I wonder if it would happen with NATO partners as well. If the US elects another (or previous) moron, the partnership could end on a similar whim.
Idk, I feel like the US not a very stable or trustworthy partner. Maybe Macron was right, maybe the EU does need it’s own army.
America never was a trustworthy partner. They start wars and raise dictatorships all over the world. Trump just showed they werent trustworthy in economical treaties either.
It’s not all one thing or the other. People ascribe these kind of blanket generalizations to US foreign policy frequently but it’s as short-sighted as painting German foreign policy as imperial. Certain US presidents have started wars. Others the Marshall plan, WTO, IMF, the UN, NATO, etc.
Right now there’s a crisis in the US driven by the same fear of change that drove them into containment during the cold war. That isolationist populism certainly benefits some narratives but it’s no better than the worst elements of China-first economic coercion in the ACS that’s alienated a lot of Philippine fishermen in recent years.
Fact is the biggest threat to the human race is the dissension these isolationists/populists are selling. No meaningful action on climate, migration, or the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine can occur in that worldview and anyone should be suspicious of politicians who promote them.
Most US policy has been quite good when non-isolationists have occupied the white house, just like most non-reich based German leadership has strengthened European unity. The Nazis and Trump’s me-first exceptions prove the rule. Education, familiarity, and exposure should be the Rx for the US right now, along with all the countries dealing with the current wave of populist snake oil movements. In the words of a US propaganda film of the same name “don’t be a sucker”.
The problem is that politics do not stop at the border. Support for Ukraine has become yet another culture war, us-vs-them battleground. It doesn’t really matter what the issues are anymore, only that there has to be conflict over them to keep attention whores in the news cycle.
Everybody needs their own army. Otherwise they are too dependent on those who have, and that’s not just the USA, that includes also plenty of vermin.
If we disband alliances and rely on individual armies, you’ll very quickly see that we’re back to the middleages, where the smaller countries are eaten by bigger countries ad infinitum.
Honestly strategically, it’s stupid not to. But I sit here on my high horse, where we are used to sacrificing an enormous amount of tax dollars on military prowess and have the military wealth of like all nations combined. But hey we go bankrupt if we go to the doctors… so there is that.
I guess my rambling point is it sounds good in theory, but it’s a huge sacrifice.
Spending doesn’t mean quality or even quantity.
Americans get swindled big time by weapon manufacturers colluding with government contract drafters, and pharmaceutical companies colluding with medical insurance appraisers and hospitals to raise fictional treatment costs through the roof. All that, while having a taxation pressure pretty much on par with the average in the EU.
So far, the EU has managed to avoid the medical racketeering, it isn’t unthinkable that it could also avoid the weapons racketeering… unless it keeps buying overpriced shit from the US big bully in town, instead of investing in it’s own manufacturing.
An EU military, with weapons produced in the EU, would be a huge loss for the US, not necessarily much of a sacrifice for the EU.
The problem for the EU is they don’t exactly have a sovereign currency, at least not the way The US, UK, AU, CA, and China have. We can always pay more, because the government can just “print more money.” I don’t know if the EU can really do that with the Euro. They should be able to, but they don’t seem to function the way our Federal Government does.
