@DallasCowboysFan While Europe has enjoyed the American security umbrella I don't know that I would say that the 'using' is all one way. America gets to have undue influence over European affairs by way of said military umbrella.

@DallasCowboysFan The point being if one partner wants to do one thing and the other partner wants to do something else neither partner can complain if one is not doing what the other one is doing. If the US wants to spend its money protecting Germany and Germany doesn't want to spend money protecting Germany then the US doesn't get to complain about Germany's lack of defence spending. Sadly America is stuck in 1950s thinking and making war. The world has moved on and America looks extremely foolish as its ships hide in the ocean so Iran can't hit them and how America lost half a billion dollars trying to rescue a Colonel that likely shouldn't have been riding in the back of an F 15 in the first place. I am not convinced that was the real motivation but the outcome is the same. Hundreds of millions of dollars of aircraft gone in 24 hours. In the mean time Iran didn't go for the big expensive arms. They developed high tech missiles that can take our a billion dollar AWACS air craft sitting on the ground in another country. That is impressive. Mean while the US is furiously bombing the Chinese railway...... The US is finally going to have to address the elephants in the room. Israel and the Military Industrial Complex whose job it is to get America to use its very expensive and highly unproductive equipment. You see the Military Industrial Complex is not about building good weapons. It is about making expensive weapons. The more expensive the better. It doesn't matter if the equipment doesn't work nor does it matter if the weapons can't be supplied. It matters that the Military Industrial complex makes money lots an lots and lots of money. Without the money they couldn't buy the house and the Senate and the white house and tell the American people that they are safe because the US is spending a trillion dollars a year getting the Military Industrial Complex to make weapons even though the weapons don't work well.

@Charity Where do you derive that from my comments? Maybe stick with what I said instead of projecting some sort of a fantasy of yours.

@carpediem fantasy of mine, and from what I noted the post has been edited added to greatly. So I tell you what once I feel you've read this I will block you out to make sure my fantasies are never written of on anything you post. Hopefully you'll do it first, and no action needed from me

@Charity All set. Go ahead and do me a favor and block me 😆