On February 14, 2025, JD Vance, the Vice President of the United States, addressed the Munich Security Conference.  This conference is one of the world’s most important forums on international security policy. Traditionally, it focuses on transatlantic unity, but JD Vance’s speech signaled a shift in US foreign policy, especially regarding Europe. In 2025, the conference was the first direct engagement between the newly inaugurated Trump administration and European allies. The conference was expected to be extremely important given Donald Trump’s campaign claim that he would “end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours.” Instead, the speech became historic by calling into question the model of Western liberal democracy and by producing a troubling crack in transatlantic unity.

In his speech, JD Vance did not cover international security challenges as expected. Instead, he focused on what he sees as internal threats to democracy. “The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor,” he said at the beginning of the speech. Instead, he argued, the threat comes from the “liberal agenda” in Europe.

He brought up what he claimed were cases of restricting freedom of expression in Europe, such as during praying protests near abortion clinics.  “In Britain, and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat,” he stated. He went on to say: “Now, to many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old, entrenched interests hiding behind ugly, Soviet-era words like “misinformation” and “disinformation,” who simply don’t like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion, or, God forbid, vote a different way, or, even worse, win an election.”

Vance even gave several hints of support for AfD, Germany’s far-right party, a few days before the German elections were to take place—ignoring how much disinformation AfD engages in. He also downplayed Russia’s propaganda and hybrid war as “a few hundred thousand dollars of social media advertisements.” He further added that “if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t powerful to begin with.”

Finally, he argued that Europe should increase its defense spending to provide its own security, while America focuses on the areas of the world that are “in danger.” It clearly sent the message that Europe is no longer a priority for the U.S.

Jan-Werner Müller’s theory of populism provides an interesting lens to understand these developments. Müller’s arguments focus on national-level politics and on leaders using populist rhetoric to win domestic elections. Yet, three of the mechanisms he identified can be observed in the Munich speech and its aftermath: anti-elitism, anti-pluralism, and identity politics.

Anti-elitism was on display in Vance’s claim that European politicians do not listen to their people. For him, European leaders have very low accountability with their electorate as they pursue a “liberal agenda.” Vance spent half his speech talking about listening to and hearing “the people” without explaining who the “people” are. For example, he said that “No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants. But do you know what they voted for? In England, they voted for Brexit.” He surely knows that Western democracies are pluralist environment with growing polarization—so who is “the people”? He implied in the speech that Brexit resulted from a consensus, ignoring that more than 16 million voters wanted to remain in the EU. Today, 55% of the British people believe that it was a mistake to leave the EU. In that sense, his arguments match the populist and pro-Russian narratives of far-right candidates across Europe. Finally, much of the speech intersected with identity politics, a third characteristics of populism. Vance talked about immigration. He brought up the tragic incident in Munich, where six people died and more than 299 were injured after a man drove a car into a Christmas market, to further anti-immigrant narratives.

In short, Vance spoke as a populist instead of a diplomat. He claimed that he was talking in the name of the real people, ignoring pluralism and polarization, and attacking political elites. His narratives matched pro-Russian ideas, using populism as a strategy and tool, as European pro-Russian far-right parties do.

This speech was scandalous for European society, deeply affecting trust in the transatlantic partnership, but also motivating leaders to start working on increasing defense spending. The unity that supported democracies and human rights across the globe in recent decades has brought peace to the continent. Questioning this alliance was a severe reversal that directly plays into Moscow’s hands.

Bibliography

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Dale, D. (2025, April 25). Fact check: It wasn’t ‘in jest.’ Here are 53 times Trump said he’d end Ukraine war within 24 hours or before taking office. From edition.cnn.com: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/25/politics/fact-check-trump-ukraine-war/index.html

Conesa, E. (2025, Februaru 15). JD Vance calls on German right to ally with far right. From lemonde.fr: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/02/15/jd-vance-calls-on-german-right-to-ally-with-far-right_6738191_4.html

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Davies, M. (2025, February 13). Dozens injured in suspected car-ramming attack in Munich. From bbc.com: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czdl6594835o

Müller, J.-W. (2017). What Is Populism? Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Therrien, A. (2025, February 15). Mother and child die from injuries after Munich car attack. From bbc.com: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czrl51mz7k8o