Intra-Western disputes expose Western hypocrisy, disunity and decline

This position holds that the West's internal quarrels expose its hypocrisy, double standards and decline, discrediting its claim to moral leadership. Its advocates point to disunity, crisis and chaos in European politics, to tariff and trade disputes between Europe and the United States, to censorship and crackdowns on opposition, and to US moves on Greenland.

Russian outlets voice it, 8 to 16 publishers in each of the disputes over European political fragmentation, the AfD and German polarisation, Europe-US strategic tensions, Greenland, French political instability, transatlantic trade, European defence autonomy and EU migration policy.

It is answered by four positions: that allies have freeloaded on US protection and must pay, that deeper EU integration is the answer, that Brussels overreaches and nations are right to resist, and that the US alliance is unreliable. These parties dispute the diagnosis rather than the existence of the quarrels. Recent events show the AfD and Chancellor Merz clashing in the Bundestag, heavy CDU losses in two state elections, a US-Denmark-Greenland security deal with two new US bases, and the Kremlin rejecting Marine Le Pen's claims of a Russian threat.