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Cooperation is better until it stops being better. You are taking last few decades, which were anomaly due to unprecedented situation of total global hegemony o

Cooperation is better until it stops being better. You are taking last few decades, which were anomaly due to unprecedented situation of total global hegemony of US, and you extrapolate for the rest of future human history, whereas it dissolves right before your eyes. And invasion or occupation is hardly the only example of adversarial policy, even if most obvious.

jacquesm 1y ago
> Cooperation is better until it stops being better. It was better for Russia than the present. > You are taking last few decades, which were anomaly due to unprecedented situation of total global hegemony of US, and you extrapolate for the rest of future human history, whereas it dissolves right before your eyes. The US has nothing to do with this. > And invasion or occupation is hardly the only example of adversarial policy, even if most obvious. Yes, you can make enemies out of thin air. But the facts are simple: Europe has tried to appease Russia by trading with them, in the end that trade balance was and is used to wage war. That's a dead end strategy. Russia can not survive by itself and needs trading partners more than it needs more territory. Putin and his band of mafiosi are robbing Russia blind and are the root cause of a lot of this, they will at some point be replaced and hopefully the new guard will be smarter than the old guard. And if not we'll deal with that when we get there. You live in Poland, but your position does not strike me as typically Polish. Poland has seen first hand what it was like to live as a Russian occupied country. The same goes for the Baltics, Romania and lots of other countries in the East. Between all of them there is a solid agreement that this will not happen again. They're more than happy to let Russia be Russia, but within its own borders. Just like it would be if your country bordered Somalia or Iran.
- wolvesechoes 1y ago
  > The US has nothing to do with this. On the contrary. Epitome of close transnational cooperation, the EU, would not exist if not for the US. So called "international law" and "free trade" are creations of US hegemony as well. > You live in Poland, but your position does not strike me as typically Polish. Poland has seen first hand what it was like to live as a Russian occupied country. I suspect it is because you for some reason believe it is impossible to hold multiple, noncontradictory thougths simultaneously in mind: 1. Russia is Poland's adversary, always have been, always will be. Not because of some good vs evil bs, or because Putin is madman, but because success of one is a loss of the other. Yes, some games are zero-sum, and this is why wars will happen. Alliances always are more or less situational. 2. Russia is a country of misery, and always was. 3. Unrest and far-right success we face internally, as other countries do as well, though definitely exploited and fueled by Russia, are fault of people that were in charge so far, and systemic problems they created or failed to address. 4. Russian policy against neighbouring countries is independent from who is currently ruling there.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    > I suspect it is because you for some reason believe it is impossible to hold multiple, noncontradictory thougths simultaneously in mind: No, it is because I too lived in Poland, have a ton of friends and family there and know from first had experience what Poland looked like under Russian occupation. The EU was preceded by several other institutions which had absolutely nothing to do with the United States.
    - wolvesechoes 1y ago
