There are a number of reasons why these criticisms of European behaviour are unfair and ahistorical, but here are a few off the top of my head:
1) The Ukraine was the place where the USSR kept most of it's nuclear arsenal. In order to persuade them to let go of that advantage when it became independent, Russia, the US and Britain signed a treaty in Budapest stating they would not militarily or economically coerce the Ukraine (or Belarus or Kazakhstan) in the future. And that if they were coerced, those countries would go to the UN to seek help for them. The EU and NATO were not involved in this.
2) After 1945, Germany was forcibly disarmed. In fact, I remember in the 1980s, right wing politicians were trying to get this over-ruled because it was felt that Germany had gained much of its post-war wealth because its economy was focussed on consumer manufacturing and engineering instead of the country's brightest and best being shoehorned into armaments manufacture, as they were in the UK and the US. The same had happened in Japan, and it's domestic manufacturing had similarly grown and thrived. (I was involved in CND and was following these arguments in the 1980s more closely than I do now).
Now, of course, no British politicians of any party care a damn about saving, let alone creating, manufacturing jobs.
3) The EEC was set up specifically to bring about co-operation and peace on a continent which had been ravaged by war twice between 1914 and 1945, but also many times in the 19th century. It was not set up as a military alliance for quite specific reasons, and if it had tried to create a military strategy, NATO - led by the US, which had troop bases all over Europe - would have been vociferous in its opposition, as would the US political establishment. Any suggestion of a common European army has been totally opposed in the decades since the end of WWII.
Now, we know that the MAGAts know little and care less about either history or truth, so of course Vance is just going to echo his master's voice. But the rest of us should remember how we got here and why.
The last great military leader that the US had, Dwight Eisenhower, was instrumental in forming NATO as it's first supreme commander, before becoming President. In February of 1951 he wrote "If in 10 years, all American troops stationed in Europe have not been returned to the US, then this whole project (NATO) will have failed"
In January of 1961, as his second term as President ended, he warned of the military, industrial, Congressional and technology complex and its threat to world peace and the US economy. His speech is available on the internet, both in writing and a video clip. It should be watched or read by everyone who believes that the US should drain its treasury in the defense of the leeches who control Europe today and have controlled it since Eisenhower's warnings.
Those of us who served in Europe during the 60's were the pawns used by the politicians and the military industrial complex to waste trillions of dollars in the defense of those who refuse to defend themselves as evidenced by their defense budgets, unless you consider the five hairdressers that Belgium, home of NATO, sent as their contribution to the needless war in Afghanistan as something other than the insult it was meant to be.
There are a number of reasons why these criticisms of European behaviour are unfair and ahistorical, but here are a few off the top of my head:
1) The Ukraine was the place where the USSR kept most of it's nuclear arsenal. In order to persuade them to let go of that advantage when it became independent, Russia, the US and Britain signed a treaty in Budapest stating they would not militarily or economically coerce the Ukraine (or Belarus or Kazakhstan) in the future. And that if they were coerced, those countries would go to the UN to seek help for them. The EU and NATO were not involved in this.
2) After 1945, Germany was forcibly disarmed. In fact, I remember in the 1980s, right wing politicians were trying to get this over-ruled because it was felt that Germany had gained much of its post-war wealth because its economy was focussed on consumer manufacturing and engineering instead of the country's brightest and best being shoehorned into armaments manufacture, as they were in the UK and the US. The same had happened in Japan, and it's domestic manufacturing had similarly grown and thrived. (I was involved in CND and was following these arguments in the 1980s more closely than I do now).
Now, of course, no British politicians of any party care a damn about saving, let alone creating, manufacturing jobs.
3) The EEC was set up specifically to bring about co-operation and peace on a continent which had been ravaged by war twice between 1914 and 1945, but also many times in the 19th century. It was not set up as a military alliance for quite specific reasons, and if it had tried to create a military strategy, NATO - led by the US, which had troop bases all over Europe - would have been vociferous in its opposition, as would the US political establishment. Any suggestion of a common European army has been totally opposed in the decades since the end of WWII.
Now, we know that the MAGAts know little and care less about either history or truth, so of course Vance is just going to echo his master's voice. But the rest of us should remember how we got here and why.
The last great military leader that the US had, Dwight Eisenhower, was instrumental in forming NATO as it's first supreme commander, before becoming President. In February of 1951 he wrote "If in 10 years, all American troops stationed in Europe have not been returned to the US, then this whole project (NATO) will have failed"
In January of 1961, as his second term as President ended, he warned of the military, industrial, Congressional and technology complex and its threat to world peace and the US economy. His speech is available on the internet, both in writing and a video clip. It should be watched or read by everyone who believes that the US should drain its treasury in the defense of the leeches who control Europe today and have controlled it since Eisenhower's warnings.
Those of us who served in Europe during the 60's were the pawns used by the politicians and the military industrial complex to waste trillions of dollars in the defense of those who refuse to defend themselves as evidenced by their defense budgets, unless you consider the five hairdressers that Belgium, home of NATO, sent as their contribution to the needless war in Afghanistan as something other than the insult it was meant to be.