I am more than forty y.o. and I know the story, I've been there. The story isn't that Europe are freeriders, but that the USA kneecapped any attempt at European strength, for example by using their special relationship with the UK to veto every European defense agreement outside of NATO, because they wanted the EU to always be dependent on the USA.
The current push is also a pure extorsion racket, as provent by the violent threats the US is making against the EU for the crime of rebuilding their continental security with European weapons: https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2026/02/pentagon-...
proving once and for all the the US isn't really pushing for "Europe taking taking charge of their own security" and that you are a liar and a gaslighter.
>after 9/11 and the, shall we say, tepid enthusiasm that the rest of NATO (absent maybe Great Britain) had with supporting the US
See? What can I answer except "Fuck you, fucking asshole".
Sorry to have not sent even more of our soldiers to die into a war that... you now think were very bad mistake, perpetual wars that shouldn't have happened... We tried to tell you and got "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" as an answer. And then you still sent soldiers, and now you say they never mattered.
Why are you surprised we don't want to follow your lead at all now? We should help you in the war with Iran that you won, you need our boats but you don't need them - which is it?
>UK opposition politicians accused JD Vance of disrespecting British forces after he said a US stake in Ukraine's economy was a "better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn't fought a war in 30 or 40 years".
This is just objectively true, sorry.
I was in the GWOT and am familiar with how our NATO "partners" intentionally kneecapped themselves at the expense of supporting the mission and the safety of their own soldiers. This country can't fight at night, this country can go outside the wire, this country can't do convoy ops beyond such and such distance, this country can't.... Can't was the operative word. Sure, point taken that the war was prosecuted over 20 years in a very, very stupid way. That doesn't change the fact that what Vance is saying is true.
That article is pay-walled, but the point of the response from the Americans is that if European Defense vendors wish to maintain access to the (much more lucrative) US market, then US vendors should be able to retain the same access to Europe. How is this not simply fair play amongst "alliance" members? NATO should not be selling NATO technology outside of NATO, so to the extent that the US vetoed (via the UK) foreign military sales to non-NATO members ... yes I support this 100%. This is how a defensive alliance works.
>Why are you surprised we don't want to follow your lead at all now?
I am quite literally asking you to do the opposite for European security. I am tired of my country being the guarantor for security and sovereignty of places that maybe 1 or 2 people at the New York Times could find on a map without googling it, but who then turn around and pretend that the existence of democracy itself is a function of the 82nd being able to seize airfields in that country to stop the Russians. I am tired of Europeans telling me that my country sucks and how GWOT vets are war criminals, on and on, when you guys can't do a proper casevac or figure out CAS without calling daddy. Figure that shit out yourselves, thanks. Happy to help teach, though.
>We should help you in the war with Iran that you won, you need our boats but you don't need them - which is it?
We do not need anything from you. Everyone, with some notable exceptions, in this "alliance" threw a hissy fit about overflights originating from bases across Europe that my country built to keep your country safe from the Soviets. Perhaps we should simply close these bases, and let you all figure out how to deal with IRBMs and the host of other 21st century war tech on your own. To the extent that this WH or anyone in my government is asking for "help", it's probably meant as a troll, given that outside of France there's very little force projection on blue water coming out of the rest of NATO. That was a choice, that those countries made. No one in the American government told, for example, the UK to essentially mothball their Navy. No one in the American government told the Germans to shutdown their reactors like a bunch of fools, making them dependent on Russian gas. You people voted for this, knowing that the Americans are always the backstop if shit hits the fan.
Ironically, the last time I had an argument with a Euro about American military involvement and defense policy I was in London in 2023, and to my surprise the only person coming to my side of the debate was the lone Frenchman. Pity.
Completely false. Just a counterexample, there are tons of videos of French and European action in the Sahel region where we do exactly that - without war criming all the time like you did with your carpet bombing of "sand n-ggers". You are so far up your own ass for a country that failed miserably in Afghanistan and Iraq.
>Everyone, with some notable exceptions, in this "alliance" threw a hissy fit about overflights originating from bases across Europe that my country built to keep your country safe from the Soviets.
Yeah, and you don't see the problem with using these bases to launch an attack against another country without asking us if we were on board? The Iranians are not the Soviets. NATO is supposed to be a defensive alliance, not your private army. And your idiot leader wants to invade Greenland by force! When you already have bases there for decades!
>let you all figure out how to deal with IRBMs
You love nuclear proliferation now? You think we don't have nukes or we can't build more nukes? You think it is in the USA's best interest to have more countries with nukes everywhere? Are you dumb or do you have a death wish?
>You people voted for this*
You people voted for the GWOT. You people voted for Trump who clearly wanted more wars and more war crimes.
>Best I could find on what you're referring to for the Vance insult
You are brain damaged if that's all you can find. And "hasn't fought a war in 30 or 40 years" isn't even remotely true, like, at all. You are completely ignorant.
>You love nuclear proliferation now? You think we don't have nukes or we can't build more nukes? You think it is in the USA's best interest to have more countries with nukes everywhere? Are you dumb or do you have a death wish?
I'm talking about Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs), which don't always have nuclear payloads, and which Iran, Russia, and others are desperate to produce at scale and for which Europe has no defense against without the United States. Maybe you mean that Europe would simply launch their own strategic weapons in response? Perhaps, though given the completely schizophrenic political situation there I doubt any government would approve the launch of nuclear weapons.
I'm happy to read any particular you quote you think was specifically offensive, though all I've been able to find has been something I'd book as "true, but perhaps touches a nerve with our friends across the pond". We can yell at each other back and forth but that doesn't change the reality that Europe cannot defend itself in current state without the United States, and policy makers in my country are a) acknowledging this fact and b) wanting that to change.
