World Review: Europe and America Meet in Europe — Rupture, Rift, Revival?

A synopsis of this week's edition of World Review

Each week, I host a video podcast called World Review with Ivo Daalder where journalists from major news outlets around the world join me to discuss the latest global news stories of the week.

Yesterday, February 14, coming to you from the Munich Security Conference, we discussed the widening transatlantic divide, the fight over what comes after the American-led global order, and how Ukraine is slipping from the center of the conversation even as the war grinds on. Joining me this week were Karin Axelsson, EU Correspondent of Politiken, Steve Erlanger, Chief Diplomatic Correspondent of The New York Times, and Alexander Ward, National Security Reporter of The Wall Street Journal.

“World Review is always fascinating. I love the fact that you can get journalists from around the world to participate since zoom is the medium.”

— A Subscriber to America Abroad

While I encourage you to listen to the episode (and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!), here are a few interesting things I took away from our discussion:

• It has been an eventful weekend in Munich, but despite spending Valentine’s Day together, the relationship between Europe and the US remains fragile. Europeans wanted to hear that Washington still sees the continent as a partner, and Marco Rubio delivered that reassurance in softer language than last year’s speech by JD Vance. But as Karin noted, the underlying ultimatum still came through: do it our way, share our values, or be prepared to stand alone. What made this conference feel more on edge was not just the lingering anger over Greenland, but the way the Trump administration continues to frame the core threat as something inside the relationship rather than outside it, as Alex pointed out. If last year, the conference was about America; this year, it is about Europe and how Europeans will respond to this new reality.

• The bigger debate hovering above everything was whether the rules-based order is gone, and if so, what replaces it. Steve drew a useful distinction between Mark Carney’s language of rupture and Friedrich Merz’s language of rift: one implies a clean break, the other an attempt to repair and create a more resilient alliance. As Karin pointed out, Europeans are trying to salvage the rules-based order, but what an alternative world order could look like remains unclear. For years, American leaders have struggled to make the case that the rules-based order of alliances, trade rules, and institutions matters to ordinary voters. Yet declaring the order dead is its own kind of surrender. If the West vacates the institutions it built, Steve warned, others will fill the vacuum, and Europeans, especially smaller states, have no interest in a world where power alone writes the rules.

• Except for the hour Zelenskyy spent on stage, Ukraine was noticeably absent from the conversations in Munich. Alex noted that Ukraine is being sidelined because no one knows what to do. The key question of how to get Putin to end the war remains unanswered. Steve argued it is starting to feel like the United States is losing interest. Karin suggested that in Europe, the debate over Greenland has crowded out attention on Ukraine, which is fighting for Europe’s security and values in real time through another cold winter. As the war drags on, Zelenskyy’s ability to keep pushing for support wears thin, and audiences shrink.

Those are my quick takes on this week’s episode here on World Review. To get the full story, please listen to the episode itself.