Why do Americans always think in violence. The American people put a bunch of nazis into power, now you want Europe to fix it with a full out war. It’s like the US is full of toddlers. Idiocracy was a meant as a comedy, not a manual.
Because the US is NOT a democracy and every single right we have was only won through violence. Civil rights? Malcom X and the Black Panthers had to resort to violence. Gay rights? Please see the Stonewall riots. The right to unionize? Workers had to take up guns and fight the police and military multiple times for the mere right to unionize.
You could’ve just voted for Kamala and there wouldn’t be any need for violence. The US isn’t a democracy because Americans prefer violence over democracy.
Trumps America is truly what America has always been without the squeaky clean public relations veneer of respectability. He takes it two steps above where the dems do. America has needed an uprising since before I was born and its the moderate liberal like you cheerleading for team blue standing in the way.
Joe Biden didnt fix the problem and neither would Kamala. They are the new wheels and a coat of paint on the orphan grinder and trump is a new grinding wheel. The problem is the machinery and you cant fix that with a vote for team blue.
Have you ever considered that the Democractic party isn’t 100% aligned with your views because there’s more people out there that disagree with you than agree with you? That’s part of democracy, accepting that the will of the people may not be the same as what you want and accepting that you need to convince others of your views.
If most people don’t agree with you, and you want to use violence to impose your will on others, then you’re just an authoritarian. You aren’t going to accomplish anything through violence when you’re incapable of convincing anyone through peaceful means. Even if you get power through violence you’d just be another tyrant that people would need to destroy to be able to live in a society they want to live in.
Instead of romanticizing revolutions, maybe try studying the ones that have happened in history and apply some critical thinking. Wanting to end democracy to get your way makes you a fascist no matter how much you tankie rationalizations you try to paint it over with.
I am well aware that their consent has been manufactured successfully, and also that a fascist machine can never be allowed to prevail regardless of its veneer of democracy or legitimacy. Do you honestly look at the American government and see democracy?
Is your advice to the civil rights movements of the past that they should have never pursued direct action because the majority had not deemed it necessary to afford them rights?
The 8 hour workday wasnt worth fighting for? Stonewall should have just stuck to catchy slogans? Your response perfectly encapsulates the danger of the white moderate and the downfall of respectability politics.
Revolutions are made necessary by boot licking sycophants who hold order over justice. In a society that abandons justice there can be no order without authoritarianism**. I dont believe authoritarianism is valid when it has been voted for, it should be met with the same violence it wields against others. **
I see America becoming more fascist every day because both the right and left have been conditioned by social media to hate democracy.
You may feel like you’re better than those that support MAGA, but you really aren’t. You’re the ones falling for catchy slogans like “late stage capitalism” and “genocide Joe” which have “radicalized” you (another way of saying you’ve turned off your brain) to turn against democracy. You’re just as narcissistic as Trump, just you want to be the one imposing your will onto others instead of Trump. Tankies claim to dislike MAGAs but are incapable of seeing they are the exact same kind of people.
By abandoning democracy, the Tankie crowd is just as complicit as the MAGAs in the suffering that will result from fascism. Just got scammed by a different of authoritarian grifters, but the result is the same. Nobody will respect a movement that did nothing while their country became an fascist shithole, and they certainly won’t be making you the authoritarians in charge. The “late stage capitalism” narrative was a scam and you fell for it just as hard as MAGAs fell for Trump telling them he’d bring about a golden age for America.
There are no shortcuts for progress, and you’re currently moving backwards because internet algorithms have made you willing to trade democracy for a fantasy golden age just like the MAGAs.
A whole bunch of assumptions and no substance. Just an elitest lib Pearl clutching because the left wont abandon their principles for diet fascism.
If we had actual direct consensus based democracy I would have a different opinion, but we have an oligarchy in America, an electoral college, closed primary systems with arbitrary rules and super delegates. America is not a democracy.
I concede that revolution is an authoritarian act, but I believe revolution against a tyrannical government is self defense and not only justified but a moral imperative.
I am not even a tankie, and to water down my presumed ideology to feed your sense of superiority is exactly what I expected from you.
Plan A: Isolate the country and after a while the people of that country will be tried of being pariahs and work to get themselves out of being fascist. This worked on Franco’s fascist movement in Spain. But this method can take a long time (generations) but it’s the preferred method since there’s less bloodshed and that is limited to be within the fascist country. Problem is, the fascist country may attack another country which necessitates going to Plan B.
Plan B: All out war. Populations are mobilized, nations become entirely focused on war. Cities bombed to rubble, millions dead. Only after extreme hardship people in a fascist country will accept they aren’t superior to other countries (as the propaganda told them they were) and agree to unconditional surrender. This allows other countries to restructure their political system, and for participation in the fascist movement be prohibited.
