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Please permit me a ramble, there are too many points to fit in a hn box and I'm typing on a phone. I'm sure our stateside friends would be happy to acknowled

Please permit me a ramble, there are too many points to fit in a hn box and I'm typing on a phone. I'm sure our stateside friends would be happy to acknowledge that US politics has a major effect on the whole world. I have had it pointed out to me before, however, that the USA can vote in whomever they please, and it is none of our business. But American companies sell us our books and films (understatement), take cuts of our credit card payments, make us coffee, organize our taxis. All of this seems to be with preferential tax treatment. All of these things could be done without the US, but the US is our partner in peace, so it is tolerated. And here is the rub, this works so long as the USA is a legitimate ally. And then came Trump, telling us that we don't spend enough on Nato (with US defence companies) and threatening our peace. I believe this has lead to a situation where the US is seen less as a partner and more as a bully, a colonial overlord demanding tribute. I think the next 20 years will see a shift in this kind of trade to the EU and to the East. The USA can be insular if it wants, but it can't do so and expect everything to be the same as it has been for the last 50 years. An insular US is a declining US. Your new President has a terrific amount of work to do to undo this damage...

johndevor 6y ago
> But American companies sell us our books and films (understatement), take cuts of our credit card payments, make us coffee, organize our taxis. All of this seems to be with preferential tax treatment. All of these things could be done without the US, but the US is our partner in peace, so it is tolerated. Are you implying that America is exporting more than it imports from the EU? The US actually has a trade deficit with Europe. https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c0003.html https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c0003.html
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  Does that include software services? Edit: Just checked the source. It is goods only. And does not include services, software or not. So, this is sort of a meaningless argument for an economy that is shifting towards services from hard goods.
- guerrilla 6y ago
  Thta is not what they were implying. They were refering to power imbalances, not trade by itself.
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  My feeling is that the bigger issue with things like movies and books is not money (trade) but mind share. The US tends to have more influence elsewhere on how people think than other countries have here. I'm American and I find it disturbing the degree to which our films, TV shows and other major media are done mostly in California or New York. Those are much more urbanized places than most of the US. It took me a long time to comprehend why I felt like there was something "wrong" with my life. I consume a lot less popular media (books, magazines, movies, etc) than I used to and my life makes a lot more sense to me than it used to. I found it personally problematic to be more or less brainwashed with ideas about what life was supposed to be like that in no way matched my actual life. It took me a long time to conclude that this is not some defect in me. This is a situation where our popular imagery doesn't really match reality for the majority of Americans. That disconnect is bound to be even larger and more problematic for other countries/cultures. I think it is legitimate to be concerned about things like that under the best of circumstances and downright suspicious when the evidence suggests it's not even being done in good faith, so it's not likely some sort of innocent problem. At that point you have to start being genuinely concerned that you are being intentionally manipulated with malice aforethought.
_iyig 6y ago
> And then came Trump, telling us that we don't spend enough on Nato Trump said it loudly and in plain terms, but this is a popular bipartisan view in the US. It is a fact that many wealthy NATO members do not meet the defense spending commitments that membership entails. Obama pressured NATO members to meet their obligations, and Biden will likely do so as well. https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/obama-nato-pay-fair-share-231405 https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/obama-nato-pay-fair-s...
- nullc 6y ago
  I think one factor in this election is that the parties splits are misaligned with issues that people actually care about. So for example: Trump and Sanders (and Tulsi and a number of more fringey candidates) are generally opposed to international intervention. Immigration considerations are another one (in particular, dem immigration platform is at odds with trade union preferences but aligned with large corporate interests). There are big, relevant, issues that voters care a lot about that don't conform to the party lines.
- alkonaut 6y ago
  There is a silent understanding (silent, because it isn't raised) that the US takes a larger part of NATO spending because it's politically feasible to do so there, and because protecting Europe is to protect US interests as well. In some places, spending 2% GDP on defense (meaning cutting back on something else) would be political suicide. So that government is kicked out and it remains 1.2% or something. What happens then? Nato kicks out the member state? That hardly helps any more than a member paying 1.2% and promising to help with Article V!
- endymi0n 6y ago
  While I don‘t disagree about the split between countries being off, I always questioned the notion of other countries needing to spend more. Why shouldn‘t we all spend less instead? Compared to almost any non-superpower status nation, the US Defense budget is strictly insane. If they had just shifted a third of that budget towards education under early Obama, I doubt Trump could ever have come this far.
jacquesm 6y ago
And when there is a questionable war to be fought they are the first to bang the drums and demand their 'partners' join in a coalition. 'Or else...'.
crocodiletears 6y ago
I'll welcome a divorce from Europe. The EU should flourish into the society it wants to be, and be free to develop its internal market as it sees fit. An insular US, engaging primarily its geographic neighbours, and countries in the Americas will be better able to focus inward, and work to rectify the internal problems that see it on a path of decline already, while mantaining its sovereignty. As much of a fantasy as it might be, I do hope Biden will continue the Trajectory of bilateral relations, and minimal alliances that Trump's administration has so clumsily set us on.
- jimnotgym 6y ago
  That is an incredible view to me. The influence of American culture on Europe is significant. The sales of US services took Europe are colossal. Suggesting that the US give that up to win a pissing contest about who has the most defence expenditure sounds rather ignorant.
  - crocodiletears 6y ago
