This debate is probably a communication strategy to fuel anger in the american public while distracting / confusing other partners. From the time I could watch TV I always saw USA spend intensely on military and foreign policy. I'm trying to find when the reversal occured, but it's probably during the previous campaign, as a trick to blame biden.
I have said this many times. I feel, as an American, many people are tired. WE have no insight into the vast sums of money that are being spent by the DOD and where it is going. I see debt climbing and I have to ask myself, do I want my country to spend money on other countries or maybe focus on cleaning up our own house first? I would rather America focus on putting its own house in order, wasted spending, corruption, cartels, China buying up land, and the erosion of our education system.
Many of us no longer feel the juice is worth the squeeze in supporting Europe. We have done enough over the last 100 years. Yes we have benefit some from their troubles, which they caused, but that doesn't mean we have to continue to support them.
One thing to note is that you are looking at this as a government cost, whereas it’s seen as a massive mechanism of hard and soft power, with immense economic and political benefits for the US, including being able to do whatever it wants wherever it wants. A significant amount of the wealth of the US depends on that soft/hard power dynamic. Break one, break the whole.
But I agree with you. The US spends too much on military and intelligence budgets and not enough to and for its citizens. And this has led to the misery of so many Americans. The land of the plenty has not much to give to the ones that need it most.
And on the other hand, the immense asymmetry of (non-nuclear) military power between the US and the rest of the world should ring alarm bells across every nation right now. Especially so in the EU, UK and Canada.
Why is this massive military budget and complex supported by sacrificing public services, healthcare, education, and social services, and through higher taxation of the relatively poorest? And why is it not supported through taxation of corporations and the richest of the super-rich?
And for me, the most important reason for why I found today so upsetting:
What is true dishonour if not to betray a friend in need?
Well I'd argue that there was no such thing as 'friend' in the mind of people hosting that event. It was clearly abusive mobster negotiation tactics, immoral power play and profit extraction.
One party greated the other cordially in a suit. One showed up to meet the President of the United States in leisure attire! One had made an agreement with Secretary of State and then reneged on it publicly. This same individual then decided to threaten the President of the United Sates. Who exactly was acting like a mobster?
There is nothing immoral about getting paid for services or products. If you don't like it go somewhere else. Why is it that everyone expects hand outs from America but never once ask what can they do for America? It is Ukraine who is exploiting the American people for free arms. Finally an America stood up to their ridiculous behavior, the petty dictator was kicked out of the White House.
>What is true dishonour if not to betray a friend in need?
Great Powers don't have friends. Nor do they have enemies. They only have eternal Interests. (paraphrasing a quote often attributed to Henry Kissinger)
As I was looking for a more exact source for this quote, I stumbled upon this interesting piece in Time Magazine....from 1955:
https://time.com/archive/6798908/no-friends-no-enemies-just-...IT is high time the United States quit throwing money and materials around the world like a drunken sailor and settled on a foreign policy clearly consonant with our national interests first and foremost. We pile deficit on deficit until we threaten ourselves with bankruptcy.
So you have some good points about soft power. Yet at this time as I look at Americas GDP Europe is playing less and less of a factor in it. So as I said the juice may no longer be worth the squeeze. Also what is the point of soft power in Europe when we are being over run by immigrants? America needs to look to itself first. We can't be a strong world power for much longer if the issues at the southern border continue. I know no one in the world cares about Americas problems, they tend to ignore them and view us as something to use or get something from. Yet we have not only a right but obligation to look to ourselves first.
Ukraine is not and has never been an friend or ally to America. We were one of many parties to an assurance that we wouldn't level them if they turned in their nukes. We have given them aide in their time of need. There was a deal in place for more aide and the President of Ukraine came in, in athletic gear mind you, and reneged on the agreement and started grandstanding and threatening the US President in the Oval Office! This was a HUGE mistake, he basically said to America I do not respect you and spit in our faces. I know many people do not see it that way around the world but if a world leader comes to ask for aid from the country they are completely dependent upon for their survival and their plan is threats and leisure attire how is that not disrespect?
I mean fair play for being bold and all. Yet that was unwise in the extreme.
You're repeating all their narrative. Zelenskyy wore the same clothes as he did in canada, Sweden, France and I would assume any other country. This is most probably a a bad faith argument developed by Trump's team.
