It's still baffling to see the US loose so much face in so short a time.
There is definitely truth that Europe has relied on US defense for too long, but what the US got in return is hard to put into words and economic terms.
We bought your tech, culture, defense and so much other stuff.
They're laughing all the way to the bank, the US has locked Europe into so many long-term petrochem supply contracts courtesy of two energy crises, and the US have stated point-blank that the supplies (of LNG, in this case) are tied to the US-EU trade treaty plus whatever changes the US wants to make.
Same protection racket plus a foot on the brake of the EU's push to renewables.
I'm going to guess if net energy use goes up, due to a glut of renewable energy, the gaps on cloudy, windless days will result in greater fossil fuel use than before.
There need to be assurances renewables are replacing fossil fuels rather than just adding capacity.
> Alas, it is exactly the intermittent renewables that create a dependency on fossil fuels.
First of all, this is an insane statement.
> Unless you have nuclear
Second of all, with nuclear most countries will still be dependent on other countries for their fuel needs. So it doesn't solve the problem discussed here at all.
> The US is teetering on the edge of a financial abyss.
Do you say this because of the outstanding debt? Otherwise, just their top 10 publicly traded companies earn more than all but 2 countries. Just the US defense budget ($1T and estimated $1.5T next year), which exports US foreign policy globally, absolutely dwarfs every other country's.
> just their top 10 publicly traded companies earn more than all but 2 countries
Are not European countries trying to reduce dependency on American tech giants? China was very successful in this regard. Russia is also independent but in the most incompetent way possible. The EU could do it quite well.
The USA is not a reliable partner. To send data to the USA from the EU is a fatal mistake that needs to be corrected. The risk was acceptable in the past, but not anymore.
The USA comes from a very privileged position thanks to many factors. The government is making sure that non of the conditions hold anymore.
And what is that worth, when they failed to properly protect their allies in a war they initiated against something that was obvious and expected ? The attack on Iran has been absolutely terrible for the US's image as an absolute military power
Debt, rather the lack of any via ble means for the US to pay back even a fraction of its debt without having the world's reserve currency.
Yes, theoretically they can always print their way out, but that's just default through inflation and bond yields will correct immediately to account for it.
And this is a good for EU. In past decades EU lost energy independence and good part of nuclear because croocked politicians that took dictatorships money while feeding same dictator with oil and gas money.
At the same time EU had no proper army to defend itself because dependance on US or a way to supply said army.
Europe sans Russia does not produce uranium - why people constantly paint this as an independent energy source is beyond me. Of all Russian energy companies, it was Rosatom that could not be sanctioned.
The world's rules were written by them, for them, and their allies notably european countries were willing to go along for the ride for all the side benefit of said safety and stability, both pretended it was a gift out of niceness while it was actually massively profitable
But then a portion of the US started believing the whole gift part, and now they're destroying their own control of the world order and forcing other to realign out of their control
> There is definitely truth that Europe has relied on US defense for too long,
That wasn't the problem for the USA, on the contrary.
«The U.S. is lobbying against SAFE because it mandates contractors from the EU/EFTA/Ukraine. One reason why Tusk is speaking candidly about how shaky the U.S. is as an ally: Washington says it wants Europe to arm itself and take its security into its own hands, but then it demands Europe rely on American hardware. You can't have it both ways.
The U.S. said: "Take over Ukraine's war needs." So Europe did so. Now PURL purchases are being slowed down or are on hold because of America's prioritization of its own requirements for the war with Iran. Talking out of both sides of one's mouth doesn't work anymore, and if Trump wants anyone to blame here, he should look in the mirror. Forfeiting America's security patronage always meant forfeiting our ability to bully and coerce.»
src: https://xcancel.com/michaeldweiss/status/2047689018683408593
Even before Trump, and the invasion of Ukraine, it was transparently obvious that the idea of minimum spending commitment to NATO was intended to prop up the US arms industry rather than actually achieve anything military.
To a certain extent the US occupation of Germany was intended to prevent Germany rearming on its own.
Anybody who had the pleasure to go through relationship with mentally unstable person (for the lack of better words, if I had to guess some undiagnosed borderline disorder on a scale 1-2 out of 10 mixed with some childhood traumas) sees nothing out of ordinary - just daily chaos, tantrums, illogical destructive behavior and very little self-control on the other side.
Narcissism adds a curious twist, but of course for the worse.
