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The entire European Union project is a direct result of the failure of colonialism - if we cannot be colonisers competing over far away resources then it makes

The entire European Union project is a direct result of the failure of colonialism - if we cannot be colonisers competing over far away resources then it makes sense that we should start playing nice together, without war, and present ourselves externally as a single, more powerful organism. Colonialism itself did not stop in 1945, not at all, in fact the very last European (or European/Asian) empire is on its last stretch trying to re-colonise Ukraine. Timothy Snyder explains it perfectly here: https://youtu.be/JVs2y-YeiFM?t=3682 https://youtu.be/JVs2y-YeiFM?t=3682 EDIT: Given the replies below that I suggest reading my comment perhaps more than once. It seems some people are quick to jump onto some wrong conclusions after grep'ing two or three words from the paragraph I wrote :)

fsckboy 2y ago
the whole world is the direct result of colonialism, so what? meet the human race.
alephnerd 2y ago
If EU "colonization" was so bad, why did formerly developing countries like Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Bulgaria, etc work so hard to join the EU, and currently developing countries like Armenia, Georgia, Serbia, Bosnia, etc still try to ascend into the EU? And also the fact that HDI metrics of most of Eastern and Southern Europe only broke the 0.9 (very very highly developed) because of EU funding and support. Edit: you aren't arguing that the EU is a neo-colonial/imperialist project. I answered as such assuming you are anti-EU. +1 on Snyder btw - highly recommend reading "Postwar" if anyone has the time.
- Macha 2y ago
  I don't think the claim is that the EU is colonizing people, but rather the impulse for the large European countries was basically "we can't be relevant by having huge colonies any more so let's try being relevant by being a unified block" Which is basically true, though the primary motivator was to interlink economies to avoid another war in Europe as started ww1 and ww2
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    Ok. That can be argued (and was a major impetus behind the Benelux Pact which turned into the EEC), but you cannot deny the amount of development the EU brought to countries that ascended to it. Just look at Croatia versus Serbia despite having the same ethnicity, language, and civil war, or Romania versus Moldova, or Poland versus Belarus despite both sharing the same HDI in the early 1990s.
    - Macha 2y ago
      Sure, small European countries had a different motivation than the large ones, but also having a say on the world stage was even less possible for them disunited. Imagine how little the US might care about possible threats to the Baltic states from Russia if the borders to the EU and NATO were still at Germany.
    - quotz 2y ago
      Croatia is hugely dependent on tourism. Serbia does not have access to nice beaches and islands on the Mediterranean. In addition, its exports to the EU are taxed quite heavily
      - alephnerd 2y ago
        Yet the average Croatian has a higher household income, life expectancy at birth, and literacy rate than Serbia - despite Croatia having a lower HDI than Serbia in the 1990s, and lacking any major cities or industries (which were concentrated in Bosnia and Serbia during the Yugoslav era)
        quotz 2y ago
        Not sure how your argument refutes mine but okay.
        quotz 2y ago
        Oh also to add, regarding literacy rates, even before WW1 because Croatia and Slovenia were Austro-hungarian, and the rest was Ottoman, the literacy rates were way different, with the former being much much higher. Currently, its probably about the same with Croatia and Serbia.
- petsfed 2y ago
  There's a pretty big difference between how the Spanish Empire worked, and how the EU works. For one, it's not like heavily armed conquistadors are setting out from Brussels to Tblisi or something to forcibly indoctrinate Georgians into the brilliance of the EuroZone. Insofar as the EU relationship to its member states is extractive, its not principally extractive, nor is it primarily parasitic in nature. And anyway, EU expansion is driven entirely by applications to join, not efforts to annex. That's not to say that anything like the EU is necessarily good, just that its unambiguously not a colonial/imperialist project, and its a weird non sequitur to act like it is.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    By "neoimperialist" I mean the tankie talking point. Not the return of Pizarro.
quotz 2y ago
Would you say the same thing if Canada tried to join a military alliance with Russia? Of course what would happen is a total overnight invasion of Canada by the USA. Something similar happened in the 70s with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Total overnight naval blockade of Cuba with imminent threat of escalation.
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  The Cuban Missile Crisis was 60s: 1962. Unfortunately, having worked together to defuse it, both Kennedy and Khrushchev were cancelled soon after.
  - quotz 2y ago
    Point still stands. Better yet, imagine Texas leaves the union and joins military alliance with Russia. That would be more similar than the scenario with Canada.
    - mopsi 2y ago
