Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who served in this position from 2009 to 2014, has proposed a new “Democracies 7”, or D7, as a format through which middle power democracies could coordinate more closely on trade, technology, defense, critical raw materials and economic security.
The proposal was presented at this year’s Copenhagen Democracy Summit, which is hosted by Rasmussen, and is set out in a paper published on the occasion. The proposed founding members are Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and the United Kingdom. Four among these states, Canada, Japan, Republic of Korea, and the United Kingdom, are already members of the existing Community of Democracies.
Rasmussen, who chairs the Alliance of Democracies Foundation and previously served as Danish prime minister, framed the D7 initiative as a response to what he described as a breakdown of the post Second World War order, closer cooperation among authoritarian regimes and uncertainty over United States foreign policy. “The world we once knew, the democratic foundations we once took for granted, are collapsing,” he said in the conference’s opening speech. He added that “an axis of autocracies has risen” and that “America is retreating from the order it built.”
The democratic foundations we once took for granted are collapsing
In his paper, Rasmussen argues that the seven proposed members together represent around US$36 trillion in combined GDP, roughly 30 percent of the global total. On this basis, he contends that they would have sufficient economic weight to deter coercion and to offer alternatives in areas such as trade, investment and technology.
The D7, as Rasmussen presents it, would not be a closed alliance or formal bloc. In his speech, he called it “a nucleus, a core, a vanguard” that could build “flexible and inclusive partnerships with democracies around the world.” He mentioned India, Brazil, Taiwan and South Africa as possible partners in specific areas of common interest.
The paper identifies six initial areas for cooperation: a plurilateral trade alliance, a mechanism for collective response to economic coercion, a Democratic Technology Initiative, a critical raw materials strategy, a defence pillar and coordinated global investment as an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. At the conference, Rasmussen said the D7 “cannot be a talking shop” and should focus on “the big questions” of free trade, economic coercion, emerging technology, defence, global investment and critical raw materials.
One of the specific ideas is a so-called “Economic Article 5”, a reference to NATO’s mutual defense clause found in Article 5 of the NATO agreement. Under this concept, if one democracy were targeted by sustained economic pressure for political purposes, the “D7” group would respond collectively. The paper lists possible measures such as supply diversification, opening markets to affected exports, coordinated trade restrictions and targeted financial countermeasures. Rasmussen’s argument is that economic coercion is easier when democracies are confronted one by one, while a joint response by economies representing a large share of global GDP would alter the calculation of the coercing state.
One of the specific ideas is an “Economic Article 5”
Rasmussen also linked the proposal to the war in Ukraine, which he described as a central test of democratic resolve. “Ukraine’s security is our security,” he said, calling for stronger European support and for Ukraine’s future to lie in the European Union and NATO. His paper also argues that Ukraine should be seen not only as a recipient of assistance but as a source of lessons for defense innovation, including drones, electronic warfare and civil military adaptation.
The governance model proposed for the D7 is limited. Rasmussen suggests an annual leaders’ summit, a quarterly steering council, super-majority decision making and a lean secretariat. Rather than beginning with a formal treaty, the paper says the initiative could start through informal meetings alongside existing international gatherings.
According to Rasmussen’s paper, the United States could join particular initiatives or potentially become part of the core group if its political direction changes. The proposal is presented as a way for democracies to act without waiting for US leadership, while still leaving open the possibility of future American participation. Excluding the U.S. from the D7 core group at this time reflects a massive and unprecedented democratic decline under the second Trump administration and its aggressive stance towards allies such as Canada, Greenland and Denmark, among other things.
Rasmussen acknowledged that the D7 approach and getting independent from the U.S. would involve costs. “Freedom has never been free,” he said, adding that higher defense budgets would require difficult choices and that democratic states would face disinformation, destabilisation and disruption. He closed by arguing that “if the age of American global leadership is ending, the age of democratic solidarity must begin.”
The D7 format takes account of the fact that important middle powers themselves are governed by authoritarian regimes which excludes them from being obvious democratic allies.
On social media Russian dissident Garry Kasparov commented that forming a D7 was “perhaps the most important debate for global security right now.”
According to Democracy Without Borders, an Alliance of Democracies should not be exclusively intergovernmental and include “parliamentarians and representatives of civil society organizations.” Further, it should be explored whether the Community of Democracies may play a role, the group noted.
