It wouldn't make any strategic sense for Europe to wait it out and see what happens next, and no doubt it has been a wake-up call to see how quickly the US can pivot from friend to adversary.
Once Europe has severed reliance on US, then it is hard to see them reverting.
We're paying a very high cost, but it's not something that regular Americans will notice in their day-to-day lives, which will likely mean that perception of the problem will continue to fall across ideological lines.
Either way, we're in an age of decline and fracture.
So Putin's failure in Ukraine is balanced by his wild success in the US. The eye-watering corruption of Trump and the Republican Party has irreversibly damaged relations with the democratic allies of the US.
I think the biggest issue is that Europe and the EU has gotten themselves into a position where they don't actually offer much anymore except a pretty good middle class consumer market. They've put themselves into a place where they are just very easy to squeeze, which is what is happening from all sides by Russia, China, and the US.
Trump's antics have accelerated that position, and maybe they weren't expecting it from USA, but it was probably inevitable given their long term trajectory.
> The new year was only three weeks old and President Trump, after removing Venezuela’s autocratic strongman, had briefly threatened to seize Greenland from Denmark.
Did Trump threaten to seize Greenland? The WSJ links to an article with the quotes below. The quotes reflect sheer buffoonery (as expected), but so far I haven't seen the threat to seize Greenland.
This seems to be the consensus, but its not clear to me that it happened.
From the linked article:
> During an hourlong speech at the World Economic Forum, the U.S. president said he wouldn’t deploy the military to take control of Greenland.
> It was a stark shift in tone for Trump, who just days earlier had declined to rule out using the military to secure ownership of Greenland and posted an image online of the territory with an American flag plastered across it.
> “I don’t have to use force,” he said. “I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”
> “We want a piece of ice for world protection, and they won’t give it,” Trump said of his desire to acquire Greenland from Denmark. “You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no, and we will remember.”
The (ten) trillion dollar question is if Euro nations are going to foster fertile grounds for domestic American/Chinese competitor companies to grow, and at this point, grow rapidly. The second question is if this will be done jointly, or if old lines will come back over not wanting to be encumbered with "dead weight" in the need to move fast.
The challenge for Europe is if it can actually deliver. It’s been highly dependent on the US economically, technically, militarily and otherwise for decades. Posturing on sovereignty has ramped up again but it’s not fundamentally new.
A lot of folks would take Europe more seriously if there was more substance behind the talk. If it wants to replace US tech it needs to be competitive with US tech. Today it’s light years off.
The US has its own challenges, but it’s ability to unite as a country of independent states is something that Europe is unlikely to match anytime soon and that has a direct impact on the ability to execute everything Europe is posturing about.
> If it wants to replace US tech it needs to be competitive with US tech
There has been the age-old argument of how Linux can only replace windows on the desktop if it is "good enough".
In reality it has been good enough almost from the very beginning (I've been using a company-issued work laptop with Linux since around late 1994 so I feel comfortable saying that). What people really mean when they say that is that they want it to be exactly the same as windows where everything works exactly the same and can't be bothered to do anything differently.
Which of course it won't be exactly the same. To use a different platform you have to accept some differences. That's a feature, not a bug. Monocultures are terrible, the more diversity the more resilient the ecosystem.
So no, Europe should have completely different (but RFC-compliant compatible) tech stack, not simply an identical clone of US tech. That would be a strength, not just for Europe, but for interoperability across the world.
Let's remember, that's how it used to be! Systems on the Internet might be SunOS or IRIX of HP-UX or AIX (if you were weird), or even a VAX, or any of a long tail of smaller lesser-known manufacturers. It all worked together, but different.
Europe is already competitive, or leading, in many areas.
The US only has leverage over ASML due to other ties. If those are broken the leverage disappears and without ASML Americas tech industry suffers greatly.
Similarly Rolls Royce engines and BAE manufacturing are critical to the US military. The F-35 cannot be built without critical parts made only in the UK and which have no second supplier.
Europe doesn’t need to math the US military and wouldn’t want to in 2026. Look at what Ukraine is doing to Moscow. The US military is a machine built for a war that never came and now which never will. No one wants 11 carrier groups anymore because fighting that way is the past.
Europe is in many ways a mess, and I say that as a native born European with American citizenship who’s spent my adult life in the California tech scene.
However America is totally dependent on Chinese manufacturing, global supply chains and European partners and bases. America can’t produce N95 masks, nitrile gloves, or a chip fab to compete with Taiwan despite billions in government funding to accelerate these projects as critical.
Americas situation is as messed up as Europes and the US has fewer people, less land and fewer resources as a whole.