The more shocking thing might even be that this whole mess is allowed to continue and that there is no way to stop an out of hand situation. The whole US system can't be trusted even when this administration is gone, it's just broken.
> But the U.S. has made it clear that it wants to concentrate on the Indo-Pacific and the threat posed by China's powerful military, rather than propping up Europe.
If that were true they wouldn't have wasted enormous amounts of expensive ammunition in Iran.
One, I feel like the "propping up Europe" is preposterous when europe is buying those things, not getting them for free, just like american weapon delivery to Ukraine have been paid by europe and not free for a long while now.
Two, the US wasting of ammunition in an ill-prepared fight against Iran that has not produced any of the result they claim to want but managed to make things instable for a lot of the world has nothing to do with helping Europe.
Every year for like the last decade I've heard "pivot to China" proceeded by the US using its various European bases to attack something in the Middle East.
But even worse in this specific case is "we do it for Europe" seems to be the thing they keep repeating, but if they had bothered to ask or warn us we all would have told them to stay the hell away from it, don't touch it, don't start it, no absolutely not.
One country even asked them publicly why didn't you warn us and Trump's only answer was some stupid comment about pearl harbor. This is so absurd.
Ukraine soldiers had some comments on US military guidelines for use of patriots that they saw in this war - incredibly wasteful, where up to 10-15 rockets are used per 1 incoming shahed. They just set the system in automatic mode, let it select targets and fire at its will, and run for the bunker.
Ukrainians, having very little of those (or nothing now), used 1 patriot missile per 1 boogey with little drop in effectiveness, and whole crew remained in and guided it manually. According to them system is built to be wasteful to increase those interception numbers marginally, but for anything but short exchange its a very bad design mistake that can be easily overwhelmed or depleted, as seen trivially exploitable by enemy.
Ukraine government also issued a statement saying that the US forces used 800 Patriot interceptors against Iran in three days at the start of the current war.
While Ukraine used just 600 interceptors in 4 years of war.
Iran is imo. in parts about china. Controlling the strait of Hormuz means controlling a significant amount of energy supplies if china. Same thing with Venezuela.
The problem with this, historically is that the way Europe's geography works, a number of countries are just not going to fairly share in the burden of defending Europe, while other countries have the ability to tax foreign trade. Ireland is famous for this, and looking at a map, you can see why. Spain, Turkey and Denmark have historically taxed foreign trade.
Additionally a number of countries have "unfair" advantages over others. There are 2 straits that control access to the oceans. Which means Denmark and Norway control free trade routes (land routes are not "free" as in they are taxed) into Germany, Sweden, Finland, the Baltics, and of course Russia. This can't be fixed, and the UK effectively occupies Gibraltar to prevent it.
Spain (I'd say Spain and Morocco, but really ... Spain) controls sea access for all Mediterranean countries, from Italy to Georgia, Algeria to Greece. France (and Morocco) being the major exceptions to this. This can't be fixed, and is currently blocked by what is effectively an international force. Spain is not happy with this.
Turkey controls (and intends to tax) trade routes into all the black sea countries, which is most of Eastern Europe.
Oh and UK and the Netherlands, for reasons that are slightly less obvious, control free trade into Belgium.
In addition to this, most countries do not have the resources they need. Not even to survive. And even most countries that could be self-sufficient, aren't (cough Germany, really, WHY????). Really only France is somewhat close to self-sufficient. Specialization, on a country level, is a necessity in Europe, most countries do not have access to free trade routes and are utterly dependent on trade, in other words: they have to pay to survive.
Essentially the situation is simple: all European countries, except France. Spain, UK and Portugal (and, yes, Ireland) COULD get themselves into a secure position, but haven't (and so if it came to it, it would be very hard to do in a short time). All other countries probably can't do it at all. So all these countries have good reason to attack each other.
So the question with getting Europe's armies weapons is: the natural situation is that they'll try to destabilize Europe rather than stabilize it, because that is in most countries' direct economic interest. Historically, they ... you can say Europe was more peaceful than places like the areas of the ottoman empire, for example. But that should not be confused with peaceful in an absolute sense. In fact, the last 80 years or so have been remarkably peaceful, with America guaranteeing access to international trade. Well, I'm sure Russia would counter "guarantee access? You mean control access", and yes, that's been done.
