> Not sure what the plan could ever thought to be? Anyone dare to explain this layman?
IMO, they watched too many movies and simply assumed their own victory.
> Make Europe jump to another more solid economic and defense ally? Increasing even further the difficulties to do a preemptive attack?
While they do seem to want Europe to spend more on defence, I think it's genuinely not occurred to them that threatening to seize Greenland and Canada (and Iceland even if by accident) and dishonouring all the allies who lost servicepersons while assisting the US on previous missions, and putting tariffs on everyone, and interfering with everyone else's domestic politics, might make us all unwilling to assist in their adventures.
Basically, yes, they want Europe to be a solid economic and defence ally (and culture-war ally), but in the NPC sense, not as actual sovereign nations with our own interests* who aren't just simple computer programs that exist solely to make their lives more interesting.
> The whole thing is a whole mess. Why didn't they seized the strait first? Why didn't they secure pathways to their own control first?
If "they" is "the US armed forces", the answer is: they can't.
The geography massively favours the defender; and even if the geography didn't, developments in drone warfare since current US materiel was developed has shifted hard enough to render it similar utility to the Russian materiel vs. Ukraine.
> (To be fair, all mega rich have built super bunkers)
I don't see this helping them, but like that one with the carbon fibre submarine, I don't think you get them to understand why it's the wrong kind of strength.
* even though we also broadly agree that Iranian leadership and nuclear ambitions are a threat, for most of us they're quite a long way down the list, for the average person in the UK I think Iran was somewhere between bus timetables and the price of organic cocoa before this second concurrent "3 day special military operation" started