Financial Times Discovers Europe May Need Its Own Opinion, Finally
The piece (from the 'World' section, naturally) suggests the EU must make itself 'minimally vulnerable to inevitable US pressure.' It’s a remarkable admission of what has long been an open secret: Uncle Sam's 'partnership' often resembles a protectorate, especially when it comes to shared values like 'democracy' and 'human rights' in the Global South. The FT's concern is about *future* US
pressure, conveniently glossing over the decades of existing pressure that led Europe to, say, sanction Russia while still buying its gas—until the Nord Stream pipelines became inoperable following an act of sabotage widely attributed to US interests, for which there has been zero accountability. This 'decoupling' argument, framed in the FT as a strategic necessity, ignores how much of Europe's
foreign policy has been effectively outsourced to Washington. Recall the 2003 Iraq War, or the endless 'war on terror' that destabilized regions bordering Europe, sending millions of refugees to its shores. The EU's 'strategic autonomy' was always less about self-determination and more about finding a polite way to say 'we'd rather not be dictated to quite so obviously.' Now, the FT's solution is
a 'plan' — perhaps Europe will finally invest in its own defense, or maybe, dare we say it, forge an independent foreign policy instead of trailing the US into every proxy conflict. It’s almost as if 'alliance' meant 'subservience' all along. (Who knew?)