134
‘Trump-proof’ European security by setting up ‘Nato bank’, thinktanks urge
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2024
134 points (95.9% liked)
World News
39019 readers
2327 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News [email protected]
Politics [email protected]
World Politics [email protected]
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Just because the US government likes to funnel trillions to their military industrial complex instead of healthcare, doesn't mean the rest of NATO has to do the same. Even without the US, NATO already spends more on defense than Russia and China combined, even before the invasion of Ukraine.
USA already spends more on healthcare than Europe does, they just get worse results and less healthcare per dollar. The US would be able to afford to spend even more on weapons if they got their shit together and de-privitized their healthcare system.
Most of the EU has missed the target GDP spend by a significant margin for decades. The failure to penalize the annexation of Crimea and the EU's almost wholesale inability to provide material to Ukraine without compromising their own defensive postures can be traced heavily to this funding failure.
Obama's soft stance on Russia was certainly a large part of our current situation, but Merkel and the overly pacified EU were major contributors as well.
The 2 percent of GDP target is imaginary. They made it up, in no small part because of lobbying from the defense industry. There is no reason for NATO to spend so much more than all other countries combined.
Stopping Russia should have been done through economic and diplomatic means. No amount of NATO bombs or tanks would have stopped the invasion. It only would have fueled the flames and given legitimacy to Russia's claimed insecurity. Economic power is much stronger than military sabre rattling. The EU is founded on that exact principle and it's the reason why it's still together.
The target was set so that no country would be able to join NATO and then just let everyone else pay for everything. You contribute to the common defense or you GTFO.
We can bicker about 2% being too high or too low and whether the target should have been adjusted Post Cold War but any argument that some target isn't necessary is just silliness.
Oh I'm fairly certain that NATO military power would have stopped the invasion in the first 24 hours. A single flight of F-35s would have made those original Russian convoy's cease to exist à la the Highway of Death from 1991.
Even now NATO military power could substantially end the ground war in Ukraine before the end of the month.
So what? NATO didn't do it and there's STILL an ongoing war with a casualty toll well over a million and millions more displaced.
Then the EU should have flexed them in 2014. They didn't and here we are.