Yes, I mentioned it takes a long time - generations. And if by “let him be” you mean nobody went to war with Franco, then yes, that’s why it’s Plan A, the option that doesn’t involve all out war.
Are you looking for an option where the US can quickly end it’s fascist movement? Unless you have a time machine and can go back in time and convince more people to vote for Kamala Harris, then I got nothing for ya. Best case is, the US is Franco’s Spain and it’s going to suck for decades. Worst case the US is WWII Germany, and it’s going to really suck, though for a much shorter period of time.
I love Germany, but Germany is a democracy. The US isn’t. 70%+ of Americans want universal healthcare, but “our” politicians shit on us and laugh. Most Americans want free college, but again, we get zero representation. We want unions, but companies freely fire workers for organizing and our politicians don’t care. South Dakota voted to legalize marijuana but the governor told the people they were too stupid to know what they voted for so she had one of the judges she appointed overrule democracy.
I could go on and on and on. Anyone who thinks the US is a democracy is extremely ignorant on the issue. Merely voting isn’t a democracy. A representative democracy is only a democracy if the representatives serve the will of the majority.
So get back to me when German politicians start ignoring everything the voters want and start gutting all of their public programs instead and then when politicians who promise to help get elected but do absolutely fucking nothing to help you
Education can only be used, when there is a side willing to learn. When they disregard history as fiction, there is no point in educating them. You can also see this with the right Shift in rhetoric in German Media and politics with parties Like AfD, BSW and partly CDU, who are straight Up ignoring history or downplaying it.
I am not American. I don’t want Europe to try and ‘fix’ the US, my suggestions are merely for the EU to avoid being taken over by the US.
Since the US has put a bunch of nazis into power it’s possible it will come to violence or threats of violence. It’s better to be prepared. It’s also better to act first if you know violence is inevitable.Or you could just acquiesce to any demand when threatened. Tariffs, give your natural resources to US companies, ban gays, ban ‘communism’ etc.
It was a call that plans may be required, and honestly that’s probably a good idea. The administration has repeatedly declined to rule out violent invasion when explicitly asked about how far they would go for their stated aspirations for Panama, Greenland, and Canada.
If you have a neighbor that keeps talking about how they want your house and they need to give up your house to them, and they have a whole bunch of weapons that they keep waving at your property while saying that they’ll do “whatever it takes” to have your land, then you don’t just wag your finger at them and say that’s bad and ignore the situation.
It’s not saying EU needs to do first strike, but they need to be prepared to defend their interests from violence as seems possible to be started by the US, which is an insane prospect I never would have imagined being a real thing in my life.
Lol, coming from people living in a country where school shootings are normal, who’ve been in wars 222 of the past 239 years, who threaten to invade Greenland, Canada and Panama, who commit crimes against humanity and has slavery in its incarceration system, who has the largest military budget of the world by far, who had the strongest military force out there…
And the only thing foreigners understand is violence?!?
Don’t forget their police who don’t have any kind of proper training so precincts have to find training on their own, which often leads to some pretty fucked up stuff. Themes will likely include making cops feel less like community protectors and more like “warriors” who are closer to Batman than real, engaged community support. Also those same cops have one helluva rate of domestic violence.
And then they’ll see people say stuff like that and start calling out corrupt police in some of the worst places on Earth as if the “greatest country” should be proud of clearing the lowest bar. It’s maddening because you can’t even talk to them without them getting hyper-defensive and angry.
Yeah, because open warfare with the US is a great geopolitical move that will end super well for everyone except russia. 100% no russian victory in fomenting that particular brand of chaos. nope.
Originally, I live in the US now. While I’m all for EU countries breaking military ties with the US, no really that is a super important move, open warfare with American forces would be suicide. The US has been the lynchpin of NATO for decades, and is tied in to every layer of the EU military apparatus. There isn’t parity with the american military in any way with respect to this, and it’s the kind of strategic disadvantage that can’t be overcome without legislative reform and many years of buildup. At the moment, especially with trump helming this shithole, any government asking the US to vacate it’s bases will need to do so with the understanding that they only have economic resources to fall back on if the US just says “no”.
You are making an assumption that the US will not attack or threaten to attack to get concessions from the EU unless the EU asks them to withdraw.
I am not saying the EU should take action today, it should prepare as much as it can first, but it needs to have plans to do it even today because it could be forced to.
Open warfare with the US in Europe is not suicide despite the US military being significantly bigger and capable compared to EU armies. Invading across an ocean is hard, you need to be able to move significant forces in or nearby before hostilities start or face no resistance in the initial landing.
