America isn’t even an American ally.
No.
America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests
- Henry Kissinger
That one is not his worst quote, it applies to most countries. His infamous and telling quote about this is:
“It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”
Denmark and Canada learned this first hand.
FFS no, obviously not.
There’s a serious amount of threats and hostile actions the US has taken against Europe. And it’s not just this administration.
That’s not subjectieve.
Americas ally is money, strangely so is Europes.
Nope
Sadly, no. Too many people that don’t understand politics and are tribal so keep digging their holes deeper but won’t stop, to remain on their team. They are selfish and call it independent, and a bunch of other fables they cling to for cheap, conditional identity. They’re that desperate for belonging they stay in the abusive and conditional group, or swing back and forth w/o real thought.
Short answer : no
Murican here. We aren’t even our own ally. Any country that considers us an ally is looking through rose-tinted goggles at what we could be, and clinging to that fantasy while ignoring what we are.
We need to get our shit together and actually keep it that way for at least a few decades before I’d expect any measure of trust from the global community.
Until then, yeah I wouldn’t sign any agreements with the US that extend past a presidential administration cuz as soon as a relatively good one leaves, we’re liable to put another hue-shifted Hitler in power.
Took the words out of my mouth, the USA is the enemy of its own citizens!
Also American here. The very stupid but correct answer is that America is an ally of Europe when the president is a Democrat, and America is not at all an ally when the president is a Republican. Which sadly means we cannot be a trusted ally and Europe would be wise to buy weapons elsewhere and create alliances elsewhere.
Spoiler: the answer is “no”. If you must fear that every four or so years, your supposed “ally” will be taken over by a traitorous, corrupt moron, you have! No! Ally!
Fool me once, fool me twice, and all that jazz.
Now geht on with it!
I think more Europeans need to realise that the only countries which care about the security of European countries are European countries.
Canada enters the group chat.
Which is what realists have told us all along, post-cold-war optimism be damned… We were bloody naive.
Eh, not necessarily. In the last decade or two though… yeah, definitely. I don’t think the US will ever recover the good will we once had.
This sentiment is a major part of the MAGA platform - just swap “European” for “American.”
Why become isolationist? It’s a weak position. What about countries like Canada, Japan, India, Mexico, etc? Just because the US sucks right now doesn’t mean the rest of the world shouldn’t work together.
I definitely think Europe should have strong relationships with good allies, like Canada and Japan. Hopefully they would both be reliable.
Mexico, potentially yes, they could be a reliable ally. As for India I’m not so sure, because India seems to want to be quite friendly with Russia (I think India buys a lot of military equipment from Russia), and Russia has been waging war against Europe for the last 12 years.
India has been a Russian ally since the West backed Pakistan in their war 60 years ago.
Just because they are purportedly a democracy doesn’t make them western allies in any way. They claimed to be neutral (3rd world) during the cold war and after, but look at their actions, look at where they buy weapons, who they trade with.
They’re mercantilist first just like China, but be under no delusion they would not hesitate to sell us out for pennies if we were foolish enough to embrace them.
This was a call for independence (particularly with regard to defense), not for isolationism. They may share some features, but are two are very different things indeed.
“Security” connotes more than military defense. It’s often a concern of economy, which is secured through trade and partnership and international alliance.
But tell me specifically the difference between becoming more independent vs isolationist. Are you simply advocating for stronger European militaries? Ironically, MAGA has also been asking for that - they want Europe to spend more on their militaries.
My position is that the stronger and more prolific the alliances are among nations of the world, the less each individual country will need to spend on militarization (a complete waste of resources). That’s not suggesting that Europe shouldn’t be spending more on their militaries in light of recent events. That’s just an unfortunate consequence of a shitty disposition of US isolationism.
Independence rhetoric does closely align with the rise of right wing nationalism we see throughout the world. I’m curious how you distance yourself from that movement.
“Security” connotes more than military defense. It’s often a concern of economy, which is secured through trade and partnership and international alliance.
You’re not wrong, there are broader and narrower definitions of security. For the purposes of my posting, I used it in a more narrow, defensive meaning.
But tell me specifically the difference between becoming more independent vs isolationist.
Happy to. “Independent”, in a security/defensive context, means that you can organise your own defense if need be. This does not mean that you’re unwilling to cooperate. Like you said correctly, there are great benefits to be had from military alliances: joint development means reduced R&D and maintenance costs for everyone involved. Compatible command structures and shared strategies improve security for those inside and deterrence of those outside the alliance. But: if allegiances shift and your former partners drop out of the alliance, you’re not opening yourself up to any vulnerabilities - unlike large parts of Europe, which has entirely relied on the U.S. for things like air defense, intelligence and nuclear deterrence, but also conventional land operations, and now needs to build up these capabilities in a rush.
