I think I’ve finally figured out why the leaders of Europe are so upset at the United States. The never-ending outpouring of rage from European and British elites, directed at the US and the Trump administration, makes sense to me at long last.

It’s not because the Europeans are worried about having to spend money on defence against Russia; their combined economic might is ten times that of Russia. Spending on their militaries may accelerate economic problems in a few places, but in many it will be net positive. It’s not like Europe opposes government-funded social programmes, either, which is what most of their militaries are. They’re certainly not war-fighting organisations – not outside of the frontier states. If Europe actually went to war, the militaries of its nations would need to be entirely rebuilt. 

It’s not America’s threats to Greenland that are upsetting the Europeans. And it’s not that they believed in an American nuclear shield, especially since the end of the Cold War. Unless they were actually idiots. Which they aren’t. What American president would be willing to risk a nuclear strike on an American city in order to respond to a nuclear attack in Europe?  Not likely, outside the context of the Cold War. And maybe not even then.

No, the thing the nations of Europe are desperately worried and angry about is each other. For all of history – up to the point where the United States stopped it – the truly important problems in Europe were solved through violent coercion. War. Genocide. Population transfers. Terrible things.

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That is why and how most of Europe consists of ethno-linguistic nation-states. It’s not by accident. They shed a lot of blood to this end. For the most part, the ethnic-linguistic groups that didn’t carve out a state ceased to exist, or became oppressed minorities in other people’s countries. The Jews and the Roma are the two success cases, in........

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