Which is why EU armies need to have plans to quickly overwhelm US forces already in the EU, it can be done, they are not significant at present. Of course if you are unwilling to do so they can simply demand to increase their presence making the problem more difficult in the future.
It also needs to make sure the US have as few allies as possible that could help them stage from against it. Thankfully the UK at the moment does not seem to embrace Trump’s foreign policy but that could change in the future.
This is also why adding Canada to the EU at this point, when the main concern is security, is foolish, we cannot protect Canada, we probably cannot prevent an occupation of Greenland or any weird islands ex-imperial powers have god-knows-where.
The EU needs to implement a lot of changes to guarantee it’s safety and independence, some will be hard (unpopular, expensive).
It needs to increase military spending, massively
It need to de-tangle EU military equipment from US dependencies, including US parts required for EU manufactured equipment. This could trigger a US reaction.
It needs to replace NATO structures for interoperability of EU armies with EU ones, replicating as much as possible(personnel, procedures, equipment)
It needs to make sure there are no outside loyalties in it’s armed forces which is going to be difficult after decades of NATO. Those are more dangerous than the existing US forces.
It should implement some kind of conscription/reservist training force to have a bigger trained overall force. This is in addition to increasing regular professional forces.
It needs to reduce US dependency in non-military sectors as well. Could also trigger a US reaction.
(It is late and I am tired, so I apologize if this comes accross as rude or similar. I’m really not trying to be.)
Invading across an ocean is hard, you need to be able to move significant forces in or nearby before hostilities start or face no resistance in the initial landing.
This isn’t WWII though, opposed landings aren’t something anyone still does. Besides that, in this hypothetical scenario everyone has nukes. It’s really just an exercise in how much aggression each side will tolerate before someone escalates to that point.
Look I’m not disagreeing with the broad sentiment that the EU needs to get it’s shit together and divest from the US militarily – the US has been practically begging for that since clinton, hell obama, biden and trump all warned against this exact fascist-takeover america-unreliable scenario. I also for sure am not assuming the US will not be the aggressor. I mean, we’re even threatening the EU with annexation right now. I seriously doubt it’ll get to that point, but it’s by no means ruled out.
Things like adding canada to the EU are excellent strategic moves, since it not only gives the EU an ally with many friendly airbases across the ocean but, waaaaay more importantly, it gives them economic strength with which to batter the US and bolster their own economies. This is an economic war, and the US probably won’t win it. Hoorayyy?
This isn’t WWII though, opposed landings aren’t something anyone still does. Besides that, in this hypothetical scenario everyone has nukes. It’s really just an exercise in how much aggression each side will tolerate before someone escalates to that point.
I am confused though, if you understand that the US cannot invade despite their superior military why do you think it’s suicide for the EU to take military action against the limited US forces in the EU’s own territory?
Look I’m not disagreeing with the broad sentiment that the EU needs to get it’s shit together and divest from the US militarily – the US has been practically begging for that since clinton, hell obama, biden and trump all warned against this exact fascist-takeover america-unreliable scenario. I also for sure am not assuming the US will not be the aggressor. I mean, we’re even threatening the EU with annexation right now. I seriously doubt it’ll get to that point, but it’s by no means ruled out.
The US has never before pushed for EU divestment from the US. Quite the opposite it has repeatedly pushed for more EU investment in military defense, a part of which would go to US industry. It has reduced it’s presence when the SU fell but it still maintained bases in Europe and while military action would not be in the table other forms of coercion would come into play if the EU demanded a complete US withdrawal from EU territory.
I am also confused about who you think Trump warned the EU against? His own America? He just wanted the EU to pay more to US industry.
Things like adding canada to the EU are excellent strategic moves, since it not only gives the EU an ally with many friendly airbases across the ocean but, waaaaay more importantly, it gives them economic strength with which to batter the US and bolster their own economies. This is an economic war, and the US probably won’t win it. Hoorayyy?
Adding Canada to the EU is not adding an ally to the EU it’s adding a member. It creates a security obligation which the EU cannot fulfill towards Canada. At the same time it could provoke the US to attack Canada. Of course if the US attacks Canada the EU should try and provide as much help as possible but at the moment or the near future that won’t really be much.
I do believe CETA is being provisionally applied reducing tariffs even if the arbitration stuff is not (nor should it really). There is no ‘economic’ war to be won, the US is putting arbitrary tariffs on anyone but Russia, they will obviously be hurt more than any of the individual economies they target.
