News

A recent BBC article laments the changing relationship between the United States, Britain, and the rest of Europe (January 14, 2019). The author reflects nostalgically on the former close ties between the U.S. and Europe—a relationship that grew closer under American presidents following the Cold War.

The London Telegraph recently published an article with the sobering title “Geostrategic dystopia: is this the year the world falls apart?” (January 7, 2019). The article states, “This is the year that serial hammer blows to the Western alliance system and the edifice of global governance threaten to bring the old order tumbling down…. Pax Americana is unravelling. The transatlantic concord underpinning the West since the 1950s is dying.

Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union on March 29 of this year. Yet, this week, British MPs voted “No” on a British exit plan that has been more than two years in the making (BBC, January 15, 2019). While European leaders have referred to Prime Minister May’s exit plan as the best solution possible, the votes against the plan were more than two to one—the greatest defeat in history for any British government.

The website German Foreign Policy reported that the recent Berlin Security Conference had some informative moments. “Germany’s Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen used the platform to launch a debate on steps toward limiting parliamentary reservations concerning an ‘army of the Europeans’” (November 29, 2018). German defense spending in five years is forecast to surpass the current level of Russian military spending.