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- cross-posted to:
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BRUSSELS — United States arms-makers are being frozen out of the European Union’s massive new defense spending plan, which aims to splash the cash for EU and allied countries, according to defense spending plans released Wednesday.
Also left out — for now — is the United Kingdom.
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It’s pretty normal right? Trump’s tariffs make all US goods more expensive, so why pay more to a country that is undermining your economy when Europe can do it cheaper and more reliable elsewhere?
US poltical cultural and financial hedgemony:
These 🤡 dont understand why the US is/ was able to become the global super power, for a time.
The only hope for the US not becoming a repeat of 1920s Germany at this point is that they’re too stupid to make it happen.
I think they’re already in the 1930’s
The only hope for the US not becoming a repeat of 1920s Germany
Its seeming like they are trying to speed run it. What I think they may have failed to understand was that global integration with the US was a relationship of consent and respect.
I forget who said it recently… something like “You dont have the cards”… their name escapes me. Global chip manufacturing, RAM, automobile components, silicon wafers, lithium, lumber, and on and on and on…
Its far easier for the world to get along without the US than it is for the US to get along without the rest of the world.
Pat Buchanan:
“If we don’t stop behaving like the British Empire we will end up like the British Empire.”
You dont have the cards
that was vice president and vice puppet JD Vance
global integration with the US was a relationship of consent and respect.
i think the trumpists understand perfectly and that’s why they’re working to destroy it.
i think the trumpists understand perfectly and that’s why they’re working to destroy it
I honestly think there is a good portion of the fan base who fully drink the koolaid and think other countries are not viable without them. And have forgotten or not understood America is the world police by their own choice
Yup, so many of my fellow Americans simply don’t understand literally anything about diplomacy and soft power. No concept of the give and take, fully fail to understand that we’ve burned allies and simply won’t be invited to the table as often if at all.
The complete abandonment of 100+ years of building soft and hard power globally has certainly been a wild choice.
The same was true for Nazi Germany. They didn’t have the oil to run a war or many of the other resources, and they only had such amazing military success because every other nations was slow in rearming after the peace of the previous war. That and appeasement.
Slow in rearming? France had an army absolutely equal to Germany. Look at the stats: battle of France. The point is that Germany saw a shift in technology and what that meant for warfare and were faster with that. The same way drones are now the mayor thing and help Ukraine defend itself.
And France didn’t think to extend the Maginot line
This is false, or at least myopic. They wanted to force the Germans into the Benelux, it was part of the plan, because no one foresaw the German breakthrough, not even the Germans.
You can say they would have been better off with an extended line, and that’s true, but you could also say they should have had better tanks, more motorized infantry, or a larger air force instead of planning for WW1: 2 again and that would also be true.
You can also say the Dutch shouldn’t have been so easy to conquer, with fortifications or their own.
Hey, don’t talk like that about us, we cleared some bushes at the border so we could see them coming and cycle away in time.
The stupid coil of shit thinks he’s Cool Hand Luke.
Oooh… Trumps actions are starting to negatively affect Halliburton and Black Rock. That’s how you end up with an “unsanctioned black op” on your ass. I always said Trumps downfall will be pissing people off by messing with their money.
Idk, this may be why we have to slaughter a whole new generation to deal with the “European problem.” That’d make everyone some fat stacks and kill off the poors, so win-win.
The American Military-Industrial Complex hurt itself in its confusion!
The American MIC used Stir Conflict again
The best way to hurt the US is to remove the flow of cash into corporate hands.
Everyone, please cancel your amazon account if you haven’t already
Not just ANY corporate hands, this is the US military industrial complex we’re talking about. They’re not going to be happy lmao
If stuff like this doesn’t elicit some kind of response from those “deep state” folks I keep hearing about then I think it’s safe to say they don’t exist. What would they be hiding that power and influence for if not to protect their interests from an idiot like Trump ruining the game for them?
What if Trump is their idiot?
They probably have cyberpunk like ambitions at legal corporate armies and the dismantlement of all nations and powers able to contend with them as their long term goal. As long as it is just money lost in the short to mid term I could well see those kinds of people go along with the circus.
