I don't think "damage" is the right word, especially outside of the US. Changes aren't necessarily bad, and, as someone living in the EU, I actually like the current trend.
If one takes a longer view of things, the period from WW2 to now is very much an anomaly reflecting relative European weakness in the aftermath of that war's physical and moral destruction. There is no intrinsic reason that the US should take the lead on, say, policy toward Russia. Quite the opposite.
The popular narrative suggests a 'United States of Europe' is forming, but this seems like propaganda when you look at the reality, nations are already returning to the historical status quo, prioritizing their own agendas and pulling in separate directions, much as they always have.
A recent, clear example is the debate over using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s war effort. That single issue exposes the deeper divides. Belgium objects because it wants to shield its own financial sector. Germany backs the idea because it would spare it from taking on more of the financial burden. France, meanwhile, has long argued for a different approach, issuing joint EU debt, an option that many financially weaker member states would favor, but one Germany refuses to accept.
EDIT. Unfortunately HN has decided that "I am posting too fast", because I wrote 4 posts, amazing work, I love getting throttled by mods with not reason! So cannot really respond in the thread. EDIT2. As always, thank you for downvoting without addressing the argument.
I'll just update this one:
> Do you really believe Europe would devolve into actual > internal warfare, without the US? What about the EU? I > believe it has successfully kept the peace ever since its > predecessor, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) > was created - specifically to avoid another war. > Your example is very on point: the member states are talking > - not fighting - to protect their own interests.
It’s really not hard to imagine this turning into something very different. All it takes is a major political shift in Germany or France, and both are already close to that point. A lot of people are still thinking in peacetime terms, but we’re past that. The parties that are likely to come to power soon are not going to keep talking about “European solidarity,” because a core part of their message is that this solidarity has come at the expense of their own country’s strength.
It's the same shit with the Baltic states and other former Soviet satellite states. They're terrified of Russia, but people in Germany or further West think it's all overblown propaganda and there's nothing to fear from Russia.
You being ignorant doesn't mean there aren't real issues and real, justified fears.
The precedent being France and UK that were so disgusted by war after WWI (and recall that France was the historical biggest warmonger among Western nations at least since the second half of the Hundred Years War) that they didn't react to Nazi Germany annexing Austria, then invading Sudetenland, and in fact not even when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Had they reacted earlier, WWII might have been avoided.
Tell me why we should care about some island on the other end of the world.
It would make sense to begrudgingly accept it, just like we did US military adventures in South America.
I don't think your narrative is as informed as you make it out to be.
Germany is not objecting out of confusion about past instruments. It is objecting because a broader program of joint debt would place more longterm financial exposure on Germany, and it does not want to carry that load. Other countries support the idea precisely because it would distribute that cost more widely. That conflict keeps resurfacing every time the topic comes up.
You could just as easily point to other examples that show the same thing. Spain isn’t eager to pour money into the defense of Eastern Europe because it doesn’t feel the Russian threat the same way. And plenty of countries in Central and Eastern Europe push back hard when it comes to sharing the burden on migration, because they see that as a Southern European problem.
The current US government is throwing away a world power status of unimaginable costs, which literally took almost a century to build. For better or worse, but let's not spin fairy tales about the why and when.
In the mean time, most major EU countries have increased their defense budgets. Some of the larger ones, most notably Germany, are considering to reintroduce conscription. Within about five years, the EU will be able to withstand Russia without any aid from the USA.
In fact, right now, Poland would be able to withstand the Russians on their own. Mind you, they would not be able to defeat the Russians, but they would give them a beating and repel any invasion of Poland.
If you look at the short term, countries may be pulling one way or the other, but the "ever closer union" _is_ happening if you look at a longer trend.
Your example is very on point: the member states are talking - not fighting - to protect their own interests.
And that is why Germany is moving a whole Brigade to Lithuania? I think only Spain and Portugal are not appropriately concerned with the Russian threat.
It made us look weak internationally compared what could have been, and it made us weak. All that military money went into social programs and heavy lean to the left. It sort of works if you have other's umbrella shielding you, which now is questionable (but is it really, I think its more a projection how further can things go in future).
For Russia Europe never ceased to be a battlefield - eastern part of battlefield itself, western part as prize to win or conquer. Past 2+ decades of quite overt subversion, sowing chaos and discord via both radical left and right (which is hilarious, seeing 'patriots' parroting russian propaganda against their own country or ethnicity), sometimes outright attacks and assassinations.
