I see the same happening with choices about other suppliers. The EU is a very large trading partner to the US and what is happening right now is unprecedented in the last 75 years or more. The damage to our future world order is incalculable and the fact that it all seems to be by design bothers me greatly.
The lyrics of Alan Parson's 'Children of the moon' have been spooking through my head lately.
An extreme and inaccurate statement. The US is still party to NATO Article 5, meaning the blood of our young people is pledged to be shed to defend, say, Estonia. That has not changed.
What has changed is the US has become more realistic and up front about the limitations of its reduced military. It’s not healthy, for the US /or/ Europe, to indulge the imperial fantasy that US forces in Europe (token deployments in Germany and Poland) are sufficient to defend against Russian attack.
Trump is not the first US president to push Europe to do more of precisely what it is doing here (spend its own money on defense). Being clear about limits is what a reliable ally does.
Europe ordering an Airbus AWACS instead of Boeing now that the US stopped subsidizing them is not surprising nor does it mean the sky is falling.
A treaty is only as good as its enforcement, and if the USA declines to uphold their obligations, who is going to force them?
A mutual defense treaty is no good at all if it needs enforcement; it only works as a coordinating tool between basically-willing parties. When it becomes anything else, well, look at CSTO.
This has not been reciprocated.