Germany was a paper tiger at the time and could have been dealt with by force. It wasn't ready to wage war. Even when they attacked Poland a year later they could have easily been crushed on a Western front as they couldn't cover that with any meaningful troops.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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The question really, is can Europe become a powerhouse in its own right now. US at least over the next 4-8 years has gone from being a close ally to a neutral party at best.
Probably time for the EU to build up its hard power and show the other powers it’s a United bloc.
Probably time for the EU to build up its hard power and show the other powers it’s a United bloc.
But is it a united bloc?
What in the blue hell is this shit!?!?!
I think the part on Putin controlling the US is grossly exaggerated, I do not disagree with the other parts of your post.
My main issue is that the Europe (shorthand for EU + UK) should never have been in this place to need the US. But for whatever reasons, Europe has given up in innovation, in growth, and completely given up on the military. Instead of being on par with the US and China (which it absolutely should), it is quickly going over a state of decay in becoming completely irrelevant in any global context.
For all the cry about Trump not inviting Europe in these peace talks, the counter-argument is what can Europe offer to them? And the answer is, unfortunately not much. Europe/EU is totally incapable of solving their own problems, let alone someone's else.
Of course it's not. Russia has worked very hard to compound any split there ever was to the point where the EU now will struggle to agree on much at all.
Why? Trump is doing about everything he can that would be in Putin‘s interest, without being so obvious, that even his own followers realise it. He, like many other politicians in the west (Boris Johnson, Gerd Schröder, Sarah Wagenknecht) are obviously under clear influence or even order by Putin. I really struggle to see how one wouldn’t arrive at the conclusion that they are controlled by Putin.
They are angry at the EU for fines levied on Tech firms, for promoting Data Privacy laws, for being generally more left leaning and liberal. We are not a match for the new US administration at all. We are mostly everything they hate.
No. I think the EU won’t save us. I think what would make more sense would be to form a new group of countries like Germany, France, maybe even the UK and others who are genuinely interested in fighting this. The EU won’t, as people like Orban are sabotaging everything they do.
As stefan92 has pointed out, Germany could have been stopped absolutely. I don't think that idea of absolute power over Europe could have ever been fulfilled, maybe for a short, very short span of time. It is impossible to subdue populations unless you kill literally everyone.
Germany had taken Yugoslavia early on, and what happened? Country that had virtually no army, of which large part seceded and formed a fascist state NDH, still had a huge Partisan uprising and movement, which in the end had completely beaten Germans, Italians and NDH.
The only way Germany could have possibly taken over Europe is if population of whole continent was mostly fascist/nazi at the time. Yet even then, it is impossible, because eventually some fascist state would for some reason stand against Germany and then that country's fascists would turn against Germany.
That is why idea of Russia starting war against Europe is ridiculous to me. Well, not idea itself, more the fear of it being succesfull. They can't beat Ukraine, it is not even logical that they could subdue nation as big as Ukraine, both in terms of land area and population. What chance would they stand if they fought Germany for example?
Agreeing with someone and being under someone's control are different things IMO.
Trump sees things in terms of superpowers having the right to subdue their neighbors, and under spheres of influences. He does not need to be under Putin's control to think that Ukraine is part of Russia's sphere of influence. A bit like how he thinks that the US is justified in getting Canada, Greenland or Panama's channel, he thinks that Russia is justified in getting parts of Ukraine (and if it wasn't for semiconductors being so important, China getting Taiwan). For what is worth, Obama thought the same too when it came to Ukraine.
I do not see for any moment how Johnson is/was under Putin's control. The UK gave under him gave more support to Ukraine than any other European countries, with France/Germany who have similar/bigger economies being for most part all talk. Schroder sure, I give you that. I do not know who is the last person, so cannot comment there.
At this point and given the option I believe a lot of Germans would settle for giving up East Germany, let Russia recreate the GDR there and let us offload our Putin lovers there. And this time they can get all of Berlin.
And again, to a large degree this is the EU's fault. It is a 20 trillion economy, who for whatever reasons is content on not having either soft or hard power, and is jumping towards becoming even more irrelevant than it already is. Why should China, US or Russia take the EU seriously when the EU itself is a deeply non-serious organization or whatever it is nowadays.
He won't invade Ukraine. Get real. Much more likely is making a deal with Putin for the mines once Russia does the dirty work.
Better call Boris right?
Wagenknecht is a former politician of the left, now heading her own party. She mixes left economical views with right views about migration etc. And she is very much pro-Putin and against support for Ukraine
Europe certainly hasn't given up in innovation or growth. Because there is no Europe. The EU is still, regardless of what right-wing putinist shills say about Brussels' bureaucratic overreach, a relatively loose alliance of sovereign nations.
