Comment by TheOtherHobbes
5 days ago
Europe has been forced to depend on the US. The UK particularly had a world-leading civil and military aviation industry until the US "suggested" this was unwelcome.
The UK signed an agreement with the US to supply research for the Manhattan Project, in the naive belief the results would be shared.
The US said "Nuh uh - that's classified" and the UK had to develop its own program from scratch.
Then the US lobbied to have that thrown away so the UK would be locked into Polaris and then Trident.
And so on. NATO has very much been a showroom for US arms sales, and competition has been discouraged - not always effectively, but the implied pressure has always been there.
> Europe has been forced to depend on the US.
It's been more carrots than the (non-zero) sticks.
I think it's under selling Europe's agency to characterise the relationship as 'forced'.
And now that the US is increasingly seen as unreliable, Europe is (slowly?) decoupling - which is what you'd expect as a mutually beneficial relationship sours.
> Germany reached the NATO baseline target of 2% of GDP in 2024 for the first time since 1991.