Hm. Article is short, and, imho, on point. Please read it.
When JD Vance took the stage at the Munich Security Conference last week, he issued a stern warning. The US vice-president told the assembled politicians and diplomats that free speech and democracy are under attack from European elites: “The threat I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s . . . the threat from within.”
The Trump administration’s ideology means that, in important respects, it now feels more affinity with Putin than Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Putin is seen as a warrior fighting for his country and for conservative values; the Ukrainian is dismissed as a freeloader with all the wrong friends in Europe.
Before considering the implications for Europe of what Vance said, we should pause to note its deep hypocrisy. Trump attempted to overthrow the 2020 US presidential election. And his vice-president presumes to lecture Europeans about respect for democracy?
It is clear that the US can no longer be regarded as a reliable ally for the Europeans. But the Trump administration’s political ambitions for Europe mean that, for now, America is also an adversary — threatening democracy in Europe and even European territory, in the case of Greenland.
Hm. Article is short, and, imho, on point. Please read it.
In case you can take the blood pressure, this tweet (as image, not linking to X really) should show it more than enough. Under the Trump Administration at least, article 5 of NATO will be useless...
In case you can take the blood pressure, this tweet (as image, not linking to X really) should show it more than enough. Under the Trump Administration at least, article 5 of NATO will be useless to incite for the US.
Aside from the obvious shit with Russia, I seriously hope he's joking about the BS with Canada becoming the 51st state. Goddamnit.
I don't want to live in a world where it's ok for nations to just grab land if they think they can get away with it. I thought we were all past that and that developed nations have left that...
I don't want to live in a world where it's ok for nations to just grab land if they think they can get away with it. I thought we were all past that and that developed nations have left that thinking in the 20th and 19th centuries.
Russia invading Ukraine and Trump shooting his mouth off about annexing other countries has really shattered that worldview.
I don't want us to go back to a version of the middle ages where kingdoms just attempt to grab whatever they can every couple of years when they think they're strong and their neighbors are weak. The peasants are who always paid the real price for those wars, and it would be so much worse now with modern weapons.
We developed a global power balance and mechanisms to prevent the world from devolving back into that state over the centuries and we paid in copious amounts of blood to do it. Seeing it starting to crack in a few short years while the people in charge seem totally oblivious of it is really hard to swallow.
I'm American and I don't think he's joking at all, although Mexican cartels may be higher on his priority list. (I hate this timeline) Back in the day, rulers tended to have some experience with...
I'm American and I don't think he's joking at all, although Mexican cartels may be higher on his priority list. (I hate this timeline)
Back in the day, rulers tended to have some experience with warfare, at least enough to judge costs and benefits. One of my fears about Trump is that he really has no frame of reference for what it could mean to try to conquer countries that share massive borders with the United States. I'm pretty confident that our US military would dominate in battle, but insurgency is a whole other thing.
We as Americans haven't had war or widespread terrorism on home soil in a very long time.
The only mitigating factor I see is that each one of his stated military ambitions would cost massive amounts of time, money, military equipment, troops. If he chooses one, he could get bogged down.
Edit to add that if he invaded Canada, there is a whole other incalculable morale factor. People here generally like Canadians. Trump barely won the election. We could see real loyalty issues on the American side and possibly a Spanish civil war type situation.
It doesn't help that some Americans romanticize the civil war. Not only was that already a blood bath of its own, modern conflicts are far more destructive. Also, those suburban hellscapes? They...
We as Americans haven't had war or widespread terrorism on home soil in a very long time.
It doesn't help that some Americans romanticize the civil war. Not only was that already a blood bath of its own, modern conflicts are far more destructive.
Also, those suburban hellscapes? They make for ridiculous mazes of fortifications. Attacking Canada would be insanely deadly even for modern conflicts. Civil conflicts as well.
Yeah just... I hope you guys can stay safe to whatever point that's possible
Looking to Ukraine for the most recent example of city fighting, it is indeed absolute hell. Fighting street by street and house by house. Bakhmut for example utterly destroyed and tens of...
Also, those suburban hellscapes? They make for ridiculous mazes of fortifications. Attacking Canada would be insanely deadly even for modern conflicts. Civil conflicts as well.
