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Other NATO partners being asked to increase defense spending to 5 percent is entirely reasonable. And that's with or without Trump asking for it. I live in Eur

Other NATO partners being asked to increase defense spending to 5 percent is entirely reasonable. And that's with or without Trump asking for it. I live in Europe, I am European: we've outsourced our own defense for far too long. It is absurd that a country presenting an existential threat to us has been met with more supplied resistance from a country across the earth than Europe. It's long past time for Europe to wake up.

mdhb 2y ago
Agreed on this. It’s the other two parts that go with it that are the problem: 1. You have to allocate that budget towards buying from the US defence industry. You are not going to be allowed to spend that internally. Which arguments aside of if that actually makes sense is at least a conflict of interest. 2. We are also threatening to annex territory and rip up the only meaningful alliance that keeps you safe in practice at the same time. This is all to say nothing about trade wars also happening in the background or that literally the only time Article 5 of the same NATO treaty was invoked it was done by the US and paid for with European lives. I’m generally pro US alliance but it’s also entirely incompatible with a fascist takeover of their government and they absolutely cannot be trusted again until there is serious reform that honestly doesn’t look particularly realistic any time soon.
- cinquemb 2y ago
  The realpolitik of the situation: you can only really have an alliance among equals and its foolish to believe otherwise with a massive power imbalance (I doubt the cultural boundaries in Europe will aid this endeavor for some kind of unified security umbrella, when unification of the sovereign euro debt markets has remained illusive as represented by the spreads). It's clear that the post wwii era where the US willingly funds everything under the sun ex-stateside without clear equivalent concessions that can be sold politically to the stateside is over for now. I'm hopeful that it will create a more robust governance systems on the local level in the long run, but not without more short term pain (after all, there were a lot of non-stateside mouths being fed who will have to figure out realistic alternatives and face once unpalatable choices that will need to be made out of necessity).
  - mdhb 2y ago
    And realpolitik nobody will ever trust the US again they are going to in a much worse position for the rest of both our lives as a result of this. I don’t think a lot of Americans have any concept of exactly how much the rest of the world hates them right now but I promise you that you’re living in a very different world moving forward as is everyone else. You can’t spend generations telling everyone to depend on you precisely because you are selling stability and predictability and then change your mind overnight. That is going to have large multi generational consequences. My advice is to get on top of your oligarchy problem sooner rather than later and you had best figure out a way that the fate of the world and your country doesn’t rely on what a bunch of people from Iowa think about “wokeness” every 4 years. That’s not sustainable
    - cinquemb 2y ago
      That may be true, and Europeans will be free to trust the Russians and the Turkish as the those in SEA are free to trust the Chinese instead. If the rest of the world doesn't send munitions on target stateside, Americans wont care. Just like they didn't care for the past 20+ years when DoD was tasked with bombing millions others in far away lands without explicit declaration by congress. Perhaps those who build their relationships on negotiated reciprocity rather than blind trust will fair better in the coming era.
      - mdhb 2y ago
        This response is again just underscoring why people around the world right now hold such an incredibly and deeply negative view of the country right now. You aren’t going to convince anyone else this is their fault that they should have known not to trust you and that they are somehow suckers. People are motivated to make sure you feel the pain of this situation moving forward.
        cinquemb 2y ago
        When i see those people start to take actions that they have refused to do so for decades despite the warning signs along the road, I will take those motivations seriously. Right now, its just a clown show in regards to that.
DyslexicAtheist 2y ago
fully with you, but we should get our defense kit not entirely from the country that uses these 5% claims as a negotiation tactic for unrelated topics. It's going to be a very long process of "awakening".
guappa 2y ago
I think we should not buy anything from USA, while their goal is just to sell us overpriced weapons.
fatbird 2y ago
You're right, but this has been the explicit design of US foreign policy since WW2: we'll protect you, you rebuild as a bastion of western capitalism. It was all carrot. When the EU tried to set up a small standing armed force in the 90s to serve as an umbrella org in the event of war, the US put pressure on Germany and France not to support it, and it failed. Now you're seeing the stick. And NATO partners should absolutely up their spending on domestic defense industries. German tanks, Swedish anti-air, Ukrainian drones... you've got more than enough indigenous industry already to not feed the US with your defense dollars.

