It's Official - Europe Is Irrelevant

Submitted by Price Roe:

Andrew Sullivan is the sage of our generation, and may his HIV stay at bay forever. Whenever I start to feel squishy and multilateral, I read a brilliant piece about why Europe is irrelevant. Such petulant, peevish, pernicious, preposterous jaded jesters they are. Still, it *does* bother me because I actually love Europe as the cradle of Western civilization. I wish they would indeed "grow up," as Sullivan pines. Salient passage:

But added to this is a relatively new and unanswerable factor: why on earth, apart from good manners, should Americans care about what Europe thinks? Yes, diplomacy demands courtesy and "listening." But it's not at all clear what else it requires. Militarily, Europe is a dud, ... becoming a complete irrelevance. With the sole exception of Britain, the Europeans have contributed a minuscule amount of the money and manpower to defang ... al Qaeda. They couldn't even muster enough initiative and coordination to prevent another genocide in their own continent in the 1990s. They have cut their defense spending to such an extent that, with the exception of Britain, they are virtually useless as military allies.

No doubt young American men and women, courtesy of U.S. taxpayers, will be bailing out the Euro continent by decade's end in some dramatic, unforseen fashion. For a while after 9/11, I was moved to think Europe was actually on our side (note well I don't include Britain in this screed). The half-life of their sympathy turned out to be about 6 months. So sad, and I feel foolish for having expected anything different.