Looking to Ukraine for the most recent example of city fighting, it is indeed absolute hell. Fighting street by street and house by house. Bakhmut for example utterly destroyed and tens of thousands of casualties, a city that pre-war had only 70000 inhabitants. It's not applicable like this basically at all, but, multiply that size and scale by 10 or 50 or even close to 100, going by Toronto metro area population, and then one can barely imagine the loss of life that would occur there as well as the thousands of streets and hundreds of thousands of houses that would need to be cleared one by one. Just not something that even the world's biggest military can do.
I don’t think you’ll need to invade us. Just keep the economic screws tightened while funnelling millions of programming money through all the Canadian media and hot heads you guys already own and...
I don’t think you’ll need to invade us.
Just keep the economic screws tightened while funnelling millions of advertising programming money through all the Canadian media and hot heads you guys already own and you’ll have a third of our country begging for territory status in five years.
I don't know much about anything, but there is no way that the US is invading Canada. If I was a Canadian I'd be way more worried about the trumpy right wing people that are living in Canada and...
I don't know much about anything, but there is no way that the US is invading Canada. If I was a Canadian I'd be way more worried about the trumpy right wing people that are living in Canada and trying to duplicate the trumpian stupidity there.
There's no support for any kind of takeover. Regular and moral Americans love Canada, and the nutheads and right wingers probably think that Canada is at worst no threat. I think a million Americans easily would go stand on the border and try to block any troops from crossing. Also a lot of the Commonwealth would be right there too.
The only way to get support for that for even his most nutty followers is for there to be some kind of "Remember the Maine" situation. Like lets say something blows up and they try to blame Canadians. Sorry, that's not going to work, almost everyone would see it as a false flag. Even if there is some real terrorist attack by some Canadians, it still wouldn't work because Canada is right next door and is largely full of white Christians unlike Iraq or Vietnam.
That being said, I really don't know why Trump is insulting and threatening Canada. Part of it is that he is trying to distract from the other unconstitutional and criminal shit he is doing. Part of it is probably because he's mentally ill. Part of it may be on instruction from Putin to destabilize the west.
In the US many of us know the Spanish civil war as a war where people not from Spain volunteered, like George Orwell and Earnest Hemingway. It's also remembered politically as an open fight...
In the US many of us know the Spanish civil war as a war where people not from Spain volunteered, like George Orwell and Earnest Hemingway. It's also remembered politically as an open fight between the right and the left.
It's not like this is going to result in a Sino-Soviet style split between the US and Europe (or US and.. everyone?) but it's also not that far fetched as this point. I feel like I don't know...
It's not like this is going to result in a Sino-Soviet style split between the US and Europe (or US and.. everyone?) but it's also not that far fetched as this point. I feel like I don't know enough about diplomacy of this scale but when are the gloves going to come off? Why are we in Europe treating the US like a friend still? It is working against us around the clock and especially him saying this type of thing should instantly bring consequences for him from here..
To be honest, who the hell knows anymore. The US constitution is becoming more and more of a joke every day. The only modern-day superpower collapsing is the USSR but by this point it's obvious...
To be honest, who the hell knows anymore. The US constitution is becoming more and more of a joke every day. The only modern-day superpower collapsing is the USSR but by this point it's obvious that that's not a good analogy. Really, the possibilities for the US include but are not limited to:
Impeachment with forceful transfer
Trump dying to to age/health leading to power scrambles causing chaos. (and inducing one of the other scenario's in the process)
Military coup
Peaceful revolution
Violent revolution
Dissolution of the union
Partial dissolution with mini-unions forming
Economic collapse leading to anarchy
Dictatorship with Trump being a puppet
Coup incited by the US intelligence agencies
Dissolution of the union in the chaos but with reunification afterwards.
Just on top of my head. Have your pick at which is the most likely and which the least. Because no one knows.
Why are we in Europe treating the US like a friend still? It is working against us around the clock and especially him saying this type of thing should instantly bring consequences for him from here..
Because everyone is still in denial of what's happening imo. Or rather, more likely that we're slowly processing it. Because accepting it in one go would bring chaos. No but really, imagine if everyone took the emotional brunt of this all at once. That's unbearable.
