9 ms·
This is not a one sided thing. The US has been allowed to do a lot of things under the NATO umbrella that it benefited from (such as: selling a vast quantity of
by jacquesm 10mo ago
This is not a one sided thing. The US has been allowed to do a lot of things under the NATO umbrella that it benefited from (such as: selling a vast quantity of arms). Soft power is a thing and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization came into being to deal with exactly the kind of situation that we are viewing today. To see the US bow out, and in fact threatening allies is duplicitous at best.
- OrvalWintermute 10mo agoThe Euros also underfunded their defense obligations and received huge amounts of US investment in facilities, enabling them to upfund social programs, socialized healthcare and most egregiously 8 - 12 week vacations which are completely unheard of in the US.
- jacquesm 10mo agoYou are spending too much time in an echo chamber if you think that those things that are unheard of in the US could not have been done in the US. They could have been, but it would have required a different kind of path than you chose. The EU has chosen to try to cooperate rather than to be at war all the time and it looks like that may have been a wrong bet but that is mostly because first one (Russia) and now another (USA) party have reneged on the deals that were in place.
- OrvalWintermute 10mo agoThey could have been done is my contention. But not while carrying Euros’ defense obligations
- jacquesm 10mo agoSorry, but that's just dumb. You could have done all that and more. You're being used to defend massive wealth inequality and wealth concentration over the backs of the poorest 95% or so of the country. The two have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. The USA is not 'unable to have a more decent balance of life because they are carrying Europe's defense obligation'.
- benterix 10mo ago> The Euros also underfunded their defense obligations and received huge amounts of US investment in facilities, enabling them to upfund social programs, socialized healthcare and most egregiously 8 - 12 week vacations which are completely unheard of in the US. It's hard to detect sarcasm through the screen but in case you're being serious and just repeat what Trump says, he does this because Americans are not stupid and are asking, why Europeans can enjoy free healthcare, education and 4-week holidays and we cant? The answer "because we sponsored them" makes no sense but finds fertile ground in the hearts of some people.
- meling 10mo agoWho has 8 week vacations, let alone 12? No European country I’m aware of, but I didn’t check all…
- ljf 10mo agoAustria has 30 days leave after 25 years service (other wise 25 days) - so that is 6 weeks, plus 13 public holidays. So some people get around 8 weeks there. Here in the UK, I get 29 days leave, I buy 5 more, plus get 8 bank holidays - so 42 days leave - or 8 weeks. Plus volunteering days and training days... but that isn't that common.
- ulrashida 10mo agoAustralia has 6 weeks of leave at similar service levels, plus 11 public holidays. Turns out many countries have figured out how to not work themselves to death.
- TacticalCoder 10mo ago> Who has 8 week vacations, let alone 12? No European country I’m aware of, but I didn’t check all… All teachers and most politicians. Teachers do enjoy the same vacation as students: schools aren't open during vacation. Two months of vacation + 6 additional weeks of vacation during the year + a few special one-day holidays. As for politicians: my stepfather was working at a national parliament but only when there would be official questions and only when these would be in his native tongue (country had two official languages). And when the country would be without a government, he'd have as much as 500 days (500 days: you read correctly, and it didn't happen once but twice) of vacations. It's only if there was a super urgent matter where the parliament would be opened that he'd have to work: so he'd quickly hop on a plane and go back to his native country. So "who": some public servants. Not all but some public servants definitely do enjoy 8 to 12 weeks of vacation and even much more than that. At the expense of working, taxpaying, citizens. EDIT: for the 500 days... He would not know beforehand it'd be 500 days. He'd just know there was no government anymore. So he was fully paid but basically had to do jack shit until there'd be a government again. Which nobody could tell when it'd happen. But you read correctly: half a thousand days+. You all read that correctly. His vacation on the sunny french riviera paid by the taxes of the people.
- justin66 10mo agoWe would fund nationwide health care and more robust social programs if it weren't for all the money we are spending on defense is simply not something the US right-wing and centrists ever put out there. When they fought those things it was with the ideological argument that they were intrinsically wrong. OMG Socialism!
- drawfloat 10mo agoThey’re unheard of in Europe too, you’ve read too many internet comments and lost touch with reality.
- OrvalWintermute 10mo agoPlease refer to my comment above on how to use bridging days (Brückentage) to get to over 60 days of absense. In the case of 32 days of vacation with bridging & holidays it is very possible to get over 70 days of calendar absence
- drawfloat 9mo agoAnd in the overwhelming majority of Europe they are unheard of.
