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Comment by scandox | Hacker News Reader

In terms of the monster I want living in my attic, I won't swap the US for China any day soon.

But we only have a monster in the attic, because we choose to choose one of those two.

I believe that's the point the article is trying to make: That the EU should stand up and be an actual 3rd party and possibly mediate between China and USA. But then the article also concludes that it's not surprising that doesn't happen considering the parties in Europe.

What would "mediate" mean?

The EU is hardly in a position to actually address any security concerns.

> The EU is hardly in a position to actually address any security concerns.

Why?

Because all the nations of Europe have significantly under invested in defence and security for decades.

'catchup' would require 30 -60%of one years EU gdp over 5-10years + current spend...

Until that happens the EU is a spectator or victim.

We wouldn't need that much defense if we play out the US and China and Russia against each other.

Apart from that - I had suspected that "security" meant "defense" and I think this is far less important globally, than many would like to believe.

Of course if you're a country that doesn't know how to negotiate and compromise and do politics, all you'd know is military intervention.

>We wouldn't need that much defense if we play out the US and China and Russia against each other.

How does that work?

If anything European history shows how non major players become the chips the players play for / the worst consequences land on them.

Most of the significant Euro powers hit around the 2% NATO guide figure, the smaller ones don't, nor does Canada. Germany has some special restrictions on defence. Overall I doubt that deprives us a carrier group or tank division.

America badly wanted Pax Americana, got it, and just as Pax Britannica and Pax Romana did, it costs.

The US has spent double the nato figure the last decade. 2% per UK, Germany, France and Holland would be five carrier groups and ten divisions.

Germany and Holland are really delinquent here, Holland now has no actual navy, Germany would be unable to mount any defence of itself or Poland in a war with Russia.

This will matter in the next few years.

They have, but I'm not even convinced that's the result of the choice to seek the post-war US hegemony and Pax Americana, that's been a significant benefit to America. The US doesn't have to spend that, she chooses to. Drop rate to the Nato agreed 2% of GDP as well and still be the world's dominant and most advanced military power. Halve spending and the US would still reach the old two power standard in terms of spending - easily. It would be nearer a 3 power standard. Right now it's more than what, the next seven or eight combined?

Germany has constitutional limits placed on her defence demanded by the post-WW2 allies, even if they did spend more. There's limits on when and how they can operate outside of Germany - though I'm very unclear on the detail. Holland may not have much navy - but it certainly still exists with frigates, submarines and what have you, and plans for new vessels - just rather few of them. They recently increased budget to get nearer that 2%. They've a population of about 15m, I think a modern carrier is simply out of reach without completely unbalancing their defence budget. They're way past their projecting power era anyway.

I do completely agree all signatories should stick better to that Nato agreed 2% though, or any future agreed amount.

I have understood the discussion to be in the domain of computer security not in "who has a bigger ... own nuclear weapons" or whatever.

I can imagine that the former would be technically doable, if there were enough political support (e.g. also to demand on the highest level from the U.S. companies to provide for the technical support to the project which would be managed from Europe for Europe). But yes, politically, I understand there wouldn't be much readiness, because of the long term established practice of depending on the U.S. "solutions" even in these aspects.

why do you think that?

Really, German government even failed to see any security threat in Kaspersky Antivirus on computers of public servicemen, and it is literally a backdoor for the Russian secret services.

How is this different from using an OS that sends the names of the files you have accessed to a foreign country if you don't use its enterprise version or have misconfigured it? A situation that is true throughout public services and across your entire country's industry.

Not quite sure what you're referring to. They also failed to replace MS products with open-source alternatives, because, you know, the icons are on the wrong places.

> That the EU should stand up and be an actual 3rd party

That would require allignment of international politics across every EU state. If that is ever going to happen, we are very far, perhaphs hundreds of years, from that.

Not necessarily. It wouldn't need to be a total unified process where you can't start before everybody agrees on every detail and it has been translated to a million local dialects.

If you get Germany and France to work together, you're half way there, just like with Airbus/EADS. Nobody needs or wants to wait around for Luxembourg or Ireland, and we really only need the heavy weights - they're the ones paying for it anyhow.

Right now, Germany, with Nord Stream 2, is acting in a way that threatens the security of Poland (EU's sixth largest country). If Germans, the supposed leaders of Europe do it, I can't see anyone else rising above their particular interests.

The EU is very serious about developing an integrated foreign security apparatus; those efforts have taken on a particular urgency since the Ukraine crisis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Security_and_Defence_Po...

Ignoring the technical difficulties of such a project: I don't trust the EU anymore than i trust the US or China.

You're wise not to trust anyone in those spheres.

Still I'd feel more comfortable with three or more powers arguing over one thing than just two. It's more balanced.

I've occasionally rationalised this on the basis that I'd rather China knew everything about me than the US on the basis that I visit the US once every few years and am relatively unlikely to visit China.

You know that China has for a long time has been secretly kidnapping people in other countries:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/29/the-disappeared-china-r...

Yeah but so does America lol

When the USA does that, it's called Extraordinary Rendition: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/20-extraordina...

Their main claim to legality is sufficiently questionable that they legislated to deny officers of the International Criminal Court entry to the USA:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_Internat...

The GP's point was that not planning to travel to China doesn't eliminate the consequences of trusting China. Trusting the US was already stated to be a problem because they travel there.

So has the US:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition

To be fair, I also don't go out of my way to piss either of them off.

Whataboutism. Have you considered the option of no monster at all?

Yes I have. My conclusion to the thought experiment is that it is irrelevant. History shows that in the face of one monster you can’t control, the only solution is to build your own. De-weaponise the only opponent it has always ends with the monster destroying everything you endear.

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