I think it would be a better system (as an American)

If the US rhetoric continues it will not be long until you will see some currently non-nuclear EU countries start talking about contingency options. It will take a while, but it is good to remember that the reason there are so few nuclear weapons states is not because it is terribly hard, but because states have abstained for the global good and benefit of non-proliferation. This with the implied protection from states that have it.

If that no longer holds, then we enter a new era where non-proliferation will be history.

>it's starting to sound like a mob wanting protection money

Starting to sound like a mob? He's been at this for his whole adult life.

I certainly find the trump rhetoric distasteful and counterproductive. But I really think the EU would be better off with the ability to defend themselves. Depending on NATO article 5 always introduces a tempting ambiguity, which can lead to miscalculation.

The long Russian strategy has been to undermine the NATO via the US. The right wing nonsense in the US plays into that, by design, and is happening at the worst time for the US.

Reality is the value that the US brings is lower than it was. Ukraine has chewed up the old Soviet-era WW2 style tank divisions, but we’ve also seen that 4th generation fighters can’t survive in contested airspace and traditional Navy ships need to stay offshore (for now) to avoid being sunk by drone jetskis. Kinda a problem where we have limited inventory of 5th generation aircraft in either of our air forces.

The Navy sort of figured this out, but instead of building submarines built stealth ships with no weapons.

We need a reappraisal of US military force structure, based on the technology of 2026 vs 1986, as we’re on the path to end up like the Russians.

As an EU citizen, what bothers me most about this is that the EU is currently verbally attacked from both sides: Lavrov started in the Carlson interview with saying that relationships with Russia and the EU will be difficult but relations with the US are still possible. Mededev topped it off by saying that the EU cannot be forgiven but the US is still an important partner.

YouTube channels that follow the Russian narrative suddenly amplify this and pivoted from "the US is to blame" to "the EU is to blame".

The US narrative (at least online) seems to shift similarly: The US wasn't that important for the conflict, it is the Brits, the French and the Eastern European states who are the real hawks and who have to pay for the war.

Since the EU will be left out of talks between Trump and Putin, one wonders what the game is here and if secret agreements have already been made.

The DMA really is despicable though. Finding existing monopoly language to be inadequate for their purposes, the EU invented entirely new language that’s theoretically neutral laws on neutral principles but was drafted with the intent of targeting specific foreign entities in a comprehensive manner (mostly American, but also TikTok which is a PRC corporation) threatening to levy fines of 20% of their global—not EU—global revenue.

With the full text of the law implemented, several of these companies came up with compliance plans that don’t run afoul of the letter of the law, but the EC has repeatedly and continued to say “not good enough”, effectively inserting itself in the design process of new products and services from these companies going forward.

I’m against using NATO Article 5 as a bargaining chip too, but seeing what popular support crappy extremely targeted and extremely bureaucratically-minded laws like this has, has me questioning how much the EU is really an ally these days. It’s a given that a lot of you feel this way about the election of Donald Trump (twice), so I get it, but it cuts both ways across the Atlantic right now.