Ah man… Point by point breakdowns are usually the death knell of a discussion. It just spirals into longer and longer posts with less and less substance. For example:
if you understand that the US cannot invade despite their superior military
Where did I say that the US can’t invade? Ukraine has shown that nuclear deterrence is an extremely complicated subject. Would France actually be willing to end the world to save the Dutch? Nobody knows!
I am also confused about who you think Trump warned the EU against? His own America? He just wanted the EU to pay more to US industry.
Yes exactly. Trump isn’t good at this. His arguments are too small to get his fat little body off the ground. Trump, of course, says them anyways. Trump doesn’t care what humans think.
It creates a security obligation which the EU cannot fulfill towards Canada.
What’s the problem? Canada is aware of this going into it, so is the EU. It’s clearly a move that bolsters economies and not the respective militaries, at least in the near term, which is what is currently under threat. Long term, economic and military partnership between the EU and canada is blah blah blah longwinded nobody cares blah
Quite the opposite it has repeatedly pushed for more EU investment in military defense, a part of which would go to US industry.
But but but… That’s divestment. That’s doing divestment.
Etc.
Isn’t that just… miserable? All I’m doing is picking your nits, and that doesn’t really further anything because at no point does it address your thesis. I’m just batting at your arguments like a fat cat who wants you to stop bonking into it with the mouse but is too lazy to actually move off the mousepad. It doesn’t add anything, except incentive for this to turn into another boring internet slap fight. Honestly this feels like either we’re agreeing but not realizing it, or you have no experience with the military at all but don’t want to admit that (and I really do not think it’s the second option!).
Okay, here, how about I say: “Current US forces in the EU are not and never have been an occupying force - they could be casually sidelined by parking a big truck in front of the gates and stopping the beer delivery” and you please try to believe me. Not even joking, like, you’re right and it’s 100% true, I promise, and I have not argued anything else at any point. The forces the US stations in Europe (with the possible exception of some of the air assets at German-hosted bases like Ramstein) have no significant conventional defensive ability, they’re all sigint, liaison and a guard for the nukes. They could be rolled over by a determined enough girlscout troop (probably not by the boyscouts, though…).
Everyone knows that.
If you cross cancel the nukes from both sides in this hypothetical scenario (because it’s no fun to speculate when the end state is “absolutely everyone dies forever”) you’re left with a coalition of economically and culturally extremely powerful countries that just utterly lack a response to realities like “seven carrier strike groups” or “more than a thousand F35s”. Any hypothetical US occupation of the EU would obviously devolve into the exact kind of guerilla/insurgent warfare the US absolutely sucks at, but that doesn’t matter if this lunatic admin decides to have ROEs that are really relaxed about things like ‘civilians’. You just cannot win a war of attrition with the US right now, it’s pretty doubtful even the other superpowers could (that’s why they’re going the election interference route…) and provoking one by attacking US tripwire bases would be suicidal.
I feel like I should point out here that I do not like this. I’m not proud about this shit, honestly I’m too busy worrying about the “my country is burning down around me and I haven’t even got a bucket with which to staunch the flames” thing. But, the good news is (not for me I admit) that any significant mobilization to invade the EU will trigger a civil war in the US. To say that the idea ‘is as popular as giving children syphilis’ is to do a disservice to hyperbole. So I guess take heart that they’d have to roll over a great many americans (including me) before they ever get off the mainland.
…
Well, okay, these fuckers would happily do that (honestly they’d probably consider it a bonus), but the tree of moral victory is watered with the blood of martyrs. And fertilized with the paste their corpses have been ground into. And probably guided on a trellis made from what few bones weren’t ground into powder.
…
Or something, idk. This is getting dumb. I just really hope there’ll never be a chance for me to be proven right.
The reason the US cannot (successfully) invade is not due to nuclear deterrence but the difficulty in bringing over enough heavy equipment (MBTs, artillery) if you don’t have a foothold (ports, airfields). Seven carrier groups are not going to be able to secure you that even if they amounted to more than a 1000 F-35s, which they don’t.
Canada cannot join the EU legally. It will take amendment of the treaties to remove the geographical requirement and still Hungary would veto the ascension anyways. You can scoff at this and argue that we should ignore the treaties and Hungary but this will weaken the EU as an institution. It already is obviously less cohesive than a nation state.
It’s also not necessary for Canada to join the EU for us to support them militarily. The issue is that we can’t really do so in the near future.
EU military spending was already not going 100% to US products, therefore not all of the increased spending benefiting US companies is not divestment, it’s actually investment. The US after all marketed the F-35 to EU members.
I salute your strategy of the great wall of rambling text, it truly is demoralizing at this time. I do not think the best EU can do is rely on Americans waging a civil war on it’s behalf.
