I am a US taxpayer. I have to file my income tax with the IRS every single year. — NOS4A2

Are you a citizen of the U.S.?

I live in Canada and recently watched the Prime Minister pledge allegiance to the King of England and his heirs during his inauguration. Lawyers and judges bow or curtsy towards a picture of King Charles when they enter and leave a courtroom. Russia could only dream of such fealty. — NOS4A2

The English have indeed been the most successful empire builders starting from the incredible wisdom of creating the identity of being "British" to their multicultural isles. They've been so successful in this, that some English now question just what being English means anymore, compared to being British. Yet this is the prime example of how identities for different people can really be built from scratch. The English were successful in this, the Russian's weren't (or the EU, for that matter). The Russians came closest to this with the identity of being Soviet.

Furthermore, the English (now called the British) have been very successful in creating a British Commonwealth. Canadians are the best example. Yet when the English have used force, the result is relationship that the UK has with Ireland. Even if Russia desperately tried to mimic this with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), they utterly failed. The worst part came with Putin and his Russian reconquista. All that soft power that Russia had, for example over Ukraine, is now past history.

I am a US taxpayer. I have to file my income tax with the IRS every single year. — NOS4A2

Ah yes, unlike other countries, you have to pay taxes for the US even when living outside. My bad. But you do pay taxes to Canada and use the services of Canada, right?

Indeed, clipping the wings of European war-mongering might have benefited the entire world. — NOS4A2

After the millions of Europeans killed in WW1 and WW2, Europeans even themselves noticed how bad the constant infighting was. Yet the US has had a notable role in the integration of Europe also.

But this arraignment has allowed NATO countries to forget about their duty to defend themselves, to spend less tax dollars on militaries, and to spend the money they saved for their own benefit and no one else’s—and all while maintaining that air of European superiority. — NOS4A2

If there's peace and your own military is training with all of your neighbors militaries and the soldiers and officers know each other well and the countries have friendly relations, what's the need for a large military? The Dutch don't have to be prepared if the Germans or Belgium would attack them. Yet Israel obviously needs a large military. It wouldn't have such large military if it as good relations with it's neighbors as Nordic countries have. The size of the military is directly related to a) the threat posed by other countries or b) the role being a great power. If you aren't b) and there is no a), then why would you need a large army?

I myself am an active reservist and have spent now decades in the voluntary defense training here in Finland. I remember few years ago sitting down after the sauna with fellow reserve officers and NCOs who also have been working in the voluntary defense training for many years and asked them one question: "Who of them would have joined the military, if our neighbor in the east with over 1000km land border would be Canada?" None would have joined in that case the military. There naturally wouldn't be a reason for universal conscription and the tiny Finnish armed forces would be struggling with the same problems as the armed forces of Canada, or Belgium. Now, as one commodore put it to me, Finland has an abundance of men to fill it's military ...and a shortage of everything else. The shortage is because we face Russia as an existential threat.

—and all while maintaining that air of European superiority. — NOS4A2

Who, other than the French, do maintain that feeling? Nobody else. The core of continental Europe is France and perhaps the Benelux countries... and everybody else looks as being somehow out from the center or have underlying issues, like Germany.

Trump's reaction to Reiner's death reflects a life inside a recently shaken snow globe.

Trump saved the economy, which is the greatest economy in history now. It’s so obvious that he needed to rant about it for 20 minutes on national television.

But at least the speech was full of facts.

The conservative publication, The National Review, wrote this about the President:

"The president of the United States is a hateful raging lunatic with all the empathy of Jeffrey Dahmer....

"This president cannot discern moral right and wrong through a person’s actions, like a normal human being. Donald Trump’s entire worldview of whether someone is a good person or a bad person depends entirely on whether that person offers praise or criticism of Trump....

"The guy who can’t feel empathy for the Reiners being stabbed to death by their son is also not going to feel empathy for the people who contend the cost of living is still high, which is why the president keeps running around insisting the word “affordability” is a Democratic hoax and that Americans are living in a “golden age.” "

https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/trumps-appalling-reiner-reaction-is-a-sign-of-something-deeply-wrong/?fbclid=IwdGRjcAOy-9NjbGNrA7L7x2V4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHnJxOyFQAVCJjX1dmES254hLB4rSz1E_i8Pfr0KYkMaO-4rPyHy5KoAfFzrN_aem_Z3LmBDa7udmeucM2zYEPgg

American presence there is the only deterrent Europe has ever had, and the only reason NATO stands any chance. The problem is you all have been taking advantage of the United States taxpayer for far too long without developing any way to defend yourselves. And once that tit is finally pulled away their leaders start to cry while they scramble for answers. — NOS4A2

Did you pay attention in your IR101 class? The deal was quite simple. The US allow and support an integrated and strong Europe if Europe would not arm itself. The economic might of the EU supports the US, accept and support its super power status, while the US supports Europe militarily. It benefitted both sides enormously. The new order is different, the US wants Europe to arm itself, but an armed and integrated Europe is a threat, so it wants it armed but not organised. That is unacceptable to European leaders, but the EU is weak and under pressure of its own populations..

