Leadership vacuum in world's wealthy democracies has grown suddenly acute

Yet the lack of a shared Western vision on fundamental issues from trade, to the environment, to the Middle East and multilateralism suggests many of the values that once underpinned the relationship

The old conundrum of who to call if you want to speak to “Europe” now applies to “the West” as a whole.

With lame-duck leaders in the U.K. and Germany, President Emmanuel Macron humbled by the Gilets Jaunes revolt in France and the U.S. profoundly divided over its role in the world, an emerging leadership vacuum in the world’s wealthy democracies has grown suddenly acute.

“There is no leadership in Europe” or from the U.S., former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who ran the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as secretary general from 2009 to 2014, said in a phone interview on