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Comment by kibwen | Hacker News Reader

Back in 1930s Germany, there were other boats afloat to escape to.

Here in 2025, you live in a globalized world. The rats are soon to be out of ships to flee to. There's no free society in the Sol system that survives rampant and unchecked authoritarianism in the triad of the US, China, and Russia. Europe is a military vassal of the first, an economic vassal of the second, and an energy vassal of the third (though increasingly of the first two). By all means, I'm happy for Europe to wake up and prove me wrong, but looking at their tepid reaction to being invaded by Russia three years ago I'm not holding my breath.

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> Europe is a military vassal of the first, an economic vassal of the second, and an energy vassal of the third.

The UK may be something close to a military vassal, what with its "independent" nuclear deterrant relying on US missiles, but the French deterrant is not and France is not.

Economically, we're all interdependent right now: China depends on the US and Europe, Europe depends on the US and China, the US depends on China and nad Europe. Current US policy is pushing everyone everywhere to disconnect from the US, ironically without even doing the one thing tariffs are supposed to be a tool for which is protrcting strategic domestic industry.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has pushed the EU away from Russian energy much faster than it would otherwise have done from decarbonisation efforts. Given who the world's factory is, I'd expect a lot of our PV and wind turbine components to come from China, and even if they don't directly for the Chinese supply to substantially impact the price.

If you think Europe is a military vassal of the US, I'd suggest a read of the latest US National Security Doctrine. China, agree. Russia? Not so much, now the war is 1385 days in - and the US is currently dilly-dally-ing on their stance(s).

> the triad of the US, China, and Russia. Europe is a military vassal of the first, an economic vassal of the second, and an energy vassal of the third.

What an hyperbole.

There are also other places in the world besides Europe, the US and China.

The billionaires seem to have settled on New Zealand as the right combo of “stable-enough liberal democracy that they probably won’t seize my treasure hoard” and “hard enough to reach that climate and political-instability refugee waves cannot get there”.

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