NEWS
Between two Autocrats
18-02-2025In my inaugural adress in 1985 at Leiden University, my theme was: Between Two or Against One ? At the time the answer was still clear. It is different today in Donald Trump's second term as U.S. President. What he announced to do, is clearly being done. Not in foreign policy only but much more dangerously in turning the American democracy into a new U.S autocracy.For us Europeans indeed a new and most dangerous change.The answer to my own question today is: between two autocracies. What the two autocrats Putin and Trump are up to is expansion of power and territory: Ukraine, Moldavia, Poland and the Baltic democracies on Putin's side and the Gulf of Mexico, Canada, Greenland and the Panama canal on the other,, Trumps side. The two autoccrats understand each other, but with little or no interest in peace and world order. Europe is in serious danger.
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- Cultural Diplomacy: Waging war by other means?
- The Illusions of Détente,
- Western Cooperation
- Sporen van de Twintigste Eeuw
- European Unification into the twenty first Century...
- De geest van Christus leeft in Europa
- Neither Justice nor Order
European Unification into the Twenty First Century
Footprints of the 20th Century - Third EditionDescription
The story of European Unification is fascinating. In 1950, two sworn enemies – France and Germany – decide to seek reconciliation and European federal unity. As a first step, they created the European Coal and Steel Community together with Italy and the Benelux countries. The fathers of this new Europe were visionary persons. Does today`s student or scholar still know who Robert Schuman, Konrad Adenauer, Alcide de Gasperi or Willem Beyen were and what they stood for?