The article's headline says Germany is "supercharging its military", but for somebody who's been following the development of the German armed forces, it's more like "patching the most glaring, gaping holes".
A journalist would never misrepresent such a thing.
Germany must be having a spontaneously explosion of defense competence, just in the nick of time. We're going to see tangible results regardless of obsticles in the near future, I'll hold my breath for it.
The key point is that Germany has finally loosened the debt brake, which has particularly strained the social system and infrastructure. In addition to the 1,000 billion euros allocated for social welfare and infrastructure, another 600 billion euros are designated for the military. The former is linked to the tense situation in social systems and the associated right-wing shift in Europe, while the latter is connected to the ongoing fascist counter-revolution in the USA.
Since the USA and companies based there are no longer reliable partners, Europe will stand alone in the future. This means that France and Germany are working together on a joint nuclear defense shield to ensure Europe's security and strengthen NATO's eastern borders.
That remains to be seen. Inflation will grow and the average worker will have to shoulder even more. Most of that money will be used to fill holes in collapsing social security systems anyway.
Problem for the military is that money doesn't buy soldiers anymore for the most part and very few like to pursue a military career.
> 1,000 billion euros allocated for social welfare
No, the money is definitely not meant for social programs, neither for affordable housing.
On the contrary, the debt brake was introduced to justify cutting social spending after the 2008 banking crash.
Social spending is still limited, debt financed military spending however is unlimited.
The money will go into fortifying bridges, roads for Truppentransporte, programs to protect civilians from disasters, emergencies, and armed conflicts. Military Keynesianism.
The political class is now debating ways to increase pressure on the population.. higher VAT, deregulate working hours, dropping public holidays, re-activate mandatory military service etc.
It depends on how SPD vs. CDU. For now they say its infrastructure and social.
Never the less, we should tax the rich and not talk about having a public holiday less.
The money system is owned by the Central Banking cartel (BIS club). The major holder of German debt is the ECB. This is not owned by states. It’s very enlightening to learn how it came to be.
Next big buyers of German debt are individual European banks (members of the cartel) and pension funds
(also known in Wall Street as “Dumb money”).
So, why not instead of "annexing Canada", or "shutting down Social Security", or fighting endless wars that require that we borrow money from this "club", we invade B.I.S. and shake them down? The 'sanctity of the international finance system' you say? :)
anti-war social movements are alive and well, despite this headline. Who is investing whose money, and who gets advantages in doing so? There is no "we" in the war machinery. Extra bonus points for putting ambitious women in front of the camera to ride the herds.
It's pretty crazy if you look at how much the US is/was spending on NATO in pure dollar amounts.
Since that's going to be cut back Germany and to a lesser degree France are the only countries left to take up the slack.
I don't have a really strong opinion either way in terms of what's happening in the US or in Europe, but the argument claiming that there's no real reason to spend money on the military seem pretty disingenuous re. Russia.
What's the real chances that Russia would do something like a land invasion of Europe? Really, really small.... But military spending is the thing helping keep those chances very small.
Most strategic thinkers in both Western and Eastern circles saw the chances of a full invasion of Ukraine as "Really, really small..." on Feb. 23, 2022.
Imperialist Russia is in its final throws prior to becoming "a normal country," like the rest of Europe. From the European point of view, keeping those insane throws to a minimum is worth every penny, both in human and economic costs.
> Imperialist Russia is in its final throws prior to becoming "a normal country," like the rest of Europe. From the European point of view, keeping those insane throws to a minimum is worth every penny, both in human and economic costs.
That is about as likely as "they're not going to invade" -- the guys picking up the piece after Putin look to be as, maybe even more, hardline and aggressive.
There is a reason someone tried to assassinate Dugin.
Reality dictates that Putin is not immortal. He will be replaced some time. Is now worse than later?
History shows that some of the worst actors in geopolitical history, Germany, Belgium, etc... can all become "normal countries" really quickly after they lose their final imperial war. Losing that last war was when the imperialist lunatics in their respective countries finally lost influence. It's very counterintuitive, but losing that last war is the key to long term success for most countries.
The point of deterrence is that you spend the money so the chance of Russia doing something like a land invasion of Europe is decreased.
The much more likely scenario that Europeans are wanting to prevent is a limited invasion in the Baltics or Balkans in order to politically divide and damage western democracies.
Not a single NATO partner has consistently met the 2% GDP spend mandate historically outside the US. The US spends aorund 50-60B a year for our 40+ bases in europe. But this is offset by nato expenditures. For example, Germany gives us a $1B a year for our bases.
Googling "Ukraine" the first words on the results page are "Ukraine,
Country in Europe".
I guess you are thinking of the more western bits of Europe or the bits that are in NATO but there isn't really a fundamental boundary.
That seems to be a bit of a flaw in the current 'peace negotiations' - Putin just wants a deal to carve up Ukraine agreed with the US and not involving Europe or the Ukranians but I'm not sure they are ok with that.
The caveat is that there's almost nobody in Germany who'd be physically fit and or motivated to actually fight a war. Germany was systematically drained off anything even remotely resembling patriotism. This was politically and legally enforced by borderline criminalizing terms like Heimat (home / homeland), forget about displaying its flag without raising eyebrows. Its cultural DNA is diluted to an extent that I'd be hesitant to even call it a country - it's basically just an area with lots of people living on it. There's no coherent society anymore. The war machines will all be sold to other countries. Rich people will get richer and the plebs will be brought to heel with orchestrated fear. It's a funny irony that the warmongers in German politics are the same people who'd have taken any opportunity to express their contempt for anything military up until only a few years ago.
Everyone except the US is going to come out stronger on the other end of this mess. Too many Americans believe the world would be screwed without the US and the USD, they can’t imagine trading being done in RMB or EUR, yet it is already happening. As a German that has lived in the US for over 10 years I just watch and wonder. Moving back to Germany is a more enticing prospect than it has been for a long time. I know a lot of Europeans that have moved or are planning their move. I don’t mean they talk about plans, they are buying land, building houses, etc.
I don’t agree with the current direction, but I also think most people don’t understand how large the US defense budget is relative to other countries.
The US defense budget is around $850 billion.
Depending on the year you look at, the US defense budget is larger than around 7-9 of the next largest budgets from other countries combined.
If you add up all of the countries in the world, the global total is around $2.5 trillion. The United States makes up 1/3rd of that.
The US defense budget also hasn’t been a target for cuts, which is a topic of debate.
So while there’s a lot of headlines being made about other countries increasing their defense spending, the numbers are closer to a rounding error in the US defense budget than a massive global power shift. People scoff at the idea of the US being a global military powerhouse because they don’t like the idea, but the bottom line is that when you look at the numbers there really is a reason that the US military is so important, and it comes down to sheer size and spending.
The US defense complex is large but it’s also inefficient and sclerotic, partly as a direct result of those fat budgets that have created a many decades old culture of graft and waste.
A country with less of this cost disease could probably be competitive with 1/4 the spend or less, especially if they skip big heavy Cold War era tech in favor of faster cheaper stuff like drones and smart munitions. Aircraft carriers and manned fighters look cool but I’m not sure how much they matter anymore.
What I see from the EU is that while they do also have cost disease, it might not be as entrenched in that sector. They also have Russia directly adjacent to them, which motivates people to actually care.
If Mexico were belligerent with a history of imperialism, had nuclear weapons and a huge army, and had just invaded and taken Cuba, we’d be in a similar situation and similarly motivated. As it stands we have a “big beautiful ocean” between us and Russia and do not face a direct threat. The US is almost uninvadeable unless you sterilized it with nukes first, and we have those too.
> For instance, the cost of German Puma tanks was exploded by regulations requiring them to be able to safely carry pregnant soldiers without exposing their amniotic fluids to munitions fumes.
This sounds like the German version of the bendy bananas lie told to Brits about EU regulations, a lie enveloped around some small fact and overblown to look as ridiculous as possible.
Also, the Greens pushing for money to wean Germany off gas is probably quite good for national security, not directly military related but does help in 2nd order effects (less reliance on fossil fuels saves the German economy from being a hostage to cheap gas as well as helps keeping fuel for the military if the need arises).
Nothing dishonest or overblown about the EU regulating bendy bananas. The EU even admitted its regulation of misshapen fruit was stupid and wasteful in a press release:
You aren't the first HN poster to claim this was some sort of British propaganda, even though the regulations are perfectly readable online and still in effect. You can just search for "eu bendy bananas" and the first hit is a Wikipedia page all about it. Where does this idea that it was British propaganda come from? What are European media telling you about this?
