Americans here saying that the world is a zero sum game and we Europeans should be doing the same back to the US govt as they do to us miss a few key points:
- we want to but cannot because we could not project that the country which convinced us to embrace our current political and economic system would abandon it and punish us for following
- saying the world is dog eat dog is a self fulfilling prophecy; after the 20th century in Europe was characterised by war, the post-war federation and economic cooperation has made intra European bloc war impossible. This is rightly considered a success in Europe, and explains why we tend not to see world matters as zero-sum. American education teaches war in a transactional economic way that does not resonate with our collective imagination, due to our own scars from war
It is easy (and partly fair) to blame the European bloc for a lack of organisation and foresight but in fairness, it was hard to imagine the US govt would act in a form of economic self-sabotage as a means of political pressure. And deterrents and preparation for the possible are not free. Hindsight is not an answer.
To be blunt, the major countries in the EU have not adapted to their diminished status in a world where economic and military power have concentrated elsewhere.
The EU has lagged the US in economic dynamism (link below). This deficit drives the inability to project economic or military power, forcing the EU rely on the US to support its foreign policy objectives in Ukraine - a conflict considerably more relevant to the EU than to the US.
Couple that with unaffordable, state-funded entitlements, and massive immigration significantly burdening (some) exchequers, and you end up with active urban conflicts in major EU cities, forcing a diversion of resources, and even more dependence on US military support.
None of this comes for free.
And Applebaum, playing the role of a wide-eyed ingenue, claims that the EU is "being bullied", instead of presenting it as the inevitable result of decades-long unwise, failing stances taken by the bloc.
A more interesting question is whether the current political, economic, and social model of the EU is compatible with the desire to be a major global power.
The lack of economic dynamism is a consequence of demographics. When the population grows older, the society naturally shifts resources from building the future to sustaining the present. Which obviously sucks if you are part of the generation that would prefer building the future.
Everyone saw this coming decades ago. Immigration has been the only serious solution that has been proposed so far. Unfortunately many European countries are not very attractive to those immigrants who can afford to choose.
This is an absolutely valid point, thanks for raising it. The US has (partially) addressed it by being an attractive enough economy that brings in young immigrants with "fire in the belly". These people (I am one of them), stay long enough to add economic value, and, crucially, have children who are integrated into the broader society without giving up on their native cultures.
Japan has historically restricted immigration into what was a dynamic economy, which stagnated over time.
It seems quite plausible. Japan and Germany are the two oldest countries in the world, both are severely lacking economic dynamism (despite both having very large economies, built on past successes rolling forward). Both should be modern tech juggernauts, neither are.
We don't have a huge immigration problem. The immigrants are blamed for everything by the fascists, just like in America. Yet their numbers are far too low too explain that.
We have serious issues like housing shortages but if we kicked out all the immigrants (which we shouldn't because they are helping our economy by doing jobs we don't like!) we still would have that problem, just a few percent less. This is the fallacy in that narrative.
And life isn't all about who has the most money, that's a US-Centric view. The poorer countries in Europe are better places to live at the moment and cost of life is lower there too. Besides, those 'entitlements' really add to our quality of life. We don't have to worry about going bankrupt over a medical issue. That's much more important in my life than being able to buy a new iPhone every year and pollute the world.
It's very telling of the US to always consider everything some kind of race or competition. Whereas we're not trying to win but to live together. Really if I make enough money to live comfortably without having to waste all my life at the office I'm doing well. Life is a balance of work and personal life. The US has never had this kind of balance. Everyone's in a race to make it 'to the top' but most people never do. I hear of people in the American big cities having to take side jobs because cost of living is so high. Our American-centric HR is always pushing me to 'challenge my career path' and move up into management but I would utterly fail there due to just not having those skills and talents (Peter principle). I'm just happy being a top technical expert for the rest of my life. I would detest being a manager and I would suck at it.
If anything Europe is getting too American. Too few people are holding too much of the wealth, this is why people are protesting.
I really really like Europeans. I love their zest for life. Their focus on supporting people as a basic human right. But in order to do these things, you need money and you need muscle. Unfortunately both of those things are obtainable on a scale of difficulty approximated by the most competitive global players, which are currently the US and China. Unfortunately that means you have to work a lot harder or spend a lot less on social programs or some mix of both.
