The worst-case scenario is now a possible one: European troops fighting off an invasion largely alone.
It’s by no means clear the Europeans would succeed. Romanian and other European officials at the exercise in Cincu, about 260 kilometers (162 miles) north of Bucharest by road, voiced concerns about how long it would take for NATO allies to make it to the front.
French four-star General Philippe de Montenon said he’s confident Europe could prevail, even without the US on side. “The direction of history is a progressive disengagement of the United States from the European continent,” he said.
“Everything in Europe is Russia’s fault” is not good analysis. Europe literally invented fascism the previous century, and it’s not just boomers voting far right, plenty of young men too. Europeans predominantly consume non-Russian social media such as Instagram, Facebook or Twitter (increasingly TikTok), and the far right surge is a radical response to a system which for the past 20 years has worsened peoples’ living conditions and has allowed no left-wing outlet for such tensions. The far right problem is NOT primarily manufactured by Russia but by our own governments’ inabilities to respond with anything else than austerity, austerity and more austerity.