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Although this thread does not function under the same strict guidelines as the USPMT, it is still a general practice on TL to provide a source with an explanation on why it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion. Failure to do so will result in a mod action. |
On May 30 2017 00:11 LegalLord wrote:
If you find some sort of fulfillment in "proving someone wrong" through pointless repetition of content-less one-liners, far be it from me to care, much less try to stop you. Not that any depth of content ever gets answered with more than that.
And a laugh is all that Merkel's delusional dismissal of the US, much less Britain, as "not allies of Europe", deserves. I guess they are a bit too happy that a pro-EU unprincipled demagogue managed to defeat the daughter of a fascist. I mean sure, the reverse would have been better, but Macron is almost worth it just to see how desperately the Europhiles laud him as something more than a "lesser evil" choice.
What reverse would have been better, the daughter of a fascist winning the French election? I don't even understand this lesser evil nonsense, democracies are supposed to produce lesser evils, the elected representative are supposed to represented everybody, necessary moving slowly and with consensus. Democracy is not the form of government that produces tinpot autocrats who promise you god knows what at the expense of a half of the population, at least if it works that is.
And although unusually strong there wasn't anything delusional about Merkel's statement. If the US and the UK elect increasingly erratic leaders (UK probably still being much more reliable) then the EU will look elsewhere.
Also Schulz chiming in on the G7 summit:
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Daughter of a fascist (who is herself merely an opportunist) would probably have been better, yeah. Though I can respect and understand why people think otherwise. The "lesser evil" issue is more one of trying to claim a win to be more than it actually is. Macron won because he was preferable to Le Pen, not because "we love Europe and want so much of it that we can drown in it" like the Europhiles want it to be.
Over the years, I've gotten to know Merkel's MO on European unity: everyone is an ally and a dear partner until they decide they really aren't too fond of her specific policy prescriptions. List of evil people include Jar of Coleslaw Kaczynski, Viktor Orban, Theresa May, Alexander Tsipras, and many others who aren't "Europe" material, within and without the EU, unless of course they back down and return to the proper political affiliation of course. Trying to pretend that that's unity is definitely properly described as delusional.
Personally I think that the Euro-populists who tied their fortunes to Trump were wrong to do so. That will probably bury the current batch until a more sane batch siphons their voter base.
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I wonder if LL has even read more than a headline about what Merkel said... not that he would care if he did, he would probably still spout this bs
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Eh, your "everyone who disagrees with me doesnt know what theys talkin bout" game gets quite old. Doesn't somehow become more right with repetition neither.
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The thing LL is that I think what your expecting to happen already has and no one cares. Germany is always going to be an destabilizing force without a counterweight of an Anglo Franco membership. With the UK never really being that into the EU it's going to remain and be ever increasingly a German dominated continent. That Germany has no either intent or ability to have a relevant foreign policy means that the continent will never be that relevant on the world stage until it forms a federation like the United states.
That being said I don't think the euros really mind and are happy not being responsible for what might happen in the world anymore. A couple hundred years of trying to take over the world will do that.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
I don't think you properly gauge "what I expect to happen" though. I'm not of the group that thinks that Germany is going to dominate the continent. Though it's easily the strongest EU member in all ways that matter save for nuclear capabilities, it's not strong enough to dominate Europe even if it tried. It's more that it's clearly the core beneficiary of the status quo in the EU so it would be the one most expected to toe the line and make pretend consensus on all issues. The problem is that while the idea of a unified coalition of European nations is nice, it's increasingly looking like an unfeasible proposition.
The moment Europe stopped empiring was the moment that it no longer was capable of it. There was little moral prerogative for that. I suppose it's an interesting, if hardly relevant, irony that the Belgium that houses the EU's capital was a particularly famous example of brutal empiring. No one got "tired" of "taking over the world," they just lost the ability. And the longer term future for most EU nations is kind of grim. It's not clear that there is any way for them to reverse their fading relevance.
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Look here, that's exactly what you with your delusions of nationalistic grandeur fail to grasp: nobody gives a shit about being "relevant". Most Europeans just don't care about ruling the world, because we aren't colonialist pigs anymore, but (mostly) civilized people. The long term future for EU nations is in no way grim, as we continue to develop technologies, ecology, society and education, and because we do it together in a huge crowd, we do it most efficiently in the whole world. Can you please term, which countries do you consider as having better "long term future" than the EU ones? And by that I mean future of high standard of living, modern free and equal society and sustainable environment, not future of fulfilling some weird fetishist fantasy of meddling with lives of other people.
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I'm pretty sure the UK and France would kick our asses if we're talking about military strenght, even ignoring nukes. Not that it particularly matters.
