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> We already started across most Europe, to the tune of half a trillion of additional spending just now.

I’m aware, this is the best inception I’ve ever seen because Europeans are acting like its their own idea because they're scared of the US / Russia now

and not that the people in the current US administration have been demanding Europe to do this for 8 years straight.

less talking, and just scare people into action. Same result, at the expense of some relationships that wore out its welcome. and everyone investing into their local economies.

sidenote: I like Switzerland. Way to go guys.

Of course they would be demanding that, they wanted Europe to buy Usa guns

I think they just want to stop feeling as though they have to fund all that defence out of their taxes and then be made fun of by the people they're defending that they don't spend enough taxes on US social safety nets.

No sane person will tell you that EU should accept all the consequences of US starting wars in our neighborhood and also pay for that privilege.

Nobody is forcing US to field the largest army in the world. It is their own choice. We all would much rather if they didn't have such an incentive to arbitrarily start wars just to justify their defense budget.

BTW, if US is such a mighty nation as they advertise themselves, they should have no problem providing safety net for their citizens. The problem is that they just don't want to do that. They don't care about their citizens. All administrations just want to avoid taxing the rich and shift the blame to made up external enemies.

I don't see the point in this bad faith stuff. Clearly the US has provided a massive defence umbrella not limited to wars the US started. EU countries are now arming up and spending increased GDP on defence to accommodate the US spending less on their defence. The US has spent a fortune that those countries didn't have to previously spend, and could instead spend on social things. I think the US was fine with this, but they're not fine with doing this for the EU while the EU is laughing at it for not spending enough on social things.

What bad faith?

US has been destroying Middle East for decades. Where do you thing that migrants from those regions run to?

Wars in Middle East are not something that EU needs or wants. We just went with it because of all the "we are allies and we respect each other" lies that were used by US administrations to swindle EU and get what they want.

Or do you propose that US pays for the costs of immigration problems around the world?

It is obvious that only reason US doesn't have safety net for their own citizens is US.

We all know where the middle east strife comes from. America has supported it, but not America alone. Is Germany going to stop providing financial and military aid and hardware to Israel?

I have a feeling (haven't seen any studies) that support of Israel by EU countries is done mainly by politicians who are listening to US polititans.

It will be interesting to see how long EU support for Israel will last without the pressure from US.

European NATO members were well within their rights to refuse to participate in Afghanistan when America invoked Article 5 (read it!). They should have in fact, because it was a bullshit war and they knew it at the time. They chose to participate anyway and have been whining about it ever since. Fine, mistakes were made, but now you lot should be happy to put distance between yourselves and America and take on full responsibility for your own defense.

As for America starting wars in the region, if you think America started the wars Russia has waged and is waging against Georgia and Ukraine, you've been huffing Kremlin retard gas. You lot have a problem on your border, America didn't make it and its not America's responsibility to fix it. Maybe the American people would be more eager about helping Europe if Europeans didn't take every opportunity they could to gloat about how they're better than America, how Americans are stupid to spend so much on the military. Doesn't matter now though, the damage is done. Take care of yourselves.

Region as in "relatively close to Europe". Immigrants are coming all the way from Middle East where US performs the operations, not our neighboring countries.

Russian thing is all EU fault. Glut for cheap oil made putin think he has a big bargaining chip against EU and that this will all be a simple task.

I don't know what propaganda media you get your information from, but people of Europe are not gloating or thinking you are stupid. I work for a company that has US offices (as many Europeans do) and we work very well together. We travel a lot between countries and work face to face and there have never been any problems.

> but people of Europe are not gloating or thinking you are stupid. I work for a company that has US offices (as many Europeans do) and we work very well together. We travel a lot between countries and work face to face and there have never been any problems.

I think this is a mixed bag, but also I think the perception is there. There is a lot of "Scandinavia does this perfectly" talk that creates the perception in the US, even if perhaps no one in Scandinavia is the least bit bothered either way!

European defense stocks are what’s moving, hope you’ve been trading them

Actually I would argue that Europe taking care of itself reduces single point of failure in the system. Even if there was no Trump, it would have been the right thing to do.

> In fact, the only problem - underfunded military.

If you think this is the only problem that Europe has at the moment, we most likely do not live in the same Europe. Europe has an energy crisis, a demographic crisis, a budget crisis, a housing crisis and an illegal immigration crisis.

> We already started across most Europe, to the tune of half a trillion of additional spending just now. Most of that money will come back to our economies, so expect EURO value to rise.

Sure, let's just keep adding to the debt of the EU countries who most of them are already broke. I bet our children and grand-children will thank us for spending their money to buy weapons so that we can defend ourselves against an hypothetical war again Russia. Russia who by the way has trouble holding on to a 5th of Ukraine but who somehow miraculously will have it's tanks roll around Paris and Berlin in just a few years if we believe out dear European leaders.

> Compare it to here - 0, our 2 childbirths, wife was twice off work for 6 months, full salary kept coming. Even in most capitalistic country in Europe - Switzerland. Also I've had paragliding accident last year with both legs broken, been off work, on wheelchair, tons of MRIs, physiotherapies and so on. Cost - 0, also salary fully compensated by mandatory employer's insurance.

The fact that you think all of this costs 0 tells me all I need to know. There is nothing free in this world. If you are not paying then someone else is. Usually it's done through taxes which are paid by companies and people.

When people talk about universal/socialized healthcare as free healthcare, they simply sweep under the rug the real cost of healthcare. And when the economy is doing poorly and companies are leaving, most of the cost will be shouldered increasingly by the middle class who will start wondering why they should be the only ones paying for all this.

The fact of the matter is that even France which ranks second as the most taxed country on the planet, had a 6% budget deficit last year. But it's got "free" healthcare so it's all good.