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EU is still surprisingly naive and open for business. After TikTok getting banned(postponed for now) in US for national security reasons, and after US cutting

by mrtksn 2y ago

EU is still surprisingly naive and open for business. After TikTok getting banned(postponed for now) in US for national security reasons, and after US cutting military support and intelligence in Ukraine I was expecting for things to start rolling by now. They already start doing things on the military side of things with restricting the military equipment purchases to EU only with exceptions granted on the basis that foreign supplier should NOT have a way to shut down equipment use(be it a Killswitch, political pressure or supply chain control). If USA decides to side with Russia on the invasion of Europe or maybe just annexing Greenland, they can shut down EU telecommunications or air propaganda messaging over Apple/Google devices or platforms and other social media platforms. What worked for Russia and China was to restrict their markets and guarantee opportunities for homegrown alternatives. I still expect for EU and pretty much all the world to end up doing this. I'm not enjoying it, I don't want things to go this way but no way that EU can afford giving full communications control to a hostile country. Tough times ahead, this DMA stuff was the right approach last year. Sometime in the next 4 year a private company will be used to do something acutely military or political to EU like they did in Ukraine and enough people will panic and a similar response will be generated. IMHO Apple will be served better if they play ball and make themselves useless for public warfare purposes and ensure continued access to EU market even if it means potential losses on services revenue. This will give them opportunity to say that you can just use EU services and keep buying the iPhones.

DaveMcMartin 2y ago
I’m not enjoying this either. I get that it’s necessary for the EU, but I’m still in favor of free trade.
- mrtksn 2y ago
  Me too but the USA decided to do something else. EU will be forced to follow suit, can’t be the only free market when everyone else is favoring their own companies.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
makeitdouble 2y ago
> If USA decides to side with Russia on the invasion of Europe USA is still part of the NATO, siding with Russia while it hits any of the NATO member will be a problem beyond shutting down EU telecommunications. Now if your question is whether the EU can sustain an open war with the US and Russia simultaneously, I honestly don't think so, irrelevant to whether Apple/Google sabotage their EU infra or not. I naively think it would need to get China on its side, but that sounds like the literal end of the world.
- mrtksn 2y ago
  Although has some successful interventions, USA wasn't able to win a war since almost a century and in the last one people were falling from the planes when USA was trying to ran away. Russia wasn't able to defeat its neighbor, had to get help from DPRK, China to sustain parts of invasion and get help from the USA to expel invasion on its own territory. Although Israel was able to level a city in its proximity with tens of billions of US weapons, they still weren't able to capture it. Yemen, a country with less than 500$ per capita GDP is able to withstand US attacks and still block marine traffic by launching attacks. The moral of the story is, if people don't feel like getting invaded you actually can't. There are a very few places that were successfully invaded, like Northern Cyprus or Crimea but those already had significant ethnic population with ties to the invaders. Obviously it's very damaging and obviously some powers attempt to invade but I don't think that there's a credible case to just give up. Also, that argument is a good example of why EU should control its own communications.
  - makeitdouble 2y ago
    In the saddest possible way, I think the US learned the lesson and won't engage in a classical on the ground warfare against a country like France. To start, France is a nuke holder with bases around the world, so the stakes are that much higher. And as you point out it already has an history of resistance and fighting to the bitter end. So the only option an actual war would happen is IMHO extremely violent and short-lived, Hiroshima/Nagasaki levels of impact. I don't know how that would happen, and also don't want to know, but I see it at some rhetorical probability.
seec 2y ago
I agree. It's about time that the EU actually tried to work on their own thing and stopped being so rely on technologies controlled by other countries. This way we might actually get some competitive offering and stop funneling so much money to other powers for something that has become a basic necessity. It won't be easy but considering what Huawei was able to accomplish in 5 short years, it definitely isn't impossible, we just need political will and a minimum amount of funding behind it. I enjoy the US technologies but there is no reason we can't do as well (if not better with the benefits of hindsight) and we definitely should work on that. I was one of the French minitel critics, but it now seems like they were just wrong on the technical part, not the political side. Even if something might be inferior at some point, it seems like it's worth taking a hit to be able to control your own future.

by mrtksn 2y ago

DaveMcMartin 2y ago

I’m not enjoying this either. I get that it’s necessary for the EU, but I’m still in favor of free trade.

mrtksn 2y ago
Me too but the USA decided to do something else. EU will be forced to follow suit, can’t be the only free market when everyone else is favoring their own companies.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

makeitdouble 2y ago

> If USA decides to side with Russia on the invasion of Europe USA is still part of the NATO, siding with Russia while it hits any of the NATO member will be a problem beyond shutting down EU telecommunications. Now if your question is whether the EU can sustain an open war with the US and Russia simultaneously, I honestly don't think so, irrelevant to whether Apple/Google sabotage their EU infra or not. I naively think it would need to get China on its side, but that sounds like the literal end of the world.

mrtksn 2y ago
Although has some successful interventions, USA wasn't able to win a war since almost a century and in the last one people were falling from the planes when USA was trying to ran away. Russia wasn't able to defeat its neighbor, had to get help from DPRK, China to sustain parts of invasion and get help from the USA to expel invasion on its own territory. Although Israel was able to level a city in its proximity with tens of billions of US weapons, they still weren't able to capture it. Yemen, a country with less than 500$ per capita GDP is able to withstand US attacks and still block marine traffic by launching attacks. The moral of the story is, if people don't feel like getting invaded you actually can't. There are a very few places that were successfully invaded, like Northern Cyprus or Crimea but those already had significant ethnic population with ties to the invaders. Obviously it's very damaging and obviously some powers attempt to invade but I don't think that there's a credible case to just give up. Also, that argument is a good example of why EU should control its own communications.
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  In the saddest possible way, I think the US learned the lesson and won't engage in a classical on the ground warfare against a country like France. To start, France is a nuke holder with bases around the world, so the stakes are that much higher. And as you point out it already has an history of resistance and fighting to the bitter end. So the only option an actual war would happen is IMHO extremely violent and short-lived, Hiroshima/Nagasaki levels of impact. I don't know how that would happen, and also don't want to know, but I see it at some rhetorical probability.

seec 2y ago

I agree. It's about time that the EU actually tried to work on their own thing and stopped being so rely on technologies controlled by other countries. This way we might actually get some competitive offering and stop funneling so much money to other powers for something that has become a basic necessity. It won't be easy but considering what Huawei was able to accomplish in 5 short years, it definitely isn't impossible, we just need political will and a minimum amount of funding behind it. I enjoy the US technologies but there is no reason we can't do as well (if not better with the benefits of hindsight) and we definitely should work on that. I was one of the French minitel critics, but it now seems like they were just wrong on the technical part, not the political side. Even if something might be inferior at some point, it seems like it's worth taking a hit to be able to control your own future.