4 ms·

Vance: US could drop support for NATO if Europe tries to regulate Musk platforms

23 points by belter 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
hunglee2 2y ago
This is the sort coercion which will make the EU regulators know where real power lies. For too long EU extra territoriality has penalised US companies, which have just been eating the fines and then producing onerous localisations to stay under EU compliance. With Trump 2.0, the EU will have to bend the knee
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Europe will simply start decoupling from the US, as the US was doing with China and supply chains. The US military is already on the decline, from both a human and hardware force projection perspective.
  - chiefalchemist 2y ago
    > The US military is already one the decline, from both a human and hardware force projection perspective Interesting cause the budget isn't declining. Where is the money being shifted to?
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/368528/us-military-army-navy-recruit-numbers https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/368528/us-military-army-n... https://indi.ca/the-us-military-is-in-a-death-spiral/ https://indi.ca/the-us-military-is-in-a-death-spiral/ https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-105341 https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-105341 https://www.rand.org/nsrd/projects/NDS-commission.html https://www.rand.org/nsrd/projects/NDS-commission.html
      - chiefalchemist 2y ago
        And the response to this would be what? Even more budget. File this under: The MIC is not a conspiracy theory. What's on the decline: The value the US taxpayer is getting per dollar spent by The MIC. Under Obama (this is mentioned inhis 2016 State of The Union) the USA spent more than the next 10 counties combined. Most of those are allies. Gawd only knows what that stat is now. If all the spending is resulting in a decline, something is wrong.
        toomuchtodo 2y ago
        There is no solution, as there is no will to fix it. Once there is will, then potential solutions become relevant.
        chiefalchemist 2y ago
        Well it doesn't help when the traditional anti-MIC political party no longer pushes back against The MIC. Now we have hawks and hawkier. Most everyday Americans call the MIC a conspiracy theory, and have no idea its name's source was exGeneral / exPOTUS
    - seo-speedwagon 2y ago
      I’m not trying to pick on you specifically but that is precisely the kind of neoliberal thinking that has caused such rot in the US (and more broadly, western) military. Is spending a lot of money the goal or the measurement here? If your goal is actual effectiveness, then things such as force structure, results in recent conflicts, production rates, etc. are what you’d measure. If your goal is funneling money to capitalists then yeah sure budgets and adherence to “%GDP spending targets” from your vassals is what you’d measure.
      - BillyTheMage 2y ago
        This is the capitalist empire. Funneling money to capitalists might not be the only goal, but it's no less than goal #2.
      - chiefalchemist 2y ago
        It's not the spending that's causing the rot, it's the receiver of a good chunk of that spending. Prez Eisenhower said it best... Beware of The MIC.
- belter 2y ago
  Trump will help make 2025 the year of the Linux Desktop in Europe. You heard it here first :-) These pressures will finally push the EU to drop Office and Windows...
- Terr_ 2y ago
  Yeah, just like how the people behind Brexit managed to deliver on their promises of massively favorable new trade terms for the UK. We'll just force the EU to do what we want or else we take our business to China! Meanwhile, we'll force China to do what we want or else we'll take our business to the EU! Plus we can throw Canada and Mexico into the mix, and show them who's boss. There is absolutely no way this genius "alienate every viable major trading partner simultaneously" strategy could ever fail. I mean, even if other countries somehow exhibit more intelligence than a turnip and compare notes, this is America! We don't need 'em! We'll just trade with nobody and get super rich until they come begging to our feet. Sadly, I fear the above sarcasm is closer-than-not to what some freshly-appointed folks are gonna try to do.
  - throwgfa 2y ago
    You know Britain is irrelevant power, right?
keikobadthebad 2y ago
> I forget who it was OK bro
- Terr_ 2y ago
  "Everybody's saying it."
- pessimizer 2y ago
  https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-elon-musk-donald-trump-interview-thierry-breton-letter-social-media/ https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-elon-musk-donald-trump-in... Epic clapback, but you're giggling at a name not remembered spontaneously while simultaneously not spending five seconds to check if anything actually happened.
  - keikobadthebad 2y ago
    Shouldn't you deploy your grasp of young generation vernacular against the VP-elect who miserably failed to tell his 'cool story'?
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
082349872349872 2y ago
in related news: https://lite.cnn.com/2024/11/08/politics/pentagon-officials-discussing-trump/index.html https://lite.cnn.com/2024/11/08/politics/pentagon-officials-... > There is not much the Pentagon can do to pre-emptively shield the force from a potential abuse of power by a commander in chief.
mytailorisrich 2y ago
That's a bluff (or more mundanely hot air) considering that NATO is a tool of American influence, even control, over Europe. In any case that's much too big an aspect of American foreign policy to threaten to use it to protect X. Remember "we're going to build a wall and Mexico is going to pay for it". That gets headlines and people talking.
- legitster 2y ago
  > NATO is a tool of American influence Are you saying this as an American or European? Because right now most Europeans I know are looking at Russia and being very supportive of NATO. Also, while they happily spend US money, NATO develops very different security policies and technologies so US influence doesn't seem to amount to much.
  - mytailorisrich 2y ago
    I am European in Europe. Europeans have been served extremely strong propaganda since the war in Ukraine started and perhaps some, especially young ones, buy it. But historically and in fact NATO is obviously an American tool (and a good way to sell military hardware). France's De Gaulle left NATO's integrated command because he knew that this meant loss of independence (and he didn't want foreign military bases on French soil), for instance. The point here is that the US aren't dropping support for NATO, and certainly not over X.
    - Arnt 2y ago
      There's a timescale problem that you may be overlooking. One part of NATO is a quid pro quo: It's in the interest of the nuclear powers, most of all the US, that other countries don't build their own nuclear weapons. You might say that US offers an alliance (including nuclear weapons) in exchange for Norway, Finland, Poland, Austria, Italy etc. spending their budgets on non-nuclear weapons. All of those have advanced economies and generally sufficient resources that they could build nuclear weapons, but doing it is a decade-long project. Imagine yourself as the government of Poland. Make a choice about the 2026 defense budget. Start a nuclear bomb project that you think will take ten years, or trust that if Russia invades in 2035 the US will stand by its promises? What do you choose if you feel a tinge of doubt in the trustworthiness of half of the recent US presidents, or in the statements of many leading US politicians? That Vance person may be president in 2035, is he reliable? He spoke the words "drop support for NATO if", he suggested forcing your neighbour to cede territory, will he sacrifice American lives if Russia invades Poland?
needcontainers 2y ago
That's not what he said. He said they should be in support of free speech. https://x.com/i/status/1855406084418126099 https://x.com/i/status/1855406084418126099
- belter 2y ago
  The irony of you posting this from X, that has been transformed in the last few months on a Right Wing platform, where Trump opposing views, have been shadow banned is funny. Shadow banned by the new Russian style Oligarch of the US. It's not about free speech, that is safe and sound in the EU. It's about avoid that the US monopolies on Social Media don't decide what messages get propagated, while others get shadow banned at the whim of their CEO/Co-President of the USA....

