The rest of this article is neocon/industry hogwash. Hegseth instructed the EU in 2025 to get stronger and finance the US proxy war in Ukraine.
The article also panders to big business by promoting AI. It mentions none of the issues that populations face in the EU (housing, immigration. inflation).
One wonders who buys his Substack subscriptions ...
Also what do you mean US proxy war? I don't get that part of your post
There were three alternatives: [1] Don't spend on defense. [2] Spend on defense and buy American. [3] Spend on defense and buy European.
Europe (modulo Poland) picked the worst one. Even [2] is better than [1].
However, Europe did get a couple of decades of "Russia isn't a threat" and "we have soft power" posturing.
But, it turns out that the cowboys were right. There was a bear in the woods.
how its US proxy war?
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/31/ukraine-crisis-ques...
2.) The Ukraine war is not US proxy war, after all US is not supporting Russian invasion. That war was started by Russia because Russia wants to expand and steal other countries.
... eh? EU funding to Ukraine is far larger than US; at this point almost twice as much. That trend predates Hegseth (though the near-collapse in US funding seems to be Hegseth's fault, or at least happened on his watch). If anything, a more obvious reading would be that the US is capitulating on Ukraine (perhaps the piss tape has made another appearance.)