Hacker News Reader

Comment by logicchains | Hacker News Reader

>Germany, France and the UK should also revise their other US policies, regaining control of their US territories

Europe's problem is there's about as much chance of this succeeding as of Taiwan conquering mainland China. Decades of prioritising welfare over warfare and economic growth have left Europe technologically and militarily completely unable to compete with the US, in spite of Europe's significantly larger population. Europe couldn't kick Russia, a country with 10x lower GDP and a decrepit army, out of Ukraine; how could it hope to deny any land to the US?

View on HN

> Europe couldn't kick Russia, a country with 10x lower GDP and a decrepit army, out of Ukraine; how could it hope to deny any land to the US?

This isn’t particularly well know, but Russia has had nuclear weapons since 1949. I suspect this is why European countries have not adopted a more aggressive posture towards Russia in Ukraine. For some odd reason, no nuclear powers have ever invaded each other or declared war on each other since nuclear weapons were invented, aside from some bitchy slapfights in Kashmir. NATO is a de facto nuclear power, with (3) of the member states being nuclear states.

> Europe couldn't kick Russia, a country with 10x lower GDP and a decrepit army, out of Ukraine

Considering how difficult Russia's advances have been inside the Ukraine in the past couple of years, it would be trivial to "kick Russia out of Ukraine" if a few big players in the EU actually tried to do it.

That would require a military arsenal. The EU outsourced that to the U.S. a long time ago.

Yes yes there's not a single soldier in all of Europe. Every soldier, tank, and airplane is American. No other military technology exists. America great.

Seriously, I'll grant the most advanced stuff is American but you really think everybody else only has sticks, stones, and water pistols?

America great? Lol… I didn’t say it was a good thing.

Regardless, most EU nations do spend relatively little on their military compared to the U.S., hence the reliance.

Sorry to break it to you.

> “Nothing goes over my head. My reflexes are too fast. I would catch it.”

– Drax, Guardians of the Galaxy

> "kick Russia out of Ukraine" if a few big players in the EU actually tried to do it.

And you know why they won’t do that, right? Would anyone risk a new Hiroshima in their own country to save the Donbas?

The real fear is political due to Russia's hybrid war which has pushed a lot of pro-Russia isolationist parties ahead in many EU countries. Starting a conventional war against Russia carries a higher risk of these "pro-neutrality/pro-peace" parties rising to power than any nukes dropping.

Putin is stretched very thin and this fiasco in the Ukraine has shown that Russia can barely take on one country, even though once they were touting themselves as equal or better than the US.

> Decades of prioritising welfare over warfare and economic growth have left Europe

This omnipresent talking point is ridiculous. You know what the EU prioritized over out economic growth? Budget stability. That's why the US has 50% more debt as share of GDP than the EU does. (And that's arguably a mistake given the low growth in the EU since the financial crisis because of that policy, but it has nothing to do with Welfare vs Warfare. Quite this opposite actually, the US would even be a much richer country if it had spent all the GWOT money on Welfare instead).

> That's why the US has 50% more debt as share of GDP than the EU does.

The EU as a whole? Maybe. Now do, say, France.

You look like you are cherry picking.

> The EU as a whole? Maybe. Now do, say, France.

> You look like you are cherry picking.

Well, I'm taking the aggregate data, you pick one country in particular, who is cherry picking again?

>Europe couldn't kick Russia, a country with 10x lower GDP and a decrepit army, out of Ukraine;

Meanwhile, USA basically capitulated to Russia.

Capitulated what? Did the US lose something by stopping donations to Ukraine?

It is easy to understand, the citizens in the EU do not want to spill blood for Ukraine, and sinne not like in the Ruzzian empire where elections do not matter in EU countries politicians must not do unpopular things since they ned the support from the people and sending people to die is not popular in eU like it is in Ruzzia. But if say the Putin regime gets "tricked" again by CIA and Putin is forced to attack EU then we can see if we can push them out of not,

Talking with the Zed patriots they are convinced that CIA created nazis in UYkraine and also forced Putin to start this "special" operation, somehow Putin is a genius but at the same time IA tricked him or corced him to start a war that is in the 4th year of the 3 day operation.

Europe is not waging a war with Russia, Ukraine is

Not only that it was a USA project. The goal is to keep Europe and Russia apart.

Russia invaded Ukraine and would like to expand even more.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com