Just hours before the black SUVs carrying dozens of European leaders crunched across the gravel of Blenheim Palace on Thursday, Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance put the US’s foreign partners on notice. “Together we will make our allies share in the burden of securing world peace,” he said at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. “No more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the American taxpayer.” That wasn’t even the most strident rhetoric we’ve heard from the junior senator from Ohio, who voted against the US supplemental aid package for Ukraine that passed in April. In February, he told the Munich Security Conference “the American security blanket has allowed European security to atrophy,” arguing that in a world where munitions manufacturing is limited, the only option for Ukraine is a negotiated settlement. Vance was echoing the GOP’s presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has long criticized NATO and accused partners in…