EU countries need to start making plans to remove us bases by force and destroy any US forces if necessary.
Why do Americans always think in violence. The American people put a bunch of nazis into power, now you want Europe to fix it with a full out war. It’s like the US is full of toddlers. Idiocracy was a meant as a comedy, not a manual.
Because the US is NOT a democracy and every single right we have was only won through violence. Civil rights? Malcom X and the Black Panthers had to resort to violence. Gay rights? Please see the Stonewall riots. The right to unionize? Workers had to take up guns and fight the police and military multiple times for the mere right to unionize.
You could’ve just voted for Kamala and there wouldn’t be any need for violence. The US isn’t a democracy because Americans prefer violence over democracy.
Trumps America is truly what America has always been without the squeaky clean public relations veneer of respectability. He takes it two steps above where the dems do. America has needed an uprising since before I was born and its the moderate liberal like you cheerleading for team blue standing in the way.
Joe Biden didnt fix the problem and neither would Kamala. They are the new wheels and a coat of paint on the orphan grinder and trump is a new grinding wheel. The problem is the machinery and you cant fix that with a vote for team blue.
Have you ever considered that the Democractic party isn’t 100% aligned with your views because there’s more people out there that disagree with you than agree with you? That’s part of democracy, accepting that the will of the people may not be the same as what you want and accepting that you need to convince others of your views.
If most people don’t agree with you, and you want to use violence to impose your will on others, then you’re just an authoritarian. You aren’t going to accomplish anything through violence when you’re incapable of convincing anyone through peaceful means. Even if you get power through violence you’d just be another tyrant that people would need to destroy to be able to live in a society they want to live in.
Instead of romanticizing revolutions, maybe try studying the ones that have happened in history and apply some critical thinking. Wanting to end democracy to get your way makes you a fascist no matter how much you tankie rationalizations you try to paint it over with.
Tell that to France. I think they’re doing quite well. They refused to put up with 1789 oligarchs.
I am well aware that their consent has been manufactured successfully, and also that a fascist machine can never be allowed to prevail regardless of its veneer of democracy or legitimacy. Do you honestly look at the American government and see democracy?
Is your advice to the civil rights movements of the past that they should have never pursued direct action because the majority had not deemed it necessary to afford them rights?
The 8 hour workday wasnt worth fighting for? Stonewall should have just stuck to catchy slogans? Your response perfectly encapsulates the danger of the white moderate and the downfall of respectability politics.
Revolutions are made necessary by boot licking sycophants who hold order over justice. In a society that abandons justice there can be no order without authoritarianism**. I dont believe authoritarianism is valid when it has been voted for, it should be met with the same violence it wields against others. **
I see America becoming more fascist every day because both the right and left have been conditioned by social media to hate democracy.
You may feel like you’re better than those that support MAGA, but you really aren’t. You’re the ones falling for catchy slogans like “late stage capitalism” and “genocide Joe” which have “radicalized” you (another way of saying you’ve turned off your brain) to turn against democracy. You’re just as narcissistic as Trump, just you want to be the one imposing your will onto others instead of Trump. Tankies claim to dislike MAGAs but are incapable of seeing they are the exact same kind of people.
By abandoning democracy, the Tankie crowd is just as complicit as the MAGAs in the suffering that will result from fascism. Just got scammed by a different of authoritarian grifters, but the result is the same. Nobody will respect a movement that did nothing while their country became an fascist shithole, and they certainly won’t be making you the authoritarians in charge. The “late stage capitalism” narrative was a scam and you fell for it just as hard as MAGAs fell for Trump telling them he’d bring about a golden age for America.
There are no shortcuts for progress, and you’re currently moving backwards because internet algorithms have made you willing to trade democracy for a fantasy golden age just like the MAGAs.
A whole bunch of assumptions and no substance. Just an elitest lib Pearl clutching because the left wont abandon their principles for diet fascism.
If we had actual direct consensus based democracy I would have a different opinion, but we have an oligarchy in America, an electoral college, closed primary systems with arbitrary rules and super delegates. America is not a democracy.
I concede that revolution is an authoritarian act, but I believe revolution against a tyrannical government is self defense and not only justified but a moral imperative.
I am not even a tankie, and to water down my presumed ideology to feed your sense of superiority is exactly what I expected from you.
But but Genocide but but her emails… but but he’s old but but…
The last time trump lost they stormed the Capitol.
I can’t imagine they’d be more peaceful a 2nd time around.
So voting him into office is the better option? Come on now.
How have fascists typically been successfully handled by the international community in the past?
There’s only two methods.