That might change in the future if the rift between EU <-> US becomes bigger but I don't think it's something you can change from 1 day to the next
Which btw is kind of hilarious. I remember that article from the independent someone linked in the US thread about merkel saying that you can't trust some allies (hint: the US) anymore and I see people talking in the comment section about how if Germany tries to build up more military rivaling that of the UK they'll just bomb us into pieces again. Like, no matter what you do it's bad. Need to spend more but not get stronger in military or else UK feels sad~
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
In terms of current military strength, yes, Germany falls up short compared to the UK and France. But its industrial capacity is vastly superior and it would be an easy game of catch-up.
Nuclear weapons are slightly different though, in that publicly acknowledged and accepted possession of them comes with certain privileges and responsibilities on the world arena. Germany would probably be able to make nuclear weapons within a couple of years, a decade tops, if they so desired, but good luck gaining international approval for that. It's probably better to try once more to squeeze France or the UK into giving its UNSC permanent seat to the EU.
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On May 30 2017 02:43 LegalLord wrote:
I don't think you properly gauge "what I expect to happen" though. I'm not of the group that thinks that Germany is going to dominate the continent. Though it's easily the strongest EU member in all ways that matter save for nuclear capabilities, it's not strong enough to dominate Europe even if it tried. It's more that it's clearly the core beneficiary of the status quo in the EU so it would be the one most expected to toe the line and make pretend consensus on all issues. The problem is that while the idea of a unified coalition of European nations is nice, it's increasingly looking like an unfeasible proposition.
The moment Europe stopped empiring was the moment that it no longer was capable of it. There was little moral prerogative for that. I suppose it's an interesting, if hardly relevant, irony that the Belgium that houses the EU's capital was a particularly famous example of brutal empiring. No one got "tired" of "taking over the world," they just lost the ability. And the longer term future for most EU nations is kind of grim. It's not clear that there is any way for them to reverse their fading relevance.
a unified European coalition is very feasible. Don't just look a the somewhat messed up institutions. On many actual core issues namely the role of the state, social welfare, the role of religion in public life, foreign policy and so on European countries are actually remarkably uniform.
A federation isn't worth a dime if half of your population lives on another planet. In one state of the US you can smoke pot on the streets and in another they'll chop your head off for it. Sure the US has better federal institutions, but the divide is arguably much larger than in the EU when core values are concerned. We don't have to debate women's rights here or fight out race wars on campuses.
Once the EU manages to overcome national atavisms and finally creates better functioning institutions we'll be just fine.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Honestly that sounds a little too much like the "vague unspecified reform" that I keep hearing about which is little more than a consistent push for further integration. While there is certainly lots of room for intra-European cooperation on many issues it's hardly clear that they are meant to be one country, save for out of some need to be able to compete with all those evil single-nation outsiders that gained dominance as Europe's influence abroad faded.
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On May 30 2017 00:27 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2017 00:11 LegalLord wrote:
If you find some sort of fulfillment in "proving someone wrong" through pointless repetition of content-less one-liners, far be it from me to care, much less try to stop you. Not that any depth of content ever gets answered with more than that.
And a laugh is all that Merkel's delusional dismissal of the US, much less Britain, as "not allies of Europe", deserves. I guess they are a bit too happy that a pro-EU unprincipled demagogue managed to defeat the daughter of a fascist. I mean sure, the reverse would have been better, but Macron is almost worth it just to see how desperately the Europhiles laud him as something more than a "lesser evil" choice. What reverse would have been better, the daughter of a fascist winning the French election? I don't even understand this lesser evil nonsense, democracies are supposed to produce lesser evils, the elected representative are supposed to represented everybody, necessary moving slowly and with consensus. Democracy is not the form of government that produces tinpot autocrats who promise you god knows what at the expense of a half of the population, at least if it works that is. And although unusually strong there wasn't anything delusional about Merkel's statement. If the US and the UK elect increasingly erratic leaders (UK probably still being much more reliable) then the EU will look elsewhere. Also Schulz chiming in on the G7 summit: https://twitter.com/newschambers/status/869136084390866946
I understand that Schulz needs to show his voters that those evil populists cannot be tolerated but does he have any concrete ideas on how to react to Trump being Trump besides voicing outrage?
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On May 30 2017 02:59 LegalLord wrote:
In terms of current military strength, yes, Germany falls up short compared to the UK and France. But its industrial capacity is vastly superior and it would be an easy game of catch-up.
