Europe Must Choose Between Power and Dependence | Hacker News Reader

Europe Must Choose Between Power and Dependence

slavoj.substack.com

17 pointsvincvinc14 comments

The only thing I agree with is that the EU should get stronger militarily.

The rest of this article is neocon/industry hogwash. Hegseth instructed the EU in 2025 to get stronger and finance the US proxy war in Ukraine.

The article also panders to big business by promoting AI. It mentions none of the issues that populations face in the EU (housing, immigration. inflation).

One wonders who buys his Substack subscriptions ...

1.) Hegseth can not "instruct" EU.

2.) The Ukraine war is not US proxy war, after all US is not supporting Russian invasion. That war was started by Russia because Russia wants to expand and steal other countries.

Europe needs to ensure its defence spending is in Europe, not buying stuff from other countries. Yes it as an opportunity to re industrialise.

> US proxy war in Ukraine

how its US proxy war?

In the beginning of the war, the US was the biggest sponsor and it took quite sometime to convince France then Germany to join with the same commitment.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/31/ukraine-crisis-ques...

They all sent very light weapons, hundreds AT at best, and refused to sell weapons because afraid to piss Russia

There is a clip from either the Daily Show or Last Week Tonight of US presidents going back to the 90s telling EU leaders to get their shit together when it comes to defense and sovereignty.

Also what do you mean US proxy war? I don't get that part of your post

By which they meant "buy more US made weapons". And got stroppy if they tried to buy and build locally instead.

"We didn't act in our own self-interest because the US might have taken its toys and gone home."

There were three alternatives: [1] Don't spend on defense. [2] Spend on defense and buy American. [3] Spend on defense and buy European.

Europe (modulo Poland) picked the worst one. Even [2] is better than [1].

However, Europe did get a couple of decades of "Russia isn't a threat" and "we have soft power" posturing.

But, it turns out that the cowboys were right. There was a bear in the woods.

> Hegseth instructed the EU in 2025 to get stronger and finance the US proxy war in Ukraine.

... eh? EU funding to Ukraine is far larger than US; at this point almost twice as much. That trend predates Hegseth (though the near-collapse in US funding seems to be Hegseth's fault, or at least happened on his watch). If anything, a more obvious reading would be that the US is capitulating on Ukraine (perhaps the piss tape has made another appearance.)

By that definition every war is a proxy war

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