Unfortunately it's very clear that America's power, especially measured relative to other countries, is waning. Meaning America is still far more powerful than, say, Turkey. But it used to be easily 100x more powerful. Now ... it looks more like 10x. Opposing Turkey will be a huge effort for the US, far more than the Iran war will be. US's deal, the Pax Americana, was that America would simply guarantee free trade routes with it's military for everyone, in fact, that's what the Iran war is really about (free trade for everyone behind Hormuz). In exchange, US gets the dollar. Many nations, most obviously Iran, but Turkey, Indonesia, China, Somalia, ... have all taken steps to tax the trade routes they control, which will over time create an untenable trade situation for a very large number of countries.
The situation for Germany in the long term is a simple choice: they can either pay, or attack. We all know what their historical choice has been, as soon as you have a somewhat prolonged economic crisis. Germany is not alone in this, in fact all of Eastern Europe is more or less in the same situation. A decent chunk of those countries are arming themselves (for example, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and Finland have all given hints they're building a nuclear force)
The problem with America weakening is that the US wants free trade, because that directly benefits the US greatly, whereas most other factions want to control trade instead. Turkey, Iran, China, Indonesia, even Spain's current government if we're honest and others want to (go back to) taxing other countries. Historically they have succeeded at this, but it resulted in constant wars.
Good. It’s time for America to leave Europe to its own fate. We should stop messing with it. Once we stop putting things into Ukraine, Europe can resolve internal matters as they see fit without our interference. If they want to make weapons that’s up to them.
So no more US military bases in Europe then? No more trade with a market of 500 million people? No more cooperation on science and research? Nothing of the current US isolationism makes any goddamn longterm sense for the US. Europe and the rest of the world will be fine, mostly.
Just please don't start any wars that mess up the global economy like you just did. Thanks.
Fine. If the US wants to lose that, it's collateral to the US's political changes. It should have been obvious that this was a consequence, and one bad for the USA - e.g. it's much harder to fly aircraft from USA to middle east without refuelling bases in Europe.
> No more trade with a market of 500 million people?
The EU is always willing to trade, and negotiate durable terms. The impediments to that are on the US side. "no more trade" is an exaggeration of course, but the US's actions will limit trade.
> No more cooperation on science and research?
How much science and research is going to happen in the US in the near future? I'm told that it's not a growth area. The EU and others are going to have to step up here, take in researchers, develop vaccines etc.
> Nothing of the current US isolationism makes any goddamn longterm sense for the US.
Agreed, no notes.
> Europe and the rest of the world will be fine, mostly.
The current petrochemical price shock seems like it will be not fine for Europe and the rest of the world. And they will know who to blame. The silver lining is that it helps make the case for solar and renewables, and accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.
I'm upvoting you for the fact, that I want to see USA also decline in power and everything else just to see USA get f... after all of this shit from that Clown in the Clown House.
But otherwise? All of this is stupid. USA always warmongered around everywhere and it gave it a lot of power, petrodollar and control. Its very weird that the USA Strategy is now getting dismanteld like this.
I can only assume its the orange clown who either thinks very ignorant or only for his own interest and gets pushed from Putin to play this game.
I don't mind though, Putin showed how shit his army is and germany/europe knows how to make weapons. Always have
Sure, but then don't cry like a baby that we don't support your made up wars half around the world. Also don't expect us to participate in your global hegemony any more than absolutely minimal necessary amount for as short as possible.
Europe is bigger than US, if US loses (actually lost) all allies its just <5% of global population, against remaining 95%. We can collectively ditch SWIFT, petro dollars and so on that your ancestors spent their lives building to bring you where you are now, and then you will be alone against China (and russia, your forever mortal enemy). Good luck.
We are not complaining, this is good for us long term. I don't think its so good for you compared to where you are now though.
It's still baffling to see the US loose so much face in so short a time.
There is definitely truth that Europe has relied on US defense for too long, but what the US got in return is hard to put into words and economic terms. We bought your tech, culture, defense and so much other stuff.
This rift won't close anytime soon
They're laughing all the way to the bank, the US has locked Europe into so many long-term petrochem supply contracts courtesy of two energy crises, and the US have stated point-blank that the supplies (of LNG, in this case) are tied to the US-EU trade treaty plus whatever changes the US wants to make.
Same protection racket plus a foot on the brake of the EU's push to renewables.
The renewables rollout just keeps going despite the discourse. It does mean buying things from China, which is now the least threatening option.
Alas, it is exactly the intermittent renewables that create a dependency on fossil fuels.
