Sweden and Denmark has a VERY violent history. Hundreds of years of wars. It is said to be the worst conflict in all of human history. Now we are allied and committed to defend each other. That's a huge thing for peace.
And fun facts: Of the 15 wars Denmark started 11 of them and Sweden won 11 of them. Sug på den danskjävlar ;) Sweden is a peaceful coutry and that contry that have lived longest in the world without war, over 200 years.
All nordic countries are very similar in so many ways and our language are almost the same so we can understand, "almost" each (except the Danish people (rest of the nordic countries understand what I mean :), maybe that why there have been conflicts ;) We, the nordic countries see ourself more like a family, like siblings that love each outer but also love to tease each other :D
And about "Hundreds of years of wars." I counted for fun how many years in total Sweden and Danmark was in war with each other between 1207 when the first war started to 1814 when the last one ended, and it was around 54 years in total, over a period of 4 centuries. (54 years are dependent how you count, if a war started 1207 and ended 1208 it could have been both 1 and 2 years long, so I counted 1,5 for all wars. So at best it was 47 years or at worst 64 with a mean time of 3,6 year per war).
I feel a new war brewing and just started stacking cannon balls at Bohus fästning [1].
So maybe, in 50 years from now, Russia will join NATO, too?
Sometimes I wonder what a unified world look like, for example what would it look for Palestine and Israel becoming a single nation? For South Korea and North Korea to merge again in brother hood? For China and Taiwan ? etc.
Like how boring would the news be in complete peace? what we wound be doing instead if we weren't busy killing each other?
Just some questions I ponder sometimes..
if NATO wants America in then they need to do something about an angry orange political candidate...
Really strange seeing people (often gleefully) parrot these talking points, unaware of their own malaise.
Eventually, a generation or two later, the same phenomenon would hit them as well. But it's difficult to reason about what the world will be like even after it gets Europe and Asia. The world economy and geopolitical community would collapse or something, which could influence demographics in yet further weird ways. :O
I don't think it is all the same story.
Americans don't have enough children to sustain their population, but they can make it up with immigration. So do most developed countries, with rare exceptions (consider Israel)
Compare Australia: same story, but with one fundamental difference: US is experiencing uncontrolled mass immigration over its southern land border, immigration to Australia is much more selective, with strong preference given to people like university graduates.
Uncontrolled, non-selective mass immigration is likely to cause much greater problems than controlled selective mass immigration.
And Australia isn't unique here, I think Canada and New Zealand are closer to Australia than to the US in this regard.
On top of that, there's inflation and the value-added tax, which mean that, once all the extra costs have been covered, only about €50 to €70 billion will be left over to spend on actual hardware. "The longer you have this money sit around somewhere, the longer factors like inflation and interest payments have to eat away at this pile," Loss said.[0]
There has been some criticism from European allies, and within Germany, that so many big orders have been placed in the United States.
Depriving local industry. And of what use is this anyway. Why on earth would Germany need ballistic missile defense etc.
>quickly
Two years in, the entire West still cannot outproduce Russia. Let alone Russia plus friends. For the most part, dependable large orders—necessary for expansion—aren’t coming. Overall, deindustrialization is only accelerating.
Italy just ordered 132 L2s for 2027–2037. Pathetic timeframe. These tanks will be obsolete by then.
>NATO wants America in
There is no NATO without the US. Something could conceivably carry the same name but it would not be the same thing. NATO is and has always been an instrument of American control over Europe.
>angry orange political candidate
Remember when Trump ordered a reduction of the occupation force in Germany (35k then)? Well, Serious People got Very Nervous and the military stalled the order. In fact, the generals were in a state of barely concealed mutiny then. And now there’s 50k.
So, rest assured: Germany will be Kept Down for the foreseeable future.
[0]: https://www.dw.com/en/what-happened-to-the-german-militarys-...
One and a half years of believing sanctions + weapons + training + the greatest ever kontrastnupol were going to do the trick. They really thought it was going to work.
Probably not. Russian history for the last several hundred years is a series of kings, emperors, and dictators. Massacres and purges.
The entire peasantry was only freed from slavery 150 years ago. Being ruled by hereditary monarchs and dictators for so long has fundamentally changed Russian culture to be vastly different from the West.
IMO it would take a radical culture shift for Russia to join the West.
I get the impression Russians would like a more modern system but have a job shifting Putin. But he won't be around for ever.
Apparently he wanted to fast-track, so it might have hurt his ego somehow, when he was told that Russia is no special.
https://web.archive.org/web/20240228155601/https://www.thegu...
George Robertson, a former Labour defence secretary who led Nato between 1999 and 2003, said Putin made it clear at their first meeting that he wanted Russia to be part of western Europe. “They wanted to be part of that secure, stable prosperous west that Russia was out of at the time,” he said.
The Labour peer recalled an early meeting with Putin, who became Russian president in 2000. “Putin said: ‘When are you going to invite us to join Nato?’ And [Robertson] said: ‘Well, we don’t invite people to join Nato, they apply to join Nato.’ And he said: ‘Well, we’re not standing in line with a lot of countries that don’t matter.’”
Putins views on Russia may have been more widely broadcasted recently because of Carlsons interview, but don’t be fooled; they were no different 24 years ago.
On the other hand, I have witnessed how the Putin's rhetoric made a U-turn over those dozens of years — from "Fukuyama-level" liberal and pro-Western (early Putin), to "geopolitical realist" and pretty much anti-Western (as of today).
I don't know how much this reflects his actual worldview transformation (if there was any), but I have reasons to believe that there is no smoke without fire.
While not technically impossible, practically this is very hard to see. Unless Russia becomes a market liberal, well functioning democracy, it will not happen -- and what are the odds of that?
Russia had the chance after the collapse of the Soviet Union, instead it devolved into a plutocracy and what is essentially a one-party state in anything but name.
Regardless of what some people might think, in no small part due to many people seeing Russia as the spiritual successor to the SU combined with its vast geographical size, Russia is not a superpower, and will not become one in our lifetime.
Yes, they have nukes. So does the UK, and the UK economy is 20% larger than Russia despite is essentially being an island off Europe. How about France? They have nukes too, and their economy is 30% larger.
Russia is a failed state at the tail end of a century long brain drain, crippled by corruption and authoritarian rule, but none of these things are the most deciding factor in why they will never be part of NATO; the primary reason is that Russia quite simply has an empire complex.
What do you get if you combine economical stagnation and a dead empire inferiority complex? You get Hitler, or in this case Putin, and I very much doubt any of us will see a "rehabilitation" of the Russian people like we saw in Germany in our lifetime.
I think the odds are actually pretty good 50 years out in the future.
At the same time, some democratic or benevolent dictator country (e.g. Phillipines or El Salvador) could be totally fucked up (again) in 50 years.
By who?