As a European, this is genuinely alarming. Headlines like this make me feel that NATO is effectively over at best, and that war may be approaching at worst.
`”fundamental disagreement" between the Trump administration and European allies.`
Long term it probably even is better if the US just leave, especially if the next president is aligned with the current government, we might as well cut our losses early and restructure before they bully the rest of their allies.
NATO has been over for decades, it is now just useful to the US military complex to secure one of their market.
Worst the concept of "European allies" is not real. At the end of WW2 Western Europe became a colony or dominion of the US like Eastern Europe got under USSR control. Europeans might have been told something else by their politicians and intellectuals but it is because they were allowed to save face and part of the "Free World" propaganda.
As the last "EU leaders" of the WW2 generation faded away the next one were too stupid to understand what they are.
At the same time the US got confused too. It probably doesn't know if it is the Roman Republic or Empire. So now everybody is confused.
One thing is for sure the so called EU leadership is of very low quality and they have absolutely no idea what they are doing.
They have antagonised their own population and about every other centers of power: the US, Russia and China. No regime can survive this.
My guess is Europe is gonna be split in two again (the fracture line is starting to be clear) or worst go through a hybrid civil war before and rot for a while.
Good riddance, De Gaulle was always right about americans, we might finally be able to get out and build our own stuff instead of being a bully's bitch forever. Given the current situation and trends I don't expect there will be anything good to expect from the US for a while.
Yes I am not sure people really have a grasp of what NATO is.
NATO is just a military fair where Denmark, Belgium or Greece get scammed and order a dozen F35. It is gonna take a lot of hacking to have them attack their master, but John Conor did it in Terminator 2 so there is hope.
And also a lot of people get some cushy jobs and contract there. They sometimes produce funny videos and documents like [0]
The idea that you can takeover NATO without the US and repurpose it to fight a war is nonsense.
This idea has probably been put in people head by having Mark Rutte, an aspiring pianist who worked in HR at Unilever, talking nonsense on TV all the time.
That's an insightful question about Greenland, which Denmark desperately wanted to retain in the 1950s to the extent of unilaterally making it a 'part' of the Kingdom without consulting the Greenlanders.
Ironically it was only Belgium that spoke out, based on its own colonial dirty laundry.
`”fundamental disagreement" between the Trump administration and European allies.`