Comment by wolvoleo
2 days ago
Exactly! It's the same with the military dependency.
America wanted a weak Europe, to be dependent on them so they would have geopolitical influence. They basically bought influence. They didn't want us to have nukes to defend ourselves from the Russians (the French are frowned upon and the British don't really have their own, they are beholden to the US). It also gave them a huge market for their products and services (and no there was no imbalance if you take services into account which Trump doesn't).
Then Trump comes and complains that we're not investing equally. Well no, but this was exactly as his predecessors designed. Now we will build it up but of course we will need to build our own nuclear umbrella and we will no longer give the US its influence it previously had, obviously.
We also don't need quite as much military expenditure anyway because we're just looking to defend ourselves, not trample oil-producing countries. The only times we did that were exactly due to the US' bought influence.
everything you're pointing out is better explained by "Europe didn't want to spend the money, they'd rather let America spend". This was true right after WWII because Europe needed to dedicate money to rebuild their economies. It remained true as later Europe continued to rely on tariff regimes to protect inefficient home industry sectors, and financed increasingly expensive welfare state programs to appease voters.
The US was only in favor of Europe rebuilding after the war, and rightfully against the rest of it.
the US has never been anything but helpful to Europe, but Europeans need a boogeyman to draw attention away from their own failings. It is very important to the European psyche that they be seen as near perfect on every measure. Americans are much more comfortable with, and benefit from, self criticism.
> America wanted a weak Europe, to be dependent on them so they would have geopolitical influence
100% in agreement