I fully understand this sentiment. After all, combined more than $6tn (!) have been spent on the rather ill-advised engagements in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. It's unfortunate that the US invested so much in these affairs that there is little capacity or willingness left now when it matters.
So help me understands Europe's reasoning for not keeping its spending commitments to NATO during peace time? We still met ours, still met all our obligations despite ongoing wars.
I agree now things really matter but why should America be on the hook for wartime sacrifices when Europe couldn't be bothered to do the easy part in peace time? No one ever answers this simple question. They all just down vote me which is fine but if there is a rebuttal to this let me know.
From my perspective most of Europe believed in the "end of history", i.e. a world where armed conflicts would no longer be relevant. They thought local wars were only instigated by "medieval barbarians" in remote geographic locations or by neocons and the military-industrial complex for the hope of increasing US influence (and profit). Many Europeans associated NATO with wars they did not fully support and were not at all convinced that the money there was well spent. One could argue that Europeans indeed overlooked the growing threat of another imperialist force and its military-industrial complex, Russia, and that at least after the invasion of Crimea in 2014 should have started taking NATO as their life insurance policy more seriously.
You got my upvote! If there's one good thing that comes out of Trump's position on Ukraine, it's Europe stepping up its own security and strength. This will be good for Europe and America in long run.
I watched the Trump Zelensky show today. I dunno about you, but I detected a possible calculated confrontation. I don't think Vance is a good actor. He took it to 11 too quickly.
These days the media demands wartime strategy be played out in real time detail. How is that beneficial for actual strategy? To counter this, Trump may be leaning into the media circus by playing some sort of ambiguous good cop bad cop card. Smacking Zalensky while buttering Putin's muffins and arguing against world leaders, might be what's needed to penetrate Putin's emotional bubble. A kind of Trumpian trojan horse. Fascinating stuff. I know many here wouldn't give Trump such tactical credit, but if he were short on tactics he wouldn't have won two presidential elections.
That's funny, I thought Zelensky was the one who came in calculating. He had already agreed to the "deal", but (a) insisted on not signing it remotely, but instead flying all the way to the US; (b) waited until he was on camera with Bush and Vance; (c) changed his tack and tried to get Trump and Vance to agree to more than what had been previously discussed, thus baiting them into confrontation; (d) hopped on a plane within 2 hours, when Trump had stated publicly "all he needs to do is come back and say 'I want peace'"; (e) headed straight to the UK where almost all the EU leaders were already waiting and had a photo op done.
It really looks like a carefully crafted narrative was planned and carried out to intentionally smear the current US administration.
Everything up to your last bit about smearing the US is not wrong. As you said, Zalensky insisted on flying in to make the deal, then stepped over the line relative to the original deal they were meant to be doing.
I don't think there's any smearing attempt on Zalesky's part though. Contrary to Vance and Trump's assertion, Zalensky has thanked the US a lot of times. He wouldn't be wanting to smear the US. Trump did begin the meeting diplomatically, it was going fine, he even complemented Zalensky's outfit. Then JD opened his mouth!
It's hard to know for sure what's going on, which may be the point. The theatrics of argy-bargy is like a smokescreen.
You are in luck! You will get more Chinese Gold Citizens buying up collapsing stock and any savings will be plowed right back into tax cuts. (For those with billions of course, not you.)
What we got, and get, out of supporting Western Europe at the end of WWII was that otherwise, the entire continent would have been run by the Soviet Union. Not just that, we got a valuable trading partner, and our rebuilding put an end to hundreds of years of European wars.
Not that you might care about the moral aspect of it, but we also finished Nazi Germany and prevented that horror from taking over the world.
What we got out of expanding the alliance to Eastern Europe was a further bulwark against Russia, which has always been an expansionist totalitarian empire that enslaves or kills anyone who disagrees with the dictator. It's no different now than it was under the czars.
Europe is basically America's backyard now, and Russia wants it. Giving up your backyard because your violent neighbor threatens you for it, doesn't make you strong, it makes you weak.
Not really sure I care if the neighbors across the water think we look weak just because we don’t want to defend them because they don’t want to be strong.
And bear in mind that doesn’t mean that we are weak…
And the us has called for that and the sabotaged that with policies again and again. The military industrial complex doesn't want a thriving europe at arms. And the Russians supported every longterm self defeating movement. And they won, first in europe, then in the us, finally in this thread .
> Not that you might care about the moral aspect of it, but we also finished Nazi Germany and prevented that horror from taking over the world.
There's a lot of research on how the Allies helped move many Nazi war criminals to safe havens in other countries, help the remaining Nazis into positions in government and business in West Germany, used the remaining Nazis as intelligence networks, helped them organize into wild-eyed anti-Communist cells all over the world, and of course absorbed several Nazi scientists into research institutions in the US.
In a moment of madness Churchill put out a plan to hire the Wehrmacht after their defeat to go invade the real enemy, the Soviet Union.
I am aware of the long history we have with Europe and how it came to be. Yet I am in the present and I no longer care what we look like to the rest of the world. I see problems at home and these are far more concerning to me then Russia taking over Europe. China is a much bigger enemy of America's in the Pacific. We should be focusing our defense spending there. Let Europe stand for Europe.
No matter what happens America will be blamed and shamed, we didn't spend enough, we didn't xxxx enough, if only America had done yyyy zzzz wouldn't have happened, and on and on. So I am all for putting Americas interests first.
Also I find your last sentence to be the antithesis of what I am talking about. Why does America look weak? Wouldn't Europe look much weaker??? It feels like gaslighting, like someone will call you names so you need to come and die for us! It gets old.
Regarding the ukraine war I don't remember any tangible criticism regarding the US. That would be way too hypocritical considering Europe aid has been too slow. At least nobody in my circle was asking more of the US. I really think you're being played. Also so far market are down, prices are up. Was it the best administration to deal with problems ?
I understand the parent last sentence differently. Considering America's might, giving in to a mediocre aggressor seems weak. It's not that you have to do it, but it was the previous foreign policy / aura of the USA. Leader of the free world IIRC. Now you're free to change course. But it would be wise to operate smoothly.
This weakens the US against China. Europeans have no stake in a big Pacific conflict and will be much less interested to back US war mongering now. It’s short sighted for us to forego alliances that were helping us build a world order and a trading bloc that isolated China.
Like I said bigger problems at home. That Southern border is a mess and needs to be addressed. That is America's largest security issue as it is how anyone will get into America. Well that and Canada, but they are less violent thus far then what is coming from the south.
I'm pretty sure America doesn't have to give up its world power just to deal with its southern border. If it does, it's going to be a lot weaker on both.
Define "giving up world power." Because last I checked, being a world power means taking care of your own nation first, ensuring its security, economy, and people are strong. If America can’t even secure its own borders, prevent foreign influence on its soil, or manage its own spending, then what exactly are we protecting?
Prioritizing America isn’t weakness it’s a strength. No empire in history lasted long by neglecting its homeland while overextending abroad.
Ukraine isn’t America’s priority or ally, our borders, economy, and strategic position in the Pacific are. Europe is more than capable of handling its own security, and if they aren’t willing to, that’s on them not us.
America looks weak because it has just lost the cold war. All the effort spent since 1945 to counter authoritarian superpowers have been thrown in the bin. Instead it turned into one itself. It is pathetic.
Pathetic is to have an authoritarian superpower on the same continent as you for 80 years and still opting to rely on a superpower an ocean away to be the primary defender of your interests.
Some of the countries in Europe to take a cue from Finland and not outsource its defense.
Sorry, I think my sentence was not very clear there.
Finland always seemed to be very sensible when it came to its country’s security. I realize “Finlandization” may have had a negative context but during that time Finland made sure it was prepared as militarily as possible if its political “non-alignment” approach failed. It didn’t assume anything.
My point was their approach to their security vs outsourcing defense was a more pragmatic approach considering where we have ended up in 2025 and one that other countries in Europe should have probably followed. If and when your “strong” partner moves away from your interests, you still need internal strength. To a degree Europe (save for a few countries) never expected their strong partner to get wishy-washy on their interests.
The cold war ended when the USSR ceased to exist. Russia of today looks much more similar to Europe of the 70's and 80's than it does to the USSR. It also looks weird that the "allies" spend so much money with Russia but worry about them so.
The USSR didn’t "come back"—it collapsed, shattered, and never recovered. What remains is a weakened, demographically dying, economically struggling Russia.
