7 ms·

I am an EU citizen and I am concerned about the collapse of the US and more shortly about its expansionism claims. US has such a military dominance and violent

by holyra 2y ago

I am an EU citizen and I am concerned about the collapse of the US and more shortly about its expansionism claims. US has such a military dominance and violent culture that I am afraid it will produce a global war. I now think that the EU needs to rearm, not to defend against Russia, but to protect us against US collapse and expansionism. China is our better bet in this coming disaster.

skrebbel 2y ago
I upvoted you before I read the last sentence, and then removed my upvote again. The US is a terrible ally, for all the reasons you cite, but unless they somehow become a democracy, China would be worse in every way.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- geraldhh 2y ago
  not to dispute, but the fact that most of our stuff is 'made in china' might play into the public perception of this dynamic more than the political labels attached.
- giraffe_lady 2y ago
  The parliamentary structure of the invader doesn't matter very much to the invaded. The assessment that the US is more likely to invade another country than china is not ridiculous anymore.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    It very much matters, because it's a reason an invasion happens at all, especially between peer states. https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-3134,00.html https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-3134,0...
  - derektank 2y ago
    The parliamentary structure does matter actually. There is no way for the president of the US to launch a war of conquest without approval of the US Congress (there are a limited set of military actions the president could authorize under the war powers act or an existing AUMF but they would not merit being described as an invasion). That would require majority support in both houses of Congress, which can barely hold together long enough to pass a spending a bill.
    - giraffe_lady 2y ago
      We'll see I guess and I hope you're right. IMO the simplest and most realistic way to reconcile "democracies don't invade each other" and "the US might do invasions now" is that the US is not a democracy within this model. It certainly still is in a technical sense that is sometimes useful. But by other metrics, like "can the president start an unpopular war with a steadfast former ally" uhhhhh. If the military refuses an elected president's order to invade is it still a democracy?
      - derektank 2y ago
        >If the military refuses an elected president's order to invade is it still a democracy? Yes, because the military can't follow an illegal order, which is what a declaration of war without the approval of Congress would be. The military also can't spend money Congress hasn't authorized, even if the president tells them to.
        krapp 2y ago
        >Yes, because the military can't follow an illegal order, which is what a declaration of war without the approval of Congress would be. Congress hasn't actually declared a war since World War 2. The President sends troops wherever he likes, whenever he likes, for whatever purpose he likes and Congress rubber-stamps their approval after the fact, and they call it something other than a war. You're correct that the military can't follow illegal orders, but what you're describing as an example of an illegal order is just the way the US military industrial complex works.
  - apwell23 2y ago
    Chinese want revenge on the west for colonizing them. You think they just forgot about 'century of humiliation' and just moved on? naive
  - ailef 2y ago
    > The assessment that the US is more likely to invade another country than china is not ridiculous anymore When was it ever?
- holyra 2y ago
  > The US is a terrible ally, for all the reasons you cite, but unless they somehow become a democracy, China would be worse in every way. I am no longer considering the US as a democracy. From a west perspective, China doesn't want to annex Canada or Greenland.
  - kiney 2y ago
    The US is arguably more democratic than the EU and many of it's member states. And I am an EU citizen myself
    - immibis 2y ago
      Explain.
      - kiney 2y ago
        Democracy can't work without freedom of speech whis is seriously broken in mamy EU countries. In germany it's completely normal to get raided by police and all your digital devices stolen for posting pretty harmless memes or opinions.
    - throw0101d 2y ago