    I'm honestly not particularly bothered by NATO defense expenditures. NATO member states could spend twice as much per capita, and I'd still be wondering why we insisted on continuing to occupy a major role in European defense. My disinterest in economic and political entanglements with EU states (and many others) is fairly multivariate, but I'll briefly touch upon the largest reasons. 1st, I believe that the more multinational our companies are, the less financially, economically and culturally interested they become in America's domestic well-being. Our most economically well-connected and well-to-do see themselves as global citizens who happen to live in the US. They are above petty things such as nationality, happily siphoning US subsidies, and leveraging American tax loopholes with no sense of loyalty or obligation to the country in-which they reside, where their success was made possible, even while their lobbyists do everything possible to keep the interests of American citizens on the backburner. The few times they indulge in true charity, it's usually as some high-minded investment in the third world. When they do get involved in domestic politics, it's often only to whine about how distrusting American's have become of the institutions they themselves deliberately compromised, or to push some ill-considered policy that sounds like it would make the country better, but benefits them in some indirect way while ignoring local cultures. 2nd, I think a clean civilizational break would be good for the US and the EU. I'm well aware of Europe's superior standards of living, as are America's liberals. Many people in the US have become disinterested in the national geography (culturally and spatially), and out of an abundance of envy for Europe's achievements and lack understanding for their origins, naively believe we could remap European models of governance, and social services onto the US with few negative consequences. We've become intellectually lazy about our own domestic development, and overly fobd of universalist philosophies towards governance. We would rather argue over whether to parrot other nations we believe have reached the end of history, or abolish the government altogether (effectively) than we would take the time to consider the US within its own cultural, geographical, and historical context. We should begin to regard the US as a civilization apart from the European West. Europe has wholesale adopted concepts of positive rights, and benevolent if universal governance, while we have historically been a land of negative rights, and minimal state involvement. The further into history we go, the more bifurcated our civilization's cultural mindsets become, and the earlier we (Amerixans) acknowledge these differences consciously, the sooner we (Americans) can begin to introspect and work around the advantages and limitations that this realizaton entails. 3rd, the longer we operate as a regional security garuntor, the more conflicts we're responsible for keeping frozen, the more interested the world is in our domestic affairs, and the less sovereignty we have in both our domestic and foreign affairs. My shorthand is to refer people to the Saudi, and Israeli lobbies as examples of how our international relations can have outsized effects on our domestic affairs.
vermilingua 6y ago
When I was complaining to a friend that our media (Australia) spends more time on US politics than our own, they showed me a map of extraterritorial US military bases. I think the comparison to a colonial overlord is more than apt.
justatdotin 6y ago
> this works so long as the USA is a legitimate ally. so, never.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
travisoneill1 6y ago
NATO is supposed to be an alliance, not a protection agreement. And what is the point of an alliance if your country doesn't have a worthwhile army? Why can't you be asked to hold up your end? Asking you to hold up your end is not "demanding tribute."
- jimnotgym 6y ago
  My country does have a worthwhile army and an independent nuclear deterrent. I am dismayed that you can imagine that the European Nato members can't field significant forces, that would be very insular thinking. Sure they don't have stealth bombers and super-carriers... My country has also supported the United States in many of its foreign campaigns as an ally supplying manpower and materiel to Afghanistan and several gulf wars for instance. The sub-text is that my country spends a great deal of it's 2% on American weapons, which is not true of some of our Nato neighbour's. When I hear the USA demanding more this is what I hear, 'spend more on US made arms' not 'build a better army'. That is why I call it tribute.
  - travisoneill1 6y ago
    You must be from the UK or France, then. That means your country is very capable of designing and manufacturing world class weapons systems if you don't want to buy from the US.
    - jimnotgym 6y ago
      I am from the UK yes. We have a capable arms industry yet buy Trident, Apache, F35 etc from the US for no reason other than paying tribute.
cblconfederate 6y ago
It's was not a secret that NATO's enormous expansion was dubious for the US or that european countries do not contribute nearly enough. trump 's opinion was just a rude way to say what everyone knew. Even Mitterand wondered what was the reason for NATO after the cold war ended. > An insular US is a declining US If EU did that, it would be an empty threat. The US is already realigning towards the ascending markets in Asia rather the aging Europe. There seems also to be very little interest from Europeans to act together as an alliance. Instead they are watching passively as a NATO member (Turkey) is actively threatening allies and other NATO members (cyprus, greece, france)
- jimnotgym 6y ago
  >It's was not a secret that NATO's enormous expansion was dubious for the US or that european countries do not contribute nearly enough. I think it would be useful for you to flesh out those two points. 'It's not a secret..' sounds like a Trumpist soundbite, a mechanism to try to pass off a personal opinion as fact or at least as established consensus. There are some much more eloquent people than me in this thread who have argued the exact opposite of what you have stated, that Nato is a net benefit to the US. Would you mind fleshing out your counter-argument further please
  - cblconfederate 6y ago
    Debates about the expansion of NATO are not new and it wasn't ever without criticism (https://fas.org/man/eprint/aurora_29/part05.htm https://fas.org/man/eprint/aurora_29/part05.htm) and the funding imbalances are long known https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2013/10/will-us-rebalance-its-contribution-nato/72281/ https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2013/10/will-us-rebalance-i... but i think you re more interested in scrutinizing every word so i d rather not continue
- pvtmert 6y ago
  As a Turkish person I can say that even if it may look like we've some military power, most of qualified people prisoned after 2016 coup attempt. It is like a person speaks louder to hide their ignorance. That is what Turkey is doing right now.