- carefulfungi 10mo agoIf this were true, and if you want to give credit to Trump for EU defense spending increases, then (1) why is Trump asking for a dramatic increase in US military funding and (2) when will the US savings on defending the EU be spent on US workers?
- kyboren 10mo ago1. Obviously the Trump admin is requesting an increased military budget because of looming global conflict. We don't want to get caught with our pants down. Russia obviously bears the moral blame for starting this war, but Putin clearly was tempted by Western weakness. Had European states kept large and effective militaries and credibly threatened to employ them in Ukraine's defense, we probably wouldn't be where we are right now. So in some not insignificant measure, historical European underspending has contributed to the need right now for dramatically increased spending across the entire alliance. 2. I disagree with GP and agree with your cynicism there. US domestic policy failures are in no way caused by foreign intransigence of any kind. IIRC we spend more on health care per capita than (almost?) any other nation yet rank nowhere near the top in health outcomes. That's on us. And I think it's important to correctly identify the root cause of our broken domestic policies, because I suspect fixing that issue will fix more governance failures than just healthcare.
- jacquesm 10mo agoAgreed that Putin was tempted by Western weakness, but you didn't go far enough West.
- kyboren 10mo agoOh, right. I forgot that European states have no agency or responsibility and are innocent victims of big bad America. Mea culpa. I wrote "Western" rather than "European" specifically because I believe American weakness has played a role, too. But would it really make it better if Russia invaded Europe solely because of American weakness? That European states are so weak and helpless that they hardly even factor into Putin's calculus?
- messe 10mo ago> socialized healthcare So why does the US spend more per capita on healthcare than the EU?
- soerxpso 10mo agoI find it interesting how people say "The US" to refer to groups under the US government that are often completely at odds with the interests of the actual US public. There are virtually no Americans who want our government to be acting in the interests of arms manufacturers except the arms manufacturers themselves and the politicians they pay.
- jacquesm 10mo agoHow many groups do you know in other countries that you refer to by name rather than the name of the country and the general idea that the government of that country must represent at least at some significant level the will of it's people?
- blackoil 10mo agoIt is supposed to be a "liberal democracy". "You" have killed millions to promote this idea and now trying to disown it.
- lynx97 10mo agoC'mon, what a lame excuse. Well then, show us that democracy works and vote for a goverment which doesn't? If I follow your reasoning, you've just demonstrated that democracy is a failure, because the US government acts in the interests of arms manufacturers since a very long time, no matter if Dems or Reps are in power.
- qbit42 10mo agoOur democracy is clearly disfunctional. I believe corporate money has played a big role to make it worse.
- jgeada 10mo agoWe own the consequences of our actions, our votes. Yes, we as a country, for whatever reasons, voted for someone who very clearly telegraphed he would be doing exactly what he's been doing. FAFO, and we're not even close to the full spectrum of what the FO part implies. We the people are responsible for the government we get. Don't like the consequences? Make better voting choices next time.
- kyboren 10mo agoNATO came into being to deal with the USSR, which was the preeminent threat to all NATO members. The US wasn't expected just to come save Europe; European states had real military power and the will to bring it to bear against the US's main adversary. In a conflict with the USSR, the US could rely on Europe to fight with them. Very valuable. Today, US policymakers see China as the main adversary. But European states have no real military power--certainly none that can be projected in the Pacific theater--and wouldn't have the will to deploy it even if they did. Europeans now expect America to fight Russia for them, not with them. So now NATO is basically all risk and cost for the US with no benefit against their main adversary. I think it's a shortsighted view of American national security imperatives: American security relies as it ever did on security in both Western Europe and Eastern Asia. Abandoning one theater to focus on the other just leaves a giant blind spot. However, this has led Europe to take its own security more seriously and stop relying on America to fight the Russians for them, something multiple POTUSes have tried more diplomatically to achieve--and failed--for decades.
- epolanski 10mo ago> Europeans now expect America to fight Russia for them, not with them. As an European: nobody has this expectation, unless you're using some strange subreddit comment as a source of information.
- SR2Z 10mo agoCompare the strength of the militaries of Europe with the United States and you'll see how that claim is believable. That's changing, but for many years European nations did not spend very much on their militaries. A large part of why is the protection of NATO and US bases in various countries.
- epolanski 10mo agoNo, that's the logic of a 15 years old playing call of duty. Europe has spent less on military because after the cold war and still today, it never had any realistic threat. Russia can't even take few miles off Ukraine. The only realistic threat is the US, which is an ally, in theory. Now a threat.
