Re:America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dolla...
by lispm on Sunday January 19, 2020 @02:55AM
(#22090070)
I don't think you have much insight into thoughts of European countries. What you claim was a response to Trump, is actually much more complex. There are different views in different countries and within them.
Germany is also no longer the front to the communist block - which no longer exists and only Russia is left as direct opponent. So it may make sense to have NATO defense moving east. Many Germans think that the US politics against Russia leads to nothing good.
What Trump does/says is fully inconsistent. NATo is obsolete. Then it is great. He wants to reduce military. Then record money flows into the military. He wants to get out of Iraq, then he blackmails Iraq to let the US stay. He uses kurds to fight against ISIS and then he hands them over to Assad...
The main political reaction in Germany to him is to have not too much changed and hope for a more rational US government.
Recent events have convinced me that I was at least partly wrong about my previous view of the United States having bases all around the world. Europeans love to complain about America, but when Trump threatened to pull out of NATO, in the face of an ascendant Russia, the European reaction certainly wasn’t “don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” Likewise in Asia, while the Taiwanese and Japanese have always been warm to American military support, the growing power of China has definitely sparked discussions about America’s continued commitment to obligations in that region.