman appear to be in an almost chummy rivalry, competing to be the most blatantly illiberal they can be. And in this friendly competition, Erdoğan is this week’s clear winner. At the most recent Munich Security Summit, there was desperate effort to put on a brave face before the shifting tide. After the initial shock of U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s speech, which made no bones about stipulating Europe dance to the illiberal ideological tunes of his boss, there was an outward effort to carry on as if nothing had happened. But on the margins, those opposed to illiberalism didn’t disguise their alarm. And one side-event saw liberal Scandinavian diplomats debating a rather disturbing question: Who will be on the winning side of history? They didn’t have an answer — it looks like Erdoğan thinks he does.