Unless you have nuclear or another reliable source like hydro, which you only get if you have the right topography for it.
How do renewables create a dependency on fossil fuels? This dependency already existed before renewables in the current sense were a thing.
If anything, renewables help existing stock of fossil fuels last longer as you don't burn as much when renewables are generating.
I'm going to guess if net energy use goes up, due to a glut of renewable energy, the gaps on cloudy, windless days will result in greater fossil fuel use than before.
There need to be assurances renewables are replacing fossil fuels rather than just adding capacity.
> Alas, it is exactly the intermittent renewables that create a dependency on fossil fuels.
First of all, this is an insane statement.
> Unless you have nuclear
Second of all, with nuclear most countries will still be dependent on other countries for their fuel needs. So it doesn't solve the problem discussed here at all.
We didn't 'rellied on US defense'. We have a different policy...
We have Mauser, Carl Walther, Sauer & Sohn, Haenel, DWM, Krupp, Reinmetall, Hckler & Koch and more. We know how to do military
The US is teetering on the edge of a financial abyss. These are all just foreshocks.
> The US is teetering on the edge of a financial abyss.
Do you say this because of the outstanding debt? Otherwise, just their top 10 publicly traded companies earn more than all but 2 countries. Just the US defense budget ($1T and estimated $1.5T next year), which exports US foreign policy globally, absolutely dwarfs every other country's.
> just their top 10 publicly traded companies earn more than all but 2 countries
Are not European countries trying to reduce dependency on American tech giants? China was very successful in this regard. Russia is also independent but in the most incompetent way possible. The EU could do it quite well.
The USA is not a reliable partner. To send data to the USA from the EU is a fatal mistake that needs to be corrected. The risk was acceptable in the past, but not anymore.
The USA comes from a very privileged position thanks to many factors. The government is making sure that non of the conditions hold anymore.
And what is that worth, when they failed to properly protect their allies in a war they initiated against something that was obvious and expected ? The attack on Iran has been absolutely terrible for the US's image as an absolute military power
Debt, rather the lack of any via ble means for the US to pay back even a fraction of its debt without having the world's reserve currency.
Yes, theoretically they can always print their way out, but that's just default through inflation and bond yields will correct immediately to account for it.
People finally started seeing America's true colors
And this is a good for EU. In past decades EU lost energy independence and good part of nuclear because croocked politicians that took dictatorships money while feeding same dictator with oil and gas money.
At the same time EU had no proper army to defend itself because dependance on US or a way to supply said army.
Europe sans Russia does not produce uranium - why people constantly paint this as an independent energy source is beyond me. Of all Russian energy companies, it was Rosatom that could not be sanctioned.
Conflict with allies is not a good thing for anyone, apart from nationalism.
The dictator now makes more money, so we just lost our cheap gas source, and we buy more expensive oil from others.
It's a classic case of falling for your own BS.
The world's rules were written by them, for them, and their allies notably european countries were willing to go along for the ride for all the side benefit of said safety and stability, both pretended it was a gift out of niceness while it was actually massively profitable
But then a portion of the US started believing the whole gift part, and now they're destroying their own control of the world order and forcing other to realign out of their control
Even before Trump, and the invasion of Ukraine, it was transparently obvious that the idea of minimum spending commitment to NATO was intended to prop up the US arms industry rather than actually achieve anything military.
To a certain extent the US occupation of Germany was intended to prevent Germany rearming on its own.
Anybody who had the pleasure to go through relationship with mentally unstable person (for the lack of better words, if I had to guess some undiagnosed borderline disorder on a scale 1-2 out of 10 mixed with some childhood traumas) sees nothing out of ordinary - just daily chaos, tantrums, illogical destructive behavior and very little self-control on the other side.
Narcissism adds a curious twist, but of course for the worse.
The more shocking thing might even be that this whole mess is allowed to continue and that there is no way to stop an out of hand situation. The whole US system can't be trusted even when this administration is gone, it's just broken.
> But the U.S. has made it clear that it wants to concentrate on the Indo-Pacific and the threat posed by China's powerful military, rather than propping up Europe.
If that were true they wouldn't have wasted enormous amounts of expensive ammunition in Iran.
One, I feel like the "propping up Europe" is preposterous when europe is buying those things, not getting them for free, just like american weapon delivery to Ukraine have been paid by europe and not free for a long while now.
