The report is absolutely scathing. Some choice quotes:
But when the next crisis came, both the US and the governments of Europe fell back on old models of alliance leadership. Europe, as EU high representative for foreign affairs Josep Borrell loudly lamented prior to Russia’s invasion, is not really at the table when it comes to dealing with the Russia-Ukraine crisis. It has instead embarked on a process of vassalisation.
But “alone” had a very specific meaning for Scholz. He was unwilling to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine unless the US also sent its own main battle tank, the M1 Abrams. It was not enough that other partners would send tanks or that the US might send other weapons. Like a scared child in a room full of strangers, Germany felt alone if Uncle Sam was not holding its hand.
Europeans’ lack of agency in the Russia-Ukraine crisis stems from this growing power imbalance in the Western alliance. Under the Biden administration, the US has become ever more willing to exercise this growing influence.
From another angle Germany twisted the US’ arm until they did what we wanted them to do. Atlanticism in Germany is right-wing, the SPD certainly has its faults but worshipping the US is not one of them.
Against who? Aliens? Who is this hypothetical enemy that can invade Europe? Capabilities aren’t exactly as they should be, it would be nasty going against a rogue US, yes, but we could still bring the whole thing to a stalemate even if it would necessitate a couple of French nukes getting dropped on carrier groups.
…and don’t get me started on them wanking off to the dollar value of US contributions. Much of what they send should be valued negatively (in monetary terms) because it’s surplus and they’re saving on disposal costs. Meanwhile, if the EU had the US’ ammunition production capacity Ukraine would’ve run out by now.
The US has been pussy-footing around this whole conflict, see e.g. the row about ATACMs, the UK had to send Storm Shadow (which they don’t exactly have a surplus of, to the contrary) to twist the US’ arm.
What many analysts don’t seem to get into their head, it just doesn’t fit their framework, is that Europe as a whole is a lot more “hawkish” in this conflict than the US, leading to all kinds of misinterpretations. “But Europe is so peace-loving and warm and fuzzy” – no, motherfucker, we hate imperialism. That’s all there is to it. We have plenty of former Russian colonies in the union and with shit going down as it went, the western members finally understood that no, Russia can’t be reasoned with, or even be counted on to act in self-interest, instead of chalking the eastern member’s attitude up to PTSD.
The top EU think tank very clearly disagrees with you here. It’s also pretty clear that Germany ended up being the big loser here given that it’s now in a recession. So, I guess if that’s what Germany wanted then it certainly did a brilliant job twisting US’ arm to destroy German industry. Given that this has been the stated goal of US for years now, I don’t think much twisting required here.
Europe wouldn’t have anyone to defend itself against if it didn’t keep creating enemies for itself. It was entirely possible to dismantle NATO after USSR collapsed and integrate Russia into Europe as an equal. Instead, Europe chose to have an antagonistic relationship with Russia, and now Europe finds itself in a protection racket situation.
Finally, the idea that Europe could fight US or Russia in an all out war is completely delusional. Europe lacks the industrial base to do this kind of warfare, and it also lacks access to energy. Meanwhile, if we’re talking about nukes both US and Russia have literally an order of magnitude more nukes than all of Europe combined.
The fuck have Abrams anything to do with Germany’s industry? How is that in any way connected? Are you simply making up slogans?
Oh my fucking sides. Заткнись ватник блядь.
I’m talking about the result of Germany being cut off from cheap energy and US blowing up German pipelines without Germany making any protest. Meanwhile, haven’t seen any Abrams anywhere close to Ukraine, but plenty of Leopards burning there now.
I see you have difficulties engaging with reality.
Reality, eh.
I mean yeah, when a bunch of industry shuts down and your country goes into a recession, demand for gas drops which leads to lower prices. 😂
Yeah, sure. Consumption totally plummeted. Nothing is running any more, BASF Ludwigshafen is an industrial ruin. In case you didn’t notice our industry didn’t shut down, big consumers – like BASF – switched to alternative sources and now are kinda biting themselves in the ass because they’re paying more, now that gas prices are low again.
That makes things more expensive right now. In addition the ECB continues to set quite high interest rates to battle inflation, both together stifle internal consumption, people are eating less Aspargus. And we’re talking about what 0.2% reduction over the whole of 2023, 2014 is projected to have an increase of 1.5%. Both Ifo and DIW agree on that one. The trend for the rest of the year is already positive, the projected -0.2% means that we won’t be able to completely make up for the bad start of the year by the end of the year.
Also, this “Germany is in a recession” talk is technical. The usual definition of “two years of negative growth” is barely met, and usually doesn’t include your neighbour two doors down the street shooting themselves in the head, causing a scene. (One door if you count Kaliningrad, I know).
You’re right, everything is going great. We’ll just see where you are by next year.
I know you are trying to be sarcastic but this is the first statement I have seen from you that was not pants on head crazy. Its going to be fun to check reality to this next year.
Nothing can fight the US, it’s like the richest country and half the budget goes to the military. Russia would not be much of a threat though, especially now. Also the only country dependant on Russia was Germany and now that isn’t the case so I’m not sure what you mean by “lacks access to energy”.
lol
About 50% of the United State’s discretionary federal budget is spent on defense on average. Discretionary spending is in contrast to Mandatory spending which covers legally mandated programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
In FY2022, the discretionary budget was $1.7 trillion, of which $751 billion was for defense. The mandatory budget was $4.1 trillion, and the total federal budget was $6.3 trillion. In FY2022, defense represented 11.9% of the total federal budget. An equivalent amount was spent on Medicare in the same year ($747 billion).
The United States spends roughly the same amount (in US$) on defense as the next 9 countries combined. This represents 3.4% of the US GDP. By percentage of GDP, the US ranks 14th in the world, lower than (for instance) Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Lebanon, and Russia.
The US is the richest country by GDP comparison, but this idea that it spends half its annual budget on the military is false - the real amount is about 13% on average. Social program spending far outweighs military spending in the US.
I like your fancy numbers magic man
@FluffyPotato Unless nukes are involved. Then it won’t matter how much we spend on the military.
I’d be surprised if local gopniks hadn’t sold off Russia’s nukes for cheap vodka at this point and Russia is too embarrassed to admit it. Also Poland alone would occupy Russia with the sheer power of angry polish man the moment they announce they got no nukes.
We didn’t hade any angry men since 1989, else our comprador regime would collapse already. But it’s still better bet than polish army which is something between sad joke, rightwinger pillow fight and corruption scheme at this point.