I don’t see a way around this and Europe is suffering because they don’t seem to want to accept this reality.
My Bangladeshi parents were in London in 2023 and they were shocked by the number of immigrants. My mom was very upset because it blew up the idea that the immigrants would act and talk exactly like British people who just happened to be less sensitive to the sun. They’re retaining their differences, they’re participating in politics in ethnic blocs, they’re raising their kids with their own culture and values. It’s the opposite of what her generation had hoped for—London becoming more like Dhaka instead of Dhaka becoming more like London. This is because you’re letting them in too fast, in groups that are too large.
You’re also letting in the wrong kind of immigrants. You want immigrants who dislike their home countries and want to leave and westernize. You don’t want to take refugees, who are generally people who are forced by external circumstances rather than internal motivation to leave their homelands.
> My Bangladeshi parents were in London in 2023 and they were shocked by the number of immigrants.
Surreal comment. Tourist: "There are so many tourists here"
> it blew up the idea that the immigrants would act and talk exactly like British people who just happened to be less sensitive to the sun.
Was that ever a requirement for immigration?
Of course they're not going to 'act and talk exactly like British people'.
> You’re also letting in the wrong kind of immigrants.
Yes, South African racists are a much better demographic.
> You don’t want to take refugees, who are generally people who are forced by external circumstances rather than internal motivation to leave their homelands.
As a grandson of people who were at some point refugees: this is utterly despicable.
Mate, wait until you hear about how British immigrants integrate or rather don't, overseas - oops, sorry, I mean expats, which is they prefer to call themselves.
Yeah, and it pisses off the locals everywhere they go. Now imagine if they did all that and also were from cultures that didn’t know how to queue properly.
I'm afraid you might have misunderstood the point I was making about immigrants. I am a legal immigrant myself and do not propose kicking out (legal) immigrants.
Restricting immigration to those with skills the country requires at the time is sensible policy. Allowing millions into the country in an orgy of performative empathy with no plan for integration or converting them into productive members of society isn't.
My point is that there is a cost associated with this, and the EU is paying it in spades. The money spent addressing these issues comes at the expense of investment in things that make the country more innovative (education, trades, streamlined regulatory structures...), or have a stronger defensive posture.
Self-evidently, life isn't exclusively about WHO has the money. Having options, however, IS exclusively the result of who has the money. When the EU have restricted their options through these voluntary and unwise choices, they have to depend on someone else's help. That someone is going to want their pound of flesh.
"Fascist" seems a little over the top to describe these views.
I beg to differ. My original comment did not blame immigrants for anything; rather it discussed the result of the EUs immigration policy. Fascism was irrelevant to the point being made, and your understanding of the fallacy of association might warrant adjustment...
> We don't have a huge immigration problem. The immigrants are blamed for everything by the fascists, just like in America.
This is what I mean. There has been no policy of "allowing millions into the country in an orgy of performative empathy". It is quite hard for someone from outside the EU to obtain residency. There are some exceptions like former colonies being allowed easier migration which is only fair.
There has been one incident during the Syrian war where Angela Merkel said "wir schaffen das" but there was no coordinated grant of immigration rights in any way. And these were mostly legitimate refugees from the Syrian war.
Europe hasn't forgotten that many of us once were refugees not too long ago.
It's a problem because the right-wing keep blowing it out of proportion, but it's only based on racist underbelly feelings.
Unfortunately Europe and the EU have allowed themselves to be squeezed on all sides by USA, China, and Russia through several decades of short sighted policy and extreme over-reliance on globalism.
The financial crisis in France and Italy, and the general societal unrest everywhere has not just come out of nowhere. Europe is just simply not competitive in the industries of the next 50 years and that is very unsettling to people.
Problem - I don't know what they should have done instead. In software they do fund a lot of open source stuff but that doesn't build economic power, if anything it gives it away. They make their places relatively nice to live but this doesn't result in a generation of people desperate to acquire other people's money. It's like they just coast along while everyone else hones their successful economic predators - if you think predators are bad then what can you do?