Secret services kept reporting all this even publicly but were mostly ignored by politicians. Weak long term politicians like Merkel allowed this with open arms, hoping in vain that pure business is enough to keep psychopathic wolves happy. Well what a failure that was (yes I hate her as does most of eastern EU, leftist populist and nothing more which grinded strongest European economy to a halt).
Correction is being done, it will take decades but course is set regardless of what next elections in US brings.
As for geography - its only relevant doe to the fact we are connected by land to russia. Of course any country which has huge ocean between them and russians is much safer from them. The rest can either defend themselves or are an easy prey.
Also, when the Brits have a revolution (e.g., English Civil War, American Revolution) deaths never get as arbitrary and difficult-to-predict as in the French Revoution.
in reality for most of it was the fact the Russians were 50ft away, with American troops as the security guarantee
Russia in 2022 is yet another example of how rapidly despots will discard "entangled trade" for military conquest
> If anything, I’d rather actively choose Russia’s side on this against the West
Based on your comment history, you have already done so. You've been carrying water for Russia on HN for the longest time.
> at least Russia is the devil we know
Apparently, you don't know. You think you know. Romania could be the Switzerland of Eastern Europe, but it is this mentality that stops that from happening. Russia is a terrible country towards its citizens and you wouldn't even be a citizen of Russia, you'd be a citizen of a resource for Russia, someone to be exploited or to be sent to fight Russia's wars for it. Note that this is exactly what is happening and if Ukraine should become occupied you can expect that the next wave would be Ukrainians against Eastern Europe. That is what you are hoping for here.
> I’m not alone here in Eastern Europe when it comes to this ideological choice, just look at what people vote (when they’re allowed to do that freely, that is, just look at the Călin Georgescu case).
Yes, look at that case, and think about it a bit longer: you've been actively recruited as a fifth column member in the army of a hostile nation. If war does break out (which by trying to avoid the destruction you are actually increasing the chances of it!) you might be found to be aiding the enemy, think long and hard about the consequences of such choices.
I mean, if we're talking about Taiwan, it has strategic and commercial importance above and beyond being "some island". Certainly more than Central America ever did when the rest of the world was ignoring the US's idiotic anti-Communist adventures. Pretending that it's irrelevant because it's far away seems like a pretty big economic misunderstanding, at the least.
I'm talking physically, for better or for worse that is still not the case. I don't want to see Romanian men (which would include me) leaving their (our, in fact) bones on the Ukrainian steppe up to the Volga, once was enough.
> Apparently, you don't know. You think you know. Romania could be the Switzerland of Eastern Europe,
Yes, I do know, and yes, and I am completely and utterly annoyed by Westerners lecturing us on our geo-strategic future.
As I mentioned in another comment, I don't want to see us, Romanians, fight the West's wars anymore (like we fought Germany's war in the 1940s), I don't want for my grand-kids to tell their kids how their grandad barely managed to stay alive thanks to some Russian peasants close to Krasnodar who brought him (me) in their home in the middle of the Russian winter, i.e. the same story that has been actually directly experienced by a person close to me (now dead, of course, as are most of the WW2 veterans) on his way back from just outside Stalingrad.
Again, I don't want for my country, Romania, to be the West's sacrificial lamb for West's interests anymore, once was enough. And you should keep your pontificating for yourself, because you Dutch colonialists didn't fight sh*t on the steppes of Southern Russia / Southern Ukraine so you don't know s*it when it comes to fighting Russia in a great land-war, you were too busy, first, getting your asses kicked by the Japanese, and second, cutting the hands off of the Indonesian freedom fighters.
Major cities in 'my little country' have been bombed to little pieces during WWII, my family lived right next door to a particular bridge, maybe you've seen the movie.
All you will achieve is exactly the thing you are trying to avoid.
You're in Putin's pocket and you don't even know it. Guess who will end up fighting his wars for them? You, your grand children and so on. It's the proximity to Russia that is your problem, not the distance to the western part of Europe.
And I have never and will never make any excuses for what the Dutch have done in the past in their colonies and elsewhere, it is atrocious.
WW2 was the anomaly- a conflict impacting all nations on earth, with Europe falling under a horrible regime
It is your problem and you're not exactly being great allies to us in ours.
I don't want to see Romanian men (which would include me) leaving their (our, in fact) bones on the Ukrainian steppe up to the Volga, once was enough.