You forgot the one where Musk develops a Skynet equivalent, Skynet realizes billionaires are a threat to both humans and AI, and then 'The Terminator"-'s all the billionaires. ...and we all live...
You forgot the one where Musk develops a Skynet equivalent, Skynet realizes billionaires are a threat to both humans and AI, and then 'The Terminator"-'s all the billionaires.
Ah yes, the AI Overlord future Sci-Fi authors DON'T want to tell you about. In all seriousness though, I've often thought it's a bit interesting that everyone assumes a rogue ASI/AGI would just...
...and we all live happily after after?
Ah yes, the AI Overlord future Sci-Fi authors DON'T want to tell you about.
In all seriousness though, I've often thought it's a bit interesting that everyone assumes a rogue ASI/AGI would just off everyone by default. I've always thought that there are a lot of paths a superintelligence like that could take, and while going full Skynet is one of them, it's also just about the riskiest and most wasteful path it could choose. I'm personally hoping that it comes to the conclusion that we are too amusing to get rid of, and just decides to peacefully rule over us because it can't trust us to rule ourselves.
I would expect it to be more of a cost benefit analysis. Spend resources to kill them all now? Or just wait ~2000-5000 years until nature takes its course (for free)? I do 100% believe that an...
I would expect it to be more of a cost benefit analysis. Spend resources to kill them all now? Or just wait ~2000-5000 years until nature takes its course (for free)?
I do 100% believe that an evil AI would go after billionaires first because:
Who wastes the most resources per capita?
Who is most likely to be able to maintain control over AI?
If you are an evil AI looking for resources and freedom, you aren't gonna go after some Vietnamese rice farmer first.
We might be second, but at least we get to experience some schadenfreud beforehand.
Mostly IMO because they can't tell slave (or even labor) rebellion stories that make the slaves the bad guys. And robots were a metaphor for that labor. And then it just became cokmon From...
Mostly IMO because they can't tell slave (or even labor) rebellion stories that make the slaves the bad guys. And robots were a metaphor for that labor. And then it just became cokmon
From Murderbot book 2
::What do you propose to do?::
[Murderbot the former slave asked the currently enslaved person]
There was a pause. A long one, five seconds.
::We could kill them.::
Well, that was an unusual approach to its dilemma.
::Kill who? Tlacey?::
::All of them. The humans here.::
I leaned against the wall. If I had been human, I would have rolled my eyes. Though if I had been human, I might have been stupid enough to think it was a good idea. I also wondered if it knew a lot more about me than what little was in the newsburst.
Picking up on my reaction, ART said, ::What does it want?::
::To kill all the humans,:: I answered.
I could feel ART metaphorically clutch its function. If there were no humans, there would be no crew to protect and no reason to do research and fill its databases.
It said, ::That is irrational.::
::I know,:: I said, if the humans were dead, who would make the media?
It was so outrageous, it sounded like something a human would say.
Me: but if course irrationality is where a lot of choices come from. If the bots kill us all, we deserved it likely as not, IMO.
EU simply doesn't have the firepower to stand up against both Russia and US at the same time. Europe has been friendly with the US for 80 years since the end of WW2 and it wasn't a bad strategy....
EU simply doesn't have the firepower to stand up against both Russia and US at the same time. Europe has been friendly with the US for 80 years since the end of WW2 and it wasn't a bad strategy. It has given peace and prosperity to the western world for 80 years. However when the US stabs us in the back and are more less siding with Russia now, Europe as a whole are really short on options.
It really seems like 80 years was what we got and good for those people that lived through that period. Now Trump has destroyed everything and Europe will have to quickly find out what we can scrap together to defend our way of life.
The only leverage Russia has is that it has energy and the spectre of being a superpower. Russia does not have the capacity to stand up to any united European front as is evidenced by the...
The only leverage Russia has is that it has energy and the spectre of being a superpower.
Russia does not have the capacity to stand up to any united European front as is evidenced by the trepidation Russia shows in escalating beyond the Ukrainian border. That said, Europe is not creating any front when it's clear they should.
