You cherry-pick tanks as your metric? Why don't we look at the totality of American deliveries, including long-range munitions and artillery, and see who comes ahead? What equivalent of game-changing ordnance, such as the GDSLB, are European countries providing?
This is why a large portion of Americans could care less about the defense of Europe. No matter what we do, it's either wrong or not enough. Meanwhile, Europe spent the last few decades enjoying cheap Russian energy and neglecting its defense spending and then turned around and told the US that we don't do enough to stop Russia.
> This is why a large portion of Americans could care less about the defense of Europe. No matter what we do, it's either wrong or not enough. Meanwhile, Europe spent the last few decades enjoying cheap Russian energy and neglecting its defense spending and then turned around and told the US that we don't do enough to stop Russia.
That comment comes off as surpisingly ignorant of the benefits that the US gets by having a buffer zone between it self on either side (Europe on it's eastern flank and the indo pacific on the western flank).
Your whole foreign policy revolves around keeping these areas armed and protected in cooperation with local governments in an effort of keeping conflict from reaching US shores (an evolution of the Monroe doctrine, which started back in the 19th century with keeping European conquest out of the immediate surroundings).
I would highly recommend picking up 'The Grand Chessboard[0]' by Zbigniew Brzezinski, former counselor to Presidents Lyndon B Johnson and Jimmy Carter. It is an excellent light read on the landscape in the mid 90's in regards to US foreign policy and national security. It even forshadows much that has happened recently.
It will truly fill in some gaps.
> Meanwhile, Europe spent the last few decades enjoying cheap Russian energy
Let us not forget that for a long time the US was hooked on foreign imported oil from the middle east, and even in 2021 Russian energy made up a total of 4% of the domestic US energy usage (up since Venezualian sources were not available as readily).
Please don't paint the US as some white knight that does what ever it can to please others on the world stage for altruistic reasons.
At worst it is disingenuous, and at best signals a massive ignorance of the world stage, history and the actors playing on it (again, highly recommend the book[0]).
My comment is ignorant because a large portion of America could care less about defending Europe? I guess I'll try and educate 100 million Americans before commenting again…
Thanks for explaining that every country has motives behind its actions. I'm familiar with realpolitik it has nothing to do with what average Americans feel about Europe.
I'm just relating the feelings a lot of people I know have towards the region. You might not like it or agree with it(I don't) but lecturing Americans on how bad they are probably isn't the best way to bring them around to your side.
> My comment is ignorant because a large portion of America could care less about defending Europe? I guess I'll try and educate 100 million Americans before commenting again…
No need to be unreasonable. Educating one self should be sufficient as a start, before moving on to the immediate surroundings.
> Thanks for explaining that every country has motives behind its actions. I'm familiar with realpolitik it has nothing to do with what average Americans feel about Europe.
Of course not. The average anyone is not guided by theory. That wasn't my point.
My point was that the comment clearly did not come off as being written in good faith as an objective statement of the sentiment of the general public in the US alone. And as such it deserved to be answered in tone.
> You might not like it or agree with it(I don't) but lecturing Americans on how bad they are probably isn't the best way to bring them around to your side.
Persuading citizens of the US to the benefits of their own government's policies is not on the priority list for me. Frankly if anything, it should be the task of those citizens with knowledge of the theory that guides the making of those policies to educate their country men of the benefits. Yes, further military spending is not popular. But boots on ground is even less so.
To be honest I do not like the way the US conducts it self on the world stage, and believe that the world would be much better for it if the playing field was more even (rather than the modern day hegemony we have).
Cooling European/US relations with the EU taking steps to become more self reliant militarily, but still with the US as an equal partner, can only be considered a good thing.
I don't see how that means you can't trust America. A large % does not equal a majority. Look at polling to see where the majority of US sentiment lies.
Similarly, if you look at surveys of Germans, you will see that a large % do not support Military aid of Ukraine, not a majority, but a large percentage. By your logic, does that mean that Ukraine cannot trust Germany?
Which country is providing more than the US? The only thing that matters is the absolute numbers. Ukraine doesn't care if Moldova contributes 10% of its GDP because it amounts to nothing compared to 1% of US GDP.
Due to the fucked nature of the political system in America most people don't matter. Who cares if someone in California supports aid to Ukraine when Trumpistic and Putinistic swing-voters in Georgia does not.
This is why a large portion of Americans could care less about the defense of Europe. No matter what we do, it's either wrong or not enough. Meanwhile, Europe spent the last few decades enjoying cheap Russian energy and neglecting its defense spending and then turned around and told the US that we don't do enough to stop Russia.