The EU could end up taking that crown if they handle this well.

Firstly of course, they need to be united, steadfast and decisive in their support for Ukraine until Russia collapses. They should be building new alliances, with India, South America, and any free countries in Africa and Asia. And maybe some unfree ones. Possibly even China, because let's face it, despite its many flaws, China is not the threat to Europe that Russia is. A wedge between China and Russia would weaken Russia and help the EU.

Then, after Russia collapses and the US has withdrawn from the world stage, it will be the EU that saved Ukraine, just like after WW2, the new super powers where the US and USSR that defeated Germany. And Ukraine has a lot to offer that the EU lacks.

The EU is incredibly powerful. Biggest common market in the world, half a billion people, 2nd largest military in the world if they put it all together. The EU just needs to learn to flex its muscles, to unite and assert itself, instead of hiding behind the US.

The ascent of Europe is the sort of outcome I might hope for — speaking as an American who believes in American values that my country no longer represents.

I'm not religious, but if I was, this is what I'd be praying for. Most alternatives I can imagine seem pretty dire.

Speaking of religion and Europe ... while not in Latin America I spent a few years growing up here and there in Arizona, my parents being ministers in a pentecostal church. All the pentecostal and charismatic churches were in thrall of the Hal Lindsey book "Late Great Planet Earth" [0] and other prophetic books trying to map nations/geographies from the Book of Revelation / Apocalypse to the then-day international power structure. "Sister Drew", our local in-congregation prophecy expert, would relay the latest findings. From what I remember, the idea was that Russia and Europe were to fight it out, Europe being the seat of the Antichrist's power, and somehow the Vatican was embroiled in it too.

Europe was supposed to be the "late stage" of human civilization, from Daniel's Old Testament dream of the human-form statue. The head of gold was the pinnacle of civilization, Babylon. The silver chest and arms were Persia. The belly and thighs were the Greek Empire. The legs of iron were the Roman Empire, resurrected as the fractious European Common Market (now European Union) in the feet of "iron mixed with clay".

The USA was variously portrayed as the Great Wh*re of Babylon, or else had some heroic role of some kind in these End Times.

At some point, all nations would stop fighting each other and join together to turn on Israel. Israel would be doomed but for God's intervention. From Daniel's dream, a pebble would form from nothing, grow to be a mighty boulder, and smash the feet of iron and clay (Europe, and by proxy godless humanity) and the rest of human civilization in form of the statue would crumble. The mighty boulder being ... Jesus. Israel would be mostly destroyed but a rescued "remnant", faithful Christians would be raptured / taken to heaven, the World would End ... and eventually all humanity would be judged for eternal salvation or punishment.

Wacky, fringe stuff ... EXCEPT THAT THESE BELIEFS ARE SO RELEVANT TO OUR PRESENT POLITICAL SITUATION IN THE USA. Check out the book "The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy" by Matthew D Taylor [1]. In this book and various podcasts Taylor describes the origins, religious and political philosophy, and current political power of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). No NAR church / congregation will claim the moniker today, but it remains a perfect description of the structure, leadership, and influence of this movement. The Bebbington Quadrilaterial splits "evangelicals" in the USA (and internationally) into four groups based on measures along two axes ... the "denominational vs non-denominational", and "charistmatic vs non-charistmatic". I grew up in in the denominational charismatic square, where churches believe in and expect the miraculous, but also belong to a centralized denomination with standards and accountability. The NAR congregations fit in the non-denominational charistmatic square, have a very authoritarian leadership structure with "apostles and prophets" at the top of each organization, and with a forest of MLM trees of such organizations, with no accountability at all for the "apostles" (c.f. the Mike Bickle scandal, and so many others, where people got away with abuse for years). In any case, in 2015 Trump's "spiritual advisor" Paula White (in early 2025 now is head of the White House Faith Council) gathered many apostles in this NAR movement around Trump, to throw their weight behind his candidacy and make him an acceptable candidate for their brand of evangelicals, and to pull in low-information evangelicals of other stripes behind his candidacy. And hence ... a conversation today between Trump and Zelensky, and many other knock-on effects.

Note that the NAR proposes to take over the world through their Seven Mountains Mandate, to "Bring Heaven to Earth", and usher in the End of Time. Of course, Trump does not believe any of this, but the evangelical power base is extremely loyal to him.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Late-Great-Planet-Earth/dp/031027771X

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Violent-Take-Force-Christian-Threaten...

>China is not the threat to Europe that Russia is. A wedge between China and Russia would weaken Russia and help the EU

It gets interesting when you realize that Russia is also a rival to China in Northeast Asia. A balkanized Russia, like the one the EU could have manifested had it took Russia warnings seriously and brought about decisive action after troops were invading Crimea. But no they lived in their "End of History" fantasy and that virtuous liberties will magically be spread if we just trade goods and ideas between spheres of influence.

Of course this reality will be bad for our allies in Asia (ie. Japan, SK, Taiwan). But maybe this time it'll wake up some in America from becoming isolationist again.

I see SK and Japan also as necessary allies for the EU. But if China decides to take Taiwan, I don't think there's anything the EU could possibly hope to do about it; Taiwan remains independent because the US guarantees their independence. If Trump were to withdraw that guarantee too, I don't think there's anything that can save Taiwan.

It sucks, but the EU has more urgent problems closer to home. All I can hope for is that Trump hates China enough that he'll continue to guarantee Taiwan's freedom. But I'm sure at some point he's going to ask them for some more material "thanks" too.

