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Notes -
Reading the comment sections in German papers during the past weeks, I am starting to genuinely feel a little afraid. The general population, or at least those who bother to comment under those articles, are positively hysterical, in a way that I imagine a deadbeat limerent live-in girl/boyfriend who refused to see the writing on the wall and wound up being dumped and dumped on the street with no plan B in short order would be. If it were an individual, this would be a point at which I'd call in a welfare check on them lest they harm themselves. Tropically, this would be due to emotional discombobulation or a line of thought like "He loved me, right? He still cares enough that he wouldn't just let me die, right?". Following this schema, I would not be surprised if they soon started floating a spontaneous deployment of European military, fueled by some vain hope that surely even Trump's US would turn around and step in before France/Poland/the UK goes in and outright loses (which is a distinct possibility, because I don't see immediately available European capabilities even just making up for US intel and Starlink if those are withdrawn, and a European mobilisation would surely be enough to convince even Putin to escalate at last). The comment sections would cheer right up until the point where they get draft letters themselves, and depending on what happens between now and then even beyond.
Of course, it could be that for all of Trump's seeming randomness, the whole plan was actually signed off by someone in the State Dept who went above and beyond on the "how can we make Europe contribute more" assignment and is now waiting for just that to happen.
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