(Frank Gardner – BBC) It is one year since US Vice-President JD Vance delivered a bombshell speech at the Munich Security Conference, castigating Europe for its policies on migration and free speech, and claiming the greatest threat the continent faces comes from within. The audience were visibly stunned. Since then, the Trump White House has tipped the world order upside down. Allies and foes alike have been slapped with punitive tariffs, there was the extraordinarily brazen raid on Venezuela, Washington’s uneven pursuit of peace in Ukraine on terms favourable to Moscow and a bizarre demand that Canada should become the “51st state” of the US. This year, the conference – which begins later this week – once again looks set to be decisive. US Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio leads the US delegation, while more than 50 other world leaders have been invited. It comes as the security of Europe looks increasingly precarious. The latest US National Security Strategy (NSS), published late last year, called on Europe to “stand on its own feet” and take “primary responsibility for its own defence,” adding to fears that the US is increasingly unwilling to underpin Europe’s defence. But it is the crisis over Greenland that has really tugged at the fabric of the entire transatlantic alliance between the US and Europe. Donald Trump has said on numerous occasions that he “needs to own” Greenland for the sake of US and global security, and for a while he did not rule out the use of force.
Munich Security Conference: Trump’s world order hangs over Europe
