Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you.
Posted on 07/03/2026 10:03:03 AM PDT by Chickensoup
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz suggests to a classroom full of youngsters that Donald Trump has been “humiliated” by his war in Iran – and the President cancels deployment of the long-range missile systems around which Germany had planned its defense strategy for the coming decades.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez observes a strict neutrality on Iran, declaring his country’s bases out of bounds – and Trump urges Spain be kicked out of NATO.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer hesitates to sacrifice his country’s navy in a war on which he wasn’t consulted – and Trump mocks him in public for a week. No casual observer of the Atlantic alliance in the 18 months since Donald Trump returned to power would believe his White House thinks of Europe as the bedrock of American military and economic security.
But, strangely, it does.
Two factors have combined to make a disaster of the transatlantic relationship. The first is psychiatric. Donald Trump lacks the mental discipline to do what he thinks he is best at: cut deals. The second is world-historic. The Europeans have long been restless. Declaring their independence from an overbearing and arbitrary ally is a project of decades’ standing. This is particularly true of those politicians keen to suck the vitality out of Europe’s historic nations in order to build up a European Union with its capital in Brussels. Right now, the temporary, tactical danger that Trump poses is driving Europeans toward the more permanent, strategic danger that Brussels poses.
There is a delusion at the heart of the EU. Its leaders believe that they played a huge part in saving Western civilization during the Cold War (which is quite true) and that they did so by constructing the EU (which is demonstrably false, since the Maastricht Treaty which established the Union was not even passed until years after the Cold War had ended). As the Trump administration sees it, NATO’s victory was a real achievement of nation states; the EU is an academic utopia that serves no one except the politicians who run it. Even when Trump is baying at the moon, he gets the better of this particular argument.
The Europeans wanted to base their collective defense on ‘shared democratic values’
The rupture can be described in another way. J.D. Vance laid out the basic Trumpian project at the Munich security conference in 2025: protecting the West against invasion, political correctness and electoral corruption. Vance’s speech horrified NATO’s leaders. In a recent essay, two policy analysts at the German Marshall Fund, Jackson Janes and Markus Ziener, explained why: it sounded like Washington was offering alliance members “a civilizational club based on shared ancestry,” whereas the Europeans wanted to base their collective defense on “shared democratic values.”...
|
|
Click here: to donate by Credit Card Or here: to donate by PayPal Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794 Thank you very much and God bless you. |
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez observes a strict neutrality on Iran, declaring his country’s bases out of bounds – and Trump urges Spain be kicked out of NATO.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer hesitates to sacrifice his country’s navy in a war on which he wasn’t consulted – and Trump mocks him in public for a week. No casual observer of the Atlantic alliance in the 18 months since Donald Trump returned to power would believe his White House thinks of Europe as the bedrock of American military and economic security.
But, strangely, it does.
Two factors have combined to make a disaster of the transatlantic relationship. The first is psychiatric. Donald Trump lacks the mental discipline to do what he thinks he is best at: cut deals. The second is world-historic. The Europeans have long been restless. Declaring their independence from an overbearing and arbitrary ally is a project of decades’ standing. This is particularly true of those politicians keen to suck the vitality out of Europe’s historic nations in order to build up a European Union with its capital in Brussels. Right now, the temporary, tactical danger that Trump poses is driving Europeans toward the more permanent, strategic danger that Brussels poses.
There is a delusion at the heart of the EU. Its leaders believe that they played a huge part in saving Western civilization during the Cold War (which is quite true) and that they did so by constructing the EU (which is demonstrably false, since the Maastricht Treaty which established the Union was not even passed until years after the Cold War had ended). As the Trump administration sees it, NATO’s victory was a real achievement of nation states; the EU is an academic utopia that serves no one except the politicians who run it. Even when Trump is baying at the moon, he gets the better of this particular argument.
The Europeans wanted to base their collective defense on ‘shared democratic values’
The rupture can be described in another way. J.D. Vance laid out the basic Trumpian project at the Munich security conference in 2025: protecting the West against invasion, political correctness and electoral corruption. Vance’s speech horrified NATO’s leaders. In a recent essay, two policy analysts at the German Marshall Fund, Jackson Janes and Markus Ziener, explained why: it sounded like Washington was offering alliance members “a civilizational club based on shared ancestry,” whereas the Europeans wanted to base their collective defense on “shared democratic values.”...
Guess when you’re a professional grifter, not honoring your defense agreement with NATO is not a big deal. When you shift the blame on to Trump for the decades that Germany didn’t honor the deal!
“Even when Trump is baying at the moon”
Do you need read more than those seven words?