But yeah, the EU's relationship with China should not be the same as that with other allies. But I think there's room for some cooperation, and the EU might not object too loudly if China were to take outer Manchuria back, for example.

Honestly I don't think I can see China taking Taiwan militarily. They witnessed how the world isolated Russia economically after the aggression on Ukraine and especially since their economy relies on exports. They don't have much to win other than some geopolitical credit at the expense of their manufacturing and technology sector. China is conducting a policy where they'll cripple Taiwan's will to seek independence from just sheer soft and economic power. They offer fantastic perks to Taiwanese from the oppurtinity to work visa free, access to credit/mortgage with no social credit screening and ability to invest with no usual red tape.

The Taiwanese are being told China is an aggressor but nowadays they see the opposite. Also if China invades it'll destroy every goodwill they had built to win over Taiwanese hearts and won't get control over TSMC supply chain market since the latter promised to torpefy their fabs before China gets its hand on them.

Why are you acting as if China is a benign bystander in this? They literally sided with Russia in the very beginning of the war, including notifying Putin of intelligence the US shared with them in the months leading up to the war.

You also seem to be yet another person predicting Russia's "collapse", which is a prediction I've been hearing since a few years after Putin took control.

I don't think Europe can or should ally with a country that is treating the Uyghurs the way it is, regardless of the geopolitics.

Trump is old, fat and infirm. Hopefully he will be gone soon and we return to some sort of sanity.

In an ideal world I'd agree with you, but the world is unfortunately very far removed from that. You don't have to agree with everything to look for common ground in other areas. Support the good, criticize the bad.

> You don't have to agree with everything to look for common ground in other areas.

That's exactly the approach Europe took when dealing with Russia and we now see where it got us.

True. Well, I still don't disagree with the initial policy of opening trade with Russia. It's just that Europe should have realized much earlier that in Putin's hands, Russia was becoming more hostile again. And after they invaded Georgia and Ukraine in 2008 and 2014, they should have cut ties immediately, and not invest in more ties.

Though I suppose you could argue the same is true after China's expansion into the South China Sea. But even then, China isn't remotely as aggressive, expansionist or hostile as Russia is. And their government, although totalitarian and unfree, is at least competent. Although Xi's narcissism and vanity are definitely a bad sign.

> 2nd largest military in the world if they put it all together

Military industrial capacity is Europe's main problem right now. I believe they're ramping up production, but it's going to take years. They may end up having to buy the arms from the US in the meantime if they want to aid Ukraine. If it gets to that, the question is whether they give China some business.

I LOL'd. Ruefully.

Seriously, I'm wondering who is going to be a more dangerous geopolitical foe for Europe going forward, the US or China. The ascendant forces in the in the US are pro-Russia, and that's not likely to change in the near term. Unlike China, though, we haven't sold military hardware to Russia. Yet.

I'm not so sure China is a threat to Europe. They're as far away from each other as they can possibly be. Sure, Europe is upset about China's human rights record, and their cheap manufacturing circumventing EU rules, and maybe also the economic influence China is trying to gain over other countries (Africa, central Asia), but it's not a threat to Europe itself, which Russia clearly is, and the US could become, if Trump decides to join Russia.

If the US turns, Europe may have to ally with China.

> buy the arms from the US in the meantime

I'm not so sure that's a realistic option when there's US officials saying to allies they should buy less US equipment.[1] It doesn't inspire confidence.

> A British defence figure, who is not part of the government, was told privately by US officials that it should “recalibrate” its reliance on US equipment.

And then there's this.

> They said that a US administration could put restrictions on kit from the US and that if countries are “deemed not to be doing what you are told you will suddenly find out missiles won’t fire and planes won’t fly. You have got to be careful.”

When allies buy less US equipment, what happens to the US citizens employed in the defence industry?

[1]: https://archive.ph/q2hgi

EU is a lot looser union of sovereign nations than USA, where the states are federal. California or Texas do not have their separate foreign policies; France and Germany do.

I don't see "EU taking that crown" happening any time soon, sadly. With the ascent of (often Russia sponsored) far-right nationalist parties, this is even less likely.

Trump's approach is probably going to work partially in the short term. - The US is very powerful, a lot of countries are reliant on them, so bullying can be used to extract benefits. They got their plane thingy with Colombia, Mexico didn't react much to the preludes of military action against the cartels. The US could annex the Panama Canal and Greenland.

There's a reason why hawks like Bolton and Cheney are against it. It harms US interests in the mid-to-long-term. To me it seems like the Trump adminstration is a) trying to distract from their domestic agenda and b) isolate the US internationally and create new external foes to justify domestic changes.

Oh is China going to guarantee Ukraine's security now?

At the end of the day, Zelensky had the most obvious proposition in the world -- allow American companies access to Ukrainian minerals. He kept asking for a security guarantee as if he needed anything more.

If he expected Trump or Vance to publicly announce they would go to war with nuclear-armed Russia over these mineral deals, then he's not fit to be president of any country.

The security implication was obvious... if Russia threatened American mining operations, the United States would obviously respond.

But the demand that Trump say he would go to war with Russia.. what purpose would that possibly serve? Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows the implication.

So maybe he can now turn to China, but I'll tell you that China's propositions for Ukraine's rare earth minerals will likely have Ukraine losing a lot more sovereignty than the scenarios where America took them over instead of the one where Russia wins.

China sided with Russia from the very beginning of the war, including notifying Putin as soon as the US revealed their intelligence in a meeting with Xi before the invasion. Interesting how quickly you forget this inconvenient detail in the narrative you've constructed in your head.