There has not been any 'unfairness' though, Europe never profited from the US tax payer, it was all stategy to begin with. The problem is the strategy has changed.

That's an interesting narrative. The American narrative is that after WW2, the US waited for the UK and France to get back on their feet and take over global governance again. They gave them money to help with that, but neither country seemed to care much about protecting the infrastructure of global trade, so the US decided to take over that role, partly inspired by Stalin's ongoing threats. Someone asked him how much more of Europe he was planning to take and he answered, "Not much."

I imagine neither of us is overly interested in the narrative of the other though.

I think both may well be true. Narratives are always constructed after the fact and then everything seems smooth and logical. Probably there were more camps in both European and US political circles. Europe was in ruins and the major European powers had just obliterated each other in wars that spanned the first half of the 20th century.

Also after the institution of the post WW2 world order, there will be countless different policies and doctrines. The era of the the European colonial wars was a different one from the Vietnam er and different again from the era of glasnost and perestrojka. Both these narrative are of course one sided and gross simplifications. The only thing I liked to point out is that it is not as simple as "Ohh the Eurorpeans benefited from the generosity of the US tax payer". I think a little bit more thought should go into the situation than that and I think also the writer of that post is capable of coming up with an explanation that takes geopolitics into account a bit more.

The era of the the European colonial wars was a different one from the Vietnam er — Tobias

That was a pivot point. The US originally became involved in Vietnam to help the French. French parties came to Washington between 1950 and 1954 asking for help to reassert their power over Vietnam. They emphasized that the world's rubber supply travelled through Vietnam, so if it became Communist, rubber might become expensive.

The US was planning to disarm after WW2, but Churchill came in 1952 to try to explain that the Russians were behaving threateningly and it wasn't clear what their plans were. The notion that the US ever felt threatened by an armed Europe is a little far-fetched. An armed Germany, well, yes.

Did you pay attention in your IR101 class? The deal was quite simple. The US allow and support an integrated and strong Europe if Europe would not arm itself. The economic might of the EU supports the US, accept and support its super power status, while the US supports Europe militarily. It benefitted both sides enormously.

Maybe I wasn’t paying attention because The North Atlantic Treaty article 3 says that all parties “will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.” Where is the agreement that Europe would not arm itself?

, there's more to the story than those 14 articles.
Make of it what you will:

Germany, more Wende and less Zeit, please
^{— Jamie Shea · Friends of Europe · Mar 23, 2023}

Yes, there has been a sharp falling off of attempts to defend his behavior as a political device.

That's an interesting narrative. The American narrative is that after WW2, the US waited for the UK and France to get back on their feet and take over global governance again. They gave them money to help with that, but neither country seemed to care much about protecting the infrastructure of global trade, so the US decided to take over that role, partly inspired by Stalin's ongoing threats. Someone asked him how much more of Europe he was planning to take and he answered, "Not much.".

Following WW2 Europe was devastated, it was going to take decades to rebuild and re-arm. The war wiped away the colonies of Great Britain (although this had already been on the cards) and France’s colonies were small and with little global influence left. Neither country was in a position to resume global governance. Britain was financially broke with the combination of the cost of war and the loss of empire. The entire population was subjected to strict food rationing for 14years following 1945. We didn’t finish paying off the war time debt to the U.S. and Canada until December 2006. I can’t speak for how France faired financially, but their country was more ravaged that Britain. While Germany was going to be on the naughty step for a generation, with no plans to re-arm.
McCarthyism was in full swing by the early1950. The US made damn sure that as many nuclear scientists etc were moved over to the U.S. as they could get, to prevent them being tempted over to Russia.

I imagine neither of us is overly interested in the narrative of the other though.

There are also facts. Facts speak for themselves.

I've read two histories of the era, one by an American historian and the other by a British historian who did research in Russia for two years.

Maybe I wasn’t paying attention because The North Atlantic Treaty article 3 says that all parties “will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.” Where is the agreement that Europe would not arm itself? — NOS4A2

Ohh, than it must be true right? I am a lawyer, even I do not have that much faith in law and treaties....

