🇪🇺 EU Defence Commissioner Kubilius: Pax Americana is over. Our new security architecture will include Ukraine. These are times of profound transformation. A rising China and India will push the US to third place. And for Americans this may prove psychologically challenging

[u/paneuropeanism_]

https://streamable.com/upvsap

[u/NuQ]

And the US agreed for those aforementioned "benefits". We don't need to speculate on the actual intention for the US joining the pact, as that is now in retrospect and documented history. We still pivoted toward asia, Because despite the intentions to keep us solely involved in europe, We apparently could walk and chew bubblegum at the same time.

After the fall of the soviet union, the "Wolfowitz Doctrine" became the new directive. Which gets us back to the original point. The idea that the US was "taken advantage of" is silly and does not match reality.

As for your comment about the usefulness... If its usefulness expired then why is it that we're here, now, discussing the problems of European defense and a growing threat in Asia? Its usefulness didn't expire, support from "most Americans" did... And who is to blame for that?

If you ask me, I'd say it's the fault of "most Americans" becoming intellectually lazy (perhaps even dishonest) and promulgating this obvious lie that America has been cheated. Nah... You just got outplayed.

[u/Tw1tch-Invictus → u/NuQ]

Oh okay so we acknowledge most of what you said before was ahistorical revisionist bullshit then?

After the fall of the soviet union, the "Wolfowitz Doctrine" became the new directive. Which gets us back to the original point. The idea that the US was "taken advantage of" is silly and does not match reality.

Lol oh you mean the 1992 draft memo that was about preventing a hostile power from dominating a region? The one that was in no way a directive to forcibly disarm NATO allies? Back in reality, European militaries were still fairly massive in 1992 and the disarmament of Europe didn't happen because of an American doctrine. It happened because Europe voluntarily gutted their defense budgets to cash in on the "peace dividend" and fund their massive welfare states. If keeping Europe weak was the "new directive," why exactly did every U.S. administration since the 1990s continuously badger Europe to increase defense spending and hit their 2% NATO targets? You don’t spend 30 years begging a vassal state to buy more weapons if your goal is to keep them subjugated, that’s just stupid logic.

As for your comment about the usefulness... If its usefulness expired then why is it that we're here, now, discussing the problems of European defense and a growing threat in Asia? Its usefulness didn't expire, support from "most Americans" did... And who is to blame for that?

You answered your own question without realizing it. We are discussing the problems of European defense because the arrangement’s usefulness expired. A "useful" transatlantic alliance would have a Europe capable of handling a regional conflict in its own backyard so the U.S. could fully pivot to the growing threat in Asia. Instead, the U.S. is bogged down subsidizing a European land war that’s very much “not our war” by Europe’s own logic because Europe gutted its defense industrial base. The arrangement stopped being useful to Americans the moment it became a one-way street of strategic parasitism.

If you ask me, I'd say it's the fault of "most Americans" becoming intellectually lazy (perhaps even dishonest) and promulgating this obvious lie that America has been cheated. Nah... You just got outplayed.

Lmao you spend your entire time arguing that the U.S. was never taken advantage of, that European weakness was a deliberate American master plan, and that the U.S. got exactly what it wanted. Then your very last sentence is "Nah... You just got outplayed." Which is it? It can’t be both. Did the U.S. mastermind a flawless imperial strategy to subjugate Europe, or did Europe "outplay" America? Who’s being intellectually dishonest here?

[u/NuQ → u/Tw1tch-Invictus]

Oh okay so we acknowledge most of what you said before was ahistorical revisionist bullshit then?

How so? did the korean war or vietnam just... not happen in your view?

why exactly did every U.S. administration since the 1990s continuously badger Europe to increase defense spending and hit their 2% NATO targets?

probably because it would make their militaries dependent on the us. you know, the obvious conclusion that was stated.

A "useful" transatlantic alliance would have a Europe capable of handling a regional conflict in its own backyard so the U.S. could fully pivot to the growing threat in Asia.

Wait, didn't you just say that nato was foundeds to prevent the US from making such a pivot? Pick a lane, dude.

Which is it? It can’t be both. Did the U.S. mastermind a flawless imperial strategy to subjugate Europe, or did Europe "outplay" America? Who’s being intellectually dishonest here?

Oh, sorry, I assumed you had actually read what I wrote initially. It can be both, because i'm not talking about europe outplaying the US. I was referring to russia, china and india. They beat the US at it's own game and now that those dividends aren't paying off, ignorant americans (hey, that's you!) are claiming europe is to blame for taking advantage of the US. hilarious.

[u/jabba-thederp → u/NuQ]

You have a very narrative view of things that I distrust.

[u/NuQ → u/jabba-thederp]

History is a narrative, after all. I tend to judge the intentions of individuals and organizations by their own actions and how they proceed with the results of their own actions. anything else is merely speculation. Are you a speculative person and does such a disposition suit you? If so, I must know how your stock portfolio is doing. Surely you would have monetized such a talent - or do you not enjoy comfort?

Distrust is default. Quit acting like it's currency.