[v_iter]

Yes, but how could that be solved? To solve this issue you'd have to significantly reduce the sovereignty of the EU member states, which some, especially Poland will oppose fiercely. But on the other had, without some coherent cooperation and responses, Europe will be chewed up country at a time by Russia, and maybe in the future by China.

[hkt]

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/glossary/mutual-d...

Any actual EU members are in principle protected by this, even if they aren't NATO members. Whether or not EU countries being in NATO diminishes their ability to act without US consent is debatable and I lean towards saying NATO's joint command essentially sets article 42 cooperation up to fail.

That's the difference between Ukraine and the other countries on Putin's list though: Ukraine wasn't in the EU or NATO, and for all intents and purposes had no allies.

[v_iter]

Things like that don't protect countries. If a real threat arises, if there is no unified force, under the command of one central organ, they won't cooperate, it will always be inferior to the force that does have a single unified command center, like Russia for example or China. NATO or the EU cannot command, say Poland or Germany where to put their forces and what to do with them, but Russia and China can do that with their own. Although their military potential is on par (I mean NATO and Russia) My point is, although on paper NATO is great, it's still fragmented, and to some extent relies on who is in power politically, for example the tomorrow's president of an X country can say "Oh, we will leave NATO yata yata"