You're misrepresenting what the link says, and it doesn't even apply to bananas.
What is does say is that certain fruits and vegetables don't benefit from "minimum marketing standards" and some misshapen products may be sold if labeled as intended for processing.
What all this is is reasonable efforts to define standards for marketing, but it misrepresented by "British propaganda" as something hysterical, just like you misrepresent the press release for the sake of your straw man argument.
They said they wanted to change the rules to allow that, not that it'd always been that way from the start. The original claims that led to them admitting it was dumb weren't "hysterical" (since when is pointing out regulation even the EU admits is bad hysterical?)
Why don't you address the point instead of prevaricating? The narrative you're describing is not based on any facts but simple hate for the EU. Rejecting the plain facts doesn't help you.
The story about Puma being designed with the rules for pregnant woman in mind is widely circulated, but almost certainly false. The Bundeswehr clarified publicly that a tank is not a workplace as defined in those regulations.
There's certainly huge problems with procurement in the German military. But it's also not an uncommon story in other countries that the per-unit costs get really bad because the order is drastically reduced later.
Almost certainly false? The source is the CEO of the manufacturer who complained about specific requirements in the contracts issued by the Bundeswehr itself.
> For example, one of the more than 100 "relevant documents" for the development contract for the infantry fighting vehicle stipulates that the technical regulations for hazardous substances must also be observed. These stipulate that the carbon monoxide content must not exceed a certain limit, as otherwise there is a risk of "damaging the amniotic fluid" in pregnant soldiers. The air inside the Puma must therefore be so clean that even pregnant women can ride safely.
Another problem in a related vein: the Pumas have fire extinguishers which brick the vehicles by spraying powder into the engines. Normal extinguishers that keep the vehicle operational are banned because the gases aren't friendly enough to the ozone layer. This was admitted to be a problem and never fixed.
Manufacturers want to sell vehicles. They usually don't wish to comply with expensive rules as they do so. If they're complaining about regulations that make manufacturing hard, and doing things like equipping their vehicles with fire extinguishers that break the engines, then at minimum the Bundeswehr has screwed up its acquisitions and communications process so badly that its suppliers are confused about what they should do. More likely the manufacturers are correct and the people writing the rules didn't think through the consequences of what they wrote.
If you're not using your defense assets to fight your enemies, but start siding with your enemies, your defence budget is a sink of which I wouldn't be proud that it is big.
I previously cofounded a miltech startup in the US (as a foreigner), and have currently funded a European-based one (again as a foreigner). Nothing big, although we were able to exit the first one at a good-enough situation via an IP sale (which was practically forced upon us).
The US and European defence markets are very different. USA has a larger pie, but it's also very fragmented. More fragmented means more contractors and subs, which keep adding more layers of pricing into the contract. European defence is more consolidated - you have the few big players who get all the contracts, so there's very little room for new entrants to come in but that also means less layers to work with. This makes the final product less expensive compared to the American ones, at the cost of fewer specialized features added in by niche contractors. That's in part due to the nature of the militaries too - the American military will request frequent changes and new features to new battle conditions on the go, to the point of making your product the equivalent of military SAP - very flexible and usable for any battlefield situation, but also very bloated to develop and operate. On the other hand, European military contracts are usually relatively static in comparison, which means that the burden of knowledge acquisition and operating under different situations falls on the operator and not the technology itself. The last bit is also what translates into budgeting - American products are delivered with significant delays and higher costs due to back-and-forth bureaucracy internally, while European products can be delivered sooner if there is a pressure to deliver - like if the customer is a priority customer who has paid significantly upfront (read, Arab militaries).
I would argue that the US military sector is artificially inflated, because it's a significant jobs programme for the huge network of firms, contractors and subcontractors. In a way, it's a military budget that's adjusted for the economy size and not for the actual needs of the military. That lets the US military also fund a ton of whacky pioneering technology that's at the forefront of the innovation (like the internet, or drones, or even social media manipulation), but it also leaks a lot of money through the cracks for ostensibly results that are only marginally better than European countries with comparable militaries such as the UK and France.
That being said, it's much easier and more lucrative to start up in the US than anywhere else, at least till now. Second would be the UK, although with their exclusion from the recent European defence loans programme, that's questionable now. France is increasingly pulling its weight now, and I'm expecting a lot of growth here. The French government has been exceedingly friendly for miltech companies for a while now.
I worked for an FFRDC on a DARPA project a bit more than a decade ago having to do with communication jammers. It was terribly managed. There were two projects going on at my organization that were basically the same thing but with two different PIs, teams, test beds, etc. We ended up wasting so much time and money doing non-R&D work with very little oversight from DARPA.
I honestly feel that US military money is thrown around like you said in such a fragmented way, that I can't imagine other countries NOT being an order of magnitude more efficient. It kind of reminds me of our healthcare spending and how much we spend but for such little ROI compared to other developed countries.
> I can't imagine other countries NOT being an order of magnitude more efficient.
I can. I imagine that, while the US military bureaucracy is horrible, it is not uniquely horrible. Other countries have bureaucracies, too, and they are not an order of magnitude better than the US ones.
Or so I imagine. I confess that I have no first-hand experience with non-US military R&D bureaucracies.
Exactly. It's like saying healthcare is big business in America when it's because it's unnecessarily bloated and super inefficient only due to America's own idiosyncratic quirks and regulatory capture. Like there are countries with similar private systems which still manage to do better with far less resources, simply because they have some form of government oversight.
Europa spending on defense was around 280 Billion in 2023. IIRC this is the second highest after the US. But this is just changing now, without the US as a partner anymore.
I have difficultly understanding this point of view, although I'm sure it is not uncommon.
Why do people believe it would it be an economically good decision to buy land and build houses in Germany, a place with negative GDP, no long term energy independence solution except for returning to coal, sharp curtailments on basic free speech, press, and assembly, and a massive military build-up which will require high levels of debt, cutting social spending, or both?
Is it more about a question of national feeling and patriotism and the details aren't as important as the national pride, or is there an underlying economic analysis? It's also possible that Germany will simply deindustrialize, financialize, do debt-based stimulus, and accelerate the pace of mass migration further, which would indeed be good for home prices for remote owners who continue to live abroad.
The big difference is if you are comparing the situation of a German citizen in Germany to a US citizen in the US or to a German citizen in the US. If you are an immigrant in a country where you don't have a subjective right to live, you obviously have fewer basic rights than a German citizen in Germany.
Thats not true. There are another 1000 Billion going into social and infrastructure in germany right now. It's not like in the US, where you only can have military or social spending.
Overall the military spendings was 280 Billion in 2023 in the EU. This is just increasing since the US is not a trustworthy partner anymore. FR and Germany just building up a stronger nuclear defence system for the EU and stronger borders to the east.
Are you saying FIRE is teutonphobic and the report is false, that those were all irish nazis engaging in terrorist plots, or that immigrants should have fewer rights to speech than citizens?
There are certainly some problems in Germany that need to be solved, but you're painting a very extreme and absolute picture here that is pretty far from the truth.
Free speech is different in Germany than the US, that doesn't mean we don't have free speech in Germany. The US doesn't have the one and only true definition of free speech. And right now Trump is assaulting free speech in the US, so those lectures from Vance and others are just blatant, partisan rethoric.
We're not returning to coal. The economy could be better, but it's not as terrible as you imply.
If you're not returning to coal, and you're anticipating further hostilities with Russia, then you're buying liquid natural gas from the US at much higher prices than are paid by both US and Chinese industry + domestic consumers.
Germany returning to coal would be a bitter pill to swallow, but insisting that Germany will remain competitive despite much higher energy costs which only get worse with scale by saying "it's not that bad" is not convincing.
Free speech, free press, and free assembly is under another round of attacks many places, including Germany, The United States, Russia, Israel, and Turkey, among others. Some are relatively better than others and some had very little left to fall, but all are in absolute decline.
As I'm in favor of free speech as a universal value and not an apologist for anyone's domestic authoritarianism, I don't consider the hypocrisy of the speaker to be a good justification to sweep aside mutually unflattering facts about state policy.
> Germany returning to coal would be a bitter pill to swallow
Impossible. Net zero was put at constitutional level to get the necessary votes from the greens. (And they were losing that voting power in the elected congress)
The funny thing is that if you listen to Trump and the MAGA folks, they explicitly do not believe that the world would be screwed without the US and USD, and further do not believe that the US should care if they were. Trump's whole schtick with NATO is that Europe should be defending itself, not relying on the US.
So while the left and center of the US largely views this whole saga as a catastrophic loss of the US brand and foreign policy aims, this kind of rearmament is exactly what Trump promised his base he'd make happen.
