Danish whistleblower details NSA collaboration, cable and data center spying (2020)
datacenterdynamics.com
datacenterdynamics.com
https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/blev-udsat-amerikansk-spio...
You cannot live connected to the net without presumption that the security body of one or more of these has access to your data, and will trawl through this data with impunity.
The only thing you can do is to hedge your bets on which political entity has the most unencumbered access. So either US, China or the local neighborhood friendly authoritarian state security service.
I would imagine everybody of importance in the west presumes NSA listens to them, politely ignore this and just turn off their phones when they don't want to be eavesdropped.
It sucks that either I have to go full edward-snowden-harden-my-kit way, or then just not care about my privacy. I'm a bit lazy and not that idealistic and hence choose the latter.
It’s not nonsense, it’s the current situation. I am not saying Europe would not have the capability to do the things you said theoretically. Pragmatically there is no such capability at the moment. EU is a trade and subsidies -body at the moment. Security is handled by individual member states and by Nato.
The problem is there is no geopolitcal credible entity called ”Europe” - just a bunch of member states.
To gauge EU:s capability level in security at the moment - take the latest Belorussian stunt. Imagine what the US response would have been if KGB had hijacked a plane flying from Miami to New York.
Your example, of course, is much closer to the percieved outrage level.
I have no idea how US would specifically react, but the response likely would have been chosen to a) discourage future actions of the sort and b) to appease angry voters.
Also, Cuba is already quite cordoned off, while Belarus has been part of the international community (they got to co-host Hockey wordl championships 2021).
The EU response felt like "as a geopolitical entity, what is the bare minimum effort to save our diplomatic face".
The lack of voter interest in EU is most critical, I think. I can't find any popular EU citizen sentiment of outrage over the matter. Which means, for all purposes, it's obvious the voting public has no "global eu consciousness" and hence EU is after this again geopolitically that much less credible IMHO.
Could it be because majority of citizens don't use English as their native language / the one used to talk politics?
What EU lacks is offensive overseas operation support, but EU actually doesn’t need that. It is wild fantasy from the most extreme EU supporters who want to build a US replica.
What is the biggest threat to EU/Europe today? Definitely not Russia. Russia is just finishing the Nordstream2 pipeline, sanctions just lifted by the Biden administration, that will increase the capacity of the already existing pipeline between Russia and Germany. Russia wants to sell natural gas to many European countries.
What we are going to see the next few years is the opposite, a closer integration between Russia and EU economies, especially between Russia and Germany.
You could just as well say "Not wanting it is a wild fantasy from the most extreme RT supporters who don't care if the EU is overrun by dictatorships on its eastern borders".
> What is the biggest threat to EU/Europe today? Definitely not Russia. Russia is just finishing the Nordstream2 pipeline,
Precisely that is probably the biggest threat to EU/Europe today.
> sanctions just lifted by the Biden administration,
Maybe Unca Joe really is going senile.
> that will increase the capacity of the already existing pipeline between Russia and Germany. Russia wants to sell natural gas to many European countries.
Yes, it wants to have them all...
> What we are going to see the next few years is the opposite, a closer integration between Russia and EU economies,
...by the balls -- not just, but of course:
> especially between Russia and Germany.
Why does EU sanction Poland, one of the few NATO members that does fulfill its 2% goal and have beefed up it's military against potential Russian aggression, or is that Russia's fault too?
Was it Swedish politicians that downsized the Swedish military so much that it now only can defend one place in Sweden for a week (en-veckas-försvaret, ~ one week defense) or was i Putin?
Was it Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel who opened the EU borders in 2015, which directly lead to a number of terrorist attacks, or was it Putin who did that?
Was it NATO and EU that toppled Libya's dictator Gaddafi, which created a terrorist hotbed just across the Mediterranean, or was it Russia?
If you know the answers to these questions you also know what the biggest threat is.
What has happened in the west is that governments used to work for its citizenry, now they work against them, e.g. the surveillance state.
But if the biggest threat must be a foreign power, let's think about it,
How many every day items do Europeans use that is manufactured in Russia?
How many every day items do Europeans use that is manufactured in China?
