Donald Trump’s declaration at the NATO summit that the U.S. had returned to war with Iran didn’t lead to the usual gasping allies or perplexed officials.
If anything, it cemented Europe’s increasing reliance on itself.
As motorcades sped out of Ankara’s presidential place and down the barricaded streets ringing the Turkish capital on Wednesday, a half-dozen European officials said the ceasefire’s end only stiffened their resolve to be less dependent on the American militarily and stand alone.
“After seeing what’s happening in Iran and Ukraine, we first of all, have to build our own military might, and then everybody will respect us: Americans, Russians, Iranians or Chinese,” said a European official. “The more muscles you have, the less political anger you show.”
The EU has three times the population of Russia and an even larger economy. Russia can not hope to win an arms race and they know that. If they go for it, they end up bankrupting the country. So the smart option is for Russia to not try to keep up with Europe and make some sort of deal to limit the threat. The Soviets did that with the US btw and there are other examples as well.
We see it in Ukraine and it currently looks like Moscow is burning. So a lot of death and destruction, but no way they win a war against Europe, when they can not even defeat Ukraine. Hence rearming to make sure that Russia does not have any stupid ideas. It is much cheaper then a war.
They have one with North Korea. Afaik Russia is not at war with the US right now, besides the US clearly being at war with Iran. There is no way Iran supports Russia in any meaningful way. They also do not have one with China. Hell China refuses to sell arms to Russia.
I disagree with a lot of your claims that are at the base of the conversation, like the relationship bretween Russia and China (which have an actual military alliance and it’s not a hidden thing) or the state of the battlefield in Ukraine, which is not as flowery as you make it and Ukraine finds themselves in a very critical condition, despite western media focusing on their very succesful strikes inside Russia, which i agree make appear as if Ukraine is in a much stronger position than they actually are. Still, I do appreciate that nobody called me “Putin’s bot” yet, it’s a great improvement over reddit.