Has the US awakened the sleeping giant?

Red Star One said:
What a hero in Germany Macron will be when he gives them the nukes. I'm all fine with that.
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Germany, alongside countries like Japan and South Korea are classified as "nuclear threshold" states, meaning they have the skills and material to produce nuclear weapons at a time of their choice. If they committed to it, Germany could have a functional nuclear weapon by late summer, early autumn. Delivery mechanisms are more complex, but not insurmountable.

Ukraine also has the capacity to do so, and in their position I probably would.
 
foolsgold said:
Germany, alongside countries like Japan and South Korea are classified as "nuclear threshold" states, meaning they have the skills and material to produce nuclear weapons at a time of their choice. If they committed to it, Germany could have a functional nuclear weapon by late summer, early autumn. Delivery mechanisms are more complex, but not insurmountable.

Ukraine also has the capacity to do so, and in their position I probably would.
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it's been like 70 years for developed countries like Germany and Japan that the obstacle was international law and post WW II trauma, not material and skills to produce the nuclear weapons. If Germany becomes a nuclear superpower it's through sheer diplomacy - and commendable trust and European unity shown by the French.
 
foolsgold said:
Germany, alongside countries like Japan and South Korea are classified as "nuclear threshold" states, meaning they have the skills and material to produce nuclear weapons at a time of their choice. If they committed to it, Germany could have a functional nuclear weapon by late summer, early autumn. Delivery mechanisms are more complex, but not insurmountable.

Ukraine also has the capacity to do so, and in their position I probably would.
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Wasn't Sweden on the verge of having one during the Cold War and then decided against it for political reasons? I think they have a lot of the elements in place to make one really fast too.
 
RoyH1 said:
Wasn't Sweden on the verge of having one during the Cold War and then decided against it for political reasons? I think they have a lot of the elements in place to make one really fast too.
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I think you're correct. The basics of a nuclear weapon aren't that difficult, it's 80 year old technology after all. Any industrialised nation with sufficient material and political will could put together a basic minimum viable bomb in short order.
 
I always thought discussions about WW3 were just fear-mongering, but everything that has been happening over the past two decades unfortunately seems to point in that direction. I grew up in the 90s, inspired by the spirit of a united Europe, and I was hopeful that world peace was the ultimate goal for every Western country. However, I no longer believe there is a viable solution with the way things are currently being handled. If the only way to prevent war is to invest heavily in weapons, then there is something fundamentally wrong with our approach.

It's important to remember that those who make decisions about our fate are not the ones who will bear the consequences or suffer from them.

With all those lunatics leading nations, anything seems possible. The worst part? Most of these so-called leaders were elected...
 
deef said:
I always thought discussions about WW3 were just fear-mongering, but everything that has been happening over the past two decades unfortunately seems to point in that direction. I grew up in the 90s, inspired by the spirit of a united Europe, and I was hopeful that world peace was the ultimate goal for every Western country. However, I no longer believe there is a viable solution with the way things are currently being handled. If the only way to prevent war is to invest heavily in weapons, then there is something fundamentally wrong with our approach.

It's important to remember that those who make decisions about our fate are not the ones who will bear the consequences or suffer from them.

With all those lunatics leading nations, anything seems possible. The worst part? Most of these so-called leaders were elected...
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Yes, democracy is failing us.
 
Jotun said:
Yes, democracy is failing us.
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I don't think it's democracy as such. The power of the internet, social media, algorithms and AI ruled by unscrupulous private interests is too much for classic electoral democracies to withstand. If you can get enough people to have a completely different view of reality, then they'll vote against their own interests. And erode faith in public institutions.
 
RoyH1 said:
I don't think it's democracy as such. The power of the internet, social media, algorithms and AI ruled by unscrupulous private interests is too much for classic electoral democracies to withstand. If you can get enough people to have a completely different view of reality, then they'll vote against their own interests. And erode faith in public institutions.
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It made it easier but this tactics worked long before the internet.
Jotun said:
Yes, democracy is failing us.
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Its still the fairest system but I tend to agree.

