Mar 21, 2025
Travel day; in fact, filing from the airport lounge. And I can’t really say that I learned a lot — no conversations with the powerful, or for that matter wise taxi drivers.
Still, a quick note from Brussels: Everyone I talked to was horrified and terrified by what’s happening in America — but not cowed. If anything the mood was that Europe has to grow up and stand up.
I doubt many people in the U.S. realize what a geopolitical earthquake just happened in Germany. They didn’t pass legislation; they changed the constitution (or will have, assuming the upper house goes along) to lift the “debt brake” on a trillion euros of defense and infrastructure spending. Combine that with tough talk from France and strong indications that on security matters, at least, Britain will consider itself part of Europe, and suddenly it seems as if a continent that was always a superpower, but refused to act like one, may be waking up.
The truth is that there are three economic superpowers in the world — and by one measure, at least, purchasing power of GDP, the United States is the smallest of the three:
Yes, European productivity has lagged for the past couple of decades, and none of the world’s giant technology firms is European. Yet this is still a rich, highly capable society, with immense capacity to defend its values on the world stage.
Until now, however, Europe has lived in a state of learned helplessness, relying on America for its security. That’s now over. It’s not just the tariffs and Trump’s obvious support for Putin. I don’t know if Americans realize how big a shock it has been that European citizens are being arrested and detained by ICE. Suddenly it’s clear that America is not an ally, may not even be a democracy, and Europe must look after itself.
The question, which I can’t answer, is how quickly Europe can stand up. There’s clearly going to be a shift away from U.S. weapons, and Europe clearly has the technological capacity to do that. Will it be able to do so soon enough to turn the tide in Ukraine? I have no idea.
Nor can we rule out the possibility that Europe will return to form and disappoint everyone.
But big stuff is happening, and team Trump, which seems to believe that nobody can stand up to his whims, may get a rude shock from old Europe.
Posted by gandatmadi46@yahoo.com