Yes, we love bullying places that have 100 million more people us but also $9.3 trillion less GDP than us. It appears the "sick man of Europe" is…Europe? Heal thyself. We need you guys back in the game.
That part about not trying to win or rule the world makes sense, but to live in peace, on has to have the basic ability to defend oneself, which doesn't seem to exist because the EU chooses to spend money in other domaints.
That's the problem. When you don't raise a military (for example) you get conquered by someone who did and the same principle is true in economic warfare. Look at France, the government can't afford schools because it gave so much money to American billionaires, without using the same strategies to extract the same amount of money back from America.
Militarily, what we really need is some strategic nuclear ability. So we have the ability to destroy Russia if they bother us. It will be enough as a deterrent so they won't. It's kept us all safe for 80 years. Russia for example has less resources than the bigger European countries and the only reason we worry about them is that they have nukes.
Part of the problem is that the US has always opposed us having our own nuclear deterrent. They've always opposed France and have hamstrung the UK's options. In return the US promised to take care of this for us but we can't count on that anymore so I totally support building this out.
France has 280 nukes and bombers to deliver them. France launches satellites, so it's not a stretch to think they could do ICBMs in a hurry if they wanted or needed to.
I'm sure they could but they don't have them ready to go.
In case of a nuclear attack there is no time to build stuff obviously. A deterrent needs to be ready 24/7.
And bombers only really work when aerial supremacy has already been achieved. The US still operates some but constant flights were dropped in the 60s like chrome dome.
For Europe to be completely independent from the US for its deterrent (and thus not being able to be blackmailed by Trump) we'll need our own ICBM platform and more subs.
Europeans are genocidal lunatics. There were incidents of ethnic cleansing as late as the early 2000s. Telling countries like germany to rearm is lunacy
I am in Germany and I can see this is true. The general attitude here is quite nasty towards other countries, it's only tempered by lack of ability. If there is a need for defense then Germany should be contributing more money to shared defense projects rather than having a large army of its own.
The comments at time of writing are blissfully ignorant of the European political culture inside and outside of the EU.
On the one hand, there are only politicians available in two kinds: those who insist on blindly glazing the US regardless of the harm it does to Europe and those who insist on blindly glazing the Russia/China/Iran axis regardless of the harm it does to Europe. All of them occasionally implement one-off military spending programs while permitting long term trends of worse military, energy, machine tools, infrastructure, mining, smelting and reserve readiness spending.
In Italy, Spain, Austria, Romania, Sweden and Britain (the six cases I'm familiar with, three from business travel, one from holidaying and two from deep interest) the occasional politician (one person per country per 3-5 years) who does want Europe to have independent expeditionary military partnering with Africa and the Middle East, totally disconnected from either superpower bloc and their goods, services, politics and ideologies is ridiculed up until they say something negative about [emotional support ethnostate of either bloc, they both have them], at which point they are dealt with through lawfare, debanking, travel bans and intimidation of their families.
.
On the other hand, it is entirely predictable that thoughts of military self-determination are taboo given the historical political economy of Europe. Sovereignty in Europe was dismantled by the US and Russia over the 20th century, the 1944 conferences being the most irreversible moment, and it can only recover if they both implode, not just one. Every party system Europe has relies on sovereignty backstopped externally and neither of the superpower blocs reneging on their backstop offers are imploding at the present time.
Adapting, avoiding being squeezed, these are the loser options of a bully victim whining that they aren't being left alone. Keeping to the metaphor of a bully, you're only worth leaving alone the minute you die and not a moment before, and the world is run by bullies. Using a more unsanitised and true metaphor, dogs and wolves get a dopamine-reward signal in their ventral striatum when they hear the prey animal in their jaws squeal.
Han China, NK and Myanmar but they aren't culturally relevant, also technically Russia but they are really just a racist herrenvolk democracy.
The problem with partisan politics is that no part of it is able to admit that both 90% of Al Jazeera and 90% of Radio Free Asia are the unvarnished truth at the same time.
You can’t “bully” a continent that is entirely dependent on you for its security. The Ukraine war has proven that Europe is utterly incapable of putting out a fire in its own back yard without American military and financial support.