Only one thing united the formerly warring European countries with each other, and with the USA: fear of the Russian bear. But now that “bear” looks more like an ankle biter that’s about to get booted out of Ukraine with its tail between its legs. Nato hasn’t been necessary since 1991, but now Americans and Europeans alike are finally getting it.
The Spectator is not a worthwhile source for anything.
If anything, America has tended to be far more indulgent rather than overbearing toward Europe. Far too indulgent in the view of many Americans. The one sided trade arrangements European countries had should have been renegotiated toward more equal terms decades ago. Similarly, US troops should have been brought home at least a generation ago.
I sure would like to know what those 'shared democratic values'are. Because stuff like Spain is doing, or Germany to AfD, or France to National Front, or EU meddling in elections in Central and Eastern Europe, much less what is going on in England are symptomatic of 'values' our forefathers fled from, the result of which we are celebrating 250 years.
Shared democratic values?
Like the 'value' where we pick up the tab for EU/NATO losers and they stick their ugly noses in the air? That 'value?
The EU can't even protect themselves from George Soros filling their towns and cities with third world rapists, scammers and thieves. Good luck EU... you're gonna need it - 'cause we're 'outta here'...
The base of the stated “delusion” is a European’s attempt to understand the American mind, and President Trump. The European versions of the carpetbagger has clung tenaciously to a war-torn healing Europe. Nations once overran with German overlords, now skittle in the fry pan called politics. They have been liberated from their old gov’t thru imposed Naziism, and then liberated again. They are free people, but haven’t a clue what that really means because they were never truly free. Parliamentary monarchies do not entertain freedom, either.
President Trump is not a politician, therefore, political games do not interest him.
The German Wizards Of Smart TURNED OFF all of their electricity generated by nuclear power plants.
As part of the wonderful experiences foreigners are having in America during the World Cup, some of them were AMAZED that a domed stadium has air conditioning. Then I read that only 6% of Germany has air conditioning.
I’m sure German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, his minions and Apparatchiks have plenty of air conditioning, SUVs, and whatever else they want.
"Shared democratic values", y'know, like the ones the Euroleft shares with the despot-laden Islamic world, and single-party state socialists, including the CCP.
More ass-sucking, communist-inspired garbage!
There is more truth and quality on the walls in the worst toilets in Tijuana...
Hear you. How would Western Europe fared without the Marshall Plan?
How would have Berlin fared without the USA?
They're failing in their collective defense and they don't have democratic values. If they did, they would listen to their citizens and reverse the flood of "asylum seekers".
After WWII the US propped up Europe, financed reconstruction, sudsidized enery by interfering in the Middle East, tried to get them to have democratic governments and stable economic develoment.
Our interest in this was several fold. We (at least the “Establishment” consensus) wanted Europe to help stand up against communism, to resist invasion and subversion by the Soviet Union, and not to fight each other. Since the US held 75% of the world’s industrial capacity at the end of WWII, “we” wanted Europe as a trading partner and importer of American goods.
While doing all this propping, we fostered “learned dependency” among the Europeans. As european economies recovered and grew, the business plan flipped to running huge positive trade imbalances with the US, underspending on defense, and using the “savings” to build welfare states.
Trump woke up to the facts: the Russo-Soviet danger to Europe has ebbed (Russia can’t even whip Ukraine); we were carrying E’s defense with no end in sight; though they sent troops to Afghanistan, Africa, Iraq, etc., they lack the capacity and political desire to be partners to the US in global power politics; they are an economic competitor; they using legacies of learned dependency to milk us; etc. Meanwhile the US is massively in debt and can’t keep spending like drunks forever.
Trump might undervalue what Europe contributes to world security, but overall he is trying to end the learned dependency, and get Europe to stand up for itself. Forcing spoiled kids to grow up and become independent always elicits howls. It’s much more fun to kick us in the shins, pick our pockets, and laugh at us as the benighted unsophisticates we are.
What a mishmash of ideas. The author says civilization is more important than values, but how can you have one without the other?
From the article: “ The Euro-American divergence in “values” may heal on its own, making evident that “civilization” was what mattered all along.”
And he attacks Pres. Trump for being overbearing but then admits Europe needs an outside hand to guide it.
“ Eventually the European Union will have to face up to a paradox that has been central to its construction. Europe has historically been great as a collection of fractious sovereign states. It is not great as a confederation dedicated to upholding bureaucratic mush. If it is to have a single purpose, yes, someone must lead it. But there is too much sibling rivalry among its nations to permit any of them to lead from within. It can only be led from without, the way Christianity did for centuries of strife and glory, or the way the United States did in the Cold War, with results that, one must admit, look ever more equivocal.”
Just another useless article from The Spectator.
Oh, and the artist for this article, SÉBASTIEN THIBAULT, has obviously never fired a rifle.
That is one pathetic spewing vomit of an article.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.