It's still baffling to see the US lose so much face in so short a time.
There is definitely truth that Europe has relied on US defense for too long, but what the US got in return is hard to put into words and economic terms.
We bought your tech, culture, defense and so much other stuff.
They're laughing all the way to the bank, the US has locked Europe into so many long-term petrochem supply contracts courtesy of two energy crises, and the US have stated point-blank that the supplies (of LNG, in this case) are tied to the US-EU trade treaty plus whatever changes the US wants to make.
Same protection racket plus a foot on the brake of the EU's push to renewables.
US sells a lot of other things to Europe that Europe doesn't have to buy. That includes tech. I'm not looking forward to the ensuing trade war but it's not a one way street by any means.
> There is definitely truth that Europe has relied on US defense for too long,
That wasn't the problem for the USA, on the contrary.
«The U.S. is lobbying against SAFE because it mandates contractors from the EU/EFTA/Ukraine. One reason why Tusk is speaking candidly about how shaky the U.S. is as an ally: Washington says it wants Europe to arm itself and take its security into its own hands, but then it demands Europe rely on American hardware. You can't have it both ways.
The U.S. said: "Take over Ukraine's war needs." So Europe did so. Now PURL purchases are being slowed down or are on hold because of America's prioritization of its own requirements for the war with Iran. Talking out of both sides of one's mouth doesn't work anymore, and if Trump wants anyone to blame here, he should look in the mirror. Forfeiting America's security patronage always meant forfeiting our ability to bully and coerce.»
src: https://xcancel.com/michaeldweiss/status/2047689018683408593
Even before Trump, and the invasion of Ukraine, it was transparently obvious that the idea of minimum spending commitment to NATO was intended to prop up the US arms industry rather than actually achieve anything military.
To a certain extent the US occupation of Germany was intended to prevent Germany rearming on its own.
I dabble in correcting other people’s spelling on occasion (can’t help it). Somewhat frustratingly, the usual reaction is “language evolves” and “everyone uses it this way” and “if it is understood, it does not matter how you wrote it”.
The world's rules were written by them, for them, and their allies notably european countries were willing to go along for the ride for all the side benefit of said safety and stability, both pretended it was a gift out of niceness while it was actually massively profitable
But then a portion of the US started believing the whole gift part, and now they're destroying their own control of the world order and forcing other to realign out of their control
The PAX Americana established from '45 and expanded globally after the Soviet Union fell is so all-encompassing that people can't see beyond it anymore. They just can't see the forest as they've been between the trees all their lives.
We've truly fell for our own tricks as we call it "international rulebased order" which hides the fact that it's just a benevolent dictatorship under the American Federal government.
As we say in Dutch: trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback. Perhaps now it leaves in a Boeing.
This will forever change the US' role in the world.
> But then a portion of the US started believing the whole gift part, and now they're destroying their own control of the world order and forcing other to realign out of their control
I'm still not sure whether Trump actually believes it or if he's just using it as a propaganda tool. I remember how he reported a conversation with Macron telling him that Macron will have to increase the cost of drugs for French citizens. It was so completely out of touch as drug pricing works completely different in the EU. But he definitely likes to directly imply that all positive aspects of life in Europe are being sponsored by the USA (rather than citizens paying higher taxes). Who knows, maybe he believes it, I wouldn't be surprised really.
People say this about a lot of places, and even Greece is now kind of OK. The US is not yet Argentina. The bad governance is mostly exporting problems to elsewhere, like the new oil crisis for east Asia.
Even the ""government shutdown"" (just ended) isn't a problem. It turns out that you don't have to pay air traffic controllers for months.
> The US is teetering on the edge of a financial abyss.
Do you say this because of the outstanding debt? Otherwise, just their top 10 publicly traded companies earn more than all but 2 countries. Just the US defense budget ($1T and estimated $1.5T next year), which exports US foreign policy globally, absolutely dwarfs every other country's.
They bought all that stuff, but it was also a choice.
I wish Europe was more organized as a group and assertive. But as it stands I don't think Europe is capable of that for reasons beyond just "we bought a lot of stuff". Politically I'm just not sure they're capable.
And this is a good for EU. In past decades EU lost energy independence and good part of nuclear because croocked politicians that took dictatorships money while feeding same dictator with oil and gas money.
