Posted on 01/24/2025 7:51:32 AM PST by ChicagoConservative27
Transatlantic trepidation By John Palmer in Brussels 22 January 1981
No inauguration of any modern American president has been viewed in Europe with such ambiguity as that of Mr Ronald Reagan. Behind the official words of welcome and the delegations of support for the administration the United States’ European allies harbour serious misgivings about the future of US/European relations.
The attitudes of western Europe to a “strong” US have always been contradictory – but rarely more so than today. On the one hand, most governments are anxious to see Washington pursue a more consistent and self confident international foreign policy. On the other, the Europeans are not willing to revert to the relationship of subservient client states which obtained in the immediate postwar period when the US clearly ruled the waves.
The Europeans criticised the Carter administration for vacillation and inconsistency but remained reluctant to conclude that not just the power of the US presidency but that of the United States itself was in decline. To do so would have been to ask themselves questions about the longer-term direction of European foreign and defence policy to which no one had – or for that matter still has – any credible answers. The almost universal assumption in European capitals is that after a brief “honeymoon” period, serious frictions will develop between the US and the European members of Nato over defence policy and with the Common Market over foreign and possibly, commercial, policy. Some Nato strategists even fear that arguments over arms spending targets and also the deployment of cruise nuclear missiles could weaken the alliance during a period of potentially serious confrontation with the Soviet Union.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Ironically, today Reagan is more popular in Russia than any other US President, because they respected him as a leader.
I remember it well. Lots of anger and marches in Europe. Reagan was a war-monger. Nukes would fly. We would all die.
But he ended the Cold War, broke up the USSR, freed Eastern Europe, and united Germany.
Trump’s accomplishments may end up being greater.
Amen
So many great songs predicting Reagan would blow us all up. The Fixx made a career of it.
peace through strenth.
Some that come to mind in addition to Nena-99 Luftballoons:
Men At Work - It’s A Mistake
Genesis - Land of Confusion
Timbuk 3 - Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades
Sting - Russians
Fixx - Red Skies at Night
Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Two Tribes
Europe - The Final Countdown
I have a toaster made in “West Germany” it is a nice souvenir of the pre-Reagan World.
How cool
Phil Collins also
Genesis, over the years had several songs about Nuclear war, going all the way back to 1970s “Stagnation” on the Tresspass album.
Then there’s “Afterglow” from 1977.
I'm a big Reagan fan ( even tho he did do a lot of stupid stuff and I blame that on CIA advisors), but the Gipper just got replaced as best us president ever
1986 amnesty. He got rolled
Don Henley’s The End of the Innocence
From Wikipedia:
Henley ensured there would be two political comments in the video:
At the line “they’re beating plowshares into swords, for this tired old man that we elected king,” a series of campaign posters of U.S. President Ronald Reagan is shown.At the line “lawyers clean up all details,” a television set playing the congressional testimony of Oliver North appears on-screen.
On a lighter note, forgot about “Christmas At Ground Zero” by Weird Al Yankovic lol.
Yep. Henley is a leftist hack, but on the other hand, “Dirty Laundry” could have been written yesterday and every word is just as relevant as it was in 1982.
Yep
Slightly Pre-Reagan, there was “Life During Wartime” (Talking Heads)
Also Pre-Reagan by a decade or so, but Neil Youngs “After the Goldrush”
Genesis Illegal Aline Song is also relevant today
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