That sounds true to me, at least related to the MAGA-adjacent people I know from the US.
The thing is that I never expected the US to just willingly throw away what I (and many others) perceived to be its actual greatest source of strength. The US had built, along with its impressive military, an equally impressive web of friendly nations that allowed it to project its power to a degree that was impossible to match. Even in a world where China kept rising, they would have trouble to compete with the US in this field, because the window of opportunity to build this was like 70 years ago.
China was trying for the next best thing, wooing countries in Africa and Latin America to slowly build a web of friendly nations of its own. Not the same, if you ask me.
That the US would freely squander all their multi-decades investments in a matter of months was unthinkable.
I personally enjoy what is happening. As someone that lives in an EU country, I thought the EU needed this kind of nudge to further integrate, and the US influence always irked me. I am cautiously optimistic for the next few years here.
"We have a lot of leverage, and even if we don't, then we don't have to pay to be the worlds police" - is largely how I (also a european) have seen Trumps actions.
The "issue", is that this is a populist take.
It's weirdly not in Americas interest to take that stance, because they are a defacto world government with the amount of soft power they are able to exert, militarily and in trade.
So, the GP is quite right, people are waking up to the idea that this soft power was running kinda deep and we shouldn't just allow ourselves to get soft too.
Just like an insurance company will find a way not to pay: the US may never have actually come to the aid of Europe; and nobody thought about that, they just accepted most of what the US was asking in the hope that they would.
The lesson will be painful in the short-term, but I'm also hopeful that we take it seriously and start investing in ourselves.
> So while the left and center of the US largely views this whole saga as a catastrophic loss of the US brand and foreign policy aims, this kind of rearmament is exactly what Trump promised his base he'd make happen.
It's a catastrophic loss of influence. It's a good thing for Europe but terrible for the US. I think that Trump will end up fulfilling his promise is co-incidental. Trump's a lose cannon who's alienated all of America's friends, that he achieved some relatively minor goal is like being proud of losing weight because you have cancer.
Europe has a chance here to become a political superpower, strongly eroding the US centric world view and having influence though something other than brute force of money or military power, which is what China and US are trying to project.
Saved monies can be used to reduce taxes, to rearm or rebuild.
Also, military spending can be reduced by reducing military costs in the USA. Wait until DOGE gets it's scalpel on the Pentagon's budget: likely much can be saved there.
Remember Eisenhower's warning about the "military-industrial complex"
The defense industry has run rampant since long before Eisenhower's presidency. Trump is likely to make some serious cuts in the defense budget, deeper than we've seen in decades.
One promise i would love to see him keep is turning the liabilities in europe into an asset. Instead of paying for european security, if we can charge them for security and sell them weapons and tech from our big contractors, the US wins.
Yeah, that's not happening. Summarily burning down bridges is a great way to stop people from mooching off you, but that's because they now know they can't rely on you to be a stable foundation.
If they can't trust us not to break our previous promises, why in the world would they trust us with their national security-critical business?
What threat to its integrity? The 40 bases that have kept peace for the last 80 years? The massive amounts of funding that we have sent to aid europe through USAID and other orgs? The tech, and drugs and discoveries?
We do not have to protect you forever, and us forcing you to step up military spending to comply with the UN mandates as there is an active war on your doorstep? Ensuring equal tarrifs from both sides?
I don't know why the US taking itself off massively taxing it's citizens and increasing government revenue through tarrifs, is called a "Trade war".
People seem to be so reliant on the US that the slightest sign that we aren't going to continue to hand out everything, people start getting hysterical.
Annexation of Greenland. It is part of Denmark as of now, even if it is not exactly a part of EU. The fact that you don't even seem to know that shows that you sre either arguing in bad faith or is ill informed.
> We do not have to protect you forever
Then leave. This arrangement benefits primarily the US.
> I don't know why the US taking itself off massively taxing it's citizens and increasing government revenue through tarrifs, is called a "Trade war".
You don't seem to understand how tariffs work either. Honestly, having this conversation with you is a waste of time.
> People seem to be so reliant on the US
Pehaps not anymore. We shall see. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
this could have happened if he tried to get this worked out behind closed doors. doing this shit he’s doing it would be a political suicide for any country to go along with it. if our former allies are no longer such, they won’t come to US to pay for shit - they will go elsewhere
But i think the states should take responsibility of the casualties of the wars they started.
The people seeking shelter here wouldnt knock on our door if foreign people funding their rebel groups or religious extremists.
Ever wonder why they got so many weapons and ammo? Russia and china was also interfering there so they grab the assets.
We provided airbases and barracks for the us-army, time to cash in the rent for so many years.
We dont have to take the risk getting our cities bombed because our lords and saviours found it funny to start a war in a foreign country...
I would suggest Trump should seek another country housing his war gear...
Also, if you are referring to Hitler's and Napoleon's failed campaigns on Russia, it's important to mention that those were fighting wars of aggression on multiple fronts against their European neighbors. It was not a united EU propping up defenses against real threats.
Funny. For me it's the other way around. I'm just laughing out loud at all the craziness. Maybe it depends on where you're living, on your citizenship status, wealth, whatever.
When I read this, as an American it really strikes me what a trade-off the implementation of social democracy is. It does seem like they are correlated.
I wish that the USA did better on taking care of people, (because it sucks right now) but some on the left act as if there are no consequences to deciding to implement these things.
I don't think there is any connection between lack of VC capital and whatever "social democracy" you have in mind. I think it is actually just culture. Europeans are risk averse, pessimistic and cynical. And society is still more elitist than in the new world. Because of these reasons a startup culture cannot flourish.
In the sibling thread I made the argument that culture might be the biggest reason why it's true.
Elitism / classism might be part the reason why social democracy is possible- if you believe that there are simply a group of people who need help in society you might be more willing to give to them.
If everyone is completely equal it might seem like no one actually deserves anything "more" than anyone else.
It's not social democracy, otherwise Sweden and Finland wouldn't punch so much above their weight.
It's most likely an artifact of smaller, less liquid capital pools and the fact that the US is a really easy large market to tap into, leading to European startups investing into the US market in preference to their own.
> When I read this, as an American it really strikes me what a trade-off the implementation of social democracy is. It does seem like they are correlated.
In my experience working with some former European entrepreneurs, the startup problem isn’t really directly related to anything about social democracy or safety nets or even taxes.
They talked about how difficult, painful, and risky it was for them to start and operate a company at every turn. Even things like bankruptcy and allowing founders to move on with their lives if their startup fails, which we take for granted here, are not a given in European countries.
It’s not just the government to blame. The private banking and even societal norms are very different in ways that we don’t even consider in the United States.
The US is very friendly to funding and building startups. I didn’t appreciate it until talking to ex-founders from various European countries as well as many founders here who explicitly left EU countries for America because they wanted to start a company.
Bankruptcy law is a big one. Another big one is the reputation hit that you are going to incur if your startup fails. Europe does not believe in learning through failure. It is puzzling to a European, that there could be serial entrepreneurs with a history of 3 failed startups who still get funding for their fourth attempt.
We can agree to disagree without name-calling, but the impact of compounding growth vs intentional stagnation is going to continue to widen the gap that's already opened up over a few generations.
You'll discover that compounding growth is useless to YOU, when Trump and Musk are taking 99.9% of it. Wages are stagnant. The US is #24 on the world’s happiest countries list, and has been dropping for a long while. At the top of the list, we find socialist countries with access to world-class public services like healthcare and education -- which the US is currently trying very hard to gut. The last time something like this happened, it took a Great Depression and intense widespread economic pain for Americans to snap out of it. Inequality is destabilizing and Americans are clueless (see inflation leading to Trump), so I think Europe is likely to do better in the long run.
These socialist countries that are so happy because of the money they pour into healthcare and education, do so at the expense of their future growth and their own self defense.
This seems unsustainable.
The US is also a much larger and heterogenous society compared to the countries above us on most lists, such as the scandinavian countries or Lichtenstein.
Anecdotally, when the homeless have smart phones to accept donations and obesity is an epidemic of the poor, we're not suffering for material wealth. A poverty of virtue, maybe so.
This comment is sadly wrong, like saying "the sky is green". I recommend you talk to chatGPT (4o+) and learn something. Nordic countries combine high taxes and spending with competitive, open economies. Denmark and Sweden have high labor productivity and GDP per capita, etc. These societies are no longer homogeneous.
Talk to the bot. Ask open-ended questions, ask for sources, read those sources. I don't have the patience to work with blind ideological bias. Like I said before, usually the only thing that helps Americans snap out of it is intense economic pain, which should happen between 2025-2035 with high cost of living, social safety net collapse, climate disasters, and maybe even AI job displacement at scale.