At the same time EU had no proper army to defend itself because dependance on US or a way to supply said army.
Europe sans Russia does not produce uranium - why people constantly paint this as an independent energy source is beyond me. Of all Russian energy companies, it was Rosatom that could not be sanctioned.
Anybody who had the pleasure to go through relationship with mentally unstable person (for the lack of better words, if I had to guess some undiagnosed borderline disorder on a scale 1-2 out of 10 mixed with some childhood traumas) sees nothing out of ordinary - just daily chaos, tantrums, illogical destructive behavior and very little self-control on the other side.
Narcissism adds a curious twist, but of course for the worse.
The more shocking thing might even be that this whole mess is allowed to continue and that there is no way to stop an out of hand situation. The whole US system can't be trusted even when this administration is gone, it's just broken.
No, the US has been losing its stance in the world since the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, murdering a million people in cold blood on the basis of outright lies.
It has been downhill ever since then. The support for the Gaza genocide is just one in a long list of atrocities for which the American state is responsible, and for which the entire world is starting to hold America responsible.
The rest of the world has been watching, and knows this - even if Americans, in their bubble, do not.
Its the war crimes, crimes against humanity, and massive violations of human rights at scale which cause the world to lose face in the American system.
Plus, the way Americans treat their own people - nobody wants to live like an American, any more.
Until someone comes up with an antidote for the warrior narcissism which inflicts a huge portion of American society, the maw of the abyss remains wide open.
Today it's Iran, or maybe Iraq 2003. Or maybe those pharma factories in Sudan in the 90s. Or perhaps the Serbia bombing. Or maybe Iraq 1991. Or again Panama in 88. Or maybe Grenada. Or maybe Laos. Cambodia. Vietnam. Haiti. Japan. China. Phillipines. Cuba. etc.
It's always something. We are always losing our stance.
I’m not from the US and not trying to defend the US actions, but on Iraq and Gaza, much of Europe takes the same position and goes along with it (and even directly joined the wars and sent troops).
I find the online opinion on Europe / US relations interesting. Online you’d think Europe and US are about to split. But in real life, Europe is more dependent on the US than ever. In terms of energy (Russian fossil fuels basically replaced by US fossil fuels), defense, economy (European economy relatively smaller now than 20 yrs ago), and they just finished signing very one sided deals where they guarantee energy purchases and investment after the tariff war. I think there’s a disconnect between European commenters and European politicians.
> But the U.S. has made it clear that it wants to concentrate on the Indo-Pacific and the threat posed by China's powerful military, rather than propping up Europe.
If that were true they wouldn't have wasted enormous amounts of expensive ammunition in Iran.
One, I feel like the "propping up Europe" is preposterous when europe is buying those things, not getting them for free, just like american weapon delivery to Ukraine have been paid by europe and not free for a long while now.
Two, the US wasting of ammunition in an ill-prepared fight against Iran that has not produced any of the result they claim to want but managed to make things instable for a lot of the world has nothing to do with helping Europe.
Every year for like the last decade I've heard "pivot to China" proceeded by the US using its various European bases to attack something in the Middle East.
Ukraine soldiers had some comments on US military guidelines for use of patriots that they saw in this war - incredibly wasteful, where up to 10-15 rockets are used per 1 incoming shahed. They just set the system in automatic mode, let it select targets and fire at its will, and run for the bunker.
Ukrainians, having very little of those (or nothing now), used 1 patriot missile per 1 boogey with little drop in effectiveness, and whole crew remained in and guided it manually. According to them system is built to be wasteful to increase those interception numbers marginally, but for anything but short exchange its a very bad design mistake that can be easily overwhelmed or depleted, as seen trivially exploitable by enemy.
Iran is imo. in parts about china. Controlling the strait of Hormuz means controlling a significant amount of energy supplies if china. Same thing with Venezuela.
The problem with this, historically is that the way Europe's geography works, a number of countries are just not going to fairly share in the burden of defending Europe, while other countries have the ability to tax foreign trade. Ireland is famous for this, and looking at a map, you can see why. Spain, Turkey and Denmark have historically taxed foreign trade.
