American here: EU please get your collective defense shit together. We're going through a rough time over here, I'm not sure how reliable we can be. America needs some time to work on itself.
As a European, you're right and I feel we're bumping stuff up albeit slowly. Good luck with donald duck and all that facho stuff, seems like every great country has to go through it somehow before they sober up completely.
Mob shake down for protection payments.
And Trump is too fucking stupid to realize that the NATO contributions aren't even going to the USA (or even to NATO).
It's money paid by a NATO member country to that country's soldiers and to private arms manufacturers (preferably also in country if it has the capability).
I think he well knows what he does. The protection provided by the US gave it immense soft power in the diplomacy with these countries, but also immense hard power, as it means military bases all over Europe.
Damaging US soft power in the world has been consistent throughout Trumps presidency. The trade war with Europe, the damage to the WHO, the repeated threats at weakening NATO. Now the calls to abandon Ukraine.
It is evidently not in the interest of the US, but it certainly helps Putin.
The thing is, he's not playing around with the security of the alliance, he's dead serious about it.
Against Russia Europe will be fine.
It's honestly better not to rely on the US anyways as they have been fair weather friends to Ukraine even though Ukraine was promised protection for giving up their nukes.
Europe absolutely should be capable of defending itself from a third rate military like Russia, but the security guarantees were related to not invading them, not defending them from invasion unless nuclear weapons were used.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum
Further, while the EU has pledged significant humanitarian support, the military support has come almost entirely from America, though Germany deserves credit for their own notable contributions, especially considering the numbers on per capita basis.
https://www.statista.com/chart/28489/ukrainian-military-humanitarian-and-financial-aid-donors/
Looks like they should have kept the nukes and that the message to the rest of the world too now, without nukes you have no guarantees to independance.
As for the military aid I'm sure the US sent the most but the price tag attached is pretty sussy. The US mostly sent equipment that was too old and was going to be decommissioned anyways but looks like the prices for equipment cited was for brand new equipment. That equipment would most likely fetch 1/30 of it's cited price if otherwise sold. Also the US military often counted the price of new equipment to replace the one sent over as part of the aid cost.
The EU should have gotten way more serious about their own defence sector. Spending large amounts of these procurement budgets within the EU means that a lot of the money flows straight back as taxes from employees, profits, subcontracting etc.
It's time now to start rebuilding the sector again and do some horse trading with the US for inter-dependence.
Trump acts as if military power is the only thing, (it's probably the only thing he understands) but the fact the EU is so dependent means they will follow sanctions etc more than they might have done otherwise. But Trump is not of the soft power.
But the peace dividends need to be reinvested, I suggest in best of breed stuff, manufactured in the EU.
There is many joint European defence projects. They often suffer from gaming which country gets to do what. FCAS delays
To be fair so do US defence projects in terms of which state gets what.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Two European officials criticized Donald Trump on Sunday after comments the former U.S. president made about not protecting NATO allies who aren't paying enough from a potential Russian invasion.
EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton was asked in a French television interview about Saturday's remarks by Trump, who is likely to be the Republican nominee in this year's U.S. presidential election.
Undermining the credibility of allied countries means weakening the entire NATO," he wrote on social media platform X.
"Any attack on NATO will be met with a united and forceful response," he said, reacting to Trump's comments.
Trump, speaking during a political rally in South Carolina on Saturday and appearing to recount a meeting with NATO leaders, quoted the president of "a big country" that he did not name as asking, "Well sir, if we don't pay, and we're attacked by Russia — will you protect us?"
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates, asked about Trump's comments, said, "Encouraging invasions of our closest allies by murderous regimes is appalling and unhinged — and it endangers American national security, global stability and our economy at home."
The original article contains 459 words, the summary contains 182 words. Saved 60%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
So that's why his real name is Doidld Tyatsmr. I get it now.
He was Russian puppet of Putin all along.
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