Comment by dingnuts
I don't know why Europe wants so badly to be reliant on the US. It's bad for them, it's bad for us. It's embarrassing for Europe that Ukraine is relying on the US instead of Europe for defense. It's embarrassing for Europe how little they contribute to NATO. The US isn't a partner, it's a caretaker. And as they say, if someone provides what you need, they also have the power to take it away.
Outsourcing your defense is stuupiiid.
Europe should be thanking Trump for waking them up to the reality that has always been the case through his boorish negotiation.
Defense is a bit like advertising or finance. It has some aspects of a zero-sum game and a negative-sum game. All the money you invest in it is wasted. But if your enemy/competitor chooses to waste more money, you may be in trouble.
From an European perspective, the entire purpose of NATO from 1992 to 2022 was to prevent wasting too much money on defense. Because, for some reason, Americans were willing to do it instead.
Then Russia invaded Ukraine, and the calculus changed. Now European countries are rebuilding their defensive capabilities, while Russia is still bogged down in Ukraine. Given the lack of credible short-term threats, limiting defense spending was clearly the right choice until 2022.