4 ms·

EU had a reliable military and technological partner in the US until circa 2016, and maintaining that belief became untenable in 2024. The reason EU countries a

by roughly 7mo ago

EU had a reliable military and technological partner in the US until circa 2016, and maintaining that belief became untenable in 2024. The reason EU countries are all of the sudden investing in onshoring critical military capabilities is that until Trump it’s been the policy position of the US to prevent them from doing so by doing it for them, a policy we inaugurated after WW2 and expanded during the Cold War for various reasons that we seem very sure don’t apply anymore.

spwa4 7mo ago
I've worked in defense tech. This is true, but it should be described much more as "Europe believed US would save their ass - for free, and did nothing" (with exceptions, like France, and some token efforts within NATO) The US was not holding back much within NATO.
- jltsiren 7mo ago
  It's more that most European countries had little reason to spend money on defense. Until recently, Finland and Sweden were small countries close to Russia but outside NATO, and their defense spending was similar to West European NATO members. In other words, nobody saw any real military threats to Western / Northern Europe, and the NATO security guarantees had more political than military value. Then Russia invaded Ukraine, and the threat environment changed. I'm less familiar with the situation in Eastern Europe. Many countries joined NATO as quickly as possible, because they understood the Russian doctrine and saw a real threat there. Russia tries to surround itself with puppets / friends / allies, by force if necessary, to avoid having to fight in its own territory. Many East European countries didn't want to be part of that so soon after the fall of communism. But it looks like the idea of being in friendly terms with Russia instead of fully committing to the West never went away.
  - spwa4 7mo ago
    You know, we're saying the same thing. The TLDR is that Europe systematically refused to spend even token amounts on defense, despite agreeing to spend more in international treaties (and then cheating on what little spending they do, e.g. "raising a bridge" for a tank to pass under it, as defense spending. Coincidentally doing this saved the maintenance spending that the government had unlawfully delayed. And most countries raised more bridges "for tanks" than they had tanks in the first place, and widened them to boot. This then was the promised defense spending ...) They have such beautiful names for this: "The end of history". Yes, really. "The peace dividend". "The unipolar moment". "Military-to-civilian conversion". The idea of all these is slightly different, but boils down to that because first the cold war ended and then communism "died" with the Soviet union, democracy would just win everywhere without any effort from anyone (or at least, no effort from anyone but the US). Because of this wars and militaries and ... would just end. Because why would you have these between trade-based democracy? Let's just leave some military rescue units in place and get rid of the rest! In reality it was progress that ended. Or, at least, a lot of technological progress ended with the end of defense spending. For example, the EU (technically France), was the first nation with a starlink-like satellite network. Of course it was version 0.01beta of starlink, not remotely close to the capabilities of the current version, but it did do packet transmission over very long distances). I have helped write software to make it's use more tolerable. They let it wither and die, just like everyone since.
    - mopsi 7mo ago
      > They have such beautiful names for this: "The end of history". Yes, really. "The peace dividend". "The unipolar moment". "Military-to-civilian conversion". Who is this "they"? * "The end of history" - coined by Francis Fukuyama, an American political scientist. * "The unipolar moment" - coined by Charles Krauthammer, an American political columnist. * "The peace dividend" - older term, popularized by George HW Bush, an American president. * "Military-to-civilian conversion" - older term, popularized by Seymour Melman, an American professor of industrial engineering.
yostrovs 7mo ago
Europe wouldn't spend the agreed 2% of GDP on the military. Many presidents for many years tried to make them comply with the agreement, but they just ignored it. It was thought better to spend on the healthcare of the public and mock Americans for not having universal government healthcare. Many people in countries in Europe, like Spain and Ireland, that effectively don't have militaries, are still laughing and mocking.
- roughly 7mo ago
  Again, this was a considered policy choice on the part of the United States. Unipolar military supremacy bought us a quiet Europe, a stable and high dollar, and the ability to set the terms on nearly every other negotiation we made with European countries. This was an intentional trade: we will spend on the military so you don’t have to. In the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union, some US policymakers deluded themselves into thinking geopolitics didn’t exist anymore, and so we’ve come to start bitching more about our side of paying that bill, but we bought the American century with military spending. And, to be clear, the US not having health care is a policy decision on the part of the US, not some lack of funding, as becomes clear when one looks at the expenditure per capita on healthcare in the US compared to other developed countries.
  - yostrovs 7mo ago
    American supremacy was due to the previous superpowers smashing themselves against each other, and then being relatively poor for decades after while rebuilding the continent.
    - roughly 7mo ago
      Sure, but we also spent time, money, and effort building a unipolar system and getting buy-in for that from Europe as a considered strategic choice. To turn around and then say “they’re freeloading” when the policy of the United States was to encourage them to freeload so we had unfettered control over large sections of the world’s geopolitical policy - yes, they took the deal we offered.
- 7mo ago

by roughly 7mo ago

spwa4 7mo ago

I've worked in defense tech. This is true, but it should be described much more as "Europe believed US would save their ass - for free, and did nothing" (with exceptions, like France, and some token efforts within NATO) The US was not holding back much within NATO.