23 points by belter 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

This is the sort coercion which will make the EU regulators know where real power lies. For too long EU extra territoriality has penalised US companies, which have just been eating the fines and then producing onerous localisations to stay under EU compliance. With Trump 2.0, the EU will have to bend the knee

toomuchtodo 2y ago
Europe will simply start decoupling from the US, as the US was doing with China and supply chains. The US military is already on the decline, from both a human and hardware force projection perspective.
- chiefalchemist 2y ago
  > The US military is already one the decline, from both a human and hardware force projection perspective Interesting cause the budget isn't declining. Where is the money being shifted to?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/368528/us-military-army-navy-recruit-numbers https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/368528/us-military-army-n... https://indi.ca/the-us-military-is-in-a-death-spiral/ https://indi.ca/the-us-military-is-in-a-death-spiral/ https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-105341 https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-105341 https://www.rand.org/nsrd/projects/NDS-commission.html https://www.rand.org/nsrd/projects/NDS-commission.html
    - chiefalchemist 2y ago
      And the response to this would be what? Even more budget. File this under: The MIC is not a conspiracy theory. What's on the decline: The value the US taxpayer is getting per dollar spent by The MIC. Under Obama (this is mentioned inhis 2016 State of The Union) the USA spent more than the next 10 counties combined. Most of those are allies. Gawd only knows what that stat is now. If all the spending is resulting in a decline, something is wrong.
      - toomuchtodo 2y ago
        There is no solution, as there is no will to fix it. Once there is will, then potential solutions become relevant.
        chiefalchemist 2y ago
        Well it doesn't help when the traditional anti-MIC political party no longer pushes back against The MIC. Now we have hawks and hawkier. Most everyday Americans call the MIC a conspiracy theory, and have no idea its name's source was exGeneral / exPOTUS
  - seo-speedwagon 2y ago
    I’m not trying to pick on you specifically but that is precisely the kind of neoliberal thinking that has caused such rot in the US (and more broadly, western) military. Is spending a lot of money the goal or the measurement here? If your goal is actual effectiveness, then things such as force structure, results in recent conflicts, production rates, etc. are what you’d measure. If your goal is funneling money to capitalists then yeah sure budgets and adherence to “%GDP spending targets” from your vassals is what you’d measure.
    - BillyTheMage 2y ago
      This is the capitalist empire. Funneling money to capitalists might not be the only goal, but it's no less than goal #2.
    - chiefalchemist 2y ago
      It's not the spending that's causing the rot, it's the receiver of a good chunk of that spending. Prez Eisenhower said it best... Beware of The MIC.
belter 2y ago
Trump will help make 2025 the year of the Linux Desktop in Europe. You heard it here first :-) These pressures will finally push the EU to drop Office and Windows...
Terr_ 2y ago
Yeah, just like how the people behind Brexit managed to deliver on their promises of massively favorable new trade terms for the UK. We'll just force the EU to do what we want or else we take our business to China! Meanwhile, we'll force China to do what we want or else we'll take our business to the EU! Plus we can throw Canada and Mexico into the mix, and show them who's boss. There is absolutely no way this genius "alienate every viable major trading partner simultaneously" strategy could ever fail. I mean, even if other countries somehow exhibit more intelligence than a turnip and compare notes, this is America! We don't need 'em! We'll just trade with nobody and get super rich until they come begging to our feet. Sadly, I fear the above sarcasm is closer-than-not to what some freshly-appointed folks are gonna try to do.
- throwgfa 2y ago
  You know Britain is irrelevant power, right?