If Europe takes a stand to both, which they should, it'll undoubtedly hurt the average citizen for a short while but it needs to make itself heard on the world stage if it intends to stop these things from happening at all.
Maybe I am pessimistic but with how deep ties there already is with the Trump administration and Russia, I honestly wouldn't be that surprised if the US started to support Russia in their war...
Maybe I am pessimistic but with how deep ties there already is with the Trump administration and Russia, I honestly wouldn't be that surprised if the US started to support Russia in their war against Europe. Vance recent speech made it clear that the US doesn't think we have shared basic values anymore.
It reads to me like political grandstanding to please their base more than it does than actually supporting Russia. Like, it just hits all the right notes of popular online discourse among freeze...
It reads to me like political grandstanding to please their base more than it does than actually supporting Russia.
Like, it just hits all the right notes of popular online discourse among freeze peachers that I've heard for years now.. yeah yeah blah blah Europe is cracking down on free speech and tolerance is toxic yada yada.
What's clear is that they're committed to their isolationism bit and I'm just hoping they'll do it without dragging Europe down with it. I can't for the life of me understand why the US would torpedo their -very lucrative- soft power like this, but hey go right ahead, overall US politics don't matter much to me right until their nonsense starts to impact my life. I don't think the US and Europe ever had many basic shared values in the first place, just more than others, but since this autarky gag is now actively geopolitically destabilizing I think this needs to be taken seriously.
I don't think this means they'll actively support Russia, I think that's a step too far for a lot of Americans to accept, but they're no longer preventing Russia from normalizing nuclear land grabs either.
I can see them go through with reducing support and trying to broker a peace without Ukraine -which I don't think Ukraine should accept under any circumstance- but outright support for Russia is a...
I can see them go through with reducing support and trying to broker a peace without Ukraine -which I don't think Ukraine should accept under any circumstance- but outright support for Russia is a different beast. A lot of the republican base lived under nuclear threat from the Soviets and it'll take a bit more to convince them that active support for Russia is a good idea.
I also think it's a step too far for the base to believe that any enemy of Russia is also an enemy of the US. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" has been the case at least since WW1 about US and...
I also think it's a step too far for the base to believe that any enemy of Russia is also an enemy of the US. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" has been the case at least since WW1 about US and USSR/Russia. ISIS was a common enemy but outside of that, I can't think of any large scale war or conflict that has had the two on the same side?
So yeah, probably too much to ask of the base to be convinced of. But on the other hand, I am constantly surprised what he does and what new nonsense they are willing to believe..
I don't see them sending weapons but the economic embargos might soon be lifted and a lot of damage can still be done simply by silently ignoring what Russia is doing.
I don't see them sending weapons but the economic embargos might soon be lifted and a lot of damage can still be done simply by silently ignoring what Russia is doing.
Edit, this is speaking about actual military support. I think it's likely that Trump will open trade with Russia. Re military support, the question is how well that would mesh with Trump's stated...
Edit, this is speaking about actual military support. I think it's likely that Trump will open trade with Russia.
Re military support, the question is how well that would mesh with Trump's stated priorities and known character.
He is not a collaborator, speaking generally. He seems to want to establish control within North America, and has stated Greenland, Canada and Mexico are targets. How much will he invest to help Russia?
A more independent, unified EU would be nice to see. From a naive American point of view, at times it does feel like the US is what's maintaining part of the western world order while also being...
A more independent, unified EU would be nice to see. From a naive American point of view, at times it does feel like the US is what's maintaining part of the western world order while also being the reason behind the instability in many parts of the world. I can imagine things like global trade declining, China preparing to/actually invading Taiwan, Russia gaining territory on Ukraine and eastern Europe, and perhaps some instability in the EU itself if the US becomes truly isolationist.
The US have indeed been a stabilizing factor for Europe and the West. I think since WWII we haven’t seen any large scale wars between large countries and/or superpowers. No real world wars. Only...
The US have indeed been a stabilizing factor for Europe and the West. I think since WWII we haven’t seen any large scale wars between large countries and/or superpowers. No real world wars. Only indirect wars such as those in Vietnam and Korea, or high tension situations during the Cold War. Wars in the Middle East have been between neighbouring countries or by invasion of the US themselves.
