I’ve recently been speaking with some German friends of mine about various news articles concerning the Russo-Ukrainian war and the USA’s general decline in interest in the NATO project in Europe.
Well done. What a complete failure of government to rely on foreign nations for vital manufacturing and supplies for manufacturing. It’s one of the few things they should be doing instead of the thousand stupid things they are doing.
One thought. In the US the floodgate is very thin. Once a subject gets aired for the first time, it's open season from there. Think of "defund the police" - who ever thought of such a load of bollocks? Yet we're still hearing it. Europe, it has been said: pay more or pay for it all. It's only a matter of time before the US Government runs through all the other terrible options and tells Europe to pay what is demanded / required or the US leaves NATO. Do we really think there will be a nuclear holocaust if Europe gets attacked? Probably, perhaps maybe, now. In six years?
I do think Europe has had a long holiday from paying for its own defence. The options would either be paying or being less threatening and EU behaviour in Ukraine has shown that option 2 isn't really on the table.
Even at the peak of the Cold War I wonder how much the US would commit to an actual shooting war between European states. I can't imagine much now. That leaves Russia, the UK and France as the nuclear armed powers. Russia's the most likely to use them in my opinion, but tends to telegraph exactly what they are thinking and doing to the West (as it has done for 400 years) only for Western diplomats to ignore this completely and continue as if Russia was a minor state. Russia aims to re-assert its influence in ancestral lands and keep a sphere of influence to buffer itself from the west. They've never really recovered psychologically from the only successful western invasion in the Time of Troubles and still have a paranoia about western encroachment.
You'd think a diplomatic solution would be logical, but that would mean being more pragmatic and not acting as if the western way of thinking and doing had some natural universal primacy.
Tradition dictates that one expects the West to understand Russia while at the same time failing to even notice the obvious bits. We’ve been doing it for centuries. But for Greek fire . . .
Considering the German case specifically, the importance of a reliable energy supply cannot be overstated. There already are rolling brownouts for energy intensive industries and they are getting worse. The only reason this hasn't reached household consumers yet is because so much production has already been moved abroad.
If Germany truly wanted to rearm and not simply increase the rents of the few remaining armaments manufacturers, this would need to be tackled first. What that would entail could probably fill a few articles.
Nuclear power often seems the answer, although Germany likes to take steps away from that. I'm not sure solar and wind fit well in an undustrial energy security model.
Mind you, I have strong doubts about any western country's ability to manage nuclear power in the light of things like "Queering Nuclear Weapons" and our aggressive pursuit of any criteria other than merit for jobs.
Well done. What a complete failure of government to rely on foreign nations for vital manufacturing and supplies for manufacturing. It’s one of the few things they should be doing instead of the thousand stupid things they are doing.
People also forget that the money goes around if it's spent locally, which is the type of investment governments would normally brag about.
I enjoyed that a lot.
One thought. In the US the floodgate is very thin. Once a subject gets aired for the first time, it's open season from there. Think of "defund the police" - who ever thought of such a load of bollocks? Yet we're still hearing it. Europe, it has been said: pay more or pay for it all. It's only a matter of time before the US Government runs through all the other terrible options and tells Europe to pay what is demanded / required or the US leaves NATO. Do we really think there will be a nuclear holocaust if Europe gets attacked? Probably, perhaps maybe, now. In six years?
What would / could the Europeans do?
I do think Europe has had a long holiday from paying for its own defence. The options would either be paying or being less threatening and EU behaviour in Ukraine has shown that option 2 isn't really on the table.
Even at the peak of the Cold War I wonder how much the US would commit to an actual shooting war between European states. I can't imagine much now. That leaves Russia, the UK and France as the nuclear armed powers. Russia's the most likely to use them in my opinion, but tends to telegraph exactly what they are thinking and doing to the West (as it has done for 400 years) only for Western diplomats to ignore this completely and continue as if Russia was a minor state. Russia aims to re-assert its influence in ancestral lands and keep a sphere of influence to buffer itself from the west. They've never really recovered psychologically from the only successful western invasion in the Time of Troubles and still have a paranoia about western encroachment.
You'd think a diplomatic solution would be logical, but that would mean being more pragmatic and not acting as if the western way of thinking and doing had some natural universal primacy.
Tradition dictates that one expects the West to understand Russia while at the same time failing to even notice the obvious bits. We’ve been doing it for centuries. But for Greek fire . . .
Considering the German case specifically, the importance of a reliable energy supply cannot be overstated. There already are rolling brownouts for energy intensive industries and they are getting worse. The only reason this hasn't reached household consumers yet is because so much production has already been moved abroad.
If Germany truly wanted to rearm and not simply increase the rents of the few remaining armaments manufacturers, this would need to be tackled first. What that would entail could probably fill a few articles.
Nuclear power often seems the answer, although Germany likes to take steps away from that. I'm not sure solar and wind fit well in an undustrial energy security model.
Mind you, I have strong doubts about any western country's ability to manage nuclear power in the light of things like "Queering Nuclear Weapons" and our aggressive pursuit of any criteria other than merit for jobs.