[ben_w]

I don't think that's the current problem. It was up to, perhaps, the Suez crisis or up until decolonisation, but since then I think we've mostly internalised that America (and more recently China) have been the leading powers.

The current complacency, one which we are currently still in the process of unwinding from (it will take years) is that of trade turning violent enemies into mutually beneficial growth opportunities. Russia was the first wake-up call there (but even then for the current situation not for Crimea), and over the last year also the USA. China is, I think, currently mostly seen as opportunity rather than threat.

War is expensive, and not doing it is good when possible. It is bad for everyone that we now feel the need to put 5% or whatever of our GDP into defence when it could have been spent on infrastructure, education, healthcare, or even startup grants.

[kakacik]

War is very expensive, but it also creates tons of jobs in supply. In ideal world its a fools errand, in reality if you dont have a mighty force to defend yourself and deter enemy, you can be easily taken over. Even a big well funded military is a paper tiger at best if it never experienced complex combat, maintaining supply lines etc.

Thats the only thing that works for the likes of russia (or anybody really) who is by far the biggest threat to Europe and would love to see it subjugated.

That was also the only reason Switzerland wasnt taken over by nazi Germany like Austria was, they mustered up to 800k voluntees/draftees in a country of 5 million, fortified and made it clear that Germany would bleed hard to gain that territory (they would invade anyway after defeating russia that was clear also from hitler&himmler's writings, top german brass hated Switzerland, what it represented and considered it a mortal enemy to 3rd reich but I am going off topic here).

5% is nothing if there is enough motivation. Overbuilt bureaucracy for nothing juse employing tons of rather useless paper pushers, ineffective social systems that are abused hard by those really not deserving it, bad budget management by politicians, corruption in megaprojects and ao on. Its really nothing.

[graemep]

While Europe internalised that the US was the super power, it did not internationalise that the West was no longer dominant. It has also not understood its diminishing importance to the US in the world in which its economy is proportionately so much smaller, and the rival superpower is in Asia, not Europe.

Spending on defence is expensive, but its a lot cheaper than an actual war - "if you want peace, prepare for war"

[ben_w]

> it did not internationalise that the West was no longer dominant

Given "the West" means so many different things (sometimes including Australia), I'm not sure what you're aiming for here? Rise of China? Certainly this has been recognised. If you mean all of Asia, in the same way that the UK is in Europe but not part of the EU, then I agree: I don't think many have fully internalised how important India, let alone Pakistan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, have become.

> It has also not understood its diminishing importance to the US in the world in which its economy is proportionately so much smaller, and the rival superpower is in Asia, not Europe.

The phrase "when America sneezes, the world catches a cold" comes to mind. I'm told that dates to 1929. More recently, my understanding of the Suez crisis was that the US convinced the UK to back down just by threatening to flex one economic muscle; by some measures, that point represents the end of British dominance on the world stage.

But I would say that here, it is America rather than Europe which does not understand its ranking in the world: two of the common ways of measuring economies are nominal-GDP and PPP-GDP, by the former the EU is comparable to China with the US way ahead, by the latter the EU is comparable to the USA with China way ahead. In both cases, the EU knows it's not #1.

That said, during Brexit, there did seem to be a lot of unrealistic exuberance from Leave voters, so perhaps the lack of awareness runs deeper than I perceive…