There is definitely truth that Europe has relied on US defense for too long, but what the US got in return is hard to put into words and economic terms. We bought your tech, culture, defense and so much other stuff.
This rift won't close anytime soon
Same protection racket plus a foot on the brake of the EU's push to renewables.
I mean it'll help in the sense that energy supply will switch to renewable sources, sure. Great for the climate, hopefully, But it won't help in lowering energy cost.
And before you say "but solar panels". A bunch of states have already started pretty heavily taxing them.
Which state energy firms? Most countries have mostly privatized generation with just the grid in public ownership. EDF is something of an exception, but they have very different economics (and the nuclear fleet).
> "paying high energy prices to repay state debt"
The whole range of general taxation is available for that.
> A bunch of states have already started pretty heavily taxing them.
Which European states?
Unless you have nuclear or another reliable source like hydro, which you only get if you have the right topography for it.
If anything, renewables help existing stock of fossil fuels last longer as you don't burn as much when renewables are generating.
* solar with no storage
* shutting down existing nuclear
* natural gas peaker plants
* making everyone to use natural gas for heating by making it much cheaper than electricity
* slowing down the EV rollout by keeping to subsidize gas and diesel
could definitely be seen as a scheme to make the fossil fuel gravy train last as long as possible.
And that's not even talking about the absolutely out there schemes that didn't succeed like hydrogen powered vehicles (with most of hydrogen coming from fossil fuels and you can theoretically switch to zero emission one but you never would have because the fossil one is always going to be cheaper because making hydrogen is difficult).
But it could also all just be incompetence.
There need to be assurances renewables are replacing fossil fuels rather than just adding capacity.
How can it possibly, when ""before"" (what dates and countries are we talking about?) was mostly fossil fuel anyway?
Remember that Germany, France, Spain and Poland look completely different in terms of energy mix!
First of all, this is an insane statement.
> Unless you have nuclear
Second of all, with nuclear most countries will still be dependent on other countries for their fuel needs. So it doesn't solve the problem discussed here at all.
> There is definitely truth that Europe has relied on US defense for too long,
«The U.S. is lobbying against SAFE because it mandates contractors from the EU/EFTA/Ukraine. One reason why Tusk is speaking candidly about how shaky the U.S. is as an ally: Washington says it wants Europe to arm itself and take its security into its own hands, but then it demands Europe rely on American hardware. You can't have it both ways.
The U.S. said: "Take over Ukraine's war needs." So Europe did so. Now PURL purchases are being slowed down or are on hold because of America's prioritization of its own requirements for the war with Iran. Talking out of both sides of one's mouth doesn't work anymore, and if Trump wants anyone to blame here, he should look in the mirror. Forfeiting America's security patronage always meant forfeiting our ability to bully and coerce.»
src: https://xcancel.com/michaeldweiss/status/2047689018683408593To a certain extent the US occupation of Germany was intended to prevent Germany rearming on its own.
...to Trump. European leaders took it literally: since the USA stopped being a reliable partner, Europe needs to depend on itself for protection. It makes zero sense to buy American weapons if you can produce/purchase them on the continent.
Still, "loose" is confusing because it makes me think for one second of the actual word "loose", so it breaks the cadence of reading (and thus it is not really "understood"). If the word "loose" didn't exist, I would have no problem with people misspelling "lose" in this way and eventually becoming mainstream.
The world's rules were written by them, for them, and their allies notably european countries were willing to go along for the ride for all the side benefit of said safety and stability, both pretended it was a gift out of niceness while it was actually massively profitable
But then a portion of the US started believing the whole gift part, and now they're destroying their own control of the world order and forcing other to realign out of their control
We've truly fell for our own tricks as we call it "international rulebased order" which hides the fact that it's just a benevolent dictatorship under the American Federal government.
As we say in Dutch: trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback. Perhaps now it leaves in a Boeing.
This will forever change the US' role in the world.
I'm still not sure whether Trump actually believes it or if he's just using it as a propaganda tool. I remember how he reported a conversation with Macron telling him that Macron will have to increase the cost of drugs for French citizens. It was so completely out of touch as drug pricing works completely different in the EU. But he definitely likes to directly imply that all positive aspects of life in Europe are being sponsored by the USA (rather than citizens paying higher taxes). Who knows, maybe he believes it, I wouldn't be surprised really.
At the same time EU had no proper army to defend itself because dependance on US or a way to supply said army.
Europe does have uranium resources, for instance the Salamanca/Retortillo project, but the constraint is permitting, environmental acceptance, waste handling, and political legitimacy rather than geology. So the honest claim is not "nuclear makes Europe autarkic". It is "nuclear gives Europe a more diversifiable and stockpilable dependency than gas, provided Europe also invests in mining, conversion, enrichment, and fuel fabrication capacity".
