The challenge for Europe is if it can actually deliver. It’s been highly dependent on the US economically, technically, militarily and otherwise for decades. Posturing on sovereignty has ramped up again but it’s not fundamentally new.
A lot of folks would take Europe more seriously if there was more substance behind the talk. If it wants to replace US tech it needs to be competitive with US tech. Today it’s light years off.
The US has its own challenges, but it’s ability to unite as a country of independent states is something that Europe is unlikely to match anytime soon and that has a direct impact on the ability to execute everything Europe is posturing about.
As far as I’m aware a lot of noise was made about a 28th Regime “eu-inc” and not much happened. It’s still a pain in the ass to start a company in too many places (albeit not all).
I mostly agree. Europe’s biggest weakness is that many nations still carry grudges against each other, rooted in hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of years of conflict. These old prejudices usually only get pushed aside when there is a serious external threat, such as the ever present possibility of a devastating war on the continent.
The US has a much more unified culture, enormous scale, and a geographically protected position, with access to vast resources. Europe has the technical talent, but much of its technology has often been bought by US firms, partly because VC funding is far weaker here. I think that is largely cultural.
At the same time, Europeans were sold the idea that the US is their friend. It is an ally, but not a friend, and that distinction matters. Now that illusion has started to break, there is finally an incentive to change.
If the EU becomes strategically protectionist in the same way the US already is, for example by preventing key IT companies from being sold overseas, it could gradually move critical infrastructure back under European control. It can do this partly by copying already proven solutions, such as AWS. Of course, this would not be easy, but Europe does not need to spend billions discovering a completely new product category from scratch. The models already exist.
Surely the first problem I mentioned will be the biggest obstacle for all of this as it is for everything. We will see what happens, but at least something has started to move.
European's should unironically thanks the hollow head currently leading US, because he simply didn't understand that European dependence on US is a weapon, not a burder.
>>“Europeans were sold the idea that the US is their friend. It is an ally, but not a friend, and that distinction matters.“
This is a fair and key point and also worth considering the view from the other side of the pond. Americans were legitimately getting fed up that the ally-ship was getting too one sided on who’s pulling their own weight in the relationship. Military spending is one hot topic coming to light again now that the neighborhood is looking unstable again.
Europeans often say “but look at our social net you silly Americans.” The American view often says “your social net has all that government money because your defense is highly subsidized by us.” That’s glossing over a few points but the math is directionally correct. Europe is running the numbers and increasingly realizes this too. Reckoning with that is one of many future hurdles facing Europe.
It's hard for an addict to stop being dependant upon a dealer - not least because the dealer wants to maintain that dependency. We've been suckered, and fallen for it hard, but now that Trump has made it clear that the US will never again be a reliable partner, the scales are falling from even our leaders eyes.
The headline has it right - there is no going back.
We should unironically thanks to that hollow head. His lack of understanding that Our dependence on US is a weapon, not a burden is the best thing that could happen in terms of more sovereignity.
Europe is not a country. If you meant the EU, it is also not a country.
You are comparing the US to a bloc.
Each member state will likely take a different approach to independence from the US, and the bloc as a whole may offer some incentives in that direction.
One thing is for sure, any talk about independence from the US 10 years ago would be looked at with complete skepticism. People that said anything in that direction was looked at as a crank.
Now it is a much more palatable position. Change starts like that.
Will it hold? I can't tell. I think it will be very unlikely for things to go back to the previous state.
Yes and this is the point. If Europe as a “bloc” wants to put substance behind the rhetoric then it needs to get everyone running in the same direction to actually compete with the US. Until then it’s all just wishful thinking.
We're paying a very high cost, but it's not something that regular Americans will notice in their day-to-day lives, which will likely mean that perception of the problem will continue to fall across ideological lines.
Either way, we're in an age of decline and fracture.
It wouldn't make any strategic sense for Europe to wait it out and see what happens next, and no doubt it has been a wake-up call to see how quickly the US can pivot from friend to adversary.
Once Europe has severed reliance on US, then it is hard to see them reverting.
After the cold war has ended, the western nations focused on not giving a fuck about military strength, allies or facing opponents the size of Russia or China. Instead some small-time infantry campaigns like Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan were started and then basically abandoned without any decisive result or even with a total failure. But even back in the 2000s, there were no common goals and no real alliances, just some commitments to save face and keep up appearances.
