FLBear5630 said:
There is a lot of short term proclamations.
They are statements of historical fact.
You really think the status quo is the way it will always be.
Of course not. Status quo is hard to change. Sometimes it takes a real tough SOB to get it done.
I have no issues with the China moves. Alienating Europe is where I have an issue. When we got hit in 911, they were there. One thing to guilt them into paying more. Other thing to threaten and alienating when the other option is China. There seems to be no thought out plan here no matter how much 3D chess you say Trump is playing.
Why is it not a case of Europe alienating us? We didn't get angry because they didn't participate. We knew ahead of time they did not have the resources to participate (for anything other than a token show of the flag). We got angry because several of them refused to let us use bases and/or refused overflight. We spend billions to defend them and they nitipick us like that on something that is manifestly national interest to us? (and where they will collaterally benefit from our actions.....)
Screw. Them.
Trump is exactly right to stomp on their toes over that. We don't have a million-strong Soviet army poised in the Fulda Gap. That gives us a lot more latitude to speak frankly about us providing them security to build a robust welfare state.
The future is being integrated, not being a one off.
Actually, no. The future is national interest. Globalism went too far. Pendulum is swinging back toward the middle.
National interest is always there.
Ex: if we pull out of Nato, then some number of years/decades down the road a rejuvenated Russia invades.....we will be there to help defend Europe. Not because of any alliance obligation. Because it's not in our interests for Russia to dominate Europe and have naval bases in France & Spain from which they can significantly more easily threaten our trade routes.
National interest is always there.
Treaty or not.
And, right now, our national interest is to:
1) discontinue the primary burden of defending Europe
2) force Europe to pay more for a greater burden of their own defense
3) redeploy a greater percentage of our assets to Asia, to counter the rise of China
4) economic & trade changes, etc..........
You've got to put the globalist model back in the drawer. It's dead. It's not coming back. We will still trade. Indeed, since we are the only state with a global navy, we will trade like hell. We're just not gonna pay the cost of defending everyone else's trade any more. (except in cases where it might be in our national interest to do so.)