Greed, envy, selfishness, arrogance and wrong self-awarness makes people unpredictable. You can unite them if with motivation or with fear and with fear it seems a lot easier.
 
RoyH1 said:
I don't think it's democracy as such. The power of the internet, social media, algorithms and AI ruled by unscrupulous private interests is too much for classic electoral democracies to withstand. If you can get enough people to have a completely different view of reality, then they'll vote against their own interests. And erode faith in public institutions.
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When it comes to war and conflicts and how elected officials behave around this, isn’t it right to say how we vote isn’t really the biggest factor? Many of the military actions carried out by western democracies that I can remember in recent times were done with bipartisan support and usually against the will of the population. I could be wrong here I haven’t checked the facts just going off what could be a foggy memory.

I get the feeling most people would vote against military action in many cases if given the chance, maybe with the exception of the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Again I have no data to back that though so could be wrong
 
deef said:
I always thought discussions about WW3 were just fear-mongering, but everything that has been happening over the past two decades unfortunately seems to point in that direction. I grew up in the 90s, inspired by the spirit of a united Europe, and I was hopeful that world peace was the ultimate goal for every Western country. However, I no longer believe there is a viable solution with the way things are currently being handled. If the only way to prevent war is to invest heavily in weapons, then there is something fundamentally wrong with our approach.

It's important to remember that those who make decisions about our fate are not the ones who will bear the consequences or suffer from them.

With all those lunatics leading nations, anything seems possible. The worst part? Most of these so-called leaders were elected...
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Through the 20th century the way to avoid war was to invest heavily in weapons. Every time we stopped doing that, we ended up in conflict. Deterrent worked even before nuclear weapons.

Europe getting its act together might actually be the best thing to happen.
 
I doubt they'll go for nukes but not a surprise that a debate about nukes is brewing whether it's Poland, Germany or heck, even Japan/South Korea.

 
It is so sad that
VorZakone said:
I doubt they'll go for nukes but not a surprise that a debate about nukes is brewing whether it's Poland, Germany or heck, even Japan/South Korea.

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Is an arm race an unfortunately nukes is the biggest and perfect deterrent for a nation that has an inferior army than a country that considers a thread. Also, when your alliances weakens. It sucks because the more nuclear weapons, the more likely they may be used and destroy the world, but if I would be the leader of a country, no doubt I would like this as part of my defense doctrine
 
VorZakone said:
I doubt they'll go for nukes but not a surprise that a debate about nukes is brewing whether it's Poland, Germany or heck, even Japan/South Korea.

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I can quite easily see a nuclear sharing agreement where those countries host French missiles. Germany already has US nuclear weapons and has the capability to deploy them from it's own aircraft.

Ours are no use to anyone without spending a few billion on submarines.
 
11101 said:
Through the 20th century the way to avoid war was to invest heavily in weapons. Every time we stopped doing that, we ended up in conflict. Deterrent worked even before nuclear weapons.

Europe getting its act together might actually be the best thing to happen.
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Can't tell if this is sarcastic or not?
 
deef said:
It made it easier but this tactics worked long before the internet.

Its still the fairest system but I tend to agree.

Greed, envy, selfishness, arrogance and wrong self-awarness makes people unpredictable. You can unite them if with motivation or with fear and with fear it seems a lot easier.
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We need add one more to the list. There’s so much information being fed to us in a 24 hours time, it becomes impossible for a personal to use logic or depth of thinking, even for a high IQ person.
When we used to get only one newspaper a day, it was possible for an individual to focus and think deeply about any one topic. If you go thru any of your social media feed you see so many different topics in a minute.
 
