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"Europe's real 'threat from within'".

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Russ Roberts (https://trendsingeopolitics.blogspot.com).

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May 21, 2025

Hello, everyone. Today at WPR, we’re covering the biggest internal threat facing Europe and the challenges facing Sri Lanka’s new president.

But first, here’s our take on today’s top story:

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa arrives at the National Results Operations Center to hear the announcement of the outcome of the country’s general elections, in Johannesburg, South Africa, June 2, 2024 (AP photo by Emilio Morenatti).

South Africa: President Cyril Ramaphosa will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House today, reportedly accompanied by the South African golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen. The meeting comes just over a week after a group of Afrikaners—a white ethnic minority in South Africa—were flown into the U.S. and granted refugee status. (The Guardian)

Our Take: While Ramaphosa has said his main priority in today’s meeting will be trade talks, that goal will run headfirst into tensions with Trump, who reportedly plans to directly press...

	Subscribe to WPR to read our take on today’s top story.

While addressing the Munich Security Conference back in February, U.S. Vice President JD Vance declared that the biggest threat Europe faces is from within, in the form of a retreat from its core values. Though his speech shocked European leaders and the trans-Atlantic foreign policy community, Vance was onto something. It’s just that the internal threat is the opposite of what he described in Munich.

The real threat is found in the public support for and normalization of the nationalist far-right movements that are back on the rise across Europe. These movements seek not just the erosion of liberal democracy in Europe, but the hollowing out and fragmentation of European integration. And the threat they pose from within is compounded by the external threat posed by Russia as well as the risk of American abandonment and possibly even betrayal, Nathalie Tocci writes.

Europe Does Face a Threat From Within. Vance Just Misidentified It

By Nathalie Tocci On the rise across Europe, nationalist far-right movements are seeking the erosion of liberal democracy and the end of European integration.

*****

It’s been a busy few months at the polls for Sri Lanka, which recently completed its third set of elections in under eight months, capped by local elections held on May 6. The voting determined the makeup of local councils across the island.

As Jeevan Ravindran reports from Jaffna, Sri Lanka, the outcomes signaled that while President Anura Kumara Dissanayake continues to enjoy popular support, his honeymoon period may be nearing its end.

In Sri Lanka, Dissanayake’s Honeymoon Period Might Be Running Out

By Jeevan Ravindran Sri Lanka’s leftist president swept to power last year riding a wave of discontent. His honeymoon period may already be nearing its end.

Germany’s new government has reportedly signaled to France that Berlin will no longer object to nuclear energy being treated on par with renewable energy in EU legislation. The dispute between the two countries had held up decisions on EU energy policies governing the green transition in recent years.

This week’s question: Should nuclear energy be a major component of efforts to decarbonize the economy?

Yes. No.

We’ll select one person from those who answer the question above to receive a free month of full access to WPR.

The Southeast Asian bloc ASEAN will hold two meetings next week specifically on the civil war in Myanmar. The country’s military junta has been barred from ASEAN summits since it took power in a 2021 coup that ultimately led to the internal conflict.

That isolation has begun to lift since Myanmar was recently devastated by an earthquake in March, offering regional powers an opening to engage with the junta in ways that had previously been politically untenable. As Michael Hart wrote recently, a meeting last month between the leader of Malaysia—currently the chair of ASEAN—and the leader of Myanmar’s junta was a significant step up in offering the military leadership a path out of regional isolation.

Myanmar’s Earthquake Is Handing the Junta a Path Out of Isolation

By Michael Hart May 6, 2025 | An earthquake in March devastated Myanmar. It also provided the military junta an opportunity to shore up its regional relations after years of isolation.

*****

Uganda’s parliament yesterday passed a law permitting military tribunals to try civilians for certain offenses, a response to a Supreme Court ruling in January that banned the practice. The ruling forced the government to transfer the trial of opposition figure Kizza Besigye to a civilian court.

The regime of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has long targeted opposition activists through trumped-up charges, but in recent years it has expanded and doubled down on the strategy. And as Sophie Neiman wrote in November, trying civilians in military courts is a key aspect of this approach, as they offer defendants fewer protections than civilian courts.

Museveni Is Trying to Break Uganda’s Opposition Through the Courts

By Sophie Neiman Nov. 15, 2024 | In the face of youth mobilization, Uganda’s longtime ruler is increasingly turning to trumped-up charges against opposition activists.

*****

A bombing on a school bus in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province killed at least six people, including four children, earlier today. Balochistan has seen a surge in militant violence over the past year, causing tensions between Iran and Pakistan, which share a porous border that straddles the wider Baloch region. Both sides have been pursuing a thaw, but as Emil Avdaliani wrote last year, neither is addressing the underlying grievances that are driving the separatist violence.

*****

Iran today executed a man who stormed Azerbaijan’s embassy in Tehran and killed its head of security in January 2023, an attack that prompted Baku to close the embassy amid already tense bilateral relations. Since then, though, Iran and Azerbaijan have pursued a rapprochement, culminating in Baku opening a new embassy in Tehran last year. Read more in this briefing by Emil Avdaliani from last year.

More from WPR

Charli Carpenter on U.N. peacekeeping. Laura Kupe on a potential U.S.-Congo minerals deal. Bilal Ahmad Tantray and Rishabh Yadav on the India-Pakistan conflict. James Bosworth on illicit gold mining in South America.

Read all of our latest coverage here.

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