Anyway, I am not claiming there is a hidden clause or something. It was just a 'modus vivendi' that was in both the interest of the EU and the US.

That was a pivot point. The US originally became involved in Vietnam to help the French. French parties came to Washington between 1950 and 1954, asking for help to reassert their power over Vietnam. They emphasized that the world's rubber supply traveled through Vietnam, so if it became Communist, rubber might become expensive.

The US was planning to disarm after WW2, but in 1952 Churchill came in to explain that the Russians were behaving threateningly and that it wasn't clear what their plans were. The notion that the US ever felt threatened by an armed Europe is a little far-fetched. An armed Germany, well, yes. — frank

Well, the US could at some point be threatened by an armed Europe. It was threatened by an armed Germany alone. It is beside the point, though. The division of labour was in the interest of both parties. The US would be the flag-bearer of the free West, getting support for whatever it did, in Asia, South America, anywhere, actually. The Economic and cultural might of the US would not be challenged. In exchange for this role, Europe could prosper under the US's nuclear and conventional umbrella. The world was essentially carved up into two main blocks, and the leaders of each block, the US and the USSR, held unrivalled prestige and sway over the others. The post-war world order is being carved anew. This means a reshuffling of power balances.

It could go in several ways. The EU is still weak, so it might find itself in no other position than a mere symbolic union, most of its individual member states under US influence, arming themselves to act as battle thralls for the US. An armed EU, though, may also assert itself anew on the world stage. To do so, it needs a political Union. It is in no one's interests, except the EU's, to increase the EU's political unity, especially not if it's armed. If the US likes the EU to go at it alone, and if the EU indeed does so, it is a threat to US interests. The same calculation is made in Washington, so it supports political parties of the 'patriotic' anti-EU kind.

I am not disputing any of your claims Frank, I am sure the French asked for US help in Vietnam. European countries were a mess at the time, and a mess that still liked to cling to their colonial powers. However, if you ask for such help from someone, there is a price to be paid. There is no free lunch, which was my initial point. It is not those nasty European countries robbing the US taxpayer, it was a calculated deal in the interest of both the EU and the US to have NATO and for the US to be the biggest player in it. With the emergence of Asia, especially China, the emergence of new economies, and the collapse of the USSR in 1989, new calculations had to be made. This is just what we see happening.

Our respective narratives aren't really lining up, but as you say, it doesn't really matter. We're going our separate ways now.

Kremlin picks US government staff?

White House Defends Witkoff After Leak of Conversation With Russian Official (archived)
^{— The Wall Street Journal · Nov 25, 2025}
How Putin Got His Preferred U.S. Envoy: Come Alone, No CIA (archived)
^{— The Wall Street Journal · Dec 19, 2025}

, no particular concern with the truth of the matter...?

What is truth?

Well I don’t know who thought America was going to be able to pull back and leave Europe to take up here previous role following the war. That was never going to happen and didn’t happen. Churchill might have whispered in their ear about Stalin, but it was the Americans who got stuck into the Cold War.

You say we’re going our separate ways, I don’t see it, Trump is an anomaly.

Well I don’t know who thought America was going to be able to pull back and leave Europe to take up here previous role following the war. — Punshhh

The US government thought that, and to that end, the US gave western Europe about $13 billion, hoping that would be enough to get them back in business. The idea that the US was going to have to remain on the global stage, where it had never been before, didn't start sinking in until the early 1950s. The notion that there was ever a "deal" where the US covers Europe's military costs in exchange for what? economic alliance? is absurd.

You say we’re going our separate ways, I don’t see it, Trump is an anomaly. — Punshhh

I don't think so.

The US government thought that, and to that end, the US gave western Europe about $13 billion, hoping that would be enough to get them back in business.

Even so, the structural circumstances had changed, surely they were aware of that?

Even so, the structural circumstances had changed, surely they were aware of that? — Punshhh

They did a secret study in 1949 to estimate the cost of the US taking the place of the British Empire. The result was that the figure was uncountable. Someone suggested maybe the US could manage it with the threat of nuclear attack. That was the climate in Washington after the war. The US had no experience dealing with global affairs. The British always handled that, but now the British Empire is apparently gone and the British experts are saying they have no explanation for what's happening in Russia and China. Stalin is actively fostering the impression that the Soviet Union wants to take over the world. We now know that Stalin did want that, but his real motive had to do with America's win in the Pacific with the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's not that Stalin thought the US would actually try to conquer the USSR, he just couldn't stand the idea of anyone having that much power at a negotiation table. So he builds his own atomic weapons, acts like he's had them for a while, and wants to put them to use in the near future. A Russian historian would comment that in this, Stalin was doing something Russian leaders had been doing for centuries: blowing smoke.

