What Next For A Westless Europe?(Source thetrumpet.com) World leaders gathered for the Munich Security Conference in one of the most important military and foreign-policy conferences of the year. This year’s theme was “Westlessness.” Since the end of the Second World War, “the West” has been one of the key players in world events. While not totally unified, the West includes the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Western Europe, with Eastern Europe joining after the end of the Cold War. This bloc has held similar values—freedom, democracy, relatively free market economies—and is held together by a series of overlapping alliances, like NATO and the European Union. Westlessness is the end of this worldview. This bloc wields less power on the world scene. It is less unified. Parts of it are turning against its core values. With leaders from both the U.S. and Europe giving their thoughts on the big issues of the day, the conference exposed the massive divide between the two. “The two sides aren’t just far apart on the big questions facing the West (threats from Russia, Iran, China), they’re in parallel universes,” wrote Politico.

French President Emmanuel Macron and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier openly blamed many of their problems on the U.S. Many in the room no longer consider themselves on the same side as the U.S. “One thing is certain: There will be no return to the heyday of close trans-Atlantic ties,” wrote Deutsche Welle. There is much talk of Europe becoming a sovereign, strategic, political power. There are demands that Germany once again learns the language of power, which French President Emmanuel Macron has already seemed to master.” Macron really drove the agenda. His push for a strong European military received strong support