>I mean, has the war in Ukraine not shown that having a strong defense is necessary, even in Europe?

True but what defines a strong defence is arbitrary. Buying missiles that we don't even have the platform to fire is not (My country can retrain it's anti air capabilities every few years with the help of another...). Focusing on power projection capabilities to go fight in the middle east has different costs associated with it.
The expenses we do are hardly well applied/fitting and often disproportionally favour the US (or other big players as mentioned earlier) as opposed to us.
To then hear someone say we are subsidised by the US as if that spending is some form of charity rather than self interest...
I am sorry but we don't rely on that >10% US spending to keep Russia out of NATO and the only other conceivable potential threat to EU member states is in NATO. What keeps Russia out of NATO are the nukes and/or conventional collective defence paired with having 7 times the population against a country with an economy smaller than Italy. Meanwhile we spent a lot in Iraq and Afghanistan aiding or perhaps if similarly construed :subsidising US foreign interests.

Also meanwhile 99% of the time where i argue with notably left or right wing people apprehensive about supporting Ukraine, the conversation basically get pushed to include that foreign interventionism with the full expectation that I will defend it in the same breath.

If anything needs work it's not our spending like Trump & co cried about. It's our inter EU political commitment against non direct threats and influence.

Example: Who the fuck cares that Germany is going increase it's military budget so much and spend a shit ton on equipment that'll never see active self defense use??
Who cares about that whilst the likes of Gerhard fucking Schröder sit on the board of Gazprom and the country blocks equipment support from for example Spain from going to Ukraine and plays up an almost comical level of incompetence to not deliver meaningful support.

Meanwhile the likes of France and Turkey are supporting opposing sides in Libya where one side has very strong ties to Putin and the other might help Turkey threaten Cyprus's territorial waters or we can look at Hungary and co doing their best to keep the gas flow going.
Hell it's not like LukOil will close up shop here anytime soon either.

And it's not like the US is the adult in the room with all these examples of proverbial headless chickens in the face of the main realistic military threat lest we forget the Exxon deals, the propping up of places like Saudi Arabia as they in turn support Russia, etc.

These webs of self-interests are generally far more orthogonal to our clear and justifiable US-EU shared interests than most of our military spending or lack thereof.

>If you're trying to point out that there hasn't been a war in the EU while it's been under America's security cordon, point well made.

Why would there be a war in the EU? We're not exactly at each others throat anymore and it has it's own mutual defence clause.
Hell remember some of DeGaulles reasoning for vetoing the UK from joining?

>Point taken on Iran, I understand that was annoying from the EU perspective and potentially an overplay of America's hand; but I guess I just think that if the EU and the U.S. aren't tightly aligned it will open up more potential activities from China who has shown themselves over and over to be significantly worse "partners" than America.

Nobody here sees China as partners in the same way outside of loose use of terms like trade partners which gets used for about every country on earth bar maybe north korea.

The US and we also need to realise we need to be a better "partners" than china in many scenarios outside of Europe. Americans especially like to harp on about predatory lending and the US even bribed african journalists to go of on it but at the end of the day China has been a less predatory lender than the IMF and the later is even forced to give african countries more breathing room due to the existence of the former as an alternative. I fully expect that China would be a lot lot worse if faced with less scrutiny and a similarly big ability to force hands. It only cuts it's losses in the face of a worse alternative... Luckily as it is it that competition exists and the US should probably adjust accordingly just the same to the benefit of those in the middle.

>I don't think blaming the refugee wave on the U.S. is fair, there were a lot more factors at play than just countries unable to achieve a dollar peg, besides wasn't a huge amount of the turmoil (at least politically) from the Syrian refugee crisis, not N. Africa?

I don't wish to point it solely on the US. It's just one of many factors but it's just one example of such influence that Americans generally don't consider.
They (as do most) get a dumbed down news image painting a simple story of protests for democracy. Not a nuanced in depth view showing a mix of local nepotism, foreign influences, of cost of living skyrocketing being a trigger point and how that relates US monetary policy affecting other countries stemming from a relationship that has essentially subsidised US imports for decades and is protected by and a core part of it's foreign policy.

With someone who is honest and open about such relationships and what goes on to sustain them i don't have a strong urge to discuss. After all if we can agree on the fundamentals it comes down to a difference of opinion or personal factors that are hard for me to affect. Maybe that is one of my bad character traits.
For example I have someone close to me like that supportive of a seriously authoritarian state...I dislike that but there was never an argument about whether it was authoritarian or the reasoning behind it's foreign policy so...I just leave it at that.
There's no cognitive dissonance tied to someone plainly stating their self interest, selfishness or otherwise limited scope of support.
When someone comes up with a holier than thou attitude and misconstrues the situation in their favour tho it sets me off.

And for the record I don't think the US, Russia or china for that matter are at all alone in this kind of stuff.
Why France and the UK were so gung ho about Lybia deserves some more focus for example. Oil exploitation deals, political self-interests/nepotism and other things not happily spoken about openly are not limited superpowers after all.

>Of course the U.S. isn't a saint, but it is a country that does actually try to have some values in its engagements. Does it fail constantly or make deals that I think are awful and work with terrible people? Absolutely, such is geopolitics (although we do often have unforced errors there). But it's such a funny way to equivocate-- America does some bad things but is hypocritical but China is just absolutely terrible and has no qualms about it so both are bad? That makes no sense to me.

You yourself try to use these things as arguments tho?
Even if the argument is pulled down to that of lesser evil it doesn't really do you any favours (see earlier article about the 1.2 million deaths for one)
Also I don't see those values in it's engagements. Even when faced with a more clearly defined direct opponent of the past in the form of the USSR you don't get to champion certain values as something giving direction to your sides actions whilst at the same time supporting Pol pot, assassinating democratic leaders, etc.
For those who are aware of the contradictions formed it has a backlash effect which is why today we see so many leftists picking unlikely sides or choosing non-alignment even when it does not make sense. See for example the imo silly takes of Vafourakis, Corbyn, melencon, etc regarding Ukraine.

I (and probably the previous commenter) don't want to move away from mutual benefit and interests regardless of all that but we do want more sovereignty.
That's where the US get's put on the shelf with outside forces just like China (which has comparatively less influence).
Nobody likes being in the position of an 80's japan or so because that's not how partnerships work at all.