2026 US-Denmark Tensions/End of NATO

[Kirkhill]

And, one more time Europe tries to prove it can co-operate.

Six European Countries to Develop Low-Cost OWE 500+ Cruise Missile: What Are Its Characteristics?

The overall concept of OWE 500 is to create a weapon that can be purchased at a relatively low price and used in large quantities to overwhelm the enemy.

militarnyi.com

Meanwhile Palmer Luckey is off building his own stuff and finding customers,

Anduril Industries

Anduril Industries, Inc. is an American defense technology company that specializes in advanced autonomous systems.

www.anduril.com

Neither Maxim nor Gatling guns were the result of a government committee, much less six government committees.

 

[Good2Golf]

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/02/14/the-conservative-thinker-quietly-shaping-trumps-approach-to-nato-00781630

"Burden shifting" and a return to the "Dormant NATO" of pre-GWOT.

The interviewee is given credit for shaping the Trump administration's European NATO policy.

"Why is this shift in posture necessary? What problem is it trying to solve?

"The foreign policy of any country is determinant on structural factors, and the structural reality of the world that we live now is this: On one hand, you have the rise of China as a peer rival in Asia, which is in a different league compared to pretty much every other great power rival the United States has faced in his entire history. The second thing is the Global War on Terror that went on for 20 years, and it’s decimated American coffers. The U.S. is in massive debt, and people are unhappy about forever wars."

Trump as actor, not director.

So America warns Europe of future US drawdown, yet continues to soften its position against Russia.

Ironically, many European countries are actually envisioning US forces leaving (or being invited to leave) their respective countries, sooner than later. I’ve personally heard those rumblings. Non-U.S. leadership and working staff within NATO seem to acknowledge that NATO is at a pivot-point. America portraying it as a guard dog that need to go back into its kennel and wait until America calls it, is a level of tone deafness that can’t go unnoticed. America ignores, or at least tries to pretend it doesn’t exist, but its hegemonic power profits greatly from its forward deployments throughout Europe. However, if it is retreating from holding Russia to account, what good is it. It might as well reposition its troops to the M.E., Pacific and South American AOs.

“The core strategic reality …. is this: Europe must assume primary responsibility for its own conventional defense.”

Europe is waking to the fact, and in fact, not limiting itself to ‘conventional’ defense.

 

[Kirkhill]

So America warns Europe of future US drawdown, yet continues to soften its position against Russia.

Ironically, many European countries are actually envisioning US forces leaving (or being invited to leave) their respective countries, sooner than later. I’ve personally heard those rumblings. Non-U.S. leadership and working staff within NATO seem to acknowledge that NATO is at a pivot-point. America portraying it as a guard dog that need to go back into its kennel and wait until America calls it, is a level of tone deafness that can’t go unnoticed. America ignores, or at least tries to pretend it doesn’t exist, but its hegemonic power profits greatly from its forward deployments throughout Europe. However, if it is retreating from holding Russia to account, what good is it. It might as well reposition its troops to the M.E., Pacific and South American AOs.



Europe is waking to the fact, and in fact, not limiting itself to ‘conventional’ defense.

The law of unintended consequences may be making its inevitable appearance.

But the other point is that is not just socialists that run out of other people's money. Capitalists can as well.

The Americans were already running thin in the Reagan era, hence Nixon withdrawing from the Gold Standard and the rise of OPEC. Reagan then spent a fortune on NATO and driving the USSR into debt faster. The wars on drugs and terror didn't help the coffers any. Nor did they help the temper of the people paying taxes, spilling blood and going broke.

Trump is a consequence, unintended, of many prior decisions. And so is this NATO retrenchment.

....

And we are to blame....

We. The west. Europeans, Japanese, Brits and Canadians. Resentful at not being Americans and not caring if America struggled, happy to take their dollars and their protection while complaining about their character and imposing their lifestyle on us, we failed to contribute.

Now, America is broke. Not broken, just plain broke.

 

[Good2Golf]

Perhaps unintended, but you undervalue the benefit that America derived from having pawns supporting its agenda. The benefit was in no way omnidirectional for European Canada.

 

[Kirkhill]

One plus to all of this -

All this talk of AI causing job losses means there will be an awful lot of people avaiable to train as FPV pilots so that they get their Universal Credit allowance.

 

[Kirkhill]

Perhaps unintended, but you undervalue the benefit that America derived from having pawns supporting its agenda. The benefit was in no way omnidirectional for European Canada.

I agree. Nobody does anything out of sheer altruism. Nobody.