johndevor 6y ago

> But American companies sell us our books and films (understatement), take cuts of our credit card payments, make us coffee, organize our taxis. All of this seems to be with preferential tax treatment. All of these things could be done without the US, but the US is our partner in peace, so it is tolerated. Are you implying that America is exporting more than it imports from the EU? The US actually has a trade deficit with Europe. https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c0003.html https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c0003.html

systemvoltage 6y ago
Does that include software services? Edit: Just checked the source. It is goods only. And does not include services, software or not. So, this is sort of a meaningless argument for an economy that is shifting towards services from hard goods.
guerrilla 6y ago
Thta is not what they were implying. They were refering to power imbalances, not trade by itself.
DoreenMichele 6y ago
My feeling is that the bigger issue with things like movies and books is not money (trade) but mind share. The US tends to have more influence elsewhere on how people think than other countries have here. I'm American and I find it disturbing the degree to which our films, TV shows and other major media are done mostly in California or New York. Those are much more urbanized places than most of the US. It took me a long time to comprehend why I felt like there was something "wrong" with my life. I consume a lot less popular media (books, magazines, movies, etc) than I used to and my life makes a lot more sense to me than it used to. I found it personally problematic to be more or less brainwashed with ideas about what life was supposed to be like that in no way matched my actual life. It took me a long time to conclude that this is not some defect in me. This is a situation where our popular imagery doesn't really match reality for the majority of Americans. That disconnect is bound to be even larger and more problematic for other countries/cultures. I think it is legitimate to be concerned about things like that under the best of circumstances and downright suspicious when the evidence suggests it's not even being done in good faith, so it's not likely some sort of innocent problem. At that point you have to start being genuinely concerned that you are being intentionally manipulated with malice aforethought.