- rayiner 10mo ago[flagged]
- glemion43 10mo ago[flagged]
- jacquesm 10mo agoFortunately Rayiner is not a representative sample of the USA.
- handedness 10mo agoHis comments align much more closely with the plurality of 2024 voters than do yours. > Effectively you've departed reality and you are now in a world of your own making where the facts are no longer relevant, just how you can stretch and twist everything to make it fit your worldview. Glass houses, and all that.
- glemion43 10mo ago[flagged]
- TimorousBestie 10mo agoSpecifically on the subject of Venezuela: > Americans are split about the U.S. capturing Maduro — with many still forming opinions — according to a poll conducted by The Washington Post and SSRS using text messages over the weekend. About 4 in 10 approved of the U.S. military being sent to capture Maduro, while roughly the same share were opposed. About 2 in 10 were unsure. Republicans broadly approved of the action, while Democrats were largely opposed to it. > Nearly half of Americans, 45%, were opposed to the U.S. taking control of Venezuela and choosing a new government for the country. About 9 in 10 Americans said that the Venezuelan people should be the ones to decide the future leadership of their country. > In December, a Quinnipiac poll found that about 6 in 10 registered voters opposed U.S. military action in Venezuela. Republicans were more divided: About half were in support, while about one-third were opposed and 15% didn’t have an opinion. https://apnews.com/article/poll-venezuela-trump-foreign-policy-15c94665b41312f5613772726d710905 https://apnews.com/article/poll-venezuela-trump-foreign-poli...
- mikkupikku 10mo agoNATO members aren't particularly large customers for American weapons. Poland is the largest, but is dwarfed by Japan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Ukraine is receiving a bunch of weapons, but that math isn't so straight forward (they're getting a ton of old stock) and they don't have much choice anyway.
- epolanski 10mo agoEuropeans have spent 80B $ in 2024 and 68 in 2025 on US weapons. That's not peanuts.
- _DeadFred_ 10mo agoTotal US goods exports were $2,083 in 2025. This number is 4% of all of our exported goods for the year, so actually a pretty big number when it comes to national economics. People keep talking like the US can throw away 4% here, 2% there, likes it's nothing. The same people said last week 'Trump is meme'ing about Greenland'. Now they are saying 'the hit to our economy won't be too bad' which is as truthful of a statement as 'meme'ing about Greenland' was and based on the same 'defend Trump' and not reality.
- mikkupikku 10mo ago[flagged]
- youngtaff 10mo agoApart from Patriot, Atacms and a few other modern systems, Ukraine is basically saving the US the cost of destroying old arms
- _zagj 10mo ago> Soft power is a thing This is the usual claptrap Euros and Eurosimps come up with when Americans gripe about subsidizing Europe's defense. "Soft power" isn't putting money back in Americans' pockets, and the primary beneficiaries of NATO clearly didn't like us very much even before Trump's return, when Biden was still president and the aid flowed freely to Kyiv: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/06/11/views-of-the-u-s/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/06/11/views-of-the-u... > Sweden: 47% had a favorable opinion of the US.; Germany: 49%; France: 46%; The Netherlands: 48% This is the "soft power" that Americans should rue having lost under Trump? A continent of entitled ingrates, who constantly crow about their generous welfare states ("six months paid vacation!") they enjoy partially through neglect of defense, and condescendingly lecture us ("As a European...") about how everything we do is wrong, who apparently don't like us very much even when we do come to their defense?
- collingreen 10mo agoAre the constantly crowing, entitled ingrates with their condescending lectures in the room right now?
- _zagj 10mo agoYeah, they're the ones trying to gaslight Americans into believing that NATO hasn't been a completely lopsided relationship since the end of the Cold War, and that it makes complete sense that Americans be treaty-bound to defend nations like Sweden (which lifted not one finger when Finland was invaded by the Soviet Union and its territory annexed, and also later when Norway was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany), a country where less than half of the population had a favorable view of us as a nation, before Trump. Obviously I don't agree with his threats over Greenland, but acting like the end of NATO would be a huge loss for the US is ridiculous. Look at how obsequious European heads of government are towards Trump, even in the face of these threats; that tells you all you need to know about whom NATO truly benefits. They know if the US withdraws from Europe completely, they'll have to up their military spending considerably to plug the gaps, which will strain the welfare state.
- 10mo ago