alt Hacker News> BTW if you think Europe is "the very foundation" of American power you're delusional.
You do know American power projection is mostly based on bases on European soil? That your economy is greatly benefiting from integration with ours? You think America can be significant on a world stage where Europe turns away? You think you could stomach losing access to the world's largest market of wealthy consumers? You think your sanctions would be effective if we didn't go along?
Every single power mechanism available to the US is dependent on our cooperation.
> Now you're speaking as though your dependency on us was some kind of favor you were doing for us
Of course it's a favour to you. We supported your nonsense in exchange for you dealing with the military grunt work. Out of touch is only the one that tries to kill the golden goose because it sometimes needs feeding.
>That your economy is mostly based on integration with ours?
The US is one of the world's least import/export-dependent economies.
Furthermore, you can see a list of our top 10 import/export partners here; only one is European: https://oec.world/en/profile/country/usa
The US became the world's largest economy around 1890, half a century prior to the start of NATO: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-maddison-project-data...
Of the 20 most valuable companies in the world, 16 are American: https://companiesmarketcap.com/
(Of course, military strength rests on a basis of economic strength. That's international relations 101.)
This is why I say that Europeans are delusional. They're uninformed about the most basic facts about the world. The claim that the US economy is "mostly" based on integration with Europe is just astonishing. Your colonial empires are long gone, but your colonial mentality is remarkably unchanged. No wonder you think of yourself as a "belle" with this level of delusional self-regard.