They seem to be improving a lot on their defense spending, at least.

Will take them a while to get out from under the US umbrella. But acknowledging the problem is the first step.

I'm grateful that Europe is increasing defence spending, but I'm cynical regarding Europe because so far, it's been absolutely no hindrance to Russia's expansionism, and in some ways it has inadvertently provided Russia with material assistance while Russia engages with expansionism.

Spending on defense is not the same as. Norway is spending more on everything all the time and getting worse outcomes all the time. We spend more on police than ever, even per capita, and crime is up, we spend more on military than ever, and our actual metrics are down. I think with most of Europe the defense spending is the same, I hope I'm wrong, but if you up regulation then you have to spend more to get the same results, and Europe has runaway regulation in addition to people who try to hijack institutions for other purposes.