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jkic47 2 hours ago [-]
To be blunt, the major countries in the EU have not adapted to their diminished status in a world where economic and military power have concentrated elsewhere.
The EU has lagged the US in economic dynamism (link below). This deficit drives the inability to project economic or military power, forcing the EU rely on the US to support its foreign policy objectives in Ukraine - a conflict considerably more relevant to the EU than to the US.
Couple that with unaffordable, state-funded entitlements, and massive immigration significantly burdening (some) exchequers, and you end up with active urban conflicts in major EU cities, forcing a diversion of resources, and even more dependence on US military support.
None of this comes for free.
And Applebaum, playing the role of a wide-eyed ingenue, claims that the EU is "being bullied", instead of presenting it as the inevitable result of decades-long unwise, failing stances taken by the bloc.
A more interesting question is whether the current political, economic, and social model of the EU is compatible with the desire to be a major global power.
The lack of economic dynamism is a consequence of demographics. When the population grows older, the society naturally shifts resources from building the future to sustaining the present. Which obviously sucks if you are part of the generation that would prefer building the future.
Everyone saw this coming decades ago. Immigration has been the only serious solution that has been proposed so far. Unfortunately many European countries are not very attractive to those immigrants who can afford to choose.
jkic47 23 minutes ago [-]
This is an absolutely valid point, thanks for raising it. The US has (partially) addressed it by being an attractive enough economy that brings in young immigrants with "fire in the belly". These people (I am one of them), stay long enough to add economic value, and, crucially, have children who are integrated into the broader society without giving up on their native cultures.
Japan has historically restricted immigration into what was a dynamic economy, which stagnated over time.
adventured 37 minutes ago [-]
It seems quite plausible. Japan and Germany are the two oldest countries in the world, both are severely lacking economic dynamism (despite both having very large economies, built on past successes rolling forward). Both should be modern tech juggernauts, neither are.
wolvoleo 1 hours ago [-]
We don't have a huge immigration problem. The immigrants are blamed for everything by the fascists, just like in America. Yet their numbers are far too low too explain that.
We have serious issues like housing shortages but if we kicked out all the immigrants (which we shouldn't because they are helping our economy by doing jobs we don't like!) we still would have that problem, just a few percent less. This is the fallacy in that narrative.
And life isn't all about who has the most money, that's a US-Centric view. The poorer countries in Europe are better places to live at the moment and cost of life is lower there too. Besides, those 'entitlements' really add to our quality of life. We don't have to worry about going bankrupt over a medical issue. That's much more important in my life than being able to buy a new iPhone every year and pollute the world.
It's very telling of the US to always consider everything some kind of race or competition. Whereas we're not trying to win but to live together. Really if I make enough money to live comfortably without having to waste all my life at the office I'm doing well. Life is a balance of work and personal life. The US has never had this kind of balance. Everyone's in a race to make it 'to the top' but most people never do. I hear of people in the American big cities having to take side jobs because cost of living is so high. Our American-centric HR is always pushing me to 'challenge my career path' and move up into management but I would utterly fail there due to just not having those skills and talents (Peter principle). I'm just happy being a top technical expert for the rest of my life. I would detest being a manager and I would suck at it.
If anything Europe is getting too American. Too few people are holding too much of the wealth, this is why people are protesting.
WalterBright 34 minutes ago [-]
Not wanting to work very much, yet feeling entitled to a share of what other people work for, doesn't sound like a workable system.
rayiner 24 minutes ago [-]
> We don't have a huge immigration problemq
My Bangladeshi parents were in London in 2023 and they were shocked by the number of immigrants. My mom was very upset because it blew up the idea that the immigrants would act and talk exactly like British people who just happened to be less sensitive to the sun. They’re retaining their differences, they’re participating in politics in ethnic blocs, they’re raising their kids with their own culture and values. It’s the opposite of what her generation had hoped for—London becoming more like Dhaka instead of Dhaka becoming more like London.
My projection is that the only countries that rebound from the malaise facing Europe will be the ones like Denmark where both the left and the right agree to reject multiculturalism and return to focusing on real governance.
jkic47 28 minutes ago [-]
I'm afraid you might have misunderstood the point I was making about immigrants. I am a legal immigrant myself and do not propose kicking out (legal) immigrants.
Restricting immigration to those with skills the country requires at the time is sensible policy. Allowing millions into the country in an orgy of performative empathy with no plan for integration or converting them into productive members of society isn't.
My point is that there is a cost associated with this, and the EU is paying it in spades. The money spent addressing these issues comes at the expense of investment in things that make the country more innovative (education, trades, streamlined regulatory structures...), or have a stronger defensive posture.
Self-evidently, life isn't exclusively about WHO has the money. Having options, however, IS exclusively the result of who has the money. When the EU have restricted their options through these voluntary and unwise choices, they have to depend on someone else's help. That someone is going to want their pound of flesh.