Why did the European establishment class outsource manufacturing to a hostile communist dictatorship?
Please explain why Russia is the biggest threat, you haven't come up with any good counterarguments yet. The potential threat of withholding future natural gas deliveries when all the pipelines are completed is not going to be that effective, because European energy sector is much more diverse and larger than Ukraine's, an old failed ex Soviet state with bad infrastructure.
And when we are talking about bad infrastructure, is it Putin pulling the strings or the Swedish Social democrats and Green government that can't provide sufficient power infrastructure to all places in Sweden?
One of the leading brexiteer cries was: "The EU wants to make an Army", so that should tell you that the concept is greatly disliked since it's a core argument _against the EU itself_.
I live in Sweden now and there is a growing anti-EU sentiment here. How do you explain to someone who doesn't like NATO and the concept of the EU that they should join an EU army?
That does not ring true to me. Care to back up that claim with a source?
https://sd.se/our-politics/eu/
https://www.politico.eu/article/sweden-election-2018-results...
But I live in Malmo and see stickers popping up against the EU, I hear from the Swedish workers who have replaced the electrics and plastered the walls in my apartment about how bad the EU is and that Britain did the right thing (I'm british, which is why they came out with it).
I mean, "SWEXIT" is definitely something on the rise.
https://www.expressen.se/debatt/kasta-in-eu-handduken-och-bi...
But maybe this is not in Stockholm or the other major cities, I would even say Malmo itself does not have an appetite for breaking up with the EU, but the surrounding Skane region definitely has a stronger anti-immigrant and anti-EU sentiment.
But that was true for Brexit too, London was quite opposed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2016_United_Kin...
"SWEXIT" This is the first time I've heard this term. Is it on the rise? I see no proof of it.
Your link to Expressen news outlet is an opinion piece and does not prove your original claim.
2) Actually, come to think of it: You hadn't heard of it; now you have. How's that for it being "on the rise", huh?
3) "Sweden should leave the EU!" is a matter of opinion. Where the heck else would you expect to find proof of its rise, if not in opinion pieces?
You can see it for me here: https://i.imgur.com/yOYpyEH.png
I believe you were downvoted because I cited a prominent anti-EU party that is gaining popularity and you decided to just dismiss it, which is intellectually dishonest.
If there was no other argument, this would be enough to claim "anti-EU sentiment is on the rise" as it is a _core_ policy of their party and featured prominently on their website; in fact it's the only policy that has it's own link in the top banner, a vote for SD is a vote against the EU. Unequivocally.
Of course my experiences with people from the Skane region are anecdotes, and you could have argued that point, but you didn't.
You instead chose to point out that the article I selected was an opinion piece, and claimed your own anecdote that you had never heard of "SWEXIT".
If you would prefer I can walk the streets of Malmo and look for anti-EU stickers, there are many. But I can't convince you of this I don't think.
We don't poll people on EU sentiment, in fact the last vote that Sweden had on it was 27 years ago and "become an EU member" won at only 52% of the vote or something.
The 2003 referendum on joining the euro resulted in the murder of a politician, though I'm not entirely sure that's related to the referendum, only that it affected the referenum.
It's absolutely fair to say the Swedish people are not entirely unified on their vision of the EU.
IC. Did not realize this until now. My apologies for that baseless claim.
"It's absolutely fair to say the Swedish people are not entirely unified on their vision of the EU."
Always has been. Your original claim was: "anti-EU support is on the rise". I argue this is a baseless claim.
But you argue that on even less evidence than he does. He has at least some anecdotal evidence; you have presented none at all.
Of course, unless you choose to revolutionize and destroy the old political framework.
I stopped reading there.
I did not imply this in the "clash of civilizations" sense of inevitable conflict, but just to higlight the cultural alignment within the said block.
I meant "roughly the polities that signed the treaty of Westphalia and their later date offspring plus the five-eyed anglosphere". This is what we consider the modern "west", isn't it?
AFAIK, there is no actual evidence about Huawei spying with its 5G equipment.
