In December, the Economist opined:
Never since American troops came to Europe’s rescue eight decades ago have the links between the new and old worlds seemed so frayed. MAGA types in Washington ooze contempt for their transatlantic allies. Forget the old barbs about being an open-air museum: Europe is now derided as a migrant-ridden mausoleum hardly worth defending. Indeed, both sides have lost that loving feeling. European pols (with a few populist exceptions) moan that their erstwhile best geopolitical friend has been taken over by an unstable Dummkopf. Because Europe has for decades relied on America for its security, and since an actual war is raging on the continent, the soured relationship is of more immediate concern in Paris, Warsaw and Berlin than in Washington. But America should be mindful, too. President Donald Trump’s predecessors cultivated the alliance because it amplified American influence. Without European “followership,” American power will be less often welcomed or tolerated and more often resisted.
Their argument is the shepherd needs the sheep.
So why are we getting shorn?
Part of Europe’s value to America is just business. Though the European Union is stuck in the economic slow lane, its consumers still buy $3.6 trillion-worth of goods and services from American firms every year. Europe is like a second home to American corporate giants who have saturated their domestic market.
I asked Grok if that is true.
Grok said, “The $3.6 trillion figure does not match any standard measure of annual European consumer purchases of U.S. goods and services (exports). The actual export flow is in the hundreds of billions, not trillions. The statement appears to conflate trade flows with investment positions, affiliate sales, or two-way totals, inflating the business value dramatically. Europe remains a vital partner for U.S. firms, but the specific claim is inaccurate.”
EU enjoys a $200 billion trade surplus annually from the USA.
Hey, Economist, European down my leg and telling me it’s raining.
On top of that, America extends its nuclear umbrella to cover Europe as well as stationing 67,000 troops at key bases in Europe—bases that Britain, Italy and Spain refused to allow us to use in Operation Epic Fury. Under Status of Forces agreements, these mice can roar like that.
France kicked us out in 1966 and yet remained a full-fledged member of NATO.
But as Jed Babbin of the Bush administration said on January 30, 2003, during an appearance on MSNBC’s Hardball, “You know frankly, going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion. You just leave a lot of useless noisy baggage behind.”
Just three years ago, Rubio and Tim Kaine succeeded in getting Congress to prohibit the president from unilaterally suspending, terminating, denouncing, or withdrawing the U.S. from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization without the approval of two-thirds of the Senate.
Trump has a hard enough time getting one-third of the Senate to agree with him, let alone two.
But he has a phone and a pen. And he has a growing plurality of Americans who believe NATO’s time ended when the Soviet Union died.
Jay Nordlinger tweeted, “A question for anti-NATO Americans: If NATO is so bad for the United States, why is Putin’s Russia so excited about its downfall?”
Good question. Why? Putin cannot take out Ukraine even with the help of Red China and cannon fodder soldiers imported from North Korea. The Russo-EU War will be a meat grinder between two former empires who learned nothing from the past two world wars.
By the way, while Euroweenies whine that the Iran war is not an Article 5 war—and Trump never made that claim—neither is Ukraine. Despite that, the USA has given $128 billion in aid. That’s more than Germany, France, England and Italy combined.
The collapse of the USSR on December 25, 1991, should have ended NATO. Instead it has doubled in membership to 32. What it lost in mission it made up in volume.
Our NATO allies remind me of the mice on Mighty Mouse. You remember the song.
We’re not worryin’ at all
We’re just listenin’ for his call:“Here I come to save the day!”
Well, the American Mighty Mouse has had it. We’re not answering the call. This is the time for Europe’s mice to fight the cat. They won’t.
Our allies won’t join Operation Epic Fury and some are blocking our military. They claim it is not their fight, but it is. Iran demonstrated that it has long-range missiles that could hit London, Paris and Rome. Still they won’t help defend themselves.
When this is over, the western part of NATO will never be the same. Spain, England, France and Italy have sold us out, as they too often have a history of doing. Eastern European nations are the heart of NATO. They spend money on defense, know how to fight and love the U.S.
France particularly deserves fault and blame. From supporting China and Russia at the UN to denying Americans overflight rights, they’re doing what they’ve always done—showing weakness, while cutting deals with terrorists. (The reason the U.S. has a Marine Corps and Navy is unlike France, we refused to pay a ransom to the Barbary Pirates. France is always happy to cut a deal.)
