The world in 2025 is a very dangerous place because the alliance of the bad guys is growing closer, stronger, more intimidating — just as the alliances that bind together the good guys are in disarray and threatening to unravel.

Above all, we face an increasingly united evil at the very moment that doubts are growing about the commitment of the most important democracy of all — America — to the various democratic alliances that have kept us free since the fall of Hitler’s regime eight decades ago.

The western world is at a watershed, facing some historic choices. Do we proceed on the basis that, despite all President Trump’s bluster, America will remain the essential ally as we confront united and re-energised autocrats? Or must we realise that we have to adjust existing alliances and build new ones without America’s central involvement?