      > The US is arguably more democratic than the EU and many of it's member states. By what metric? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Ranking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Ranking * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_indices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_indices * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index
      - kiney 2y ago
        Democracy can't work without freedom of speech whis is seriously broken in mamy EU countries. In germany it's completely normal to get raided by police and all your digital devices stolen for posting pretty harmless memes or opinions.
- immibis 2y ago
  Or if the US somehow becomes a dictatorship.
- dontlaugh 2y ago
  Which country has China invaded lately exactly?
  - nradov 2y ago
    In the modern post-WWII era that would be Tibet, Korea, India, USSR, and Vietnam. Maybe also Philippines, depending on what you consider to be an "invasion". Depending on your perspective, China might have had valid reasons for some of those conflicts but regardless of the reasons the fact remains that they at least temporarily invaded territories claimed by numerous other countries. Who's next? https://pca-cpa.org/ar/cases/7/ https://pca-cpa.org/ar/cases/7/
    - dontlaugh 2y ago
      Right, an exceptionally short list of relatively minor instances when compared to the US. Tibet doesn’t count either, it’s been a part of China for centuries and it was the serfs and slaves that sought reunification to escape the monks’ brutal rule.
nradov 2y ago
It's so weird for an EU citizen to claim that the US has a violent culture. Since 1776, Europeans have killed each other at a much higher rate than Americans. The US is far from perfect but let's have a sense of proportion. Supposedly Hiram Maxim was prompted to invent the machine gun when an acquaintance told him: "Hang your chemistry and electricity! If you want to make a pile of money, invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each others' throats with greater facility."
- apwell23 2y ago
  [flagged]
- blibble 2y ago
  that's because the US wiped out the previous inhabitants of North America if that hadn't happened you'd likely be facing the same situation, i.e. having 30 neighbours instead of 2
  - nradov 2y ago
    The US? I'm pretty sure it was the British, Spanish, and other European colonizers who killed off most indigenous New World inhabitants long before the USA even existed. And although that genocide involved a significant amount of violence (some perpetrated by the US government in the later stages), most of the deaths were caused by the inadvertent spread of infectious diseases.
    - blibble 2y ago
      I suggest you look at a map of the US in 1776 and compare it to today it's quite significantly larger now, imagine if today that 80% wasn't part of the US, and was instead controlled by the indigenous population (likely tens of sovereign states) would there have been large scale wars in the 19th and 20th century? it's quite obvious the answer would have been "yes"
    - mystified5016 2y ago
      Even in the US, we cover this very explicitly in our history courses. Europeans did displace and kill a lot of natives, but it was the US that almost genocided them long after colonization was over. See: the Trail of Tears, the actual, literal death march of natives out of their ancestrial lands because "manifest destiny"
some_random 2y ago
You are completely delusional if you think China is a better bet than the US.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
> China is our better bet in this coming disaster. The US values democracy and free speech more than any other country. The EU only somewhat shares these values, which we can see from the normalization of censorship in its regulations, frequent calls to ban political parties, and the cancellation of election results in Romania. Europe has a vast history of expansionism, which we saw in brutal colonization across Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Greenland itself is a result of expansionism. China is also a country that is pro censorship and doesn’t value democracy. It annexed Tibet and Xinjiang and will do the same to Taiwan. The CCP has caused tens of millions in deaths, not just in the annexed areas but even among its own people. I can see Europeans practicing some of those same authoritarian tactics China does. So maybe I shouldn’t be surprised at this statement of viewing China as a better partner. But it still seems odd to see people here admitting that they prefer an authoritarian dictatorship as their friend. In my opinion it says more about Europe than America.
