Huge disappointment is greeting 2017 with the coming inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the United States of America and his false solutions to all the problems facing the world. The Middle East is in turmoil. Mass migration has become a threat to European stability. Terrorism is on the rise.

Trump is a dangerous man and Vladimir Putin is on the march. Xi Jinping’s China is increasingly becoming assertive while the west seems impotent enough to let Putin reject liberal democracy in favour of nationalism and autocracy.

Western economies are also being affected, to varying degrees, by slowing growth, rising inequality and high unemployment, especially in southern Europe.
Economic blunders have also undermined western states’ reputation for competence while raising that of Russia and, still more, China. It has also, with Trump’s election, torn a hole in the threadbare claims of US moral leadership. Europe’s pro-Russian populist leaders are hoping for similar upset victories in elections this year, especially in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Austria.

Trump’s overtly conciliatory attitude toward Russia and his open admiration for ‘Macchiavelli’ Putin have inspired the leaders of these populist European parties to dream of a grand new alliance between themselves, Putin and Trump. Such an alliance would certainly make a mockery of western efforts to defend from Russian aggression, the liberal order that has guaranteed peace and prosperity in the west since the end of World War II. It would have very serious consequences for the survival of liberal democracy and the vital freedoms it protects not only in Europe but in a world where autocratic leaders are on the rise.

At this stage, no one seems to know how to move forward. In the meantime, the populist parties continue to gain influence, especially Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right National Front Party.

Wake up, Europe.