So, why does Europe need/want the US in NATO?
It can't be resources - Europe is rich. More to the point, Europe has almost 10x Russia's GDP and about 2.5x the population.
So, unless Europe is worried about Germany, it can handle its defense.
Show the US how it's done.
I'm a Swede and something is going on between France and Sweden related to nuclear weapons. Not sure if it's about placing French Rafael fighter jets with French nukes or some type of collaboration about Gripen fighter jets with Swedish nukes.
If anything, it has been proven that unless you have nuclear weapons, your country is at risk of being attacked by nations that have them.
Ukraine learned this the hard way, so did many other countries in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Is the right answer.
For all the jingoism being spouted, it would be nice if somebody had a whisper in Mango Mussolinis ear as to why NATO and the post 1945 order was formed, and who benefits from it (hint: all our democracies).
It is probably time for the Cold War relics to leave. It doesn't help their case that the US and Coalition spent much of the past 25 years since 9/11 engaged in an ultimately fruitless war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nobody really wants to look at the Ukraine war in Western Europe. It's very apparent that the degree of caring depends on how far east a country is; Poland are talking about getting the Bomb. The UK has provided significant technical assistance and missiles but the war really is not in the public conversation, and attempts to increase military spending or even fix the Ajax have gone nowhere. Everyone is of course obsessed with refugees, but not at looking where they have come from or what they are fleeing.
The situation got even worse with the new Iran war. Is that going to be a ten or twenty year event? Is the US finally going to get the ground invasion of Iran it has wanted since the Carter administration?
We cannot build a security architecture by looking backwards. We have to look forwards. But I'd settle for looking out of the window at the world as it is today.
Good God! If there has been a "lack of conversation", it is simply because not sporting Ukraine would be utterly unthinkable to us. The UK support for Ukraine has been, and continues to be, one of the largest.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-support-to-ukr...
Indeed, under the Homes for Ukraine scheme, UK private citizens allowed 234,000 Ukrainian refugees to come and live with us in our homes and spare rooms. Ukraine flags are flying everywhere in Blighty. Slava Ukraini!
We must live in very different Europes...
Post-WWII USA would give you Pax Americana, as long as you had no domestic defence industry.
Framing calculated realpolitik as an act of charity that the people of Europe should be grateful for is pretty cynical. It's always been a trade-off. The president has always complained publicly about the cost, precisely because admitting that reality doesn't win votes at home, but narratives about European leeches taking advantage of the US does.
If you want to see what it will look like after the US stops paying the bill for its incredibly privileged position, you can read about how much fun the process was for Britain in the 1950s.
There's is no NATO without the US, it would need to be something else and function differently. That takes years because there's too many countries involved. We would likely get two military unions in EU - North and South, North on helping Ukraine and South trying to distance itself. Furthermore the time is running out until this grows into a bigger conflict, this is just from couple of days ago: "Alarm in Denmark after Russian ship fires at military helicopter"
- nuclear deterrence - like other commenters said, no one really wants a nuclear arms race, but I think it's bound to happen. Poland, the Baltics, Sweden/Norway will probably need to develop their own nuclear deterrence, and obviously Ukraine.
- the US for the most part has been a good friend and ally, and has a lot of weight, and above all it helped to create the EU and wanted the EU to succeed.
- Europe has had a lot of conflicts, and a lot of parties funded by foreign states are seeking to bring EU down, including the US administration. It would be nice for Europeans if it wasn't like that.
The answer is because you twist American President words: they want Europe to "invest" more in its defense, but stay subversient to the US, not take more "responsibility" as you wrote. Which means, in plain terms: "buy more American weapons". There has never been any honest wish for Europe to shoulder its defense, it is a pure money grabbing scheme.
You just have to see the hissy fit they throw every time Europeans put "buy European" conditions to any rearmament program.
Europe would be fully military autonomous if Europeans listened to the French. The countries that blocked and sabotaged French initiatives and European procurement all have a "special relationship" with the US: the UK first and foremost.
