Europe Is a Terrified Child

Disagree with this take. It's not the 80 years of being part of NATO and under American influence; it's something more subtle and insidious that grew in Europe in the past 20 years. For example the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was met with fierce opposition in Europe. For at least a decade after that the EU thought of itself as a more civilised alternative to the US, not as a vassal.

Then we completely missed the tech revolutions of the past 10-15 years; we let ourselves be recolonised by giant American companies spreading American culture; finally we let the US decide our international politics, from Eastern Europe and Russia, to the Middle East, Iran, and China.

This has been of course also enabled by extraordinarily weak leaders that probably have been supported by the US because of their weakness. And here we are: with a war on our doorstep that cripples our economy, paralysed in front of the Gaza genocide, and having renounced closer commercial ties with China. Completely incapable of upholding our values and even our laws.