> The ability to put bases, air support of all kinds, intelligence, drones, etc. pretty much anywhere is basically beyond most of Europe. When a war broke out on their border (Libya), for better or worse there was an intervention. Obama reluctantly agreed and didn't want to play a lead role, but without US drones, AWACS, and electronic warfare, special forces on the ground, the UK and French fighters wouldn't have been able to do anything at all. This is actually quite a good demonstration of how specific capabilities are huge enablers of others.

I'm not sure this can really be considered an instance of "protection" provided by the US. As far as I remember, the Libyan war was more of an instance of civilian unrest that the government was equipped to and on the verge of dealing with when American intervention toppled it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_...), thus causing the present state where no one faction is strong enough to control the whole country. In fact, it is hard to think of any protracted armed conflict on Europe's periphery in the past two decades that was not either directly instigated or least comes with a strong case of having been surreptitiously promoted by the US.