Netanyahu is also Merz’s daddy.
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I mean, it is embarrassing but the strategy is clear here. Don’t piss off Daddy in hope to prolong the support for Ukraine (or preventing the support for Russia).
The EU and especially Germany has been grabbed by the nuts by the speed the US is leaving the show in Europe. Germany is doing as much for building up the military as the German society can take, it was admired for this strategy some time ago.
But they need a couple of more years to gain real independence (if they succeed). And for this time, they are vulnerable.
I see the hipocrisy, sure, but I don’t think it’s just stupid, but a strategy. I am genuinely interested, what would you guys do?
The trouble is that on a lot of topics, the German government and especially Merz’ party clearly aren’t interested in independence. It’s very obvious with digital services.
It’s much easier to complain that to acknowledge real world complexities. Ukraine cannot, not could most of Europe, survive Russian agression without American command and control systems as that’s how NATO has run for decades in part to avoid costly duplication.
Now, a gangater is using that alliance as a point of vulnerability to shakerown “allies” and people get whiny about the digital services stuff. Europe has a really brutal hand to play right now and it sucks.
Now, a gangater is using that alliance as a point of vulnerability to shakerown “allies”
If the EU doesn’t build it’s own structure it becomes likely that it is not a shakedown.
The fact that so many people don’t understand this is nuts to me. There’s the military gear support for Ukraine case, the Greenland case, the tariffs case, the AI tech case, all the IT services case - all of that crap that Trump, sufficiently annoyed, can just take away from the EU. It’s clear that Congress is no longer functional and US slid into dictatorship, so there’s nobody who could stop him. Which means that, when we see him illegally invading a sovereign country, we say “it’s complicated”.
My brother in Christ, we’ve known that since the beginning.
Reliance of defense on the US without owning nukes was bad, but digital services should have never left the continent.
US was two steps from fascism at least since the 2001.
I don’t see how the same people in EU will change the course. Because I don’t believe they want to.
And I worry only the alt right will benefit from it.
And for this time, they are vulnerable.
I have yet to see a comparison of military capabilities of the EU and Russia, or Nato without the US and Russia that shows that Russia could win.
It’s not about Russia winning against the EU, they can barely progress meters a month in Ukraine. Every Intel report the US withholds from Ukraine has the potential to cost Ukrainian lives, German equipment, French support, UK morale, etc.
The complete destruction of Europe is not the only thing we are worried about, every tantrum thrown by the orange toddler has very serious consequences.
I see through your strategy and won’t do you the favor and disprove your claim, but ask you to do the opposite - show us that Russia is no threat towards the EU.
If you read military experts like for example Sönke Neitzel or Carlo Masala, you will come to the conclusion that Russia is indeed a threat. Comparing pure numbers of soldiers or dollars is a naive fallacy.
Sönke Neitzel or Carlo Masala
Thanks for the reference.
show us that Russia is no threat towards the EU
What would be the strategic goal? Using a war to conquer the Baltics for security is stupid.
The EU could unlock Russia’s resources and be the security partner to protect those resources against American interests.
The future of the world is in the east. It is a waste of resources to expand further in the west.
The tricky question is why Ukraine was then important at all. I think it wouldn’t be if things like Iraq, Syria or Venezuela wouldn’t happen. The US are developing starshield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starshield . Nukes don’t guarantee security anymore and Europe could be a sacrifice that the US is willing to make so some territorial buffer was needed.
What would be the strategic goal? Using a war to conquer the Baltics for security is stupid.
Putin stated very clearly, that his goal is to rebuild the Russian Empire. He claimed more than once all land a Russian soldier ever set foot on as genuine Russian possession - That would be the old Warsaw Pact.
The EU could unlock Russia’s resources and be the security partner to protect those resources against American interests.
That’s exactly what Putin’s Erasian doctrin aims fore Only problem. The European ideas about human rights, democracy &c are incompatible with the idea of an authocratic Russian hegemony over Eurasia. If he made peace and cooperated with the EU, these ideas would destroy his autocratic rule. He needs vasall states, not partners.
He claimed more than once all land a Russian soldier ever set foot on as genuine Russian possession - That would be the old Warsaw Pact.
Do you have a quote for that?
I have checked his essay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Historical_Unity_of_Russians_and_Ukrainians and it doesn’t sound that extensive.
Putin’s Erasian doctrin
Which doctrin?
He needs vasall states, not partners.
The way the EU reacted to Venezuela, it couldn’t get much worse. But is that really the Russian objective?
Why would France and Germany alone not be stronger than Russia? Apart from Nukes, if Russia aligns with Europe, e.g. like Norway, wouldn’t that shift power to the EU?
