What is The West?

The West is such a vague, artful term. What is it, really?

I just posted a fresh new brief informal paper on Medium which briefly explores this topic.

Western Europe and the United States constitute the bulk of what is commonly referred to as The West.

The West are countries which have a fairly close set of shared values, heritage, and interests, referred to as Western interests, primarily security and economic, but cultural as well.

[Note: The West as used here is not referring to the western portion of the U.S. or the western portion of any other country or region. The context is strictly international.]

The West can also be defined as the countries and institutions which derived their political, economic, social, religious, and philosophical beliefs primarily from the traditions of Western Europe, primarily the UK, France, and Germany, with influences from Spain and Italy as well. And further back, Greece.

Countries with a similar heritage, values, and interests would be included as well, such as Canada.

For more detail, read the full paper here on Medium: