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Comment by andykx | Hacker News Reader

Other first world (mainly European) countries are, in general, far happier than we are, despite having significantly smaller consumer economies. Why is that?

Edit: America is only a bastion of personal liberty if you look and act a certain way. Is personal liberty such an important thing anyway? It seems to be creating huge problems for us at the moment. I am not an advocate for an entirely collectivist society, but I think a small dose of collectivism would help us all. People refuse to acknowledge the benefits they get from our society without wanting to play their part by paying taxes.

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Probably because they spend less on the military and more on their people.

But would they be able to do that if they couldn't rely on US protection via NATO? If the US suddenly disappeared, would Europe be ripe for invasion by, say, Russia?

The European nations have been dealing with Russia since before there was an America, and it’s not clear that Russia would benefit from forced occupation of countries that don’t already have a large population that supported it. Irrespective of whether the Crimea annexation was legal, the population there already had a signification portion of people who supported it.

Russia trying to march into France or Germany, for instance, wouldn’t be a fun thing for anyone, including Russia.

They do what they do because they have the US protecting them. Also, Liberty is taken for granted until you dont have it.

NATO protection is a myth. Do you really believe the US would risk nuclear war with Russia just for Europe?

But why do you believe Russia would risk nuclear war just for Europe, what would they gain?

The first time NATO is not acting on it's obligations is the last day of NATO. Who need an alliance that does not work?

What did NATO do for the Greeks when Turkey invaded a good portion of Cyprus?

What do you they should do?

France and the UK have a few hundred operational nukes. Even though Russia has more than a thousand, I doubt they’d risk it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_...

Against Russia, I'd back an Anglo-French-German alliance any day.

Surely you mean you'd back the defender?

Europe as a whole no.

Baltic states yes. Moscow views them as lost provinces with nontrivial Russian minorities, blocking land access to Kaliningrad.

Europeans do underspend on their own security, and Russia is a threat, but not quite in the 'all out invasion' sense.

But 'military spending' is a pretty small part of the 'difference between wealth creation' factors on either side of the Atlantic.

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