Comment

Comment by jkic47

To be blunt, the major countries in the EU have not adapted to their diminished status in a world where economic and military power have concentrated elsewhere.

The EU has lagged the US in economic dynamism (link below). This deficit drives the inability to project economic or military power, forcing the EU rely on the US to support its foreign policy objectives in Ukraine - a conflict considerably more relevant to the EU than to the US.

Couple that with unaffordable, state-funded entitlements, and massive immigration significantly burdening (some) exchequers, and you end up with active urban conflicts in major EU cities, forcing a diversion of resources, and even more dependence on US military support.

None of this comes for free.

And Applebaum, playing the role of a wide-eyed ingenue, claims that the EU is "being bullied", instead of presenting it as the inevitable result of decades-long unwise, failing stances taken by the bloc.

A more interesting question is whether the current political, economic, and social model of the EU is compatible with the desire to be a major global power.

https://nextbigteng.substack.com/p/american-vs-european-star...

parent jkic47 7 days ago

Discussion

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton