I’m an American. Y’all Europeans don’t believe the horse shit they got most of my countrymen to accept.
Also, that Janan Ganesh guy looks like a putz.
Defend the continent from who? The teetering regime that has spent the past 5 years drawing the poorest country on the continent to a stalemate?
And the same regime definetly has the power to rule territory in which it’s despised by the majority of the population. /s
War is very expensive though. It makes sense to spend fraction of that on a deterrent and that’s one thing EU does really well is to hedge all investments for overall stability. This is more of the same.
Interestingly it’s always the welfare state that has to be sacrificed, that is too expensive etc. The foundation of our democracy IMO.
But at least the americans think about us and want to help us! /s
Defend the continent from people whose countries are becoming unlivable, and from missing out on all the resources we might want to procure.
I’m afraid we’ve really entered into a new era of increasing aggression and warfare.
Well, kinda, yeah. The only reason that has been a stalemate is that Europe mustered a bunch of support for Ukraine, at great expense. They’ve needed to gather and regather the will to spend money on this throughout, if you’ve been paying attention you’ve seen it.
Now I totally object to someone saying they need to dismantle their social programs to dump all that money into warfare, but neither should we say there is no threat at all.
What exactly will happen if there are suddenly “separatists” in Narva?
There’s 2.200 soldiers in Tapa which I assume would be deployed immediately.
There’s a total of 27.000 soldiers deployed as part of the Enhanced Forward Presence NATO deference. So they need a little more than just “separatists”
So let’s kill what makes our countries worth to live in.
Fuck you, bootlicker!
Because austerity measures worked so well after the housing bubble burst. 🙄
I am worried about Russia and it’s behaviour, but I totally disagree with this narrative across Europe about spending more on defence.
We spend plenty as it is, we just need to reorganise things and integrate our armies and navies. So many resources can be freed up by removing pointless duplication and redundancy, without spending more money at the expense of other parts of our economies.
It won’t happen because nationalism is a disease that infects almost all European countries.
We just have to invest in European defense systems and stop buying shit from US. Funding the fascists is unacceptable
Exactly.
OK, if you’re worried about Russia, let’s build a few more nukes and drone factories, and call it a day. Unless you’re trying to project power (the US) or use weapons manufacture as a fill-in for failed industrial policy (the US and now Germany), that’s all you need.
Removed by mod
If you want to help Ukraine, feel free to go volunteer. There’s plenty of conscripts there happy to change places with you.
Using them as a proxy to bleed Russia is not helping anyone except the US and weapons manufacturers.
The Royal Navy currently has fewer than 20 vessels active, including coastal boats. This is not enough to secure fisheries, defend the home islands, interdict drugs before they arrive, and to keep open the global shipping lanes Britain relies on existentially. There is no redundancy. Until earlier this year, only one Type 45 destroyer was operable. It had to be removed from its duties and sent to defend Cyprus from air attack, but it took a week to get it ready to leave.
Since the 2010 Strategic Defence Review, British military capability has been gutted. A large investment is now needed to course correct. Many European powers fell into the same complacency trap at the same time.
Some countries, like Ireland, have never had adequate military capability. Ireland has no surface to air missiles - not even a radar tracking system - and no jet aircraft at all. Again, half of its 8 naval vessels are inactive. Russia has been camping out in or near Irish waters happily doing whatever they please. Considering the amount of European data going through Ireland, this is a concern and the Dail is considering whether they need a more comprehensive military.
I remember years ago reading an article complaining that Germans are too frugal and their frugality will negatively impact the economy because of lack of consumption. And I thought to myself: “Hang on. I thought they tell us to spend only on what we need?” And if we do spend as they have wanted, the elites will say this is why we can’t afford a house because we spent it all on avocado toasts.
This is the hypocrisy, gas lighting and double standards of capitalism. They tell us such and such is good, and when we do exactly what they tell us, and it has had negative consequences, they say it’s our fault. It reminds me of one of the episodes in the first season of Squid Game, in which the players were winning but the games master broke the rules to handicap the players.
Wish this wasn’t evergreen.
The people are what makes the continent.
If you stop defending the people, what are you defending?
Wealth. The wealth of companies and individuals that have no loyalty except to themselves.
Europe could get more for less if they bought less low quality, super expensive, american made, defensive shit.
I hear Ukraine have some interesting and well proven kits for cheap.
Tbf a lot of that spending is to keep relationships with the US. That’s kinda the entire shtick of EU is to bind competing parties through global economy and while Russia is an outlier I do think it’s mostly a success story.
Yeah but what about binding our economy with some other countries (that don’t threaten to attack us)?
They’re working quite actively on that with things like Mercosur, the free trade agreements with India and Australia and strenghtening ties to Canada among other things.
Many were already in the works, but got boosted considerably when Trump got in for a 2nd time.
Yeah I know, irony at its finest 😁
I would assume the Ukrainians are not looking to sell right now.
On the contrary, it is one of their main sources of income.
License the build in another country and get some of the produce.
Only desperate people, right-wing gun nuts and neo-nazis join the army voluntarily, so that sounds about right.
«Opinion» pieces are a way for news media to cover their asses.
No way to make more rich people richer than to sacrifice the underclasses benefits.
It’s so unjust that I don’t have everything!!
Janan Ganesh wants to suck billionaire dick and lick their boots
Yeah.
Ganesh co-authored Compassionate Conservatism (2006) with Jesse Norman, which received the T. E. Utley Memorial Prize for young journalists.
Norman and Ganesh argue that Britain faces the two great problems of trust and security in the 21st century, and only a compassionate conservatism as expressed by Conservative prime minister David Cameron can provide the understanding of what British society is and could be that is necessary to solve them.
“Compassionate Conservatism”, well there’s an oxymoron for you. And “as expressed by David Cameron” of all people. This guy really does not care about being credible, does he?
Just stop subsidizing the rich, problem solved.
No, that’s like dad straight up saying “I know you need new clothes for winter, but I don’t like you and I do like drinking, so I’m going to spend our money at the bar instead.”
Saying we don’t have the money to feed the poor is at least having some shame about it.
In the US we don’t really have money for either.
It’s mostly deficit / debt spend. But don’t worry, we’ll always be able to service debt easily because the USD is standard and in large amounts of demand. Nobody would ever be stupid enough to screw that up and get people to look for alternatives…oh wait, here’s that Trump guy again.
In the US we don’t really have money for either
Yeah you do. Your corrupt politicians just keep giving most of it to the rich and powerful, and their corporations.
As non American it’s always funny to see one of the richest country in the world never have any money for anything but yachts and mcmansions. Have americans checked their couch cushions? There must be 1 healthcare there somewhere.
last time i checked the federal budget in the US was 23% of total GDP, with about 6% of GDP being from new debt. so the rest (17% of GDP) came from taxes. the US does tax, just too little IMO.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget
It’s all going as planned.
Whose plan tho?
