Never tell a parent that their baby is ugly. It infuriates them to no good purpose. It's not like they can change it.
On the other hand, good friends really should tell their addict buddies that they are spiraling into disaster. It's not kind to be an enabler.
As for admitting to your wife that her ass looks fat in that dress? I leave that up to you.
The Trump administration's newly released National Security Strategy fits into the second category: trying to save a bosom buddy from slow suicide. And, like many addicts and their "friends" who enable them, the tough-love message is not being received well.
The Trump administration's message to Europe is blunt. America loves Europe, but Europe is committing suicide, and they cannot expect us to pick up the tab for its self-destruction:
The diagnosis is brutal but accurate: Continental Europe’s share of global GDP has collapsed from 25 per cent in 1990 to 14 per cent today. Cratering birthrates, migration-driven social fragmentation, and what the document calls “the real and more stark prospect of civilisational erasure” threaten to make the continent “unrecognisable in 20 years or less.” Washington’s message is simple: America will help defend a Europe that believes in itself, but not a civilisational hospice.
Let’s start with the aspect European elites most want to avoid: The cultural crisis. The strategy doesn’t mince words about “migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife” or the “loss of national identities and self-confidence.” This language (which is unprecedented in an American security document) will trigger howls of protest from Brussels. But as I’ve written before, we’ve reached the point where Taylor Swift concerts and Christmas markets require counterterrorism operations. The multicultural fantasy has collapsed into a tribal reality where an overbearing state manages conflicts between incompatible communities.
Can anybody seriously disagree that Europe is collapsing under the weight of its self-destructive policies, and that it is working mightily not only to hide that fact, but that it is trying to drag the United States down with it. Like an addict who raids the wallet of his father and the purse of his mother to pay for another fix, European countries are demanding that the United States pay for their defense as they regulate our speech, demand we open our borders to a flood of migrants, and fight their wars for them. (Emphasis added.)
American officials have become used to thinking about European problems in terms of insufficient military spending and economic stagnation. There is truth to this, but Europe’s real problems are even deeper.
Continental Europe has been losing share of global GDP—down from 25 percent in 1990 to 14 percent today—partly owing to national and transnational regulations that undermine creativity and industriousness.
But this economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure. The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.
Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less. As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies. Many of these nations are currently doubling down on their present path. We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation.
Many in the foreign policy elite are appalled at the blunt language the Trump administration is using here, and the implied threat that the United States might turn its back on Europe if it doesn't get its act together. Of course, the same class of "experts" was appalled at Winston Churchill's "warmongering" in the 1930s and his willingness to bluntly state the obvious, that Hitler was an existential threat to Europe and needed to be contained while he still could be.
Irony alert: Brussels goes “inclusive” with a faceless Baby Jesus to keep Christmas from being “offensive.”
— Jake (@JakeCan72) December 4, 2025
Meanwhile — the same night — protesters waving Palestine flags, chanting for intifada, and setting off smoke bombs fill the square…
👉 And Baby Jesus ends up beheaded.… pic.twitter.com/QU4kYtERdA
Trump isn't saying that Europe's baby is ugly; he is telling a Europe addicted to policies that are destroying its civilization that it must change course or die.
The Ukraine War has had the perverse effect of increasing Europe’s, especially Germany’s, external dependencies. Today, German chemical companies are building some of the world’s largest processing plants in China, using Russian gas that they cannot obtain at home. The Trump Administration finds itself at odds with European officials who hold unrealistic expectations for the war perched in unstable minority governments, many of which trample on basic principles of democracy to suppress opposition. A large European majority wants peace, yet that desire is not translated into policy, in large measure because of those governments’ subversion of democratic processes. This is strategically important to the United States precisely because European states cannot reform themselves if they are trapped in political crisis.
Yet Europe remains strategically and culturally vital to the United States. Transatlantic trade remains one of the pillars of the global economy and of American prosperity. European sectors from manufacturing to technology to energy remain among the world’s most robust. Europe is home to cutting-edge scientific research and world-leading cultural institutions. Not only can we not afford to write Europe off—doing so would be self-defeating for what this strategy aims to achieve.
American diplomacy should continue to stand up for genuine democracy, freedom of expression, and unapologetic celebrations of European nations’ individual character and history. America encourages its political allies in Europe to promote this revival of spirit, and the growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed gives cause for great optimism.
Our goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory. We will need a strong Europe to help us successfully compete, and to work in concert with us to prevent any adversary from dominating Europe.
Trump's opponents in the transnational elite are, predictably, accusing Trump of embracing Putin and abandoning our European allies. But if you read the National Security Strategy, it's obvious that this is not the case at all. It is quite clear that the US needs and wants a strong, vital Europe, but the continent is moving in a direction that will soon be irreversible.
The EU has virtually declared war on free speech and is targeting American companies. That war just began with the first DSA fine. Not surprisingly, X was the chosen target — a company blamed by many in the EU and the U.S. for rolling back free-speech protections...…
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) December 6, 2025
It's obvious that the European populace is not just opposed but also angry about the direction its elite is taking the continent. The rise of populist movements is being met not with reform but rather with political suppression, early morning raids on ordinary citizens who post memes or critiques of government policies, and even suppression of displays of national flags.
It has gotten so bad that sexual violence by migrants is tolerated, but speaking of it can land you in jail.
The Trump administration is committed to defending a European Europe, but not one that is hostile to freedom and dominated by migrants who are hostile to Western values.
America is, understandably, sentimentally attached to the European continent— and, of course, to Britain and Ireland. The character of these countries is also strategically important because we count upon creative, capable, confident, democratic allies to establish conditions of stability and security. We want to work with aligned countries that want to restore their former greatness.
Over the long term, it is more than plausible that within a few decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority non-European. As such, it is an open question whether they will view their place in the world, or their alliance with the United States, in the same way as those who signed the NATO charter.
It is striking that Trump's critics read into this document nothing but hostility to Europe. Quite the opposite is true.
Like a good friend, the administration is warning its addicted friends that we will not stand by or even enable Europe's self-destruction. Instead, we are happy to help the continent recover, but refuse to participate in its slow suicide.
What’s even worse is that the US is in a MILITARY ALLIANCE with the very countries attacking us via the EU. As @VP @JDVance noted earlier this year, this contradiction cannot continue. The nations of Europe cannot look to the US for their own security at the same time they… https://t.co/ftfo2YlgkD
— Christopher Landau (@DeputySecState) December 6, 2025
What’s even worse is that the US is in a MILITARY ALLIANCE with the very countries attacking us via the EU. As noted earlier this year, this contradiction cannot continue. The nations of Europe cannot look to the US for their own security at the same time they affirmatively undermine the security of the US itself through the (unelected, undemocratic, and unrepresentative) EU. This fine is just the tip of the iceberg. As I mentioned to every European leader I just met at the NATO Ministerial Meeting in Brussels, the EU’s support of the Communist and anti-American regime in Cuba is another striking example of the EU affirmatively undermining US security while the vast majority of its member states look to the US for their own security via NATO.
Liberals always seem committed to enabling self-destruction. Whether it is handing out needles to addicts rotting their own bodies or impeding the enforcement of immigration laws, they reliably choose the wrong policies in the name of compassion and kindness.
Just as the UK elite enabled gangs who stalked Britain's young, vulnerable women and denied the obvious, the transnational elite has been committed to destroying its great cultural legacy.
Trump is begging them to wake up and fly right, and is getting vilified for doing so.
