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keiferski 19 minutes ago [-]
Kind of a misleading title, but an interesting article. It’s about the perception that Europeans have of the likelihood that the US could be relied upon in the event that someone attacks their EU country.
Some of these opinion polls are not particularly useful though, as for example Poland is frequently signing defense deals with the US. I’m not sure it’s all that relevant how much a western EU country feels about the prospect of being attacked, as I don’t see how Portugal or Spain or France are at much geopolitical risk compared to the eastern flank.
mejutoco 13 minutes ago [-]
> It’s about the perception that Europeans have of the likelihood that the US could be relied upon in the event that someone attacks their EU country.
Look at the Denmark graph (adversarial going up). I do not think in that case it is about "the likelihood that the US could be relied upon in the event that someone attacks" but about the US itself doing that.
haritha-j 6 minutes ago [-]
One could argue B implies A :p
You can hardly expect the guy attacking you to have your back.
musikele 56 minutes ago [-]
speaking about defending ourselves: there's a huge gap between "willing to defend" and "actually be able to defend" ourselves
mrtksn 18 minutes ago [-]
Those are not different things, "willing to defend" is just the prerequisite of "actually be able to defend". Look at Ukraine, how weak they were and how good they defended themselves. Look at Iran, how resilient they are despite decades of sanctions and their shitty regime.
When things start moving people can move mountains, suddenly the unemployment goes to %0 like it happened with Russia, market forces get dominated by state forces, moats like network effect or IP go to the trash.
CarlitosHighway 40 minutes ago [-]
But we're now spending and working on this gap like crazy.
4gotunameagain 35 minutes ago [-]
And we will end up using those weapons against eachother, again.
As if we haven't seen that film before.
Or even worse, keep selling them to Israel as Germany is doing, because one genocide was not enough and two wrongs make a right.
x3ro 23 minutes ago [-]
I don't understand why this is being downvoted. It's not unreasonable to assume that increased militarization, coupled with increased nationalistic sentiment, could lead to inner-european conflicts escalating into wars. Sure, right now Russia is the enemy, but who knows what'll happen in ten years. And the military machinery is not just going to be scaled down immediately.
If he's being downvoted for his "selling weapons to Israel" comment, I just want to highlight that even a majority of Germans is against it, with 80% not wanting to send weapons [1]. Of course there are different polls, and others find that "only" 30% say "stop them", plus another 43% saying "limit them [2]. Either way, only a small minority is pro "send all the weapons".
Follow the Yugoslavia model and ship soldiers from each country to live and work with each other in their first years in military service.
Then again… Yugoslavia maybe not the best example here…
shevy-java 40 minutes ago [-]
I guess nobody disagrees that Europe needs to have a better footing with regards to both production and employment. But is there a real political will? It would require a nuclear arsenal and I don't really see many countries in the EU wanting to go that way. The only one who seem to want to go that route are Poland, and they know WHY they want nukes - see the history they have with Russia.
mschild 33 minutes ago [-]
France and UK have a nuclear arsenal. France specifically has said they are willing to extend their policy to cover other EU countries.
The long term viability of the UK nukes does rather depend on support from the US though - they use our own fissile material, but the warhead designs are believed to largely be based on the US W76 and the actual Trident missiles come from a pool controlled by the US.
pjc50 34 minutes ago [-]
France has an independent nuclear deterrent.
I dunno, for decades the policy by most of the West has been (a) keep Germany from re-arming in case they start WW3 and (b) discourage nuclear proliferation by anyone, and now because the Americans have thrown security out the window in exchange for freedom to bully, we have to reverse course on both of those?
brazzy 6 minutes ago [-]
> I dunno, for decades the policy by most of the West has been (a) keep Germany from re-arming in case they start WW3
That policy lasted less than a single decade. Germany was encouraged to re-arm as soon as 1950 inofficially and 1955 officially.
arethuza 2 minutes ago [-]
And I think even before 1950 there was a feeling, particularly in the US, that it was good to have the Germans on-side in a military conflict due to their recent experience fighting the Soviets.
Macha 32 minutes ago [-]
I think its interesting that they Estonia has both the biggest swing against increasing defence spending (+23 to +1, from middle of the pack to second last), and the highest rate of blaming their own government for fuel prices. I wouldn’t have expected either result.
brightball 36 minutes ago [-]
Not for this guy from Germany traveling across the US for the World Cup
In the UK this feels like the least popular world cup in years. Even after Russia and Qatar, it feels like more of a FIFA corruption circus.
toxicunderGroov 25 minutes ago [-]
Let's hope the German's grow their balls back so we can get to work.
Fuck Orange Pedo and those 77mil pedo sympathizers.
RGamma 18 minutes ago [-]
The deindustrialisation -> rising populist right pattern is kinda similar in Lil' US (Germany); it started later and moves quicker. And we can't get by on software subscriptions.
thefz 40 minutes ago [-]
With access to Internet in my late teens came the exposure to an intellectual, cultured leftist America I did not know existed.
Now 20 years later, it really does not exist anymore.
The US is a business,not a country, and it hates its own citizens.
pjc50 28 minutes ago [-]
"X is a land of contrasts" is a cliche, but: America is a land of contrasts. It manages to have elements both of shining city on the hill and squalid banana republic (resource extraction economy with poor rule of law) adjacent to each other.
But yes, the main natural predator of Americans is other Americans.
seydor 41 minutes ago [-]
The interesting french delusion that donald is an outlier
shevy-java 44 minutes ago [-]
> Europeans embrace self-reliance and are clear-eyed about Donald Trump—but do not expect a permanent break from the US.
