Comment by Darvokis

Go back a hundred years and "national defense" was just a part of European culture. What's changed is that in the post-World War period, Europe was necessarily domesticated (aside from the UK and France) and made to be solely dependent on the US for all geopolitical and defense needs. The UK absolutely still talks about national defense issues. Germany chooses to ignore the issue because for the past 70 years, the US was tasked with dealing with these pesky minor details and Germany could pretend that any global geopolitical issues could be solved with pacifism and trade deals.