Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
But that isn't true, and to the extent that it differs from America it might as well be parliamentary government as the factor.
If you are referring to Brexit, I disagree. When it comes down to it Brexit happened because of a lack of consultation on the surrender of parliamentary power to Europe (treaties signed without Referenda first). This caused disenfranchisement.

A lot of the resentment towards Eastern Europeans has to do with the fact that "we" didn't invite them in, "Europe" foisted them upon us.

As with other things, for the monarch to genuinely block a populist leader or government in some capacity they would have to sacrifice themselves in the process.
Debatable - the Queen has publicly intervened once and survived it. Supposedly she put the screws to Gordon Brown in 210, telling him if he didn't step aside and allow the LibCon Coalition she'd dissolve Parliament and call fresh elections.

No proof, though, of course.

Quote Originally Posted by Husar View Post
You mean the Russians won't want us when we offer to join because we are too weak?
So your only option is to stay alone without being either The USA's or Russia's ally and without getting invaded by anyone?
Woah, that sounds like a big problem.

Just in case you misunderstood me and mean that Russian aggression is a problem, well, yes, but not as long as we stick together in NATO and/or the EU, so why did you just seemingly defend Trump for complaining? As long as NATO has a sufficient nuclear arsenal, the size of our regular armies is sufficient as well. As for the fair share of spending, I don't really believe it would somehow lower the spending of the US if all of Europe spent more on defense. More likely the US would spend more to stay #1. In fact they may secretly have liked the low EU spending levels as it makes us more dependent on them. If we began to spend loads of money and built a huge army, we'd probably get a lot of other complaints... We're already Hitler to the rest of Europe because we have so much power in the EU, I'm sure they'd all be quiet if we spent 6% of our GDP on tanks and also disbanded the EU and all our treaties with Poland. Why not also build border fortifications and talk about how they steal our jobs and cars and that their behavior has to have consequences. Aww man, I should go into politics.
No - I just mean you don't have enough tanks, or men. Germany is large, but the German army numbers just over 60,000 men.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Army

More than last year - but still about half the size the army needs to be to contribute effectively to NATO and Germany's own defence. At the same time you're integrating the Dutch, Romanian and Czech armies into your own, increasing the area you are required to cover.