A quick history lesson for the US from the European freeloaders

6 comments

1. We are now in a time where things can be astonishing without being surprising. Thus, while we can certainly be astonished that the various members of Donald Trump’s clown car of an administration managed to screw up this badly, I’m not sure anybody could truly claim to find it surprising. Dive into the detail, though, and some bits were both.

   “I just hate bailing out the Europeans again,” wrote JD Vance. “I fully share your loathing of European freeloading. It’s PATHETIC,” wrote Hegseth. Stephen Miller, the homeland security adviser, went on to suggest there should be “some further economic gain extracted in return”. In public, the administration talks like this all the time. When they do it in private, the surprising realisation is that they really mean it.

   As a shock tactic, true, scaring Europe into rearmament has worked. What Vance and his colleagues seem to have forgotten, though, is that what America now wants — essentially for other countries to have the capability to fight wars all by themselves — is exactly what, until very recently, America did not want at all

2. Yep history lesson from the colonists lol

3. It was clearly intentionally leaked. They don’t think freeloading is pathetic because they are all freeloaders themselves. They just wouldn’t say it in private.

4. Anyone got a no-paywall version?

5. >Does he appreciate, at all, the irony of America complaining that Britain and France now lack the military heft to impose their will on the Suez canal? Does he know what happened in 1956?

   The US wouldn’t prop up Britain’s and France’s colonial legacy in Africa, so Europe refuses to contribute to global security? Take a minute to consider his argument. He’s basically saying Europe should be the one to overthrow Middle Eastern governments without allied support, not America. And if Europe can’t have that, it won’t play along. Also, that was 70 years ago.

6. I think this a terrible take that because the US did not want European countries and Japan to build up militarily immediately post-wwii, they are stupid for trying to get Europe to rearm now.

   Times have changed. Previously, the main threat in Europe was internal – European countries fighting within each other. Due to the successes of NATO, EU integration and globalization, there is no long a strong credible threat of countries in Western Europe invading each other. Now, Europe’s main threat is external – Russia, Iran and China.

   The US didn’t forget. 50 years is a long time in modern geopolitics. They are responding to the changing geopolitical climate, and US’s desire for Europe to rearm is not very recent. The US has been trying to get Europe to rearm for 2 decades.

   It’s a lie that Europe chose not rearm in the 21st century because the US prevented them/told them not to. They didn’t do it because they didn’t want to spend the money.

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