Change

World War II ended over seventy years ago. I do not remember the event but I remember my father's return. Thus for some of us it is a real memory. For those decades the US has been used as the cornerstone of European defense. All the while Europe prospered and used what would have been defense money to pursue their own social goals.

The threat was a Soviet invasion. Now the threat is a Russian invasion, at least that is what they think. But Europe has suffered more deaths from internal "invasions" than Russian troops. Perhaps it is time for them to rethink a great deal.

In the European Socialist site The Syndicate a Belgian writes:

Europe has been only too happy to make life easy for itself. For the past century, transatlantic relations have adhered to a perverse, unspoken dynamic, whereby the more active the US has been, the more Europe has dozed off. When the Americans have intervened abroad – as they did in Iraq – Europe has responded with grandstanding lectures about “imperial overstretch.” And when the Americans have failed to intervene, or intervened late or ineffectively – as in Syria and Libya – Europeans have demanded more American leadership. That era is now over. Trump knows that the EU has the money, technology, and know-how to be a global power equal to the US, and it is not his problem that Europe lacks the political will to harness its full potential. We Europeans have assumed for too long that it is cheaper and safer to let the US solve our problems, even in our own backyard. With Trump’s election (and given America’s checkered foreign-policy legacy), we must discard this belief. 

Europe has a duty to defend itself. Frankly it is about time they grew up and decided what they want. The US has its own issues, and in a sense Russia should not be viewed as an enemy but as a counter balance to China. And China is an ever growing economic power that Europe should itself address.

This election in a strange way is truly a realignment of Global concerns. The US is looking inwards to examine how it wants to behave outwardly.  The old cliches should and must be re-examined. Russia is still fundamentally and extraction economy. We never see "Made in Russia" in Walmart. Then again we are seeing less and less of "Made in China" in Walmart and more and more in Defense elements. We rely upon Russia for Space launches and as the Arctic opens we may rely on them for Arctic Circle fiber connections as well.

Germany has the money and capability. Poland has taken steps to defend itself. It remembers the last German advance, and the Russian one before that. So let France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, and even the Czech Republic step up to the table and do what the US has been doing for over seventy years.