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| Europe |
| Victor Davis Hanson: Why Europe Gets No Respect |
| 2018-07-17 |
| [Hoover] After the recent G-7 meeting, some European nations such as France and Germany expressed anger that their views were given short shrift by Donald Trump‐displaying fits of pique memorialized in a now infamous photo of standing G-7 leaders who were leaning into a surrounded and sitting Trump. "International cooperation," huffed an unidentified senior French official, "cannot depend on being angry and on sound bites. Let's be serious." The former British ambassador to the U.S., Peter Westmacott, sniffed, "Trump is readier to give a pass to countries that pose a real threat to Western values and security than to America’s traditional allies. If there is a ’method to the madness,’ to use the words of British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, it is currently well hidden." Yet in current foreign policy journals, a constant theme is European leaders who lament that Europe does not get its due on the world stage. Why would that be? After all, if "Europe" is defined by the membership of the 28-member European Union, then it should easily be the world’s superpower. The European project now has an aggregate population (512 million) that dwarfs that of the United States (326 million). Even its GDP ($20 trillion) is often calibrated as roughly equivalent to or even larger than America’s ($19 trillion). |
| Posted by:746 |
| #9 Europe died at Verdun and the Somme. They were rescued by the US and Russians in the '40s but they really had nothing left. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2018-07-17 16:55 |
| #8 Western Values? The new ones are nihilism and globalism. The old ones like classical liberalism, they killed a couple generations ago. There's nothing to defend. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2018-07-17 16:06 |
| #7 Trump is readier to give a pass to countries that pose a real threat to Western values and security than to America’s traditional allies. I can't think of anything that poses a greater threat to Western values and security than opening Europe's borders to barbarians from the Middle East. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2018-07-17 12:16 |
| #6 Is it just me or do the three Americans on the Thalys train in 2015 symbolize the entire issue? This. They were all descendants of Europe which has lost its brightest, bravest and best to US immigration and war. |
| Posted by: regular joe 2018-07-17 12:08 |
| #5 They're SO used to coasting on unearned respect. Now that it's come to an end, they're reacting poorly. Not surprising. Spoiled adult children don't take it well when Dad kicks them out of the house at age 30. It's really rather cruel when you think about it. Why didn't Dad do this long ago? |
| Posted by: Herb McCoy 2018-07-17 07:34 |
| #4 I won't claim to have respect for EUrope, but I do consider them very, very dangerous. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2018-07-17 04:13 |
| #3 A continental ethos of agnosticism, state dependency, childlessness, and multiculturalism leaves Europe especially vulnerable to both the foreign challenges of a dangerous neighborhood, and massive influxes of mostly Muslim immigrants, But if the peasants will reproduce, this is the plan that must be undertaken to ensure the survival of the tax schemes and ruling oligarchy. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2018-07-17 03:36 |
| #2 A thirty something still living in his mother's basement demands respect! Meanwhile has the bro's over, scores some pot, and trolls the net. Haven't we seen this story before? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2018-07-17 02:51 |
| #1 Is it just me or do the three Americans on the Thalys train in 2015 symbolize the entire issue? |
| Posted by: Richard Aubrey 2018-07-17 00:31 |