That's a wrong analysis IMO. I think NATO as it was is completely dead. Europeans need a nuclear arsenal too (french and UK nukes are for those two countries only; that does not protect several hundred millions people). Russia is threatening escalation every day, including using nukes. Europeans need their own nukes here - relying on a corrupt orange man acting like a russian asset, is a losing strategy. Even having another guy act and roleplay as president, won't really change this fundamental problem.
soco 33 minutes ago [-]
For what is worth, France offered to extend its nuclear umbrella to protect other European countries, offer accepted by 9 countries so far. Okay it's not permanent, doesn't necessary mean deployments in those countries, but still things are moving and the direction is obvious.
tjpnz 22 minutes ago [-]
Europe also needs to be in a position where it can quickly deploy the anti-coercion instrument[0] should a foreign power interfere in elections or threaten territorial integrity. The last time it was on the table didn't give me confidence they could.
Absolutely agree. Mutual destruction needs to be assured both with Russia AND the US, because who knows who they'll elect president next - Joe Rogan? Alex Jones? xAI?
And in addition we need a "Star Wars" iron dome that works against nuclear as well. The EU needs to become the first super-power who has a shot at a winnable nuclear war.
After all we gave to the world EVERYTHING it has, including the "United States", including the Japanese and Chinese economic miracle, including non-Barbaric culture to Russia.
So we should be able to take it away from all of them without consequences.
pjc50 27 minutes ago [-]
We need less unhinged sephiroth-posting and more recognition that neither Japan nor China could be kept poor and backwards forever, since we forcibly opened their economies at gunpoint centuries ago.
stefantalpalaru 43 minutes ago [-]
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aaron695 47 minutes ago [-]
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lyu07282 59 minutes ago [-]
Atlanticist polls are probably more interesting (if there even is such a thing) when considering which questions they didn't even ask, rather than the questions they asked confirming all the establishment positions anyway.
somelamer567 8 minutes ago [-]
Is there an establishment in the room with us right now?
Let me know, because I want to make sure that I'm aligned with this mystical Western Atlantacist Anglo-Saxon (insert Russian propaganda snarl-word du jour) hive mind.
shevy-java 41 minutes ago [-]
Would this make a difference though? The USA abandoned Europeans already before Trump. You only have to look at the polls. Thus, it makes sense to completely cut the ties, build up a nuclear arsenal and offset the mafia in Moscow. It makes no sense for Europeans to want to depend on the USA here; I have no idea who came up with that idea. Most likely the USA as it helped them project power. See how many bombing campaigns started from US bases in Germany, most famously from Ramstein.
CarlitosHighway 35 minutes ago [-]
Of course. If the US builds military bases in your country, it profits THEM, not you.
lyu07282 21 minutes ago [-]
Well the establishment position in the EU is that Trump is an outlier and that relations will normalize once he is removed from power, then business as usual can continue. Beyond that broad agreement with US - EU alignment on foreign policy (NATO, Ukraine, Israel, Iran, China) must continue even under Trump. Trump is even seen as an opportunity to convince Europeans to increase its own "NATO compatible" military spending.
What I meant was it would be more interesting to see any opinions that conflict with that above establishment consensus. For example on negotiated settlement of the Ukraine war vs. continuing the forever war. Like where do Europeans disagree with the strategic interests of the US, do they really 100% align as this poll makes it appear? How is that possible?
Some of these opinion polls are not particularly useful though, as for example Poland is frequently signing defense deals with the US. I’m not sure it’s all that relevant how much a western EU country feels about the prospect of being attacked, as I don’t see how Portugal or Spain or France are at much geopolitical risk compared to the eastern flank.
Look at the Denmark graph (adversarial going up). I do not think in that case it is about "the likelihood that the US could be relied upon in the event that someone attacks" but about the US itself doing that.
You can hardly expect the guy attacking you to have your back.
When things start moving people can move mountains, suddenly the unemployment goes to %0 like it happened with Russia, market forces get dominated by state forces, moats like network effect or IP go to the trash.
As if we haven't seen that film before.
Or even worse, keep selling them to Israel as Germany is doing, because one genocide was not enough and two wrongs make a right.
If he's being downvoted for his "selling weapons to Israel" comment, I just want to highlight that even a majority of Germans is against it, with 80% not wanting to send weapons [1]. Of course there are different polls, and others find that "only" 30% say "stop them", plus another 43% saying "limit them [2]. Either way, only a small minority is pro "send all the weapons".
[1]: https://www.plan.de/presse/pressemitteilungen/detail/80-proz... [2]: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1615302/umfra...
Then again… Yugoslavia maybe not the best example here…
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj4zlnezrl7o
I dunno, for decades the policy by most of the West has been (a) keep Germany from re-arming in case they start WW3 and (b) discourage nuclear proliferation by anyone, and now because the Americans have thrown security out the window in exchange for freedom to bully, we have to reverse course on both of those?
That policy lasted less than a single decade. Germany was encouraged to re-arm as soon as 1950 inofficially and 1955 officially.
https://x.com/freddyla7?s=21
But yes, the main natural predator of Americans is other Americans.
That's a wrong analysis IMO. I think NATO as it was is completely dead. Europeans need a nuclear arsenal too (french and UK nukes are for those two countries only; that does not protect several hundred millions people). Russia is threatening escalation every day, including using nukes. Europeans need their own nukes here - relying on a corrupt orange man acting like a russian asset, is a losing strategy. Even having another guy act and roleplay as president, won't really change this fundamental problem.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Coercion_Instrument
Let me know, because I want to make sure that I'm aligned with this mystical Western Atlantacist Anglo-Saxon (insert Russian propaganda snarl-word du jour) hive mind.
What I meant was it would be more interesting to see any opinions that conflict with that above establishment consensus. For example on negotiated settlement of the Ukraine war vs. continuing the forever war. Like where do Europeans disagree with the strategic interests of the US, do they really 100% align as this poll makes it appear? How is that possible?