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What I don't understand is the concept of NATO or the EU: why would a group of countries willingly band together as "happy vassals," as the Belgian PM put it.

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> What I don't understand is the concept of NATO or the EU: why would a group of countries willingly band together as "happy vassals

NATO: Russia is a threat to both Europe and the US, lets band together to make sure we can fight them.

EU: Europe keeps fighting wars, lets make our economies more inter-dependent so that doesn't happen as much.

For NATO, I can see the happy vassals thing (and that's what the Belgian PM was referring to), but can you explain who is the overlord in the EU example?

Germany, France and formerly the UK

The EU would be very very different if that were the case. Like, since the UK left we'd have a common corporate taxation system. Prior to that, we'd have had a military since the 70s, and only one stock market (in London, obvs) and all data-collection would've been made illegal.

(This is mostly satire, even if I think 2 of the 3 second things were and are great ideas).

The EU as a group really doesn't seem to have a lot of political will / momentum. They make a lot of statements, but that's it. I wish they did, but they don't seem to.

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