[eshvk]

Why is this surprising? America poured in money during the Marshall plan to build up Europe; NATO is essentially another arm of the American armed forces.

It is you, the voting European citizen who is responsible for both closer integration of Europe and for Europe to have its own defense capabilities. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

[Uchikoma]

America poured in money during the Marshall plan to create a market for US companies that needed new markets after they produced a lot of stuff for the army during the war.

"The Marshall Plan aid was mostly used for the purchase of goods from the United States. (...) In the latter years, under pressure from the United States Congress and with the outbreak of the Korean War, an increasing amount of the aid was spent on rebuilding the militaries of Western Europe. Of the some $13 billion allotted by mid-1951, $3.4 billion had been spent on imports of raw materials and semi-manufactured products; $3.2 billion on food, feed, and fertilizer; $1.9 billion on machines, vehicles, and equipment; and $1.6 billion on fuel"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan#German_level_of_i...

[eshvk]

I am not sure what your point is; your statement doesn't inherently invalidate mine. There can be multiple reasons why one does something. In fact, from the same wikipedia paragraph, that you quoted, here is a chunk that you skipped over. "The European nations had all but exhausted their foreign exchange reserves during the war, and the Marshall Plan aid represented almost their sole means of importing goods from abroad. At the start of the plan these imports were mainly much-needed staples such as food and fuel, but later the purchases turned towards reconstruction needs as was originally intended."

[Uchikoma]

I've skipped it because it was redundant to the point I think, "The European nations had all but exhausted their foreign exchange reserves during the war" means they had no money to buy from US companies, so the US gave Europeans money so they could buy from the US which I said with "to create a market for US companies that"

I might have misunderstood your "America poured in money during the Marshall plan to build up Europe;".

I took it as the purpose was to build up Europe for Europeans, where my reply was to build up Europe to create a market for US companies.

[eshvk]

My whole statement was meant to point out that Europeans are also to blame for not taking responsibility for their own affairs; there are no free lunches anywhere. Taking all that money and using America's army has definitely contributed to economic growth in Europe. The cost of that is you have situations like what is happening now. My whole statement was designed to point the outrage that the OP had was misplaced.

[Uchikoma]

"definitely contributed to economic growth in Europe."

Yes it has, estimated to be 0.5pp in the GDP of the countries affected in 1948-1951.