      > No, it is because I too lived in Poland, have a ton of friends and family there and know from first had experience what Poland looked like under Russian occupation. And how from this experience follows anything that you postulated before? My great grandfather was in three German camps, Auschwitz among them, and I do not produce from this fact any theory on German foreign policy, or politics in general. That would be quite silly. > The EU was preceded by several other institutions which had absolutely nothing to do with the United States. ECSC in 1951 was created due to US encouragement and active involvement. US was preventing France from enacting more severe reparation policies after WW2, US was pushing UK to go against traditional British policy of preventing mainland Europe from any unification, US was making sure Germany will be part of any initiative (France was reluctant, UK even more so) etc. We can add to that the Marshall Plan as well. Of course nothing of that wasn't motivated by charity of the US, and it doesn't mean that there were no forces internal to Europe that also pushed for closer cooperation, but it doesn't change facts that are a bitter pill for some euro enthusiasts. History usually brings bitter pills for those that think it ended. Unless you mean Holy Roman Empire as a predecessor of the EU, then sure, you are right.
      - jacquesm 1y ago
        The main reason why the US was supportive is because they wanted to break open the coal market as well as the German near monopoly (together with the Swedes) for high grade steel at the time. It was a purely selfish reason, and not because the USA wanted Europe to unite. The hypocrisy is obvious given the numerous US monopolies at the time and various attempts to insert US standards into EU practices to give US companies a leg up. Funny enough, they tried the same in Iraq. EU dependency on the US is bad, but fortunately finally (and thanks to the most unlikely person) we are realizing this. But repairing it is going to take a lot of time and will be costly. We also have to guard not to become similarly dependent on China, whose motives are no better. https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/history-eu/1945-59/schuman-declaration-may-1950_en https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-histor... The USA does not even rate a mention, though it probably should have, that's a bit of EU revisionism afaic. More on this in Wikipedia: "The United States was not officially part of the treaty negotiations, but it was a major force behind the scenes. The US High Commissioner for Occupied Germany, John McCloy, was an advocate of decartelization and his chief advisor in Germany was a Harvard anti-trust lawyer, Robert Bowie. Bowie was asked to draft anti-trust articles, and texts of the two articles he prepared (on cartels and the abuse of monopoly power) became the basis of the treaty's competition policy regime. Also, Raymond Vernon in the State Department (of later fame for his studies on industrial policy at Harvard university) carefully reviewed successive drafts of the treaty. He stressed the importance of the freedom of the projected common market from restrictive practices. The Americans insisted that the German coal sales monopoly, the Deutscher Kohlenverkauf (DKV), should lose its monopoly, and that the steel industries should no longer own the coalmines. It was agreed that the DKV would be broken up into four independent sales agencies. The steel firm Vereinigte Stahlwerke was to be divided into thirteen firms, and Krupp into two." As for the Holy Roman Empire, no, that was not what I had in mind but since you are arguing in bad faith all over this thread I don't think it is worth my time to continue the discussion, even if I think that in principle we agree. It has been noted before that just like here you are stating a lot of things without actually aiming to make a point and you are repeating things that are objectively false in order to confuse the discussion, and things that are true but that are besides the point and not worth the contest because of the ridiculous out-of-proportion weight you assign on some details. I have no clue why you are doing this but I also simply don't have the energy for it.

