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The west used to be Europe + US & Canada, in the near future it might be Europe, Canada & Japan (& South-Korea? & Taiwan), at which point the west would not be a good name anymore. Just thinking.
Yes, we are going through a strange timeline ... In this year's Copenhagen Democracy Summit in Warsaw, former Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen proposed what he called the "D7", the "Democracy 7", comprising Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and the United Kingdom (four of these countries are already members of the Community of Democracies).
Rasmussen pointed out that the D7 represents roughly US$36 trillion in combined GDP, approximately 30% of the global total, enough economic leverage to deter coercion by any country.
He said that the D7 must not be a closed club but could be joined by what he called associates, democracies aligned on specific initiatives (he named India, South Africa, Norway; we could add Taiwan and several other countries); as well as partners, non-democratic states that want to cooperate on single issues of mutual interest without partnership.
Here is Rasmussen's paper (pdf) if interested.
I like that constalation, although I dislike it having democracy in the name. There are many countries that are democratic but not aligned with these 7, especially in Africa and Latin-America. But him saying in should not be a closed club is nice. It shouldn't be closed. But if the US travels much further on it current path it makes sense to improve our relationship with other friends.
This made my day!
this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2026
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