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Comment by monero-xmr | Hacker News Reader

As an American, this is a good thing. I don't want a world where Europe / UK are vassals to the hegemon. A European happy to live under America's boot rather than own their own destiny is a weak person indeed.

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Other than the recent clown the US has elected, does the EU really feel like a "vassal"? Do people toil against their will, yield their culture to another power? In Australia we're even more so a "vassal" of England, but we're as Aussie as Aussie can be. Life wouldn't change a zack if we separated from the UK...we'd just be a Republic I suppose?

I can't imagine the EU should feel particularly different? (other than Ukraine and the recent shemozzle)

If you are invaded by China and won’t fight to the death, expecting America or someone else to save you, or would just roll over and take it, you are a vassal mentally. If some country invaded America I would fight to the death

If China invaded the vast majority of countries (eg populations <50mil) I'd expect the country to give up after a few weeks of fighting if the US or a large number of allies didn't step in. I don't see how having every man/woman (hopefully not every child!) gunned down is viable for a country.

I don't think relying on your allies makes you a vassal.

I don't think there is a country in the world that doesn't understand it will never be able to depend on the USA for security or trade. It s not just that they elected Trump because we know that is temporary but the fact that they could elect another someone like Trump is a persistent threat.

As an American I encourage every country to decouple, and as I understand every country is working on it. Mark Carney of Canada said it best, it will never be the same, ever no matter what the future is because trust that has lasted 90 years has been broken. Canada will never have the same relationship with the USA.

I mean only if they are prepared to use it against US interests...

For a continent with two world wars within a span of 30 years, Europe was ready for US hegemony in 1944. The Trump narrative is not really based on neither US nor European logic, but his own particular kind of gaslighting.

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