Additionally a number of countries have "unfair" advantages over others. There are 2 straits that control access to the oceans. Which means Denmark and Norway control free trade routes (land routes are not "free" as in they are taxed) into Germany, Sweden, Finland, the Baltics, and of course Russia. This can't be fixed, and the UK effectively occupies Gibraltar to prevent it.
Spain (I'd say Spain and Morocco, but really ... Spain) controls sea access for all Mediterranean countries, from Italy to Georgia, Algeria to Greece. France (and Morocco) being the major exceptions to this. This can't be fixed, and is currently blocked by what is effectively an international force. Spain is not happy with this.
Turkey controls (and intends to tax) trade routes into all the black sea countries, which is most of Eastern Europe.
Oh and UK and the Netherlands, for reasons that are slightly less obvious, control free trade into Belgium.
In addition to this, most countries do not have the resources they need. Not even to survive. And even most countries that could be self-sufficient, aren't (cough Germany, really, WHY????). Really only France is somewhat close to self-sufficient. Specialization, on a country level, is a necessity in Europe, most countries do not have access to free trade routes and are utterly dependent on trade, in other words: they have to pay to survive.
Essentially the situation is simple: all European countries, except France. Spain, UK and Portugal (and, yes, Ireland) COULD get themselves into a secure position, but haven't (and so if it came to it, it would be very hard to do in a short time). All other countries probably can't do it at all. So all these countries have good reason to attack each other.
So the question with getting Europe's armies weapons is: the natural situation is that they'll try to destabilize Europe rather than stabilize it, because that is in most countries' direct economic interest. Historically, they ... you can say Europe was more peaceful than places like the areas of the ottoman empire, for example. But that should not be confused with peaceful in an absolute sense. In fact, the last 80 years or so have been remarkably peaceful, with America guaranteeing access to international trade. Well, I'm sure Russia would counter "guarantee access? You mean control access", and yes, that's been done.
Unfortunately it's very clear that America's power, especially measured relative to other countries, is waning. Meaning America is still far more powerful than, say, Turkey. But it used to be easily 100x more powerful. Now ... it looks more like 10x. Opposing Turkey will be a huge effort for the US, far more than the Iran war will be. US's deal, the Pax Americana, was that America would simply guarantee free trade routes with it's military for everyone, in fact, that's what the Iran war is really about (free trade for everyone behind Hormuz). In exchange, US gets the dollar. Many nations, most obviously Iran, but Turkey, Indonesia, China, Somalia, ... have all taken steps to tax the trade routes they control, which will over time create an untenable trade situation for a very large number of countries.
The situation for Germany in the long term is a simple choice: they can either pay, or attack. We all know what their historical choice has been, as soon as you have a somewhat prolonged economic crisis. Germany is not alone in this, in fact all of Eastern Europe is more or less in the same situation. A decent chunk of those countries are arming themselves (for example, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and Finland have all given hints they're building a nuclear force)
The problem with America weakening is that the US wants free trade, because that directly benefits the US greatly, whereas most other factions want to control trade instead. Turkey, Iran, China, Indonesia, even Spain's current government if we're honest and others want to (go back to) taxing other countries. Historically they have succeeded at this, but it resulted in constant wars.
Yes ... countries that can't decide to invest in their own hospitals or education are going to arm themselves to pursue wars to protect little states thousands of kilometers away they barely even trade with. I haven't even mentioned that even as part of NATO they have systematically refused to invest in the defense of the Baltic states. That is not ancient history, that's 6 months ago. Oh and they're financing this with loans. EU government debt is already a pretty heavy burden in ... essentially everywhere except Germany. So they're kicking the can down the road, and this is military investment. It's not going to improve anything about the EU. It'll either do nothing at all (that's the optimal scenario: Russia is deterred and nothing happens. The economic production rots away in some secret basement until it literally decays into dust) or it'll cause destruction. Its value is either zero or MINUS trillions. The loans, however, will need to be repaid.
I'm just thinking ahead to what will happen once these loans turn from a short-term economic boost and start dragging the economies further down.