keikobadthebad 2y ago

> I forget who it was OK bro

Terr_ 2y ago
"Everybody's saying it."
pessimizer 2y ago
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-elon-musk-donald-trump-interview-thierry-breton-letter-social-media/ https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-elon-musk-donald-trump-in... Epic clapback, but you're giggling at a name not remembered spontaneously while simultaneously not spending five seconds to check if anything actually happened.
- keikobadthebad 2y ago
  Shouldn't you deploy your grasp of young generation vernacular against the VP-elect who miserably failed to tell his 'cool story'?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]

082349872349872 2y ago

in related news: https://lite.cnn.com/2024/11/08/politics/pentagon-officials-discussing-trump/index.html https://lite.cnn.com/2024/11/08/politics/pentagon-officials-... > There is not much the Pentagon can do to pre-emptively shield the force from a potential abuse of power by a commander in chief.

mytailorisrich 2y ago

That's a bluff (or more mundanely hot air) considering that NATO is a tool of American influence, even control, over Europe. In any case that's much too big an aspect of American foreign policy to threaten to use it to protect X. Remember "we're going to build a wall and Mexico is going to pay for it". That gets headlines and people talking.

legitster 2y ago
> NATO is a tool of American influence Are you saying this as an American or European? Because right now most Europeans I know are looking at Russia and being very supportive of NATO. Also, while they happily spend US money, NATO develops very different security policies and technologies so US influence doesn't seem to amount to much.
- mytailorisrich 2y ago
  I am European in Europe. Europeans have been served extremely strong propaganda since the war in Ukraine started and perhaps some, especially young ones, buy it. But historically and in fact NATO is obviously an American tool (and a good way to sell military hardware). France's De Gaulle left NATO's integrated command because he knew that this meant loss of independence (and he didn't want foreign military bases on French soil), for instance. The point here is that the US aren't dropping support for NATO, and certainly not over X.
  - Arnt 2y ago
    There's a timescale problem that you may be overlooking. One part of NATO is a quid pro quo: It's in the interest of the nuclear powers, most of all the US, that other countries don't build their own nuclear weapons. You might say that US offers an alliance (including nuclear weapons) in exchange for Norway, Finland, Poland, Austria, Italy etc. spending their budgets on non-nuclear weapons. All of those have advanced economies and generally sufficient resources that they could build nuclear weapons, but doing it is a decade-long project. Imagine yourself as the government of Poland. Make a choice about the 2026 defense budget. Start a nuclear bomb project that you think will take ten years, or trust that if Russia invades in 2035 the US will stand by its promises? What do you choose if you feel a tinge of doubt in the trustworthiness of half of the recent US presidents, or in the statements of many leading US politicians? That Vance person may be president in 2035, is he reliable? He spoke the words "drop support for NATO if", he suggested forcing your neighbour to cede territory, will he sacrifice American lives if Russia invades Poland?

needcontainers 2y ago

That's not what he said. He said they should be in support of free speech. https://x.com/i/status/1855406084418126099 https://x.com/i/status/1855406084418126099

belter 2y ago
The irony of you posting this from X, that has been transformed in the last few months on a Right Wing platform, where Trump opposing views, have been shadow banned is funny. Shadow banned by the new Russian style Oligarch of the US. It's not about free speech, that is safe and sound in the EU. It's about avoid that the US monopolies on Social Media don't decide what messages get propagated, while others get shadow banned at the whim of their CEO/Co-President of the USA....