[Filibuster_60]

I don't think it's entirely paranoia to conclude that were not only happy with such rules, but were happy specifically because it was U.S. interests that they worked against, further, that they intended to employ those rules against the U.S. themselves, and even further, that they were actually doing so and had done so in the past.

With the EU it's a no-brainer: They don't have the requisite hard power to be an influential player in a world where the strongest nation isn't restrained by regulations, however stifling they are to the promotion of long-term peace and stability. In fact the Europeans have built their societies in such a way that they won't have the means to pursue a more traditional realpolitik foreign policy. So that's all they do - whine. On a more sinister note, now that there's no USSR to keep them utterly dependent on US military protection, they can also retaliate by pooling their financial and technological resources to help nations - especially China - that do have a long-term potential to challenge American power.

[Billthedrill]

I agree. What I find disturbing about this is that apparently certain European leaders discount the very real, physical threat constituted to themselves and their societies by radical Islam. Buying the latter off with public denunciation of Israel is a ploy that is obviously temporary at best. These are not stupid people, and they are not unaware of those elements in their own history that should tell them that fiddling with a theoretical threat - us - in the face of a real threat - the Islamists - is utter folly. This vision they are pursuing, a vision of a world where everything is negotiable and violent men may be talked out of using force to attain their ends by those disinclined to violence and incapable of employing it, this is forgivable in the very young but quite untenable in those mature enough to be entrusted with their nations' safety. The world simply doesn't work that way, and it won't change by them cursing those who would defend them and kissing those who would destroy them.