Where do you get this from? Is this a remark that comes from antipathy to social democracy? Every speech by Sanchez that I have listened to over the last year has him promoting free trade, even the wiki says so:
Sánchez has been a strong advocate for finalizing the long-negotiated EU–Mercosur Free Trade Agreement,[170] which aims to establish one of the world's largest free trade areas.[171]
He is pushing really hard to renegotiate Gibraltar, and has even booked some success there (the fence is taken down). He's artifically pushing the Spanish economy in the region, and he's also sending in ships on a regular basis (no change from previous Spanish governments there) that UK has to chase away.
Why do you think that is? If you want to know: Spain's official story is they want it back because "it's inconveniently placed" (they imply they mean for the Spanish fishing industry).
Yep. Really. As I said, not because Europe was very peaceful (although most of these conflicts were extremely underwhelming if compared to what ended the era: WW1)
This feels like the 1920s all over again. Germany is riddled with structural and economic failures, yet instead of addressing them, politicians are pivoting toward a war footing. The economy has been trapped in a cycle of recession and stagnation since the pandemic, but the current political response is to debate cuts to social benefits and tax increases. This is compounded by a self-inflicted energy crisis, shutting down every nuclear power plant has destabilized the energy market for the rest of Europe. Meanwhile, the AfD is polling at nearly 30% nationwide. History may not repeat itself, but it is definitely rhyming.
Why would I care what others do or don't do, know or don't know, like or don't like, when it comes to Germans serving other right-wing extremist Germans talking points and votes on a silver platter, because they cannot be arsed to actually read and take seriously the accounts and warning of historians who lived through those times? I can't even figure what point you think you are making.
It's still baffling to see the US lose so much face in so short a time.
There is definitely truth that Europe has relied on US defense for too long, but what the US got in return is hard to put into words and economic terms. We bought your tech, culture, defense and so much other stuff.
This rift won't close anytime soon
They're laughing all the way to the bank, the US has locked Europe into so many long-term petrochem supply contracts courtesy of two energy crises, and the US have stated point-blank that the supplies (of LNG, in this case) are tied to the US-EU trade treaty plus whatever changes the US wants to make.
Same protection racket plus a foot on the brake of the EU's push to renewables.
The renewables rollout just keeps going despite the discourse. It does mean buying things from China, which is now the least threatening option.
US sells a lot of other things to Europe that Europe doesn't have to buy. That includes tech. I'm not looking forward to the ensuing trade war but it's not a one way street by any means.
Even before Trump, and the invasion of Ukraine, it was transparently obvious that the idea of minimum spending commitment to NATO was intended to prop up the US arms industry rather than actually achieve anything military.
To a certain extent the US occupation of Germany was intended to prevent Germany rearming on its own.
Minor nitpick: you meant "lose", not "loose". It's a common mistake that I see around, and I think it might be useful for you to know :)
I dabble in correcting other people’s spelling on occasion (can’t help it). Somewhat frustratingly, the usual reaction is “language evolves” and “everyone uses it this way” and “if it is understood, it does not matter how you wrote it”.
Corrected
It's a classic case of falling for your own BS.
The world's rules were written by them, for them, and their allies notably european countries were willing to go along for the ride for all the side benefit of said safety and stability, both pretended it was a gift out of niceness while it was actually massively profitable
But then a portion of the US started believing the whole gift part, and now they're destroying their own control of the world order and forcing other to realign out of their control
The PAX Americana established from '45 and expanded globally after the Soviet Union fell is so all-encompassing that people can't see beyond it anymore. They just can't see the forest as they've been between the trees all their lives.
We've truly fell for our own tricks as we call it "international rulebased order" which hides the fact that it's just a benevolent dictatorship under the American Federal government.
As we say in Dutch: trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback. Perhaps now it leaves in a Boeing.
This will forever change the US' role in the world.
I wish I could upvote you twice, because that's exactly what's happening.
> But then a portion of the US started believing the whole gift part, and now they're destroying their own control of the world order and forcing other to realign out of their control
I'm still not sure whether Trump actually believes it or if he's just using it as a propaganda tool. I remember how he reported a conversation with Macron telling him that Macron will have to increase the cost of drugs for French citizens. It was so completely out of touch as drug pricing works completely different in the EU. But he definitely likes to directly imply that all positive aspects of life in Europe are being sponsored by the USA (rather than citizens paying higher taxes). Who knows, maybe he believes it, I wouldn't be surprised really.
