The Weekly Forum - 23 January 2026

When Naomi Klein wrote ‘The Shock Doctrine’, she was describing capitalism which, she claimed, provokes or exploits chaos (wars, natural disasters, other crises) to destroy countries and then to asset-strip them. Donald Trump, it seems, is adopting a similar tactic in foreign policy. A series of shocks in quick succession – Venezuela, Iran, Greenland – have allowed him to throw everything into disarray and then to reconstruct new arrangements around himself (‘The Board of Peace’). The European Council convened an emergency summit straight after the Davos meeting and, on the surface, it is all business as usual: European leaders cannot think out of the box. But of course everything should change – starting with the leadership of the EU whose incompetence beggars belief.  Ralf Dekker addressed these pressing issues in committee recently, concluding that it was a time for a complete re-think of the international system, on the basis of a new paradigm, national interest, and without any taboos.

Watch Ralf Dekker’s speech here

FVD International’s director, John Laughland, was interviewed on The World Today, this week, out of Australia. John drew attention to the paradox first identified by St Augustine: ‘The aim of all wars is peace.’ This is because war is waged in order to obtain victory and, with it, peace. This basic fact is unfortunately not understood in the current debate about Ukraine. When Trump re-entered the White House a year ago, he forced ‘peace’ onto the agenda, which Europe had been rejecting since 2022: in September 2022, Ursula von der Leyen ruled out a ceasefire saying, ‘I know there are calls to stop the fighting. But … if Ukraine stops fighting, there will be no more Ukraine.’ Now the Europeans have adopted the vocabulary of peace but are in fact doing everything they can to continue the war for another two years, in the hope that Russia will collapse by then.

Watch John Laughland’s interview here

FVD International’s Vincent Vos was interviewed by Eugene Gioni on European Pulse Media, discussing Dutch and European politics. Their discussion ranged widely and included domestic Dutch politics – climate policy, immigration, remigration etc. – but also international affairs and of course the war in the Ukraine. Liberal democracy, one of Vincent’s favourite themes, was also examined - and comprehensively dissected!

Watch Vincent Vos’ interview here

Slobodan Despot, the author, publisher and political commentator, was our guest on The Forum this week to discuss the EUSSR – the similarities between the European Union and the Soviet Union. If you missed it, listen back.

Watch The Forum here