So you're right, the US bought a cold war for itself, not with a hawkish post-war stance, but with the decision to use atomic bombs on Japan. What Tobias and you are doing is looking at the position of the US today and retrojecting that back to a time when the US was actually in state of shock and panic about the threats that seemed to be looming before them.

So you're right, the US bought a cold war for itself, not with a hawkish post-war stance, but with the decision to use atomic bombs on Japan. — frank

Yep. I'd put the emphasis on "Cold" part.

Indeed only because of nuclear weapons did the US and Soviet Union have so little amount of armed skirmishes. Otherwise it likely would have been the US and Soviet Union having many limited conflicts, at least, just like France and the UK had these colonial wars all around the World before. Now the conflicts were usually fought with proxies.

Only now Pakistan and India have shown that two nuclear armed countries can have conventional, but limited armed clashes without the conflict escalating to a nuclear war (something they have done now twice). Something similar happened between the US and Soviet Union only during the Korean War in the "Mig Alley".

(Only know we have the real picture)

Our respective narratives aren't really lining up, but as you say, it doesn't really matter. We're going our separate ways now. — frank

Interesting, as I do not believe there is one narrative. There are many possible ways of understanding a situation, and there is no one definite way that captures its complexity. I do not see our narratives as mutually exclusive.

Or maybe I did not understand you well and you mean with 'we're going our separate ways now' not you and me in this discussion, but the US and EU. Well, if it is the last part, I think we are in agreement. Not that I like it as an EU citizen, not at all, but it may be where history takes both blocks.

The notion that there was ever a "deal" where the US covers Europe's military costs in exchange for what? economic alliance? is absurd. — frank

It is not a deal as in a contract Frank, it became a de facto modus vivendi with which the leaders of both blocks could could live.

So you're right, the US bought a cold war for itself, not with a hawkish post-war stance, but with the decision to use atomic bombs on Japan. What Tobias and you are doing is looking at the position of the US today and retrojecting that back to a time when the US was actually in state of shock and panic about the threats that seemed to be looming before them. — frank

It is not something that happens by design, that is my point. There has not been a US plan or British plan or whatever plan. Sure the US was in a state of shock, all countries that participated in the war must have been. There will have been many different policy proposals. In history we always look back from point B to point A to see how we got there, but there is no need to presuppose some sort of 'deal' in the actual sense of a negotiation. There were many moments in history where the trajectories could have been different.

Or maybe I did not understand you well and you mean with 'we're going our separate ways now' not you and me in this discussion, but the US and EU. Well, if it is the last part, I think we are in agreement. Not that I like it as an EU citizen, not at all, but it may be where history takes both blocks. — Tobias

Yes. The old alliances are going away. Most Europeans hate Americans don't they? I'd imagine they'd prefer to look toward Germany and maybe BRICS countries for regional community.

Most Europeans hate Americans don't they?

I doubt that, Trump maybe and his acolytes. The issue is though that Trump has lit the touch paper for the U.S. to withdraw from Europe. Not necessarily as a result of what Trump has said, but in the unassailable fact that the U.S. is now an unreliable ally. The post war settlement is fractured. It may well be re-established after Trump has left office, but Europe will have re-armed by then and the U.S. has squandered her position as the unipolar superpower.

It will be important to rebuild the alliance in the future for the troubling times ahead and to offset China. But it will be on different terms.

It will be important to rebuild the alliance in the future for the troubling times ahead — Punshhh

That won't happen. There's no reason for it. The US will take Canada and Greenland, continue to undermine Central and S. America, and head into increased global warming alone. It's primary interest in the rest of the world will be that it's clearly understood that the western hemisphere is off limits. Do whatever you want to do, but leave the US out of it or be bombed. That's my prediction.

Yes. The old alliances are going away. Most Europeans hate Americans don't they? I'd imagine they'd prefer to look toward Germany and maybe BRICS countries for regional community. — frank

Why such a one sided remark? There is no indication for that at all. Last time I checked Russia was in the Brics and Russia is much more hated than the US. Everywhere, but especially in Eastern Europe.
Such a remark is just a bit ignorant, don't you think so yourself? Give your responses at least a modicum of thought before you hit that Post Comment button.

Okay. Germany then.