Indeed. By the way, for anyone that's interested on the topic, I just stumbled onto a nice Stand-up Maths video that goes more in-depth on the subject and cautions against "nice, simple, neat, easy narratives" [0].
I absolutely hope the EU ramps military spending and negates the need for US support. Sometimes, you need a catalyst, and clearly another nation should not be beholden to US defense agreements.
With Putin at their door for so many years, attacking Georgia, Ukraine, bullying other countries, etc., it's absolutely amazing how nonchalant EU was about it.
> Be careful what you wish for.
A strong EU that Putin will think twice before starting anything at their doorstep is my wish. Let's see if they can make it happen!
Hey, it's going to be great for the EU. In fact, I think lessened U.S. influence in world affairs is going to be a net positive for everyone, except perhaps the U.S.
Trump doesn’t want to leave NATO, that would be dumb. He wants those not “paying their fair share” to pay more or the US will leave. It’s a negotiating tactic. So if you don’t want the US to leave NATO and you’re in a NATO country then get them to spend more on NATO.
You probably know this, but just in case: NATO is not a club you pay 2% in to for protection. The 2% is the required spending on YOUR OWN defence. In practice this benefits USA as a major weapon producer, at least it has until now. I have a feeling Europe feels less certain that they will buy American next time.
Doesn't strength in numbers contradict your idea of kicking out the weak?
When I hear phrases like strength in numbers, I think of elephants. When a herd of elephants watches lions circle their community, the strong ones stand around their young to protect them.
That's analogous to "strong" countries subsidizing ones who can't provide for themselves, because having an allied presence is helpful.
Sure, but if they’re not pulling their weight then they’re a detriment. Have you served next to a foreign NATO soldier? I have. I wasn’t impressed. Step up your spending or gtfo.
Your wording, both the use of "paying their fair share" and "get them to spend more on NATO"-part made it sounds like countries actually pay money into NATO. Trump also makes it sound like that, and he certainly gave the impression that if other NATO countries started "paying more" (aka spending more) that would mean more money for the US. The fact is that as long as the USA wants to be able to win two world wars at once, they still need their astronomic millitary budget, and what tiny European countries spend makes no difference. My comment was not about "changing your post", it was to make sure nobody else is confused about this after reading your post.
When that is said, its good that most NATO countries are hitting and exceeding 2%. It's clear that Europe can not rely on USA to be the "world police", we need to be be able to defend ourself.
Also, friendly reminder that article 5 has been used exactly once, and that was to defend USA. Soldiers of my country has died defending USA.
Considering that the biggest threat to independence is probably the USA themselves… I'm guessing not very far. You'll probably be okay if you cater to businesses and foreign investments, but if you stray too far from the USA's preferred economic model you may suddenly find yourself subject to astroturfed protests, coup attempts, or even straight up military intervention.
Chile's attempt at lukewarm socialism didn't fail from internal causes. Cuba didn't brought embargo on themselves. To name but two. Considering the USA has been at war for almost the entirety of it's history, there must be a couple more.
"Club" was a tame euphemism I only took from the comment I was replying to. I think "Mafia" would be more appropriate.
I disagree with the guy you are responding to as well. But I don’t think he’s saying that Trump wants people to pay the 2% like it is a subscription fee. I think he’s just saying that Trump is using the possibility of leaving as a threat in the hopes that countries will meet their 2% obligation.
As to what Trump actually is saying, I have no idea, he’s hard to parse.
And by 'pay more' he means 'buy more US weapons'. NATO is a conveniently captive market for the US arms manufacturers, and no way they're going to want to pull out of that while they still have stock to sell.
Before 2020 elections John Bolton said that Trump doesn't see the point for NATO and will consider withdrawing if he wins in 2020. Because of that a NATO Support at was passed in Congress to block the president from single handly withdraw the US from NATO. That was over 4 years ago, hopefully he changed his mind.
as a veteran i also don’t see the full point. i understand the intent behind it but the actual implementation is garbage. the US is paying large sums of money to protect land we don’t own. but if we very other NATO country steps up well then the collective defense works.
Maybe EU countries should be those that leave NATO so they won't be blackmailed. They have some nuclear capable countries already. It would be much weaker alliance but with nuclear warhead one just need to press the button. Since EU states are getting more and more populists leaders this can happen eventually.
please do, Europe has a fraction of the military might the US does, and nobody owns more nukes than Russia and the US. Russia is also a 3 min flight time to Europe, so you have a literal 0% chance of stopping a Russian nuclear attack. please leave or step up.
He was very correct in calling out EU countries on Russian gas reliance (which is still somehow an issue!), and also on the EU being way too comfortable with letting the US pick up the slack when it came to our defense.
The EU SHOULD be spending the agreed upon 2%, all this weasley shit the EU gov'ts are pulling is a complete joke considering the massive Bear in the room that is Russia.
My theory is that we will leave Nato because he won’t want war when Putin pushes into Europe. His base doesn’t care frankly. The direct cost is too high and they can’t see past grocery prices.