      No, it does not stand, because they are not comparable examples at all. Since the end of the Cold War, European militaries have seen a reduction of up to 10 times in everything from personnel to equipment. Germany went from 3800 tanks in 1980s to 200 in 2015. Since Putin's rise to power in early 2000s, Russia has been continuously creeping forwards. They started massive army modernization program, and have placed nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, an enclave in the middle of Europe[1][2], and in Belarus, an unstable dictatorship right on the EU border.[3] They have launched the largest war in Europe since Hitler invaded Poland, and are currently forming two new armies larger than the ground forces of major European countries COMBINED.[4] Instead of a strong reaction to this creep like during the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have seen nothing of this sort. It has tipped the balance of military power in Europe deeply in favor of Russia and emboldened them to launch land grabs against Ukraine. In 2024, we are living the scenario where Russia placed missiles in Cuba, saw no reaction, and then invaded Florida "to protect Cuban minorities". [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37597075 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37597075 [2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/files/2016/11/russianmissiles-1122-4.jpg http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/files/2016/11... [3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65932700 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65932700 [4] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/new-russian-military-expansion-plan-to-establish-two-armies-by-2024/ar-BB1khqqa https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/new-russian-military-ex...
rs999gti 2y ago
> European Union project I thought it was to unite EU to prevent another World War happening and to join coal resources?
keybored 2y ago
> The entire European Union project is a direct result of the failure of colonialism - if we cannot be colonisers competing over far away resources then it makes sense that we should start playing nice together, without war, and present ourselves externally as a single, more powerful organism. Why wage war in Europe when you can peacefully exploit the Global South? > Colonialism itself did not stop in 1945, Yeah I guess France has its whole neocolonialism— > not at all, in fact the very last European (or European/Asian) empire is on its last stretch trying to re-colonise Ukraine. Oh. I guess that too.
- surfingdino 2y ago
  > > Colonialism itself did not stop in 1945, > Yeah I guess France has its whole neocolonialism— It's over for France. Putin sent Wagner to set former French colonies on fire. Why do you think Macron is talking about sending French weapons and soldiers to Ukraine? Payback for dismantling the French order in Africa.
surfingdino 2y ago
> present ourselves externally as a single, more powerful organism Except in 1989 Germany got the keys to Europe and jumped in bed with Russia screwing over Europe in the process. Because once you get away with murder, you don't fear doing it again.
banish-m4 2y ago
Never forget Spanish, Portuguese, French, British, Danish, and Dutch, and later, American mercantile colonialism led to the exploitation, suffering, and deaths of ~100 million indigenous and ~15 million African peoples for profits that built the US and Europe and the fortunes of a small cadre of elite landowners. US colonialism lived on through economic and military interventionism through Manifest Destiny in N America and Monroe Doctrine in the greater Americas for more than 2 centuries, and still continues to meddle to this day. An explicit policy of American military supremacy post-WW2 is one of the fundamental genesises of the Cold War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_Haitian_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_Haitian_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican%E2%80%93American_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican%E2%80%93American_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Government_of_Cuba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Government_of_Cuba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Nicaragua https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Ni... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Haiti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Ha... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_the_Dominican_Republic_(1916–1924) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_th... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_PBFortune https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_PBFortune https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Brazilian_coup_d%27état https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Brazilian_coup_d%27état https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_for_Security_Cooperation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_f... (School of the Americas) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Banzer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Banzer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_FUBELT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_FUBELT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27état https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27état https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Honduran_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Honduran_coup_d%27%C3%A9t... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Salvadoran_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Salvadoran_coup_d%27%C3%A... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinaltrainal_v._Coca-Cola_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinaltrainal_v._Coca-Cola_Co. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Venezuelan_uprising_attempt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Venezuelan_uprising_attem... Finally, in the recent few years, Africa countries are becoming more self-aware and escorting colonial vestiges of control out the door to forge their own paths.