We really shouldn’t have bought those f-35 planes either. They were more expensive, as in a gazillion times more expensive. The delivery schedule was already falling at the time. They were already terrible planes at the time compared to their competition. Most hilarious of all, they don’t actually fit into our small country because they are loud, so the government is still buying up properties in areas that they’ll have to fly over because the noise levels are so illegal they have to let people move away. They are also struggling with what to do with the airspace in one of our Airports, because the only two routes these planes have around it is over the ocean (fine but typically avoided during rain because of the low altitude they fly to avoid the airport) and our second largest city, ooops.
Somehow it still won, to no ones surprise. And that’s really just how it is. The US wants bases in Greenland? Well, it’s technically not really Danish territory but we’ll make an exception and to full colonial masters. The US wants a radar thing in one of our commercial airports? Sure! (Since moved to another part of Europe). The us wants access to data on Moslem citizens? sure thing! The US wants direct access to the internet infrastructure? Well why not!
I think the only thing we’ve ever really said no to was nuclear missiles.
I think a lot of countries want to stay on the US' good side because it's Godzilla, so they'll go along most of the time. In international diplomatic circles, whenever the words "democracy" or "the peace process" get mentioned in press reports, mentally-substitute those with the words "whatever America wants" and it will be accurate 99 times out of 100. Maybe with the ascent of China, the US and China will have to compete and negotiate more for favors than simply demanding unwavering fealty.
PS: The first porn mags I ever saw were Danish. I can't say I saw much because that was the era when beavers had full pelts.
And yeah we are also incapable of saying no, to anything it seems. It has been Norwegian policy to not have US bases since end of WWII. But current conservative sell-out government has done it without any national debate. They just give the US an area of Norway where US laws applies.
Criticizing the Norwegian alliance and what is being done to placate the US seems politically impossible. It is like a holy cow.
To be fair though, the French government does have a huge dependency on USA corps. French government is mostly equipped with Microsoft Windows including the army, which was another huge scandal when this contract was passed a few years back.
France, after decades of "neutral" stance during/post cold-war is now back with the NATO psychopaths, and driving military interventions to protect dubious regimes/interests across the globe.
Meanwhile, the ONLY nationwide independent newspaper (Mediapart) reveals huge numbers of outright nazis in the army, but that's not a problem to the people in power. Dozens and dozens of officers sign a petition and go live on TV to defend a military coup d'État against our (really fucked up) colonial republic and most political parties from left to right lick their boots. Only Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a centrist politician presented as a leftist despite not being against money and private property, opposes them publicly. That says a lot about how french politics shifted to the far-right since 1968
With the army rebelling, you'd think the police would remain the docile watchdogs they usually are? That they'd continue to silently beat down and murder the men of color and protesters around the country, maintaining the omerta? No, they're out there on the streets demonstrating, even going en masse in front of the presidential palace to threaten the elected psychopath Macron. They're now also publicly beating down or mudering feminists (see March 8 2020) and old people (see Zineb Redouane, Geneviève Legay, etc), publicly administering some of the baton-grenades-flashball formula ten years ago was only applied in the non-white ghetto suburbs.
But besides the usual murders committed by police worldwide, french police has been involved in murdering protesters, without ever being held accountable, which is quite unusual for a pretend-democracy. To my knowledge in the USA, police doesn't dare murder protesters, and instead leaves this task to the fascist militias. Here, Vital Michalon, Malik Oussekine or Rémi Fraisse are just "things that happen" when you take part in a demonstration. But if that were criticized from within, they'd have to react, right? Ask the VIGI police union members who've been suspended and harassed for denouncing their higher-ups covering up police abuse and rampant racism.
But surely a historical nazi Unterseeboot used as a police sign (as in Lorient) is a scandal, right? Well not really, because there was not EVER a denazification in France. Racial hierarchies, political repression and homophobia were already very widespread under the French colonial republic long before the Nazis came to power. After Paris was liberated by the Spanish antifascist troops (contrary to popular beliefs, the Americans did NOT liberate most of Paris), the nazi-collaborator State apparatus mostly stayed in place. Notably, the police prefects who organized the "counter-insurrection" in Algeria were previously working for the nazi regime, and were never held accountable for anything.
