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Comment by elteto | Hacker News Reader

> Is nobody in the EU bringing up the question why every single European citizen is dependent on US hardware, US software and US services?

And even more concerning is the dependence on US aid and weapons for Ukraine. How Europe doesn’t see Ukraine’s invasion as an existential threat is beyond me.

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If isolationists like Trump come to power in the US and do things like pull out of NATO, Europe might be suddenly in serious trouble.

This is not a far fetched possibility. Even if Trump loses or isn’t even on the ticket, an increasing number of younger Americans are opposed to overseas involvements including some on the left side of the spectrum. Ballooning US national debt interest and social security issues could force the US to make steep cuts in places like military and overseas aid.

You need to remind those americans that Europe buys a lot of military crap from USA, pulling from NATO might cost USA more, and frankly Europe had a lot to pay from USA operations around the world by sending peace keeprs there or by having to handle the refuges.

I would be that pulling from NATO will not make those military money be moved into healthcare, I heard this story with Brexit.

European nations might buy a lot of hardware from the States, but the US also maintains a large and very expensive military presence there, and everywhere.

So if military relations cool down, the US pulls out of Europe, and Europe exclusively buys its own arms, it might actually save the US money.

But that seems a little far-fetched. There's a lot of transatlantic banter on the internet but when the chips are down, the West will likely pull together yet again.

Culling American military bases overseas would also reduce the risk of American politicians capriciously choosing to use those military bases as the staging points for military adventurism; the "War on Terror" was greatly facilitated by those bases. As somebody who thinks that 'war' was a disaster for the interests of average Americans, I would not be sad to see the means for America to wage foreign wars greatly diminished. I simply don't trust the American political system to be a responsible steward of that much global military power.

You may be right, but who else would do it? I feel like Russia would be invading the entire EU, and China would invade Taiwan if they thought they could get away with it.

Countries should be left to handle their own affairs; that's the responsibility that is inherent to sovereignty. The premise of a global hegemon who babysits the world and enforces the rules (dictated by themselves and their allies of course) is an anachronistic leftover from the age of imperialism. If the rest of the world wants America to play world police (and for the most part, I don't believe they do) let them pay the American public for this service.

Very reasonable, but the last time an American president suggested this, the world shouted him down as an idiot.

In a world where we have 9 nuclear powers, I struggle to see how your system would keep them in check; nuclear fallout effects all of humanity and quite literally could make the planet inhabitable.

I bring this up because any system that replaces the current world order needs to be able to keep these nuclear powers in check.

I wouldn’t bet on that last sentence. The leaders were about 100x more mature then than the ones we will likely have at the time we are next faced with an existential threat (meaning 1-10 years from now likely). Everything is a meme and a joke and a way to score political points. If a politician thinks they can own the libs / stick it to the filthy republican right by causing/allowing the global system collapse into complete chaos, they’ll happily do it.

Now, they’ll regret it instantly as they suddenly notice how everything they take for granted is suddenly not true (imagine if, thanks to abdicating naval superiority, sea transport becomes nearly impossible thanks to rampant piracy). But it’s not guaranteed that things can be undone.

> You need to remind those americans that Europe buys a lot of military crap from USA, pulling from NATO might cost USA more, and frankly Europe had a lot to pay from USA operations around the world by sending peace keeprs there or by having to handle the refuges.

Since when do populists make decisions based on logic and long term outcomes? It wouldn’t be weird for an American leader like Trump to act irrationally, he doesn’t even need support from most Americans to execute his whimsy.

Seems that we are assuming that net number of refugees is greater because of US action. I have no idea how this calculus is done though.

If the US wants to end Pax Americana, a strategy that has served the US extremely well, that’s on them in the end - it’s their choice. They shouldn’t be surprised though when it leads to losing out on a lot of trade, loss of influence, etc.

You must live in a bubble if you think that EU leaders don't see the invasion of Ukraine as an existential threat... Do you get all your news about what happens in Europe from HN?

Not OP but just going off the numbers, the US has been contributing more military aid than all other countries combined. I'm glad everyone is supporting them but a bunch of the European countries dragged their heels through the first several months of the war while the US was sending stuff by the ship load.