"Fascist" seems a little over the top to describe these views.
749282361929 37 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
petcat 2 hours ago [-]
Unfortunately Europe and the EU have allowed themselves to be squeezed on all sides by USA, China, and Russia through several decades of short sighted policy and extreme over-reliance on globalism.
The financial crisis in France and Italy, and the general societal unrest everywhere has not just come out of nowhere. Europe is just simply not competitive in the industries of the next 50 years and that is very unsettling to people.
quaddoggy 1 hours ago [-]
Yes, we love bullying places that have 100 million more people us but also $9.3 trillion less GDP than us. It appears the "sick man of Europe" is…Europe? Heal thyself. We need you guys back in the game.
wolvoleo 1 hours ago [-]
There is no 'game'. We're not trying to win or rule the world. Just to live our lives in peace.
jkic47 13 minutes ago [-]
That part about not trying to win or rule the world makes sense, but to live in peace, on has to have the basic ability to defend oneself, which doesn't seem to exist because the EU chooses to spend money in other domaints.
AnimalMuppet 52 minutes ago [-]
You may not think there's a game, but both Putin and Xi are playing one. You may want to live in peace, but they may not give you the option.
wolvoleo 50 minutes ago [-]
Militarily, what we really need is some strategic nuclear ability. So we have the ability to destroy Russia if they bother us. It will be enough as a deterrent so they won't. It's kept us all safe for 80 years. Russia for example has less resources than the bigger European countries and the only reason we worry about them is that they have nukes.
Part of the problem is that the US has always opposed us having our own nuclear deterrent. They've always opposed France and have hamstrung the UK's options. In return the US promised to take care of this for us but we can't count on that anymore so I totally support building this out.
xscott 38 minutes ago [-]
> what we really need is some strategic nuclear ability
France has nukes.
wolvoleo 32 minutes ago [-]
Absolutely but not nearly enough.
France only has one sub guaranteed to be at sea at any one time. That's not a credible deterrent, one torpedo and it's gone.
We need to build that out to be much more resilient against counterattack.
This is why several countries are partnering with France now too build this out.
And what we need too is stronger NGO organisations like the UN and ICC. To avoid military conflict in the first place.
xscott 22 minutes ago [-]
France has 280 nukes and bombers to deliver them. France launches satellites, so it's not a stretch to think they could do ICBMs in a hurry if they wanted or needed to.
mx7zysuj4xew 42 minutes ago [-]
There is a reason why Europe was thoroughly disarmed and pacified
Europeans are genocidal lunatics. There were incidents of ethnic cleansing as late as the early 2000s. Telling countries like germany to rearm is lunacy
You can’t “bully” a continent that is entirely dependent on you for its security. The Ukraine war has proven that Europe is utterly incapable of putting out a fire in its own back yard without American military and financial support.
triceratops 1 hours ago [-]
The article addresses that in the last couple of paragraphs.
"In effect, the administration is promoting European rearmament and European defense cooperation while simultaneously promoting politicians who oppose rearmament or defense cooperation."
wolvoleo 1 hours ago [-]
America has also been utterly incapable of putting this out. Or even of handling Iran (which they didn't need to engage to begin with)
jkic47 16 minutes ago [-]
There are probably layers of nuance behind this.
Blocking the sale of Russian oil forced the EU to purchase US oil at a premium. Not conducive to ending the war from the US perspective.
Continued combat in Ukraine requires the purchase of US armament. Not conducive to ending the war from the US perspective.
The EU being a supplicant strengthened the US hand in trade negotiations. Not conducive to ending the war from the US perspective.
Probably much more that we don't know about driving the current situation.
adventured 33 minutes ago [-]
Russia would have been very easy to handle. No fly zone over Ukraine from the very start. The US could have closed the skies over Ukraine early on (as requested by Ukraine) and almost instantly put an end to the war before it got rolling. Putin would have thrown a giant tantrum, and then promptly backed down and sought peace talks. The US could have shot down every single jet & bomber Russia sent over the line.
War with Russia does not mean nuclear war with Russia. As we can clearly see from what Ukraine is doing to Moscow et al.
Also, an aggressive stance in fighting Russia, would have caught them early on when their military was entirely a disaster. The beating would have been an epic humiliation. Instead Russia has spent years re-learning how to wage war, which is not what you actually want.
The EU has lagged the US in economic dynamism (link below). This deficit drives the inability to project economic or military power, forcing the EU rely on the US to support its foreign policy objectives in Ukraine - a conflict considerably more relevant to the EU than to the US.
Couple that with unaffordable, state-funded entitlements, and massive immigration significantly burdening (some) exchequers, and you end up with active urban conflicts in major EU cities, forcing a diversion of resources, and even more dependence on US military support.
None of this comes for free.
