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Notes -
I guess I should have given the Europeans more credit. Yes, they are technologically competent, and yes, they do hold trillions of dollars in assets which, if leveraged well, could seriously challenge the Americans. But I don’t have any trust in their will. The EU is as fragmented as ever, headed by incompetent, out-of-touch bureaucrats (I’m thinking of the likes of Kaja Kallas or von der Leyen) who care more about pretending more than anything. There is a serious coordination problem in the EU, and from my limited understanding, there is no obvious solution or resolve to fix it. Maybe the European countries that are not a joke, i.e., France and Germany, plus a few more like the Netherlands (and absolutely excluding the Baltics, if they want to maintain any solidarity. Imagine letting bureaucrats from Ningxia to turn China into an Islamic state), could come together to actually reassert themselves as credible powers alongside the US, China, and (to a lesser extent) Russia. I’m not well-informed enough to see if that’s actually possible, or if anyone is pushing for it.
Also, what percentage of Europeans think of themselves as Europeans or as nationals of their own country first and foremost, as opposed to some flavor of “world citizen”? All my limited interactions with actual Europeans, inside or outside of work (heavily biased, of course; I live in a blue bubble) give off this “Civis Romanum sum” feel, even if they will occasionally say “… in GERMANY”. Do they care about their own country, let alone Europe, more than the “rules-based international order”?
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