[apeescape]

I think it's very short-sighted of Trump to severe ties to Europe. There's a truth to the claim that the US spends disproportionately more money on military than its Nato allies, but as the author said, maybe that's by design. Overall you'd imagine that it's beneficial for the US to keep Europe a dependant. Now that the US is breaking those bonds, Europe has no other option but to become independent, which will be the end of it following the US wherever its leaders want to take Europe.

[quantified]

The last couple of times Europe was well-armed, we had some nice big wars. In a generation, belligerent nationalists in neighboring countries will likely go right back to it. Well-played, Russia.