Shez said:
Sigh - we will see nukes go off in our lifetime won’t we
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Yup. Give wee the days of trying to convince people to decommission them. Now it’s everyone must have one to protect themselves from greedy twats like Putin and Trump. I can think of a better solution to the world
 
People understand that if you want peace you must prepare for war. The best way to ensure peace and prosperity is through maintaining a strong deterrent. The likes of @neverdie seem to think that as long as you have nukes, you can and should just abandon any other defense spending. Instead what the US has shown over the last 30 years is strong conventional forces give soft power on a global level, allowing you to dictate and influence as needed. Whether or not that is a good thing is irrelevant; so long as adversaries are building their forces and spreading their agenda, Europe needs to be able to do the same. The alternative is effectively isolationism with the inability to influence anything outside of your own borders.
 
So, what do we have ? We've got the Kraken , The Loch Ness (Nessie) and the Gunnersaurus. That's our Avengers.
 
Raven said:
Can't tell if this is sarcastic or not?
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The precursor to major wars has always been an aggressor nation building up its military whilst everybody else tries to pretend its not happening. A strong deterrent is key to peace. The US has been that deterrent on a global level but the weakness of Biden and now the disinterest of Trump has meant tyrant leaders are increasingly willing to have a pop. It wouldn't surprise me if a few new regional conflicts kick off in the next couple of years.
 
11101 said:
The precursor to major wars has always been an aggressor nation building up its military whilst everybody else tries to pretend its not happening. A strong deterrent is key to peace. The US has been that deterrent on a global level but the weakness of Biden and now the disinterest of Trump has meant tyrant leaders are increasingly willing to have a pop. It wouldn't surprise me if a few new regional conflicts kick off in the next couple of years.
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Let's call it what it is, it is the weakness of Trump as well. Pretending to be a strong leader doesn't make you one. Biden at least stood up to Putin in a meaningful way, Trump doesn't
 
Walrus said:
Instead what the US has shown over the last 30 years is strong conventional forces give soft power on a global level
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The US soft power was "soft" not hard. Not its military but its cultural industries. Hollywood's stranglehold, for decades, upon the world's imagination was arguably more important than any weapon the US ever produced. That is real "soft power" where hearts and minds look to the US (to their system). Now things have changed. People want more foreign stories -- the world has just gone forward.

All their projection of hard power has been disastrous. Maybe there's an exception? It was their soft power, and that almost alone, which gave them large parts of their strength. That's also basically dead. It has no monopoly any more.

It is an economic competition more than a hard war you see being fought. Just listening to an economist (three hour conversation) hitting the nail on the head.

US will be 2nd soon (ten years? in both GDP and PPP) and India is now where I thought it was (showing that insane old Chinese growth every year, it will get larger: instead of 7% it'll be 17% in 20 years and then come down re China).

So you have a world where China, India, and US are the three largest economies by a relative mile. Then the EU and probably Russia and one or two others.

What can the Americans do? What they're doing imo. Forget the hostility toward Russia (it's happening however much you like or dislike it) and go for broke with something like the Bering Strait which re-centres the world's trade not just around the Rising Asiatic but also giving the US and Russia the key doorway to/through Eurasia and North/South America. If that replaces transit (shipping) which it easily can then you have an entirely new economy.

So the Americans are preparing for a peace with Russia and that makes a lot of sense. It's only the Europeans who are still deluded enough to assume that Russia will invade Europe and destroys its own economy in the process of maintaining these delusions.

USAID is soft power. Hollywood is softpower. A carrier group is not "soft power". It's the literal opposite. Centre for Democracy (or whatever the CIA calls it these days) is soft power. Etc.


What is more convenient if you are American? A proxy war against a nation which can safeguard your (and their) own relevance in geoolitical (economic) terms moving a century ahead or a war of attrition which many (if not most) assume was not as is preached by the ruling class choirs. See what the Americans do and forget the idea that it is just Trumpism.

Now, what's the best route for the EU. The African market probably. But cheap energy from the Russians in the meantime which requires a peace-deal. The cost of everything went through the roof because the Russians invaded, yes, but then we set sanctions against ourselves. "Don't fund the Russian war effort [let India and China do it instead, apparently -- cheap energy] and suffer the inevitable consequences of that stance". Being suffered to this day.
 
neverdie said:
Try preparing for peace instead. If you want war, preparing for war is probably how it happens.