fsckboy 2y ago

the whole world is the direct result of colonialism, so what? meet the human race.

alephnerd 2y ago

If EU "colonization" was so bad, why did formerly developing countries like Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Bulgaria, etc work so hard to join the EU, and currently developing countries like Armenia, Georgia, Serbia, Bosnia, etc still try to ascend into the EU? And also the fact that HDI metrics of most of Eastern and Southern Europe only broke the 0.9 (very very highly developed) because of EU funding and support. Edit: you aren't arguing that the EU is a neo-colonial/imperialist project. I answered as such assuming you are anti-EU. +1 on Snyder btw - highly recommend reading "Postwar" if anyone has the time.

Macha 2y ago
I don't think the claim is that the EU is colonizing people, but rather the impulse for the large European countries was basically "we can't be relevant by having huge colonies any more so let's try being relevant by being a unified block" Which is basically true, though the primary motivator was to interlink economies to avoid another war in Europe as started ww1 and ww2
- alephnerd 2y ago
  Ok. That can be argued (and was a major impetus behind the Benelux Pact which turned into the EEC), but you cannot deny the amount of development the EU brought to countries that ascended to it. Just look at Croatia versus Serbia despite having the same ethnicity, language, and civil war, or Romania versus Moldova, or Poland versus Belarus despite both sharing the same HDI in the early 1990s.
  - Macha 2y ago
    Sure, small European countries had a different motivation than the large ones, but also having a say on the world stage was even less possible for them disunited. Imagine how little the US might care about possible threats to the Baltic states from Russia if the borders to the EU and NATO were still at Germany.
  - quotz 2y ago
    Croatia is hugely dependent on tourism. Serbia does not have access to nice beaches and islands on the Mediterranean. In addition, its exports to the EU are taxed quite heavily
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      Yet the average Croatian has a higher household income, life expectancy at birth, and literacy rate than Serbia - despite Croatia having a lower HDI than Serbia in the 1990s, and lacking any major cities or industries (which were concentrated in Bosnia and Serbia during the Yugoslav era)
      - quotz 2y ago
        Not sure how your argument refutes mine but okay.
      - quotz 2y ago
        Oh also to add, regarding literacy rates, even before WW1 because Croatia and Slovenia were Austro-hungarian, and the rest was Ottoman, the literacy rates were way different, with the former being much much higher. Currently, its probably about the same with Croatia and Serbia.
petsfed 2y ago
There's a pretty big difference between how the Spanish Empire worked, and how the EU works. For one, it's not like heavily armed conquistadors are setting out from Brussels to Tblisi or something to forcibly indoctrinate Georgians into the brilliance of the EuroZone. Insofar as the EU relationship to its member states is extractive, its not principally extractive, nor is it primarily parasitic in nature. And anyway, EU expansion is driven entirely by applications to join, not efforts to annex. That's not to say that anything like the EU is necessarily good, just that its unambiguously not a colonial/imperialist project, and its a weird non sequitur to act like it is.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  By "neoimperialist" I mean the tankie talking point. Not the return of Pizarro.

quotz 2y ago

Would you say the same thing if Canada tried to join a military alliance with Russia? Of course what would happen is a total overnight invasion of Canada by the USA. Something similar happened in the 70s with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Total overnight naval blockade of Cuba with imminent threat of escalation.

