I everytime I tried to communicate this to others they coped with something along the line of "oh the us would want a prosperous EU that is able to defend itself on its own" - no they only need the physical access to the continent for their military bases, a bunch of divided squabbling nationalist dictatorships which can be played against others, are hostile to each other due to nationalistic landgrabs and jocky for us money & weapons to be the biggest kid on the playground is a far more acceptable solution. A united prosperous EU with an united army is just as much of a threat to washington as russia is.