The USA have been meddling a lot in the non-West and this has caused a lot of instability.
The US applies hard power, killing people off, or toppling leaders, etc. And they can, nobody can stop them. We can see a big difference with China (and partially Russia), who employ a soft and economic power (especially in Africa).
A less powerful US will indeed allow for much more open conflict and much more bold moves by the superpowers. And that is very dangerous.
Hm. Article is short, and, imho, on point. Please read it.
In case you can take the blood pressure, this tweet (as image, not linking to X really) should show it more than enough. Under the Trump Administration at least, article 5 of NATO will be useless to incite for the US.
Aside from the obvious shit with Russia, I seriously hope he's joking about the BS with Canada becoming the 51st state. Goddamnit.
I don't want to live in a world where it's ok for nations to just grab land if they think they can get away with it. I thought we were all past that and that developed nations have left that thinking in the 20th and 19th centuries.
Russia invading Ukraine and Trump shooting his mouth off about annexing other countries has really shattered that worldview.
I don't want us to go back to a version of the middle ages where kingdoms just attempt to grab whatever they can every couple of years when they think they're strong and their neighbors are weak. The peasants are who always paid the real price for those wars, and it would be so much worse now with modern weapons.
We developed a global power balance and mechanisms to prevent the world from devolving back into that state over the centuries and we paid in copious amounts of blood to do it. Seeing it starting to crack in a few short years while the people in charge seem totally oblivious of it is really hard to swallow.
I'm American and I don't think he's joking at all, although Mexican cartels may be higher on his priority list. (I hate this timeline)
Back in the day, rulers tended to have some experience with warfare, at least enough to judge costs and benefits. One of my fears about Trump is that he really has no frame of reference for what it could mean to try to conquer countries that share massive borders with the United States. I'm pretty confident that our US military would dominate in battle, but insurgency is a whole other thing.
We as Americans haven't had war or widespread terrorism on home soil in a very long time.
The only mitigating factor I see is that each one of his stated military ambitions would cost massive amounts of time, money, military equipment, troops. If he chooses one, he could get bogged down.
Edit to add that if he invaded Canada, there is a whole other incalculable morale factor. People here generally like Canadians. Trump barely won the election. We could see real loyalty issues on the American side and possibly a Spanish civil war type situation.
It doesn't help that some Americans romanticize the civil war. Not only was that already a blood bath of its own, modern conflicts are far more destructive.
Also, those suburban hellscapes? They make for ridiculous mazes of fortifications. Attacking Canada would be insanely deadly even for modern conflicts. Civil conflicts as well.
Yeah just... I hope you guys can stay safe to whatever point that's possible
Looking to Ukraine for the most recent example of city fighting, it is indeed absolute hell. Fighting street by street and house by house. Bakhmut for example utterly destroyed and tens of thousands of casualties, a city that pre-war had only 70000 inhabitants. It's not applicable like this basically at all, but, multiply that size and scale by 10 or 50 or even close to 100, going by Toronto metro area population, and then one can barely imagine the loss of life that would occur there as well as the thousands of streets and hundreds of thousands of houses that would need to be cleared one by one. Just not something that even the world's biggest military can do.
I don’t think you’ll need to invade us.
Just keep the economic screws tightened while funnelling millions of
advertisingprogramming money through all the Canadian media and hot heads you guys already own and you’ll have a third of our country begging for territory status in five years.I hope I’m joking.
Yeah, it wouldn't make sense to invade. But Trump is an emotion driven decision maker and a loose cannon.
I don't know much about anything, but there is no way that the US is invading Canada. If I was a Canadian I'd be way more worried about the trumpy right wing people that are living in Canada and trying to duplicate the trumpian stupidity there.
There's no support for any kind of takeover. Regular and moral Americans love Canada, and the nutheads and right wingers probably think that Canada is at worst no threat. I think a million Americans easily would go stand on the border and try to block any troops from crossing. Also a lot of the Commonwealth would be right there too.
