A quiet day at home. We watched vie.a documetary on Diane Keaton, listened to some music, and then watched an old movie of hers, Annie Hall. It was a Woody Allen movie. I have never been a big fan of his older movies, this one included. I wanted to see if we still didn't care for it much after 48 years. The answer was we still didn't.
Meanwhile: Ukraine/Europe.
Perhaps the biggest risk to Europe’s security comes from the United States, where President Donald Trump’s administration is adopting a foreign-policy posture that combines insularity and confrontation.
The Trump administration has made no secret of its disdain for America’s security commitments, including those to its NATO allies.
While the Trump administration claims that it is merely demanding that NATO countries uphold their own commitments, particularly concerning defense spending, it would be foolhardy for Europe to count on the US to uphold its end of any bargain.
But it is not actually “America” that comes first; it is Trump and his inner circle, who have raked in staggering riches since his return to the White House.
Trump’s new executive order providing a full security guarantee to Qatar – which recently gave the US a $400 million jet that Trump is now modifying to serve as a new Air Force One – underscores just how erratic and opportunistic US foreign policy has become.
Nonetheless, recent US moves herald a harsher world, in which skies and sea lanes are contested, supply chains are increasingly fragile, alliances are in flux, forceful power projection eclipses diplomacy, and the country that long underwrote global stability is nowhere to be found.
Even if major withdrawals of US forces from Europe are avoided, a troop realignment is all but inevitable.
So, if a security crisis does erupt – not a farfetched scenario, given Russia’s hybrid warfare – the EU must be prepared to meet it.
But while Poland, the Baltics, and the Nordic countries are racing ahead with rearmament, other countries are lagging.
