Comment by throw310822
4 hours ago
Europe isn't a superpower but it's a giant entity with 450 million people and 15% of the world's gdp. It has the means to oppose the US and retaliate against its sanctions, if it doesn't it's because of the cowardice of its politicians and the weakness of its institutions.
Europe (as in all european countries combined) does not have a military powerful enough to oppose the US. And that is all that matters.
Labor shortages abound in the US military. It is slowly approaching paper tiger status, unless we're talking about delivering long range ordinance. The US can engage in a small handful of conflicts at the same time; it cannot take on the world. The Coast Guard didn't have enough staff to commandeer an oil tanker near Venezuela recently. Total US military headcount is ~3 million as of this comment.
https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2025/12/24/u-s-hunts-sanctioned-t...
https://www.stripes.com/branches/coast_guard/2024-03-06/coas...
That would only matter if US invaded Europe or vice versa. That's not going to happen. So the size of military expenditures doesn't really matter.
You can’t be that naive to believe that military might has nothing to do with political might.
No, but China and Australia do if they were to, you know, alliance themselves against the tyranny of the US. Much like we did against the tyranny of the Nazi regime.
Add in other nato countries and we’re cooked.
If the EU goes against the US and happens to recruit allies, we’re cooked.
More importantly, the bilateral relationship between the US and Europe represents 30% of global trade, and 40% of the global GDP. Both economies complement each other naturally (at least right now), and neither partners don't want it to end, so even with the relationship becoming more fragile as the US tries to close itself off from the world, I think both will still try to remain collaborative with each other, regardless of this posturing that is going on.
It will take a lot to shift that trade dynamic, but the current US administration seems quite energetic about rapidly tearing down Chesterton's Fences that it doesn't understand nor want to spend the time to understand, so I'd not bet on this remaining so even for the next 3 years.
And yes, I do understand how utterly bonkers it is to suggest something this big changing over just 3 years.
I don't believe this is possible, even at Trump speed. It's much easier to wreck NATO than to reshape the world economy to that extent.
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