Territory lost by the USSR/Russia since the Cold War began:
The entire Soviet Union dissolved—Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan are all gone.
The entire Warsaw Pact flipped to NATO—Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, etc. Germany, the biggest Cold War prize, reunited under the West.
Territory lost by the U.S. and its allies? Zero.
Russia isn’t a rising empire—it’s a wounded animal lashing out, terrified of its own irrelevance. They’re afraid, backed into a corner, and desperately trying to hold onto power. They don’t dictate world affairs.
And as for negotiating with Russia? The U.S. has been doing that for 80 years—and it never made us weak before. Why should it now?
America dictates terms not Russia, and certainly not Europe. If Europe wants to keep playing games, let them but America chooses when, where, and how we engage.
America is powerful because it operates as a global empire. Not by holding land, but by maintaining alliances. Everything you think is wrong at home right now would be infinitely worse if we didn't control global trade, force the rest of the world to buy our debt, and use soft/hard power to shut down every other actor from the Chinese Communist Party to ISIS - over there, not over here.
A lot of people in America, on both left and right, loathe the fact that we are this gargantuan empire. But the reality is, once you're at the top of the food chain, there is no easy exit. If America stopped being the world's only superpower, it would become a third world country immediately. You point out that America will get blamed for X,Y and Z. Of course. It already does. The only reason you don't experience the immediate consequences of that is that America (until today) held a lot of global sway. You can't just opt out of your alliances and still expect to have the preferential treatment you have, or the power you had.
We live in a republic that functions as a global empire. If we weren't that global empire, we would be Argentina or Brazil. You want to give up generations of investment in American supremacy for... what, exactly? Problems at home will not get better if America withdraws from the world. They will get much worse, because the only thing keeping this country from being a disaster is the fact that it is central to the world order.
And the only people who want it to not be central to the world order, who want to destroy the functions of government and weaken us on the world stage, are the autocrats who find America to be a beacon that they wish their populations didn't have to look at.
America is not perfect and you can be Bernie or Tucker or Trump and argue that we have no business doing it, but it's a lot better for you, me, and the rest of the free world that America is in charge of maintaining order than to have no one in charge of that.
So my statement was not that Europe looks weak, but that Europe is already America's plaything. Only a traitor would hand it over to the enemy.
Fair enough. But doing so 3 years into a war with a now half dead Russia is a different matter. It was the US and UK that took a leadership role in the beginning of the conflict ("for as long as it takes.."). It must be pretty convenient to have a big ocean between yourself and the consequences of your actions.
He believes that Russia's economy is not doing wonderfully, but not nearly as bad as the Western press says it is, and that whoever runs Russia is probably willing to put up with some pain a lot longer than Ukrainians can put up with no power no water no food, etc.
I dont think pain is the possible problem, total collapse is. Russia does everything to hide any pain and problems. Banks are forced to accept loans from soldiers and military adjacent companies while being prohibited from calling them in. The capital controls. The private sector is mostly gone, there is no local car manufacturing any more. 21% interest rates with an official 10% inflation. The increasing lack of official economic data being released...
Hard to tell, and I am not convinced if even the Kremlin has a good overview. In the end it does not matter that much. If Russia is really that robust then they wont stop attacking and if they are bluffing then Ukraine should not stop defending itself.
Most western countries are indebted way above the normal limit. I'm only a newb, but afaik, the global monetary system was wired this way. And US was said, being the currency reserve of the world, to have no problem with large debt. In reality, what I heard is that US inflation gets passed onto the world through dollar dominance. (not an unusual move for Trump to invert the logic to gain political point painting himself as the savior).
You never considered it was just a story to justify shaking "allies" ? I don't know what the truth is, but it smells like it.
And so far there's no announcement about investing in education or health, it seems quite the opposite, isn't it ?
I sincerely don't understand how there can be any trust invested in Trump and his speeches. So far all he's done is creating meme coins and reviving the ruble.
It takes time to turn a big ship. Why would I be excited to see more spending into government agencies until I am sure of how they are operating and what they are spending money on. Once things are cleaned up then you can start spending money as needed to get the results you want. It feels everyone is near jerk like, you actions didn't improve everything immediately so they were wrong. The reality of all of this will play out over the next few years.
But cleaning can't be done Musk's way. The whole system is kinda stable because everything is linked together. To start from scratch without anything in the meantime is just suicide.
