Danger Dan

I'm afraid much of what we're seeing from Zelenskyy owes largely to the mindset expressed herein. To wit; Trump and the conservative/libertarian principles he represents is innately detestable to the center-left ideologies that constitute most of Europe's ruling class, and seem to inform Zelenskyy's mindset as well. One need look no further than Europe's recent behavior. If Europe wants greater strategic autonomy in NATO in exchange for their actually upholding their end of the alliance, so be it - the French withdrew from NATO's unified command structure for forty-three years! It's not without precedent! And even with the US reducing focus/presence on Europe, most of our contributions revolved around force-multiplier capabilities like sensors/intel, nuclear sharing, and a large air force; to say nothing of the impact access to our technology has for cost-effectiveness of European forces; weapons and esp. the F-35 itself being chief examples. And yet we're seeing apocalyptic talk like this, from Ukrainians and Europeans alike; where they're arguing and acting as if they're going to break ties with the US completely and fly solo. Recent European diplomacy and statements/w Zelenskyy, almost always couched as a unilateral response to the US, could be seen as pushback for being excluded from US/Russian talks... but given their extended temper tantrum over being told to uphold their alliance commitments they can't well act as if they don't know why Russia wouldn't agree to talks with them present, given they've let their armies atrophy severely; to near-uselessness in some cases. The sane, sober take is this is all so much bloviating bullshit. Indeed, totally isolating the US is almost physically impossible even in the medium-term; Europe isn't going to orbit a SAR satellite constellation anytime soon, and they'd need Space-X to do it affordably anyways. It'd take them decades to independently develop something with even a fraction of the F-35's capability and they're already deeply invested in the program with many aircraft delivered and European nations not only hosting depot-level servicing facilities, but actually manufacturing significant chunks of the airframe. And nuclear delivery systems are astonishingly expensive - even assuming France deigns to sell their tech, rather than make everyone kowtow to them as the little prince of Europe. It taxes imagination to suppose Europe would sever ties with America completely, given that America benefits too much from it to cut that cord itself in any scenario even remotely imaginable and simply making good the readiness deficit would reclaim more than enough strategic autonomy to cover the dissonance space between European and American core interests. But as oft as I say actions speak louder than words, seeing people constantly refer to the US like this - implying that we're no longer "part of the free world," as if we're a militaristic dictatorship condemned to powerlessness because we have limits on how much we'll risk exposure to thermonuclear war, how much of our money we'll spend, how far we'll degrade our readiness and how many soldiers we'll sacrifice - is making me wonder. There's a phrase I'm fond of, that I've oft used in relation to Russia when talking to skeptical conservatives who think the entire conflict's just an ethnic border skirmish between corrupt regional powers - "when someone tells you they're your enemy; believe them." And if Europeans and Ukrainians keep talking about us like this, I will.