> From my perspective we are only at the beginning of a period where Europe doesn't jump for US.
As a European, I tend to agree with that assessment, particularly with countries like Germany.
Most of the US military presence might be gone compared to cold war levels, but the pro-US political presence mostly remains the same.
Which is actually quite astounding considering we are slowly entering the second decade of when this distancing started [0] and it had plenty of additional contributions since then [1].
My experience from growing up in the 70s and 80s in Germany: I saw dozens of warplanes every day simulating low level penetrations, I don't see any today. I quite often saw US military in the forrests, US tanks on the streets, haven't seen one in decades. The US was such a topic, that there were many Anti-US demonstrations, there were attacks on US installations - none today.
Public political discussion always considered the US, because of the scare of the Soviet Union, which was daily present (how many millions of kids in the 80s in Europe feared nuclear war?).
But already in 1990 when I was in the military the attitude had changed a lot.
To this day you can live in a small Bavarian town, and have the US army keep you awake late into the night with training exercises that involve plenty of shooting, as it's, for example, the case for the people living near Grafenwöhr.
To this day it's completely legal for the NSA to operate in Germany and spy on literally anybody [0]
Neither do I see the attitude change on a grander political level in Germany. Most of the German political landscape is still plenty happy displaying a double-moral that's would transplant neatly right back into the cold war [1]
One of the weirder examples: Persecuting alleged Syrian torturers for crimes against humanity committed in Syria [2].
While crimes against humanity committed by the US, trough German territory, are apparently not in the jurisdiction of German courts [3].
That's not what a "neutral" Germany looks and acts like, that's what a Germany looks and acts like that was for decades groomed to be a US vassal.
As a European, I tend to agree with that assessment, particularly with countries like Germany.
Most of the US military presence might be gone compared to cold war levels, but the pro-US political presence mostly remains the same.
Which is actually quite astounding considering we are slowly entering the second decade of when this distancing started [0] and it had plenty of additional contributions since then [1].
[0] https://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0919/p12s2-woeu.html
[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/2014...