Let’s be real here. Europe has spent decades freeloading on American security. Even now, with every NATO member finally hitting the 2% GDP target in 2025.
But beyond the financial contributions, the real rupture is philosophical and the Iran crisis has shown a spotlight on it.
Europe worships process. Endless committees, consultations, and “predictability.” Macron actually calls it a virtue. For Trump, this is paralysis as his style is to articulate a threat, fix a target, and act. The Americans are men of conviction and purpose. Europe on the other hand lives by bureaucratic liturgy and in high-minded abstractions.
Sure, Americans might make mistakes when acting. But Europe never considers what the costs of not acting actually are.
Just look at how their nations are doing on various fronts, especially on the border crisis, and you see the same cancerous rot that undergirds their foreign policy approach play out domestically. It's the same problem on a different scale.
Iran is currently holding the Strait of Hormuz hostage, choking 20% of global oil and spiking prices past $100 a barrel. Meanwhile, the regime is bleeding from strikes, its nuclear ambitions are still alive despite degraded capability, and its proxies are firing missiles at allies and oil tankers. If this isn’t a clear and present danger to the global economy - of which Europe is a part - then I don’t know what is.
Yet when Washington asked to use European bases to finish the job - bases the US has defended for generations, the response was hesitation and hand-wringing. The US did strike from RAF Fairford, but only after warnings that British soil could become a “legitimate target.”
If you cannot agree that a theocratic regime with eschatological ambitions who have shown no restraint in hitting out at Gulf countries and threatening the world’s energy jugular is an enemy worth confronting, then what, exactly, are we allies about?
Europe loves to preen about being tough on Russia. They issue condemnations and speeches and slap sanctions that hardly work to cripple the Russian economy.
Now here was a chance to do something concrete: let the Americans use the bases they already pay for, help clear the Strait, and actually degrade the Iranian war machine that arms Moscow’s proxies. Turmp didn’t ask for boots on the ground or any kind of more offensive action. All he wanted was permission to operate from the infrastructure America has underwritten for decades.
They couldn’t even manage that.
So can you blame the Americans for seeing NATO for what it is? A paper-tiger alliance that expects Washington to bleed and pay while Brussels and London convenes and deliberates.
If Europe refuses to treat Iran as the threat it is while happily letting American power keep the Strait open and the lights on, then the alliance is already dead. Trump is simply stating the obvious and the Americans are becoming very reluctant to subsidize the European delusion any longer.
🔥 BREAKING: The White House just said Marco Rubio's blockbuster speech in Munich is getting MASSIVE PRAISE worldwide, posting all 22 minutes of it
Rubio dropped some absolutely incredible quotes in front of Europe.
KEEP DEFENDING THE WEST, MARCO! 🇺🇸
Marco Rubio with one of the greatest speeches by a Sec of State in decades:
"We are prepared to do this alone but it is our preference, and our hope, to do this together with you, our friends in Europe.
America was founded 250 years ago, but the roots began here on this continent long before. The men who settled and built the nation of my birth arrived on our shores carrying the memories, the traditions, and the Christian faith of our ancestors as a sacred inheritance, an unbreakable link between the old world and the new.
We are part of one civilization, Western civilization. We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have now fallen heir.
And if at times we disagree, our disagreements come from our profound sense of concern about a Europe with which we are connected, not just economically, not just militarily. We are connected spiritually and we are connected culturally. We want Europe to be strong. We believe that Europe and the West must survive."
https://t.co/W7jY0gg35T
Senior Regular Season highlights.
46/48 on PAT. 9/10 on field goal, long of 39. 2/2 on onside kicks. 40/61 on touchbacks 5 from the 25 due to penalty.
@myersparkfball@coachjames29@DanOrnerKicking
NEW: Father of 22-year-old woman who was brutally killed by a career criminal, absolutely unleashes during a House hearing against soft-on-crime policies.
"[He] dragged her out of bed naked, forced on her knees with her hands over her head ... BANG! Dead. Gone."
"Why? Because Alexander Davante Dickey, who was arrested 39 godd*mn times, 25 felonies, was on the street..."
Logan Federico was visiting friends at the University of South Carolina on May 3 when career criminal Alexander Dickey, 30, broke in and shot her before stealing her credit cards and going on a shopping spree.
Dickey had 39 previous arrests and 25 felonies.
Everyone responsible for keeping this man on the streets should be thrown in prison.
Here are my first 5 game highlights.
20/27 on kickoff touchbacks 3 of them from the 25, 19/20 on extra points, and 5/6 on field goals with a long of 39. @myersparkfball@coachjames29@DanOrnerKicking
https://t.co/jUsgX9nAzl
We had a great team win last Saturday 37-6!
I went 1/1 from 39 on field goal and 5/7 on touchbacks 1 being from the 25, with a long ball of 74.
@DanOrnerKicking@myersparkfball@coachjames29