- cross-posted to:
- geopolitics@lemmygrad.ml
Unlike to end well for whom? What a scummy article, it basically calls for 4th reich, fearmongering with Russia, China, Iran. If USA fucks off, the entire reason while EU is hostile to those countries disappears in the first place. Author probably don’t even believe USA will fuck off, and he’s correct in that, but still use the classic boogeyman to scare people in EU to fork even more cash for MIC. How convenient it is to write prophecies backwards.
Unlikely to end well for the current Atlanticist political establishment that sucks on the US teat in order to exist. The whole article is basically preparing the public for the austerity that’s going to come in order to ramp up military spending. All that said, I do think that the US will leave Europe to hang as it shifts focus on Asia. This was gonna happen regardless of who won, but it will be happening much more in the open under Trump.
I love how when an actual american needs help, it’s a waste, and you need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you mooch, but there’s always infinite money to defend countries with better standards of living… I’m skeptical that will actually end. Trump talks a big game, but he CRAVES elite approval.
What it comes down to is that the US has finite resources and the oligarchs see China as a bigger threat than Russia. Chinese companies are now directly competing with US companies, and China is starting to dominate a lot of markets like EVs, telecom infrastructure, renewable energy production, and so on. This is one reason the tech oligarchs largely went over to republicans now.
While materially true that there are finite resources, I see little evidence anyone in DC sees that when no american benefits from spending the dollar in question. It allll just goes on the tab and I bet Trump will spend $30+ trillion unpaid. I don’t think the tech oligarchs are becoming republican because of China, they’re following raw corruption for profit and some weird crypto-ey mass dumb trend thing (see Zuck’s weird nod to rightwing podcast incels latin shirt thing). All of tech from AI to crypto is scams now. There are no 1000x yield social media-style markets left out there, so they’re going for the con and just hoping something else comes along imminently. Which having worked on the web longer than I’d like to admit was kind of always the case, but like, 20/20 hindsight, pets.com was a viable model and the internet DID change everything. But I don’t think there are any imminent new horizons, so the tech oligarchs are going with Trump because he’s been grifting since before they were born and game recognize game.
I don’t think numbers on a computer matter all that much though. US can issue as much currency as it likes, but it’s the material reality that matters in the end. In order to prop up Europe, US needs to produce weapons to send there, same with Israel, and Taiwan. US manufacturing capacity is pretty limited at this point, so they have to pick where to allocate the resources.
Meanwhile, Europe has major problems with its energy supply, and so far the US has been profiteering from selling LNG to Europe at high prices, and poaching European industry. So, we can already see that the whole relationship is turning predatory. This will only get worse going forward. Ultimately, people living in Europe don’t give a shit about stuff like AI, crypto, and so on. They care about being able to feed themselves and keep lights on.
I think people can be more warmed by number go up on ad revenue supported screen longer than one might expect, but we’re in a real life social experiment by our betters right now, so we’ll see if I’m wrong!
There’s a famous Lenin quote saying that every society is three hot meals away from chaos, and I think there’s a lot of truth in that.
There is nothing wrong with expecting rich, 1st world, countries to pay for their own defense. The US has been subsidizing them, and their generous social benefits in turn, for too long.
The other option is to just not make enemies in the east, and learn to coexist with the rest of humanity.