That will all depend on how worn down the Russian military actually is and how long it needs to rebuild. And at any rate the threat of Russian military action will be used to punish any European country that doesn’t accept Russian influence. It will be used on former Soviet republics.
The only thing that may stop Trump and saving Europe is his ego now that he has effective immunity from prosecution as Putin is no longer a threat to him.
We will see who the bigger narcissist actually is. Putin is probably smarter though.
We need some seriously smart republicans.
Countries with right wing Russian aligned puppets may prevent direct conflict by appeasement but nevertheless they will be under Putin’s control.
China will continue being China. Where semiconductors fall will be interesting as will access to battery tech.
Trump will print money to appease his base and we will see exactly how economic forces evolve beyond control.
Until it is. But statements like this are why the world as a society is backsliding, countries putting up walls and isolating themselves instead of seeing the benefits of cooperation in terms of stability and economy. Just look at the economic downturn that happened in the UK when they withdrew from the EU, or how Russia was shunned, excluded and sanctioned for starting an unprovoked war.
Any benefit the US thinks they get for the policies that Trump and his ear-whisperers wants to enact will be short-term. Which is not a problem for Trump as he won't be there to see the long term consequences.
I hope EU really steps up, because its looking like the start of WWIII, where the EU will have to defend its border.
We all know Putin is not interested in stopping where he is.
I've seen some articles about Trump admin Minsk III and that he'll threaten Putin with blah blah if he doesnt sign up. Its a long shot but we'll see.
I want the EU to really take this seriously. Ramp up arms manufacturing to supply Ukraine will send a message that Ukraine will keep fighting until Russia implodes.
I'm Polish and I'm mega worried about it too. If Trump decides to pull US support for Ukraine and be best buddies with Putin I don't think it's crazy to imagine Poland getting pulled into the conflict within couple years, which depending on how things go could mean the involvement of all of NATO.
Ironically a lot of the American Right was actually radicalized by the 2015/2016 Syrian refugee crisis in Europe.
Tim Pool went from being an #OccupyWallStreet Berniebro to one of the biggest US conservative commentators after he saw brown people in Sweden. The Ron Paul crowd (who pretended to be "socially liberal & fiscally conservative") posted borderline "white genocide" conspiracy theories about what was happening in Europe.
Brown people in Sweden is "an invasion".
Russia invading Ukraine is merely "self-defense against NATO enlargement".
Don't let them pretend they are just isolationists. They explicitly support Russia because of the "white christian" racial identity politics they actually align with.
That's irrelevant. If you want, you will steal without leaving any trace. If Snowden could sneak out loads of documents from the CIA, no company would be able to keep their IP airtight. NDAs and good old trust are the only way.
I work for a big, old-timey, international company. The current policy is WFH or from the office, whatever you like. Some managers have rules that their team members have to show up at the office 1-4 times a month. Our office can hold about 400 employees and this is about the number of employees that could technically commute every day. To my knowledge, there are about 20 people who commute to work daily. No one else is going there unless they have to. It's a very nice, freshly renovated office, with a lot of green plants inside, free coffee, height adjustable desks, ergonomic chairs, relaxation zones, lockers (so you don't have to take your stuff to work every day), etc. located in the city center that is well connected via buses. trams and subway. You can even drive a car to work if you want. And still given that option only about 5% of employees decided to work there daily. People like you exist and their needs have to be filled however most people, if given a chance they'll prefer WFH.
I think this is a possible conclusion you could draw, but not the only one. The value of going to the office is the other people. If no one's there, then it's the same as working from home (you need Zoom for all your calls, even if half of you are next to each other) so if more than about 5% of people are remote, it semi-forces everyone else to be, even if they'd prefer to be working with people as a local team.
Maybe that would bump the people willing to go to the office by another 5-10% but every once in a while we have days when multiple teams happen to be in the office on the same day, and at least half of the desks are occupied. Despite having half of the office dedicated as "the focus zone", most people don't really work or like to work on those days. There are much more meetings, and casual chit-chat but an actual output of "work products" is close to none.
> There are much more meetings, and casual chit-chat but an actual output of "work products" is close to none.
To me that implies that something that is fairly needed is missing by being remote. I think being a distributed factory outputting "work products" might be a net negative, but I could be wrong.
I've done that a lot as well, but that's not traditionally been seen as the best way to accomplish work as a team. It's just so much cheaper it's worth the pain.
I dropped Sublime after they pushed upgrade to 4 without asking and without (at least initially) allowing for cheap upgrade. So suddenly from having paid version I became user of trial without easy way of going back to 3. The fun part is that I would probably move to 4 at some point in time but I was forced and I didn't liked it.
At what point does something become part of a tradition or culture? Why does "it started as an ad campaign" preclude something from becoming part of culture?
HB is the middle of the scale. From there it's going both ways. Hs are harder and Bs are softer. There's also an F thrown into that scale for extra confusion.
I would say even less because you have to take into account all the costs of hosting, dev machines, laptops, testing, travel etc. $1 million for such huge project is peanuts this days.