The article addresses that in the last couple of paragraphs.
"In effect, the administration is promoting European rearmament and European defense cooperation while simultaneously promoting politicians who oppose rearmament or defense cooperation."
They really arent. The people capable of starting wars are invested in industry a lot bigger than military. "Wars are for profit" is something people blindly repeat but has no basis in reality.
> U.S. Oil Industry Earned over $130B in Profit During Iran War (nytimes.com)
> Trump aims to increase US military spending to $1.5 trillion by 2027
> EU member states' defence expenditure sharply increased between 2021 and 2026. In 2025, member states' defence expenditure reached €418 billion, rising for the 11th consecutive year. In 2026, it is expected to reach an estimated €454 billion. This means that defence expenditure has increased by 75.3% compared with 2021.
Russia would have been very easy to handle. No fly zone over Ukraine from the very start. The US could have closed the skies over Ukraine early on (as requested by Ukraine) and almost instantly put an end to the war before it got rolling. Putin would have thrown a giant tantrum, and then promptly backed down and sought peace talks. The US could have shot down every single jet & bomber Russia sent over the line.
War with Russia does not mean nuclear war with Russia. As we can clearly see from what Ukraine is doing to Moscow et al.
Also, an aggressive stance in fighting Russia, would have caught them early on when their military was entirely a disaster. The beating would have been an epic humiliation. Instead Russia has spent years re-learning how to wage war, which is not what you actually want.
"no fly zone" is one of those things that sounds obvious but if you actually think about it then it doesn't mean anything.
What mechanism gives the US the power to tell Russian planes where they can and cannot fly? The US cannot simply mark an area on a map. It would have to, at a minimum, deploy a series of surface-to-air missile sites to actually shoot down those planes that violated the map.
Presumably a combination of SAMs and fighter planes. The US couldn't put a no fly zone over Russia, but a no fly zone over Ukraine would be pretty straightforward (even just flying out of Germany). A no fly zone doesn't need to be perfect to work. If you shoot down a couple planes (or even have fighters in the area), you make every future flight by Russia a massive risk.
Declaring a no fly zone would have achieved nothing. Sending air forces to enforce it would have done something. But what happens if American fighter jets engage Russians over Ukraine, while Russian air defenses support their air forces from their side of the border? Would Americans let Russians launch SAMs with impunity, or would they invade Russia, showing the world that Putin's justification for the war was in fact correct?
Maybe Putin would have chickened out when American jets show up, but you can't know that for sure. Which means you should probably decide in advance you far you are willing to escalate before you chicken out yourself.
Americans here saying that the world is a zero sum game and we Europeans should be doing the same back to the US govt as they do to us miss a few key points:
- we want to but cannot because we could not project that the country which convinced us to embrace our current political and economic system would abandon it and punish us for following
- saying the world is dog eat dog is a self fulfilling prophecy; after the 20th century in Europe was characterised by war, the post-war federation and economic cooperation has made intra European bloc war impossible. This is rightly considered a success in Europe, and explains why we tend not to see world matters as zero-sum. American education teaches war in a transactional economic way that does not resonate with our collective imagination, due to our own scars from war
It is easy (and partly fair) to blame the European bloc for a lack of organisation and foresight but in fairness, it was hard to imagine the US govt would act in a form of economic self-sabotage as a means of political pressure. And deterrents and preparation for the possible are not free. Hindsight is not an answer.
To be blunt, the major countries in the EU have not adapted to their diminished status in a world where economic and military power have concentrated elsewhere.
The EU has lagged the US in economic dynamism (link below). This deficit drives the inability to project economic or military power, forcing the EU rely on the US to support its foreign policy objectives in Ukraine - a conflict considerably more relevant to the EU than to the US.
Couple that with unaffordable, state-funded entitlements, and massive immigration significantly burdening (some) exchequers, and you end up with active urban conflicts in major EU cities, forcing a diversion of resources, and even more dependence on US military support.
None of this comes for free.
And Applebaum, playing the role of a wide-eyed ingenue, claims that the EU is "being bullied", instead of presenting it as the inevitable result of decades-long unwise, failing stances taken by the bloc.