Don't even get me started on the policy of murder, robbery and exploitation of Françafrique and the dark alliances between secret services and businesses around the Jacques Foccart ("Mr. Africa") networks and how that has benefited (and continues to benefit) proto-fascist CEOs like Bolloré and the nuclear/military industrial complex.
And if you think the universities are somehow a safe haven because after the bloodshed and deaths of May 68, the government would never dare attacks the universities, think again. Not only is the police attacking any form of university occupation, the whole intelligentsia is now on TVs everywhere denouncing the "islamo-leftists" and maneuvering to restore in the universities the good-old values of capitalism, authoritarianism, patriarchy and white-supremacy.
Anyway, that's just a short overview. There's a lot more that's broken with France. And i know there's a lot worse happening elsewhere on earth and we french folks (especially we whites) are very privileged on a global scale, but please never take France as a moral compass. As pleasing as they sound, human rights have NEVER been applied in France (though it's a good export product).
As a conclusion, i'll leave here some quotes from the human rights declaration of 1793, which despite being adopted by referendum as part of the 1st republic constitution, was never applied:
"The law ought to protect public and personal liberty against the oppression of those who govern. (...) Resistance to oppression is the consequence of the other rights of man. (...) There is oppression against the social body when a single one of its members is oppressed: there is oppression against each member when the social body is oppressed. (...) When the government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is for the people and for each portion of the people the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties."
> Meanwhile, the ONLY nationwide independent newspaper (Mediapart) reveals huge numbers of outright nazis in the army, but that's not a problem to the people in power. Dozens and dozens of officers sign a petition and go live on TV to defend a military coup d'État against our (really fucked up) colonial republic and most political parties from left to right lick their boots
Dozens, out of how many thousands? It was a problem, and still is, and there was talking of court martials.
> Only Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a centrist politician presented as a leftist despite not being against money and private property, opposes them publicly. That says a lot about how french politics shifted to the far-right since 1968
On what planet is Mélenchon a centrist?! His party's policies and political alliances far-left by any definition, and even more so on the French political spectrum ( he's farther left than the socialist party). Go look at his programme[0] and tell me redistributing wealth, pacificism, nationalisations of infrastructure are "centrist"?! Or when the people elected in parliament from his party got there via alliances with the communist party[1]?
> They're now also publicly beating down or mudering feminists (see March 8 2020) and old people (see Zineb Redouane, Geneviève Legay, etc), publicly administering some of the baton-grenades-flashball formula ten years ago was only applied in the non-white ghetto suburbs.
> But besides the usual murders committed by police worldwide, french police has been involved in murdering protesters, without ever being held accountable, which is quite unusual for a pretend-democracy. To my knowledge in the USA, police doesn't dare murder protesters, and instead leaves this task to the fascist militias. Here, Vital Michalon, Malik Oussekine or Rémi Fraisse are just "things that happen" when you take part in a demonstration. But if that were criticized from within, they'd have to react, right? Ask the VIGI police union members who've been suspended and harassed for denouncing their higher-ups covering up police abuse and rampant racism.
French police has some serious problems with violence, and investigations clearly aren't good enough, but it's disingenuous to say there have been none or that it's in any way comparable to the situation in the US (where police agents were kidnapping protesters, just fyi). There need to be serious punishments for police being violent, but considering they're seriously overworked and often face violence themselves, it's a hard sell ( to the police force).
> But surely a historical nazi Unterseeboot used as a police sign (as in Lorient) is a scandal, right? Well not really, because there was not EVER a denazification in France. Racial hierarchies, political repression and homophobia were already very widespread under the French colonial republic long before the Nazis came to power. After Paris was liberated by the Spanish antifascist troops (contrary to popular beliefs, the Americans did NOT liberate most of Paris), the nazi-collaborator State apparatus mostly stayed in place. Notably, the police prefects who organized the "counter-insurrection" in Algeria were previously working for the nazi regime, and were never held accountable for anything.
It was a scandal, and the logo proposal was refused by the higher-ups. There wasn't enough deNazification in France, and even today some politicians refuse to acknowledge French participation in atrocities ( it even came up in the last presidential debate, Macron had to clarify to Le Pen that in one of the biggest atrocities on French soil, Velodrome d'Hiver, where French police collected thousands of Jews for deportation, there were no Germans).