“Isolationism”, on the other hand, means you’re flat-out unwilling to cooperate or care. You refuse to enter alliances, be bound by treaties of any kind, and generally take no interest in getting involved with the rest of the world, including the use of soft power.
The reason you’re suspicious of the word “independence” and connect it to right-wing populism is because, like so many other words, right-wing populists love to abuse it: they say “independence” because it has a nicer ring to it, but in fact, they seek isolationism. And in doing so, they actually weaken their nations by passing up the benefits of cooperation. I dare not say whether that is up to irony or design - because they were bought by foreign powers looking to weaken the nation in question.
“Security” connotes more than military defense. It’s often a concern of economy, which is secured through trade and partnership and international alliance.
More spending doesn’t automatically equal stronger. Especially if you’re spending that money on highly complex equipment produced by an openly hostile third party, which can end its supply of spare parts at any moment and therefore render the capabilities purchased with that equipment all but useless.
Obviously not.
This is reaching “battered spouse” levels of delusion that the question is still being asked even.
There is no delusion… or incompetence… or stupidity… or whatever other lie voters tell themselves to explain their politicians idiocy. It’s basically always corruption.
Take a look at the two world wars. European “allies” went to war. Their allies joined. USA refrained until either they were attacked or it looked like not getting involved would harm them. In other words, USA are allies when it suits them. This has always been the case.
Was the US any ally of Europe at the time? Who in Europe did the United States have mutual defense pacts with in the 1910s or 1930s? Nobody’s asking why Brazil didn’t storm the beaches of Normandy.
“Why didn’t the United States take on great national expense in lives and materiel to intervene the way I wanted them to in a war that had nothing to do with them in another hemisphere for no reason?” What are you, a woman? What do we get in return, your presence?
The United States was the primary dumping ground for refugees from European massacres for a couple of centuries. We took your poor, your downtrodden, your unwashed masses in such quantity and regularity we had to set up an industrial scale delousing factory on Ellis Island. And it wasn’t going to fucking stop with that PPK round through Hitler’s dome; Komrade Stalin.ml picked right up where the world’s shittiest Charlie Chaplain impersonator left off and started starving a city to death, and we had to save the day again and then Truman says ENOUGH OF YOUR HORSE SHIT and formed NATO.
In the 1840’s the British tried to take advantage of a potato blight as an excuse to starve an island to death, the United States took on 1.5 million hungry Irishmen. That’s whose side you want me to fight for?
Fucking hypocrite Europeans talking about how bad things were when the United States stayed in our hemisphere and didn’t start global shit.
WW1 was free for all between empires. WW2 you can talk about allies.
Nope, not really. In WW1 there were two main coalitions, the Central Powers (the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Bulgaria) on one side and the Triple Entente (French Third Republic, the United Kingdom and the Russian Empire) on the other.
WW1 was a world war mostly due to those nations being colonial powers (including the British Dominions (Commonwealth) for simplicity). Some “associated powers” joined the Entente (a name that was replaced by the term Allied Powers over time) with the beginning of the war, shortly after and in general over the course of the war (most notably the USA in 1917), and the Russian Empire left in 1917 (due to some revolution stuff, but different chapter and they did not “change sides” or something) but the only nation that actually changed sides during the war was the Kingdom of Italy that after not participating initially joined the Allies in 1915 (they were part of a Triple Alliance with the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire before the war).
So no, it was not “free for all Empire vs Empire” in WW1, it was two very stable military alliances against each other whose members controlled most of the globe at that time.Yes of course. But during WW1 alliances really weren’t stable when you look at a bigger picture. It was much more opportunistic than ww2. Germany vs Austria, Austria vs Ottomans, British Empire vs Russia, British vs French.
Latter we had this more homogeneous allied block.
I am not aware of any inner-alliance battles fought during WW1. And I don’t think there were any. But if you know more than that and can provide sources, please, I am always interested in learning new things.
These wars were preceding WW1. But of course weren’t nowhere as big. 19th century was eventful.
Yes, there were wars before WW1. But those were not WW1 and you cant say “WW1 was free for all among Empires” based on events that were not WW1. WW1 was not “free for all”, there were clear alliances that held all war long. Your claim is bullshit and you should correct it.
Hey, at least we can all agree on supporting Israel!
The best ally’s are ones that you don’t have to rely on when they’ve time and again been fair weather.
Europe needs to be able to stand on its own feet for more equal footing.