Plan A: Isolate the country and after a while the people of that country will be tried of being pariahs and work to get themselves out of being fascist. This worked on Franco’s fascist movement in Spain. But this method can take a long time (generations) but it’s the preferred method since there’s less bloodshed and that is limited to be within the fascist country. Problem is, the fascist country may attack another country which necessitates going to Plan B.
Plan B: All out war. Populations are mobilized, nations become entirely focused on war. Cities bombed to rubble, millions dead. Only after extreme hardship people in a fascist country will accept they aren’t superior to other countries (as the propaganda told them they were) and agree to unconditional surrender. This allows other countries to restructure their political system, and for participation in the fascist movement be prohibited.
I dunno if Franco’s Spain is a good example. Post-WW2, the US and its western allies mostly let him be. He was a reliable anti-communist, after all.
The regime ended when he died.
Yes, I mentioned it takes a long time - generations. And if by “let him be” you mean nobody went to war with Franco, then yes, that’s why it’s Plan A, the option that doesn’t involve all out war.
Are you looking for an option where the US can quickly end it’s fascist movement? Unless you have a time machine and can go back in time and convince more people to vote for Kamala Harris, then I got nothing for ya. Best case is, the US is Franco’s Spain and it’s going to suck for decades. Worst case the US is WWII Germany, and it’s going to really suck, though for a much shorter period of time.
And both of those options require removing us bases from foreign countries lmao
Look at Germany, education is the answer.
edit: I was wrong, I don’t know the answer also I learned America is not a democracy.
I love Germany, but Germany is a democracy. The US isn’t. 70%+ of Americans want universal healthcare, but “our” politicians shit on us and laugh. Most Americans want free college, but again, we get zero representation. We want unions, but companies freely fire workers for organizing and our politicians don’t care. South Dakota voted to legalize marijuana but the governor told the people they were too stupid to know what they voted for so she had one of the judges she appointed overrule democracy.
I could go on and on and on. Anyone who thinks the US is a democracy is extremely ignorant on the issue. Merely voting isn’t a democracy. A representative democracy is only a democracy if the representatives serve the will of the majority.
So get back to me when German politicians start ignoring everything the voters want and start gutting all of their public programs instead and then when politicians who promise to help get elected but do absolutely fucking nothing to help you
Education can only be used, when there is a side willing to learn. When they disregard history as fiction, there is no point in educating them. You can also see this with the right Shift in rhetoric in German Media and politics with parties Like AfD, BSW and partly CDU, who are straight Up ignoring history or downplaying it.
Germany is your example of a fascist state that didn’t require violence to bring under control?
I am not American. I don’t want Europe to try and ‘fix’ the US, my suggestions are merely for the EU to avoid being taken over by the US.
Since the US has put a bunch of nazis into power it’s possible it will come to violence or threats of violence. It’s better to be prepared. It’s also better to act first if you know violence is inevitable.Or you could just acquiesce to any demand when threatened. Tariffs, give your natural resources to US companies, ban gays, ban ‘communism’ etc.
But Europe knows that appeasement works against a violent invader. They proved that was a good strategy in the 1930s.
It was a call that plans may be required, and honestly that’s probably a good idea. The administration has repeatedly declined to rule out violent invasion when explicitly asked about how far they would go for their stated aspirations for Panama, Greenland, and Canada.
If you have a neighbor that keeps talking about how they want your house and they need to give up your house to them, and they have a whole bunch of weapons that they keep waving at your property while saying that they’ll do “whatever it takes” to have your land, then you don’t just wag your finger at them and say that’s bad and ignore the situation.
It’s not saying EU needs to do first strike, but they need to be prepared to defend their interests from violence as seems possible to be started by the US, which is an insane prospect I never would have imagined being a real thing in my life.
I’ve had Americans say to me that the only thing foreigners understand is violence.
Lol, coming from people living in a country where school shootings are normal, who’ve been in wars 222 of the past 239 years, who threaten to invade Greenland, Canada and Panama, who commit crimes against humanity and has slavery in its incarceration system, who has the largest military budget of the world by far, who had the strongest military force out there…
And the only thing foreigners understand is violence?!?
Oh the fucking irony.
Don’t forget their police who don’t have any kind of proper training so precincts have to find training on their own, which often leads to some pretty fucked up stuff. Themes will likely include making cops feel less like community protectors and more like “warriors” who are closer to Batman than real, engaged community support. Also those same cops have one helluva rate of domestic violence.
And then they’ll see people say stuff like that and start calling out corrupt police in some of the worst places on Earth as if the “greatest country” should be proud of clearing the lowest bar. It’s maddening because you can’t even talk to them without them getting hyper-defensive and angry.