>It can't be resources - Europe is rich.
Oh, suddenly we are not "Europoors" anymore. Funny, that.
> During that same time, Europe has insisted that it knows better than the US cowboys.
Uh, weren't we right? I mean, isn't "no more foreign wars" a big rallying cry of a certain president and especially vice-president that resonated with a lot of the American electorate? On what grounds are you snarky here, exactly?
(We also saw from the beginning Trump was a liar, a conman and an idiot, but I guess you will reproach us with that too)
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is being accused of running away from a bipartisan effort to hold an impeachment vote on Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), the Republican driver of that effort, accused House GOP leadership of sending lawmakers back to their districts early in order to avoid a vote on his resolution to impeach Hegseth.
Khrushchev could only dream of such actions
To my knowledge Ramstein has never been hit by a suicide terrorist or drone.
The seeds of this decline were planted by Reagan (Heritage foundation was not created yesterday) but nobody before has achieved this level of damage inflicted upon USA in so few months. Is impressive if we think about if.
Would be great for us (Europeans).
On the other hand, were I an American interested in projecting power across the globe, not so much.
I wonder if it is more of this administration’s fantastic 5d chess. Amazing how quickly a bunch of infantile idiots can dismantle the incredibly powerful US empire of the 50’s and beyond.
They're also pushing dsa dems in the midterms where dsa's party position is to end nato.
To be clear the US dollar will never survive petrodollar and NATO dissolving.
The goon white house bending to russian demands needs to be removed
Baffling how voters fail to recognize.
there are transgender people using bathrooms!
Bread and circuses, mate
I take no pride in being an Empire or hegemon. I know this will be ugly and disorderly and could almost certainly be handled better, but as an American, I am looking forward to the day when problems 5000 miles away from my home are no longer treated as my problem.
It's very difficult to disconnect from the problems of the world when your fuel is imported (+) from the middle east and your chips are imported from the Far east. Trying to be an autarky is .. well, the US might be able to do it, but it will be fearsomely expensive.
(+) US is currently a net exporter of oil/petroleum products, but that is a recent development and subject to change
What do you think the second, third and fourth order effects of this would be for you?
What new problems, closer to home, would arise?
The USA does not live in a vacuum.
I think you will find global events 5000 miles away ARE your problem, and mine, whether you like it or not.
Then you would be happy, because the US spends 1/7th [13%] of the budget on the military.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
Is that what you think this is going to achieve?
Exactly. I'm gonna say the same thing I said when we pulled out of Afghanistan.
It's not my country and it never was. I wish them the best.
This is rather like the Cameron administration actually being good on Net Zero.
ARAMCO just told the EU there will be no oil shipments next month.
Hurting the EU is a major goal of the current US admin.
because they’re not hungry.
Bread and circuses -> Hot Pockets and Netflix
Europe was economically and militarily important globally than it now is. Therefore defending it is less important to the US than it used to be, while Asia has become more important to the US.
Russia is not even anything like the same threat to Europe that the Soviet Union was. It has been further weakened by the Ukraine war and it will take many years to recover.
As for nukes, there are two acknowledged nuclear powers in western Europe.
Ah, that's why "U.S. pulls last aircraft carrier in Asia" :)
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/u-s-pulls-last-aircraft-c...
It is also a failure, not a policy, and if the US is struggling in more important regions its all the more reason to pull back from Europe.
Europe is a sleeping giant. America has long seen it advantageous to keep the giant sleeping. Now it is dancing around shouting "nee-naw" while the giant slowly opens its eyes.
Why not? There is no causus belli to fear, and Russia and China already have lots of weapons.
Europe is not really a sleeping giant. People here are in denial about the decline of the west (as shown by downvotes) but Europe is simply not the power it used to be. Just look at the GDP of Europe as a a proportion of global GDP. It has been the slowest growing region for decades.
And why might that be? Presumably because the USA decided to start a pointless war in the middle east?