The MAGA train recently made a stop in . . . Europe . . . "Ouch!"

Why "Ouch!"?

The Munich Security Conference (MSC) is normally a love fest confab of generals, diplomats, think tank academics, and media.

Also present: defense manufacturers with the United States, the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) chiefs on center stage. Even Klaus Schwab and his World Economic Forum (WEF) minions are there!

Neocons love this gathering of security wonks. Munich always shines in its role as host.

Sounds like a fun party, yes?

Normally yes, but please remember we are in abnormal times, like it or not.

The chilly sunny day might have been a deceptive Valentine’s Day setting in Munich, as the famed Hotel Bayerischer Hof welcomed its first, somewhat irritated guests.

Many of the participants had just attended the NATO Defense Ministers meeting the previous day during which U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth grabbed all the headlines.

He accomlished this by laying out the new American position on alliance spending and Ukraine redlines.

"You cannot expect America to remain in Europe forever," said the young secretary.

Gasps of shock in Brussels, Belgium. On to Munich. [screen fades to black.]

Setting aside the looming storm clouds from a very focused and disruptive Trump administration, spirits in Munich were initially upbeat.

After all, the war in Ukraine was raging on, the defense industry was marinating in record profits, and the pesky Europeans choosing between heat, rent or food, were brought to heel. Germany and the U.K. had illuminated a path to extinguishing dissent with swattings and imprisonments.

For the Klaus Schwab WEF anointed, things were looking up.

The knowing smirks during the coffee breaks probably had something to do with the EU putting spin on the ball in Romania, Slovakia, and Georgia.

In those locations, the people showed signs of independence from Ursula von der Leyen's "democracy."

Then the dark Trump clouds rolled back in.

Vice President JD Vance was greeted warmly and effusively by outgoing conference chairman, German diplomat, Christoph Heusgen.

All present probably hoped that Secretary Hegseth’s role in Brussels as the Trump pugilist would enable Vice President Vance to come to Munich as the steady statesman, clarifying an overall commitment to European security.

Nope.

The Vice President’s smile dissolved as he took the podium.

He went right after the hypocrisy of the global elites masquerading as Europe’s leaders raising oppression and a rollup of free speech against a backdrop of propaganda that they were champions of democracy.

Vance calmly turned up the heat, citing example after example of civil rights destructions continent-wide, challenging the decades long definition of "shared Western values."

The vice president said, "But if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with."

Only two applauded.

They were both Americans.

The dead cat bounce as Vance left the stage was historic.

To close out the MSC, Christoph Huesgen tearful farewell speech lamented the exposed schism in the Trans-Atlantic bonds.

His handing the MSC reins over to former NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, also the new leader of the secretive globalist Bilderberg Group, removed any doubt that U.S. policy was no longer aligned with Europe’s.

This despite last summer’s Peace Summit in Switzerland with Russia not present and an endless barrage of anti-Russia/anti-Putin rhetoric.

Europe’s leaders freaked at the Trump administration’s plan to begin a series of talks and state visits with Russia to discuss the Ukrainian war.

Without them.

Although U.S. leaders like Ambassador Keith Kellogg continue to affirm that Ukraine has to and will be at war-ending negotiations, there is zero acknowledgment that perhaps Team Biden and the European kids didn’t do themselves any favors by never engaging Moscow.

EU leaders doubled and tripled down on inflammatory rhetoric against Putin while upholding sanctions that hurt Europeans more than the bear they were trying to poke.

"More money, more weapons, whatever it takes!"

This battle cry from the global neocons continues to this day regardless of the realities on the battlefield.

As the first over several engagements with Russia gets underway in Saudi Arabia to end the war, the indignant Euros led by French President Emmanuel Macron convened an emergency meeting to figure out how to keep the war going.

The fake democracy elites don’t seem to care about one million-plus deaths, ravaged infrastructure, a decimated European economy.

Additionally, they're not focused on Islamic extremist terror playing out in nearly every European country.

European leaders do not like being lectured to.

This writer, having spent half a military career in Europe would humbly tender some advice to our allies and partners.

There is no law here at home that mandates we continue to subsidize your ungrateful enmity and lust for NATO expansion.

You should not take recent speeches as bluffs.

You should digest them as warnings that our leaders are seriously reevaluating the trans- Atlantic relationship in total.

Europe’s momentary lapse of reason may have lasting consequence.

Brig Gen (ret) Blaine Holt is a former Deputy Representative to NATO, lifetime member on the Council on Foreign Relations, tech entrepreneur and Newsmax Contributor. The views presented are those of the author and do not represent the views of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, or its components. Read Gen. Holt's reports — More Here.