The US is teetering on the edge of a financial abyss. These are all just foreshocks.
People say this about a lot of places, and even Greece is now kind of OK. The US is not yet Argentina. The bad governance is mostly exporting problems to elsewhere, like the new oil crisis for east Asia.
Even the ""government shutdown"" (just ended) isn't a problem. It turns out that you don't have to pay air traffic controllers for months.
If this is true, it's more true of the larger European countries.
> The US is teetering on the edge of a financial abyss.
Do you say this because of the outstanding debt? Otherwise, just their top 10 publicly traded companies earn more than all but 2 countries. Just the US defense budget ($1T and estimated $1.5T next year), which exports US foreign policy globally, absolutely dwarfs every other country's.
They bought all that stuff, but it was also a choice.
I wish Europe was more organized as a group and assertive. But as it stands I don't think Europe is capable of that for reasons beyond just "we bought a lot of stuff". Politically I'm just not sure they're capable.
And this is a good for EU. In past decades EU lost energy independence and good part of nuclear because croocked politicians that took dictatorships money while feeding same dictator with oil and gas money.
At the same time EU had no proper army to defend itself because dependance on US or a way to supply said army.
Europe sans Russia does not produce uranium - why people constantly paint this as an independent energy source is beyond me. Of all Russian energy companies, it was Rosatom that could not be sanctioned.
Conflict with allies is not a good thing for anyone, apart from nationalism.
The dictator now makes more money, so we just lost our cheap gas source, and we buy more expensive oil from others.
People finally started seeing America's true colors
We didn't 'rellied on US defense'. We have a different policy...
We have Mauser, Carl Walther, Sauer & Sohn, Haenel, DWM, Krupp, Reinmetall, Hckler & Koch and more. We know how to do military
I hope you're French, otherwise you are still relying on US defense.
Anybody who had the pleasure to go through relationship with mentally unstable person (for the lack of better words, if I had to guess some undiagnosed borderline disorder on a scale 1-2 out of 10 mixed with some childhood traumas) sees nothing out of ordinary - just daily chaos, tantrums, illogical destructive behavior and very little self-control on the other side.
Narcissism adds a curious twist, but of course for the worse.
The more shocking thing might even be that this whole mess is allowed to continue and that there is no way to stop an out of hand situation. The whole US system can't be trusted even when this administration is gone, it's just broken.
Short time?
No, the US has been losing its stance in the world since the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, murdering a million people in cold blood on the basis of outright lies.
It has been downhill ever since then. The support for the Gaza genocide is just one in a long list of atrocities for which the American state is responsible, and for which the entire world is starting to hold America responsible.
The rest of the world has been watching, and knows this - even if Americans, in their bubble, do not.
Its the war crimes, crimes against humanity, and massive violations of human rights at scale which cause the world to lose face in the American system.
Plus, the way Americans treat their own people - nobody wants to live like an American, any more.
Until someone comes up with an antidote for the warrior narcissism which inflicts a huge portion of American society, the maw of the abyss remains wide open.
Today it's Iran, or maybe Iraq 2003. Or maybe those pharma factories in Sudan in the 90s. Or perhaps the Serbia bombing. Or maybe Iraq 1991. Or again Panama in 88. Or maybe Grenada. Or maybe Laos. Cambodia. Vietnam. Haiti. Japan. China. Phillipines. Cuba. etc.
It's always something. We are always losing our stance.
I’m not from the US and not trying to defend the US actions, but on Iraq and Gaza, much of Europe takes the same position and goes along with it (and even directly joined the wars and sent troops).
I find the online opinion on Europe / US relations interesting. Online you’d think Europe and US are about to split. But in real life, Europe is more dependent on the US than ever. In terms of energy (Russian fossil fuels basically replaced by US fossil fuels), defense, economy (European economy relatively smaller now than 20 yrs ago), and they just finished signing very one sided deals where they guarantee energy purchases and investment after the tariff war. I think there’s a disconnect between European commenters and European politicians.
> But the U.S. has made it clear that it wants to concentrate on the Indo-Pacific and the threat posed by China's powerful military, rather than propping up Europe.
If that were true they wouldn't have wasted enormous amounts of expensive ammunition in Iran.
