European leaders and their extensively laid back concern for China may not be an undoing, but may absolutely be a massive problem in the future. The fact of the matter is, every nation wants to pretend unity is the goal but obviously self determination is. Europe needs to either take the EU, NATO, and international trade more seriously, or they need to stop being critical of the crutch they’ve used for two generations now in the U.S.

It’s easy to say that you need to focus on European power when you nearly completely rely on the most advanced technological leaps in weapons development to be sold to you. It’s extremely easy to say that European power needs to grow when you have the net of the big brother protections your interests.

Trade is what it is right now because the U.S. is an economic and military powerhouse. If the military capacity of the U.S. was not what it is, Taiwan is back in China’s hands; very possibly, China becomes much more belligerent than we see and border disputes like the island ownership disagreements with Japan and the border skirmishes with India, become dramatically more dangerous, as the notion of a EU military response is, frankly, logistically and politically an absolute joke.

So the return to regional isolationism may not be anywhere near what European powers truly want.