Washington has concluded that a Europe that makes no difference suits it just fine, too.
I have to agree. While it is nice to have allies, we can only count on individual countries to help us. Britain, some of the smaller European countries, Japan, South Korea and the Australians give us concrete assistance, but from institutional Europe--the EU--we get nothing. If you don't count grief, that is.
But must we have more? We are succeeding in Afghanistan with minimal European help. And if we didn't have it, 20,000 more Americans could support a rotation to make up for that help. In Iraq, we'd have to add perhaps 30,000 Americans to replace the non-British European assistance and keep troops rotating through. We could do this with a combination of added end strength and reaching deep in our reserves to train up the Guard divisions that have up to now been untouched. Staying out of our way would be just fine if you ask me. It would be an improvement over what we get from Europe now.
Really, as I've argued before, while Europe's help is nice we basically just don't want an enemy to control the military, economic, and technoligical resources of the continent. We opposed Germany in two wars and the Soviets in a Cold War to keep Europe out of the enemy's column of assets. Much like the British, who for centuries strove to keep the Low Countries friendly so they could not be a launching pad for an invasion of the British Isles.
I do worry that the EU could evolve into a hostile dictatorship in fifty years. Luckily, as Steyn notes, the CIA predicts the EU could collapse within 15 years. I am comforted by that. I'd rather deal with individual countries than an institutional Europe that holds anti-Americanism as its unifying theme. But let's push this process of break-up along, shall we? I'd hate to count on the CIA being right on this.
We have friends in Europe. But Europe is not our friend.
