April 26, 2025
Evangelos Venizelos *
What is Happening in the West?
Let us conventionally define “the West” as the domain shaped by the synthesis of liberal democracy, a capitalist economy supplemented by greater or lesser degrees of welfare state, continuous technological innovation, a shared sense of security—and thus a common perception of threat from various versions of “the East”—and the legacy of modernity, with all that precedes or follows it historically. This last dimension encompasses the historical relationship with Christendom, the cultural and moral substratum, prevailing mentalities, and the manner in which history and the concept of progress are understood. The West, ultimately, represents both a way and a standard of life, existing along a spectrum within which there are significant internal differences, but all of which are mutually recognized as Western.
The West is, therefore, a historical, cultural, normative, institutional, economic, and geopolitical entity. Its geographical locus places it in Europe and North America, but it also branches out beyond the Euro-American sphere, even where not all its constitutive elements are fully present. According to this typology, the West is grounded in a system of shared assumptions and taken-for-granteds, in an almost automated sense of solidarity, and in a common view of the international order and its organization through international institutions and the norms of international law in the fields of politics (primarily the UN and regional bodies such as the Council of Europe or the OSCE), economics (WTO, IMF, World Bank, OECD, etc.), and defense (primarily NATO).
Above all, the West is based on the sense of a shared historical destiny between the United States and the European Union, without overlooking American primacy and the role of the U.S. in European security. This dynamic did not emerge only after World War II; it can be traced back to the final phase of World War I, the conclusion of which—under American pressure—led to the founding of the League of Nations, in which the U.S. did not participate, as it entered a roughly twenty-year period of isolationism that ended with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the country’s entry into the war.
After 1945, the West became one of the two camps of the Cold War, in direct opposition to the Eastern bloc led by the Soviet Union and its allies. From this era also remains, even beyond 1990, the tangible military reality of the American nuclear umbrella that extends to Europe as a strategic argument of containment against the Russian nuclear arsenal.
This edifice of the West can be dated in multiple ways: sometimes beginning with the Ancient Greek Polis and Rome, sometimes with the Christian promise or at least the religious wars and the Peace of Westphalia, and sometimes with the Cold War. In any case, it is a palimpsest that, until just a few months ago—until January 20, 2025, the beginning of Donald Trump’s second presidential term—appeared solid and strong, “resting” or perhaps more accurately “complacently resting” on its self-evident foundations.
It is striking that only a few weeks of governance by one man—an institutionally powerful but not omnipotent figure as President of the United States—have sufficed to cast into doubt, or at least into debate, the very substance of the West. A civilizational entity with such historical depth and referential power, such normative and cultural foundation, such geopolitical significance, such economic strength, such institutional inheritance, and such a role in the global balance of power.
What is happening? Is the entire Western edifice so fragile and vulnerable? Is the West wholly unprepared for the possibility that its constituent elements and very raison d’être might be challenged by its own institutional leader, the President of the United States? Is the West structurally imbalanced to the extent that it can be unilaterally dismantled by the U.S. if it decides that it defines itself as a distinct historical, political, economic, geopolitical, and defense entity—regardless of its connection to Europe, or worse, in opposition to Europe?
The chain of questions extends even further. Does the current American administration, by virtue of a democratic mandate, possess the authority to alter not merely strategic choices but historical configurations such as the one we call the West? Can all those elements we identified as constitutive of the West be replaced by a “transactional” perception of international economic, political, and military relations—one that is completely “value-neutral,” institutional-neutral, and historically agnostic—thus treating the European Union and NATO on the same terms as the Russian Federation, and later, China? Treating democratic and authoritarian regimes alike in the same “unprejudiced” and transactional manner? With the same readiness to negotiate directly with Iran and Hamas, and later with North Korea?
Uncertainty clearly dominates the landscape. Mainly because many critical—or even disruptive—decisions are proclaimed, then amended, later suspended, or placed under negotiation. We see this in international economic relations and in the use of tariffs as policy tools; in the handling of the declared objective to end the war in Ukraine through a set of defenses, geopolitical, and economic agreements between the U.S., Russia, and Ukraine; in the management of the situation in the Middle East, with particular focus on the future of Gaza. We see it also in the domestic sphere, in the President’s relations—with reference to the Unitary Executive Theory—with Congress, the Supreme Court, the States, and the Federal Reserve.
The substance of the West is therefore under strain urbi et orbi, both in the City—i.e., within the U.S.—and in the World, to borrow a phrase from papal messages, evoking the recent death of Pope Francis, which managed to bring both the President and Vice President of the United States to Rome within days, with all that such a gesture symbolizes.
* Former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Hellenic Republic, Emeritus Professor of Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
Published in Greek at the newspaper TA NEA
