I know the America bashers love to blame all the world problems on the the demonic United states of America.. But the European powers are fully capable of screwing things up on there own. And as time has gone by there has been a division in NATO as the US and Canada as north American states view the defensive needs of Nato differently then those of the European powers. Everyone likes to say China is a rising super power, but I keep saying this is a world loaded with emerging super powers. And though the EU may not be as solid a state as the US she has the weight and the power.
I think 2 points on this TNE.
1) Most of us would love to have a serious adult discussion, but the rubbish put out by the Political and Media classes of the West makes this far more difficult than this should be and means having to try to debunk a huge amount of highly disingenuous nonsense. A good example of this is the types of Hague , Kerry and others continuing with the claim that the Crimean referendum was only won by Russia as it was carried out at the point of a gun.
The claim is ludicrous and fortunately even many usually loyal media figureheads have baulked at repeating it and have instead pointed out that the result was the popular choice of the overwhelming majority and that whatever else may have been wrong with the vote, self determination was most definitely not a casualty.
2) The EU is not and highly unlikely ever to be a Super Power. It certainly will not be one if it keeps expanding East and absorbing the remaining basket cases such as Moldova and Georgia. I note with grim irony that these options are only truly popular with the European Commission and Americans, the rest of us are aghast at the prospect of the bills that such association is going to generate. It is also seriously upsetting those EU members already under fiscal duress and who now face the prospect of seeing scarce central funding redirected away to these countries.
For the EU to become a Super Power, it would need to deepen and centralise considerably and shelve "widening" ie expansion for the foreseeable future. Maybe some in Washington see the continued eastward expansion of the EU as a good way of weakening two potential rivals through a single policy?
Irrespective I think the population of Europe are deeply concerned by many aspects of the EU's actions in the Ukraine and that Eurosceptic parties are going to romp home in most countries in the May European Parliamentary Elections.