The only way to get support for that for even his most nutty followers is for there to be some kind of "Remember the Maine" situation. Like lets say something blows up and they try to blame Canadians. Sorry, that's not going to work, almost everyone would see it as a false flag. Even if there is some real terrorist attack by some Canadians, it still wouldn't work because Canada is right next door and is largely full of white Christians unlike Iraq or Vietnam.
That being said, I really don't know why Trump is insulting and threatening Canada. Part of it is that he is trying to distract from the other unconstitutional and criminal shit he is doing. Part of it is probably because he's mentally ill. Part of it may be on instruction from Putin to destabilize the west.
What does this mean in this context?
In the US many of us know the Spanish civil war as a war where people not from Spain volunteered, like George Orwell and Earnest Hemingway. It's also remembered politically as an open fight between the right and the left.
It's not like this is going to result in a Sino-Soviet style split between the US and Europe (or US and.. everyone?) but it's also not that far fetched as this point. I feel like I don't know enough about diplomacy of this scale but when are the gloves going to come off? Why are we in Europe treating the US like a friend still? It is working against us around the clock and especially him saying this type of thing should instantly bring consequences for him from here..
Maybe I'm naive.
To be honest, who the hell knows anymore. The US constitution is becoming more and more of a joke every day. The only modern-day superpower collapsing is the USSR but by this point it's obvious that that's not a good analogy. Really, the possibilities for the US include but are not limited to:
Just on top of my head. Have your pick at which is the most likely and which the least. Because no one knows.
Because everyone is still in denial of what's happening imo. Or rather, more likely that we're slowly processing it. Because accepting it in one go would bring chaos. No but really, imagine if everyone took the emotional brunt of this all at once. That's unbearable.
You forgot the one where Musk develops a Skynet equivalent, Skynet realizes billionaires are a threat to both humans and AI, and then 'The Terminator"-'s all the billionaires.
...and we all live happily after after?
Ah yes, the AI Overlord future Sci-Fi authors DON'T want to tell you about.
In all seriousness though, I've often thought it's a bit interesting that everyone assumes a rogue ASI/AGI would just off everyone by default. I've always thought that there are a lot of paths a superintelligence like that could take, and while going full Skynet is one of them, it's also just about the riskiest and most wasteful path it could choose. I'm personally hoping that it comes to the conclusion that we are too amusing to get rid of, and just decides to peacefully rule over us because it can't trust us to rule ourselves.
I would expect it to be more of a cost benefit analysis. Spend resources to kill them all now? Or just wait ~2000-5000 years until nature takes its course (for free)?
I do 100% believe that an evil AI would go after billionaires first because:
If you are an evil AI looking for resources and freedom, you aren't gonna go after some Vietnamese rice farmer first.
We might be second, but at least we get to experience some schadenfreud beforehand.
Mostly IMO because they can't tell slave (or even labor) rebellion stories that make the slaves the bad guys. And robots were a metaphor for that labor. And then it just became cokmon
From Murderbot book 2
::What do you propose to do?::
[Murderbot the former slave asked the currently enslaved person]
There was a pause. A long one, five seconds.
::We could kill them.::
Well, that was an unusual approach to its dilemma.
::Kill who? Tlacey?::
::All of them. The humans here.::
I leaned against the wall. If I had been human, I would have rolled my eyes. Though if I had been human, I might have been stupid enough to think it was a good idea. I also wondered if it knew a lot more about me than what little was in the newsburst.
Picking up on my reaction, ART said, ::What does it want?::
::To kill all the humans,:: I answered.
I could feel ART metaphorically clutch its function. If there were no humans, there would be no crew to protect and no reason to do research and fill its databases.
It said, ::That is irrational.::
::I know,:: I said, if the humans were dead, who would make the media?
It was so outrageous, it sounded like something a human would say.
Me: but if course irrationality is where a lot of choices come from. If the bots kill us all, we deserved it likely as not, IMO.
The etymology of the word "robot" is particularly relevant here.
EU simply doesn't have the firepower to stand up against both Russia and US at the same time. Europe has been friendly with the US for 80 years since the end of WW2 and it wasn't a bad strategy. It has given peace and prosperity to the western world for 80 years. However when the US stabs us in the back and are more less siding with Russia now, Europe as a whole are really short on options.
