Talk is cheap (for Americans). Europeans were still reeling from a pair of unthinkable acts of American aggression when I arrived in London last week, and wow did they want to tell me all about it. First, President Trump signaled he would be negotiating Ukraine with Putin, a conversation Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy might not even be a part of. Then, a couple days after that, Vice President JD Vance gave a speech in Munich in which he argued yes, Putin was a danger to the continent, but the greatest danger facing European liberalism was the European “liberal.” Specifically, the EU had abandoned free speech. Vance rattled off a long list of examples including “commissars” in Brussels threatening to shut down social media during civil unrest, police raids in Germany on citizens suspected of posting “anti-feminist content,” the conviction of a Christian activist in Sweden charged with burning a Koran, and the United Kingdom’s arrest of Adam Smith-Connor for silently praying near an abortion clinic. Much as you would expect from a teenager told to clean his bedroom before dinner, European response to the speech was apoplectic, and has quickly given way to an identity crisis. Today, Europeans are openly rethinking their relationship with America. Now, to their credit, Americans don’t typically think about Europeans. But among the few of us who sometimes do, the feeling that we no longer have that much in common is mutual.

Vance’s reminder to Europe that allowing people with whom we disagree to speak is a core Western value was considered so totally chilling that Friedrich Merz, Germany’s leading candidate for chancellor, speculated America might soon collapse into autocracy. German’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, EU Foreign Policy Chief Kaja Kallas, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, and then German Chancellor Olaf Scholz all condemned the speech. But everyone on the continent, from every walk of life, had something to say. Over the weekend, the popular young actor Joe Locke was asked what Londoners feel about America. They’re worried for us, he said. This was surprising to hear, as I had just taken a drive through East London and found myself worried for Europe — not because a European politician was defending the concept of free speech, but because large swaths of Europe now resemble the Islamic third world.

This is no small rift between cultures. This is a schism between American and European-style liberalism, and it is already reshaping the West’s relationship in business, as is painfully evident in Europe’s unprovoked act of trade war against America’s technology industry. Culture is following. Eventually, probably in our lifetime, possibly imminently, we will find ourselves in a state of military conflict, not against each other, but without each other. World War II, it seems, is finally close to over. It’s worth addressing why.