Just a thought.
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I really wish that would be true. But in reality, people will take advantage of you if you can't defend yourself. Our democratic societies only function because there is state approved violence in form of executive forces like the police. If there are no consequences for taking what you want, some asshole is going to do it and make life miserable for others.
 
neverdie said:
The US soft power was "soft" not hard. Not its military but its cultural industries. Hollywood's stranglehold, for decades, upon the world's imagination was arguably more important than any weapon the US ever produced. That is real "soft power" where hearts and minds look to the US (to their system). Now things have changed. People want more foreign stories -- the world has just gone forward.

All their projection of hard power has been disastrous. Maybe there's an exception? It was their soft power, and that almost alone, which gave them large parts of their strength. That's also basically dead. It has no monopoly any more.

It is an economic competition more than a hard war you see being fought. Just listening to an economist (three hour conversation) hitting the nail on the head.

US will be 2nd soon (ten years? in both GDP and PPP) and India is now where I thought it was (showing that insane old Chinese growth every year, it will get larger: instead of 7% it'll be 17% in 20 years and then come down re China).

So you have a world where China, India, and US are the three largest economies by a relative mile. Then the EU and probably Russia and one or two others.

What can the Americans do? What they're doing imo. Forget the hostility toward Russia (it's happening however much you like or dislike it) and go for broke with something like the Bering Strait which re-centres the world's trade not just around the Rising Asiatic but also giving the US and Russia the key doorway to/through Eurasia and North/South America. If that replaces transit (shipping) which it easily can then you have an entirely new economy.

So the Americans are preparing for a peace with Russia and that makes a lot of sense. It's only the Europeans who are still deluded enough to assume that Russia will invade Europe and destroys its own economy in the process of maintaining these delusions.

USAID is soft power. Hollywood is softpower. A carrier group is not "soft power". It's the literal opposite. Centre for Democracy (or whatever the CIA calls it these days) is soft power. Etc.
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Russia is spending more on its military as % of GDP than the EU. Do you think Russia is destroying its own economy?
 
VorZakone said:
Russia is spending more on its military as % of GDP than the EU. Do you think Russia is destroying its own economy?
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I think they're in full war mode and traditionally they spent amount the same amount as the UK (70 odd billion -- now 100 plus billion --- IIRC).

That's the rationale there. War production. Russia requires it as does Ukraine. Does the EU? Not really, no.
 
Zehner said:
But in reality, people will take advantage of you if you can't defend yourself.
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The question, ignore Russia for a thought experiment, who? Who is going to invade Europe and assume it won't be Russia.

No one. History tells me it is the Europeans who tend to invade Europe.

Also bear in mind that EU nations taken together spend as much as China does (300bn) on defense as it is. Three times that of Russia in all out war mode. Often just ignored.
 
neverdie said:
I think they're in full war mode and traditionally they spent amount the same amount as the UK (70 odd billion -- now 100 plus billion --- IIRC).

That's the rationale there. War production. Russia requires it as does Ukraine. Does the EU? Not really, no.
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But the argument isn't that the EU should go on a war footing. Just spend more on defence than it's currently doing. To you that is "destroying its own economy". Do you think Russia, with war-mode economy, is destroying its own economy at the moment?
 
VorZakone said:
But the argument isn't that the EU should go on a war footing. Just spend more on defence than it's currently doing. To you that is "destroying its own economy". Do you think Russia, with war-mode economy, is destroying its own economy at the moment?
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Spend more than the second highest spend on the planet?

Why?

Why is your second question even relevant? They're at war. Ukraine is spending 40% or something of their entire GDP on the same expenditure. Are they destroying their own economy or is it that each is at war with the other and has increased spending for that purpose. It's an irrelevant question. All this kind of spending is mental imo -- when does it ever work out well?

The EU has a social contract and is not at war. The increased expenditure will do more to destroy that contract than it will to do anything else unless it's some one off expenditure. Which could be the case.