_iyig 6y ago

> And then came Trump, telling us that we don't spend enough on Nato Trump said it loudly and in plain terms, but this is a popular bipartisan view in the US. It is a fact that many wealthy NATO members do not meet the defense spending commitments that membership entails. Obama pressured NATO members to meet their obligations, and Biden will likely do so as well. https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/obama-nato-pay-fair-share-231405 https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/obama-nato-pay-fair-s...

nullc 6y ago
I think one factor in this election is that the parties splits are misaligned with issues that people actually care about. So for example: Trump and Sanders (and Tulsi and a number of more fringey candidates) are generally opposed to international intervention. Immigration considerations are another one (in particular, dem immigration platform is at odds with trade union preferences but aligned with large corporate interests). There are big, relevant, issues that voters care a lot about that don't conform to the party lines.
alkonaut 6y ago
There is a silent understanding (silent, because it isn't raised) that the US takes a larger part of NATO spending because it's politically feasible to do so there, and because protecting Europe is to protect US interests as well. In some places, spending 2% GDP on defense (meaning cutting back on something else) would be political suicide. So that government is kicked out and it remains 1.2% or something. What happens then? Nato kicks out the member state? That hardly helps any more than a member paying 1.2% and promising to help with Article V!
endymi0n 6y ago
While I don‘t disagree about the split between countries being off, I always questioned the notion of other countries needing to spend more. Why shouldn‘t we all spend less instead? Compared to almost any non-superpower status nation, the US Defense budget is strictly insane. If they had just shifted a third of that budget towards education under early Obama, I doubt Trump could ever have come this far.

jacquesm 6y ago

And when there is a questionable war to be fought they are the first to bang the drums and demand their 'partners' join in a coalition. 'Or else...'.

crocodiletears 6y ago

I'll welcome a divorce from Europe. The EU should flourish into the society it wants to be, and be free to develop its internal market as it sees fit. An insular US, engaging primarily its geographic neighbours, and countries in the Americas will be better able to focus inward, and work to rectify the internal problems that see it on a path of decline already, while mantaining its sovereignty. As much of a fantasy as it might be, I do hope Biden will continue the Trajectory of bilateral relations, and minimal alliances that Trump's administration has so clumsily set us on.

jimnotgym 6y ago
That is an incredible view to me. The influence of American culture on Europe is significant. The sales of US services took Europe are colossal. Suggesting that the US give that up to win a pissing contest about who has the most defence expenditure sounds rather ignorant.
- crocodiletears 6y ago
  I'm honestly not particularly bothered by NATO defense expenditures. NATO member states could spend twice as much per capita, and I'd still be wondering why we insisted on continuing to occupy a major role in European defense. My disinterest in economic and political entanglements with EU states (and many others) is fairly multivariate, but I'll briefly touch upon the largest reasons. 1st, I believe that the more multinational our companies are, the less financially, economically and culturally interested they become in America's domestic well-being. Our most economically well-connected and well-to-do see themselves as global citizens who happen to live in the US. They are above petty things such as nationality, happily siphoning US subsidies, and leveraging American tax loopholes with no sense of loyalty or obligation to the country in-which they reside, where their success was made possible, even while their lobbyists do everything possible to keep the interests of American citizens on the backburner. The few times they indulge in true charity, it's usually as some high-minded investment in the third world. When they do get involved in domestic politics, it's often only to whine about how distrusting American's have become of the institutions they themselves deliberately compromised, or to push some ill-considered policy that sounds like it would make the country better, but benefits them in some indirect way while ignoring local cultures. 2nd, I think a clean civilizational break would be good for the US and the EU. I'm well aware of Europe's superior standards of living, as are America's liberals. Many people in the US have become disinterested in the national geography (culturally and spatially), and out of an abundance of envy for Europe's achievements and lack understanding for their origins, naively believe we could remap European models of governance, and social services onto the US with few negative consequences. We've become intellectually lazy about our own domestic development, and overly fobd of universalist philosophies towards governance. We would rather argue over whether to parrot other nations we believe have reached the end of history, or abolish the government altogether (effectively) than we would take the time to consider the US within its own cultural, geographical, and historical context. We should begin to regard the US as a civilization apart from the European West. Europe has wholesale adopted concepts of positive rights, and benevolent if universal governance, while we have historically been a land of negative rights, and minimal state involvement. The further into history we go, the more bifurcated our civilization's cultural mindsets become, and the earlier we (Amerixans) acknowledge these differences consciously, the sooner we (Americans) can begin to introspect and work around the advantages and limitations that this realizaton entails. 3rd, the longer we operate as a regional security garuntor, the more conflicts we're responsible for keeping frozen, the more interested the world is in our domestic affairs, and the less sovereignty we have in both our domestic and foreign affairs. My shorthand is to refer people to the Saudi, and Israeli lobbies as examples of how our international relations can have outsized effects on our domestic affairs.

