JD Vance is graceless, reckless and pointless

By the time JD Vance took to the stage in Europe, the USA had already muddied almost all of its clear lines. Secretary of defense Pete Hegseth had appeared to withdraw the US from its commitments in Europe, and ruled out several options for peace in Ukraine. Donald Trump launched peace talks over Ukraine without bothering to involve Ukraine. Some efforts were being made to walk back some of these comments, but everyone – allies and adversaries alike – were confused.

This was, then, a moment for JD Vance to demonstrate his seriousness – as well as that of his administration – by clearing up the mess of his colleagues, handily setting himself up on the world stage as presidential at the same time. 

Needless to say, he did not live up to the moment, instead delivering a bizarre speech that brushed aside “external” threats to Europe and in its place framed the culture war as the central conflict of modern times. 

Even allowing that Vance may feel this is a serious and important issue, to give that speech in front of Europe’s top defence brass while people are fighting and dying in a hot war was fundamentally unserious, to the point of insult. On one level, Vance’s actions were deeply unsurprising and hardly out of character. Despite that, the vice president has shocked Europe to its core, merely by living down to expectations.

From the stage, Vance lectured Europe – a coalition of dozens of independent nations – on the difficulties of divisions, and of losing its values. While America’s commitment to Europe’s defence is in doubt, he chose to lecture the United States’ European allies on their internal values and politics.

Vance questioned Europe’s commitment to free speech, based on incidents of hate speech in Sweden and on buffer zones around abortion clinics in the UK (during which he parroted a false trope shared online that such zones can criminalise silent prayer in one’s own home). 

American lawmakers justify their intrusion on Europe’s laws online because they could, in theory, interfere with the speech of American citizens on the internet. Here, there was no such justification: Vance was poking his nose in other countries’ business for no good cause. America’s first amendment covers America – and while free speech is a protected right in Europe, it is explicitly balanced against a right to a private life which is not similarly enshrined in the US constitution.

The securocrats in the room will have noticed multiple ironies abounding in Vance’s remarks. The first is that Russia – which despite his dismissal, poses an active threat to freedom in multiple European nations – might as well have written Vance’s speech for him. Russian influence operations in Europe target DEI, Islamic immigration, and the supposed censoriousness of European nations, as their major talking points.

They do this not because they have sincere opinions on any of these issues, but because they work to divide their targets – they will be picked up by certain actors in the media and used to polarise their countries. Even as Vance rubbished the idea of “misinformation” and influence operations, he demonstrated their power and success.

Beyond that, though, Vance either expected America’s European allies to share in MAGA’s delusions about America’s values or else didn’t care that they wouldn’t. Few European politicians intend to be lectured on democratic norms by the sidekick of a president who staged a failed coup when he lost an election four years ago – and who freed everyone involved on his re-election. 

They will give similarly short shrift to concerns about free speech from an administration systemically defunding any research that may align to speech they dislike on inclusion, bias or similar. Trump’s allies in Congress are calling for Biden officials and independent researchers to be “punished” for their work investigating foreign disinformation against the USA – in the name of free speech. Europe has lived through enough to see easily through such facades.

Vance’s speech made little tactical sense. It was essentially a waste of his time, and of everyone else’s. Americans pay no attention to what their officials say on overseas visits. The domestic news agenda in the USA is hardly quiet – the collapse of the judiciary department, DOGE’s assault on the government, and more dominate the headlines. 

If Vance’s speech was supposed to impress his base at home, it will fail, as they won’t hear it. Meanwhile, Trump is trying to accomplish things in Europe: he wants America to take possession of 50% of Ukraine’s rare earth metals. He wants to force European nations to buy American defence tech, instead of manufacturing their own.

His erratic and insulting speech gets the US no closer to any of its strategic goals. It may have emboldened some of Trump’s far-right allies in the US, but with the risk of a significant backlash. 

Europe has been almost sclerotic in response to Trump. France and Germany have weak and divided governments, and the EU has been asleep at the wheel on what a second Trump term might mean. Vance has done what was previously regarded as almost impossible: he has both woken up and united the European mainstream. 

There is still every chance they squander that opportunity, but they are for once alert to the new reality of global politics: the USA is no longer a reliable ally to anyone. Whether it takes months, years, or decades, global politics will be reshaped in ways that diminish the USA’s role.

Perhaps after decades on top, the USA has had enough, and will welcome a smaller role – but such diminishment tends to take a toll on a nation’s ego. Trump rarely promises anything short of glory for America, whether at home or abroad.

During the cold war, people used to talk contemptuously of “useful idiots” – people who would parrot Soviet propaganda messages designed to diminish or derail the West, often unwittingly. 

Vance’s address to Munich might have escaped that categorisation, if only for the simple reason that it was so misjudged and meandering that it did nothing to advance the Trump or MAGA agenda, even as it needlessly insulted America’s old allies. Nothing about Vance’s speech could be described as “useful”. That leaves only one word left.