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To provide their own defense, ensure their energy sufficiency (in contrast to the US, EU doesn't really have its own energy apart for a bit of North Sea oil, mo
by tomp 6y ago
To provide their own defense, ensure their energy sufficiency (in contrast to the US, EU doesn't really have its own energy apart for a bit of North Sea oil, most of it is imported from Russia and the Middle East, two places known for being peaceful and cooperative), protect their trade routes/trading partners, and enforce international law (e.g. anti-nuclear weapons regulations and sanctions)
- arethuza 6y agoEU countries already have a large military in absolute terms - it's just a lot smaller than the US or China. My question is why the EU would want to challenge the US or China - neither who are realistic direct threats. Similar to how China appears to have decided that it doesn't need the huge numbers of nuclear weapons that the US and Russia have.
- tomp 6y agoIn order to have free trade with Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, etc. US is using their military force to contain China. In order to do so, their military forces have to be superior to China's. If EU wants to "go alone" and not rely on US power, they would need to do that themselves (or be content to not trade with a lot of the world, where they cannot project military power). Same with Middle East. Clearly there are competitors for local energy resources - e.g. Russia, increasingly China as well - as well as tensions in the region (e.g. Iran vs Saudi Arabia). EU depends on that energy, so protecting it is a matter of "national security". Currently, EU is relying on the US to maintain that.
- zo1 6y agoI find it quite odd thinking the EU has enough of a military when they de-facto get slowly invaded year on year without doing anything or even attempting to put up a border. Let's not be politically correct here at the expense of civil/safe society. The EU has been welcoming an invasion force for decades, and it's causing absolute havoc and making the EU turn into a specific term that Trump called a lot of countries recently with much media outrage.
- ithinkso 6y agoUkraine is not in the EU and I wouldn't say the invasion there started 'decades' ago though I don't remember exactly when the war started, must have been after Maidan
- arethuza 6y agoI don't think zo1 is referring to that.... :-)
- amanaplanacanal 6y agoNormally immigration is not what people are thinking of when they use the term “invasion”.
- zo1 6y agoOf course - I agree fully, immigration is a wonderful thing! My comment is rather around "concerted illegal immigration".
- arethuza 6y agoThe US has far more illegal immigrants than the EU? https://www.cato.org/blog/illegal-immigrants-europe https://www.cato.org/blog/illegal-immigrants-europe
- fit2rule 6y agoNot to mention the fact that the USA is the #1 CAUSE of illegal immigration, i.e. war refugees. Living in Europe, I have seen a lot more war refugees than there should be. The immigrants, I am fine with - Europe is resilient. But America's war victims streaming in cross the Balkans: Americans need to understand their own culpability in that situation. They really don't, however.