A bit long but if you want to learn this is a breakdown of what I have said for awhile about the boiled frog approach to NATO as a colonial entity

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Again you make very good points I cant argue with. But the economist in me sees something else as well. Those American subsidiaries you spoke of have a future role. As the US economy shrinks and crumbles, those same European operations may well come up for sale back into Europeans hands. A similar thing happened a few decades ago with Ford Buying Volvo, for different reasons. Ford wanted to take the safety tech Volvo had spent decades perfecting, rather than reinvent the wheel. Good for Ford. But they introduced some of Fords engineering tech into Volvo and polluted the line. The value went out of the proposition and they sold it off. Now Volvo is effectively Chinese..
The point is that as the US economy retreats to home, those Foreign operations can return to local (or other) control.....🙂

@whowasthatmaskedman The only flaw I see in that reasoning is the European industrial economy was build on cheap Russian energy. Countries like Germany are now effectively de-industrializing as they can't afford their own manufacturing anymore. For example in the next year or so VW will likely only have a P O Box left in Berlin as a token office as they move manufacturing more and more offshore.

I imagine it will likely be the same with the arms industry. Perhaps China will buy some of them at a discount.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow The cheap energy you speak of is Russians ace in the hole, of course. But many nations have special arrangments for defence industries, that dont allow them to be sent overseas. A thing came up during the talks on Scottish independence, that if they gained independence, all the Scottish shipyards that make and maintain naval vessels would be forced to close and relocate, throwing thousands out of work..And my own country has always looked to purchasing equipment that can be manufactured here under licence, rather than having to rely on imports. In fact America has lost business previously insisting on not allowing that..😷