Hacker News Reader

Comment by terminalshort | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

Calling European countries "freeloaders" is such a one dimensional way of looking at this. Europe "outsourced" most of its defense to the US because the US wanted it that way, for soft power, influence, access to military bases and probably many other reasons.

This will become undeniably obvious when Europe stops being "freeloaders" and the US will complain about that too.

When you outsource you make a payment for services. I would have no problem with such an arrangement, but in this case, no payment is made, which is why I say "freeloaders."

The payment is that the USA got to make the rules for the whole world, most importantly regarding trade, and we follow them. Now you have decided to elect someone who is destroying the very world order you built that you specifically designed to benefit you! It certainly wasn't out the kindness of your own hearts that you had such a disproportionately strong military, that must be clear to you.

I guess I feel sorry for you because the British Empire had to fight two extremely destructive world wars against militarism and fascism in order to lose its role as superpower. The USA on the other hand has decided to lose its role as global hegemon because, why exactly, trans people and abortion??? Quite pathetic! In the long list of empires the American one will be remembered as having the most pathetic and stupid collapse of all, and that's very sad!

I agree with you as far as trade goes, but that's completely irrelevant to anything I said above.

No, you are the hegemon, and that costs money. It was the same when the British Empire ruled 1/4 of the Earth. You don't blame your colonies for costing you money or "freeloading", nobody is forcing to be the global superpower. Just retreat from the world into your small little world of domestic politics, which is admittedly what you're doing, but don't blame us for it.

There's actually some truth to that. For a long time, the US was quite happy (with ups and downs) with paying more to be the sole military leader of the West, and Europe with paying less while focusing first on rebuilding, then on losing colonial empires, then on other stuff.

Recent US administrations obviously have different priorities. The latest has decided to phrase their priorities by negotiating with enemies of NATO, insulting NATO leaders, threatening to withhold help should NATO countries be under attack, and of course threatening to invade two NATO countries.

Clearly, it is a time for both parties to clarify what they want from an alliance and what they're willing to contribute. I suspect that, for one thing, the EU wants more clarity and predictability than what the current US administration is willing to provide.

He wants you guys to pay up or get out. You may not be satisfied with how he has gone about making those demands, but he has been very predictable and clear about it. As for negotiating with enemies, I was under the impression that is one of the main things you do with enemies.

Not that many Americans are worried about whether Europeans are allies. Only people who have fallen into some kind of information black hole, like the kind of people who email around 30 times forwarded jpegs of newspaper articles about the conspiracy behind covid or something. Sadly this has happened to many of the 80+ year old scions of my own family.

Anyway, I don't see this among the Americans who are still actively connecting with the world, the kind of people who aren't focused on ivermectin not taking vaccines or similar priorities.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com