Because it is. And like toddlers they have shat the bed and expect someone to clean up after them.
Yeah, because open warfare with the US is a great geopolitical move that will end super well for everyone except russia. 100% no russian victory in fomenting that particular brand of chaos. nope.
If they US is not planning on using military force against the EU, they will simply withdraw from EU territory peacefully when asked.
Chaos will be when US troops attack us from withing while Russia attacks from the east.
Are you from the EU?
Originally, I live in the US now. While I’m all for EU countries breaking military ties with the US, no really that is a super important move, open warfare with American forces would be suicide. The US has been the lynchpin of NATO for decades, and is tied in to every layer of the EU military apparatus. There isn’t parity with the american military in any way with respect to this, and it’s the kind of strategic disadvantage that can’t be overcome without legislative reform and many years of buildup. At the moment, especially with trump helming this shithole, any government asking the US to vacate it’s bases will need to do so with the understanding that they only have economic resources to fall back on if the US just says “no”.
You are making an assumption that the US will not attack or threaten to attack to get concessions from the EU unless the EU asks them to withdraw.
I am not saying the EU should take action today, it should prepare as much as it can first, but it needs to have plans to do it even today because it could be forced to.
Open warfare with the US in Europe is not suicide despite the US military being significantly bigger and capable compared to EU armies. Invading across an ocean is hard, you need to be able to move significant forces in or nearby before hostilities start or face no resistance in the initial landing.
Which is why EU armies need to have plans to quickly overwhelm US forces already in the EU, it can be done, they are not significant at present. Of course if you are unwilling to do so they can simply demand to increase their presence making the problem more difficult in the future.
It also needs to make sure the US have as few allies as possible that could help them stage from against it. Thankfully the UK at the moment does not seem to embrace Trump’s foreign policy but that could change in the future.
This is also why adding Canada to the EU at this point, when the main concern is security, is foolish, we cannot protect Canada, we probably cannot prevent an occupation of Greenland or any weird islands ex-imperial powers have god-knows-where.
The EU needs to implement a lot of changes to guarantee it’s safety and independence, some will be hard (unpopular, expensive).
It needs to increase military spending, massively It need to de-tangle EU military equipment from US dependencies, including US parts required for EU manufactured equipment. This could trigger a US reaction. It needs to replace NATO structures for interoperability of EU armies with EU ones, replicating as much as possible(personnel, procedures, equipment) It needs to make sure there are no outside loyalties in it’s armed forces which is going to be difficult after decades of NATO. Those are more dangerous than the existing US forces. It should implement some kind of conscription/reservist training force to have a bigger trained overall force. This is in addition to increasing regular professional forces. It needs to reduce US dependency in non-military sectors as well. Could also trigger a US reaction.
(It is late and I am tired, so I apologize if this comes accross as rude or similar. I’m really not trying to be.)
This isn’t WWII though, opposed landings aren’t something anyone still does. Besides that, in this hypothetical scenario everyone has nukes. It’s really just an exercise in how much aggression each side will tolerate before someone escalates to that point.
Look I’m not disagreeing with the broad sentiment that the EU needs to get it’s shit together and divest from the US militarily – the US has been practically begging for that since clinton, hell obama, biden and trump all warned against this exact fascist-takeover america-unreliable scenario. I also for sure am not assuming the US will not be the aggressor. I mean, we’re even threatening the EU with annexation right now. I seriously doubt it’ll get to that point, but it’s by no means ruled out.
Things like adding canada to the EU are excellent strategic moves, since it not only gives the EU an ally with many friendly airbases across the ocean but, waaaaay more importantly, it gives them economic strength with which to batter the US and bolster their own economies. This is an economic war, and the US probably won’t win it. Hoorayyy?
I am confused though, if you understand that the US cannot invade despite their superior military why do you think it’s suicide for the EU to take military action against the limited US forces in the EU’s own territory?
The US has never before pushed for EU divestment from the US. Quite the opposite it has repeatedly pushed for more EU investment in military defense, a part of which would go to US industry. It has reduced it’s presence when the SU fell but it still maintained bases in Europe and while military action would not be in the table other forms of coercion would come into play if the EU demanded a complete US withdrawal from EU territory.
I am also confused about who you think Trump warned the EU against? His own America? He just wanted the EU to pay more to US industry.
Adding Canada to the EU is not adding an ally to the EU it’s adding a member. It creates a security obligation which the EU cannot fulfill towards Canada. At the same time it could provoke the US to attack Canada. Of course if the US attacks Canada the EU should try and provide as much help as possible but at the moment or the near future that won’t really be much.