So now, Russia in Ukraine and Iran in the Persian Gulf have called the bluff that is Western military power and decisiveness. I'm guessing those were just the first instances of a long line of wars that should have been prevented by the US-lead West, that are now possible because the West is fractured and aimless.
Interesting choices, to frame the US-Iran war in the same terms as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as if Iran was the aggressor, and to frame the invasions ("small-time infantry campaigns") of Iraq and Afghanistan, which led to millions of lives lost, in the same terms as the comparatively minor US intervention in Syria.
The common thing is that there were no desired results because the west decided to do some half-assed thing and just go with the minimum amount of force and troops. Also, some parts of the west decided to start/intervene/participate, while others abstained. In short, nobody cared enough about the goals and about their respective western allies to go in with a heavy force, accept some losses and do the job properly.
Of course circumstances, reasons, participants and histories beyond that were different.
Hopefully, Europe has learned its lesson. The way it was handled post-WW2 is pointing in the right direction.
WW2 was the direct result of that "historically consistent belligerence". Simplified history: lots of tension in Europe -> WW1 -> screw you Germany, we won -> Hitler: we are not having it! -> Germans: that's the guy we need! -> Oops -> WW2.
That why they did it differently post-WW2, focusing more on international collaboration (and a little indoctrination, you don't want to miss an opportunity do you?).
Also, Europe is not the center of the world anymore, they have better things to do than infighting.
The (ten) trillion dollar question is if Euro nations are going to foster fertile grounds for domestic American/Chinese competitor companies to grow, and at this point, grow rapidly. The second question is if this will be done jointly, or if old lines will come back over not wanting to be encumbered with "dead weight" in the need to move fast.
No to both in my opinion. The EU market is in reality still heavily fractured - especially in the services sector. A Hungarian construction company for example can't just easily build a bridge for a town in Italy. With Europe steadily getting older effective reforms become near impossible - especially those that would lead to large changes for workers. So Europe will forever stay in this semi broken / semi integrated state - and much higher trade barriers towards China and the US seem much more likely to me than a more competitive Europe.
Old lines were never gone. All the talk about Europeans finally doing a common thing always carry some footnotes like "the Republic of France reserves the right to deviate in matters of military, security and production of sparkling wines and demands a 45% part in all tenders". Trump just needs to threaten champagne tax and France will surrender, or car tax and Germany will. Absent outside pressure, it is even worse. European treaties consist of more national exceptions than commonalities.
Both the US and China [0][1][2] are playing hardball against the EU because we both view the EU as a junior partner and tend to negotiate with individual states bilaterally.
I think a lot of Europeans also don't realize that a large swathe of Chinese decisionmakers and policymakers studied in the US since the 1980s, and they tend to think and operate in the American manner as well.
I think the biggest issue is that Europe and the EU has gotten themselves into a position where they don't actually offer much anymore except a pretty good middle class consumer market. They've put themselves into a place where they are just very easy to squeeze, which is what is happening from all sides by Russia, China, and the US.
Trump's antics have accelerated that position, and maybe they weren't expecting it from USA, but it was probably inevitable given their long term trajectory.
Europe seems to have forgotten that influence is a function of power. The leaders in the article lament their ability to influence the US on policy, but what do they bring to the table to effect that influence? Military power? Economic power? Technical innovation? The only thing they have is a small amount of cultural power that they have used to shame and criticize while entirely relying on US protection.
The UK found this out the hard way after Brexit. When you go from sitting at the global table as Europe to being a relatively small island nation in the North Atlantic folks tend to negotiate with you differently.
I'm not defending the US here. The Iran War is a good example of my point as well. Iran reminded the world of their bargaining chip - the strait of hormuz - that the world had either forgotten about or undervalued.
I would like to see Europe have influence. I think it is good for the world. But no global power is going to give them that influence for free. They need to identify and exploit their competitive advantages. Cultural power is definitely one of those advantages, but wielding that power has actually lost them some of their influence in the US. Just like the US's use of military power also has consequences.
So Putin's failure in Ukraine is balanced by his wild success in the US. The eye-watering corruption of Trump and the Republican Party has irreversibly damaged relations with the democratic allies of the US.
