‘Rules based international order’ is dead, 20th century never coming back

Anthony J. Constantini

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For a moment last week, it appeared that European Union officials finally had realised that the 20th century was never coming back. At the Munich Security Conference, Vice President JD Vance delivered a stemwinder of a speech, castigating European states (and union officials) for various hypocrisies when it comes to the protection of democracy. His speech, though well-received on the American Right and by populist Europeans desperate for a MEGA (“Make Europe Great Again”) movement of their own, got a cold response in the hall, as slowly it dawned on Europeans that this second Trump administration would differ greatly from the first.

But that moment of realization lasted less than 24 hours. Later in the conference, two other Republicans spoke: Senator Lindsey Graham (Republican of South Carolina) and Senator Roger Wicker (Republican of Mississippi), both of whom delivered an essentially opposite message: all is well.

Wicker, the influential chairman of the Armed Services Committee, critiqued Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth for saying NATO membership was effectively off the table for Ukraine. Graham, elsewhere, went even further, insisting that, “Trump now sees Ukraine differently.”