The Europeans know exactly what they are doing:
Speaking at a NATO defense industry summit, Deputy Defense Secretary David Norquist warned that if the EU continued to fund projects with the $14 billion it has earmarked for defense spending, that “lack of cooperation could lead to duplication of NATO efforts and undermine Trans-Atlantic security.”The EU proto-imperial state wants its own defense industry and the EU wants its own military force that is separate from NATO. So don't think our warning is something that has shocked the Europeans into realizing the collateral damage they could do to NATO with their defense industry and defense policies.
That damage is a feature and not a bug. Have no doubt that duplicating NATO efforts and undermining the trans-Atlantic alliance (NATO) are the objective:
The European Union wants America out of Europe more than it wants to keep the Russians out. We'll see whether the EU wants Germany up or down, in whatever the EU variation of NATO's purpose is.
Don't even try to tell me that a united Europe under the EU Empire is Russia's greatest fear. In fact it is Russia's best hope to dominate Europe--either militarily or from professional courtesy as one autocratic empire to another.
Which means that for America to remain in Europe, we should realize that the EU is our foe. We must oppose the European Union's political and military ambitions and bolster NATO.
We must defend the primacy of NATO in European defense strategy. Duplicating NATO structures allows the EU to more safely undermine NATO so that the EU proto-empire can ease America out of its dominant influence in European defenses within NATO and even political structure, which America has influenced a great deal since the end of World War II:
I've noted that the Western tradition did not fully embrace democracy until after America entrenched in Europe following World War II and spread our influence. As I wrote in this post about the threat to America that could arise in Europe[.]
If the Europeans succeed in ejecting America's military from the continent, who will protect the freedom and democracy that America implanted more widely through Europe?
The European Union is no friend of America and no friend of European freedom and democracy. The EU is just the latest entity to want to conquer Europe and rule it. The difference is that the EU has decided that instead of using tanks and secret police to create their empire, they'll use 10,000 cheese regulations to bind the states to the EU state.
A common EU flag and a common Euro currency haven't made proper Europeans out of all those nationalities in Europe. The EU rulers will settle for a military force that--while it won't be able to fight the Russians terribly effectively--will be perfectly adequate to kill and intimidate civilian subjects of the empire.