JD Vance’s traumatic past doesn’t explain his bullying of Ukraine: his ‘might is right’ doctrine does | Karolina Wigura and Jarosław Kuisz

The man who wrote Hillbilly Elegy would have recognised the old eastern Europe. But he's attacking the democratic order we yearned for

Even before the shocking treatment of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, the US had voted with Russia in the UN. Alarm bells about the security threat now facing Europe were already ringing during JD Vance's speech in Munich in February, when he questioned the point of defending Europe's liberal democracies from Russia.

For the countries surrounding Russia, this is not just about impertinence or failing diplomacy but about potentially being wiped off the map.

Karolina Wigura is a Polish historian and co-author of Post-Traumatic Sovereignty: An Essay (Why the Eastern European Mentality is Different)

Jarosaw Kuisz is editor-in-chief of the Polish weekly Kultura Liberalna and the author of The New Politics of Poland: A Case of Post-Traumatic Sovereignty

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