Only Slovakia and Hungary. They will need to find a way. (Finland planned it but cancelled after Russia invaded Ukraine.)
There is zero chance that new nuclear plants in Europe will use any Russian tech or fuel.
Kazakhstan is by far the largest uranium producer in the world and has a leg in Europe, west of the Ural river. The important thing is that there are more stable partners worldwide for uranium than Russia is for oil and gas.
There are deposits in Europe, the respective countries decided not to exploit them [0]. This could change depending on external pressures.
[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211467X2...
The dictator now makes more money, so we just lost our cheap gas source, and we buy more expensive oil from others.
Even the ""government shutdown"" (just ended) isn't a problem. It turns out that you don't have to pay air traffic controllers for months.
The US has inflated numbers through soft power influence throughout the whole world but that makes its current course only more self-destructive including bond yields when they come crashing down.
Do you say this because of the outstanding debt? Otherwise, just their top 10 publicly traded companies earn more than all but 2 countries. Just the US defense budget ($1T and estimated $1.5T next year), which exports US foreign policy globally, absolutely dwarfs every other country's.
Yes, theoretically they can always print their way out, but that's just default through inflation and bond yields will correct immediately to account for it.
Are not European countries trying to reduce dependency on American tech giants? China was very successful in this regard. Russia is also independent but in the most incompetent way possible. The EU could do it quite well.
The USA is not a reliable partner. To send data to the USA from the EU is a fatal mistake that needs to be corrected. The risk was acceptable in the past, but not anymore.
The USA comes from a very privileged position thanks to many factors. The government is making sure that non of the conditions hold anymore.
These privileges were supported wholeheartedly by all the worlds 'middle' powers e.g. Canada, Australia, Japan, Germany, Spain, Sweden etc. Thus establishing a world order.
The US has seemingly turned on all these middle powers for no reason, decided the world order needed to change when it was already #1. The US will of course still be a superpower but it is going to lose it hegemony.
So many people, including very intelligent and well-informed ones, do not understand this. The US gets truly outsized benefits from having the reserve currency.
Basically they argue that US (and other trade deficit countries) and China (and other trade surplus countries) are creating mirror imbalances that would have to be rectified - either by policy actions or when driven up to conclusion by system breakage. Like Great Depression or Japan lost decade on the surplus side. And possibly inflationary crisis on deficit countries (but this is my interpretation - I do not think they claim that and I might have not understood something).
In that lenses latest political development in US does make more sense.
(1) trade deficit pushes assets price up - as dolar from trade surplus has to return to US somehow - to buy stocks for example. That would also explain why market looks so good even if "real economy" is not so hot - but as US trade deficit is big so is stock demand. Similarly trade deficit pushes unemployment up - to keep it in check federal policy has to intervene. Could be by Biden IRA or by Trump big defense spending. This in turn results in big budget deficits.
The issue is that there's a complete collapse in it's ability to pick good leadership, or at least leadership that can meet the bar of 'doesn't piss on the floor', and no path for course-correction from it. It's in the 'everyone plunder as much as you can carry' stage, and nobody cares.
(Which also means that whatever that debt will be buying will more likely than not, be incredibly stupid, and likely self-destructive.)
The 10-year bond yield is not controlled by the Fed, if it keeps raising the interests payment will continue the crushing of the budget. The USA currently depends on debt, it doesn't collect enough taxes to cover expenses as it is, with interests raising on an even larger debt amount there's no way out except for raising taxes to plug the gap. Any American politician who raises taxes will be out of a job, it's one of the most sensitive topics for Americans so it will only be done when the problem is out of hand.
Of course, the USA can just print its way out of debt instead of raising taxes but at that point their bonds wouldn't be as attractive, inflation would also become a huge issue (probably the 2nd most sensitive economic topic for Americans).
As far as I know most empires had their pivotal moment when their debt crushed their power, it seems to be inevitable.
> The USA currently depends on debt, it doesn't collect enough taxes to cover expenses as it is
That's where the lack of 'good governance' comes in. Good governance would, as of 2026, require raising taxes. The US has plenty of capacity to pay, it's just that the people running it prioritize keeping capital owners happy over the long-term welfare of the country.
You're right that actually raising taxes is political suicide. That's one of the reasons this dysfunction has no escape clause, but the past 10 years have piled on a lot of other reasons, too. It's one thing when a government is ignoring a financial timebomb, but is otherwise, trying to... Run the country like a country.