Europe seems to have forgotten that influence is a function of power. The leaders in the article lament their ability to influence the US on policy, but what do they bring to the table to effect that influence? Military power? Economic power? Technical innovation? The only thing they have is a small amount of cultural power that they have used to shame and criticize while entirely relying on US protection.
Europe isn't as bad as you might think. Though they may not be no.1 in military economic or innovation they are still quite strong.
Ukraine is an example - when that oval office thing happened Trump thought he could cut aid to Ukraine and force it to surrender with a cut of the spoils to the US/him but Europe took over and since then have probably been doing better - I note Russia's largest refinery 2500 km from Ukraine blew up last night.
Not much will be done: Europe will not manage to become sovereign and independent from the US. Things change slowly and a next Dep POTUS will come again closer to Europe. My opinion, not advice for investment.
US wants Greenland, Russia wants Ukraine, China wants Africa, etc. This reminds me of the intro to Fallout games, the one with "war, war never changes". The fight for the last of Earth's resources enters endgame phase.
20 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 45.9 ms ] threadIt wouldn't make any strategic sense for Europe to wait it out and see what happens next, and no doubt it has been a wake-up call to see how quickly the US can pivot from friend to adversary.
Once Europe has severed reliance on US, then it is hard to see them reverting.
Either way, we're in an age of decline and fracture.
Trump's antics have accelerated that position, and maybe they weren't expecting it from USA, but it was probably inevitable given their long term trajectory.
> The new year was only three weeks old and President Trump, after removing Venezuela’s autocratic strongman, had briefly threatened to seize Greenland from Denmark.
Did Trump threaten to seize Greenland? The WSJ links to an article with the quotes below. The quotes reflect sheer buffoonery (as expected), but so far I haven't seen the threat to seize Greenland.
This seems to be the consensus, but its not clear to me that it happened.
From the linked article:
> During an hourlong speech at the World Economic Forum, the U.S. president said he wouldn’t deploy the military to take control of Greenland.
> It was a stark shift in tone for Trump, who just days earlier had declined to rule out using the military to secure ownership of Greenland and posted an image online of the territory with an American flag plastered across it.
> “I don’t have to use force,” he said. “I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”
> “We want a piece of ice for world protection, and they won’t give it,” Trump said of his desire to acquire Greenland from Denmark. “You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no, and we will remember.”
A lot of folks would take Europe more seriously if there was more substance behind the talk. If it wants to replace US tech it needs to be competitive with US tech. Today it’s light years off.
The US has its own challenges, but it’s ability to unite as a country of independent states is something that Europe is unlikely to match anytime soon and that has a direct impact on the ability to execute everything Europe is posturing about.
There has been the age-old argument of how Linux can only replace windows on the desktop if it is "good enough".
In reality it has been good enough almost from the very beginning (I've been using a company-issued work laptop with Linux since around late 1994 so I feel comfortable saying that). What people really mean when they say that is that they want it to be exactly the same as windows where everything works exactly the same and can't be bothered to do anything differently.
Which of course it won't be exactly the same. To use a different platform you have to accept some differences. That's a feature, not a bug. Monocultures are terrible, the more diversity the more resilient the ecosystem.
So no, Europe should have completely different (but RFC-compliant compatible) tech stack, not simply an identical clone of US tech. That would be a strength, not just for Europe, but for interoperability across the world.
Let's remember, that's how it used to be! Systems on the Internet might be SunOS or IRIX of HP-UX or AIX (if you were weird), or even a VAX, or any of a long tail of smaller lesser-known manufacturers. It all worked together, but different.
The US only has leverage over ASML due to other ties. If those are broken the leverage disappears and without ASML Americas tech industry suffers greatly.
Similarly Rolls Royce engines and BAE manufacturing are critical to the US military. The F-35 cannot be built without critical parts made only in the UK and which have no second supplier.
Europe doesn’t need to math the US military and wouldn’t want to in 2026. Look at what Ukraine is doing to Moscow. The US military is a machine built for a war that never came and now which never will. No one wants 11 carrier groups anymore because fighting that way is the past.
Europe is in many ways a mess, and I say that as a native born European with American citizenship who’s spent my adult life in the California tech scene.
However America is totally dependent on Chinese manufacturing, global supply chains and European partners and bases. America can’t produce N95 masks, nitrile gloves, or a chip fab to compete with Taiwan despite billions in government funding to accelerate these projects as critical.
Americas situation is as messed up as Europes and the US has fewer people, less land and fewer resources as a whole.
Ukraine is an example - when that oval office thing happened Trump thought he could cut aid to Ukraine and force it to surrender with a cut of the spoils to the US/him but Europe took over and since then have probably been doing better - I note Russia's largest refinery 2500 km from Ukraine blew up last night.
I figure there will be some going back when Trump goes. He's an unusual president.