I do believe CETA is being provisionally applied reducing tariffs even if the arbitration stuff is not (nor should it really). There is no ‘economic’ war to be won, the US is putting arbitrary tariffs on anyone but Russia, they will obviously be hurt more than any of the individual economies they target.
Ah man… Point by point breakdowns are usually the death knell of a discussion. It just spirals into longer and longer posts with less and less substance. For example:
Where did I say that the US can’t invade? Ukraine has shown that nuclear deterrence is an extremely complicated subject. Would France actually be willing to end the world to save the Dutch? Nobody knows!
Yes exactly. Trump isn’t good at this. His arguments are too small to get his fat little body off the ground. Trump, of course, says them anyways. Trump doesn’t care what humans think.
What’s the problem? Canada is aware of this going into it, so is the EU. It’s clearly a move that bolsters economies and not the respective militaries, at least in the near term, which is what is currently under threat. Long term, economic and military partnership between the EU and canada is blah blah blah longwinded nobody cares blah
But but but… That’s divestment. That’s doing divestment.
Etc.
Isn’t that just… miserable? All I’m doing is picking your nits, and that doesn’t really further anything because at no point does it address your thesis. I’m just batting at your arguments like a fat cat who wants you to stop bonking into it with the mouse but is too lazy to actually move off the mousepad. It doesn’t add anything, except incentive for this to turn into another boring internet slap fight. Honestly this feels like either we’re agreeing but not realizing it, or you have no experience with the military at all but don’t want to admit that (and I really do not think it’s the second option!).
Okay, here, how about I say: “Current US forces in the EU are not and never have been an occupying force - they could be casually sidelined by parking a big truck in front of the gates and stopping the beer delivery” and you please try to believe me. Not even joking, like, you’re right and it’s 100% true, I promise, and I have not argued anything else at any point. The forces the US stations in Europe (with the possible exception of some of the air assets at German-hosted bases like Ramstein) have no significant conventional defensive ability, they’re all sigint, liaison and a guard for the nukes. They could be rolled over by a determined enough girlscout troop (probably not by the boyscouts, though…).
Everyone knows that.
If you cross cancel the nukes from both sides in this hypothetical scenario (because it’s no fun to speculate when the end state is “absolutely everyone dies forever”) you’re left with a coalition of economically and culturally extremely powerful countries that just utterly lack a response to realities like “seven carrier strike groups” or “more than a thousand F35s”. Any hypothetical US occupation of the EU would obviously devolve into the exact kind of guerilla/insurgent warfare the US absolutely sucks at, but that doesn’t matter if this lunatic admin decides to have ROEs that are really relaxed about things like ‘civilians’. You just cannot win a war of attrition with the US right now, it’s pretty doubtful even the other superpowers could (that’s why they’re going the election interference route…) and provoking one by attacking US tripwire bases would be suicidal.
I feel like I should point out here that I do not like this. I’m not proud about this shit, honestly I’m too busy worrying about the “my country is burning down around me and I haven’t even got a bucket with which to staunch the flames” thing. But, the good news is (not for me I admit) that any significant mobilization to invade the EU will trigger a civil war in the US. To say that the idea ‘is as popular as giving children syphilis’ is to do a disservice to hyperbole. So I guess take heart that they’d have to roll over a great many americans (including me) before they ever get off the mainland.
…
Well, okay, these fuckers would happily do that (honestly they’d probably consider it a bonus), but the tree of moral victory is watered with the blood of martyrs. And fertilized with the paste their corpses have been ground into. And probably guided on a trellis made from what few bones weren’t ground into powder.
…
Or something, idk. This is getting dumb. I just really hope there’ll never be a chance for me to be proven right.
The reason the US cannot (successfully) invade is not due to nuclear deterrence but the difficulty in bringing over enough heavy equipment (MBTs, artillery) if you don’t have a foothold (ports, airfields). Seven carrier groups are not going to be able to secure you that even if they amounted to more than a 1000 F-35s, which they don’t.
Canada cannot join the EU legally. It will take amendment of the treaties to remove the geographical requirement and still Hungary would veto the ascension anyways. You can scoff at this and argue that we should ignore the treaties and Hungary but this will weaken the EU as an institution. It already is obviously less cohesive than a nation state.
It’s also not necessary for Canada to join the EU for us to support them militarily. The issue is that we can’t really do so in the near future.
EU military spending was already not going 100% to US products, therefore not all of the increased spending benefiting US companies is not divestment, it’s actually investment. The US after all marketed the F-35 to EU members.
I salute your strategy of the great wall of rambling text, it truly is demoralizing at this time. I do not think the best EU can do is rely on Americans waging a civil war on it’s behalf.