Europe has been digital vassals for the past 1/4 to 1/2 century. They care enough to endlessly whinge about that. But not enough to bother doing the sustained hard work needed escape from vassalage.
Instead of "invaded", I'd say the US mostly moved into a power vacuum in WWII Europe. Europe's leaders had catastrophically failed the "long-term strategy" thing from 1900 to 1940, and gotten themselves into a couple of utterly ruinous internal wars. Well, d'oh, Europe - the rest of the world wasn't a bunch of NPC's, and God hadn't granted you Eternal Prima Donna status. If you bleed yourselves white, then other folks will happily take the opportunity to replace you atop the global pecking order.
I don't think that the US had, or has, any more "long-term strategy" than Europe did. They just have the advantage of a single huge mass, and isolation/safety from direct threats. They still managed to have their Civil War, which is actually their most damaging war.
You can make a literalist argument that way - but between Germany declaring war on the US first (and doing extremely well, early war, at taking the war to US shores), the preponderance of British strength (and British overall ground forces commanders) in both the Sicily and Normandy invasions, and the US's eagerness to slash its forces in Europe (post-war) any time that the Communist Menace looked weak - I think that's a poor big-picture characterization of America's entry into Europe.
I did not make any "for their own good" argument. And the US involvement in Europe has borne very little resemblance to European colonial behavior.
No, until roughly the Marshall Plan, I don't think the US had much of a long-term strategy in Europe. But human nature abhors a power vacuum, and water doesn't need any strategy to run downhill.
Anyway, this and y whole reply are beside the point, which is still that Europe has been a vassal of the US since it was invaded by the US during WWII. I don't think this is controversial, either, unless you stop your analysis at the very superficial narrative fed to the public (i.e. propaganda).
The US still have about 50 military sites across Europe and hold huge military, political, and economic sway over the continent. There is a reason De Gaulle decided to pull out of NATO's integrated command and to close the US bases in France: You can't even try to maintain a meaningful level of independence when you have a foreign military on your soil.
Propelloni•2mo ago
> The GDPR is Europe’s defence against digital oligarchy, child harm and foreign political interference.
What? No! That's not what the GDPR is for. What a dumb take! Watering down the GDPR is the wrong idea nonetheless, but for other reasons. For example, it would tell companies that malicious compliance works.