After Greenland: The Nude World Order | View from the Danube #12

At Davos, a thin sheen of normality was pulled over what was the most abnormal World Economic Forum in its history. It felt less like a swish cocktail party for the global elite — more like the moment in a dive bar before closing, when someone turns on all the lights.

America has decided it’s going it alone.

Europe might finally be waking up to its folly — but that’s a helluva hangover.

At Davos, Donald Trump dominated, with his threats over Greenland.

But it was Mark Carney who said what everyone was thinking: the American led world order is an order, not a request. Choose accordingly. This is not a transition, Carney suggested. This is the state of anarchy that comes before a transition.

Small nations like Hungary, who have both tied their stock to the US, and found themselves at odds with the Brussels bureaucracy, now straddle a wider divide than ever.

More broadly, how does the European right continue to argue for national self-determination and the transatlantic alliance, in the face of an America that is cooling on both?

At a practical level, Europe can no longer defend itself, AND maintain elaborate welfare states — and that’s a revolution in the head no one on the old continent is yet ready for.

The continent’s cosy sophistication is ebbing away. Now, Europe stands naked before the coming global headwinds.

After Greenland: America First, the end of illusions, and the coming nude world order.

This time, on View From The Danube.