Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?

>I, for one, would very much like to see US be more neutral.

Cool.

>But as an outsider (in Europe, but in one of those countries that has been "policed" by largely US-led initiative), I think you are seen as discounting the net economic benefits US has enjoyed from taking on that role in the past.

Europeans keep mentioning these supposed benefits in discussions online. But suspiciously, they never get very concrete.

Prior to WW1, the US had a policy of staying out of European geopolitics. Our economy did fantastic during that period.

Switzerland does fantastic by staying relatively neutral.

Currently, the US is sanctioning Russia. This has obvious economic downsides for the US. It makes the dollar less attractive as a global reserve currency.

If European countries were "vassal states" to the US, as I'm always being told, why were they buying oil from Russia rather than the USA prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine? That would be an obvious economic benefit for the US that failed to materialize.

>You are also simplifying things, which does not help: if EU had a defensive force so it needed not depend on NATO/US, what else would have been different?

I don't know. Perhaps you would've had a third world war already? After all, that was the idea with the US staying in Europe -- to prevent a third world war. By all means enlighten me regarding whatever you had in mind.

One point is it would probably be good for the US economy, since you would've bought more American weapons to better defend yourself.

- - -

Part of what I am trying to help Europeans understand is that their anti-American rhetoric is the very thing that undermined the American voter's idealism towards Europe.

Europeans consistently seem to believe that America benefits significantly from the current arrangement. I haven't seen much evidence at all that anyone in the US believes this. American citizens don't believe it. American leadership doesn't believe it either. Look at the recent JD Vance leak. The last 3-4 presidents have all been asking Europe to step up and fund its own defense.

There is an astonishing mismatch between the cynicism with which the Europeans view the transatlantic relationship, and the idealism with which the Americans previously viewed it (until they realized how little Europeans like them, now that the transatlantic relationship has become the #1 topic on social media). I believe that America's shift away from Europe will become a bipartisan consensus now that the US has woken up. Trump lead the shift, but I think there is a very good chance that the Democrats keep it in place if they come back into power.

See this post for example, it does a great job of capturing the dynamic I'm trying to point at: https://terry264.substack.com/p/europe-youre-on-your-own

More and more Americans are thinking thoughts like: "Those Europeans are making fun of us for our lack of public healthcare. Why should our tax dollars pay to defend them, when we could be spending that money on our health at home?"

I hope you get ready for what may come when the US leaves:

>Zelensky highlighted the disparity in forces between Russia and Europe, saying that Ukraine's army consists of 110 brigades, while Russia fields 220 and plans to expand to 250 this year. In contrast, Europe, including U.S. troops stationed there, has only about 82 combat brigades, he said.

>...

>"Today, an army of 110 brigades is holding back those who have 220-230. But it's one to two," Zelensky added. The president said that while Russia's numeral advantage compared to Ukraine is two to one, in comparison to Europe, it's three to one, which is sufficient for an effective offensive.

https://kyivindependent.com/europe-could-face-russian-occupa...

My understanding is that the US and Europe traded quite a bit prior to WW1, including for critical stuff such as food. I don't see NATO as nearly as critical for transatlantic trade as you do.

A basic problem with your story is the US/Europe trade deficit. If the US gains such a critical trade advantage by providing security to Europe, you would expect this would come through in the EU buying lots of US exports. In fact, the US buys more EU exports, despite the EU not funding US defense the way the US funds EU defense.

>I can come up with a scenario that's more peaceful: eg. if US did not fund EU's defenses, EU would have developed their own defence industry further, and instead of buying weaponry from US, they would have equally got it from Russia, and more recently, India and China. Perhaps even India and China catch up slower as Russia has richer willing customers in EU.

So Europe would buy USSR weapons during the Cold War? How does this hypothetical go, exactly? This just sounds like a scenario where the USSR expands to cover all of Europe. The Berlin Wall never would've fallen because instead of a wall, it would be the Atlantic Ocean. And honestly, if that's the world you want to live in, I'm fine with that.

>would not have feared NATO at all, because it wouldn't have included US.

But NATO would have included a rearmed West Germany in this hypothetical? I'll bet the USSR would've feared that...

>US did not benefit from EU's purchasing power for US products in the last 60 years

Trade is always mutually beneficial. I think security benefits both parties approximately equally, in the sense of allowing that trade and prosperity to occur. But the US would've received similar trade and prosperity benefit if it had only invested in Europe's security 10% as much, and asked Europe to cover the rest.

In any case, as I stated in my comment -- whatever Europeans may believe, few in the US appear to agree much. That seems to be a core part of the issue. Europe can tell itself all it wants that "defending Europe is in America's core interest" -- but if America doesn't actually believe that, it doesn't matter, and you guys need to either defend yourselves or (much preferably) find a way to make peace with Russia.

As I stated already, I don't think "defending Europe is in America's core interest", especially not today — but it definitely was for the bigger part of the post-WW2 period.

Some things will not necessarily show up in the trade numbers: as a random example, a US company like Amazon opening up Amazon EU headquarters in Ireland will not show up as surplus for US economy as long as they reinvest that locally, but most Europeans will see it as a US company and the business contributing to its success — "simple" goes out the window very quickly with global monopolistic companies.

It's funny you focus so much on the "Cold War", when it was mostly a Cold War between... US and USSR. Again, you are making claims as if you know exactly how things would have played out if US did not decide to invest in influencing European politics and economies. Perhaps we would have seen a larger shift to socialism and communism instead (eg. in Spain, socialists have already been on the winning side of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_Spanish_general_election).

Even that might not mean strong alignment with USSR, just like Yugoslavia never did even as a socialist, communist country.

I hear you on how Americans perceive the situation differently, but you are similarly not willing to hear out the European viewpoints.

Anyway, I think this has gone long enough — thank you for sharing your perspective, and even if I failed to nudge you towards better understanding the "other side" too, it's always great to hear different viewpoints.

I like them too! Hate Bluma though.

Americans do generally support Ukraine and Europe. Even most Republicans seem to oppose Trumps policy. A policy wbichseems to be based on whims and a personal appreciation for far right dictators who flatter him. But somehow we elected him so until Republicans man up and impeach him we have to suffer from him undermining our alliances and government.

Russia is the one that needs to find a way to make peace. Not only because they started it but because they're the reason there is no peace deal