[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.