One, I feel like the "propping up Europe" is preposterous when europe is buying those things, not getting them for free, just like american weapon delivery to Ukraine have been paid by europe and not free for a long while now.
Two, the US wasting of ammunition in an ill-prepared fight against Iran that has not produced any of the result they claim to want but managed to make things instable for a lot of the world has nothing to do with helping Europe.
Every year for like the last decade I've heard "pivot to China" proceeded by the US using its various European bases to attack something in the Middle East.
Ukraine soldiers had some comments on US military guidelines for use of patriots that they saw in this war - incredibly wasteful, where up to 10-15 rockets are used per 1 incoming shahed. They just set the system in automatic mode, let it select targets and fire at its will, and run for the bunker.
Ukrainians, having very little of those (or nothing now), used 1 patriot missile per 1 boogey with little drop in effectiveness, and whole crew remained in and guided it manually. According to them system is built to be wasteful to increase those interception numbers marginally, but for anything but short exchange its a very bad design mistake that can be easily overwhelmed or depleted, as seen trivially exploitable by enemy.
Iran is imo. in parts about china. Controlling the strait of Hormuz means controlling a significant amount of energy supplies if china. Same thing with Venezuela.
How’s all the ‘controlling’ coming along?
The US look like fools.
relevant Norm Macdonald
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXdtafGdIVM
>that had never been tried before
Napoleon would like a word.
I don't know how many of you are history buffs...
The problem with this, historically is that the way Europe's geography works, a number of countries are just not going to fairly share in the burden of defending Europe, while other countries have the ability to tax foreign trade. Ireland is famous for this, and looking at a map, you can see why. Spain, Turkey and Denmark have historically taxed foreign trade.
Additionally a number of countries have "unfair" advantages over others. There are 2 straits that control access to the oceans. Which means Denmark and Norway control free trade routes (land routes are not "free" as in they are taxed) into Germany, Sweden, Finland, the Baltics, and of course Russia. This can't be fixed, and the UK effectively occupies Gibraltar to prevent it.
Spain (I'd say Spain and Morocco, but really ... Spain) controls sea access for all Mediterranean countries, from Italy to Georgia, Algeria to Greece. France (and Morocco) being the major exceptions to this. This can't be fixed, and is currently blocked by what is effectively an international force. Spain is not happy with this.
Turkey controls (and intends to tax) trade routes into all the black sea countries, which is most of Eastern Europe.
Oh and UK and the Netherlands, for reasons that are slightly less obvious, control free trade into Belgium.
In addition to this, most countries do not have the resources they need. Not even to survive. And even most countries that could be self-sufficient, aren't (cough Germany, really, WHY????). Really only France is somewhat close to self-sufficient. Specialization, on a country level, is a necessity in Europe, most countries do not have access to free trade routes and are utterly dependent on trade, in other words: they have to pay to survive.
Essentially the situation is simple: all European countries, except France. Spain, UK and Portugal (and, yes, Ireland) COULD get themselves into a secure position, but haven't (and so if it came to it, it would be very hard to do in a short time). All other countries probably can't do it at all. So all these countries have good reason to attack each other.
So the question with getting Europe's armies weapons is: the natural situation is that they'll try to destabilize Europe rather than stabilize it, because that is in most countries' direct economic interest. Historically, they ... you can say Europe was more peaceful than places like the areas of the ottoman empire, for example. But that should not be confused with peaceful in an absolute sense. In fact, the last 80 years or so have been remarkably peaceful, with America guaranteeing access to international trade. Well, I'm sure Russia would counter "guarantee access? You mean control access", and yes, that's been done.
Unfortunately it's very clear that America's power, especially measured relative to other countries, is waning. Meaning America is still far more powerful than, say, Turkey. But it used to be easily 100x more powerful. Now ... it looks more like 10x. Opposing Turkey will be a huge effort for the US, far more than the Iran war will be. US's deal, the Pax Americana, was that America would simply guarantee free trade routes with it's military for everyone, in fact, that's what the Iran war is really about (free trade for everyone behind Hormuz). In exchange, US gets the dollar. Many nations, most obviously Iran, but Turkey, Indonesia, China, Somalia, ... have all taken steps to tax the trade routes they control, which will over time create an untenable trade situation for a very large number of countries.