A more interesting question is whether the current political, economic, and social model of the EU is compatible with the desire to be a major global power.
https://nextbigteng.substack.com/p/american-vs-european-star...
The lack of economic dynamism is a consequence of demographics. When the population grows older, the society naturally shifts resources from building the future to sustaining the present. Which obviously sucks if you are part of the generation that would prefer building the future.
Everyone saw this coming decades ago. Immigration has been the only serious solution that has been proposed so far. Unfortunately many European countries are not very attractive to those immigrants who can afford to choose.
This is an absolutely valid point, thanks for raising it. The US has (partially) addressed it by being an attractive enough economy that brings in young immigrants with "fire in the belly". These people (I am one of them), stay long enough to add economic value, and, crucially, have children who are integrated into the broader society without giving up on their native cultures.
Japan has historically restricted immigration into what was a dynamic economy, which stagnated over time.
It seems quite plausible. Japan and Germany are the two oldest countries in the world, both are severely lacking economic dynamism (despite both having very large economies, built on past successes rolling forward). Both should be modern tech juggernauts, neither are.
We don't have a huge immigration problem. The immigrants are blamed for everything by the fascists, just like in America. Yet their numbers are far too low too explain that.
We have serious issues like housing shortages but if we kicked out all the immigrants (which we shouldn't because they are helping our economy by doing jobs we don't like!) we still would have that problem, just a few percent less. This is the fallacy in that narrative.
And life isn't all about who has the most money, that's a US-Centric view. The poorer countries in Europe are better places to live at the moment and cost of life is lower there too. Besides, those 'entitlements' really add to our quality of life. We don't have to worry about going bankrupt over a medical issue. That's much more important in my life than being able to buy a new iPhone every year and pollute the world.
It's very telling of the US to always consider everything some kind of race or competition. Whereas we're not trying to win but to live together. Really if I make enough money to live comfortably without having to waste all my life at the office I'm doing well. Life is a balance of work and personal life. The US has never had this kind of balance. Everyone's in a race to make it 'to the top' but most people never do. I hear of people in the American big cities having to take side jobs because cost of living is so high. Our American-centric HR is always pushing me to 'challenge my career path' and move up into management but I would utterly fail there due to just not having those skills and talents (Peter principle). I'm just happy being a top technical expert for the rest of my life. I would detest being a manager and I would suck at it.
If anything Europe is getting too American. Too few people are holding too much of the wealth, this is why people are protesting.
I really really like Europeans. I love their zest for life. Their focus on supporting people as a basic human right. But in order to do these things, you need money and you need muscle. Unfortunately both of those things are obtainable on a scale of difficulty approximated by the most competitive global players, which are currently the US and China. Unfortunately that means you have to work a lot harder or spend a lot less on social programs or some mix of both.
I don’t see a way around this and Europe is suffering because they don’t seem to want to accept this reality.
Nah we are doing just fine. We're not suffering, I much much rather live in Europe than in the US. In fact I wouldn't even visit the US anymore.
We just have a problem with an aging demographic but this is a temporary problem.
>We just have a problem with an aging demographic but this is a temporary problem.
Unless we nuke the pension systems in Europe it's not a temporary problem, but rather one for the next 15-20 years.
> We don't have a huge immigration problemq
My Bangladeshi parents were in London in 2023 and they were shocked by the number of immigrants. My mom was very upset because it blew up the idea that the immigrants would act and talk exactly like British people who just happened to be less sensitive to the sun. They’re retaining their differences, they’re participating in politics in ethnic blocs, they’re raising their kids with their own culture and values. It’s the opposite of what her generation had hoped for—London becoming more like Dhaka instead of Dhaka becoming more like London. This is because you’re letting them in too fast, in groups that are too large.
You’re also letting in the wrong kind of immigrants. You want immigrants who dislike their home countries and want to leave and westernize. You don’t want to take refugees, who are generally people who are forced by external circumstances rather than internal motivation to leave their homelands.
> My Bangladeshi parents were in London in 2023 and they were shocked by the number of immigrants.
Surreal comment. Tourist: "There are so many tourists here"
> it blew up the idea that the immigrants would act and talk exactly like British people who just happened to be less sensitive to the sun.