It's another when it's ignoring a financial timebomb, while also running the country in the same way that a drunk runs a hurdle race.
We have Mauser, Carl Walther, Sauer & Sohn, Haenel, DWM, Krupp, Reinmetall, Hckler & Koch and more. We know how to do military
And from whom do i depend on US defense? Against Russia? Who can barely make it in Ukraine? Middle east were everyone is fighting everyone and were Iran is very very pissed at the USA?
Tell me what defense do i need against whom?
Narcissism adds a curious twist, but of course for the worse.
The political system and elite institutions have failed their country. Does the US self correct with the next two election cycles? Hard to believe right now.
Well, the alternative for now is Vance. Hard to say which one is worse.
No, the US has been losing its stance in the world since the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, murdering a million people in cold blood on the basis of outright lies.
It has been downhill ever since then. The support for the Gaza genocide is just one in a long list of atrocities for which the American state is responsible, and for which the entire world is starting to hold America responsible.
The rest of the world has been watching, and knows this - even if Americans, in their bubble, do not.
Its the war crimes, crimes against humanity, and massive violations of human rights at scale which cause the world to lose face in the American system.
Plus, the way Americans treat their own people - nobody wants to live like an American, any more.
Until someone comes up with an antidote for the warrior narcissism which inflicts a huge portion of American society, the maw of the abyss remains wide open.
I find the online opinion on Europe / US relations interesting. Online you’d think Europe and US are about to split. But in real life, Europe is more dependent on the US than ever. In terms of energy (Russian fossil fuels basically replaced by US fossil fuels), defense, economy (European economy relatively smaller now than 20 yrs ago), and they just finished signing very one sided deals where they guarantee energy purchases and investment after the tariff war. I think there’s a disconnect between European commenters and European politicians.
What?!
I'm not talking about the recent events when Europe not only didn't joint Trump's war but openly refused the use of its military bases. Even in the past when the so-called "coalition of the willing" was formed, Europe had the biggest protests in its history. There were not hundreds of thousands but millions people on streets.
So your picture of uniformity was already false 20 years ago, and now it's just crystal clear.
American media are owned by the same people making profit from selling the bombs falling in the genocide - so, it won't freely and openly report European upset at America's war crimes so readily.
If that were true they wouldn't have wasted enormous amounts of expensive ammunition in Iran.
Two, the US wasting of ammunition in an ill-prepared fight against Iran that has not produced any of the result they claim to want but managed to make things instable for a lot of the world has nothing to do with helping Europe.
One country even asked them publicly why didn't you warn us and Trump's only answer was some stupid comment about pearl harbor. This is so absurd.
Ukrainians, having very little of those (or nothing now), used 1 patriot missile per 1 boogey with little drop in effectiveness, and whole crew remained in and guided it manually. According to them system is built to be wasteful to increase those interception numbers marginally, but for anything but short exchange its a very bad design mistake that can be easily overwhelmed or depleted, as seen trivially exploitable by enemy.
While Ukraine used just 600 interceptors in 4 years of war.
Just please don't start any wars that mess up the global economy like you just did. Thanks.
> So no more US military bases in Europe then?
Fine. If the US wants to lose that, it's collateral to the US's political changes. It should have been obvious that this was a consequence, and one bad for the USA - e.g. it's much harder to fly aircraft from USA to middle east without refuelling bases in Europe.
> No more trade with a market of 500 million people?
The EU is always willing to trade, and negotiate durable terms. The impediments to that are on the US side. "no more trade" is an exaggeration of course, but the US's actions will limit trade.
> No more cooperation on science and research?
How much science and research is going to happen in the US in the near future? I'm told that it's not a growth area. The EU and others are going to have to step up here, take in researchers, develop vaccines etc.
> Nothing of the current US isolationism makes any goddamn longterm sense for the US.
Agreed, no notes.
> Europe and the rest of the world will be fine, mostly.
The current petrochemical price shock seems like it will be not fine for Europe and the rest of the world. And they will know who to blame. The silver lining is that it helps make the case for solar and renewables, and accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.
When the North Koreans started enriching uranium and producing plutonium, everyone dithered until they actually built nuclear weapons, and now everyone in the region periodically submits to nuclear blackmail because, well, what else are they going to do? Do we really want to see Iran doing that?
There was a nuclear deal, it wasn't perfect but it definitely was a way forward, the USA dismantled its own deal instead of improving it, creating the conditions for Iran to be painted again with the "they are getting nukes" line.
I'd have preferred the USA to not have reneged its own nuclear deal with Iran, and had not fanned the flames to create the circumstances for then starting a war against Iran.