The way I see it is that reactionary media ecosystem made an industry out of hating the United States (for all the ways it failed to live up to conservative values), motivated by corporate entrenched interests wanting to hamstring the government so they themselves could occupy the power vacuum. But then as more and more USD-savings accrued outside of the US, that ecosystem was bought into and augmented by foreign hostile powers whose goals mostly align with the corporations. Meanwhile the executives and managers in that media ecosystem have suffered the same bureaucratic-spreadsheet clock-punching decline as other industries, leading to a tail-wags-the-dog situation where they don't know what actually putting America first might even look like.
I think this is overly simplistic. Trump 2.0 was certainly the catalyzing event, but the issue is one of US political failure. Europe could have forgiven a corrupt regime that had an opportunity to be changed out, and was, when it became destructive to European interests. However, there is no recourse today. The US political system has demonstrated that it's corruptible and toothless in the face of authoritarian overreach, regardless of the systemic support that had to be in place for the administration to be so effectively destructive. This is the issue that is irreversible, in the long term. An authoritarian will rise again in the US, sooner rather than later.
> The new year was only three weeks old and President Trump, after removing Venezuela’s autocratic strongman, had briefly threatened to seize Greenland from Denmark.
Did Trump threaten to seize Greenland? The WSJ links to an article with the quotes below. The quotes reflect sheer buffoonery (as expected), but so far I haven't seen the threat to seize Greenland.
This seems to be the consensus, but its not clear to me that it happened.
From the linked article:
> During an hourlong speech at the World Economic Forum, the U.S. president said he wouldn’t deploy the military to take control of Greenland.
> It was a stark shift in tone for Trump, who just days earlier had declined to rule out using the military to secure ownership of Greenland and posted an image online of the territory with an American flag plastered across it.
> “I don’t have to use force,” he said. “I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”
> “We want a piece of ice for world protection, and they won’t give it,” Trump said of his desire to acquire Greenland from Denmark. “You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no, and we will remember.”
>> It was a stark shift in tone for Trump, who just days earlier had declined to rule out using the military to secure ownership of Greenland
So the problem seems to be your reading comprehension. It seems like you're focusing on the things you want to hear from this double-talking conman, while forgetting all of the things he's said that you don't want to have heard.
(and preemptively, I don't want to hear some rationalization how declining to repudiate something is technically different than endorsing it. A statesman should project stability by reaffirming shared values, this addled buffoon does the exact opposite)
A lot of folks would take Europe more seriously if there was more substance behind the talk. If it wants to replace US tech it needs to be competitive with US tech. Today it’s light years off.
The US has its own challenges, but it’s ability to unite as a country of independent states is something that Europe is unlikely to match anytime soon and that has a direct impact on the ability to execute everything Europe is posturing about.
From 2024: https://commission.europa.eu/topics/competitiveness/draghi-r...
[0] - https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/business/20250916-mario...
The US has a much more unified culture, enormous scale, and a geographically protected position, with access to vast resources. Europe has the technical talent, but much of its technology has often been bought by US firms, partly because VC funding is far weaker here. I think that is largely cultural.
At the same time, Europeans were sold the idea that the US is their friend. It is an ally, but not a friend, and that distinction matters. Now that illusion has started to break, there is finally an incentive to change.
If the EU becomes strategically protectionist in the same way the US already is, for example by preventing key IT companies from being sold overseas, it could gradually move critical infrastructure back under European control. It can do this partly by copying already proven solutions, such as AWS. Of course, this would not be easy, but Europe does not need to spend billions discovering a completely new product category from scratch. The models already exist.
Surely the first problem I mentioned will be the biggest obstacle for all of this as it is for everything. We will see what happens, but at least something has started to move. European's should unironically thanks the hollow head currently leading US, because he simply didn't understand that European dependence on US is a weapon, not a burder.
This is a fair and key point and also worth considering the view from the other side of the pond. Americans were legitimately getting fed up that the ally-ship was getting too one sided on who’s pulling their own weight in the relationship. Military spending is one hot topic coming to light again now that the neighborhood is looking unstable again.
Europeans often say “but look at our social net you silly Americans.” The American view often says “your social net has all that government money because your defense is highly subsidized by us.” That’s glossing over a few points but the math is directionally correct. Europe is running the numbers and increasingly realizes this too. Reckoning with that is one of many future hurdles facing Europe.
