Europe’s Changing Politics and the Future of U.S. Leadership

“And now, there is war again. There is new competition between great powers. There is vulnerability, aggression, terrorism, a whole universe of new threats and attacks again. And so, we must rebuild our institutions and our alliances to face these threats together.” From Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s October 7th speech in Greece, at the Acropolis. Mr. Rubio’s excellent speech should be mandatory reading for high school and college civics classes. Mr. Rubio’s message was clear: He warned that Western nations are at a critical inflection point, facing a choice between maintaining global leadership or sliding into “atrophy, servitude, and decline”. Francesco Sisci, a Sinologist and Director of Rome’s Appia Institute, says America is failing to exercise leadership and is pushing Europeans toward China. Recent public opinion polls and surveys across Europe show shifting views in how Europeans view the U.S. and China.Trust in the U.S. alliance and traditional transatlantic ties has dropped significantly, while public favorability toward Chinese leadership in some European nations has occasionally edged higher than views of U. S. leadership. Some of this can be attributed to the U.S. p...