I really see Iran being more rational than North Korea to keep working on a nuclear deal over time, it would take a long while but at least it would be contained. Now you have to either completely subjugate them and change regime or it will inevitably pursue a nuclear weapon to not allow the Israel-USA alliance to repeat a similar attack.
So, are you happy with potentially pushing forward the timeline for an Iranian nuclear bomb?
Would the US war make life better for anyone except the US military industrial complex and Netanyahu personally? I mean, even the goal of liberating Iranians from their regime has been abandoned.
> now everyone in the region periodically submits to nuclear blackmail
Are China, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Singapore at this moment cowering to nuclear blackmail? Is North Korea ruling over them and having them submit to its demands?
False dichotomy
American intelligence showed Iran was nowhere near building a nuclear weapon.
Frankly, a better question would be to ask why Mango Mussolini tore up the 2016 Iran Nuclear deal (JCPOA).... Hint: It might be something to do with it being made by his predecessor.
The former existence of the JCPOA "Iran nuclear deal" is what indicates that this is a false dichotomy, not a serious question.
> There are a myriad of indications the Iranians are building nuclear weapons, the most obvious of these being the enrichment of uranium far past the purity you'd need for any other purpose.
Of course, that's the whole point of Iran creating this lever, it needs to be plausible enough to force negotiations, as I said before: Netanyahu has been screaming about impeding Iranian nukes for 30 years, they never materialised.
Do you know what will materialise a nuclear program? Getting attacked and having your government decapitated while in negotiations, after a previous agreement was reneged on.
I need to state this before someone comes with a strawman: I don't support the Iranian regime at all, it's absolutely brutal, and tyrannical. I have friends who are exiled Iranians, I've been around their families and heard their stories many times.
I'm plenty aware of how bad it is but they aren't stupid or irrational, the only levers for international negotiations they had were keeping their nuclear program in limbo, and the strait. Those levers weren't enough to deter Israel and the USA so their only rational option left is to pursue a nuclear weapon if they hold power for a few more years.
It’s almost like it didn’t need to happen.
And if we step further back, relation with Iran are troubled, why would that be?
Does that mean ceasing to use Europe as a strike base for the middle east?
The practice of interning a large number of people in camps without access to legal process .. well, which side of the Atlantic has more of that at the moment?
But otherwise? All of this is stupid. USA always warmongered around everywhere and it gave it a lot of power, petrodollar and control. Its very weird that the USA Strategy is now getting dismanteld like this.
I can only assume its the orange clown who either thinks very ignorant or only for his own interest and gets pushed from Putin to play this game.
I don't mind though, Putin showed how shit his army is and germany/europe knows how to make weapons. Always have
- No more soft power
- Massively reduced capability to strike the Middle East
- Europe dumping US bonds
- Europe reducing dependence on the USD
- No ability to restrain Europe from arming
- No one would trust the US again - remember, the USA has had security guarantees with Ukraine long before this mess.
There is a lot to be said about this attitude of "we are doing Europe a favour" idiocy, it's reminiscent of the Bush era jingoism that I have noticed a resurgence of since Trump's second term, especially since the war with Iran.
The USA would be doing the USA a favour if they keep doing what they have been doing in Europe since the end of WWII. It's NOT bad for the USA. Europe is under the USA's thumb as a result of NATO.
Europe is in for a lot of short term pain as a result of the Ukraine and blockade of the Strait.
I also firmly believe (controversial I am aware) a desperate Europe will 100% throw Ukraine to the wolves and make peace with Russia for their energy, and what then?
Europe is bigger than US, if US loses (actually lost) all allies its just <5% of global population, against remaining 95%. We can collectively ditch SWIFT, petro dollars and so on that your ancestors spent their lives building to bring you where you are now, and then you will be alone against China (and russia, your forever mortal enemy). Good luck.
We are not complaining, this is good for us long term. I don't think its so good for you compared to where you are now though.
Yes but that's an uncomfortable framing for online-americans to use when they want some gotcha argument
And not a useful one for US administrations in the last 30 years (trump was far from the first one) to make because the (mostly) unstated assumption was that the vast majority of increased spending would go to american manufacturers to prop up american jobs
Frankly, it doesn't pass the sniff test and its bizarre to see some (educated!) American HN readers falling for it.
You don't need to add this, just say that you agree with him on that point. If the mob comes down on you for agreeing with the devil you can counter that you agree with facts, not based on who happens to voice them.
Additionally a number of countries have "unfair" advantages over others. There are 2 straits that control access to the oceans. Which means Denmark and Norway control free trade routes (land routes are not "free" as in they are taxed) into Germany, Sweden, Finland, the Baltics, and of course Russia. This can't be fixed, and the UK effectively occupies Gibraltar to prevent it.
