Old Europe and New Europe are terms used to contrast parts of Europe with each other in a rhetorical way. In the 21st century, the terms have been used by conservative political analysts in the United States to describe post-Communist era countries in Central and Eastern Europe as 'newer' and parts of Western Europe as 'older', suggesting that the latter were less important.[citation needed] The term Old Europe attracted attention when it was used by then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in January 2003 to refer to democratic European countries before the fall of Communism in Europe, after which a significant number of new members have eventually joined NATO, European Union, and other European bodies.