The Weekly Forum - 13 February
14 februari 2025 | Forum for Democracy Intl
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s announcement on 12 February, made to NATO colleagues in Brussels, that
1. it is not realistic for Ukraine to regain its 2014 borders,
2. the US opposes NATO membership for Ukraine,
3. the US will not send troops to Ukraine and
4. if European troops are sent, they will not be protected by Article 5 of NATO
is a comprehensive torpedoing of the whole of US-EU policy on Ukraine since 2008. NATO is now both politically and militarily dead, having been defeated on the very battlefield where it has said since 2022 it had to win. FVD has long opposed the war: only a few days before Hegseth’s remarks, FVD’s Ralf Dekker accurately predicted this outcome. He said that Europe needs a radical rethink of its security policy – a clear anticipation of the Americans’ decision to leave Europe in the lurch. Unfortunately there is little sign that Europe is preparing to revise its copybook. Quite the contrary.
Read Ralf Dekker’s speech here
Not only is Ukraine being dumped, not only has Europe committed economic suicide for no benefit, but also it is doubling down on its own totalitarianism. FVD MP Gideon van Meijeren has recently led the charge against a new law which will give the Dutch government the power to close down organisations which undertake ‘activities aimed at undermining, or threatening to undermine, the democratic rule of law or public authority’. But surely undermining public authority is what happens all the time when that authority is criticised, as it surely should be in a free democracy. Unfortunately lawfare is already being deployed against political opponents – all of FVD’s members of parliament have been the victims of judicial harassment, and worse, for their legitimate political activities. Totalitarianism is already with us.
Read FVD’s statement on the new law here
Meanwhile our allies in Europe have a similar diagnosis. We are honoured to publish an English translation of Reconquête MEP Sarah Knafo’s recent open letter to a prominent left-wing TV personality. He had accused her of demagoguery for saying that Europe was sliding into anarchy, as European children are murdered on a regular basis by various migrants, terrorists and hoodlums. ‘You judge a regime by the number of dead bodies it produces,’ she said, quoting a famous political scientist from the 1970s. Her text is far from demagogic but instead seethes with true pain and anger at the collapse of European society under the weight of imported barbarism.
Read Sarah Knafo’s article here
The formidable Sasha Latypova was our guest on The Forum this week to discuss Covid as a military operation conducted by the Pentagon. If you missed it, you can watch it here.