Was that ever a requirement for immigration?
Of course they're not going to 'act and talk exactly like British people'.
> You’re also letting in the wrong kind of immigrants.
Yes, South African racists are a much better demographic.
> You don’t want to take refugees, who are generally people who are forced by external circumstances rather than internal motivation to leave their homelands.
As a grandson of people who were at some point refugees: this is utterly despicable.
Mate, wait until you hear about how British immigrants integrate or rather don't, overseas - oops, sorry, I mean expats, which is they prefer to call themselves.
Yeah, and it pisses off the locals everywhere they go. Now imagine if they did all that and also were from cultures that didn’t know how to queue properly.
But no-one is posting about how you're destroying Australia by letting all the British migrants move there and refuse to integrate.
Maybe they're posting about it on the Costa de Sol though?
Not wanting to work very much, yet feeling entitled to a share of what other people work for, doesn't sound like a workable system.
No, I just want to work just enough to be able to live comfortably.
Nobody should have to work more than 8 hours a day 5 days a week.
Nobody should be punished for working more than 8 hours a day 5 days a week either.
> Not wanting to work very much, yet feeling entitled to a share of what other people work for,
It's almost like the working class is being exploited by owners of capital and the means of production.
I agree, pensioners are the worst. /s
I'm afraid you might have misunderstood the point I was making about immigrants. I am a legal immigrant myself and do not propose kicking out (legal) immigrants.
Restricting immigration to those with skills the country requires at the time is sensible policy. Allowing millions into the country in an orgy of performative empathy with no plan for integration or converting them into productive members of society isn't.
My point is that there is a cost associated with this, and the EU is paying it in spades. The money spent addressing these issues comes at the expense of investment in things that make the country more innovative (education, trades, streamlined regulatory structures...), or have a stronger defensive posture.
Self-evidently, life isn't exclusively about WHO has the money. Having options, however, IS exclusively the result of who has the money. When the EU have restricted their options through these voluntary and unwise choices, they have to depend on someone else's help. That someone is going to want their pound of flesh.
"Fascist" seems a little over the top to describe these views.
> “Fascist" seems a little over the top to describe these views.
You’re committing a fallacy of association and then attributing that fallacy to the parent comment. Not great.
“Fascists blame everything on immigrants...” is the logical equivalent of what they said.
I beg to differ. My original comment did not blame immigrants for anything; rather it discussed the result of the EUs immigration policy. Fascism was irrelevant to the point being made, and your understanding of the fallacy of association might warrant adjustment...
> We don't have a huge immigration problem. The immigrants are blamed for everything by the fascists, just like in America.
> My original comment did not blame immigrants for anything; rather it discussed the result of the EUs immigration policy
What do you think the word blame means
This is what I mean. There has been no policy of "allowing millions into the country in an orgy of performative empathy". It is quite hard for someone from outside the EU to obtain residency. There are some exceptions like former colonies being allowed easier migration which is only fair.
There has been one incident during the Syrian war where Angela Merkel said "wir schaffen das" but there was no coordinated grant of immigration rights in any way. And these were mostly legitimate refugees from the Syrian war.
Europe hasn't forgotten that many of us once were refugees not too long ago.
It's a problem because the right-wing keep blowing it out of proportion, but it's only based on racist underbelly feelings.
[dead]
Unfortunately Europe and the EU have allowed themselves to be squeezed on all sides by USA, China, and Russia through several decades of short sighted policy and extreme over-reliance on globalism.
The financial crisis in France and Italy, and the general societal unrest everywhere has not just come out of nowhere. Europe is just simply not competitive in the industries of the next 50 years and that is very unsettling to people.
Problem - I don't know what they should have done instead. In software they do fund a lot of open source stuff but that doesn't build economic power, if anything it gives it away. They make their places relatively nice to live but this doesn't result in a generation of people desperate to acquire other people's money. It's like they just coast along while everyone else hones their successful economic predators - if you think predators are bad then what can you do?
Yes, we love bullying places that have 100 million more people us but also $9.3 trillion less GDP than us. It appears the "sick man of Europe" is…Europe? Heal thyself. We need you guys back in the game.
