ECFR: with possible exception of France, whole of Europe “has almost completely renounced the idea of greater strategic autonomy.” “We are so vassalised that we can’t even admit to it. If we did, then people might figure it out and that would be terrible.”

  • CapgrasDelusion@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    It’s kind of bizarre. The original article says (in a very repetitive and long-winded way) Europe needs to step up its military spending and send more of their own troops to the eastern borders to be able to counter Russian aggression on their own in the face of a potentially unreliable US who may be more focused on China. I honestly don’t think the US would disagree here. Strong allies aren’t a bad thing.

    Economically it argues (again, in very unnecessarily long wording) the US will make decisions regarding protecting itself from a rising China without concern for Europe.

    My opinion, this is probably true, although Europe might want to be concerned about China in its own right. Again, I’m not convinced the US wouldn’t want strong economic partners either. This only gets into disagreement territory if the EU intends to partner with China to counter the US. That will go about as well as it did partnering with Russia for their energy dependence.

    Bottom line the article makes just two arguments that I’m fairly sure the US would agree with, in an unnecessarily inflammatory way that does seem intended to drive a wedge between the US and EU. I’m not sure if they’re just being salty, just trying to use emotion to rile people up to get things done, or if their goal is the second argument, an economic wedge, in which case they’re arguing to tie themselves to another despot.