<He claimed more than once all land a Russian soldier ever set foot on as genuine Russian possession - That would be the old Warsaw Pact.
Do you have a quote for that?
Sure, at 03:23:21
Edit: thanks to @plyth for pointing out the wrong link
Please check the link. It’s a channel.
Thanks for the correction.
The context in the debate is the rejected peace treaty. It puts pressure on Ukraine to sign as soon as possible. Russia was willing to stop and sign the treaty earlier which should show that expanding the territory is not the primary goal.
The Indonesian president afterwards mentions the influence of the media. It’s not as obvious as with Venezuela but the Ukraine war is also a big western resource grab. Framing Putin as an unreasonable imperialist hides that in plain sight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Élysée_Treaty
Just two months after the signing of the friendship treaty, a new controversy between France and West Germany occurred. President de Gaulle intended the treaty to make West Germany distance itself and eventually separate itself from its American protector. He saw West Germany (and the other member states of the European Economic Community) as vassalized by Washington. The treaty was notable in that it made no mention of the United States, United Kingdom, NATO, or the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).[9]
However, after US President John F. Kennedy expressed his displeasure about this to the West German ambassador to the United States, the Bundestag ratified the treaty with a preamble which called on France and West Germany to pursue tight cooperation with the United States; the eventual admission of the United Kingdom to the EEC; the achievement of a free trade accord in the framework of the GATT; and for the West’s military integration in NATO under US leadership.[10] This effectively emptied the Treaty of any sense (in Gaullist understanding) and put end to General de Gaulle’s hopes of building the EEC into a counterweight to the US and the USSR. “The Germans are behaving like pigs. They are putting themselves completely at the Americans’ service. They’re betraying the spirit of the Franco-German Treaty. And they’re betraying Europe.”[11] Later, in 1965, the General told his closest aides behind closed doors: “The Germans had been my greatest hope; they are my greatest disappointment.”[12]
This shit has been going on since 1963…
As much as I like the French surrender jokes, they have been the greatest advocates of a strong and independent Europe for the last 80 years, from de Gaulle then to Sarkozy now (domestic popularity aside). They are on to something…
France has been the most succesful military power in Europe for 1.5 millenia. IIRC they were temporary occupied just once.
They were briefly occupied at the end of the Franco-Prussian war, and the War of The Sixth Coalition ended with foreign powers sitting in Paris picking France’s new government.
Thanks, you’re correct. Three times. Still one of the most successful military powers in Europe.
Same post when Greenland’s taken presumably?
deleted by creator
Can’t wait for the Chicago agreement where France and Germany let the US annex Greenland but America has to super pinky promise not to annex the rest of Denmark
And in the same breath Denmark buys 300 F-47s
How many examples outside of WWII are there in which such a mechanism started a war?
I think there are many examples, from the top of my head, I’d say Macedonian Expansion under Philip II, Napoleonic Wars, Second Punic War, Great Turkish War , Second Boer War, Caucasian War, Franco-Prussian War, Gulf War
Ukraine?
Debatable: while countries did enter NATO that is not the same as getting acquired by a dictator. The resources of such countries were not taken by the “occupying” forces.
As an exercise I’ll take this as a valid case. That still makes them only 2 examples throughout human history, does that count as a common way in which wars start?
Both sides are currently stealing Ukraine’s resources though? Do you not remember Trump demanding mineral rights or Ukraine selling off ports, schools, and SoEs for pennies under Biden? I dont think I need to point to examples of Russian theft.
Does it count if just a new head of state is installed that hands over the resources of the country to the companies of the dictator?
It counts under the first point in the list above. However, it sounds to me like you’re referring to current events; how would that address my question? My question is regarding historical examples to treat such mechanics as an established and common way in which wars appear.
I don’t remember too many wars starting that way, but I may be very wrong.
Yeah, how dare he not declare war on a nuclear superpower over a Venezuelan dictator!
I think Putin already showed how little the world is willing to go to war to defend the weak.
That’s a strawman and you know it.
Even just saying they condemn the kidnapping would have been enough.
That’s just the international equivalent of “thoughts and prayers”
What they need to do is put out an arrest warrant for Trump in the Hague where he should get a fair trial and a chance to defend himself on the legality of the invasion. If he fails, Europe should collectively embargo the US.
Let there be some real world consequences for once, not just a condemnation
Nobody is able to embargo the US. Not Europe, not China, not Europe and China combined. It would be catastrophic, we simply don’t have the domestic capacity. Tech, certain medications, military hardware, spare parts, etc.
Sure, we could get a passable replacement for everything in 5 years or so, but until then it would literally cost lives.
