No, you seem to be (willingly?) misrepresenting what I’m saying. There is no long term plan. There is no strategy. There simply is a situation in which the actions of Europeans in the past have caught up with Europeans in the present and we are now stuck between a rock we failed to move decades ago and a hard place we built ourselves. What our current crop of “leaders” seems to be doing is (once again) hoping this all blows over in a decade, because we’re all out of other good options. While this is a fatalistic point of view, I believe it is warranted. Building some degree of strategic autonomy will take years, maybe decades. Until then we remain dependent on the hegemon and cannot face it head first on any and every issue. Had we collectively done what le Général had told us to do back in the 1960s, we’d be in a better position, but we didn’t, so we aren’t.

It’s not about 5D Chess at all, in my opinion. We’re unfortunately at a point where decades of inaction and lethargy have left the EU largely dependent on the US for many things, ranging from defense to energy security to digital infrastructure. The hole we dug for ourselves is so deep that confronting the hegemon, the US, is not realistic any time soon. Therefore I believe it’s more about recognising where we have to use our limited ability to resist and where we can get away with nodding along, while knowing that this is bullshit. I believe the threat to Greenland for example was much more concrete and dangerous and rightly led to Europeans using some of their limited ability to resist to put a foot down. This current threat to Spain seems vague and unenforceable, given the structure of the EU. With the realities being as they are it seems unwise to use what little power we have to resist for a pointless threat that will be forgotten in two weeks. The alternative is a head on collision like the one that Zelensky experienced that may not be forgotten.

What the Europeans should have done is to build an independent power base and maintain that, even if it costs effort and money. Unfortunately we didn’t and now we are where we are.

While I really don’t like the guy, I feel like he understands that the best way of dealing with a narcissist that you’re powerless to confront head on is to just let him talk.

I believe he understands that you need to choose your battles wisely. I’m convinced that it takes a lot of effort to keep a straight face when this big baby goes on one of his rants. We all know that cutting trade ties with Spain is all but impossible, given the structure of the EU. By this time next week Mango Mussolini will have forgotten all about this episode. The only way to escalate is to give him more fuel for his fire, for example by directly challenging his lies. Unless you happen to have enough power to do so, like China, that’s not a good option in my opinion.