There is no 'game'. We're not trying to win or rule the world. Just to live our lives in peace.
That part about not trying to win or rule the world makes sense, but to live in peace, on has to have the basic ability to defend oneself, which doesn't seem to exist because the EU chooses to spend money in other domaints.
That's the problem. When you don't raise a military (for example) you get conquered by someone who did and the same principle is true in economic warfare. Look at France, the government can't afford schools because it gave so much money to American billionaires, without using the same strategies to extract the same amount of money back from America.
You may not think there's a game, but both Putin and Xi are playing one. You may want to live in peace, but they may not give you the option.
Militarily, what we really need is some strategic nuclear ability. So we have the ability to destroy Russia if they bother us. It will be enough as a deterrent so they won't. It's kept us all safe for 80 years. Russia for example has less resources than the bigger European countries and the only reason we worry about them is that they have nukes.
Part of the problem is that the US has always opposed us having our own nuclear deterrent. They've always opposed France and have hamstrung the UK's options. In return the US promised to take care of this for us but we can't count on that anymore so I totally support building this out.
> what we really need is some strategic nuclear ability
France has nukes.
Absolutely but not nearly enough.
France only has one sub guaranteed to be at sea at any one time. That's not a credible deterrent, one torpedo and it's gone.
We need to build that out to be much more resilient against counterattack.
This is why several countries are partnering with France now too build this out.
And what we need too is stronger NGO organisations like the UN and ICC. To avoid military conflict in the first place.
France has 280 nukes and bombers to deliver them. France launches satellites, so it's not a stretch to think they could do ICBMs in a hurry if they wanted or needed to.
I'm sure they could but they don't have them ready to go.
In case of a nuclear attack there is no time to build stuff obviously. A deterrent needs to be ready 24/7.
And bombers only really work when aerial supremacy has already been achieved. The US still operates some but constant flights were dropped in the 60s like chrome dome.
For Europe to be completely independent from the US for its deterrent (and thus not being able to be blackmailed by Trump) we'll need our own ICBM platform and more subs.
There is a reason why Europe was thoroughly disarmed and pacified
https://youtu.be/821R0lGUL6A?si=TKfi83pBlcMEqQg4&t=366
Europeans are genocidal lunatics. There were incidents of ethnic cleansing as late as the early 2000s. Telling countries like germany to rearm is lunacy
I am in Germany and I can see this is true. The general attitude here is quite nasty towards other countries, it's only tempered by lack of ability. If there is a need for defense then Germany should be contributing more money to shared defense projects rather than having a large army of its own.
https://archive.is/V9RvT
The comments at time of writing are blissfully ignorant of the European political culture inside and outside of the EU.
On the one hand, there are only politicians available in two kinds: those who insist on blindly glazing the US regardless of the harm it does to Europe and those who insist on blindly glazing the Russia/China/Iran axis regardless of the harm it does to Europe. All of them occasionally implement one-off military spending programs while permitting long term trends of worse military, energy, machine tools, infrastructure, mining, smelting and reserve readiness spending.
In Italy, Spain, Austria, Romania, Sweden and Britain (the six cases I'm familiar with, three from business travel, one from holidaying and two from deep interest) the occasional politician (one person per country per 3-5 years) who does want Europe to have independent expeditionary military partnering with Africa and the Middle East, totally disconnected from either superpower bloc and their goods, services, politics and ideologies is ridiculed up until they say something negative about [emotional support ethnostate of either bloc, they both have them], at which point they are dealt with through lawfare, debanking, travel bans and intimidation of their families.
.
On the other hand, it is entirely predictable that thoughts of military self-determination are taboo given the historical political economy of Europe. Sovereignty in Europe was dismantled by the US and Russia over the 20th century, the 1944 conferences being the most irreversible moment, and it can only recover if they both implode, not just one. Every party system Europe has relies on sovereignty backstopped externally and neither of the superpower blocs reneging on their backstop offers are imploding at the present time.
Adapting, avoiding being squeezed, these are the loser options of a bully victim whining that they aren't being left alone. Keeping to the metaphor of a bully, you're only worth leaving alone the minute you die and not a moment before, and the world is run by bullies. Using a more unsanitised and true metaphor, dogs and wolves get a dopamine-reward signal in their ventral striatum when they hear the prey animal in their jaws squeal.
