John - good piece with which I agree basically entirely, including on the wrongness of this from Rutte:

“His dismissive statement to the European Parliament in January distills his misguided position at a time of profound strategic transformation:

“If anyone here thinks that the European Union, or Europe as a whole, can defend itself without the US, keep on dreaming,” he scoffed. “You can’t. We can’t.”

Rutte is not just wrong. He is a dangerous fool.”

One area where my perspective may be a tad different - and that’s the nature and likelihood of Russian aggression against Europe. My perspective is that Russia is already waging war against European countries and using the same general playbook/tools - with some updates and customization - that it used against the U.S. the danger is internal destabilization, sabotage, intimidation, harassment with drones, bribery, extortion, propaganda, disinformation, funding of far right groups, etc. it’s already happening. It won’t be tanks or even missile strikes, except maybe aimed at one or more Baltics. Don’t underestimate their focus on this sort of internal subversion.