vermilingua 6y ago

When I was complaining to a friend that our media (Australia) spends more time on US politics than our own, they showed me a map of extraterritorial US military bases. I think the comparison to a colonial overlord is more than apt.

justatdotin 6y ago

> this works so long as the USA is a legitimate ally. so, never.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

travisoneill1 6y ago

NATO is supposed to be an alliance, not a protection agreement. And what is the point of an alliance if your country doesn't have a worthwhile army? Why can't you be asked to hold up your end? Asking you to hold up your end is not "demanding tribute."

jimnotgym 6y ago
My country does have a worthwhile army and an independent nuclear deterrent. I am dismayed that you can imagine that the European Nato members can't field significant forces, that would be very insular thinking. Sure they don't have stealth bombers and super-carriers... My country has also supported the United States in many of its foreign campaigns as an ally supplying manpower and materiel to Afghanistan and several gulf wars for instance. The sub-text is that my country spends a great deal of it's 2% on American weapons, which is not true of some of our Nato neighbour's. When I hear the USA demanding more this is what I hear, 'spend more on US made arms' not 'build a better army'. That is why I call it tribute.
- travisoneill1 6y ago
  You must be from the UK or France, then. That means your country is very capable of designing and manufacturing world class weapons systems if you don't want to buy from the US.
  - jimnotgym 6y ago
    I am from the UK yes. We have a capable arms industry yet buy Trident, Apache, F35 etc from the US for no reason other than paying tribute.

cblconfederate 6y ago

It's was not a secret that NATO's enormous expansion was dubious for the US or that european countries do not contribute nearly enough. trump 's opinion was just a rude way to say what everyone knew. Even Mitterand wondered what was the reason for NATO after the cold war ended. > An insular US is a declining US If EU did that, it would be an empty threat. The US is already realigning towards the ascending markets in Asia rather the aging Europe. There seems also to be very little interest from Europeans to act together as an alliance. Instead they are watching passively as a NATO member (Turkey) is actively threatening allies and other NATO members (cyprus, greece, france)

jimnotgym 6y ago
>It's was not a secret that NATO's enormous expansion was dubious for the US or that european countries do not contribute nearly enough. I think it would be useful for you to flesh out those two points. 'It's not a secret..' sounds like a Trumpist soundbite, a mechanism to try to pass off a personal opinion as fact or at least as established consensus. There are some much more eloquent people than me in this thread who have argued the exact opposite of what you have stated, that Nato is a net benefit to the US. Would you mind fleshing out your counter-argument further please
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  Debates about the expansion of NATO are not new and it wasn't ever without criticism (https://fas.org/man/eprint/aurora_29/part05.htm https://fas.org/man/eprint/aurora_29/part05.htm) and the funding imbalances are long known https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2013/10/will-us-rebalance-its-contribution-nato/72281/ https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2013/10/will-us-rebalance-i... but i think you re more interested in scrutinizing every word so i d rather not continue
pvtmert 6y ago
As a Turkish person I can say that even if it may look like we've some military power, most of qualified people prisoned after 2016 coup attempt. It is like a person speaks louder to hide their ignorance. That is what Turkey is doing right now.