Germany's Merz tells BBC Europe was free-riding on US

Merz is free riding on our tax money and should start doing some actual work instead of licking a rapist's boot.

I wouldn't call it free-riding, but the EU definitely has been lazy and letting itself get dictated by US. The EU is a bigger economic zone, has more citizens, and shouldn't be bowing down to the US. We are a US vassal and maybe acknowledging that is the first step to improvement.

I can well imagine Trump and Merz attending a Coldplay concert together.

He will say anything to get his paycheck from washington

The countries in the EU simply haven't really needed to spend a whole lot. Most of what our military did for the past 20 years was uselessly fucking around in the middle East at the behest of the USA. Having a low military budget at this time made sense.

Times have changed though. The geopolitical landscape looks different. The US itself is a possible threat, having stated invasion of Greenland was not off the table. Russia is a threat and even if they can't convincingly beat Ukraine they can be a massive pain in the ass and an existential threat to the Baltic countries if NATO collapses.

Yeah, we have to invest more in military. I don't think things would have been massively different through most of the 2000s and 2010s even if the EU and the US weren't close allies. Perhaps Russia would have been bolder earlier.