The problem here is: the EU currently works quite well overall for its citizens, precisely because there isn’t really one big player. It is considerably more difficult to commit crimes and atrocities on the scale of the US, Russia and China when you’re small, weak, and all your close allies are watching you. I don’t have any doubts that a united EU, a federation perhaps, like it was originally intended, would be the greatest power the world has ever seen. But it would come at a great cost to all of its citizens. In anywhere between 50-250 years it would most likely develop into an empire similar to the ones we have right now. Unless we could figure out some sort of new structure to combat these challenges, which in itself is a major undertaking.

So essentially the same thing as the US 50 years ago? And in some ways, kind of like Russia 200 years ago? Except it’s progressively getting more civil.

Dealing with superpowers and empires is always unpleasant, and everyone would rather stay as far away from them as possible, but it’s not always and option. Well, it seems we either continue the cycle, and swap US partnership for China partnership (then probably same thing again in a couple decades), or we break the cycle somehow.