Kenneth Glad
Democratic governments are reassessing how much they can depend on familiar alliances. One proposal puts that question at the center of a new international debate.
The world’s democracies should form a new alliance that leaves the United States outside the room, says Anders Fogh Rasmussen in an interview with Danish newspaper, Berlingske Tidende.
Fogh, Denmark’s former prime minister and a former NATO secretary general, led NATO from 2009 to 2014. For a former NATO chief, calling for a democratic bloc without Washington marks a sharp break.
He told the newspaper that the proposed group should be called D7, or Democracy 7. It would include Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan and the European Union.
A warning to Washington
Fogh says that, by his calculation, such a group would represent about 30 percent of global GDP.
He argues that would give it enough strength to withstand pressure from Donald Trump, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin:
“In a world where we see global freedom and democracy in constant retreat, we need the world’s democracies to work more closely together.”
His criticism of Washington centers partly on Trump’s threats involving Greenland:
“Until last year, I of course regarded the United States as the natural leader of such an alliance of the world’s democracies. But not least after Trump’s threats of an attack on Greenland, I must conclude that the United States, at least for the time being, does not want to be the leader of the free world. So we must create an alternative.”
The summit setting
Berlingske reported that Fogh linked the proposal to the Copenhagen Democracy Summit at the Royal Danish Playhouse.
Speakers include Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton and Greenland’s head of government, Jens-Frederik Nielsen.
Fogh said the idea is also meant to send a message to Trump’s political camp:
“I think we now have to show the ‘America First’ movement and the Trump administration that we are not more dependent on the United States than that the free world can easily manage on its own.”
For Europe, the proposal raises a sensitive question: What happens if Washington can no longer be treated as the automatic anchor of democratic cooperation?
Sources: Berlingske Tidende