The headline has it right - there is no going back.
You are comparing the US to a bloc.
Each member state will likely take a different approach to independence from the US, and the bloc as a whole may offer some incentives in that direction.
One thing is for sure, any talk about independence from the US 10 years ago would be looked at with complete skepticism. People that said anything in that direction was looked at as a crank.
Now it is a much more palatable position. Change starts like that.
Will it hold? I can't tell. I think it will be very unlikely for things to go back to the previous state.
Either way, we're in an age of decline and fracture.
It wouldn't make any strategic sense for Europe to wait it out and see what happens next, and no doubt it has been a wake-up call to see how quickly the US can pivot from friend to adversary.
Once Europe has severed reliance on US, then it is hard to see them reverting.
The last 80 years have been exceptionally peaceful compared to the rest of history, so I hope it continues despite America's loss of hegemon status.
After the cold war has ended, the western nations focused on not giving a fuck about military strength, allies or facing opponents the size of Russia or China. Instead some small-time infantry campaigns like Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan were started and then basically abandoned without any decisive result or even with a total failure. But even back in the 2000s, there were no common goals and no real alliances, just some commitments to save face and keep up appearances.
So now, Russia in Ukraine and Iran in the Persian Gulf have called the bluff that is Western military power and decisiveness. I'm guessing those were just the first instances of a long line of wars that should have been prevented by the US-lead West, that are now possible because the West is fractured and aimless.
Of course circumstances, reasons, participants and histories beyond that were different.
WW2 was the direct result of that "historically consistent belligerence". Simplified history: lots of tension in Europe -> WW1 -> screw you Germany, we won -> Hitler: we are not having it! -> Germans: that's the guy we need! -> Oops -> WW2.
That why they did it differently post-WW2, focusing more on international collaboration (and a little indoctrination, you don't want to miss an opportunity do you?).
Also, Europe is not the center of the world anymore, they have better things to do than infighting.
More fault lines and pirates and no one to police them.
Both the US and China [0][1][2] are playing hardball against the EU because we both view the EU as a junior partner and tend to negotiate with individual states bilaterally.
I think a lot of Europeans also don't realize that a large swathe of Chinese decisionmakers and policymakers studied in the US since the 1980s, and they tend to think and operate in the American manner as well.
[0] - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202605/1361926.shtml
[1] - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202605/1362161.shtml
[2] - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202606/1364526.shtml
Trump's antics have accelerated that position, and maybe they weren't expecting it from USA, but it was probably inevitable given their long term trajectory.
I would like to see Europe have influence. I think it is good for the world. But no global power is going to give them that influence for free. They need to identify and exploit their competitive advantages. Cultural power is definitely one of those advantages, but wielding that power has actually lost them some of their influence in the US. Just like the US's use of military power also has consequences.
> The new year was only three weeks old and President Trump, after removing Venezuela’s autocratic strongman, had briefly threatened to seize Greenland from Denmark.
Did Trump threaten to seize Greenland? The WSJ links to an article with the quotes below. The quotes reflect sheer buffoonery (as expected), but so far I haven't seen the threat to seize Greenland.
This seems to be the consensus, but its not clear to me that it happened.
From the linked article:
> During an hourlong speech at the World Economic Forum, the U.S. president said he wouldn’t deploy the military to take control of Greenland.
> It was a stark shift in tone for Trump, who just days earlier had declined to rule out using the military to secure ownership of Greenland and posted an image online of the territory with an American flag plastered across it.
> “I don’t have to use force,” he said. “I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”
> “We want a piece of ice for world protection, and they won’t give it,” Trump said of his desire to acquire Greenland from Denmark. “You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no, and we will remember.”
>> It was a stark shift in tone for Trump, who just days earlier had declined to rule out using the military to secure ownership of Greenland
So the problem seems to be your reading comprehension. It seems like you're focusing on the things you want to hear from this double-talking conman, while forgetting all of the things he's said that you don't want to have heard.
(and preemptively, I don't want to hear some rationalization how declining to repudiate something is technically different than endorsing it. A statesman should project stability by reaffirming shared values, this addled buffoon does the exact opposite)