In a hypothetical hacker news guide for how to win friends and influence people, I'm pretty sure "you're so wrong you should go talk to a chat bot" is not a recommended approach.
I hope you're right, for what it's worth. It's a better world than "the only thing that helps Europeans snap out of it is intense economic pain combined with a Russian invasion of the Baltics"
Go debate creationists for a while then come tell me I'm being abrasive. Believe me this is the easiest way when we disagree on basic facts.
US culture (especially among white men) has a lot of internalized individualist, anti-union, and anti-government views, despite the incredible success of the New Deal (combined socialism+capitalism) in creating their entire world. The bot is really the best way to counter these attitudes. It beats spending hours on google.
Keep in mind: republicans are low information voters, and additionally they tend to be single issue voters.
So 99% of them probably don't care about this particular thing. They care about abortion, or "corruption", or welfare queens, or something else.
They have no idea the entire point of this exercise is to gut our public infrastructure so they can give hand-outs to their cronies companies to do the exact same job, but more expensive.
> Too many Americans believe the world would be screwed without the US and the USD, they can’t imagine trading being done in RMB or EUR, yet it is already happening.
Most Americans who voted for this (and to some extent their representatives) genuinely and seriously do not think about this matter with any depth and don’t care about the knock-on effects one bit.
They lack any desire to know if the world would be screwed or not by US actions. They really just don’t care.
They (think that they) want isolationism, less trade, less immigration, less interacting with others.
> Presumptive Chancellor Friedrich Merz has decided that now is the moment for Germany to invest in its military, on levels not seen since the Cold War
Now? After spending billions funding Putin’s war with gas money. Especially after watching him annex Crimea in 2014, or taking Ukraine’s NATO’s membership off the table after Bucharest summit.
Now they finally see how dangerous he is! Better later than never I guess…
In perverse way they are also doing Trump’s bidding who chastised them for not investing enough in defense.
I don't understand the angle of remarks like this. Russia invaded Ukraine, Germany pulled back money going to Russia, and Germany is now investing where it's appropriate.
Are we expecting them to re-litigate this problem until the end of time instead of addressing the problem?
Currently as it stands for all great chest thumping for "supporting Ukraine" EU as a whole is spending more money funding the war by buying gas and oil from the Russian than helping Ukraine. But somehow in the media ___domain, they managed to position themselves as great friends and supporters of Ukraine. It's quite baffling.
> I dont pretend to understand it but I also dont think you should minimize it to just one or two transactions.
I think no matter how complicated when it comes to regular citizens, not those who have a political science degree, there should be some basic understanding. One doesn't need an advanced degree to see things things like hypocrisy, corruption and lies.
One would expect that when a politician goes on camera and says "Putin is a killer! We support Ukraine" then turns around and writes $1B to Putin every month, people would be a bit dismayed at the hypocrisy. Especially when they got a fair warning about it. One might suggest that we hide the fact that we supported Putin and strengthened the dependence on Russian energy for so long in order not upset the public too much as it's too controversial and disturbs the peace, sure. However, at some point that made-up fantasy has to collide with reality, and that's what is happening now I think. The longer we live in a fantasy world the harder the crash with reality will be later on.
Unless we're talking about an authoritarian regime and it falls with a revolution, then it's hard to blame the new leaders that much. But in case of democratically elected government it is worth pointing out the electorate and the people around the government apparatus when they made a strategically bad choice. Not just to berate them but with an eye toward improving the situation in the future.
Everyone optimistic about this, but looking at the past decade, I don't think we have much to look for.
This is Germany/Bundeswehr we're talking about. They already decided on 100 billion after the Russian attack in 2022, a plan that didn't really pan out. The Bundeswehr is famous for its overspending, backwards/lazy ethics, rampant right-wing/neonazi ties. German, and let's be honest, EU government is - even now - in "play it safe" mode, not even big on words, even less on actions. They fumbled virtually every crisis since the 2000s. They let Orban/Putin puppets run rampant and veto most of the botched little help they provided, and still think he can be reasoned with after 15 years. They thought the same of Russia right up the second until a full scale invasion of Ukraine, 8 years after it started to attack it.
Europe is just hopelessly fractured, with no identity, hazy goals and an increasingly degrading economical power. I wish it weren't so, but we didn't manage to unite the forces of these 27 nations beyond some superficial economical agreements.
Even if WWIII is not a consequence of all this senseless and reckless militarization, each and every penny spent on it will end up missing dearly for fighting human civilization's real fight of this century: combatting climate change. It's even worse, since this kind of spending will make it even worse.
I'm afraid humanity is blowing it for good with this.
The militarization is a response to the fact that a world war is already underway, and a key ally of those accelerating militarization is either bowing out or actually switching sides.
A world war will not be the result of the militarization, just like it wasn't a result of the militarization Britain undertook after the 1938 Munich crisis.
Isn't the opposite actually the case? Hegseth has called it a "division of labor." [0]
Ultimately when war breaks out with China, and a year in to that conflagration Russia (ever the opportunist) decides to take a few bites out of the Baltic states, who's going to defend Europe? The US military isn't omnipotent.
The opposite? You mean, the United States is increasing its integration with and support for its allies in the global conflict against the aggression of the Russian-centered alignment?
No, that's 100% not what is happening.
> Hegseth has called it a "division of labor."
Probably a lot more useful to look at concrete policy actions than Hegseth’s vague, content-free characterizations.
And it concrete reality, the US is cutting support for those who have been on the same side as it has, in some cases threatening them with violence and annexation, and provide aid and comfort to the aggressor that is the opponent that it had been working with others to defend against.
You're confusing tactics for strategy (as is the media, which is entirely necessary for the strategy to work). I could point you at the policy papers, but if you think the US can upend 70 years of foreign policy in the blink of an eye and without a fight, you can believe anything.
No, you're confusing wishful thinking fantasy justifications with concrete reality of actions and material effects.
> if you think the US can upend 70 years of foreign policy in the blink of an eye and without a fight, you can believe anything.
If you think it can't do that at the whim of the President (with or without a fight, since no opponent can win that fight), especially after a massive purge of the military leadership, you have an even more exaggerated fantasy view of the power of the "deep state" than even the paranoid fantasies -- that those presenting them don't even believe -- used as a pretext for the purge.
Yes, radical breaks in policy are possible, and the Trump Administration has been doing them in virtually every ___domain.
You're being overly dramatic. Germany has been spending low amounts of money on its military for two and a half decades. Circumstances changed and spending needs to be increased to adjust to the new situation. This is not militarization, it's the state fulfilling fundamental purpose of providing external security for its citizens. Spending is going to be less (relative to GDP) than in the 70s and 80s.
The agenda after WW2 was to not allow germany to militarize itself again and to keep the soviets out. Now it seems that germany is allowed to take it's safety in it's own hands again. Maybe there is more trust (western values?), maybe americans want to pull out? I still find it an astounding development. Maybe because it is an european project. Becoming adult. And the US has a bigger fish to fry.
There is definitely more trust toward Germany then toward USA or Russia now. Wither way, even if there was less trust, it does nit matter. Russia is very active threat and America is hostile toward Europe, threatens annexation of part of it ... while being friendly to Russia and other authoritarian regimes.
So, it is nor like there would be another choice.
German is at least teaching about own atrocities as about atrocities. Other countries have massively bigger problem to admit their past might have been ugly.
The historical german inability to correctly read geopolitical currents, anticipate their domestic dynamics, or understand international perceptions of Germany seems to be intact. It's true that The Atlantic Council and other US cultural-state entities aren't making it easier, but this is egregious.
No one looks to Germany for leadership on rule of law, or human rights, least of all Germans.
I did not said Germans are perfect. They are massively better then USA, they are overall trustworthy enough to trust them.
Your last link is about AfD being supported by Elon Musk. And second about other parties not wanting to cooperate with AfD - and while fascism is up everywhere, in America there is basically no functional opposition.
Sad to meet someone who doesn't care that they're going down the same river and over the same waterfall so long as someone else is going a little faster.
I know exactly what's in the links, what I don't know is why you believe it's logical to assume that every other human being must be a cheerleader for one group of corrupt authoritarians or another. Supporting either government as such is shameful and your descendants will be as ashamed of you as you are of yours.
I believe it's fine now because there's been another, better, solution that doesn't rely on spending so many $$$ on it; the EU. USA is probably not at all as worried about Germany as a country going crazy again.
