[3dbrows]

> Another point I’d like to make is that modern European lifestyles exist partly due to American military hegemony, which has allowed European nations to redirect their defense spending to social programs.

I see Americans make this comment a lot. Putting aside whether or not it is true that it enables higher domestic social spending, the comment never seems to come with the realisation that many Europeans deride the “need” for higher defence spending. This is due to Europeans’ perception that American military adventurism is what creates the instability from which Europe requires American protection in the first place.

Many Europeans will say: “America, please stop bombing the mideast or continuously expanding NATO; this will stop creating problems that result in you demanding we spend more.”

In other words, many Americans presuppose the validity of their military adventurism and assume Europeans agree with it, and thus think they should want to participate in funding the defence of blowback from it.

By contrast, many Europeans would rather America did not try to play global policeman, or if it’s going to do so, then happily accept paying for European defence as the price of Pax Americana / US hegemony.

[HDMI_Cable]

> many Europeans deride the “need” for higher defence spending. This is due to Europeans’ perception that American military adventurism is what creates the instability from which Europe requires American protection in the first place.

Right, European countries thought that, then the War in Ukraine happened. Germany, France, and other European nations have all increased their military budgets [1], indicating that they were, unfortunately, wrong. It's clear now that we still live in a world where conquest is still on the forefront of many dictator's minds.

And that's disregarding Europe's own adventures in other countries; just look at France's parlays into Mali or Mauritania, Greece and Turkey, or Italy and their actions in the Mediterranean.

--- [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/24/defence-spendi...

[3dbrows]

I would agree that the worldview of Europe is changing, given the sharp reality of its defences being tested.

Europe is of course (to state the extremely obvious) no stranger to its own imperial adventures. We might do well to stop that if we don’t want to trigger refugee flows and other outcomes we don’t want.

[etempleton]

I don’t completely disagree with you and in fact would have said the same a few years ago, but you can see the aggressiveness of Russia and China when they feel they can get away with it. The US backing of Ukraine is instrumental to their ability to maintain their defense and the US Navy is perhaps the only thing stopping China from launch a full out invasion of Taiwan.

I think if the EU were to increase military spending there may be more pressure domestically in the US to pull back on military spending. A bit of a chicken and egg situation I suppose as there is no need until the US defense spending is curtailed.

[3dbrows]

Quite, and the reality of the Russian invasion of Ukraine certainly trumps armchair rhetoric on this topic. I would only add that (until recently) many Europeans would have questioned whether their aggression exists in a vacuum (“are we provoking them?”). But that sort of navel gazing vanishes when artillery is fired in your direction.

There was a deep-seated aversion to rearmament owing to the memory of the Second World War, which is fading away, cajoled by events in Ukraine.

[qwytw]

> America [...] please stop continuously expanding NATO

Many Eastern Europeans would probably have very different thoughts.

[3dbrows]

Like I said, views are changing in light of events, but let’s not pretend this was the settled majority view since 1945 or 1990. That’s the point: there has been a presumption by America that their view is the only view over the long term, leading to European perceptions that the US takes an arrogant view of their defence spending.

[qwytw]

> Like I said, views are changing in light of events

In some countries however has been the dominant view in Poland and the Baltic states at the very least for the several decades.

Possibly in Czechia too?