None are able to embargo the big ones like China, the EU or even India.
BTW this is how you know Russia is not one of the big ones.
Isn’t the legal classification is complex some diplomatic version of you fucked up, but we’re ready to believe your lawyer?
Adding an acceptability benchmark to it, feel like preety critical considering the strong tie between US and Germany.
You’re not wrong but pushing the intended conclusion anyway (regime change) is pretty egregious imo
For those outside of the loop, this US pawn worked for Blackrock, this reaction is wholly unsurprising.
And he is the “right” kind of Christian.
Can’t wait to see what all those spineless politicians will say when Trump appoints a Governor of Venezuela.
He already did - kind of. He acknowledged the Vicepresident of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, as acting President, and stated pretty bluntely, that they can treat her like Maduro if she doesn’t submit to his demands. I’d view this as appointment as governor Trumpi gratia.
Legally trivial, morally complex and very much dependant on the outcome.
^ This Lemming geopolitics.
I read that as trying to be a yesman is hard (legally)
A machine translation is unacceptable. They tend to warp what was said or get it wrong entirely. At least use a good translation service if you are gonna do that.
What an asinine thing to say. Do you mean I should hire a human translator to read and repost a tweet in a language I understand but assume you don’t?
In my experience machine translation often have different, nonsensical or even opposite meaning when compared to the original. I.e. yes. You have no right to yell at a foreigner over things they may not have said in another league not directed at you.
Trying to sow doubt, are we?
One is left wondering for just how many members of his party does America and Israel have compromising pictures of them fucking children taken via operation’s like Epstein’s and similar.
Bet there’s a lot of compromising evidence for corruption too (I mean, at one point selling yourself to Russian interests was THE thing to do for German politicians), but them being blackmailed with evidence of pedophilia more neatly explains the desperate subservience of this German government to America and Israel.
You know not every bad person is a pedophile, right? Merz can be a piece of shit without having to be into little kids.
In the end he’s just unfit for his position. He’s weak, opportunistic and rich. That’s more than enough to think crawling up Trumps ass is a winning strategy
Never said it was Merz personally and very explicitly said “members of his party”.
If you think German power elites are any less likely to have the kind of sociopath who looks at a child and sees a potential source of personal pleasure than unaccountable elites elsewhere, you might want the really ponder on your nationalist prejudices - no one nation is more or less likely to have such people, the only difference is how much accountability there is for those who do such things, especially when they’re in positions of power and nations with widespread “our people are different” prejudices on such things tend to be worse in terms of accountability for it because suspicions are much more likely to be dismissed with “that doesn’t happen here”.
If there’s one thing the Epstein revelations are showing is that people in positions of power with that very specific kind of thinking are spread all over in the West and were being activelly enticed to act on such fantasies with a honeypot controlled by at the very least Israeli intelligence and, quiet probably, also the American one and Germany, both due to its size and wealth and its links to Israel, is a prime candidate for such targetting.
Unfortunately, I think for most of them, they’re just feckless cowards
There is no evidence for German politicians being pedophiles. Not every country is the US.
Search for Edathy.
That is straight up Q anon conspiracy nonsense. The reality is that geopolitics is complicated and interdependent. The US has sewn influence and is very powerful on the world stage. And, when push comes to shove, a lot of world leaders don’t care about rule of law or norms as long as the bad things are being committed by an ally a long way from home.
Sure mate, Germans are a superior people with not a single sociopath attracted to both children and power amongst them (unlike lesser people such as Americans), Epstein was a fucking saint and if he wasn’t it was only an “amazing coincidence” that there were several members of Israeli Security Services photographed with him and if they were actually using his child sex ring to gather blackmail material they would only ever target America and Americans in power circles and never Germany and Germans in power circles and, besides, the entire concept of pedophilia is a massive conspiracy.
It could never be the case that both Israeli and American (the latter actually caught eavesdropping on Merkel’s mobile phone some years ago) espionage services would love to have blackmail material on the politicians of the largest and wealthiest country of Europe and that Epstein’s organisation was designed exactly to acquire such material on people in positions of influence and power in Western nations, even if it’s actually entirelly logical and well within the kind of thing the espionage agencies playing the Great Game do (the most well known being how Russia’s security services used sex honeypots to gather Kompromat for decades).
Any such ideas of state actors using sex (involving chidren or otherwise) to blackmail people in power in wealthy and influent countries such as Germany can only ever be “conspiracy nonsense” (except if that country is the US)!!!
You are taking disconnected elements and spinning a huge narrative with big reaches which just isn’t necessary to explain the actions of world leaders.
