To Save Democracy and Defeat Putin, Give Up ‘the West’
In inviting non-Western democracies to the G7, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has the right idea.
Modi and Scholz, allies in waiting.
Photographer: Clemens Bilan/Getty Images
Even clumsy communicators occasionally say something worth hearing. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, for example. He’s of late been accused of muddling his messages in support of Ukraine and much else. But if you pay attention, he’s actually trying to achieve something huge: a global — rather than “Western” — alliance of democracies against autocracies such as Russia and China.
By accepting that mission, he’s in effect taken the baton from U.S. President Joe Biden, who hosted a rather underwhelming “summit for democracy” in December. That was before Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine, when rallying the freedom-loving nations didn’t seem quite as urgent. Nor did it help that the U.S., long the world’s beacon of liberty, is itself struggling to preserve democracy at home.