Not really. We have the most money, the most guns, and world economies depend on us. Europe won't even fight Russia when they literally invaded a country in their backyard, and Russia is much weaker than the US.

Fighting Russia or the US is basically the same; you're just going to get nuked. Ukraine doesn't get nuked because Russia isn't in a real risk of losing it's own territory and doesn't want to annex irradiated lands.

But also Europe (besides Ukraine) doesn't have much to gain from fighting Russia. They're happy to assist in air raids in North Africa / Middle East for energy reasons (see Libya) but it's fighting for practical purposes.

The table can also be turned against the US. Despite the endless complaints about Mexico sending drugs & drug dealers into the US it's not like we are doing effective (or drastic).

Europe has a lot to gain from fighting Russia, because if they conquer Ukraine they're going to invade Poland next.

I doubt Russia would invade the EU anytime soon under current conditions, even if they manage to annex all of Ukraine with no further losses.

Much more likely they invade another non-EU, non-NATO country like Moldova.

Much more likely they'll invade Belarus, then Letonia, Estonia, etc. well before they invade Moldova.

Your most money won't buy you much resources in a decade. most of the natural resources exporting countries feel a bit cheated with 20 year contracts and two "quantitative easing" in the same period

> most money won't buy you much resources in a decade

You’re vastly underestimating how resource rich America, North America and the Western Hemisphere are.

You’re vastly underestimating how quickly we can exhaust those resources.

> You’re vastly underestimating how quickly we can exhaust those resources

…to where we need to mine or drill Europe?

What is your source for any of this?

The only resource suppliers to EU other than the United States is Norway (natural gas pipeline, crude oil 14%) and Australia (coal 36%). The US supplies a a huge minority in those as well as a majority in LNG. (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/interactive-publications/e...)

If the EU ally’s with Australia, pics up an enemy of an enemy - China, they can withstand a US embargo.

About our increasing consumption, you can read the report here (https://www.unep.org/resources/Global-Resource-Outlook-2024).

We can’t extract our way out of this. We’ll have nothing left. We need space minerals and more rocks that aren’t home. We’re fighting over less and less sand in the sandbox.

> they can withstand a US embargo

We were never debating if Europe could survive an American embargo.

You said “most money won't buy you much resources in a decade.” This was about America surviving a European freeze-out. The simple truth is, there are more resources in America and within its military’s undisputed reach than there are in Europe.

Your UNEP report doesn’t show why America alone couldn’t extract its way out of an embargo. (While it puts its military to use.)

You must have me mistaken with someone else. I didn't say that. I said that it wouldn't matter as resource exhaustion is faster than it was previously and we will run out of resources, money or not. So if one side decides to horde or exploit the other hemisphere, it's like kids fighting over the last bit of sand in the sandbox.

> it wouldn't matter as resource exhaustion is faster than it was previously and we will run out of resources, money or not

Oh. Sure. Fair. But not relevant in our lifetimes, at least not from the position of the United States. If push came to shove, we'd take those last bits of sand. That's one of the problems with might makes right: it lets those in power put off hard choices.