Ironically, Hitler wanted to establish a third Reich - basically a new Roman empire that spanned all of... Europe. Funny how these things goes. Old wine in new bottles.
I don’t have the exact numbers, but for every billion not invested in healthcare, infrastructure, or clean energy, countless people will end up suffering or dying unnecessarily.
Take this study[0] as an example: austerity measures in Greece led to 10,000 avoidable infant deaths. Plenty of other studies show similar results, cutting social spending costs lives.
So how many deaths will come from shifting €800 billion from social programs to military budgets?
It’s a sure thing that this will cause suffering and death, while the idea that we need all that money for defense is just speculation, especially when the EU’s combined military budget is already far bigger than Russia’s.
The difference in Germany is that they made a historic change to their consitution where they are now able to grow their military by borrowing way more money. They are not moving money away from healthcare and infrastructure, they are actually creating a way to increase their military budget without having to move money away from healthcare and infrastructure (because in Germany, the money is sorely needed there as well).
Basically making more debt that the future generations will have to pay? The end result will be the same. These are just financial tricks, money can be created out of thin air but not resources, energy, etc.
I would even agree on this, but I wonder why do I never hear anyone requesting for the EU leadership to be held accountable for pursuing a policy of blind dependence on the US? We've cut ties with anyone the US disliked, only to be left alone all of a sudden, why aren't we looking for those responsible for this? I can tell you, many of them are currently in a position of power within the EU.
Right now we have top diplomats like Kallas saying publicly that we need to find a way to beat China, all while we already have problems with Russia and the USA. They are putting us in a corner against the rest of the world, and for what? Who has to benefit from this?
> I wonder why do I never hear anyone requesting for the EU leadership to be held accountable for pursuing a policy of blind dependence on the US?
The EU is a democratic institution. Its leaders are elected (or appointed by those who are elected). The way to hold them accountable is during elections.
I don't think that anyone campaigning on a platform to spend money on defense in EU would have been very successful prior to 2025. Things likely changed now.
I don't understand how Von Der Leyen got "elected" again then, given her horrible performance, and that only a 37% of Europeans views her favourably[0]. The catastrophic situation we find ourselves in developed under her commission, after all.
> The way to hold them accountable is during elections.
Given that VDL was elected by the EU parlament with secret ballot, how do I know which MEP voted her, so that I can vote someone else at the next EU elections?
Von der Leyen is president of the EU commission. Members of EU commission are appointed by each EU member head of state - who are all democratically elected. All EU countries should be democracies after all, although Hungary is certainly stretching this definition.
The president of the commission is appointed by the EU council (which is generally formed by the government of each member state), but has to be formally approved by the EU parliament.
If you are unhappy with how your countries' elected members of parliament (or how its head of state conducts your country position within the EU), you can vote to change it.
This includes decisions on which votes are by secret ballot.
Nothing of what I said is incorrect, yet you chose to provide a condescending and pointless explainer instead of addressing my arguments.
Why is VDL ruling the commission if her previous performance was terrible and she isn't viewed favorably by the majority of Europeans?
Why was she appointed by MPEs with secret ballot?
Given the current situation, do you really believe the democratic system in place for the EU provides efficient mechanisms for holding elected officials accountable for their actions?
I'd honestly expect better from the supposed "cradle of democracy".
> Nothing of what I said is incorrect, yet you chose to provide a condescending and pointless explainer instead of addressing my arguments.
I provided an explanation with no particularly condescending tone. I have no idea how your arguments were not addressed.
> Why is VDL ruling the commission if her previous performance was terrible and she isn't viewed favorably by the majority of Europeans?
The opportunity to change is in the regular elections, both at national and EU levels. That's when unpopular leaders are replaced.
The fact that a particular leader is unpopular does not mean much, as they are indirectly elected (as so happens in paliamentarism).
> Given the current situation, do you really believe the democratic system in place for the EU provides efficient mechanisms for holding elected officials accountable for their actions?
Yes, I do. Depending on what you mean by "held accountable", of course. People sometimes use this jargon in a very loaded manner.
The main problem I see is not the "accountability", as the commissioner is accountable to the council that picked them.
The main problem is that the council is formed by national government representatives. This mixes EU politics with local national politics. I may vote for a given party in national elections for local reaasons (e.g.: housing and transportation), but I may disagree with their stance on the EU level.
I don't know a good way to resolve this dissonance outside of some sort of federalization of the EU (something I think would be positive btw).
> The main problem I see is not the "accountability", as the commissioner is accountable to the council that picked them.
You realize that cannot work when both the council and the commissioner play on the same political agenda? For the council to hold the commissioner accountable it would mean to admit their own guilt. There is no incentive for them to do this, so there is no mechanism for accountability at all.
One example? VDL privately conducting EU business with Pfizer for a vaccine purchase on her phone (illicit) and refusing to provide the text messages to the EU's general court. All while her commission is supposedly based on defending standards of transparency, efficiency and so on.
What about her countless delusions about Russia's economy being about to collapse while all she accomplished was to send EU in a recession?
Or her blindly pursuing a policy of dependence on the USA and hostility towards China, only for the US to dump us as soon as they got a new president?
Please tell me where's the accountability in all of this.
Or why now, given her track record made up entirely of failures, we should trust her to guide the EU into a new very delicate historical phase.
You completely ignored the body of my message to complain about EU leadership, offering no sources, just a bunch of grievances (some of which are dubious at best).
Not sure where the conversation would go on from here. You will just keep being angry.
I keep telling you this system is broken, you keep replying that this is how things are supposed to work in this system. I agree that this isn't going anywhere.
The plot twist of the century would be if climate change is the driving force behind our bluster about annexing Canada and Greenland. He can't admit it publicly without alienating his base, so he's forced to come up with increasingly ludicrous ruses to justify his attempts to save America from its real threats.
In a way it is his very openly stated goal. He has mentioned that it's a national security issue, since Russian and Chinese ships are passing through the arctic route, and as the ice melts greenland and canada will become increasingly important.
Researchers and analysts tend to agree humanity already blew it. We waited way too long to start mitigation practices and what little we’ve done has already started to be rolled back. Even if we restarted efforts it would take too long to ramp up given the snowball effect already in play. We are cooked.
So… maybe, but to my mind counterfactuals don’t really help clarify thinking about this kind of thing. The range of futures available to us today doesn’t really depend too much on alternate futures that may have been available had we done things differently in the past.
I understand the political necessity of setting a concrete 1.5 degC warming target and messaging it as an all-or-nothing kind of goal, but “we missed it” isn’t an absolute. It’s not the line between “hellfire and brimstone” and “salvation”: there’s still a range of outcomes and behavior still matters.
The fatalism strikes me as counterproductive and paralyzing: people can and will continue to try to survive, even if there are wildfires now, or hurricanes, or heat waves, or worse. Better, it seems to me, to focus on what actually is changing, how people are responding, and how to mitigate and adapt.
It's okay to have a differing opinion, but ultimately the oceans are warming much faster than simulations created by experts predicted. The runaway greenhouse effect has always been front and center of the "oh no" part of humanity warming the planet and so far it appears "runaway warming" describes the state of the ocean - which is very not good.
The reason to lift the debt limit is actually, so at current times it becomes not an either or option.
Unfortunately, Russia seems a very real threat to many European countries (particularly those with Russian minority population). Germany needs this this money e.g. to actually setup a NATO brigade in Lithuania.
While all this military spending indeed is lost money, it seems that cost would need to be split and this is not even consensus inside the EU.
Germany has already become the target as its physical and digital infrastructure is under constant attack while feeling unable to defend ourselves. This is not about WWIII, but actually to prevent it happening.
If Germany is conquered by Russia, there's exactly nothing done to combat climate change. Warding them off gives at least a chance to work on that and some progress.
Its much worse, just look at the map. Global warming would be massively beneficial to russia - north sea would be better used by navy (whatever remains out of it) and shipping lanes, permafrost disappearing makes much more land usable. They have massive oil and gas reserves that they need to sell, half of their economy runs off this.
Molten permafrost is unlikely to be arable soil 'just so'. Tends to be rather acidic, and teems with nasty insects. Who knows what else it thawing up, too.
There's a latent conspiracy theorist deep inside me that says they've figured out the only way to stop the warming is the complete collapse of all post-conflict industrial society and start building again.
I’ve thought for over a decade that we need to plan for climate change as a certainty.
Even if the US and Europe made huge emission cuts, the rest of the world will not. I’m sure developing nations will stay poor if we ask nicely. “Hey Africa. We know about the three centuries of exploitation and colonialism but hey… could you do us a favor now and stay poor to fix the problem we mostly created? Thanks!”