Israel and ? - which are the ESEs? Genuinely curious; chuckled at the phrase.
Han China, NK and Myanmar but they aren't culturally relevant, also technically Russia but they are really just a racist herrenvolk democracy.
The problem with partisan politics is that no part of it is able to admit that both 90% of Al Jazeera and 90% of Radio Free Asia are the unvarnished truth at the same time.
You can’t “bully” a continent that is entirely dependent on you for its security. The Ukraine war has proven that Europe is utterly incapable of putting out a fire in its own back yard without American military and financial support.
The article addresses that in the last couple of paragraphs.
"In effect, the administration is promoting European rearmament and European defense cooperation while simultaneously promoting politicians who oppose rearmament or defense cooperation."
America has also been utterly incapable of putting this out. Or even of handling Iran (which they didn't need to engage to begin with)
There are probably layers of nuance behind this.
Blocking the sale of Russian oil forced the EU to purchase US oil at a premium. Not conducive to ending the war from the US perspective.
Continued combat in Ukraine requires the purchase of US armament. Not conducive to ending the war from the US perspective.
The EU being a supplicant strengthened the US hand in trade negotiations. Not conducive to ending the war from the US perspective.
Probably much more that we don't know about driving the current situation.
I think the US could have, but lacked the political will to do so.
so it couldn't have, as it was missing a necessary factor?
I could climb Mt Everest. I could train, save up for the permits. But I lack the desire to do so.
But I could if I wanted.
Potential man meme spotted in the wild.
Why would they put out the fire that they themselves started?
The wars have been very profitable for certain people who planned for it.
They really arent. The people capable of starting wars are invested in industry a lot bigger than military. "Wars are for profit" is something people blindly repeat but has no basis in reality.
> U.S. Oil Industry Earned over $130B in Profit During Iran War (nytimes.com)
> Trump aims to increase US military spending to $1.5 trillion by 2027
> EU member states' defence expenditure sharply increased between 2021 and 2026. In 2025, member states' defence expenditure reached €418 billion, rising for the 11th consecutive year. In 2026, it is expected to reach an estimated €454 billion. This means that defence expenditure has increased by 75.3% compared with 2021.
Russia would have been very easy to handle. No fly zone over Ukraine from the very start. The US could have closed the skies over Ukraine early on (as requested by Ukraine) and almost instantly put an end to the war before it got rolling. Putin would have thrown a giant tantrum, and then promptly backed down and sought peace talks. The US could have shot down every single jet & bomber Russia sent over the line.
War with Russia does not mean nuclear war with Russia. As we can clearly see from what Ukraine is doing to Moscow et al.
Also, an aggressive stance in fighting Russia, would have caught them early on when their military was entirely a disaster. The beating would have been an epic humiliation. Instead Russia has spent years re-learning how to wage war, which is not what you actually want.
"no fly zone" is one of those things that sounds obvious but if you actually think about it then it doesn't mean anything.
What mechanism gives the US the power to tell Russian planes where they can and cannot fly? The US cannot simply mark an area on a map. It would have to, at a minimum, deploy a series of surface-to-air missile sites to actually shoot down those planes that violated the map.
Presumably a combination of SAMs and fighter planes. The US couldn't put a no fly zone over Russia, but a no fly zone over Ukraine would be pretty straightforward (even just flying out of Germany). A no fly zone doesn't need to be perfect to work. If you shoot down a couple planes (or even have fighters in the area), you make every future flight by Russia a massive risk.
Playing chicken is always risky.
Declaring a no fly zone would have achieved nothing. Sending air forces to enforce it would have done something. But what happens if American fighter jets engage Russians over Ukraine, while Russian air defenses support their air forces from their side of the border? Would Americans let Russians launch SAMs with impunity, or would they invade Russia, showing the world that Putin's justification for the war was in fact correct?
Maybe Putin would have chickened out when American jets show up, but you can't know that for sure. Which means you should probably decide in advance you far you are willing to escalate before you chicken out yourself.