Nuclear weapons are slightly different though, in that publicly acknowledged and accepted possession of them comes with certain privileges and responsibilities on the world arena. Germany would probably be able to make nuclear weapons within a couple of years, a decade tops, if they so desired, but good luck gaining international approval for that. It's probably better to try once more to squeeze France or the UK into giving its UNSC permanent seat to the EU.
If unchecked Germany could probably make a nuke in 6 months or so. As North Korea has clearly demonstrated the real challenge lies with the delivery system. How potent the weapon would be is another question.
Public opinion and "having nukes" is also not a problem since you can go Schrödingers nuke if you want to.
Develop a suitable weapon system for delivery, acquire a shitload of centrifuges which you put in storage and have some non weapon grade fissile material on hand somewhere.
You can now honestly say that you don't have nukes and you have no plans to make any. But if the situation starts changing into something where you could conceivably have a need for a weapon you could make one really quickly.
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On May 30 2017 03:21 Sent. wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2017 00:27 Nyxisto wrote:On May 30 2017 00:11 LegalLord wrote:
If you find some sort of fulfillment in "proving someone wrong" through pointless repetition of content-less one-liners, far be it from me to care, much less try to stop you. Not that any depth of content ever gets answered with more than that.
And a laugh is all that Merkel's delusional dismissal of the US, much less Britain, as "not allies of Europe", deserves. I guess they are a bit too happy that a pro-EU unprincipled demagogue managed to defeat the daughter of a fascist. I mean sure, the reverse would have been better, but Macron is almost worth it just to see how desperately the Europhiles laud him as something more than a "lesser evil" choice. What reverse would have been better, the daughter of a fascist winning the French election? I don't even understand this lesser evil nonsense, democracies are supposed to produce lesser evils, the elected representative are supposed to represented everybody, necessary moving slowly and with consensus. Democracy is not the form of government that produces tinpot autocrats who promise you god knows what at the expense of a half of the population, at least if it works that is. And although unusually strong there wasn't anything delusional about Merkel's statement. If the US and the UK elect increasingly erratic leaders (UK probably still being much more reliable) then the EU will look elsewhere. Also Schulz chiming in on the G7 summit: https://twitter.com/newschambers/status/869136084390866946 I understand that Schulz needs to show his voters that those evil populists cannot be tolerated but does he have any concrete ideas on how to react to Trump being Trump besides voicing outrage?
I don't think anybody knows how to effectively oppose Trump honestly, neither on the inside or outside. That's the problem, the US is way too big to be in any way directly confronted. Might as well just hop onto the Chinese one-belt-one-road hypetrain and try to maneuver around the US.
It's kind of sad overall that the situation has deteroiated to the point where we are discussing how to erect a cordon sanitaire around the US.
also what's up with the nukes, we don't want any of them. That might be the single most unpopular thing in Germany. France and the UK got plenty if we feel like ending the world
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Making any form of rocket is not a simple task and especially not one with a nuclear warhead that could be used effectively. While Germany's advanced technological status is nothing to sneer at, the technical challenges are nothing to sneer at. I think six months would be a stretch even with a "waste anything but time" approach in which Germany would throw all the money they have at the task, even for just the warhead. nvm, see below
"Schrödingers nuke" would be what I'd call "taking an Israel" on the matter. Not sure that's a great approach. Certainly wouldn't give you UNSC status or anything of the sort.
Edit: actually, I take back the "time to nuke" comments. Germany apparently already does a fair bit of work that would mean they're not starting from scratch. Acknowledged nuclear status is a different beast though.
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I acknowledged the fact that rockets are hard as hell to make. They could still make a bomb that could be dropped from an airplane in a short amount of time. Which would be ineffective but still.
So if you want to have the option without committing to it you need to have the delivery system in place. It's more acceptable to make a large missile (maybe not an ICBM) than it is to make a nuclear weapon.
And by this point the cat is out of the box when it comes to Israel.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Israel still doesn't acknowledge their nukes officially. That's all that really matters.
I wouldn't be surprised if Germany has some unassembled nukes ready to go, since for such a nation it would be a prudent choice to have that. But they don't have the official "nuclear nation" status and it doesn't seem likely to change soon.
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There is no prudent reason to having nukes and not announcing it. The only reason to have nukes is to tell the world you have nukes.
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That's just another case of LL projecting his 19th century logic on others. I am pretty sure Germany doesn't have any clandestine nukes ready in the basement, because Germany is an advanced civic society, where shit like that just doesn't fly. If it was true and ever surfaced, then every politician that ever came near to it and their party is done for good.
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I'm pretty sure most western countries have nukes although they're from the US. The Netherlands has US nukes at least although nobody officially admits it.
Actually I'm not even sure they're US nukes. The nukes are there though.
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EPT
