> the EU has serious energy problems, brewing war on the border implying diplomatic failures and is largely reliant on American military assistance. The first

> the EU has serious energy problems, brewing war on the border implying diplomatic failures and is largely reliant on American military assistance. The first two are essentially just a matter of geography; pretty sure it would have played out the same in broad lines if there had been no EU. If anything, I expect it would be worse: a more divided Europe would have been easier to defy by Putin. To call this a "diplomatic failure" is a huge simplification; you can only do so much diplomacy with someone who is not willing to engage in diplomacy with you. Ask Neville Chamberlain how his diplomacy worked out. The US is convinced it needs an humongous army to do all sorts of useful things, like dropping napalm on children in Vietnam, drone strikes on journalists, invasion of countries for no clear reason in particular with intentionally falsified data. You know, essential stuff like that. I'm putting it rather sharply here and I do think the US military does good things too and I "half believe" in Pax Americana, sort of, but let's not kid ourselves and claim that the US military is needed for the defence of Europe. Defend from whom, exactly? Russia? The Soviet military was already collapsing in the 80s together with the rest of the Soviet union, and we've all seen how well they're doing in Ukraine. That view is about 50 years out of date. We even have our own nukes, should it really come down to it. And who else is there to seriously threaten Europe/EU militarily? No one, basically. Even during the second world war things are not as simple as "the United States single-handedly comes to save the day in Europe" as some Americans seem to believe.