There is no chance of this happening.
There’s only one realistic solution. If renewable plus storage or some other non carbon based source can actually be cheaper and easier to deploy than coal and gas, it might replace them. As it stands coal and gas remain the cheapest sources of power (though the gap has narrowed) in most regions. They are also easy to deploy with a global market in both generation equipment and fuel and a huge global talent pool of people who know how to do it.
We don’t need to invest a shit ton of money to stop climate change. We just need to decide to do it. There are cost-effective ways to do it. What we’ve been lacking is the consensus to do it.
the simplest way to stop climate change would be a massive transition to nuclear power, ideally fusion, but until the technology is there for fusion, fission. nuclear power, great though it is, costs money, huge amounts of money
Europe has been benefiting from being friends with the US, which allowed not spending so much money in its own defense capabilities. Money that could then be destined to welfare. Now that US threatens to cut such good terms in their relationship, EU finds itself with decades of accumulated underinvestment, and the need to get up to speed in that front for yesterday.
We're still not behaving collectively as much hogher than idiotic monkeys fighting in a cage. Defense from our neighbors is still a primary concern. We'll all die burnt with a heat wave.
The “benefitting from being friends with the US” is exactly the frame Trump would love for you to use. It’s a little more nuanced than that imo.
After WW2 the US wanted the European powers under its wings rather than rebuilding their own militaries to the level of a global power. There were to be two powers: the US and the Soviets.
It suited the US interests to force Europe in a dependent position. Partly for good reasons like preventing us fighting amongst ourselves starting another war. Which we’d just done twice, so fair enough.
But also to stop us from coming under communist influence voluntarily. And, just for imperialist reasons. They were just more modern and subtle about it than the empires they replaced, most notably the British Empire. The almost-century of western Europe being effectively part of an US empire culturally, financially and militarily is now coming to an end. How we’re gonna deal with that? No idea. It’s going to be pretty damn hard in a lot of ways.
European countries are going to "wait and see what happens". You think Poland, who are only free from Russian occupation for about 30 years, is going to wait and see if they are going to be occupied by Russia for another half a decade?
Putin has proven time and time again he will exploit any perceived weakness. He did so in 2014 with Crimea and when Europe (and the US) failed to react it provoked him to try it again in 2022. There is zero evidence Putin is going to wind down after Ukraine. He has stated multiple times publicly he thinks the biggest tragedie of the last century was the collapse of the large Russian empire.
War is the consequence of a lack of defense, not the opposite. Nothing could illustrates that more than the period since 1947 and the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Never has the world been so heavily armed. We have nukes that can wipe each other out at the press of a button. The result? A period of peace unprecedented in human history.
Putin invaded Ukraine because he thought he could win easily. Countries don't risk their existence in that way unless lead by madmen.
Would keeping a few nukes have protected Ukraine from Russia?
Likely a prolonged period of espionage and subterfuge by the Russians to gain control of those nukes would have ensued. Maintaining control would be difficult especially in Eastern Ukraine where the Russian language predominates.
Putin wants to recreate the military conquests of previous Russian leaders. He thinks he's Peter the Great but his situation is more akin to Don Quixote de la Mancha in his later years: I imagine that he sees all those nukes, regrets how much they cost to make and maintain and that he hasn't launched them (each launch moving a line item from a debit column to a credit column). He may not yet realize that the fuel from one nuclear warhead in a nuclear reactor could supply a small city with electrical power for years. IOW he's sitting on a fortune and doesn't know it. Sad.
Did you know that for the past two decades, 10 percent of all the electricity consumed in the United States has come from Russian nuclear warheads?
Russia is enormous geographically, has wonderful resources and people who are bright and creative. A shame they're getting killed in Ukraine. The only good news is that there will be more women for each young man and, once they return from war, each will be tasked with the need to create a new generation of Russians. Good work, if you can get it. If they don't, the Chinese will move in from the east (probably will anyway, already doing it de facto).
Honestly the response to climate change has been "We need to secure water and food for ourselves. Who has them and what's our invasion plan?". Or "We have water and food. What's our defense plan?"
Having less mouths to feed is a positive (if viewed from this selfish point of view) side-effect.
From what? There's no serious indication of a russian threat to invade western europe.
> climate change can wait
That's actually the exact opposite of the truth. Like "rust never sleeps", neither does any other ongoing chemical process. Climate change will keep on chugging 24/7 and receive exactly the amount of productive attention it's already received, which is none. Every effort by equity since the broad awareness of this reality has been to obstruct any action that would disrupt current revenue streams.
Any educated, and even marginally objective person cannot deny the ongoing disaster of human environmental devastation in all forms, and it's ever increasing impact on all human activity.
However all major investors in the status quo are also clear on another fact: they're old enough to be dead before the worst of the consequences come to bear. So they advocate burning it down for profit today, and fuck the future.
I'm also old enough to not have to face to worst of it, but I actually feel we should steward our environment, not just burn it down for this quarters returns.
All of this is in addition to the reality that peace is more economically productive, and war is just one big murderous disaster. The use of military force through the so called cold war, and into the present, has left us with these festering military operations that are depriving all of us from a peaceful and productive life, and for what? So some hyper-rich asshole can have more. That's what "glory of god and country" is all about. Getting the idiot herd to dismember itself to see which ruling class asshat gets more stuff.
> From what? There's no serious indication of a russian threat to invade western europe.
Well, either you are not following the openly stated intentions of the Russians or you are not taking them seriously. The former would be sheer ignorance, the latter would be a grave mistake.
> From what? There's no serious indication of a russian threat to invade western europe.
The same was said of Ukraine. It made no sense, people thought Putin wouldn't be so self destructive, but here we are.
Given the stakes and consequences of being wrong, Europe is doing the right thing. Even a 5% chance of Putin invading Europe is worth buying an insurance policy for, given that Europe's existing policy has proved worthless.
> All of this is in addition to the reality that peace is more economically productive, and war is just one big murderous disaster.
You make it sound like war is a choice one makes, and that laying down arms, appeasement or surrender is a solution. It's been proved time and again that that just leads to more war.
Europe has plenty of time for its militarization. If it had done it before then they wouldn't have to be doing it now, but it wouldn't have deterred any of those events.
Delaying was a reasonable choice given the information at the time, hoping that Putin was not a moron and that he would not take control of the US. They are reacting adequately, at a deliberate but not reckless pace, in response to the new information.
I don't care about points, but I find however that very interesting for getting downvoted. As someone who has traveled the world and lived on different continents, I thought my comment would be pretty obvious. But it isn't for a majority, and I truly wonder who is disagreeing then:
1- I believe that Americans overall, whether left or right, let alone far right, can't disagree with that statement - that Europe doesn't (didn't) take its security seriously and Americans don't want to be involved anymore
2- Europeans? I don't know, maybe some still live in their bubble and all is good? Reading some of the comments, I can see such people but that's certainly surprising to see a majority
3- And then the rest of the world ... the ROTW doesn't care much about what's happening in Europe, and climate change is the least of many people's problems.
Russia might not be able to invade Germany in the near future, but the much more likely and concerning scenario would be Russia nibbling away at EU countries in the east like the baltic states. If that happens and the NATO/EU states hesitate to defend that would almost certainly shatter these alliances and bring a much more uncertain future.
People claimed that Russians were stripping stolen washing machines for chips, that sanctions would have collapsed their economy, etc. Lots of people claim lots of things, sometime they are right.
Based on previous actions by Russia, like the 2014 Invasion in Ukraine. But mostly I took this scenario from what one expert wrote (Carlo Masala), but it is just that, one scenario.
But this is similar to what other expert say, that the more concerning weak point in NATO is political. And if Russia could successfully drive a wedge between the NATO states it becomes vulnerable even if the total conventional military of its members is superior to Russian forces.
There's plenty of other experts saying that peaceful cooperation with Russia is possible. Wouldn't that be preferable to war to the last man, or a new decades long cold war?
I don't understand why don't we talk more about achieving that, instead of blindly preparing for WWIII. NATO shouldn't even exist since the URSS collapsed.
Sure. Might be. But you are here asking for Europe to preemptively roll over and give in to Russian wars of aggression.
From a game theory point of view how is that supposed to bring peace? That just shows Russia that they can do whatever they want and reach their goals. We already had the Minsk agreement Russia violated. Why should Russia stop when we give in to their demands? What‘s the logic there?
At some point you have to show strength. And earlier is probably better if you want to prevent WWIII
> At some point you have to show strength. And earlier is probably better if you want to prevent WWIII
Sure, EU combined already spends three times as much as Russia in "showing strength". I'm sure there must be a way to use what we have without tripling the expense. If nothing, because showing that we need 10 times their military expense to keep up with them would only show that we are in fact weaker.
