Donald Trump’s declaration at the NATO summit that the U.S. had returned to war with Iran didn’t lead to the usual gasping allies or perplexed officials.
If anything, it cemented Europe’s increasing reliance on itself.
As motorcades sped out of Ankara’s presidential place and down the barricaded streets ringing the Turkish capital on Wednesday, a half-dozen European officials said the ceasefire’s end only stiffened their resolve to be less dependent on the American militarily and stand alone.
“After seeing what’s happening in Iran and Ukraine, we first of all, have to build our own military might, and then everybody will respect us: Americans, Russians, Iranians or Chinese,” said a European official. “The more muscles you have, the less political anger you show.”
Yes it is dangerous, but at the same time it’s kinda short-sighted or maybe even delusional not to prepare for an invasion from a country that has time and time again claimed to want to invade you, not even acknowledge that you should exist and even has multiple times gone through with the threats towards other countries.
Though there are good examples of how this process can be halted. Like EU, up until ww2, war was the norm between different nations in Europe. Only after ww2 most countries in Europe started to go through the trust building process to avoid war and European Union was created. Russia hasn’t gone through that process, the opposite even. Time and time again it has proven it can’t be trusted.
What you are saying is misleading from many pojnts of view:
They often enough blamed to not wanting invading a lot of nations which were later (checks notes) invaded by (checks notes again) Russia. How and why should anybody trust Russia in that case?
I see your point, but i don’t think that alone is a reason strong enough, or nobody should have any trust in the USA as well. On the exact same premises.
Dependence comes at a cost, when the EU relies on American military or economic benefits, it’s harder to criticize the decisions. Same goes for Russia and the dependence on gas and China and the dependence on cheap labor, goods and resources. Co dependence can be good to keep peace, one sided dependence, not so much.
Your point was about trust tho. How can somebody trust Russia after they turned out to be unreliable? What i’m asking is, how is this not an even more valid question toward the US and instead we give for assumed our uncodnditional allegiance? Seems like a relationship more similar to that between vassal and overlord.
Yes, absolutely. Without the ability to fight for your independence you are in a situation where one can dictate the rules and the other has to follow. Hence building up strength, in this particular scenario military strength, gives the ability to become and stay independent. The fact that the EU has to build up military on their own is a sign of distrust towards the US. The reason why a military is necessary however is not that the EU sees the US as a threat, but Russia. Who the threat is in reality is not that important to the argument though. It’s a generic signal towards the world that the EU is willing and able to defends itself (land, economy, values) from any aggressor. Again, I’m not pro war, or pro army. But in a world where one can push you either let yourself being pushed, or push back. The question how much of a concession either of the two options is. Which bringt me back to morally scenario which is more black and white: Should a POC arm themself to defend? I’d say yes because the line for the aggressor will move with every push and aggression. And the same thing happens on a global, national level with China, Russia, the us…