zlacker

>>saubei+(OP)
There will be a lot more decisions like this one. For the war in Ukraine and anything immediate they will buy American stuff if there is no EU alternative (and for many things there just isn't right now, there are too many dependencies). But the tide has changed, for 'in' it is now to 'out'. It is abundantly clear the USA is no longer a dependable ally, and that it will use all kinds of strings attached to hobble what they sell to be able to exert political pressure. Besides the obvious problems with the political system internally to the USA I think it is the external effects that drive decisions like these.

I see the same happening with choices about other suppliers. The EU is a very large trading partner to the US and what is happening right now is unprecedented in the last 75 years or more. The damage to our future world order is incalculable and the fact that it all seems to be by design bothers me greatly.

The lyrics of Alan Parson's 'Children of the moon' have been spooking through my head lately.

>>jacque+U4
Instead of viewing the current world order as collapsing, it's more accurate to see this as a transitional period. The system established after WWII no longer serves the interests of its main creator, the US, making change inevitable.

A significant reduction in the quality of life for many in the 'so-called West' appears to be the unfortunate price of the world returning to a more 'normal' historical pattern of international relations.

>>poszle+Uc
>The system established after WWII no longer serves the interests of its main creator

I don't think that's true. The policy of alliance building and containment of their largest peer and competitor still makes sense. It was how the US ultimately overcame the Soviet Union, and is even more vital given the size and talent in China. A US without an alliance system will not win that competition.

What's much more concerning is that the rational interests of the US as a nation aren't reflected in its policy making any more. The 20th century had its share of domestic issues but the inmates weren't running the asylum as far as foreign politics was concerned which was coherent.

>>Barrin+jj
European countries becoming more capable of defending themselves by scaling up their own military instead of being dependent on a foreign power will only harden containment of bad actors. That applies to my country Canada.

What's much riskier to the world is the US having to take the brunt of defending Europe, the Arctic front, and dealing with a conflict in China (which is far far more serious military threat than Russia in 2025).

It's difficult medicine to swallow but that's the realpolitiks of it.

>>dmix+tl
China might be a threat to the US, but I don't see it being a threat to Europe.

The fact that Americans are abandoning us in our struggle with Russia in order to pick a fight with China makes it hard to see them as reliable allies.

>>saubei+Wl
Well maybe European countries should have considered that before spending the last 3 decades shrinking the size of their military. Germany's military chief was ringing the alarm bells in 2023 about their inability to defend their own borders, and that was before Trump came back to power. This is the wealthiest country in Europe.

Germany's GDP is twice that of Russia. EU GDP is 8.5 times larger than Russia.

Yet even in the current state Russia would have very hard time fighting Europe. The Russian military hasn't been this diminished in decades. But the real issue is Europe can't easily spare stuff to help Ukraine because they don't have their own security figured out.

>>dmix+7r
While I wouldn't argue that Russia is richer than Germany, I think GDP is a rubbish figure - at least it clearly doesn't translate to anything I would consider meaningful.

For example, can the person of today afford a higher standard of living than one of 20 years ago - unclear, food has become disproportionately more expensive, housing cost has by far outpaced the wage growth, tech has become cheaper, but big-ticket items like cars are proportionally not cheaper.

From this, the person of today is poorer in tangible terms.

Did the infrastructure improve? - some, but I'd say it was a (sub)linear improvement in absolute terms - we certainly didn't build as much stuff as we did in the mid to late 20th century, and what we built before was the more important stuff, so the new stuff has marginal utility.

Did European industry and technology improve? I'd say in terms of relative importance, we regressed - there are huge gaps in European technological capability for which only foreign options exist - this didn't used to be the case.

Were there some big ticket innovations like Concorde or the Moon Landing or whatever - clearly no, the world seems to have lost its appetite for these kind of hugely ambitious projects.

This 'number go up' style capitalism is clearly not to the benefit of the individual, but I can't for the life of me think who does it actually benefit.