891–899 of 899 posts
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Since the wars in Iraq, sure. Vietnam was the US inheriting Europe’s mess.
US shifting accountability of their choices on account of some mess of others. ‘We had no other choice because you can’t take care of it yourself’ Thats exactly the narrative the rest of the world doesnt take anymore.
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Polish export to US is about 3% of its total export and import - about 5% of Poland's total import. Not much to lose, honestly. We trade more with Czech Republic. Polish export to EU is 74% of its total export and import is about 60% of its total import. Economically - whatever's good for EU is good for Poland and US barely matters.
What about the importance of that trade. The US exports a lot of critical things that cannot be supplied from elsewhere. Everyone is heavily reliant on American technology.
US tech financing and promoting far-right parties doesn’t help their case either
Imagine what the EU reaction would be if the United States offered to make bring in the UK or Poland as state(s). Geopolitical games like this are how real wars eventually start.
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Like what specifically? Only services come to mind. Any hardware is produced in Asia, in fabs that use equipment from Netherlands.
The hardware is produced in Asia but American controlled. its still a dependency on being supplied by American companies. "Only services" covers a lot of critically important things. Clouds services and payment systems, for example. Even just one American company like AWS could turn off a huge chunk of European economies. That is just tech. What about fuel? machinery. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/e…
AWS will never willingly stop serving the EU, and oil corps will (unfortunately) never willingly stop selling oil. The US govt could force it, but that would be the end of US-EU relations, and probably cause a breakdown of internal us politics.
The US is pushing its hand as much as it can right now.
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The trouble for its global partners, especially in the Western Alliance, is that even if the attitude in the White House does change in 2029, no-one will ever be able to trust a repeat isn't 4 years away. US dominance has depended on its reliability as a partner - and that's gone.
Trust won't come back immediately, but if the next 2 to 3 Presidents are "normal" then trust will come back slowly.
Countries cannot put their economic and physical security in the hands of a few thousand mouthbreathers in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin every 4 years.
Europe is rearming and talking about a continental nuclear shield. China is selling US Treasuries.
Middle powers like Canada that do not wish to become a U.S. protectorate are looking hard at what is needed to secure their futures.
A President Newsom, though a welcome change, does nothing to reverse these vectors now that they have been started.
The times to stop this were Nov 5, 2024 and Nov 8, 2016.
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As a Swede I have a bunch of grievances with the EU but when I look at the US I can't help but feel how lucky I am to live on this side of the pond.
Keep in mind, social media and western online dialogue is extremely US centric. If every country was a house, the US is where everyone meets to party. So every spec of dust spawns endless content for everyone to dig into. Nevermind that people who have the most time to spend on social media, dictate the narratives that are popular. The reality is that the US better if you have money (like white collar salary man leve…
I agree about social media distorting things. When I visited US, I was surprised that it's not GTA-like violence everywhere, haha. I feel silly sharing that. But, the biggest surprise was how friendly and warm strangers were. Memes didn't hint at that at all.
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England, which is why he's called the King of England and never called the King of Canada.
There is no King of England. Charles III is King of the United Kingdom, and all places within. The UK does not have a King of England any more than they have a King of Scunthorpe or a King of North Piddle. The last King of England was William of Orange, who died in 1702 and was succeeded by Anne, who was the last Queen of England. The Act of Union 1707 merged the Kingdom of Scotland and Kingdom of England into a sing…
It really shouldn't surprise you to learn this, but the ordinary name for the "United Kingdom" is "England".
The EU is running out of Europe. I thought Turkey or North Africa would be the next steps. Maybe Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The EU covers just over 40% of the area of Europe.
* Nordics: Iceland and Norway which are ambivalent, despite repeated attempts to get them to join. (They are already in EFTA.) Greenland and the Faroe Islands fall more under the dependencies category below.
* Switzerland which can't because it wishes to be neutral, and also because of the finance sector. The Vatican has some similar issues.
* Microstates, dependencies and tax havens.
* Ex-USSR. The Baltics function well in the EU and are the exceptions, but Moldova, Belarus, the Ukraine and Russia each have massive issues. (Including how Moldova doesn't control much of its territory and much of Belarus is contaminated by Chernobyl.)
* The Balkans. Problematic recent history. I think Albania and North Macedonia may join in the near future. Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo have ex-USSR style issues.
* Turkey.
* The UK, which is problematic since it is the only major state which has left.