jacquesm 1y ago

> Cooperation is better until it stops being better. It was better for Russia than the present. > You are taking last few decades, which were anomaly due to unprecedented situation of total global hegemony of US, and you extrapolate for the rest of future human history, whereas it dissolves right before your eyes. The US has nothing to do with this. > And invasion or occupation is hardly the only example of adversarial policy, even if most obvious. Yes, you can make enemies out of thin air. But the facts are simple: Europe has tried to appease Russia by trading with them, in the end that trade balance was and is used to wage war. That's a dead end strategy. Russia can not survive by itself and needs trading partners more than it needs more territory. Putin and his band of mafiosi are robbing Russia blind and are the root cause of a lot of this, they will at some point be replaced and hopefully the new guard will be smarter than the old guard. And if not we'll deal with that when we get there. You live in Poland, but your position does not strike me as typically Polish. Poland has seen first hand what it was like to live as a Russian occupied country. The same goes for the Baltics, Romania and lots of other countries in the East. Between all of them there is a solid agreement that this will not happen again. They're more than happy to let Russia be Russia, but within its own borders. Just like it would be if your country bordered Somalia or Iran.

wolvesechoes 1y ago
> The US has nothing to do with this. On the contrary. Epitome of close transnational cooperation, the EU, would not exist if not for the US. So called "international law" and "free trade" are creations of US hegemony as well. > You live in Poland, but your position does not strike me as typically Polish. Poland has seen first hand what it was like to live as a Russian occupied country. I suspect it is because you for some reason believe it is impossible to hold multiple, noncontradictory thougths simultaneously in mind: 1. Russia is Poland's adversary, always have been, always will be. Not because of some good vs evil bs, or because Putin is madman, but because success of one is a loss of the other. Yes, some games are zero-sum, and this is why wars will happen. Alliances always are more or less situational. 2. Russia is a country of misery, and always was. 3. Unrest and far-right success we face internally, as other countries do as well, though definitely exploited and fueled by Russia, are fault of people that were in charge so far, and systemic problems they created or failed to address. 4. Russian policy against neighbouring countries is independent from who is currently ruling there.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  > I suspect it is because you for some reason believe it is impossible to hold multiple, noncontradictory thougths simultaneously in mind: No, it is because I too lived in Poland, have a ton of friends and family there and know from first had experience what Poland looked like under Russian occupation. The EU was preceded by several other institutions which had absolutely nothing to do with the United States.
  - wolvesechoes 1y ago
    > No, it is because I too lived in Poland, have a ton of friends and family there and know from first had experience what Poland looked like under Russian occupation. And how from this experience follows anything that you postulated before? My great grandfather was in three German camps, Auschwitz among them, and I do not produce from this fact any theory on German foreign policy, or politics in general. That would be quite silly. > The EU was preceded by several other institutions which had absolutely nothing to do with the United States. ECSC in 1951 was created due to US encouragement and active involvement. US was preventing France from enacting more severe reparation policies after WW2, US was pushing UK to go against traditional British policy of preventing mainland Europe from any unification, US was making sure Germany will be part of any initiative (France was reluctant, UK even more so) etc. We can add to that the Marshall Plan as well. Of course nothing of that wasn't motivated by charity of the US, and it doesn't mean that there were no forces internal to Europe that also pushed for closer cooperation, but it doesn't change facts that are a bitter pill for some euro enthusiasts. History usually brings bitter pills for those that think it ended. Unless you mean Holy Roman Empire as a predecessor of the EU, then sure, you are right.
    - jacquesm 1y ago
      The main reason why the US was supportive is because they wanted to break open the coal market as well as the German near monopoly (together with the Swedes) for high grade steel at the time. It was a purely selfish reason, and not because the USA wanted Europe to unite. The hypocrisy is obvious given the numerous US monopolies at the time and various attempts to insert US standards into EU practices to give US companies a leg up. Funny enough, they tried the same in Iraq. EU dependency on the US is bad, but fortunately finally (and thanks to the most unlikely person) we are realizing this. But repairing it is going to take a lot of time and will be costly. We also have to guard not to become similarly dependent on China, whose motives are no better. https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/history-eu/1945-59/schuman-declaration-may-1950_en https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-histor... The USA does not even rate a mention, though it probably should have, that's a bit of EU revisionism afaic. More on this in Wikipedia: "The United States was not officially part of the treaty negotiations, but it was a major force behind the scenes. The US High Commissioner for Occupied Germany, John McCloy, was an advocate of decartelization and his chief advisor in Germany was a Harvard anti-trust lawyer, Robert Bowie. Bowie was asked to draft anti-trust articles, and texts of the two articles he prepared (on cartels and the abuse of monopoly power) became the basis of the treaty's competition policy regime. Also, Raymond Vernon in the State Department (of later fame for his studies on industrial policy at Harvard university) carefully reviewed successive drafts of the treaty. He stressed the importance of the freedom of the projected common market from restrictive practices. The Americans insisted that the German coal sales monopoly, the Deutscher Kohlenverkauf (DKV), should lose its monopoly, and that the steel industries should no longer own the coalmines. It was agreed that the DKV would be broken up into four independent sales agencies. The steel firm Vereinigte Stahlwerke was to be divided into thirteen firms, and Krupp into two." As for the Holy Roman Empire, no, that was not what I had in mind but since you are arguing in bad faith all over this thread I don't think it is worth my time to continue the discussion, even if I think that in principle we agree. It has been noted before that just like here you are stating a lot of things without actually aiming to make a point and you are repeating things that are objectively false in order to confuse the discussion, and things that are true but that are besides the point and not worth the contest because of the ridiculous out-of-proportion weight you assign on some details. I have no clue why you are doing this but I also simply don't have the energy for it.