And Applebaum, playing the role of a wide-eyed ingenue, claims that the EU is "being bullied", instead of presenting it as the inevitable result of decades-long unwise, failing stances taken by the bloc.
A more interesting question is whether the current political, economic, and social model of the EU is compatible with the desire to be a major global power.
https://nextbigteng.substack.com/p/american-vs-european-star...
Everyone saw this coming decades ago. Immigration has been the only serious solution that has been proposed so far. Unfortunately many European countries are not very attractive to those immigrants who can afford to choose.
Japan has historically restricted immigration into what was a dynamic economy, which stagnated over time.
We have serious issues like housing shortages but if we kicked out all the immigrants (which we shouldn't because they are helping our economy by doing jobs we don't like!) we still would have that problem, just a few percent less. This is the fallacy in that narrative.
And life isn't all about who has the most money, that's a US-Centric view. The poorer countries in Europe are better places to live at the moment and cost of life is lower there too. Besides, those 'entitlements' really add to our quality of life. We don't have to worry about going bankrupt over a medical issue. That's much more important in my life than being able to buy a new iPhone every year and pollute the world.
It's very telling of the US to always consider everything some kind of race or competition. Whereas we're not trying to win but to live together. Really if I make enough money to live comfortably without having to waste all my life at the office I'm doing well. Life is a balance of work and personal life. The US has never had this kind of balance. Everyone's in a race to make it 'to the top' but most people never do. I hear of people in the American big cities having to take side jobs because cost of living is so high. Our American-centric HR is always pushing me to 'challenge my career path' and move up into management but I would utterly fail there due to just not having those skills and talents (Peter principle). I'm just happy being a top technical expert for the rest of my life. I would detest being a manager and I would suck at it.
If anything Europe is getting too American. Too few people are holding too much of the wealth, this is why people are protesting.
My Bangladeshi parents were in London in 2023 and they were shocked by the number of immigrants. My mom was very upset because it blew up the idea that the immigrants would act and talk exactly like British people who just happened to be less sensitive to the sun. They’re retaining their differences, they’re participating in politics in ethnic blocs, they’re raising their kids with their own culture and values. It’s the opposite of what her generation had hoped for—London becoming more like Dhaka instead of Dhaka becoming more like London.
My projection is that the only countries that rebound from the malaise facing Europe will be the ones like Denmark where both the left and the right agree to reject multiculturalism and return to focusing on real governance.
Restricting immigration to those with skills the country requires at the time is sensible policy. Allowing millions into the country in an orgy of performative empathy with no plan for integration or converting them into productive members of society isn't.
My point is that there is a cost associated with this, and the EU is paying it in spades. The money spent addressing these issues comes at the expense of investment in things that make the country more innovative (education, trades, streamlined regulatory structures...), or have a stronger defensive posture.
Self-evidently, life isn't exclusively about WHO has the money. Having options, however, IS exclusively the result of who has the money. When the EU have restricted their options through these voluntary and unwise choices, they have to depend on someone else's help. That someone is going to want their pound of flesh.
"Fascist" seems a little over the top to describe these views.
The financial crisis in France and Italy, and the general societal unrest everywhere has not just come out of nowhere. Europe is just simply not competitive in the industries of the next 50 years and that is very unsettling to people.
Part of the problem is that the US has always opposed us having our own nuclear deterrent. They've always opposed France and have hamstrung the UK's options. In return the US promised to take care of this for us but we can't count on that anymore so I totally support building this out.
France has nukes.
France only has one sub guaranteed to be at sea at any one time. That's not a credible deterrent, one torpedo and it's gone.
We need to build that out to be much more resilient against counterattack.
This is why several countries are partnering with France now too build this out.
And what we need too is stronger NGO organisations like the UN and ICC. To avoid military conflict in the first place.
https://youtu.be/821R0lGUL6A?si=TKfi83pBlcMEqQg4&t=366
Europeans are genocidal lunatics. There were incidents of ethnic cleansing as late as the early 2000s. Telling countries like germany to rearm is lunacy
"In effect, the administration is promoting European rearmament and European defense cooperation while simultaneously promoting politicians who oppose rearmament or defense cooperation."
Blocking the sale of Russian oil forced the EU to purchase US oil at a premium. Not conducive to ending the war from the US perspective.
Continued combat in Ukraine requires the purchase of US armament. Not conducive to ending the war from the US perspective.
The EU being a supplicant strengthened the US hand in trade negotiations. Not conducive to ending the war from the US perspective.
Probably much more that we don't know about driving the current situation.
War with Russia does not mean nuclear war with Russia. As we can clearly see from what Ukraine is doing to Moscow et al.
Also, an aggressive stance in fighting Russia, would have caught them early on when their military was entirely a disaster. The beating would have been an epic humiliation. Instead Russia has spent years re-learning how to wage war, which is not what you actually want.