Absolutely. I won't lie, I am, 100%. Bitter, angry, and I feel pretty much unappreciated.
The Russian government knows the missile defense system can't put a dent into a nominal ICBM barrage from their territory.
Then why are they threatening a nuclear strike if we install a missile shield? This is a somewhat rhetorical question, though. I imagine that they are using it as an excuse to escalate the ongoing tensions and give themselves more excuses to take hardline anti-Western moves.
The Euro-missiles crises of the 1980s, the effort to prevent U.S. disengagement at the end of the Cold War, the call for U.S. assistance during the Bosnian and Kosovo crises, the care taken during creation of the ESDP not to detach the US from the EU.
Tell that to the French, in specific. Throughout the 1990s, blocking the United States was the A-#1 strategy of the French president. Everything we attempted to do, the French president was there trying to block us in the UN and NATO. Granted, the French to not represent the whole of the European community, but it really starts to get irksome when someone who is supposedly your ally starts to hinder you. That was Chirac's entire career as French president--he got more support from the French the more he tried to stop the US, because the French didn't like the US "telling them what to do."
So really your characterization that the Europeans are ungracious of the U.S.'s role in the international affairs and European security is completely inaccurate.
I've spoken to Europeans, mostly Germans, French, and English to be specific. And the bulk of them felt exactly what I said--the United States is an upstart nation that is using its military muscle to exert hegemonic power, and they resent it. I've gotten this
from their very mouths in serious political discussions. "Why do we need American soldiers on our soil? Yankee go home." Fine. I say we go home. Yes, I am bitter.
And as for the World Wars, read about the chain of command, and read about how many Americans died in the European theater because of British and French generals during both wars. The British and French wanted to use Americans the same as they had the Aussies at Gallipoli. Patton was continually reprimanded by his superiors (in both wars) because his conduct of maneuver warfare was so successful that he was winning the wars too fast and the "allies" couldn't keep up. When I say we fought for the wrong side, I say it because the "Great War for Democracy" ended up punishing a fledgeling German democracy for what the previous (and ousted) monarch had done--and punished them so well, that they created Hitler. Without Versailles, there would never have been an Nazi Party. Thanks.
Hence, when I see things like Russia pulling the tricks they are, I get nervous. I get nervous because I feel like a bad war is better than a worse peace (I'm paraphrasing Plutarch here, I believe). I also feel as if the Europeans view the United States similar to how the Delian League viewed the "Athenian Empire" during the fifth century BC. Ironically, the US "inherited" its empire in much the same manner--through our victories in a devastating war against an aggressive enemy. Also ironically, the Cold War is a lot like the maneuverings of Athens and Sparta during that same epoch. Interesting how we are developing into the same old set of tensions as we had been in. The US has a long and ignoble history of invading other countries in an effort to preserve or prop up democracies that oftentimes end up falling apart and garnering us international infamy. But I can't think of Russia doing the same thing.
So, yeah, South Ossetia wants to go back to Russia. So why drive tanks toward Tbilisi? Why pour troops into the entire country? Why the masses of refugees? Is it, perhaps, they know the Russians better than we do? They learned how to create empires from the Mongols, after all. Raping, looting, and pillaging, they avenged themselves on East Germans, and indeed, against the Japanese still in Sakhalin after the Second World War officially ended.
I won't lie. The US is an empire. But if we vacate the post, as I feel everyone wants us to do, then who is going to take over? Will Russia fill that power vacuum we leave behind? Are you comfortable with that?
I pretty much feel like the Europeans only want us around when somebody needs to get killed on a battlefield. So yeah, I'm bitter. Incredibly bitter. I like individual Europeans. I consider myself a man of the world, someone who is interested in other cultures and peoples and languages. I'm an historian. But, ironically, I've discovered that, when I travel, if I say I'm a Canadian (a lie), the chances that I get spat on significantly decrease than if I say I'm an American (the truth). So I ask you, why should I want to risk my neck for people who hate me? The Europeans don't want me to be there unless they are afraid that, when Russia is finished with Georgia, they're next.