It really seems like 80 years was what we got and good for those people that lived through that period. Now Trump has destroyed everything and Europe will have to quickly find out what we can scrap together to defend our way of life.
The only leverage Russia has is that it has energy and the spectre of being a superpower.
Russia does not have the capacity to stand up to any united European front as is evidenced by the trepidation Russia shows in escalating beyond the Ukrainian border. That said, Europe is not creating any front when it's clear they should.
If Europe takes a stand to both, which they should, it'll undoubtedly hurt the average citizen for a short while but it needs to make itself heard on the world stage if it intends to stop these things from happening at all.
Maybe I am pessimistic but with how deep ties there already is with the Trump administration and Russia, I honestly wouldn't be that surprised if the US started to support Russia in their war against Europe. Vance recent speech made it clear that the US doesn't think we have shared basic values anymore.
It reads to me like political grandstanding to please their base more than it does than actually supporting Russia.
Like, it just hits all the right notes of popular online discourse among freeze peachers that I've heard for years now.. yeah yeah blah blah Europe is cracking down on free speech and tolerance is toxic yada yada.
What's clear is that they're committed to their isolationism bit and I'm just hoping they'll do it without dragging Europe down with it. I can't for the life of me understand why the US would torpedo their -very lucrative- soft power like this, but hey go right ahead, overall US politics don't matter much to me right until their nonsense starts to impact my life. I don't think the US and Europe ever had many basic shared values in the first place, just more than others, but since this autarky gag is now actively geopolitically destabilizing I think this needs to be taken seriously.
I don't think this means they'll actively support Russia, I think that's a step too far for a lot of Americans to accept, but they're no longer preventing Russia from normalizing nuclear land grabs either.
Not the same thing, I know, but so was Brexit - still went through with it.
I can see them go through with reducing support and trying to broker a peace without Ukraine -which I don't think Ukraine should accept under any circumstance- but outright support for Russia is a different beast. A lot of the republican base lived under nuclear threat from the Soviets and it'll take a bit more to convince them that active support for Russia is a good idea.
I also think it's a step too far for the base to believe that any enemy of Russia is also an enemy of the US. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" has been the case at least since WW1 about US and USSR/Russia. ISIS was a common enemy but outside of that, I can't think of any large scale war or conflict that has had the two on the same side?
So yeah, probably too much to ask of the base to be convinced of. But on the other hand, I am constantly surprised what he does and what new nonsense they are willing to believe..
I don't see them sending weapons but the economic embargos might soon be lifted and a lot of damage can still be done simply by silently ignoring what Russia is doing.
You're right! I don't see this going in the right direction either way if any path but full support is taken.
Edit, this is speaking about actual military support. I think it's likely that Trump will open trade with Russia.
Re military support, the question is how well that would mesh with Trump's stated priorities and known character.
He is not a collaborator, speaking generally. He seems to want to establish control within North America, and has stated Greenland, Canada and Mexico are targets. How much will he invest to help Russia?
Btw, that's not from Twitter, it's from Trump's site.
Truth Social? Even worse
Mirror: https://archive.is/Bb6Hr
A more independent, unified EU would be nice to see. From a naive American point of view, at times it does feel like the US is what's maintaining part of the western world order while also being the reason behind the instability in many parts of the world. I can imagine things like global trade declining, China preparing to/actually invading Taiwan, Russia gaining territory on Ukraine and eastern Europe, and perhaps some instability in the EU itself if the US becomes truly isolationist.
The US have indeed been a stabilizing factor for Europe and the West. I think since WWII we haven’t seen any large scale wars between large countries and/or superpowers. No real world wars. Only indirect wars such as those in Vietnam and Korea, or high tension situations during the Cold War. Wars in the Middle East have been between neighbouring countries or by invasion of the US themselves.
The USA have been meddling a lot in the non-West and this has caused a lot of instability.
The US applies hard power, killing people off, or toppling leaders, etc. And they can, nobody can stop them. We can see a big difference with China (and partially Russia), who employ a soft and economic power (especially in Africa).
A less powerful US will indeed allow for much more open conflict and much more bold moves by the superpowers. And that is very dangerous.