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> Imagine being on top of the world, the richest large country on the planet, and declaring that really you're the victim. An observation by Umberto Eco in his

> Imagine being on top of the world, the richest large country on the planet, and declaring that really you're the victim. An observation by Umberto Eco in his essay Ur-Fascism: > 8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy. * https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fasci... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur-Fascism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur-Fascism The possible 'validity' of the US being a victim would be NATO allies not spending want they promised, 2% of GDP. But folks like Vance are going after even Poland at times, who is spending more per GDP than even the US in recent years.

llm_nerd 2y ago
>The possible 'validity' of the US being a victim would be NATO allies not spending want they promised To entertain this, though, is there anyone that thinks that if every NATO member spent 2% (or 4%, or 10%) the US military budget would be smaller? Does anyone think this for a second? Trump hasn't even broached reducing the military budgets, despite effectively withdrawing from the world and becoming isolationist in policy. He has asked for cuts in some areas to allocate to his "own agenda", militarily, which should disturb people, but the military is a sacred cow. And of course there was the $2.9 trillion dollar adventure in Iraq. And the $2.3 trillion dollar adventure in Afghanistan. Wars that cost NATO lives and money, but ostensibly had nothing to do with NATO. And now that NATO sans US is arming up for a post-US world, the end result is going to be a massively less influential, effective, and thus rich United States. Trump keeps repeating his talking point that the US purportedly spends $200B a year "defending" Canada (a number so fantastically stupid that it should yield instant laughter by all), which is hysterical as the single military threat to Canada, it has been demonstrated, is the United States (this isn't new -- in the 1980s Canada blocked the UK from selling Canada nuclear submarines as it would allow the country to defend Northern sovereignty from the US). And FWIW, Canada could have had nuclear weapons in the 1940s, or any year since. And that is precisely what we should acquire -- as should Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, etc -- and we can enjoy the Trump world of outrageous nuclear proliferation.
- throw0101b 2y ago
  > To entertain this, though, is there anyone that thinks that if every NATO member spent 2% (or 4%, or 10%) the US military budget would be smaller? Does anyone think this for a second? What's important is that countries promised to do so—and didn't. And this isn't a sudden thing: the agreement was reached in the NATO summit in Latvia in 2006. (Speaking as a Canadian.)
  - llm_nerd 2y ago
    If we're being precise, Canada made no such promise. It was an aspirational target. The guidance, actually first agreed to in 2014, was that countries would move towards the 2% target. And Canada has indeed moved towards the 2% target, and with some very substantial capital purchases in the near future (icebreakers, subs, massive radar arrays, possibly fighter jets) it will certainly get there. But there was no promise that was broken.
    - throw0101b 2y ago
      Even the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO), which is a watchdog on federal spending, thinks that Ottawa promised to do that amount of spending: > In 2006, NATO member nations set a policy goal to allocate at least 2% of their GDP to annual defence spending. While some countries, most notably the United States, exceeded this target, the majority fell short. After eight years of limited progress, NATO members reaffirmed their commitment to this goal in 2014. Since this time, Canada has consistently remained below the 2% threshold, and as of 2024, it is one of only eight member nations still failing to meet the target, with projected defence expenditures totaling only 1.37% of GDP. * https://www.pbo-dpb.ca/en/publications/RP-2425-020-S--fiscal-implications-meeting-nato-military-spending-target--repercussions-financieres-atteinte-cible-depenses-militaires-fixee-otan https://www.pbo-dpb.ca/en/publications/RP-2425-020-S--fiscal... 2014 was simply was a repetition of what was said in 2006. But: > The alliance members accepted to continue to spend a minimum of two percent of individual national Gross Domestic Product on defence, or where a country is currently spending less than two percent, then to move towards spending two percent of Gross Domestic Product on defence within the next ten years. * https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/reports-publications/audit-evaluation/evaluation-nato-contribution-program.html https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corpora... It's been ten years now, and Canada has not hit two percent even if you take 2014 as the starting point. (And I'm aware of all the procurement programs that have been announced.)

llm_nerd 2y ago

>The possible 'validity' of the US being a victim would be NATO allies not spending want they promised To entertain this, though, is there anyone that thinks that if every NATO member spent 2% (or 4%, or 10%) the US military budget would be smaller? Does anyone think this for a second? Trump hasn't even broached reducing the military budgets, despite effectively withdrawing from the world and becoming isolationist in policy. He has asked for cuts in some areas to allocate to his "own agenda", militarily, which should disturb people, but the military is a sacred cow. And of course there was the $2.9 trillion dollar adventure in Iraq. And the $2.3 trillion dollar adventure in Afghanistan. Wars that cost NATO lives and money, but ostensibly had nothing to do with NATO. And now that NATO sans US is arming up for a post-US world, the end result is going to be a massively less influential, effective, and thus rich United States. Trump keeps repeating his talking point that the US purportedly spends $200B a year "defending" Canada (a number so fantastically stupid that it should yield instant laughter by all), which is hysterical as the single military threat to Canada, it has been demonstrated, is the United States (this isn't new -- in the 1980s Canada blocked the UK from selling Canada nuclear submarines as it would allow the country to defend Northern sovereignty from the US). And FWIW, Canada could have had nuclear weapons in the 1940s, or any year since. And that is precisely what we should acquire -- as should Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, etc -- and we can enjoy the Trump world of outrageous nuclear proliferation.

throw0101b 2y ago
> To entertain this, though, is there anyone that thinks that if every NATO member spent 2% (or 4%, or 10%) the US military budget would be smaller? Does anyone think this for a second? What's important is that countries promised to do so—and didn't. And this isn't a sudden thing: the agreement was reached in the NATO summit in Latvia in 2006. (Speaking as a Canadian.)
- llm_nerd 2y ago
  If we're being precise, Canada made no such promise. It was an aspirational target. The guidance, actually first agreed to in 2014, was that countries would move towards the 2% target. And Canada has indeed moved towards the 2% target, and with some very substantial capital purchases in the near future (icebreakers, subs, massive radar arrays, possibly fighter jets) it will certainly get there. But there was no promise that was broken.
  - throw0101b 2y ago
    Even the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO), which is a watchdog on federal spending, thinks that Ottawa promised to do that amount of spending: > In 2006, NATO member nations set a policy goal to allocate at least 2% of their GDP to annual defence spending. While some countries, most notably the United States, exceeded this target, the majority fell short. After eight years of limited progress, NATO members reaffirmed their commitment to this goal in 2014. Since this time, Canada has consistently remained below the 2% threshold, and as of 2024, it is one of only eight member nations still failing to meet the target, with projected defence expenditures totaling only 1.37% of GDP. * https://www.pbo-dpb.ca/en/publications/RP-2425-020-S--fiscal-implications-meeting-nato-military-spending-target--repercussions-financieres-atteinte-cible-depenses-militaires-fixee-otan https://www.pbo-dpb.ca/en/publications/RP-2425-020-S--fiscal... 2014 was simply was a repetition of what was said in 2006. But: > The alliance members accepted to continue to spend a minimum of two percent of individual national Gross Domestic Product on defence, or where a country is currently spending less than two percent, then to move towards spending two percent of Gross Domestic Product on defence within the next ten years. * https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/reports-publications/audit-evaluation/evaluation-nato-contribution-program.html https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corpora... It's been ten years now, and Canada has not hit two percent even if you take 2014 as the starting point. (And I'm aware of all the procurement programs that have been announced.)