Wars have unintended consequences as nations show their true colors.
NATO will never be the same, and Western European weakness and acquiescence is the cause.
Jonah Goldberg, the fatberg of fake conservatism, replied:
I agree with some of this directionally, but my God the refusal to acknowledge that Trump has worked assiduously to poison the alliance and heap all the blame on Europe is just water-carrying hackery.
Saying “NATO will never be the same, and Western European weakness and acquiescence is the cause” is like writing a movie review when you missed the first half of the movie.
Sorry Jonah. I actually sat in the room for the first half of the movie.
For 24 polite years, Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama diplomatically asked NATO members to increase defense spending. For 24 years, it was one excuse after another, all focused in Western Europe on how they wish they could spend more, but their social welfare spending priorities wouldn’t let them. In other words, you the US will spend on defense and protect us.
Along comes rude Donald Trump. Finally, someone made clear that if Europe kept freeloading the US was done. It took a bull in the china shop to move Europe. Diplomacy failed. Trump prevailed. That’s reality whether you or I like it.
NATO self-withered after 75 years. If Spain, England, Italy and France won’t spend what’s necessary to have a real military, it’s time for something new.
NATO was one topic for my very first poll back in the 80s. Even then, voters were upset about NATO countries failure to pay a fair share of the defense burden.
Trump didn’t create this frustration, but he certainly has given voice to it.
Trump has done more than give voice to it. Trump has gotten many countries to keep their word and increase their military spending. Still, many countries believe they can wait out Trump and continue slacking until a Democrat is president. Iceland doesn’t even have a military. If you won’t defend yourself, why should I?
Goldberg, Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson and the rest have discredited themselves at home by abandoning conservatism out of an irrational hatred of President Trump. I don’t think they have a market oversees because the western foreign press hates Trump.
The British media’s fixation on Trump’s presidency seems odd because the United Kingdom has enough problems of its own without worrying about America. Refugees have overrun the land and its prime minister is hated. Politico reported his approval rate is 22% and his disapproval is at 70%.
I get that money—well at least online clicks—have something to do with this. Britain has 70 million people while the USA has 340 million. Trump haters cannot get enough hate content and the British press is only too happy to oblige.
But there is more to the story than that. Like Iran’s evil regime, Britain’s regime cracks down on protests, albeit without executions.
So far.
Britain enacted hate speech laws just three years ago. In 2023, the government arrested 12,183 people, mainly for tweets and other social media postings. The courts convicted 10% of them and sent 137 to jail.
Since then, it arrests 13,000 people a year for saying things against the Muslim invaders or grooming gangs that attack and rape British children.
Then there is Ofcom, the not-so secret police of online. It levied a £520,000 fine against 4chan.
4chan lawyer Preston Byrne’s email response was golden:
Thanks. As has been explained to your agency, ad nauseam, the United Kingdom lost the American Revolutionary War. We are not in the mood to discuss the matter further, and have not been in the mood for 250 years.
I note for the record that, last time your agency sent my client a censorship fine, we responded with a hamster joke. Since you have now sent my client a giant fine, a fine so large that Mr. Whiskers’ enclosure is not big enough to contain it, we will need to send the fine to Mr. Whiskers’ giant hamster cousin, Nigel J. Whiskerford.
Unfortunately, Nigel is out of the country this week, touring in Japan. [Attached: AI-generated image of Nigel J. Whiskerford—a giant hamster dressed as Godzilla, holding an equally giant peanut] 4chan Community Support LLC reserves all rights and waives none, including but not limited to the right to sue you again and/or to respond to future correspondence with an even larger rodent, such as a marmot.
Because censors never learn, the world awaits the debut of Sir Marmot Montcrieff, Viscount of the High Meadows.
Iran is now a friendless failed state that takes its frustrations out on the very people the government is supposed to serve. Britain lost its empire and has begun taking its frustrations out on British subjects.
Its gutless news media dares not challenge the government. Instead lashes out at Trump and the people who made him president of the United States of America.
The United Kingdom and the United States of America no longer share the same values. No one in Europe seems to. The Economist berating as an unstable Dummkopf the Commander-in-Chief of the largest military component in NATO says all we need to know about Europeans.
They are losers.
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This article first appeared on Don Surber’s Substack. Reprinted here with permission.
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