- holyra 2y ago
  > The US values democracy and free speech more than any other country. Trump is destroying democracy and free speech (notably press freedom). Regarding freedom, I don't buy the US vision. The US culture values individual freedom at the expense of the many. From my point of view, freedom is not possible without equality between people. Otherwise, some people impose their will (their freedom) on others. In this sense, regulation is an instrument of freedom.
  - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
    > Trump is destroying democracy and free speech (notably press freedom). Can you name specifics? What freedom does the press not have that they had a few months ago? How is there any less democracy now than before? Nothing has changed about the rights of people to vote or publish - if anything these things are getting better by removing wasteful spending propping up one side of the press, stopping illegal immigration, etc. > The US culture values individual freedom at the expense of the many. From my point of view, freedom is not possible without equality between people. It’s an interesting point that I need to think more about. Personally, I still think individual freedom is the only real freedom. The US law is well thought out in limiting individual “rights” in minor ways (like not being able to harm others) while preserving most of it. Those choices let everyone live freely and more equally than any other system.
TrueDuality 2y ago
I'm a US citizen but I'd be a lot more concerned about the EU if the US falls but not because of the expansionist talk. I do not want to see expansionism rise at all, but the leader we have right now is also a coward and a bully. He might be willing to go for a small country like Panama (and that would still be an _insane_ move) but NATO is still really strong even without the US and I don't think he'd be willing to risk anything but a sure thing. More likely in my book is the existing wars in the EU spreading, and civil war breaking out in the US. The EU wars are already expanding, loosing stability, and generally getting more politically divisive even if US policy had a strong impact on them. Those tensions aren't new, and at least from this side of the pond it seems like the US was keeping those expansionist actors in check more than encouraging them. Things are not going well in the US politically, and I'll leave it at that. From the economic side, if there is a US economic collapse, and its definitely not going up, the economies that are going to hurt the most are going to be those built on top of the US dollar as they have outsourced control over the fundamental tools you can use to stabilize your economy in rough times.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  > the leader we have right now is also a coward and a bully These labels are being misapplied in my opinion. What people saw after the first assassination attempt was the opposite of cowardice, and I think it helped Trump win. As for bullying - there’s certainly some. But you can also look at how Biden bullied private companies to implement the Democrat’s censorship machine and find that bullying appears in many forms. Is the EU any better? Given their love of censorship and slip towards authoritarianism, I don’t think so. What about Canada? We saw their authoritarian handling of protests, where they literally denied protesters access to financial assets, and I view that as extreme bullying. > He might be willing to go for a small country like Panama (and that would still be an _insane_ move) Would it be insane? The canal was built by the US. It is a key part of economic and national security. Panama is violating treaties around its handover (https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2025/1/senators-sound-alarm-on-panama-s-treaty-violations-corruption-allegations-fee-manipulation https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2025/1/senators-sound-alarm-...). Why do you think China is so upset about the recent sale to Blackrock? It’s because they have been quietly gaining control over the canal. > the economies that are going to hurt the most are going to be those built on top of the US dollar as they have outsourced control over the fundamental tools you can use to stabilize your economy in rough times I would say the opposite is true - they benefit from the world’s most powerful and best managed currency. That stability makes them resilient as well. Countries trade in dollars and accept debt in dollars for basic but well thought out reasons. They aren’t making irrational choices.

