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Is Trump inadvertently saving Europe from itself?

Whisper it, but Europe is changing.

UK prime minister Keir Starmer announced yesterday that his country will commit 2.5% of GDP to defence, which will later be increased to 3%.

Germany's Merz, who won the elections on Sunday and is likely to become the new chancellor, has warned that NATO might soon be dead and vowed to make Europe 'independent' from America.

France's Macron is considering extending its nuclear shield to Germany.

If you haven't noticed, Europe is preparing for war. It doesn't mean that a war is definitely coming, but it does mean that if war does come, Europe might be prepared. And the best way to avoid a war is to have strong deterrents in place, anyway. I've ranted extensively about Europe's (especially Germany's) inability to protect itself, and seeing Europe's leaders talk defence seriously is refreshing. It is, of course, not a coincidence that all of this is happening right after Trump's radical change of rhetoric about Ukraine. Trump has managed the impossible: he's going to make Europeans spend on defence.

I guess all we can do for now is wait and see what happens. Is a European army on the cards? How would a new European defence setup look like, and how would it relate to the EU? Who would a European army take orders from? Will EU's president Ursula von der Leyen seize the opportunity to centralise even more power to Brussels?

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