It's like if a scientist what not giving food to an animal for a month to test if really food is needed. Well, he will conclude that food was needed, but now the animal is dead.
If this was really about cleaning up government, or balancing the budget then it wouldn't have started with small potatoes. You would immediately cut the low hanging fruit. Say, oil industry subsidies. That would get you something like 13 billion a year in savings.
All the destruction sown by DOGE (outside of USAID) represents (favorably) 0.2% of the US budget. Including USAID it's closer to 1.3% of the US budget.
At the same time Republicans are proposing reducing revenue by 4500 billion dollars.
Again these things take time. I can see how people don't like the method but I will wait to judge it by the results. Please bear in mind that Clinton fired 377,000 federal workers in the 90's. Things didn't come crashing down.
We need more oversight and less people imho. I am actually hopeful that they will have the ability to push through better software systems to track initiatives and spending. It isn't the number of employees it is where was all the money going, it was/is the lack of insight/transparency which has eroded my confidence in the federal government.
My true wish is they have the guts to pass legislation outlawing campaign contributions. It isn't just parts of the house that need a thorough purging to be honest.
Counter point Bill Clinton fired 377,000 Federal workers in the 90's and it turned out ok. Well aside from the Glass–Steagall legislation but that was legislation, still hurts though.
Not random shotgun immediate firings. Your weather forecasts are about to become less accurate because of some of these firings and planned improvements in them are not going to happen:
This is chesterson’s fence playing out in real life with the major superpower of the world and it has real consequences for people. It should not be the insane fiasco that’s happening right now with an unelected foreign citizen admitting in a cabinet meeting that they accidentally stopped Ebola vaccine financing. If you seriously think this is going to turn out well after we saw trump’s first term I just don’t have anything to help you.the funniest shit is that all of this upheaval is literally < 1% of the actual budget and it’s going to be touted as billions in savings by musk the grifter in chief. I don’t need time to see that this is a dumpster fire.
That is what we are trying to find out! We have no idea how much wasn't wasted so we are going looking. We can't get clear answers on how many land transactions ultimately go back to the CCP, so we are trying to find out! This is about increasing transparency. We may find out hey it is all amazing and we are super efficient with your money, that would make us happy.
> I see debt climbing and I have to ask myself, do I want my country to spend money on other countries or maybe focus on cleaning up our own house first? I would rather America focus on putting its own house in order, wasted spending, corruption, cartels, China buying up land, and the erosion of our education system.
Not helping Ukraine won’t solve any of that, though. Regardless of the US policy regarding Europe, I am willing to bet that military spending will keep ballooning now that the broligarchs are in power and fighting to redirect public spending to their pockets. Ultimately, I understand your sentiment, but this course of action will not lead to what you hope. If anything, everything will get worse because the people in power have no interest in fixing the issues you mentioned.
>I am willing to bet that military spending will keep ballooning now that the broligarchs are in power and fighting to redirect public spending to their pockets.
Why would you think that military spending would go up, given the tasks the executive has currently issued, and diplomatic direction indicated vis-a-vis other world military powers:
Because there is too much money to be made. Thiel et al. stand to win too much to let it pass. It’s like with SpaceX: in theory Musk is all for smaller government, in practice he wants the government to serve him.
Representatives and senators get a lot of political credit for the military-industrial complex, as well.
A great nation can do two things at once. The problem is the unreformable oligarchy turning into a sour gilded age zhe moment the Soviets falteted. Cant have a democracy with what are nobleman at heart at the helm.
One of the things that was highly propagandized was the "deep state" relationship with big oil and the whole conspiracy theories of billionaires influencing policy and pushing for war to get access to oil.
I get that people got into this narrative.
What I don't get is that you're now supporting a new groups of tech billionaires influencing policy to get access to rare earth, to the point of threatening to annex USA allies like Canada, and Greenland, and doing deals with Russia to capitulate Ukraine.
Yet Americans seem to be cozy with this idea, and support it, when in reality it's the same. In fact, it's worse because it's not even a conspiracy theory, it's out in the open.
Imagine if Biden or Obama had the Black Rock folks behind them when they took the presidency, it would drive some folks up the wall. The same folks don't mind having the Twitter Guy, Bezos, Zuckerberg... Can you help me understand why?