Two, the US wasting of ammunition in an ill-prepared fight against Iran that has not produced any of the result they claim to want but managed to make things instable for a lot of the world has nothing to do with helping Europe.
Every year for like the last decade I've heard "pivot to China" proceeded by the US using its various European bases to attack something in the Middle East.
But even worse in this specific case is "we do it for Europe" seems to be the thing they keep repeating, but if they had bothered to ask or warn us we all would have told them to stay the hell away from it, don't touch it, don't start it, no absolutely not.
One country even asked them publicly why didn't you warn us and Trump's only answer was some stupid comment about pearl harbor. This is so absurd.
At the behest of Israel.
Ukraine soldiers had some comments on US military guidelines for use of patriots that they saw in this war - incredibly wasteful, where up to 10-15 rockets are used per 1 incoming shahed. They just set the system in automatic mode, let it select targets and fire at its will, and run for the bunker.
Ukrainians, having very little of those (or nothing now), used 1 patriot missile per 1 boogey with little drop in effectiveness, and whole crew remained in and guided it manually. According to them system is built to be wasteful to increase those interception numbers marginally, but for anything but short exchange its a very bad design mistake that can be easily overwhelmed or depleted, as seen trivially exploitable by enemy.
Ukraine government also issued a statement saying that the US forces used 800 Patriot interceptors against Iran in three days at the start of the current war.
While Ukraine used just 600 interceptors in 4 years of war.
Iran is imo. in parts about china. Controlling the strait of Hormuz means controlling a significant amount of energy supplies if china. Same thing with Venezuela.
relevant Norm Macdonald
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXdtafGdIVM
>that had never been tried before
Napoleon would like a word.
I don't know how many of you are history buffs...
The problem with this, historically is that the way Europe's geography works, a number of countries are just not going to fairly share in the burden of defending Europe, while other countries have the ability to tax foreign trade. Ireland is famous for this, and looking at a map, you can see why. Spain, Turkey and Denmark have historically taxed foreign trade.
Additionally a number of countries have "unfair" advantages over others. There are 2 straits that control access to the oceans. Which means Denmark and Norway control free trade routes (land routes are not "free" as in they are taxed) into Germany, Sweden, Finland, the Baltics, and of course Russia. This can't be fixed, and the UK effectively occupies Gibraltar to prevent it.
Spain (I'd say Spain and Morocco, but really ... Spain) controls sea access for all Mediterranean countries, from Italy to Georgia, Algeria to Greece. France (and Morocco) being the major exceptions to this. This can't be fixed, and is currently blocked by what is effectively an international force. Spain is not happy with this.
Turkey controls (and intends to tax) trade routes into all the black sea countries, which is most of Eastern Europe.
Oh and UK and the Netherlands, for reasons that are slightly less obvious, control free trade into Belgium.
In addition to this, most countries do not have the resources they need. Not even to survive. And even most countries that could be self-sufficient, aren't (cough Germany, really, WHY????). Really only France is somewhat close to self-sufficient. Specialization, on a country level, is a necessity in Europe, most countries do not have access to free trade routes and are utterly dependent on trade, in other words: they have to pay to survive.
Essentially the situation is simple: all European countries, except France. Spain, UK and Portugal (and, yes, Ireland) COULD get themselves into a secure position, but haven't (and so if it came to it, it would be very hard to do in a short time). All other countries probably can't do it at all. So all these countries have good reason to attack each other.
So the question with getting Europe's armies weapons is: the natural situation is that they'll try to destabilize Europe rather than stabilize it, because that is in most countries' direct economic interest. Historically, they ... you can say Europe was more peaceful than places like the areas of the ottoman empire, for example. But that should not be confused with peaceful in an absolute sense. In fact, the last 80 years or so have been remarkably peaceful, with America guaranteeing access to international trade. Well, I'm sure Russia would counter "guarantee access? You mean control access", and yes, that's been done.
Unfortunately it's very clear that America's power, especially measured relative to other countries, is waning. Meaning America is still far more powerful than, say, Turkey. But it used to be easily 100x more powerful. Now ... it looks more like 10x. Opposing Turkey will be a huge effort for the US, far more than the Iran war will be. US's deal, the Pax Americana, was that America would simply guarantee free trade routes with it's military for everyone, in fact, that's what the Iran war is really about (free trade for everyone behind Hormuz). In exchange, US gets the dollar. Many nations, most obviously Iran, but Turkey, Indonesia, China, Somalia, ... have all taken steps to tax the trade routes they control, which will over time create an untenable trade situation for a very large number of countries.
