Gli europei hanno ragione ad essere arrabbiati con Donald Trump, ma dovrebbero anche essere furiosi con se stessi | Commento di A. Rawnsley al Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/16/europeans-are-right-to-be-angry-with-donald-trump-but-they-should-also-be-furious-with-themselves
di SmartHipster
18 commenti
>The betrayal of Ukraine is a final warning to the UK and its continental allies to put a lot more energy and money into rebuilding their defences
Oh, I’m angry. But not at myself. I’ve been yelling for a common European defense strategy for years.
I’m angry at people blocking it, *especially* the far-right and everyone who votes for those pro-Putin traitors. Right now, they are the main reason for Europe not getting shit in order. They all suck up to (wannabe) dictators like Putin and Trump, while demolishing Europe from the inside.
I’m also angry at political weaklings not doing shit. We could have seen this coming in 2016, already. We should and could have anticipated on it. But we, that is our political leaders, didn’t do shit, and believed everything was OK again, when Biden got elected.
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Yes, we fucked up. Believing the US would always honor their obligation to the alliance was naive. How could we be so irresponsible? Whether it was because the EU was always “just” a trade unionen or we have become passifistic by nature I don’t know. We got more citizens than the US and we are unable to protect them our selves.
Small countries like Denmark has their own armies, but what the fuck is that gonna do in a conflict with Russia. Dispand it and allocate everything to an EU army and start paying the GDP % that’s been owing for centuries.
As a dane, fuck this shit. Screw the language barrier – I got nothing but love for each EU country.
They brought this on themselves.
I’m optimistic. I don’t think Europe’s defenses are actually that bad.
>Trump has always had a point when he’s railed about Uncle Sam being treated as Uncle Sucker
That argument only works if you come from a position that all that geopolitical power that US recieved in exchange for military protection is useless and such. Which might as well be true, but it’s not a given. You could argue the opposite as well obviously. But that’s from american POV. So, not exactly a strong argument.
Not exactly sure why Europe became so weak and complacent on so many issues though. From geopolitics, to migration issues, economy issues. I guess in some way, Putin is correct that the West grew decadent(Even if you want to deny this). He will still fail at the end of the day, though. Only question is: will Europe be able to capitalize on his inevitable failure (whether through his death or otherwise) ? Right now it seems that the world doesnt consider Europe as a respectable power broker on its own.
This may sound controversial(And might as well be), but attemtpting to appear as some kind of “Noble follower of the International Law” brings more harm than good to Europe. If anything, only Europe is trying to follow it. Take the refugee crisis for instance. Non-western countries would probably close the gates back in 2015, never to reopen them. Yet for Europe its all about ECHR treaties etc. And now this strict adherence to treaties brings the so called far-right on the main stage. I aint saying that Europe should just go nuts and bring back the 19th century geopolitical system, but growing some balls wouldnt hurt. The reality is that Europe is on its own right now. And others WILL try to exploit Europe’s weakness and “goody-two-shoes” nature. Be it US, China, Russia, Middle East sheikhs or whatever else.
I do still hope that Europeans will stop fading into history.
>All of which now sounds for the birds, thanks to Donald Trump
Is it only me who feels that European leaders and media are quite happy to blame Trump for their own failure? If the support for Ukraine was serious – i.e. if there was an actual plan that would lead to Ukrainian military victory – that plan should have given results long ago. A prolonged war of attrition does not appear to favour Ukraine, and my guess is that within a year or two the Biden/Harris administration would have had to make a deal with Russia anyway (only possibly at an even worse position). Or maybe I’m just too pessimistic and there is a good chance for Ukraine to expell Russia within a year or two?
Europe can’t bet it’s security on who the Americans vote for. We need to step out of the shadows of WW2.
Self criticism isn’t really possible in the EU since you can always blame the Russian bots instead.
I am waiting for China’s move now and I got the feeling that China will become a “more” European partner than the US now.
America helped Europe to rebuild after WWII, 40 years ago helped China with manufacturing and now is dissing both of us.
The next ones might be South Koreea and Dubai.
That title made me look up if the writer wasn’t some kind of think tank mouthpiece. I’m surprised he wasn’t.
>It is not that Europe lacks the resources to protect itself without US assistance. [Russia’s population](https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/russia-population/) is about 144 million. The total population of Nato countries, excluding the US, is over 636 million and their combined economic heft is about 12 times that of Russia. The means are there; what’s been lacking is the will.
Indeed. If every European NATO-member spends as much as Poland on its military (4,7%), a Russian military offensive against any NATO member will be utterly fruitless. We’ve seen tons of warning signs since 2014 (annexation of Crimea, first presidency of Trump, rise of China, etc) but no meaningful action yet from our side …
that’s some bullshit, why should we be furious with ourselves when the european status quo decided long ago, before most of us were even born that we would be america’s vassals
Might be a stupid question, but it lingers in my head.
I see Elon Musk as a coward and an opportunist. If by any chance, the US population and judges can stop the power grab that‘s happening right now in their country and by a miracle, impeach the Trump / Musk duo, is it a possible scenario that Musk than goes to Putin and offers him all the internal info he got on the US in exchange for money?
We’re not weak as EU, we just don’t have any use of getting into a war just to defend a country that was equally corrupted as Russia. Unfortunately Ukraine is not ready for EU, and EU doesn’t want to take part in defending it more that it has to. People need to put their emotions aside, and realise the economic and demographic consequences of having EU included in a war.
Ukraine lost a war, and war in Ukraine, if EU took part with military, it would still be a stalemate on Ukrainian soil, which would further ruin Ukrainians. I fail to see how redditors don’t see that. I know reddit is an echochamber, but it’s basics.
What, you want a nuclear war just because you’re not happy with the outcome? Are you guys actually clinically insane?
Russia won’t attack EU because it enjoys economic growth from the same EU. Selling natural gas, oil, and other goods when sactions are lifted is gonna keep happening, and also some countries in EU still buy from Russia.
I know I’m gonna get called a Russian bot, and Ukrainian hating whatever, but it’s called being a realist. I’m also not far right, which is crazy I even have to say that just because I stated my opinion.
God Bless America and get your military in order. I’m sick of bailing you out of wars. Grow some balls and have some dignity. Your military power will detour Putin. All this talk and posturing is nonsense.
The Guardian has been rabidly anti, military spending, and nuclear deterrence for decades. It should kindly shut up and never speak on matters of defence ever again.
What puzzles me is why the US such a powerful country, was the only one to trigger point 5, obviously extorting allies to help in the war they unleashed, now they pretend they didn’t call for help from other countries, their word is worth shit, they are only there to pretend to be friends.