The renewables rollout just keeps going despite the discourse. It does mean buying things from China, which is now the least threatening option.

US sells a lot of other things to Europe that Europe doesn't have to buy. That includes tech. I'm not looking forward to the ensuing trade war but it's not a one way street by any means.

Even before Trump, and the invasion of Ukraine, it was transparently obvious that the idea of minimum spending commitment to NATO was intended to prop up the US arms industry rather than actually achieve anything military.

To a certain extent the US occupation of Germany was intended to prevent Germany rearming on its own.

I dabble in correcting other people’s spelling on occasion (can’t help it). Somewhat frustratingly, the usual reaction is “language evolves” and “everyone uses it this way” and “if it is understood, it does not matter how you wrote it”.

Corrected

The PAX Americana established from '45 and expanded globally after the Soviet Union fell is so all-encompassing that people can't see beyond it anymore. They just can't see the forest as they've been between the trees all their lives.

We've truly fell for our own tricks as we call it "international rulebased order" which hides the fact that it's just a benevolent dictatorship under the American Federal government.

As we say in Dutch: trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback. Perhaps now it leaves in a Boeing.

This will forever change the US' role in the world.

I wish I could upvote you twice, because that's exactly what's happening.

> But then a portion of the US started believing the whole gift part, and now they're destroying their own control of the world order and forcing other to realign out of their control

I'm still not sure whether Trump actually believes it or if he's just using it as a propaganda tool. I remember how he reported a conversation with Macron telling him that Macron will have to increase the cost of drugs for French citizens. It was so completely out of touch as drug pricing works completely different in the EU. But he definitely likes to directly imply that all positive aspects of life in Europe are being sponsored by the USA (rather than citizens paying higher taxes). Who knows, maybe he believes it, I wouldn't be surprised really.

People say this about a lot of places, and even Greece is now kind of OK. The US is not yet Argentina. The bad governance is mostly exporting problems to elsewhere, like the new oil crisis for east Asia.

Even the ""government shutdown"" (just ended) isn't a problem. It turns out that you don't have to pay air traffic controllers for months.

If this is true, it's more true of the larger European countries.

> The US is teetering on the edge of a financial abyss.

Do you say this because of the outstanding debt? Otherwise, just their top 10 publicly traded companies earn more than all but 2 countries. Just the US defense budget ($1T and estimated $1.5T next year), which exports US foreign policy globally, absolutely dwarfs every other country's.

Europe sans Russia does not produce uranium - why people constantly paint this as an independent energy source is beyond me. Of all Russian energy companies, it was Rosatom that could not be sanctioned.

Conflict with allies is not a good thing for anyone, apart from nationalism.

The dictator now makes more money, so we just lost our cheap gas source, and we buy more expensive oil from others.

I hope you're French, otherwise you are still relying on US defense.

The more shocking thing might even be that this whole mess is allowed to continue and that there is no way to stop an out of hand situation. The whole US system can't be trusted even when this administration is gone, it's just broken.

Today it's Iran, or maybe Iraq 2003. Or maybe those pharma factories in Sudan in the 90s. Or perhaps the Serbia bombing. Or maybe Iraq 1991. Or again Panama in 88. Or maybe Grenada. Or maybe Laos. Cambodia. Vietnam. Haiti. Japan. China. Phillipines. Cuba. etc.

It's always something. We are always losing our stance.

I’m not from the US and not trying to defend the US actions, but on Iraq and Gaza, much of Europe takes the same position and goes along with it (and even directly joined the wars and sent troops).

I find the online opinion on Europe / US relations interesting. Online you’d think Europe and US are about to split. But in real life, Europe is more dependent on the US than ever. In terms of energy (Russian fossil fuels basically replaced by US fossil fuels), defense, economy (European economy relatively smaller now than 20 yrs ago), and they just finished signing very one sided deals where they guarantee energy purchases and investment after the tariff war. I think there’s a disconnect between European commenters and European politicians.

Every year for like the last decade I've heard "pivot to China" proceeded by the US using its various European bases to attack something in the Middle East.

Ukraine soldiers had some comments on US military guidelines for use of patriots that they saw in this war - incredibly wasteful, where up to 10-15 rockets are used per 1 incoming shahed. They just set the system in automatic mode, let it select targets and fire at its will, and run for the bunker.

Ukrainians, having very little of those (or nothing now), used 1 patriot missile per 1 boogey with little drop in effectiveness, and whole crew remained in and guided it manually. According to them system is built to be wasteful to increase those interception numbers marginally, but for anything but short exchange its a very bad design mistake that can be easily overwhelmed or depleted, as seen trivially exploitable by enemy.

How’s all the ‘controlling’ coming along?

The US look like fools.

Yes ... countries that can't decide to invest in their own hospitals or education are going to arm themselves to pursue wars to protect little states thousands of kilometers away they barely even trade with. I haven't even mentioned that even as part of NATO they have systematically refused to invest in the defense of the Baltic states. That is not ancient history, that's 6 months ago. Oh and they're financing this with loans. EU government debt is already a pretty heavy burden in ... essentially everywhere except Germany. So they're kicking the can down the road, and this is military investment. It's not going to improve anything about the EU. It'll either do nothing at all (that's the optimal scenario: Russia is deterred and nothing happens. The economic production rots away in some secret basement until it literally decays into dust) or it'll cause destruction. Its value is either zero or MINUS trillions. The loans, however, will need to be repaid.

I'm just thinking ahead to what will happen once these loans turn from a short-term economic boost and start dragging the economies further down.

He is pushing really hard to renegotiate Gibraltar, and has even booked some success there (the fence is taken down). He's artifically pushing the Spanish economy in the region, and he's also sending in ships on a regular basis (no change from previous Spanish governments there) that UK has to chase away.

Why do you think that is? If you want to know: Spain's official story is they want it back because "it's inconveniently placed" (they imply they mean for the Spanish fishing industry).

Yep. Really. As I said, not because Europe was very peaceful (although most of these conflicts were extremely underwhelming if compared to what ended the era: WW1)

Nobody has ever heard of an Austrian starting a war.

you certainly don't know how belligerent the Hapsburgs were

Why would I care what others do or don't do, know or don't know, like or don't like, when it comes to Germans serving other right-wing extremist Germans talking points and votes on a silver platter, because they cannot be arsed to actually read and take seriously the accounts and warning of historians who lived through those times? I can't even figure what point you think you are making.

I wasn't comparing Nazis but the reality. Maybe that's your narrative