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'Backfired spectacularly': European officials reportedly now view US as an 'adversary'
(www.rawstory.com)
this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2025
394 points (98.8% liked)
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That doesn't make sense. Nobody fears them here in Europe.
As the article said, this just led to European leaders intensifying the decoupling from dependencies onto the US, which makes its current bully administration less powerful and less able to hurt Europe.
I agree it doesn't make sense, it's much better to have friends and allies that stand together. For some reason it makes sense to them to alienate our allies--I guess since they have no moral ideals and all they care about is enriching themselves, they find it more conducive to their aims to align with corrupt regimes. But I do think there is fear being generated by this, not the "oh no I hope they don't start a war with us" (though maybe that should also be felt) but more like "oh no the longstanding system of alliances and institutions like NATO that have kept Europe at peace since WWII are no longer viable and how are we going to deal with that?" Here, like everywhere, their strategy is to sow chaos and confusion.
"fear" is too strong a word..."uneasiness", maybe some "anxiety", but definitely not "fear".
there's some uncertainty, but overall consensus seems to trend toward a joint European Army, which has been an ongoing discussion for a long time now.
recent events will likely accelerate this movement, but the momentum has been building since before the Ukraine war.
it just makes strategic sense to unify the armed forces of the EU/EWR/Schengen.
they've already been training together for decades, might as well formally unify!
Is that the consensus though? Recent EU elections have shown a small but steady rise in support for Euroscepticism
i should have clarified that it's a popular sentiment in the military of the central european powers, not necessarily in the voting population. at least it was 5-ish years back...can't imagine it's changed all that much.
from personal experience there seems to be a serious disconnect between the general consensus of the EU militaries and the population, largely driven by right-wing populist propaganda that usually tends towards nationalistic and isolationist messages.
when i was in service we regularly had joint exercises with pretty much all EU nations. it was entirely ordinary and generally just accepted as a matter of fact. a general sentiment of "We defend Europe together!" among the soldiers, which was excellent to experience first hand!
re: sceptisism; i think it's mostly a sign of polarization in politics, and the sceptisism is being reported more than the corresponding rise in a shared european identity! both ends of the spectrum seem to be on the rise, thinning out the middle, as more and more people realize, that we live in a time where everyone really DOES have to pick a side.
or to sum the last part up: late stage capitalism is doing what late stage capitalism does! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