> And if you think the universities are somehow a safe haven because after the bloodshed and deaths of May 68, the government would never dare attacks the universities, think again. Not only is the police attacking any form of university occupation, the whole intelligentsia is now on TVs everywhere denouncing the "islamo-leftists" and maneuvering to restore in the universities the good-old values of capitalism, authoritarianism, patriarchy and white-supremacy.
And that one is completely flat out wrong. There have been many university ( and art institutions for that matter) occupations that weren't touched by police, unless where they became violent or the people in charge ( president of university or director of theatre) asked the people to leave, they refused, and then called the police. Like, in Paris I's case, where Tolbiac was occupied for a few weeks without any police intervention, until a professor was blinded by occupiers ( glass with vinegar on a door that fell into his eyes when he opened it), and then after they refused to leave, the police were called in and literally carried them on their hands while the occupiers were chanting that the police are disgusting. The Islamo-leftist bullshit is indeed pervasive, but i don't see how in any way that impacts students and their free will.
> Anyway, that's just a short overview. There's a lot more that's broken with France. And i know there's a lot worse happening elsewhere on earth and we french folks (especially we whites) are very privileged on a global scale, but please never take France as a moral compass. As pleasing as they sound, human rights have NEVER been applied in France (though it's a good export product).
Indeed there's a lot broken, a lot needs fixing, but it's an impossible job IMHO. One can't easily fix the looming deficits from the pensions and healthcare spending, covid-19 recovery, youth unemployment, ecological transformation, police violence, anti-police violence, immigration "problems" (huge deal for some) without pissing off ~30% of the population at each one. Imagine doing all of them at once, will everyone protest or will everything compensate all else? In any case, i agree, there's a lot worse than France, but that isn't an excuse to not improve what needs improving.
[0] https://noussommespour.fr/programme/ [1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupe_La_France_insoumise
At the time there was a very popular right-wing politician in The Netherlands (Pim Fortuyn) who was very much not in favor of the F35 purchase. And perhaps if he didn’t get killed by a left-wing activist, he might have chosen for one of the other planes. However, he got killed and his second in command (Mat Herben) took over the party and agreed with the F35 purchase.
The Guardian reported that some associates of Pim Fortuyn thought that Mat Herben was an establishment infiltrant: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jun/28/thefarright.po...
(I might be misclassifying him though; I don't recall his actual policy proposals regarding these topics, but the Guardian article claiming he was a fiercely anti-immigration libertarian does not rhyme with my admittedly ill-informed recollection of his politics)
We can only hope that Putin will fall one day.
There are a lot of states which are criminal enterprises, US included.
There is really no reason for a country like Danemark to bend to US .
When i buy a TV from you, you don't get the right to spy on my family. (i know samsung, google and other companies would dissagree)
Putin is a strongman that aside from keeping local "oligarchs" happy, has raised incredibly Russian's GDP and economy from when he got in power, and reverted the "sell everything to the highest foreign bidder" course that Yeltsin was praised for.
That's the problem with Putin, not his rule, that annoys the west - which is also why they never have a problem with allies that do the same or worse. Pinochet was celebrated by the west, and accomondated by the UK until his last days, for example. Ditto for rich journalist-killing oil heirs, and so on.
If anything, it's the opposite: the neighboring countries, Scandinavian or not, as used as a proxy pressure to Russia.
I also see a country where the legitimate, voted for, goverment was overthrown by "orange revolution" style riots led by bona-fied neonazis and celebrated/sponsored by foreign powers. It's also a country whose an area has 60% Russian ethnicity population.
Or you could see a country fed up with Russia's influence/politics that chose a different direction.
>> It's also a country whose an area has 60% Russian ethnicity population.
Wtf is this supposed to mean? Should the US send an army of "patriots" and start a civil war in Tatarstan?
I would have seen that, if they haven't historically sized with Nazism, and the democratically elected government wasn't toppled by neonazis just now.
>Wtf is this supposed to mean? Should the US send an army of "patriots" and start a civil war in Tatarstan?