mdhb 2y ago

Agreed on this. It’s the other two parts that go with it that are the problem: 1. You have to allocate that budget towards buying from the US defence industry. You are not going to be allowed to spend that internally. Which arguments aside of if that actually makes sense is at least a conflict of interest. 2. We are also threatening to annex territory and rip up the only meaningful alliance that keeps you safe in practice at the same time. This is all to say nothing about trade wars also happening in the background or that literally the only time Article 5 of the same NATO treaty was invoked it was done by the US and paid for with European lives. I’m generally pro US alliance but it’s also entirely incompatible with a fascist takeover of their government and they absolutely cannot be trusted again until there is serious reform that honestly doesn’t look particularly realistic any time soon.

cinquemb 2y ago
The realpolitik of the situation: you can only really have an alliance among equals and its foolish to believe otherwise with a massive power imbalance (I doubt the cultural boundaries in Europe will aid this endeavor for some kind of unified security umbrella, when unification of the sovereign euro debt markets has remained illusive as represented by the spreads). It's clear that the post wwii era where the US willingly funds everything under the sun ex-stateside without clear equivalent concessions that can be sold politically to the stateside is over for now. I'm hopeful that it will create a more robust governance systems on the local level in the long run, but not without more short term pain (after all, there were a lot of non-stateside mouths being fed who will have to figure out realistic alternatives and face once unpalatable choices that will need to be made out of necessity).
- mdhb 2y ago
  And realpolitik nobody will ever trust the US again they are going to in a much worse position for the rest of both our lives as a result of this. I don’t think a lot of Americans have any concept of exactly how much the rest of the world hates them right now but I promise you that you’re living in a very different world moving forward as is everyone else. You can’t spend generations telling everyone to depend on you precisely because you are selling stability and predictability and then change your mind overnight. That is going to have large multi generational consequences. My advice is to get on top of your oligarchy problem sooner rather than later and you had best figure out a way that the fate of the world and your country doesn’t rely on what a bunch of people from Iowa think about “wokeness” every 4 years. That’s not sustainable
  - cinquemb 2y ago
    That may be true, and Europeans will be free to trust the Russians and the Turkish as the those in SEA are free to trust the Chinese instead. If the rest of the world doesn't send munitions on target stateside, Americans wont care. Just like they didn't care for the past 20+ years when DoD was tasked with bombing millions others in far away lands without explicit declaration by congress. Perhaps those who build their relationships on negotiated reciprocity rather than blind trust will fair better in the coming era.
    - mdhb 2y ago
      This response is again just underscoring why people around the world right now hold such an incredibly and deeply negative view of the country right now. You aren’t going to convince anyone else this is their fault that they should have known not to trust you and that they are somehow suckers. People are motivated to make sure you feel the pain of this situation moving forward.
      - cinquemb 2y ago
        When i see those people start to take actions that they have refused to do so for decades despite the warning signs along the road, I will take those motivations seriously. Right now, its just a clown show in regards to that.

DyslexicAtheist 2y ago

fully with you, but we should get our defense kit not entirely from the country that uses these 5% claims as a negotiation tactic for unrelated topics. It's going to be a very long process of "awakening".

guappa 2y ago

I think we should not buy anything from USA, while their goal is just to sell us overpriced weapons.

fatbird 2y ago

You're right, but this has been the explicit design of US foreign policy since WW2: we'll protect you, you rebuild as a bastion of western capitalism. It was all carrot. When the EU tried to set up a small standing armed force in the 90s to serve as an umbrella org in the event of war, the US put pressure on Germany and France not to support it, and it failed. Now you're seeing the stick. And NATO partners should absolutely up their spending on domestic defense industries. German tanks, Swedish anti-air, Ukrainian drones... you've got more than enough indigenous industry already to not feed the US with your defense dollars.