I think short-term you're right about Europe. Longer-term (if we don't die in a nuclear holocaust) I think you're wrong.
I've been here longer than you and studied both sides of the Atlantic as you are doing. The actions and trends you list are short term responses to the crisis at hand.
I agree that buying F-35s is lighting money on fire. But of course that is what Germany and other NATO countries are going to say today. What actually happens depends on a lot of factors.
What is NOT happening that is fucking huge is that Germany is not stopping buying from Russia. That is what the US wanted. Germany can also see that as China rises, the US is getting more and more blatant in our economic extortion. China got sanctioned just for not explicitly condemning the invasion. Neither Germany nor any other smaller economy is going to risk that right now.
When and how the war ends will dictate a lot of how things go after that. So far what I can piece out from averaging east and west propaganda, Russia has been extremely light on civilians in Ukraine. If post-war that turns out to be a fact, Europe will (IMO) make up with Russia ASAP. If it turns out that Russia has really been targeting civilians, it will be a lot more back door/3rd party purchasing of Russian goods.
Keep in mind that the longer the war goes on, the higher food prices will go in Europe (and the rest of the world). It doesn't end with the end of the war, either. A huge percentage of wheat and fertilizer for the world come from Russia and Belarus. Farmers in France will be voting in Le Pen if the French are starving from lack of bread because "we can't support Putin!".
Ironically, western European leaders may very likely find themselves in a situation like Victor Yanukovych in Ukraine in 2013. He wanted to straddle the fence between business with Russia (75% of Ukrainian trade is (was) with Russia), but the US demanded he take the US side. Had he taken the US deal, his political life was over due to the economic requirements of the deal (austerity, higher fuel prices, etc.).
Post war it is quite possible that five or six EU / NATO countries wlll find themselves in the "Yanukovych Quandry" (copyright Jack Albrecht 2022!). The US cannot bully half the GDP producing countries of the EU at once.
There is strength in numbers. If the scenario above does come to pass, it will be the break in NATO, if not on paper then at least on the ground.
I think the EU leaders see this, too, but understand that while the war in Ukraine is on is not the time to finally break with the "US protection racket" that has existed in Europe since WWII.