Does Tatarstan has some area with a large citizenry of American descent, and has an anti-American government that looks down on them have been established in the country? Was part of Tatarstan historically part of US too, for centuries even?
If so, they'd certainly be justified to do so, yes, especially in that area.
Then again, they they do it anyway, wherever they like, not in places they have actual borders with and a historical population of fellow ethnic Americans to protect, but 10s of thousands of miles away from their borders, where they have no history and no reason to be there, plundering and living hell-holes of civil war and destruction on their way out.
USA and other world powers honour treaties only when it serves them. If you think they would aid an ally in the time of need just look at how they honoured the Vienna treaty and helped Ukraine when it was invaded. Or how the UK abandoned Poland in 1939 (yes, they declared war on Germany and that was it).
Alliance/military treaties are worth as much as the piece of paper they are written on.
Swedish vikings were probably instrumental in founding the Russian state, and Peter the Great took much inspiration from Swedish administrative traditions when creating a new bureaucratic system, etc.
Then lately there's Crimea, Donetsk and probably Georgia. Of course it's nowhere near to what the US and some of its allies have been doing, but it's not nothing.
Still, the narrative that Finland, or even Central European countries should be worried is absurd.
We're not supposed to accuse people of being trolls, but: For someone I'm not supposed to accuse of being a troll, you sure do sound a lot like you just happen to be posting from one of Putin's troll factories.
(j/k)
How? It had never been part of Russia.
You should not wait to start being afraid when things have gone badly already. If the political problems are obvious, a more prudent approach might be more adviced.
I'm not an expert on Russia, but unstable? I can't really see that in the news cycle either. USA on the other hand have had massive riots for months and 25 000 national guard posted in the capital. The divisive politics that has accelerated with the Trump presidency where the different sides now view each others as (almost) enemies of the state, how are they going to pull themselves up from this? Seems very unstable.
look at Turkey, specifically about F35. they got cut off from it by the US on a whim. they spent a lot of money on the F35 probably, instead of investing in their own fighter program and now they got nothing.
Not really "on a whim." The implications/consequences of purchasing and using the S-400 were clear.
It was a clear choice made by Turkey and the decision cost the US much more than Turkey ever invested in the program anyways.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning...
https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/07/17/turkey-officially...
It's mainly because of the unique policy of the US that you have to pay taxes as a citizen no matter where you live and work. Afaik all EU countries have the policy that if you live and work in the US you only pay US taxes.
Note that it has been a nightmare for US people living in EU, especially those who emigrated decades ago or were born to an american parent but never lived in the US. US considers them citizens, but they don't have any documentation, leading to true catch-22 scenario's like not having a SSN and needing a birth certificate to get one, but not being able to request a birth certificate without a SSN. There's also stories about people not being able to rescind citizenship because they aren't in any system except for the IRS's.
France at least appears to be interested, requiring you to explicitly list every foreign place you can stash money on tax returns every year. If you have any kind of French rental income, no matter where you are in the world, I understand you have to declare. There is an EU directive for reciprocal information sharing and I understand it is used.
There are fines and penalties for not declaring a foreign account. The fine is not income or wealth linked, so it seems like it wouldn’t really bother anyone with the sort of wealth to benefit from not declaring; the penalty is having the stashed money treated as income for the year it is discovered, which seems like it could make certain people nervous.
> Note that it has been a nightmare for US people living in EU
It appears to make life much harder in all manner of ways. When I opened my French bank account, the forms placed a heavy emphasis on me not being a US citizen. I asked and was told that it would be much more difficult to open an account.
Or, as in the case of a former partner of mine: She was born in the US, from Belgian parents who worked there for a few monhts, then moved to Belgium before her first birthday. When FACTA came into play she was in her thirties, and suddenly all banks were required to submit information about her to the US. Some (Belgian) banks told her they would cancel all services as long as she remained a US citizen.
No, my understanding is only if you actually have income from France – such as rental income. Income is income, and it seems fair.