by holyra 2y ago

skrebbel 2y ago

I upvoted you before I read the last sentence, and then removed my upvote again. The US is a terrible ally, for all the reasons you cite, but unless they somehow become a democracy, China would be worse in every way.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
geraldhh 2y ago
not to dispute, but the fact that most of our stuff is 'made in china' might play into the public perception of this dynamic more than the political labels attached.
giraffe_lady 2y ago
The parliamentary structure of the invader doesn't matter very much to the invaded. The assessment that the US is more likely to invade another country than china is not ridiculous anymore.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  It very much matters, because it's a reason an invasion happens at all, especially between peer states. https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-3134,00.html https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-3134,0...
- derektank 2y ago
  The parliamentary structure does matter actually. There is no way for the president of the US to launch a war of conquest without approval of the US Congress (there are a limited set of military actions the president could authorize under the war powers act or an existing AUMF but they would not merit being described as an invasion). That would require majority support in both houses of Congress, which can barely hold together long enough to pass a spending a bill.
  - giraffe_lady 2y ago
    We'll see I guess and I hope you're right. IMO the simplest and most realistic way to reconcile "democracies don't invade each other" and "the US might do invasions now" is that the US is not a democracy within this model. It certainly still is in a technical sense that is sometimes useful. But by other metrics, like "can the president start an unpopular war with a steadfast former ally" uhhhhh. If the military refuses an elected president's order to invade is it still a democracy?
    - derektank 2y ago
      >If the military refuses an elected president's order to invade is it still a democracy? Yes, because the military can't follow an illegal order, which is what a declaration of war without the approval of Congress would be. The military also can't spend money Congress hasn't authorized, even if the president tells them to.
      - krapp 2y ago
        >Yes, because the military can't follow an illegal order, which is what a declaration of war without the approval of Congress would be. Congress hasn't actually declared a war since World War 2. The President sends troops wherever he likes, whenever he likes, for whatever purpose he likes and Congress rubber-stamps their approval after the fact, and they call it something other than a war. You're correct that the military can't follow illegal orders, but what you're describing as an example of an illegal order is just the way the US military industrial complex works.
- apwell23 2y ago
  Chinese want revenge on the west for colonizing them. You think they just forgot about 'century of humiliation' and just moved on? naive
- ailef 2y ago
  > The assessment that the US is more likely to invade another country than china is not ridiculous anymore When was it ever?
holyra 2y ago
> The US is a terrible ally, for all the reasons you cite, but unless they somehow become a democracy, China would be worse in every way. I am no longer considering the US as a democracy. From a west perspective, China doesn't want to annex Canada or Greenland.
- kiney 2y ago
  The US is arguably more democratic than the EU and many of it's member states. And I am an EU citizen myself
  - immibis 2y ago
    Explain.
    - kiney 2y ago
      Democracy can't work without freedom of speech whis is seriously broken in mamy EU countries. In germany it's completely normal to get raided by police and all your digital devices stolen for posting pretty harmless memes or opinions.
  - throw0101d 2y ago
    > The US is arguably more democratic than the EU and many of it's member states. By what metric? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Ranking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Ranking * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_indices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_indices * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index
    - kiney 2y ago
      Democracy can't work without freedom of speech whis is seriously broken in mamy EU countries. In germany it's completely normal to get raided by police and all your digital devices stolen for posting pretty harmless memes or opinions.
immibis 2y ago
Or if the US somehow becomes a dictatorship.
dontlaugh 2y ago
Which country has China invaded lately exactly?
- nradov 2y ago
  In the modern post-WWII era that would be Tibet, Korea, India, USSR, and Vietnam. Maybe also Philippines, depending on what you consider to be an "invasion". Depending on your perspective, China might have had valid reasons for some of those conflicts but regardless of the reasons the fact remains that they at least temporarily invaded territories claimed by numerous other countries. Who's next? https://pca-cpa.org/ar/cases/7/ https://pca-cpa.org/ar/cases/7/
  - dontlaugh 2y ago
    Right, an exceptionally short list of relatively minor instances when compared to the US. Tibet doesn’t count either, it’s been a part of China for centuries and it was the serfs and slaves that sought reunification to escape the monks’ brutal rule.

nradov 2y ago

It's so weird for an EU citizen to claim that the US has a violent culture. Since 1776, Europeans have killed each other at a much higher rate than Americans. The US is far from perfect but let's have a sense of proportion. Supposedly Hiram Maxim was prompted to invent the machine gun when an acquaintance told him: "Hang your chemistry and electricity! If you want to make a pile of money, invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each others' throats with greater facility."

apwell23 2y ago
[flagged]
blibble 2y ago
that's because the US wiped out the previous inhabitants of North America if that hadn't happened you'd likely be facing the same situation, i.e. having 30 neighbours instead of 2
- nradov 2y ago
  The US? I'm pretty sure it was the British, Spanish, and other European colonizers who killed off most indigenous New World inhabitants long before the USA even existed. And although that genocide involved a significant amount of violence (some perpetrated by the US government in the later stages), most of the deaths were caused by the inadvertent spread of infectious diseases.
  - blibble 2y ago
    I suggest you look at a map of the US in 1776 and compare it to today it's quite significantly larger now, imagine if today that 80% wasn't part of the US, and was instead controlled by the indigenous population (likely tens of sovereign states) would there have been large scale wars in the 19th and 20th century? it's quite obvious the answer would have been "yes"
  - mystified5016 2y ago
    Even in the US, we cover this very explicitly in our history courses. Europeans did displace and kill a lot of natives, but it was the US that almost genocided them long after colonization was over. See: the Trail of Tears, the actual, literal death march of natives out of their ancestrial lands because "manifest destiny"

some_random 2y ago

You are completely delusional if you think China is a better bet than the US.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