jltsiren 7mo ago
It's more that most European countries had little reason to spend money on defense. Until recently, Finland and Sweden were small countries close to Russia but outside NATO, and their defense spending was similar to West European NATO members. In other words, nobody saw any real military threats to Western / Northern Europe, and the NATO security guarantees had more political than military value. Then Russia invaded Ukraine, and the threat environment changed. I'm less familiar with the situation in Eastern Europe. Many countries joined NATO as quickly as possible, because they understood the Russian doctrine and saw a real threat there. Russia tries to surround itself with puppets / friends / allies, by force if necessary, to avoid having to fight in its own territory. Many East European countries didn't want to be part of that so soon after the fall of communism. But it looks like the idea of being in friendly terms with Russia instead of fully committing to the West never went away.
- spwa4 7mo ago
  You know, we're saying the same thing. The TLDR is that Europe systematically refused to spend even token amounts on defense, despite agreeing to spend more in international treaties (and then cheating on what little spending they do, e.g. "raising a bridge" for a tank to pass under it, as defense spending. Coincidentally doing this saved the maintenance spending that the government had unlawfully delayed. And most countries raised more bridges "for tanks" than they had tanks in the first place, and widened them to boot. This then was the promised defense spending ...) They have such beautiful names for this: "The end of history". Yes, really. "The peace dividend". "The unipolar moment". "Military-to-civilian conversion". The idea of all these is slightly different, but boils down to that because first the cold war ended and then communism "died" with the Soviet union, democracy would just win everywhere without any effort from anyone (or at least, no effort from anyone but the US). Because of this wars and militaries and ... would just end. Because why would you have these between trade-based democracy? Let's just leave some military rescue units in place and get rid of the rest! In reality it was progress that ended. Or, at least, a lot of technological progress ended with the end of defense spending. For example, the EU (technically France), was the first nation with a starlink-like satellite network. Of course it was version 0.01beta of starlink, not remotely close to the capabilities of the current version, but it did do packet transmission over very long distances). I have helped write software to make it's use more tolerable. They let it wither and die, just like everyone since.
  - mopsi 7mo ago
    > They have such beautiful names for this: "The end of history". Yes, really. "The peace dividend". "The unipolar moment". "Military-to-civilian conversion". Who is this "they"? * "The end of history" - coined by Francis Fukuyama, an American political scientist. * "The unipolar moment" - coined by Charles Krauthammer, an American political columnist. * "The peace dividend" - older term, popularized by George HW Bush, an American president. * "Military-to-civilian conversion" - older term, popularized by Seymour Melman, an American professor of industrial engineering.

yostrovs 7mo ago

Europe wouldn't spend the agreed 2% of GDP on the military. Many presidents for many years tried to make them comply with the agreement, but they just ignored it. It was thought better to spend on the healthcare of the public and mock Americans for not having universal government healthcare. Many people in countries in Europe, like Spain and Ireland, that effectively don't have militaries, are still laughing and mocking.

roughly 7mo ago
Again, this was a considered policy choice on the part of the United States. Unipolar military supremacy bought us a quiet Europe, a stable and high dollar, and the ability to set the terms on nearly every other negotiation we made with European countries. This was an intentional trade: we will spend on the military so you don’t have to. In the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union, some US policymakers deluded themselves into thinking geopolitics didn’t exist anymore, and so we’ve come to start bitching more about our side of paying that bill, but we bought the American century with military spending. And, to be clear, the US not having health care is a policy decision on the part of the US, not some lack of funding, as becomes clear when one looks at the expenditure per capita on healthcare in the US compared to other developed countries.
- yostrovs 7mo ago
  American supremacy was due to the previous superpowers smashing themselves against each other, and then being relatively poor for decades after while rebuilding the continent.
  - roughly 7mo ago
    Sure, but we also spent time, money, and effort building a unipolar system and getting buy-in for that from Europe as a considered strategic choice. To turn around and then say “they’re freeloading” when the policy of the United States was to encourage them to freeload so we had unfettered control over large sections of the world’s geopolitical policy - yes, they took the deal we offered.
7mo ago