robbinhood @ robbinhood @lemmy.world

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5 mo. ago

With the right approach and right people in charge, a multipolar world could turn out to be better for everyone in the long run tbh.

Europe is already a wealthy and successful region. And they still have lots of untapped potential in terms of expanding military coordination and military-industrial strength and various other things. (Of course, "Europe" is lumping a lot of different countries facing different circumstances together and so I'm papering over lots of details.)

It sucks seeing the USA/Europe (and Canada, for that matter) alliance falling apart but hopefully it leads to a stronger Europe in the long run. But there are also tons and tons of risks and ways for this all to go sideways.

edit: typos

Europe's euro fighter jet is and was a very respectable fighter. With the shift towards stealth with the latest generation, it may be falling behind in key areas but still a good air craft. Developing a jet is a huge, huge undertaking and arguably Europe's resources could be spent better elsewhere rather than trying to develop an F35/F22 competitor.

Europe does have industrial and military capacity issues. This is well known and European leaders are among the quickest to point it out. No idea why the guy above wants to bury his head in the sand on that.

The biggest issues are arguably fragmentation and tepid political/societal support. Europe has various strengths but work is needed to make the most out of their potential.

Your industries can't even supply artillery and basic equipment to Ukraine, at least nowhere at the level needed to win the war. This is well-known. European leaders have been harping on the need to upgrade capacities.

So, newsflash: sorry, your military industry isn't up to par yet. The potential is there. Many of the technologies are there. The actual support and capacity to make the most out of that potential is lacking.

This isn't in any way a controversial opinion. The reality on the ground with constant shortages and European leaders themselves acknowledging the military industry needs more support is well known.

Ukraine's mineral resources really aren't even that considerable on a global scale. They're not insignificant but their economic value at the moment, even setting aside the war, doesn't have American companies salivating.

This minerals for protection thing apparently was floated by Ukraine first to the Biden administration and Trump campaign. The Biden administration didn't do much with it because, among other things, the actual economic and practical value was questionable.

Trump, on the other hand, just wants to be seen making deals. Zelenskyy and Ukraine first floated the general idea because they knew Trump is highly transactional and it'd give Trump an easy "win."

I highly doubt trillions in profits are anywhere in the mix.

And you don't want to negotiate anything with Trump directly. If Zelenskyy did that intentionally, he dropped the ball. Trump is far too mercurial and often only grasps issues in the most basic of senses. Trying to get into a nuts and bolts negotiation with him is pointless. Hammer that out first, get something signable without too onerous of long term commitments, compliment him, sign, move on.

It's also just so weak.

Not that macho'ism should be a major point or even desirable trait for a world leader IMO, but so many people like Trump because he's allegedly strong. Yet when I watch the above clip I just keep thinking "he's so weak and soft and overly sensitive to essentially everything." Like how can you want a tough leader, then watch that exchange and think "Trump is tough." What?

Trump sucks, I hope Ukraine wins,and I hope Putin is judged by history for his aggression and the general incompetence of his government.

But very few Russian embassies were ever closed, and rightly so. Some were downsized and suspected spies were given the boot. If Europe wants to do that with Americans, yeah smart.

Outright closing embassies would be a massive misstep, completely (edit: unwarranted, I mean) warranted, and miss the entire point of diplomacy.

That sucks and permabans really shouldn't be a thing except in extreme causes of threatening to like harm/dox some one and stuff like that. Not seeing where you did anything to get banned at all, but especially not permabanned.

If Lemmy just ends up being another reddit that's going to suck so bad.

The Secretary of State implements foreign policy but doesn't decide it.

Honestly, if I were Rubio I would have declined the Secretary of State spot. At the moment, I doubt it does much to help any Presidential ambitions he might have and he probably had more actual power in the Senate rather than at State.

Europe really needs to beef up its defense industries and whatnot. America's unreliability is becoming an existential threat and it's clear that Trump and Co will be extremely opportunistic and quick to align with Russia.

We all know Vance was fondling that sofa when attention was turned elsewhere.

FUBAR. That's what it is.

sigh

yeah I agree with you there. The risk tho is if Vance becomes President he could probably mess up a whole lot of things quickly in line with their dark enlightenment insanity.

Seems like a wise idea. I kinda always assumed that air ports had systems in place to flip over to war-mode relatively easily, but that was just an unsubstantiated assumption.

Vance is a bigger threat IMO than Trump tbh. The weird stuff with him, Thiel, Yarvin, and the Dark Enlightment stuff is all terrifying.

"Musk could literally solve every problem in the US"

Musk and his billions couldn't fund Medicaid for a year. He'd make a sizable dent, but only a dent, in our overall student loan debt. Public debit, which is becoming a major issue with interest now consuming a huge part of our budget, would barely be dented.

He could fund US Aid for a few years. This in large part comes down to the fact that it's minuscule spending.

Musk could do very little with "every" problem in the USA. If he decided to, he could address some of the smaller specific issues but that's it. I'd applaud him for it but we need to be realistic about the numbers here.

See above.

Not sure what we're strongly disagreeing about. I certainly don't think the USA strong armed Eastern European countries into NATO/EU. But the interest was there in eastern europe for all of the reasons you point out, and the USA supported it.

Putin has often complained about the USA/West encroaching on Russia, but while the USA/West has many of its own issues, it marks a step forward. (edit: didn't finish my thought. Marked a step forward for many eastern european nations. Natural that they'd want to join.)

Putin is intelligent. How intelligent, not sure. I don't think he's the mastermind the world at times has thought of him but he's not an idiot.

One could argue the USA inflamed tensions in the region by encouraging Baltic states and Eastern Europe to join NATO and the EU. But the thing is, pretty much every country that went that path benefited immensely. Beyond which, countries should enjoy their own self determination.

Most of the planes I've been on had at least some crew seats tucked into the back and out of the way of the primary exits if I am remembering correctly. There probably is a good reason, such as tripping hazards for the crew doing their work or the seats not really being effective for long term seating and keeping the body in place (I'm thinking of the fold down crew seats).

I imagine any solution they come up with will be out of sight until it's needed and you could equip multiple bathrooms or whatever space. Although two people dying like this is probably astronomically rare.