Unless the goal of rearmament is only to make a few weapon manufacturers richer, then I'd say we've found the most efficient way to do it.
I don’t think re-armament is the only or the best solution. It’s just that with the US having left the picture Europe does have to show strength if it has to have any hope of keeping Russia at bay. That‘s not just arms, that’s also credible deterrence. How can Europe achieve that absent the US without spending on arms?
I do think that Ukraine is instructive in terms of Russia not being as almighty as they might seem, but in terms of outcome Putin is scary close to achieving practically all of his war aims short of Ukraine ceasing to exist. I learned that Putin is patient. He can take it step by step. He does not value human life. And that’s dangerous.
At great cost to the Russian people, sure, but does Putin care? Another five to ten years and he can give something else a go. And suddenly he is in the Baltcis or at the Polish border.
Sure that would be preferable if Russia was willing to accept that. But they proved those experts wrong in 2022 and have not changed their ways since. Maybe you could argue in the 90s that NATO shouldn't exist but Russias actions proved such arguments wrong
After how many slaps in your face will you raise your hands? Europe tried peace with Russia and Russia invaded country after country over the past decades. Where would you draw the line?
There's a saying if you want peace prepare for war. Especially with Russia who seem to have a habit of cooperation with countries that can defend themselves and invasion of those who can't.
> There's a saying if you want peace prepare for war.
Sure, EU combined already spends three times as much as Russia in "showing strength". I'm sure there must be a way to use what we have without tripling the expense. If nothing, because if we need 10 times their military expense to keep up with them we'd only show that we are in fact weaker.
Based on the way Russia has been gradually pushing more and more. Step by step. Slowly.
They take what they want. They are appeased. A couple years nothing happens. They take what they want. They are appeased … etc.
Invading Ukraine should be a clear warning that Russia will not just stop. For appeasement to end and for Europe to seriously look for viable paths to peace. Not just yearlong pauses in fighting that allow Russia to regain strength. That is not peace.
The allies actually did create a just peace through strength in Europe during and after WWII. So I’m not sure why you are so offended by that thought? Would there have been a better way to create a peace that all in all has been lasting for more than three quarters of a century now? Would it have been better to further appease the facists?(Obviously not a perfect or complete peace. Obviously the Cold War also sucked. Not disputing any of that.)
Also, obviously I hope that this time around it’s not too late to prevent facists from burning Europe to the ground before we can defeat them.
Do you dispute that showing strength is an element to peace? (I’m not talking about killing people or invading other countries. I’m talking about a demonstrated and credible willingness to defend your values and alliances.)
> The allies actually did create a just peace through strength
They won the war, the goal was clearly defeating the axis. Did you have a shower today or did you achieve a just and long lasting personal hygiene through water?
You should at least be brave enough to say it like it is: you want to win the war.
The only problem is that this time the enemy has enough nuclear weapons to trigger a new ice age, so you resort to Newspeak.
> Also, obviously I hope that this time around it’s not too late to prevent facists from burning Europe to the ground before we can defeat them.
For how I see it we got them already in the commission and doing all they can to burn the EU to the ground.
In general, divide and conquer (aka defeat in detail) is an excellent way to test and break the resolve of a military alliance, or a poorly organised but massively overpowering enemy in the aggregate.
I need logic. Everything else is just speculation, the equivalent of believing that since for the past few days it rained then we're certain that tomorrow will rain as well. It all sounds perfectly reasonable, if you are an ignorant.
Ok, if you want it spelt out, the logic would be something we all learnt in grade school. The only language bullies understand are consequences. Putin annexed part of another sovereign country in 2014 and faced no consequences. He therefore launched a full on occupation of the same country in 2022.
Also, there is no need for ad hominem attacks. Contrary to what you might think, they don't actually serve any purpose in putting your point across.
> The only language bullies understand are consequences. Putin annexed part of another sovereign country in 2014 and faced no consequences. He therefore launched a full on occupation of the same country in 2022.
So yesterday and the day before that were rainy, therefore we come to the conclusion that it has to rain tomorrow as well, am I right?
If only we knew a bit more about how the weather works!
> Also, there is no need for ad hominem attacks.
The "unless you are an ignorant" wasn't directed at you, I just used it to make a point.
When it was raining yesterday, and people with weather experience say "it might rain tomorrow", do you insist umbrellas should be left at home because it's just speculation?
Except in this scenario it's still raining as we speak. What data do you have that Russia will stop?
There are many experts saying that tomorrow won't rain, unless we make it rain ourselves. Don't make it sound like there's a clear consensus.
> What data do you have that Russia will stop?
I’m not the one suggesting we throw away €800 billion, excuse me for asking why. Still, I'll try to explain.
Russia has lots to lose and nothing to gain from a direct war with NATO. The last thing it needs is more land and resources, so we can exclude that as well. I also genuinely think the cause of this war is Russia feeling threatened by NATO expansion and a civil war on its border, whether you consider that legit or not.
The only reason for Russia to not stop is if we don't allow it, at this point.
This sounds exactly like what people were saying right up to February 2022: it doesn't make sense, Russia won't invade Ukraine, Russia has enough land, it is geopolitical suicide. And yet, here we are!
And does it really seem like the USA is going to come to the rescue if Russia pushes into the Baltics? Heck at this point they may very well use the distraction to invade Greenland.
So what's the deterrent but for Europe to buy its own umbrella?
> So what's the deterrent but for Europe to buy its own umbrella?
We already have an umbrella and it costs 3 times as much as Russia's umbrella, while being much less effective. So before burning another €800 billions Iwish we'd put some effort in finding ways to make our current $450 billions of yearly expense work.
Seriously, if we need 10x Russia's budget to keep up with them we've already lost.
On the other hand, if the ultimate goal isn't to make Europe safer, but just to enrich a bunch of weapon manufacturers, then I'd say this plan works perfectly.
"I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernisation of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended?"
(Putin 2007 in Munich, Wikipedia)
This is kind of paranoid. But there are historical reasons:
Poland/Lithuania (Władysław), Napoleon, The German Kaiser, Hitler
I am referring to the Polish Russian War from 1609 to 1618.
"The King of Poland, Sigismund III Vasa, declared war on Russia in response in 1609, aiming to gain territorial concessions and to weaken Sweden's ally. Polish forces won many early victories"
"Sigismund's son, Prince Władysław of Poland, was elected tsar of Russia by the Seven Boyars in September 1610, but Sigismund refused to allow his son to become the new tsar unless the Muscovites agreed to convert from Eastern Orthodoxy to Catholicism"
In fact, I don't have an overview of all the wars and carnage in which Russia and neighboring countries were involved.
The funny thing is that EU already spends 3 times as much as Russia in defence. Rearm EU is clearly a huge gift to weapon manufacturers and not much else. If we really cared about our defence we'd focus first on making what we have more efficient.
If we need to spend more than a trillion € to keep up with Russia's measly $145 billions, then we've already lost.
We need to spend a lot more and do defence very differently than Russia, because Europe values human life a lot higher than Russia.
Russia can attack with ten million men armed with knifes and clubs. They will March on, kill and destroy, until they starve to death or someone stops them.
We won't defend by sending twenty million similarity armed persons into the meat grinder. We will want to arm and armour our troops so that there is minimal loss of life and limb.
Russian may attack with chemical weapons, we are not interested in hitting back the same way.
Russia will target hydro dams and other civilian infrastructure with potential for mass destruction. We care about protecting those things to avoid harm to our citizens, Russia does not care.
> Russia can attack with ten million men armed with knifes and clubs.
This is just baseless propaganda and you know it. What a shame would it be for the west and Ukraine if an army of men armed with clubs was able to stand its ground against them.
> Russia will target hydro dams and other civilian infrastructure with potential for mass destruction. We care about protecting those things to avoid harm to our citizens, Russia does not care.
Of course, just like we did with Iraq's infrastructure[0] for example?
I suggest you use the effort you put in writing such uninformed rethoric in informing yourself, it will pay out at some point.
Whataboutism is of course another clear sign. Ironically your example would imply Iraq should have built up its military to defend from such an attack.
Things would have looked quite different in Iraq, if Saddam had focused his military spending on defense of civilians and civilian infrastructure!
Not making excuses for all the wrongs done by US and allies before, during and after the invasion. It was a terrible idea, badly executed. But it didn't come out of nowhere, Saddam had a history of attacking his neighbours, he and his party had it coming.
