[bgwalter]

This link contains a map of the coalition of the willing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_of_the_willing_(Iraq...

You see Eastern European countries who were grateful for NATO expansion or wanted future NATO membership. You see the UK and Australia which always follow the US. There are a couple of wildcards line Spain, Denmark and Italy.

Germany and France are absent and there was huge criticism of the Iraq invasion at the time.

In general, the whole EU was much more critical of the US in the 2000s than it was in 2020-2024. The current criticism is mostly Trump related and not fundamental. To summarize, in the 2000s the EU had an independent foreign policy which is now completely gone. How that evolved exactly is interesting. Has the US played off the Eastern European countries against heretics like France and Germany to achieve this goal? Is it a symptom of the international elites moving in lockstep?

[fabian2k]

The EU doesn't make foreign policy, that lies with the member states. And why do you think those don't have an independent foreign policy?

The US hasn't started an illegal war recently, which could explain why there is much less criticism of US foreign policy compared to the time of the Iraq war.

[apercu]

>US hasn't started an illegal war

The US hasn't declared a war since WWII since executive privilege allows the President to pursue war without Congress declaring war. Does that mean that every time we take military action (which the US is doing daily, right now) we're pursuing what the founders of the country would (rightfully?) classify as an illegal war?

(I didn't take any political science, and I'm not really informed on constitutional law so I could have this partially wrong)

[vonmoltke]

> The US hasn't declared a war since WWII since executive privilege allows the President to pursue war without Congress declaring war.

That's not correct. Congress no longer passes declarations of war, it passes authorizations of the use of military force (AUMF). The change was made starting in Vietnam because a declaration of war can only target a recognized sovereign nation, while an AUMF can target any state or non-state actor. The President is still heavily restricted from employing the US military without an AUMF.

I think the confusion about this stems from Congress having passed several, a couple of which are pretty broad, and never repealing them. This has allowed various Presidents to use one of the active AUMFs to justify actions, but for those who don't know or pay attention to the details it seems like the President is going around Congress.

[Dylan16807]

> This has allowed various Presidents to use one of the active AUMFs to justify actions, but for those who don't know or pay attention to the details it seems like the President is going around Congress.

That is going around congress. It's not breaking the letter of the law, but authorizations not having a time limit is a mistake, and the involvement of congress is supposed to be needed for that kind of action.

[t0lo]

There's only less criticism if you live in a post trump columbia bubble ;)