Should we care? If so, why?
Alas, it pains me to admit, we should care... here's why.
1. American culture is derived from Europe.
That's right - & it's not exactly a military secret. Democracy, our language, money, (back when we had real money...),common law, weights and measures, agricultural crops, tools, fundamental military precepts, even our Judeo-Christian heritage and our booze - all brought over from Europe. We drink "Scotch", not "Malaysian"...
2. Two World Wars and the Cold War had European theaters - and Uncle Sam had roles in all three, big roles in two of them...
3. Europe is a good spot to put interceptor missles to destroy Islamic ICBMs shot at us over the North Pole.
4. Its a Global Economy.
Completely disagree, as my previous post in this thread explains. Our cultural heritage may have started in Europe (and that's true for many central and south American immigrants as well). But sooo much time has passed that their culture is not nearly as relevant anymore and does not translate here anymore.
Our democracy has moved in a completely different direction than theirs. Our concepts of total war came from the civil war, not from Europe. Our concept of lightening war did not start with Germany, but with us during WW1. Our ancestors were known for their wild charges into enemy trenches with early tanks.
Our race relations and issues are not based centuries of African and Indian colonial power that lasted into the 50's and 60's. But rather, left overs of the slave trade before our country was founded; and the fallout of a terrible civil war.
Our religious history is completely different from European religious history. From the very beginning the confederation of colonies was a patchwork of widely varying religious states. To this day Europe does not have the kind of variation we have, regardless of the influence of the Swiss and German protestant of yesteryear and Islam today. Their religious interest was waning to apathy about the time US fervor and piety were just getting started. We moved on in a very different ideological direction.
My point on can be summed up: just because our history goes back to the Romans and the Romans had a Senate and America has a Senate, does not mean that our cultures have any relevance to each other. Regardless of the ancestry that binds, we have no relation to each other.