This article is about Germany rapidly increasing defence spending, and also the fact that they’re considering conscription. I also found this interesting:
A recent YouGov poll showed that 79% of Germans still see Vladimir Putin as “very” or “quite” dangerous to European peace and security. Now 74% said the same for Donald Trump.
Thoughts?
I have many friends here in eu talking about Europe getting militant as a bad thing. I’m not for escalating conflict in any way, but would like to hear some alternatives.
There really is no alternative. History (especially in Europe) has proven a near infinite amount of times that peace through strength is the only language imperialistic dictatorships understand.
Appease them and they will see that as an encouragement to come for you.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
Paradox of tolerance.
But counterargument is europe has a history of imperialism, although it’s probably the most socialist part of the world.
Every part of the world has a history of imperialism. Europe just happened to be the part that developed the tools to do it on the biggest scale, and the continent eventually burned itself down with them
China has had several of the biggest empires in history. So has India, so has Iran. Peru was once the seat of one of the biggest empires, and so was Mongolia. The Songhai and Mali empires were enormous. Ethiopia, the one part of Africa that kept outside conquerors out the longest, was itself a massive empire. Tonga once subjugated most of the other Pacific Islands.
The European empires inflicted a horrific amount of suffering, and they aren’t completely gone. The mindset that created them, unfortunately, has been present in just about every society for all of history
Well worded!
Economic sanctions is one alternative. See North Korea. It doesn’t work very well against Russia because they do have a lot of resources and their population is used to scarcity. This tactic would be more efficient against, say USA, because quite frankly, the western lifestyle is not self-sufficient.
Another alternative is to use Putin’s own “special military operations” where instead of fighting a war front to front, they attack specific targets or throw people out of windows.
This is difficult for Europe to do, because we like to align with each other before doing anything serious. That way, actual democracies are not fit to do this kind of stuff in comparison to a dictatorship, but it’s possible if anyone feels it’s necessary. However it rarely has a positive outcome. It’s like flipping the table and hoping something better comes up.
Overall, all agressive behavior leads to a losing position. Nobody has ever won a war or even a street fight. Both sides lose. The victory goes to those who wins the peace. So that’s what Europe is constantly trying to do by diplomacy.
Even if I dislike spending ressources on military, it might make sense to armour up, just to keep a seat at the table of peace negotiation.
Tnx man, hope people on top feel the same.
We either get militant, or we get steamrolled by those that already are.
2020s repeat the 1920s bingo: The red scare is back
The only things red in Russia are the blood on Putin’s hands and a third of its flag.
Just because you might call yourself militant doesnt mean that you need to querfront with all militants. Militancy is simply a tool.
How does a strong military prevent a war? It didn’t work WW1 or 2.
I see your attempt of derailing, but I’ll play the game.
How does appeasement prevent a war? It didn’t work for the First or Second World War.
You are just naive in thinking that weapons can prevent a war.
You are just naive in thinking that querfronts can prevent a war.
I never said that I think weapons prevent wars.
Wars with erratic actors like Putin cannot be prevented, because certainty of peace is built on trust, but Putin cannot be trusted.
So your solution is just to lay down and die (pobably litteraly)?
What does prevent your stuff from getting stolen all the time? Your ability to lock your door and a state-operated police and judical system that oversees the adherence to laws or the sign over your open door that everyone can come in an take your stuff unpunished?
What does prevent an agressive neighbour with no regards to laws from invading you? The ability to defend yourself making an attempt too costly or your active work on being as helpless as possible and appeasing the aggressor?
Yes a state judical system, but not you holding your neightbor at gunpoint, but that is basically what militarism is advocationg for on an international level.
If you will you contradicted your 2nd part of your post with the first one.
No, there isn’t a contradiction in the argument. There is one in reality: There is no independent authority (police force/judical system) making countries accountable for breaking the law. We tried to build up something comparable on the judical side of things but those still lack the ability to enforce their rulings.
So it boils down to “fortifying your door” and being able to defend it against the few people really determined to tear it down.
so you say there is no way to prevent ww3?
Well, you got the first part right.
I don’t think bolstering up defence spending is bad.
It is much better to be prepared than sorry, also negotiating from a strong standpoint is helpful towards some other nations.
The EU defense spending is already massive, easily outclassing everyone but the US.
The problem is on what the money is spend on, as much is wasted to national white elephants or transferred to unreliable US defense companies.
And in general way too much is spend on global force projection tech. There is for example no need for the EU to have a navy fleet that can operate independently for many months in the Pacific.
China is up there too, with U.S. $236.1 billion in 2024.
So Tahiti or New Caledonia do not need a navy to be protected. I am sure the French will be exited by having part of their country not being protected by the EU.
Now add all the EU defense spending together. But yes, China is trying to catch up, which isn’t great either.
Those French overseas colonies would probably benefit from more independence, yes, but if you have an actual military base there or an ally that wants you to be there, you don’t need navy ships capable of operational multi-month independence either. That is really only needed if operating in hostile territory far away from home, and IMHO we don’t need that.
Chinas defense spending is now higher then EU defense spending was before Russia invaded.
Yes, but EU defense spending now is a hundred billion higher and is projected to increase by another hundred billion by 2027. That double of what China is currently spending, and AFAIK they don’t have plans to increase it by that much.
That is for this years budget…
https://apnews.com/article/china-defense-budget-taiwan-4ac7cbdc7d5b889732cd55916ff7eb36
Seems to confirm what I said. And Germany is literally discussing non-defense spending infrastructure projects that aid defense projects right now, so this isn’t much different from what those experts are saying about China.
It’s a difficult topic but I believe the voices against it are just as important as the voices for it to keep it in check.
I’m curious. Please ask them for alternatives to fighting back when Russia invades and report back.
Leftist parties in my small country in Western Europe are mainly advocating for more diplomacy.
They’re generally on board with the idea that NATO expanded too much eastwards, undoing a promise made after the fall of the USSR. So they seem to view Russian attacks on Georgia, Crimea and now the rest of Ukraine as a logical consequence. With enough diplomatic maneuvering, they believe the situation can be resolved in a peaceful manner.
Here’s my perspective as a non-European watching this shitshow unfold: That’s fucking stupid. I mean NATO is a defensive alliance so what the shit?
The parties I talk about are not a fan of NATO, let that be clear. NATO has multiple authoritarian regimes under its wings, not only Trump but also Erdogan and Orban. Meloni’s Italy is not too far off either, so I suppose that makes it hard for leftist parties to get behind it.
That’s fair.
I understand Russia’s reasoning, but without punching power we are at mercy of those who have it. Russia went from a insignificant poor country with nukes in the 90s back to main player worldwide today, mainly by weakening the other side with information warfare.
Next to diplomacy, punching power can very well come in an economic form, e.g. still multiple tens of billions of euros flow to Russia to purchase fossil fuels.
There never was such a promise, it was one diplomat who sid that and it was pulled back almost immediately. And most of all, there never was anything close to official or formal offered in that direction.
And that a country does not like a defense union, that was founded to manage their aggressions shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.
The only one responsible for Russia’s aggression is Russia itself.
Thing is: Militarism is also no solution to avoid WW3, however people wanting more troops and weapons are hardly question if that is really an effective solution.