Like a scared child in a room full of strangers, Germany felt alone if Uncle Sam was not holding its hand.

From another angle Germany twisted the US' arm until they did what we wanted them to do. Atlanticism in Germany is right-wing, the SPD certainly has its faults but worshipping the US is not one of them.

The nations of Europe are not currently capable to defend themselves and so they have no choice but to rely on the US in a crisis

Against who? Aliens? Who is this hypothetical enemy that can invade Europe? Capabilities aren't exactly as they should be, it would be nasty going against a rogue US, yes, but we could still bring the whole thing to a stalemate even if it would necessitate a couple of French nukes getting dropped on carrier groups.

...and don't get me started on them wanking off to the dollar value of US contributions. Much of what they send should be valued negatively (in monetary terms) because it's surplus and they're saving on disposal costs. Meanwhile, if the EU had the US' ammunition production capacity Ukraine would've run out by now.

The US has been pussy-footing around this whole conflict, see e.g. the row about ATACMs, the UK had to send Storm Shadow (which they don't exactly have a surplus of, to the contrary) to twist the US' arm.

What many analysts don't seem to get into their head, it just doesn't fit their framework, is that Europe as a whole is a lot more "hawkish" in this conflict than the US, leading to all kinds of misinterpretations. "But Europe is so peace-loving and warm and fuzzy" -- no, motherfucker, we hate imperialism. That's all there is to it. We have plenty of former Russian colonies in the union and with shit going down as it went, the western members finally understood that no, Russia can't be reasoned with, or even be counted on to act in self-interest, instead of chalking the eastern member's attitude up to PTSD.

Yeah, but a lot of it comes from Europe not choosing to lead on any international crisis, to the point where it has intentionally designed its defense to require the US to participate.

I look at it like this, the EU should have its own independent military from NATO given its size and wealth. Yet, it chooses to be entirely dependent on NATO and needs the US to help in any sort of projection of force.

That's a lot of words just to say "Germany hesitated about sending tanks to Ukraine therefore the US is now the colonial master of Europe."

Apparently that's all it takes. Just a slight hesitation on a decision and you lose all sovereignty forever.

Or maybe the hesitation over the tanks was a little disappointing, but not really that big a deal. Calm down people.

We will see how it plays out long term, but it seems to me that the US is hollowing out Europe to enrich themselves in their economic war against China. If you don't believe that, look what the US is doing to encourage manufacturers to leave Europe and move to the US, or the fact that they overcharge Europe on fossil fuels.