I wonder why americans trashed their own hegemony in record time. Was it just to own the libs or are they lashing out because the elites know something we dont
US non-interventionism was the norm for the longest time. Hence US entering WWII late - the US had no interest in helping their European cousins for a long time.
Perhaps this is just the US going back to its natural state.
> US non-interventionism was the norm for the longest time.
US practised non-interventionism when wasn't the dominant world power. It's existed for 229 years, only in the 75 years after 2 world wars dethroned Britain did it become dominant. Since then its pretty much continuously projected it's power using miliary means across the world.
Look around, and you'll notice most countries are non-interventionist. That includes countries that were once attempted to colonise the world - like Britain, France and Spain. I guess once it was clear they could not take on the USA single handedly, they stopped spending on their military. Looked at as an asset that generates a return, what use is it if you have to ask the USA for permission to use it?
The corollary is if the USA loses it's "dominant military power status" military spending will probably drop back to the levels of other countries. It's held the position for 75 years, but if current trends continue it won't make 80 years.
I guess the obvious candidate for taking on the role of "dominate power" is China. Given they way they've been building up their military, it's almost like they are preparing for it. Their major competitor for the position will be India.
I really don't think it's that complicated. this is just Trump's personal philosophy. he's been saying it for decades. he doesn't think the US should be so involved around the world, and he doesn't think the world should be so involved in the US
as a European, I’m cautious optimistic about this, especially given headlines like these. Europe should be able to stand on its own
Surely he understands the interplay between the usd being the world reserve currency and the importance of allies and military bases set across the world and how this aids US prosperity
serious question... How does that not help? The USD is a stable currency because we have f35's and the most powerful military in the world. How does Germany spending over the next 10 years, what we spend a year change that? Our ally is stronger because trump has been pressuring europe to invest more in military, why does that not increase our military capability now that our allies are a bit stronger?
Previously we were spending on US weapons. E.g. F-35 or Patriots. We might phase that out.
Your allies might not help you with the next Afghanistan.
Germanies foreign reserves are nearly all treasuries. We might (naturally) diversify away. By taking on a large amount of debt we will simultaneously create an alternative safe asset (bunds).
it would be impossible for someone in his position not to know that. he would have to be shockingly, droolingly stupid to not know that, and I know it's fashionable to say that Trump's stupid, but he quite obviously isn't. he's not Einstein or Attenborough, but you don't get where he is by chance.
what he is is opinionated and narcissistic with a highly unusual, but predictable - and successful - way of operating that people still somehow fail to recognise. if you think he's stupid, he's winning because you're not seeing his real intentions.
I will also point out that he's a political obsessive, including when it comes to foreign policy, and it would be once again quite obviously impossible for someone in his position to not know how US foreign policy works. he quite clearly just doesn't care about losing the benefits of world influence and prefers the long term idea of a different system, one where the US is more self-reliant and his businesses have less competition from foreigners.
obviously most economists will tell you that that is stupid, and I'd mostly agree, but it's a far far softer kind of stupid than not understanding the incredibly basic central tenet of US foreign policy for the last 80 years.
I don’t think he’s stupid. I do think he doesn’t care to know, and remains ignorant.
I ask sincerely, because I would love nothing better: can you point to an interview where he demonstrates any depth or nuance to his foreign policy decisions, that would indicate he pays attention to any of the details we’re discussing?
He’s clearly a political obsessive, but that doesn’t guarantee knowledge. Rather I think he operates on a set of brutish principles that appeal to a certain sets of people.
To your example, it’s easy to espouse a simple idea like isolationism and obsessively work towards it without understanding the finer implications.
>can you point to an interview where he demonstrates any depth or nuance to his foreign policy decisions, that would indicate he pays attention to any of the details we’re discussing?
first of all, I shouldn't have to, because what we're talking about is a surface-level issue that a child could understand, not something deep or nuanced.
but anyway, here's one example: a while ago Trump suggested that there's a chance the US won't support NATO in the case of an invasion of a member state. can you yourself analyse the real intention and actual result of this foreign policy decision?
He has no idea how US foreign policy works. Or any US policy really. Because he frankly doesn't care. People who try to inform him have talked about how difficult it is to get him to pay attention, that it requires cutting it very short and throwing lots of colorful pictures. It's not a secret in Washington. You say he's a political obsessive but he pays more attention to various fox news rants (which are often conspiratorial) then to well sourced briefings.
He's smart at scams and self promotion, anything else he's intellectually lazy about.
He cares a lot about influence at least while he's in charge but he undervalues or ignores soft power and just tries to bully allies.
Because those people around the world are smarter than him and look down on him. He's plenty interested in being involved with places that flatter and pay him money.
It’s deeper than Trumpism and there is significant support for divesting from the US empire on the left too. If Sanders had gotten in we would have gone about it very differently but still may have done some of the same things. If the Sanders/AOC wing of the party wants universal health care, that is going to come out of the defense budget. Taxing the rich won’t be enough.
The post-9/11 forever wars were really disasters. We spent trillions in Iraq and Afghanistan to end up with ISIS rising in Iraq and the Taliban back in charge in Afghanistan. It’s really soured the US on interventionism.
Ukraine is viewed differently by many but that’s kind of an exception, and support for actually committing significant US troops there would be soft.
Did they though? Are Trump's speeches followed by any action? US has numerous bases across the world, notably surrounding Russia and China. Any sign they're going to close them? Besides, Europe doesn't have much geopolitical significance nowadays. I'm more curious about US stance on China.
Losing the EU as an ally against China is disastrous for US chinese containment policy. Trump wont be able to bribe Putin either if China starts a war.
Yeah the idea that russia would somehow join US if China would start war is laughable, they are US sworn enemy since stalin era since all US stands/stood for is a direct threat to their oligarchy. There were 0 days when this wasn't true since WWII ended. Even assumption they would just stand by during any conflict won't fly, they would at least try to take Alaska or similar action.
They are much more friendly with China on all levels compared to US and its deepening since his first term.
But now US can be sure as hell Europe won't give a flying fuck if such conflict would happen. We were fractured and weak but as all psychologists know a common enemy can solidify a society like nothing else. A recent stab in the back can be interpreted that way. And we're half a billion and rich market which once dominated all known world.
It just shows that in order to be a good respected politician adding value to one's own country, one need to be way more than some nepo kid with daddy issues, reality show host, hyper arrogant narcissistic investor who made hundreds of millions of his father into billions (while crashing handful of casinos).
What is "record time"? Trump does not have anything to do with diminished USA hegemony. The problem started when USA let China to join WTO, which result in offshoring production to China and rapid China growth (also military, which was happening below radar of western observers).
At the same time USA stopped investing in its military (as compared to Cold War times) and, what is equally important, its European allies did the same (with exception of Greece and to some extent France). As a result whole Euro-Atlantic alliance become weaker and heavily dependent on China.
This was a long, slow process, stared in the '2000.
Trump tries to revert this trend, but makes unnecessary mistakes, most notably, he is hurting USA soft power and is conflicting USA with its European allies, which gives an impression that "something" happened suddenly now.
The trump administration is pursuing negotiations without Ukraine. That’s not negotiation for peace. I don’t know what you’d call it but it’s not that.
Trump is pursuing the only negotiations Putin could agreed for. Ukraine is losing on the battlefield, Putin does not see any reason to talk with Zelensky, as in his view, he needs to continue the war for another year and Ukraine will run out of people ready to fight. This is brutal mathematics, Ukrainian to Russian losses are 1:2, sometimes even 1:1.5, Ukraine is not able to persist with such ratio, as they have potential soldiers.
This is all Biden's fought, he was constantly afraid of "escalation" and upsetting Putin, he was delivering military help in insufficient quantities and too late. He panicked so much that during Prigozhin's Putsch (Wagner Group rebellion) he ordered CIA chief to call Putin to tell him that USA is not behind this situation. Totally idiotic move that appeased Putin that he is save and does not need to worry about "toothless West".
More, Biden (or, in fact, Blinken and Sullivan) was stopping other from helping Ukraine, he never agreed to pass Polish Mig-21 war planes, which eventually were disassembled into parts and miraculously "lost" by Polish army in the forest on the Polish-Ukrainian border and then someone miraculously found them and put back together.
Similarly he opposed passing Polish T-72 and PT-91 "Twardy" tanks to Ukraine, finally he agreed after pressure from Polish president A. Duda, when Biden visited Warsaw (see investigative journalist Zbigniew Parafianowicz book "Polska na wojnie" (Poland on the War)).
Trumps at least tries to do something except pretending military help. He might fail, obviously, but at least he started some process that could end the war at some point.