And that, by the way, is our weakness. The single market is a single market only in the administrative sense: it's wildly heterogenous, diverse, it spans a number of cultures and languages. That is a humongous obstacle in front of, for example, scaling any sort of European company. Whereas an American company immediately has an actual unified single market of 330 million people. Similarly, the US president doesn't have to worry about Texas or Illinois vetoing its foreign policy.
This is not a result of conscious decisions by European leaders who are just psyched by the idea of being irrelevant. It isn't some gross incompetence because it was more or less inevitable. It's a minor miracle that the European Union is still alive, still exerting influence in this deeply, traditionally divided, nationalistic continent. I'd even add that since Brexit, even the hardened Eurosceptics stopped talking about taking their countries out of the EU and instead focus on "reform".
We should integrate further, we should take concrete steps towards federalisation, absolutely - that's the way to avoid being left behind in the dust. But there is very little appetite for that among the European people. We just... aren't there, culturally speaking. There's no European identity, no feeling of community, we don't recognise our shared interests. Politicians working together to come up with some sort of administrative-institutional reform would be, in my view, nothing but a band aid, a desperate attempt to paper over the cracks of the main issue.
(which is also why I believe that further EU enlargement at this point is madness, btw)
I do not disagree with you.
I think EU enlargement, with every wannabe-Putin having a veto, it was madness in the first place. I think the EU should have first moved towards federalism, becoming a much stronger entity, at the very least have a NATO-like joined military, then enlarge with Eastern European countries. I think that basically EU did wrong pretty much everything it could have done wrong, to the point, that right now is a very loose alliance.
And yet somehow, the solution in Brussels seems to be by integrating Ukraine, Moldova and Balkan countries, countries that do not provide much to the EU. But not Turkey who actually provides something useful.
These things, plus European countries ceasing innovation (basically did feck all in internet era, and are not even attempting to do feck all in AI-era) means that there is no reason for anyone to treat EU seriously. Trump knows that EU leaders will kneel to him, and Putin knows that EU will do feck all when it comes to Ukraine.
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I might be wrong about Johnson then. But I stand by my assessment of Trump. It might be true that he himself believes in the right to subdue those who are weaker. But his attacks on NATO from long ago and many other stories have me absolutely convinced that he is controlled by Putin. Otherwise he would want to at least show strength towards him, without accepting him as his equal. What point would there be for him in becoming the most powerful man in the world if he can’t even dominate Russia?
Europe needs to get it's crap in order else it risk being sold piece by piece by the US of A.
For the most powerful man in the world, he is in an insanely fragile situation domestically and extremely reliant on keeping literally everyone in his party in line.
Europe can't even invite all of europe for a meeting where the main claim is europe needs to be involved in the solution for ukraine.
Trump showed anti-NATO sentiments before Putin even joined the KGB.
Agree. Start supporting Ukraine, even if the US wont.
Absolutely mental statement from Trump
I guess his masterful negotiations must be going well
Imagine watching Trump and thinking "yeah, he got a point" and "he's not wrong about that". And worse, defend him every time he does something stupid.
They are, from his perspective. He doesn't want to end the war, he just wants to end American support. And the perfect excuse for that is that he negotiated an excellent deal with the Russians but evil Zelensky turned that down.
Dangerous times. But Europe should have been prepared. Let's see what today's summit in France brings.
Boris Johnson is right in one thing though, of course, not for the reasons he thinks he is. As per usual.
Trump doesn't believe what he says is true, in fact he knows it isn't. He is just spouting shite left and right, like angry teen trying to offend everyone and anyone who he disagrees with.
To think this will become a staple of modern-day politics...world is suddenly becoming an awful, disgusting place.
Trump doesn't believe what he says is true, in fact he knows it isn't. He is just spouting shite left and right, like angry teen trying to offend everyone and anyone who he disagrees with.
To think this will become a staple of modern-day politics...world is suddenly becoming an awful, disgusting place.
Of course, and he should achieve this goal easily. But I think there's a chance he really expected Zelensky and Ukrainians to bow before him and accept not being at the negotiations table and being ready to give up half of its resources
It's quite clear to me that Trump just doesn't want to keep giving US money and arms to a country that looks to be on a losing side. Trump is now offering Zelensky a deal for more funding with terms that Trump knows he will never accept. At the same time he will negotiate a peace deal with Russia which will be unacceptable to Zelensky and so he'll just withdraw all financial support on the basis that Zelensky is being unreasonable and won't accept the shitty deal him and Putin agreed on.
Edit - didn't see @Siorac 's comment before posting this. What I've said echoes his comments.
Edit - didn't see @Siorac 's comment before posting this. What I've said echoes his comments.
Can you link me a source by any chance? Might have to reconsider my stance there.
Might as well merge this with the Trump thread now...
Neither he, nor US gain anything from this though.
https://thehill.com/opinion/nationa...lity-and-russia-relations-trace-back-to-1987/
EDIT - someone beat me to it.