I broadly agree.

Since us brits left I wondered if there would be a big move to more effective government. But apparently not?

I think the most interesting thing about the EU is we’re watching the formation of a country but over ~100 years. The US had a few milestones (war of independence, civil war, ww2) where it got things together and centralised etc. the EU has not had (yet) crises of that scale.

It took the euro debt crisis to get fiscal stuff moving. Maybe Ukraine/Trump is what is needed to do the same for armed forces?