> China is our better bet in this coming disaster. The US values democracy and free speech more than any other country. The EU only somewhat shares these values, which we can see from the normalization of censorship in its regulations, frequent calls to ban political parties, and the cancellation of election results in Romania. Europe has a vast history of expansionism, which we saw in brutal colonization across Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Greenland itself is a result of expansionism. China is also a country that is pro censorship and doesn’t value democracy. It annexed Tibet and Xinjiang and will do the same to Taiwan. The CCP has caused tens of millions in deaths, not just in the annexed areas but even among its own people. I can see Europeans practicing some of those same authoritarian tactics China does. So maybe I shouldn’t be surprised at this statement of viewing China as a better partner. But it still seems odd to see people here admitting that they prefer an authoritarian dictatorship as their friend. In my opinion it says more about Europe than America.

holyra 2y ago
> The US values democracy and free speech more than any other country. Trump is destroying democracy and free speech (notably press freedom). Regarding freedom, I don't buy the US vision. The US culture values individual freedom at the expense of the many. From my point of view, freedom is not possible without equality between people. Otherwise, some people impose their will (their freedom) on others. In this sense, regulation is an instrument of freedom.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  > Trump is destroying democracy and free speech (notably press freedom). Can you name specifics? What freedom does the press not have that they had a few months ago? How is there any less democracy now than before? Nothing has changed about the rights of people to vote or publish - if anything these things are getting better by removing wasteful spending propping up one side of the press, stopping illegal immigration, etc. > The US culture values individual freedom at the expense of the many. From my point of view, freedom is not possible without equality between people. It’s an interesting point that I need to think more about. Personally, I still think individual freedom is the only real freedom. The US law is well thought out in limiting individual “rights” in minor ways (like not being able to harm others) while preserving most of it. Those choices let everyone live freely and more equally than any other system.

TrueDuality 2y ago

I'm a US citizen but I'd be a lot more concerned about the EU if the US falls but not because of the expansionist talk. I do not want to see expansionism rise at all, but the leader we have right now is also a coward and a bully. He might be willing to go for a small country like Panama (and that would still be an _insane_ move) but NATO is still really strong even without the US and I don't think he'd be willing to risk anything but a sure thing. More likely in my book is the existing wars in the EU spreading, and civil war breaking out in the US. The EU wars are already expanding, loosing stability, and generally getting more politically divisive even if US policy had a strong impact on them. Those tensions aren't new, and at least from this side of the pond it seems like the US was keeping those expansionist actors in check more than encouraging them. Things are not going well in the US politically, and I'll leave it at that. From the economic side, if there is a US economic collapse, and its definitely not going up, the economies that are going to hurt the most are going to be those built on top of the US dollar as they have outsourced control over the fundamental tools you can use to stabilize your economy in rough times.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
> the leader we have right now is also a coward and a bully These labels are being misapplied in my opinion. What people saw after the first assassination attempt was the opposite of cowardice, and I think it helped Trump win. As for bullying - there’s certainly some. But you can also look at how Biden bullied private companies to implement the Democrat’s censorship machine and find that bullying appears in many forms. Is the EU any better? Given their love of censorship and slip towards authoritarianism, I don’t think so. What about Canada? We saw their authoritarian handling of protests, where they literally denied protesters access to financial assets, and I view that as extreme bullying. > He might be willing to go for a small country like Panama (and that would still be an _insane_ move) Would it be insane? The canal was built by the US. It is a key part of economic and national security. Panama is violating treaties around its handover (https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2025/1/senators-sound-alarm-on-panama-s-treaty-violations-corruption-allegations-fee-manipulation https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2025/1/senators-sound-alarm-...). Why do you think China is so upset about the recent sale to Blackrock? It’s because they have been quietly gaining control over the canal. > the economies that are going to hurt the most are going to be those built on top of the US dollar as they have outsourced control over the fundamental tools you can use to stabilize your economy in rough times I would say the opposite is true - they benefit from the world’s most powerful and best managed currency. That stability makes them resilient as well. Countries trade in dollars and accept debt in dollars for basic but well thought out reasons. They aren’t making irrational choices.