I get that the US is one big war machine but it's not like the EU doesn't have anything to give, they just decided that their own territorial defense was more important even though any supplies would be going towards fighting the only threatening aggressor in the region.

I think the problem is that EU countries don't have much military themselves to begin with.

They have a lot more than they're giving. Almost everything so far has been old models that were already replaced

> just going off the numbers, the US has been contributing more military aid than all other countries combined

The US has given the most in absolute numbers, but that's mostly a result of the fact that the US is by far the richest nation in absolute numbers.

When you look at aid given to Ukraine as a percent of GDP [1] you won't find the US even in the top 10. Instead the biggest contributors are European nations that directly border Russia.

Thus I don't think it's accurate to characterize the European countries as dragging their heels. That's more of a Germany thing.

[1] https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-s...

Most European countries have let defense production pretty much idle or stagnate for the past couple of decades under the blind assumption that things would remain stable, and if things went tits up, being allied with the US would fix everything.

During the GFC defense spending was pretty much the first thing to get axed - and it never recovered IMO in most places.

The leadership in some countries also has been frankly fucking delusional about the threat posed by Russia.

Now everyone’s getting that kick in the arse, a wake up call, and learning that expanding production is extremely difficult when you no longer have the factories or workforce capable of producing stuff like 155mm shells.

Well, yeah. Now they are. Obama was begging the EU to take this seriously back in 2014.

"Our people and our homeland face no direct threat from the invasion of Crimea. Our own borders are not threatened by Russia’s annexation. But that kind of casual indifference would ignore the lessons that are written in the cemeteries of this continent. " - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbeLAQ3wBIs

I applaud Germany for weaning itself off Russian oil, but it's kinda weird that America seemed to be a lot more alert to this threat than the EU.

Are there predominately ethnically Russian regions in Germany or France on their border with Russia?

I think Berlin and Paris are fine for the foreseeable future.

World borders would look quite different if they were based on majority language. Would you redraw them all? Also, do you not consider anything east of Germany part of Europe? Wouldn’t you be worried if you were Finland or one of the Baltic states?

Also I find it hard to believe that Putin wouldn't come up with another excuse after that one ran out.. Did you see the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics ?

How exactly do you see Russia as an existential threat to the EU? Putin does not seem interested in conquering the EU, at all. He’s never mentioned anything of the sort that I know of, and he’s not the guy to mince words about his intentions. He’s not even really interested in conquering all of Ukraine, because he did not at any time mobilize the kind of force that would be needed for such an endeavor.

I mean, yes, Russia’s nukes are an existential threat, but to the whole planet, not just the EU.

> How Europe doesn’t see Ukraine’s invasion as an existential threat is beyond me.

Weren't we told that the whole war is about food exports from ukraine which euro countries like germany depend on.

Is the 'food is new oil' narrative not well accepted. Places like usa cannot export to germany because farmland and rivers have been poisoned by gylphosate

“Poisoned by glyphosate”

Fine starve then? I think most reasonable people would eat food from America over starving.

most ppl aren't germans. Germany banned glyphosate.

And irony of ironies, Bayer, a German company, purchased Monsanto and is currently stuck with the bill from all the people harmed by glyphosate.

Reality is stranger than fiction.

EU has very strong agriculture subsidies, it certainly does not rely on food imports for basic goods.

The whole European food mountain was a thing. And we're still wasting plenty of food, we're not going to starve any time soon.

European here.

Ukraine/Russia war is caused by disagreements between US/NATO and Russia.

EU has nothing to do with it, and if US didn't involve itself with Europe or try to expand NATO, there wouldn't be any war. The chance of it spreading to the rest of Europe, except if EU countries attack Russia (or help Ukraine with too much weapons), is zero.

We in eastern europe want in NATO, our Western European would sell us for Putin's gases.

And he doesn’t realize that what keeps it from spreading to the rest of Europe is precisely NATO. So ironic.

What I’m reading here, honestly, is that mainstream Europe would readily abandon Poland, Ukraine, Finland and who knows whom else, if it meant not having to lift a finger against Putin. Not a good look my dude.

This is why Poland has been so supportive of Ukraine. They know this (one could say they are learning from previous experiences).

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