The situation for Germany in the long term is a simple choice: they can either pay, or attack. We all know what their historical choice has been, as soon as you have a somewhat prolonged economic crisis. Germany is not alone in this, in fact all of Eastern Europe is more or less in the same situation. A decent chunk of those countries are arming themselves (for example, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and Finland have all given hints they're building a nuclear force)
The problem with America weakening is that the US wants free trade, because that directly benefits the US greatly, whereas most other factions want to control trade instead. Turkey, Iran, China, Indonesia, even Spain's current government if we're honest and others want to (go back to) taxing other countries. Historically they have succeeded at this, but it resulted in constant wars.
Rather odd nineteenth century outlook that doesn't mention the European Union.
We work together in europe and we are not arming ourselves to fight european partners but because of russia
> Historically, they ... you can say Europe was more peaceful than places like the areas of the ottoman empire
Um... WHAT?
I'll just leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j20voPS0gI
Once all the Germans were warlike and mean,
But that couldn't happen again.
We taught them a lesson in 1918
And they've hardly bothered us since then.
Nah, it's mostly the Prussians. Those Bavarians and Austrians and other southerns are too jolly.
Nobody has ever heard of an Austrian starting a war.
you certainly don't know how belligerent the Hapsburgs were
Fun Fact, a Habsburg was even blamed for the dissolution of the German Democratic Republic
> After his fall, Honecker said of Otto von Habsburg in relation to the summer of 1989, "this Habsburg drove the nail into my coffin."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-European_Picnic
Good. It’s time for America to leave Europe to its own fate. We should stop messing with it. Once we stop putting things into Ukraine, Europe can resolve internal matters as they see fit without our interference. If they want to make weapons that’s up to them.
So no more US military bases in Europe then? No more trade with a market of 500 million people? No more cooperation on science and research? Nothing of the current US isolationism makes any goddamn longterm sense for the US. Europe and the rest of the world will be fine, mostly.
Just please don't start any wars that mess up the global economy like you just did. Thanks.
Let's take this one by one.
> So no more US military bases in Europe then?
Fine. If the US wants to lose that, it's collateral to the US's political changes. It should have been obvious that this was a consequence, and one bad for the USA - e.g. it's much harder to fly aircraft from USA to middle east without refuelling bases in Europe.
> No more trade with a market of 500 million people?
The EU is always willing to trade, and negotiate durable terms. The impediments to that are on the US side. "no more trade" is an exaggeration of course, but the US's actions will limit trade.
> No more cooperation on science and research?
How much science and research is going to happen in the US in the near future? I'm told that it's not a growth area. The EU and others are going to have to step up here, take in researchers, develop vaccines etc.
> Nothing of the current US isolationism makes any goddamn longterm sense for the US.
Agreed, no notes.
> Europe and the rest of the world will be fine, mostly.
The current petrochemical price shock seems like it will be not fine for Europe and the rest of the world. And they will know who to blame. The silver lining is that it helps make the case for solar and renewables, and accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.
In that case please also stop fucking with the global economy by starting wars in the Middle East. Thank you.
Does that mean withdrawing US forces from Germany and elsewhere?
Does that mean ceasing to use Europe as a strike base for the middle east?
I'm upvoting you for the fact, that I want to see USA also decline in power and everything else just to see USA get f... after all of this shit from that Clown in the Clown House.
But otherwise? All of this is stupid. USA always warmongered around everywhere and it gave it a lot of power, petrodollar and control. Its very weird that the USA Strategy is now getting dismanteld like this.
I can only assume its the orange clown who either thinks very ignorant or only for his own interest and gets pushed from Putin to play this game.
I don't mind though, Putin showed how shit his army is and germany/europe knows how to make weapons. Always have
Sure, but then don't cry like a baby that we don't support your made up wars half around the world. Also don't expect us to participate in your global hegemony any more than absolutely minimal necessary amount for as short as possible.
Europe is bigger than US, if US loses (actually lost) all allies its just <5% of global population, against remaining 95%. We can collectively ditch SWIFT, petro dollars and so on that your ancestors spent their lives building to bring you where you are now, and then you will be alone against China (and russia, your forever mortal enemy). Good luck.
We are not complaining, this is good for us long term. I don't think its so good for you compared to where you are now though.