I believe the US is truly exceptional with FACTA, but it’s probably only because of their current position that they are able to claim global jurisdiction over domestic legislation. If Iran passed such legislation, I doubt any banks would be allowed to comply. FACTA is often cited as a reason for people renouncing US citizenship.
So it turns out that living in Norway means that I have to file paper taxes any year I work, but generally don't have to pay since Norway's taxes are high enough. If I lived somewhere with a low tax rate, I'd have to file and pay taxes.
Note: In general, I don't have to pay All taxes. We have Federal, state, and local taxes - they are generally only concerned with paying federal taxes while I live overseas. This also means that someone might still pay a lower tax rate overseas, depending on the state that they came from and the type of income they receive.
Likewise EU citizens may be taxed at home, depending on where the income originates.
So it‘s complicated.
But it‘s true that most countries determine where you are a resident (or have income from there) and then will tax you primarily on that and citizenship has no influence.
And while it is true that many other countries have versions of taxing citizens living abroad for some time or under certain conditions (like having assets at home or conditions that deem the stay abroad "temporary"), there are only two countries in the world that have no mechanisms for stopping this taxation once one has truly and surely severed financial ties: the US, and Eritrea.
The way the US deals with taxation abroad is a travesty. I for one will be renouncing my citizenship because of it. Few countries deal with emigration in a perfectly hassle-free way, but the US makes living a life in any other country impossible if at any point you rely on income that isn't bog standard salary.
Don't fret over it. The Swedes had to build up BS charges against Assange on the US behalf...
A NATO umbrella is something that is enforced upon you, not something you "buy", unless one is stuck to cold war logic.
S400s are effective against their best aircrafts. And they don't want other countries to have it.
So they threaten sanction and people have to play along.
[0] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/03/12/01/1226207/galileo-sys...
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/dec/08/world.internation...
https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/03/13/trump-threat-...
It will surely protect you against them and not be used to sabotage/spy on you.
There is no more sowjetunion. And it is a bit frustrating, that we are in a new cold war right now, because people were too lazy(on both sides) to adjust after the wall came down. So yes, russia is an enemy again, hurey and sure it makes not much sense letting them gather direct data to boosten their air defence missiles. But this works in both ways, no? If you have the S400 - you can study extensivly its weaknessess.
Apart from that, china seems a bigger threat.
> Apart from that, china seems a bigger threat.
Russia is a direct threat of invasion for most European countries and yet they're not taken seriously (except neighbors which some have been invaded). The fact that S400 is even debated is proof of that...
US for better or worse can take both Russia and China militarily on itself... but it feels a bit pointless if the countries it protects are shooting themselves in the foot.
How? Spycraft? Sounds a lot harder than having the gear at hand.
"US for better or worse can take both Russia and China militarily on itself.."
I hope we never find out, but I am sceptical. The US budget is surely way higher, but china and russia can produce, develope and sustain their military gear a lot lot cheaper. And have more manpower.
"Russia is a direct threat of invasion for most European countries"
And well, I live in germany and I don't feel threatened by russia. I know for Lithuania it is a bit different - but they are in the EU and NATO and the ukraine is not. So the lithuanian people I know don't really feel threatened by russia either and rather are annoyed by the new iron curtain, as well.
While "most European countries" is excessive, there are some countries that are very much under threat; Poland is the prime example.
Do you know something I don't that makes this scenario likely?
Trump threatened to pull US out of NATO which would make it meaningless
Regardless of intentions, If that were ever to happen, it would put even Germany under threat from Russia's green men.
France/UK's nukes are a deterrent but its doubtful they would be used
US with troops in those countries make it pretty clear a conventional war with green men would be repelled with heavy losses on Russian side.
And germany does not have russian speaking and feeling areas, who would (at least partly) welcome green man, which was the case in east ukraine and crimea.
And as far as I know, Trump is gone.
Because then your actions will not lead to more peace and just complicate things further.
Territorial integrity is often at odds with self-determination. In the case of Georgia and Ukraine the west argued with sacred territorial integrity - and in the case of Kosovo with self-determination. And russia argued reverse.