082349872349872 2y ago
The Cuban Missile Crisis was 60s: 1962. Unfortunately, having worked together to defuse it, both Kennedy and Khrushchev were cancelled soon after.
- quotz 2y ago
  Point still stands. Better yet, imagine Texas leaves the union and joins military alliance with Russia. That would be more similar than the scenario with Canada.
  - mopsi 2y ago
    No, it does not stand, because they are not comparable examples at all. Since the end of the Cold War, European militaries have seen a reduction of up to 10 times in everything from personnel to equipment. Germany went from 3800 tanks in 1980s to 200 in 2015. Since Putin's rise to power in early 2000s, Russia has been continuously creeping forwards. They started massive army modernization program, and have placed nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, an enclave in the middle of Europe[1][2], and in Belarus, an unstable dictatorship right on the EU border.[3] They have launched the largest war in Europe since Hitler invaded Poland, and are currently forming two new armies larger than the ground forces of major European countries COMBINED.[4] Instead of a strong reaction to this creep like during the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have seen nothing of this sort. It has tipped the balance of military power in Europe deeply in favor of Russia and emboldened them to launch land grabs against Ukraine. In 2024, we are living the scenario where Russia placed missiles in Cuba, saw no reaction, and then invaded Florida "to protect Cuban minorities". [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37597075 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37597075 [2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/files/2016/11/russianmissiles-1122-4.jpg http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/files/2016/11... [3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65932700 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65932700 [4] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/new-russian-military-expansion-plan-to-establish-two-armies-by-2024/ar-BB1khqqa https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/new-russian-military-ex...

rs999gti 2y ago

> European Union project I thought it was to unite EU to prevent another World War happening and to join coal resources?

keybored 2y ago

> The entire European Union project is a direct result of the failure of colonialism - if we cannot be colonisers competing over far away resources then it makes sense that we should start playing nice together, without war, and present ourselves externally as a single, more powerful organism. Why wage war in Europe when you can peacefully exploit the Global South? > Colonialism itself did not stop in 1945, Yeah I guess France has its whole neocolonialism— > not at all, in fact the very last European (or European/Asian) empire is on its last stretch trying to re-colonise Ukraine. Oh. I guess that too.

surfingdino 2y ago
> > Colonialism itself did not stop in 1945, > Yeah I guess France has its whole neocolonialism— It's over for France. Putin sent Wagner to set former French colonies on fire. Why do you think Macron is talking about sending French weapons and soldiers to Ukraine? Payback for dismantling the French order in Africa.

surfingdino 2y ago

> present ourselves externally as a single, more powerful organism Except in 1989 Germany got the keys to Europe and jumped in bed with Russia screwing over Europe in the process. Because once you get away with murder, you don't fear doing it again.

banish-m4 2y ago

Never forget Spanish, Portuguese, French, British, Danish, and Dutch, and later, American mercantile colonialism led to the exploitation, suffering, and deaths of ~100 million indigenous and ~15 million African peoples for profits that built the US and Europe and the fortunes of a small cadre of elite landowners. US colonialism lived on through economic and military interventionism through Manifest Destiny in N America and Monroe Doctrine in the greater Americas for more than 2 centuries, and still continues to meddle to this day. An explicit policy of American military supremacy post-WW2 is one of the fundamental genesises of the Cold War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_Haitian_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_Haitian_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican%E2%80%93American_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican%E2%80%93American_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Government_of_Cuba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Government_of_Cuba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Nicaragua https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Ni... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Haiti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Ha... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_the_Dominican_Republic_(1916–1924) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_th... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_PBFortune https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_PBFortune https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Brazilian_coup_d%27état https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Brazilian_coup_d%27état https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_for_Security_Cooperation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_f... (School of the Americas) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Banzer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Banzer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_FUBELT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_FUBELT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27état https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27état https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Honduran_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Honduran_coup_d%27%C3%A9t... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Salvadoran_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Salvadoran_coup_d%27%C3%A... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinaltrainal_v._Coca-Cola_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinaltrainal_v._Coca-Cola_Co. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Venezuelan_uprising_attempt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Venezuelan_uprising_attem... Finally, in the recent few years, Africa countries are becoming more self-aware and escorting colonial vestiges of control out the door to forge their own paths.