No a lot of the current mess is due to US imperialism and bullying, the same way it had been messed up by British, French and Spanish imperialism before. And this based on USD being at the core of finance. US protection is not needed other than in places destroyed by the US in the first place.

Now more than ever, I'm quite certain that almost all countries in the world would jump on any opportunity to get rid of this currency influence.

I agree with this comment. The “long-standing peace” on this planet that began 1945 was just a moratorium of world wars for American fear of nuclear winter situation, and it’s ending.

The world will resume, and so will the progress, and it’ll happen here on Earth unless we choose to do it elsewhere, not because it’s easy but because it’s the only place there is.

Let's say there's a bully, and he just takes and steal stuff. And then there's a big guy seeing that and telling the bully to fuck off and let the kids play without fear.

Both are power moves. Do you think they're the same thing though?

Yes, power is good way to bootstrap cooperation based on trust. This is a much more effective form of cooperation as you waste less energy on paranoia and watching over your back. You can also base cooperation on submission but then you have to constantly be at an all out war to protect your regime. Much less efficient or reasonable.

As JFK alluded to in his Inaugural Speech, 騎虎難下.

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/kennedy.asp

> "We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom--and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside."

https://www.indiewire.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/mad.jpg

Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i4dJaYMebI

Sure, I'd like that to happen as well. But it won't happen without (1) synchronisation of EU military forces, and (2) massive investment into the military (more than China / US if we want to catch up to rival them).

Why would the EU want to catch up or rival them in military spending?

To provide their own defense, ensure their energy sufficiency (in contrast to the US, EU doesn't really have its own energy apart for a bit of North Sea oil, most of it is imported from Russia and the Middle East, two places known for being peaceful and cooperative), protect their trade routes/trading partners, and enforce international law (e.g. anti-nuclear weapons regulations and sanctions)

EU countries already have a large military in absolute terms - it's just a lot smaller than the US or China. My question is why the EU would want to challenge the US or China - neither who are realistic direct threats.

Similar to how China appears to have decided that it doesn't need the huge numbers of nuclear weapons that the US and Russia have.

In order to have free trade with Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, etc. US is using their military force to contain China. In order to do so, their military forces have to be superior to China's. If EU wants to "go alone" and not rely on US power, they would need to do that themselves (or be content to not trade with a lot of the world, where they cannot project military power).

Same with Middle East. Clearly there are competitors for local energy resources - e.g. Russia, increasingly China as well - as well as tensions in the region (e.g. Iran vs Saudi Arabia). EU depends on that energy, so protecting it is a matter of "national security". Currently, EU is relying on the US to maintain that.

I'm not personally convinced that the military involvement of the US has been a net benefit to the stability of the Middle East over the last few decades.

It sure has not. The only stability from this, is the rate of bombs dropping.

I find it quite odd thinking the EU has enough of a military when they de-facto get slowly invaded year on year without doing anything or even attempting to put up a border. Let's not be politically correct here at the expense of civil/safe society. The EU has been welcoming an invasion force for decades, and it's causing absolute havoc and making the EU turn into a specific term that Trump called a lot of countries recently with much media outrage.

Ukraine is not in the EU and I wouldn't say the invasion there started 'decades' ago though I don't remember exactly when the war started, must have been after Maidan

I don't think zo1 is referring to that.... :-)

Normally immigration is not what people are thinking of when they use the term “invasion”.

Of course - I agree fully, immigration is a wonderful thing! My comment is rather around "concerted illegal immigration".

The US has far more illegal immigrants than the EU?

https://www.cato.org/blog/illegal-immigrants-europe

Not to mention the fact that the USA is the #1 CAUSE of illegal immigration, i.e. war refugees.

Living in Europe, I have seen a lot more war refugees than there should be. The immigrants, I am fine with - Europe is resilient. But America's war victims streaming in cross the Balkans: Americans need to understand their own culpability in that situation. They really don't, however.