I have not been in all those areas, so I don't want to judge, but I do know that there was lots and lots of propaganda going on and allmost nobody really asked the actual people living there, what they actually want - which is what I prefer to apply in most conflicts. But this not so easy either, because ... does the vote of a person living there since only 2 years count the same as one whose family has been there since centuries? Where to draw the line?
Otherwise it gets ridiculed when for example occupying russian soldiers in chechenya gets the same vote as the people who actually lived there.
USSR and post-USSR Russia has solidly backed India in many issues. When the US imposed bans on export of vaccine raw materials even after a month of assurances of special waivers for India, Russia agreed to supply and produce Sputnik V in a heartbeat.
Historically, here's one example- when US Ally Pakistan was committing a genocide and ethnic cleansing on its own people [0] (now the country of Bangladesh), and India was funding and training the rebels, the US sent Task Force 74 to deter India. And Russia sent cruisers, destroyer, and a nuclear armed submarine to balance the situation.
India won the war of 1971. And the independent country of Bangladesh was born.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Goa#UN_attempts_...
For India it does makes a lot of sense.
Denmark also politely turned down selling them Greenland. Note American cold war operations had previously contaminated the area around Thule Air Base with nuclear waste. Having nukes there in the first place was also against a Danish policy, but big brother...
The Trump "offer" on the other hand was handled weirdly, Greenland is no longer Denmarks to sell. You can not sell a country you don't own, even if you help support it.
Greenland governs it self, with the exception of foreign affairs and defence, and Denmark helps fund everything (around $500 Million per year). In return Denmark gets political influence that we wouldn't have otherwise. Nobody would care what Danish politicians have to say about the arctic, if we didn't hold influence over Greenlands foreign affairs.
The yearly economical support to Greenland is honestly the only reason Greenland isn't a fully independent country, but even if they opted manage their own foreign politics and defence, I think many might still want to keep the Danish Queen.
Greenland has been moving steadily toward independence for quite some time. It’ll likely take a lot more time because “money” but it’s been a long while since we (as in Denmark) “owned” Greenland in the sense that it would be ours to sell.
That's so true, and one major reason why we need a powerful EU. Not sure if we'll make it though - with 27 different opinions and interests.
When the NSA hacked the Belgium-based SWIFT banking system, the government pretty much looked the other way. There was a bit of a token response. But in the end, the puppet state danced to the tune of its puppet master.
However, you have no basis for complaint unless/until you want to get off the american military tit. Based on a 2.5% GDP differential in military expenditures, the EU would be paying out an extra $350B a year to protect itself.
America should leave NATO, keep the EU cultural/trade relationship, and reduce our military budget by that amount, which would pay for our much needed "infrastructure" projects. Would have been $7T in the last two decades alone. According to the progressive theory, this would solve all of our social issues without increasing our deficit.
And our world might be a better place to live in.
Unfortunately, neither the Americans nor the Europeans would consider doing this.
You can of course decide to have less military, and pay less. Ask the Ukrainians about that.
I’ll tell you how this is going to go - HN will vote it to the top just like those discussions about Taiwan invasions. Juicy? Yes, pretty fun. Completely detached from the reality? I wonder what people who are familiar with the matter think. Gellman’s amnesia much! Inevitably it will get into a heated discussion with rocks thrown from a multiple sides, some China whataboutism and voila - you’ve got a bog standard classic flame war. Sigh.
Let’s talk about data collection and NSA, please. Not F-35s and nuclear weapons.
Not sure how much of the outrage has reached the US, but here are some German sources from 2015 and 2017. I guess if this hadn't been uncovered, Germany would fly F-35s now as well:
https://netzpolitik.org/2015/internes-dokument-belegt-bnd-un...
https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article162217929/So-spioniere...
https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/nsa-airbus-pla...
I've been saying for years that our politicians are traitors, and yes our military intelligence has aided and abetted a foreign power in spying against Danish interests. Traitors.
Here is another thread on FP on the same topic and a much better discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27338555
It was the same deal in a Norway with F35 and many other cases. When it comes to the US, there are so many irregularities and broken standard procedures.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/08/nsa-tapped-g... (2015)
and Sweden also knows how to play this game
The US are much bigger in every way than any European country. That suits them and ensures the US' dominance.