I have found it interesting that now that Trump is buckling down on conversations with Russia, many European leaders are pissed for not having a seat at the table. The EU has had years to take a lead and a stance with Russia. So did Biden. It appears they just sat back waiting for the US to take lead, while the US provided more monetary support than all the countries in Europe combined.
No idea what Trump has planned, nor whether it will being amazing and monumental, or a disaster. That aside, I have no sympathy for the European leaders who *now* decide they want to be proactive, only after the US is finally starting to push hard to bring this thing to an end.
It doesn’t convey unity between us and Europe, but it sends a clear message.
That's largely the result of decades of US foreign policy in the EU. Basically since WW2 America has not wanted the EU to build up their military to ensure that the EU was reliant on the US. This gave the US an incredible amount of soft power in that region and encouraging european investment in america and access to markets in europe. For instance Sweden in the 70s was very close to building nuclear weapons, the US didn't want that and got them to instead build nuclear power plants instead. It's similar for Canada, it was America who ended the Avro Arrow program in Canada and largely made Canada completely militarily dependent on them. Making the EU and Canada militarily dependent on the US has been a massive benefit to the US.
In the end, this may lead the EU to building a european army. It's important to remember that the EU has 1.5x USA's population, and has the 3rd largest GDP after China and America. When you add in their other close allies such as the UK, Australia, and Canada they are larger than the US and China. Normally that wouldn't be feasible as all the bickering between the countries stops such unification, but with America's betrayal and the threat of war from Russia, we could see some rapid unification on militarization.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20240530-2 This is a continent that could quickly become a military superpower, would not be subserviant to the US, and has a history of... being rather aggressive. If Americans want the EU to have a larger military, be careful what you wish for. The window this opens for China to ditch Russia as an ally and build closer ties with a rapidly militarizing EU who hates the betrayal of America, could get very, very bad for America. Like unimaginably bad. America could literally be looking at trading off the EU as an ally in favor of Russia, and China could ditch Russia and pick up a rapidly militarizing EU. Who gets the better of that trade? In that kind of scenario America becomes subservient to the new Chinese/EU alliance. The best case scenario is that the EU militarizes and starts to say no to America's businesses, or interests, ditch the USD as the GCR, and impose economic sanctions for things they don't like, and there would not be much America could do about it and that would send America into a second great depression.
For instance, here's the non-US Nato forces compared to Russia:
- Military personnel: 1.9m NATO vs 1.1m Russia
- Combat aircraft: 2.4k NATO vs 1.4k Russia
- Tanks: 6.6k NATO vs 2k Russia
- France and UK providing enough nuclear arsenal for maintaining a credible nuclear deterrent (MAD).
Source: IISS Military Balance
