When 520 million Europeans have to ask 350 million Americans to protect them from 145 million Russians you know there is something wrong. Add each country` s GDP to the above and the situation becomes mind-boggling on the verge of incredulity.
Unfortunately it is far from unbelievable and has been a political/military axiom since the end of WWll. Since then former US ally Russia has been the enemy, with the ensuing cold war almost boiling over at the Cuban crisis and then once again settling down until Putin` s arrival on the scene.
What shouldn` t be forgotten in the above numbers game is that there was no such thing as a ”voice of Europe” after the second world war, only a number of war torn countries all smaller than Russia and very much dependent on the US.
Burgeoning European cooperation, the foundation of which was the Coal and Steel Union formally established in 1951, was entirely focused on economy as the preventer of war and could be described as: ”if you want peace prepare for peace,” rather than the ancient Roman dictum, ”si vis pacem para bellum,” which all things considered might have been a more succesfull approach vis a vis a neo-imperialist Russia.
Well, things all worked out ”hunky-dorey” for a while with Europe sleep- walking into a new age only to be brutally woken up much like a friend of mine who went sleep-walking on a cruise ship only to wake up in the reception area clad only in a pair of undershorts.
Waking up to an extremely volatile and dangerous world with men like Putin and Trump upsetting one apple-cart after another with impunity. Threats from an enemy in the East and threats from a friend in the West has Europe now hurriedly looking for more than just a pair of trousers. Considering the hitherto slow pace of things there is a certain irony in Trump being the catalyser for the further political as well as military integration of the EU he so obviously despises.
