Comment by benjiro29

> If you measure "function" by the relative economic and military power of the country, then the EU has overwhelmingly degraded the function of its initial members compared to when they joined.

Very sure that when the EU was still in its infancy, we had only "west Europe" in arms, vs a USSR (aka all the eastern states and Russia). Now all those states are part of NATO and the EU.

Instead of the border to the closest hostile nation (Russia) being barely 100km from here, its now over 1200km to the first contact point.

That same Russia can barely deal with a Ukraine, that has some spare change backing from the EU. How is again at a war economy? Ukraine, sure, Russia, sure, EU ... nowp.

We now have Northern members that used to be neutral or not part of NATO, that are now part of it.

I feel like people love to misrepresent a lot of history. We have never been in a better position as a EU, vs what we used to be 40, 80, 100 years ago.

Yea, we have a lot of buildup to do again, but lets be honest, i rather see buildup now with modern kit for the modern battles, then relying on outdated 1990's doctrine and weapons. And even that is still a slow process with transitioning to the new reality of drones, drones and drones. Do not forget that 90% of the kills are now by drones.

People love to parrot those US talking point that often have no sense of history and our current EU reality in regards to security. While i admit, that we are still too reliant on US kit, even that is slowly changing. The EU moves slowly but it moves. Better then being some nations that are stuck in Imperialistic ways of thinking, like Russia.