The situation for Germany in the long term is a simple choice: they can either pay, or attack. We all know what their historical choice has been, as soon as you have a somewhat prolonged economic crisis. Germany is not alone in this, in fact all of Eastern Europe is more or less in the same situation. A decent chunk of those countries are arming themselves (for example, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and Finland have all given hints they're building a nuclear force)
The problem with America weakening is that the US wants free trade, because that directly benefits the US greatly, whereas most other factions want to control trade instead. Turkey, Iran, China, Indonesia, even Spain's current government if we're honest and others want to (go back to) taxing other countries. Historically they have succeeded at this, but it resulted in constant wars.
Rather odd nineteenth century outlook that doesn't mention the European Union.
We work together in europe and we are not arming ourselves to fight european partners but because of russia
Yes ... countries that can't decide to invest in their own hospitals or education are going to arm themselves to pursue wars to protect little states thousands of kilometers away they barely even trade with. I haven't even mentioned that even as part of NATO they have systematically refused to invest in the defense of the Baltic states. That is not ancient history, that's 6 months ago. Oh and they're financing this with loans. EU government debt is already a pretty heavy burden in ... essentially everywhere except Germany. So they're kicking the can down the road, and this is military investment. It's not going to improve anything about the EU. It'll either do nothing at all (that's the optimal scenario: Russia is deterred and nothing happens. The economic production rots away in some secret basement until it literally decays into dust) or it'll cause destruction. Its value is either zero or MINUS trillions. The loans, however, will need to be repaid.
I'm just thinking ahead to what will happen once these loans turn from a short-term economic boost and start dragging the economies further down.
even Spain's current government
Where do you get this from? Is this a remark that comes from antipathy to social democracy? Every speech by Sanchez that I have listened to over the last year has him promoting free trade, even the wiki says so:
Sánchez has been a strong advocate for finalizing the long-negotiated EU–Mercosur Free Trade Agreement,[170] which aims to establish one of the world's largest free trade areas.[171]
He is pushing really hard to renegotiate Gibraltar, and has even booked some success there (the fence is taken down). He's artifically pushing the Spanish economy in the region, and he's also sending in ships on a regular basis (no change from previous Spanish governments there) that UK has to chase away.
Why do you think that is? If you want to know: Spain's official story is they want it back because "it's inconveniently placed" (they imply they mean for the Spanish fishing industry).
> Historically, they ... you can say Europe was more peaceful than places like the areas of the ottoman empire
Um... WHAT?
I'll just leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe
Yep. Really. As I said, not because Europe was very peaceful (although most of these conflicts were extremely underwhelming if compared to what ended the era: WW1)
German Engineering, loosing two world wars and counting.
Germany didn't lose ww2 because of engineering
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j20voPS0gI
Once all the Germans were warlike and mean,
But that couldn't happen again.
We taught them a lesson in 1918
And they've hardly bothered us since then.
Nah, it's mostly the Prussians. Those Bavarians and Austrians and other southerns are too jolly.
Nobody has ever heard of an Austrian starting a war.
you certainly don't know how belligerent the Hapsburgs were
Downvoted for Tom Lehrer?!
Oh right. Germans don’t understand sarcasm. Ha.
This feels like the 1920s all over again. Germany is riddled with structural and economic failures, yet instead of addressing them, politicians are pivoting toward a war footing. The economy has been trapped in a cycle of recession and stagnation since the pandemic, but the current political response is to debate cuts to social benefits and tax increases. This is compounded by a self-inflicted energy crisis, shutting down every nuclear power plant has destabilized the energy market for the rest of Europe. Meanwhile, the AfD is polling at nearly 30% nationwide. History may not repeat itself, but it is definitely rhyming.
If we’re comparing Nazis, can we include both sides of the Atlantic?
Why would I care what others do or don't do, know or don't know, like or don't like, when it comes to Germans serving other right-wing extremist Germans talking points and votes on a silver platter, because they cannot be arsed to actually read and take seriously the accounts and warning of historians who lived through those times? I can't even figure what point you think you are making.
I wasn't comparing Nazis but the reality. Maybe that's your narrative