The EU foreign policy chief has declared that “the free world needs a new leader”, as European leaders threw their support behind Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, after the stunning White House confrontation between him and Donald Trump.
Leaders from across Europe expressed their solidarity with the Ukrainian leader after the fractious exchange with JD Vance, the US vice-president, and Trump, who claimed he was not “ready for peace” and accused him of “gambling with world war three”.
Although in general the European leaders did not name the US president, their comments late on Friday laid bare the gaping rift between the US and its traditional allies in Europe over the war in Ukraine.
In a social media post Kaja Kallas, the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, wrote: “Ukraine is Europe! We stand by Ukraine. We will step up our support to Ukraine so that they can continue to fight back the aggressor.
“Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge.”
No. But yes.
Like pretty much every social construct, it only really exists as far as people have faith in it. Money only has value because we blindly assume that the grocery store will accept them. Any agreement only has the value of the belief it will be honoured. Law only has meaning if we believe they’ll be applied.
In any coalition there will be participant members with disparate interests. Someone needs to speak for the whole to generate the faith that the collation really does have alignment (that the coalition truely exists). In turn there must be faith that constituent members really do support the direction-setter, at least in so far that they won’t leave the coalition given internal disagreement.
It’s the “U” in USA. Without a federal government, without a leader, it’s just the SA.
The USA was the de-facto leader of the Western world since about May 8, 1945. I think history will recall that reign ended Feb 28 2025. I’m not sure if it’ll be the EU body directly from here on out, or if it’ll directly be France or Germany who acts in the function of the leader of the free world.
Thats a really long winded way of saying, “No, but there will be one anyways.”
No. It was a long winded way of saying “it’s not strictly necessary from a purely functional standpoint, but it is in reality because humans are mushy and irrational especially in groups”
Fair enough.