Just to remind you, many are very earnestly (stupidly) arguing that the EU absolutely should go on a war footing. In this thread but that, I assume, comes from the wider media.
 
Europe was already much better armed prior to 1990. When the Soviets had a 4 to 1 advantage in tank divisions and other conventional weapons...

Militaries have been run in to the ground since then... It's about rebuilding them.

A lot of EU countries have dire fiscal positions already, France, Italy and others. Spending loads more will push borrowing costs up and potentially cause significant further economic and political problems.

That's why Germany has the debt break, to keep yields down. Breaking it using the prior parliament is also constitutionally questionable and may cause other problems in future...
 
VorZakone said:
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So singlehandedly Putin has forced Finland and Sweden into Nato and the EU and UK into re-arming at a level he won't be able to compete with, as well as costing the lives of a 100,000+ of his people and near-bankrupting his country.

But it won't matter to him because he will ignore all that and claim to be a great leader because he's taken part of Ukraine.

It's so illogical it's clear Putin won't stop unless he has no choice, I don't see any alternative to re-arming, even if it does reduce Europe's standard of living.
 
neverdie said:
Spend more than the second highest spend on the planet?

Why?

Why is your second question even relevant?

The EU has a social contract and is not at war. The increased expenditure will do more to destroy that contract than it will to do anything else unless it's some one off expenditure. Which could be the case.

Just to remind you, many are very earnestly (stupidly) arguing that the EU absolutely should go on a war footing. In this thread but that, I assume, comes from the wider media.
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I'll just repeat the question: do you think Russia is currently destroying its own economy?
 
711 said:
It's so illogical it's clear Putin won't stop unless he has no choice, I don't see any alternative to re-arming, even if it does reduce Europe's standard of living.
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A peace-deal would be preferable.

Wont stop where? In Ukraine or beyond.

It's the same thing that's been done to death. Simultaneously weak and strong (in your post alone at two different points). Complete fantasy land. He cannot invade beyond the Russian border (which is basically just Georgia and Ukraine and so on).

But some want people to think that Russian tanks will be rolling through Warsaw and Paris. It's manipulation of the public discourse. Complete shite.
 
neverdie said:
Give me the basis behind the question.

Do you think the moon exists?

I don't understand the point.
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Because I'm trying to understand if you really think that military investment is economically bad (aside from the social contract) or only bad if Western countries do it.

In other words, if military investments means the EU will destroy its own economy, do you conclude that Russia at this moment is destroying its own economy?
 
VorZakone said:
Because I'm trying to understand if you really think that military investment is economically bad (aside from the social contract) or only bad if Western countries do it.

In other words, if military investments means the EU will destroy its own economy, do you conclude that Russia at this moment is destroying its own economy?
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Russia is at war. The EU isn't. And the EU already spends three times what Russia does (nominally).

Of course military spending at the rates Russia spends (now especially) is not good for the economy. In another thread, I think, we (another poster and I) basically agreed that the Russian economy might take a year or two to balance after any possible peace-deal involving a potential post-war recession.

The EU is proposing something else. A potentially "perpetual" increase in defense spending from all nations within the union. The Russians always have a higher % expenditure for economic reasons (not forever I suppose) and because of historical reasons and geographical where it maintains a larger armed force.

If cutting welfare, just been floated in the UK, and other crucial things, is the price Brusells wants for its imaginary wars then my position is it can get fecked.

A once off reasonable increase (700bn or something they said) to be funded by debt (borrowing). OK. That might be doable. But to do that all the time is not. That would burn the EU social contract in about five seconds (or a few years anyway).

It's not just the increased defense spending, it's also the self-sanction against cheap energy which had a massive inflationary impact across the entire EU economy. You'll say (rhetorically) what else could you do? Maybe. But none of that was unpredictable. More expensive energy from the US whilst Russia just gives its cheap energy (at even cheaper rates, still maintaining profit) to the Indian and Chinese centers.
 
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