The political elites of Europe appeared shocked by J.D. Vance’s blunt speech in Munich last month outlining Washington’s top security concern to be “the threat from within” the NATO alliance and castigating leaders for their brazen assaults on “democratic values”, including censoring speech, suppressing popular opposition parties and cancelling elections. Washington’s message to its allies is straightforward, says N.S. Lyons on Substack: end the information war and get the hell out. Here’s an excerpt.
The transatlantic alliance has for years been waging a hybrid information war on the American public (among other nations). Above all, the objective of this politics by other means was to stop the rise of Donald Trump and the populism he represents. But that war failed; now Trump is back and, as Vance warned the political and military leaders assembled in Munich, “there is a new sheriff in town” in Washington. Much as they risk being abandoned and left standing alone holding the bag in Ukraine, the allies of former President Joe Biden across the pond have been left stranded in the digital trenches of America’s cold civil war, still combatants on what’s now distinctly the losing side. Vance was politely informing them that their cyber-soldiers had better pack up and leave the conflict zone immediately.
Vance reiterated this message directly to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer in the White House last week, saying: “Look, I said what I said, which is that we do have, of course, a special relationship with our friends in the UK and also with some of our European allies, but we also know that there have been infringements on free speech that actually affect not just the British but also affect American technology companies and by extension American citizens.” He was not just talking here about American discomfort with British and European disregard for the abstract value of free speech; he was pointing to their active information warfare against the United States, its new government, its companies and its citizens. So when Starmer stammered in reply that “certainly we wouldn’t want to reach across US citizens, and we don’t…” that excuse was both transparently false and unlikely to cut it with the new sheriff.
If the countries of Europe and the Anglosphere don’t want to be treated as enemies of the United States instead of allies, they are going to need to retreat from the war they’ve been waging on behalf of Washington’s old regime and disarm their censorship machines. That means reining in their intelligence services, cutting off support for their non-state armies of transnational censorship organisations like the Centre for Countering Digital Hate and backing off of legal frameworks like the Digital Services Act and the Online Safety Act that are designed to control information and political discourse across borders. Vance has been hammering this point ever since he threatened during the campaign to withdraw US support from NATO if Europe continues trying to regulate American politics through the DSA, noting that it would be “insane that we would support a military alliance [NATO] if that military alliance isn’t going to be pro-free speech”.
Washington’s message to its putative allies is straightforward: end the information war and get the hell out. If they instead ignore these warnings and continue to meddle in America’s domestic political affairs then they may soon find out its new sheriff is willing to impose real diplomatic and economic consequences for their continued aggression.
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
The EU came to believe that it could operate as a counter to the U.S. in international affairs.
That is one of the reasons that Britain left the EU.
Europe has now emerged blinking into the real world of power politics where zero armoured divisions means as much international influence as the Pope has.
‘In foreign affairs, the only principle is to have none’
To have entered that world having unilaterally disarmed over the last thirty five years looks a great deal worse than just simply careless.
For the last few decades politics has been mostly word games. Politicians ‘count coup’ by landing a verbal slap on an opponent.
But you could reasonably argue that all the benefit of mere word games has been extracted and it is now back to politics through actions. Although the realisation is taking some time to sink in.
Trump is making the right noises.
Hopefully, he will carry them through.
Although there is a “new sheriff in town” it remains to be seen if his actions differ from the old liberal regime in their end result.
My fear is that he will carry on with US hegemony and the US centric Unipolar World but just use different tactics to his Democrat predecessors.
US isolationism would bring a more peaceful world.
A conspicuous part of the information war is the ridiculous panty wetting by Europe over what Vance was supposed to have said yesterday. Any reasonable analysis of his words shows that he was not indicting Britain but was referring to random countries who have had no recent exposure to combat, which has to include all the former neutrals.
It was perfectly obvious that Vance was speaking in general terms and the gist of his remarks were TRUE.
These people show no shame with the dishonest faux outrage they spew across the ether so promiscuously.
These wombles can FRO.
It’s a normal and regular tactic by American Democrats and media who are opposed to Trump and his voters to twist what is actually said and turn it into a myth to be repeated over and over until believed by many.
“If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it,
And what is more YOU WILL COME TO BELIEVE IT YOURSELF”.
…….Joseph Goebbels
This is how the liberal-left live over:
Covid-Vaccines (“safe & effective”)
Russia – Ukraine (“unprovoked attack”)
Global Warming oops..”Climate Change”…oops….????
The European weenies cry and shake over “the new Sheriff”, because they have pumped out Ukraine propaganda for three years, censoring any speeches/interviews/press conferences by any RussiaN voice (notably Foreign Minister Lavrov) and so now are BRAINWASHED BY THEIR OWN LIES.
Reminds me of a Leftist caller on FIVE LIVE yesterday, he accused the Right of being totalitarian and into ‘eugenics’. That is typical of the Left accusing the Right of what they do.
I’m curious why my post (and what changed) when last edited by @Hardliner? Who is that?
In Washington, a spade is a spade. In Europe’s capitals, a spade is a mobile manual excavating paradigm. Word salad meets American plain speaking.
If you’re in a hole in Russia’s former front garden, stop digging.
… or in hole in a European garden.
End the War on Freedom now
I was disappointed that Starmer didn’t get the Zelensky treatment before VZ did. After Munich, when the new landscape was made perfectly clear, Starmer should have been given a public ultimatum by Trump, starting with Starmer’s position on freedom of speech: ‘Are you with us, or without us? We prefer with, but we’ll cope with either answer…’
Meantime,US-based YouTube is still censoring Katie Hopkins, who as a result is taunting them and enjoying it. Most recently they shut down her discussion about Tommy Robinson, which just set her off on a rant – which they then broadcast. Go figure…
She is so brave, and honest!
The entire reason that Britain and Europe have been able to control their agendas and ignore huge sections of their own populations is entirely die to the absence of free speech and the establishment’s efforts to police speech that dies not align with their own views. It is intentional and insidious. The establishment knows full well that were free speech possible here then it would surely be game over for their deluded policies and narratives.
Both sides of the Atlantic need to clear out the stables by removing the offenders from positions of power and influence.
The perpetrators are from the same political wing, being very unpatriotic, and attempting to destroy the very fabric of their own country, with help from anyone, often a foreign country or financial concern, and especially from each other!
Trump: USA was Secretly Funding UK Trans Movement
https://youtu.be/Rv26KfeEhy0
And the same process would benefit the countries in the Europe: yes, between each EU country, Brussels, and the UK. And it might even improve the their relationships with Russia.
This is quite an eye opener to me, I had little idea that the EU had overstepped the mark quite so far. High time there was a reset.
We saw the Authoritarian British Establishment’s attempt to fight back against JD Vance this week.
Vance, commenting on Two-Tier’s hilarious “coalition of the willing” commented about the likely performance of “a random country which hasn’t fought a war for 30 or 40 years.”
He didn’t mention Britain or France, and he obviously excluded them from his comment since they have both fought in wars within that timescale.
But in a performative outrage, the assembled ranks of British politicians and their tame poodles in the MSM, expressed their outrage that he could make such a remark about the UK …. when he quite obviously hadn’t. Even Farage got in on it … presumably thinking he needed to demonstrate his patriotism.
The anti-Trump Establishment thought they would be getting 2 years of an active Trump Presidency, followed by 2 years of a lame duck. They’ve just woken up to the fact it will be 4 years of a very active Trump Presidency, almost certainly followed by 8 years of President Vance. So they’ve started the process of discrediting him in the eyes of the Sheeple now.