Spain (I'd say Spain and Morocco, but really ... Spain) controls sea access for all Mediterranean countries, from Italy to Georgia, Algeria to Greece. France (and Morocco) being the major exceptions to this. This can't be fixed, and is currently blocked by what is effectively an international force. Spain is not happy with this.
Turkey controls (and intends to tax) trade routes into all the black sea countries, which is most of Eastern Europe.
Oh and UK and the Netherlands, for reasons that are slightly less obvious, control free trade into Belgium.
In addition to this, most countries do not have the resources they need. Not even to survive. And even most countries that could be self-sufficient, aren't (cough Germany, really, WHY????). Really only France is somewhat close to self-sufficient. Specialization, on a country level, is a necessity in Europe, most countries do not have access to free trade routes and are utterly dependent on trade, in other words: they have to pay to survive.
Essentially the situation is simple: all European countries, except France. Spain, UK and Portugal (and, yes, Ireland) COULD get themselves into a secure position, but haven't (and so if it came to it, it would be very hard to do in a short time). All other countries probably can't do it at all. So all these countries have good reason to attack each other.
So the question with getting Europe's armies weapons is: the natural situation is that they'll try to destabilize Europe rather than stabilize it, because that is in most countries' direct economic interest. Historically, they ... you can say Europe was more peaceful than places like the areas of the ottoman empire, for example. But that should not be confused with peaceful in an absolute sense. In fact, the last 80 years or so have been remarkably peaceful, with America guaranteeing access to international trade. Well, I'm sure Russia would counter "guarantee access? You mean control access", and yes, that's been done.
Unfortunately it's very clear that America's power, especially measured relative to other countries, is waning. Meaning America is still far more powerful than, say, Turkey. But it used to be easily 100x more powerful. Now ... it looks more like 10x. Opposing Turkey will be a huge effort for the US, far more than the Iran war will be. US's deal, the Pax Americana, was that America would simply guarantee free trade routes with it's military for everyone, in fact, that's what the Iran war is really about (free trade for everyone behind Hormuz). In exchange, US gets the dollar. Many nations, most obviously Iran, but Turkey, Indonesia, China, Somalia, ... have all taken steps to tax the trade routes they control, which will over time create an untenable trade situation for a very large number of countries.
The situation for Germany in the long term is a simple choice: they can either pay, or attack. We all know what their historical choice has been, as soon as you have a somewhat prolonged economic crisis. Germany is not alone in this, in fact all of Eastern Europe is more or less in the same situation. A decent chunk of those countries are arming themselves (for example, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and Finland have all given hints they're building a nuclear force)
The problem with America weakening is that the US wants free trade, because that directly benefits the US greatly, whereas most other factions want to control trade instead. Turkey, Iran, China, Indonesia, even Spain's current government if we're honest and others want to (go back to) taxing other countries. Historically they have succeeded at this, but it resulted in constant wars.
I'm just thinking ahead to what will happen once these loans turn from a short-term economic boost and start dragging the economies further down.
Where do you get this from? Is this a remark that comes from antipathy to social democracy? Every speech by Sanchez that I have listened to over the last year has him promoting free trade, even the wiki says so:
Sánchez has been a strong advocate for finalizing the long-negotiated EU–Mercosur Free Trade Agreement,[170] which aims to establish one of the world's largest free trade areas.[171]
Why do you think that is? If you want to know: Spain's official story is they want it back because "it's inconveniently placed" (they imply they mean for the Spanish fishing industry).
He negotiated that with the UK so that the whole border control thing could be ameliated that made commerce and travel more difficult than strictly necessary. I would argue that is more in the vein of enabling free trade than installing a tax.
As for the UK chasing spanish ships, do you have a link?
I mean, he is arguing for the UK to return to the EU every chance he gets and that was part of the negotiations for Gibraltar, is that what you object to?
https://spanishnewstoday.com/s%C3%A1nchez-and-starmer-seal-n...
Um... WHAT?
I'll just leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe
Once all the Germans were warlike and mean,
But that couldn't happen again.
We taught them a lesson in 1918
And they've hardly bothered us since then.
> After his fall, Honecker said of Otto von Habsburg in relation to the summer of 1989, "this Habsburg drove the nail into my coffin."
The "defend against Russia" spin of TFA is only smoke and mirrors for the public, to distract from the less savoury activities of Rheinmetall (source of the "news") and their deepening ties with Israel (exports, joint ventures with Rafael, etc.).
https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2025/12/21/us-intelligence-putin-...
I’m saying that your comment broadly works when you compare current US politics to 1930s German politics (nuclear policy aside).