Subject: Re: No sign of riots...
I'll let CDR Salamandar answer for me:

How does that answer for you? None of that requires Germany separating itself from the U.S. sphere of influence. That's what was 100% unnecessary, and was completely avoidable through better diplomacy from the U.S. You're already seeing that gap reflected in formal diplomatic circles, as the U.S. and Europe are circulating competing and inconsistent resolutions on Ukraine in the General Assembly. The U.S. wants to delete the type of language that would, in fact, call on Russia "to be reasonable at the table" and commit the international community to "fully back the Ukraine fight" if they are not. Europe is starting to move away from our sphere of influence. Which is just....bad news for our security interests.

...is overstating things a bit. Asking the Germans et al. to have credible militaries is not "militarizing Europe". Far from it.

No, it's not overstating it, because I don't think you're really thinking about what "credible" military means in this context. If the goal is just to have Germany spend a little more on their military, that's one thing. But if the aim is to have them be in a position to defend against a potential invasionary force without being able to rely on the U.S. to honor our NATO commitments, they have to seriously increase their military capabilities. As will all of the other European nations. After all, other countries can have a weaker military than Germany only if they can rely on NATO and the U.S. to guarantee their country's security in the event Germany does something....but if that guarantee is suspect, then they need to be more prepared. That's why Greece spends so much on their military - because they're next to Turkey, which has the biggest military in Europe (excluding Russia and the current Ukraine military).

That's what happens when you start getting all these countries to seriously increase their military spending. They then seriously increase their military spending. Which gives all of them more military power to throw around independent of NATO, which makes everything more dangerous. And makes them less responsive to U.S. interests or policy goals. Which seems like a foolhardy tradeoff for us, TBH - it's hard to see the security benefit to us in having the EU separate themselves out of our sphere of influence so they can focus more on pursuing their own national interests rather than following what we want. But that seems to be where Trump wants to take us back to....