What everyone talks about is losing Europe as a customer, which then increases US costs. What no one is talking about is Europe becoming a huge arms exporter, which then competes with US equipment which then increases US costs. Right now Europe gives not very good options, but a few decades of integrating their product line and bringing costs down from coordination and they will have excellent products. This moves Europe from not just a purchaser to a non-purchaser, but to a competitor.
I disagree with one point you made, Europe has some of the best weapon systems ever made, they are being made today all over Europe.
What we are lacking is the production capacity.
Which is exactly the position you want to be in when you are not currently at war
Unless you foresee war on the horizon.
I feel like Europe has a leg up in this situation and can scale into it faster than people expect as well. Many European nations have experience in joint projects either with the US (like Germany with the Leopard 2 coming out of the same program as the US M1 Abrams and probably being the biggest export MBT outside of Soviet tanks from the Cold War) or with each other (like with the Eurofighter, the standardization of ammunition, and every NATO nation using the Rheinmetall L7 120mm smoothbore cannon as the gun on their tanks). Every NATO nation - and even plenty outside of it - are already on a standardized logistics platform, and moving that away from any American standard would be as easy as using an American standard, and could prove difficult for American arms manufacturers if the two diverge and NATO nations suddenly become an “export market.”
What I mean is they have to streamline it. The Leopard 2 currently has to compete with the Leclerc and the Challenger 2. Having 3 tanks means 3x R&D and more costly manufacturing and support. Eurofighter has to compete with Rafale and Gripen. Just the eurofighter engine has 4 manufacturers and must be a coordination nightmare. How many rifle designs are there? How many IFV designs? APC designs? Streamline this and you get a better quality product at a lower cost and you have a more competitive product for export. Even for non export there are 2 carrier designs, 2 nuclear Sub designs, etc.
Are new LeClerc and Challengers even produced currently?
Some competition, diversity, and redundancy isn’t bad strategically and helps improve development and quality.
Countries also have different geography and infrastructure that might lead to preferring other models of IFVs for example. Not every country needs it to be easily air transportable or able to swim.
Spreading production and spending throughout Europe is fair as well.
That isn’t necessarily an issue. The US uses their own designs as well, so if you count them, you can add an additional 1 or more to every category. You have the Abrams, as well as the F-15, F-16, A-10, C-130 and AC-130, B-52, B-2, Bradley IFV, Striker IFV and variants (if we still even use those), M109, etc. Even between different branches of the military, they use totally different designs for the same role. The army, air force, and navy all use Blackhawks for their transport helicopter, but the marines use Super Hueys, a refit of the Vietnam era Huey. Even the Abrams has multiple variants, such as the short barrel one that’s been used in the forever war in the Middle East, as well as tons of armor kits and equipment packages produced by different companies. Hell, the world’s first purpose-built sniper rifle that wasn’t just the best firing of the infantry rifles they had on hand was built by 2 guys in a shed in England who made match rifles for shooting competitions, and the current US sniper rifle is a civilian hunting rifle.
You can have different planes for their different roles and functions. That’s different than each country making their version based on wanting to protect their own industry. And you can have design progression, also different than each country doing their own thing. Sorry but short barrelled is so minor, the European tanks are completely different tanks.
US about FA… gonna be decades of FO.
Biggest fail in geopolitics since USSR collapsed under itself after generations of clown management.
I think the FA phase will come much sooner than that. It’s right around the corner.
I think the FA had been going on for at least a few weeks now, if not a lot longer.
I think lessons need to be learned before that description can be accurately applied. Whether or not we’ve learned anything from this remains to be seen.
I think you’re confusing the “Fuck Around” with the “Find Out.”
It makes sense for the UK to be out as it’s not in the EU. However the UK and EU may end up making a deal on shared procurement which makes sense for both.
Most of the top 10 biggest defence companies are US or Chinese, with 1 russian company. The largest defence company in Europe is BAE in the UK, and the only one in the top 10.
There are 5 more EU companies in the top 30, and another UK company.
A shared procurement deal would allow a bigger choice of companies and competitive procurement to keep costs down. There is a real risk for the EU (and the UK) of inflated costs if they limit procurement to a small group of European companies that don’t have to compete with the big american companies for the contracts.
I think it’s right to exclude the US, but then the pool of companies needs to be as big as possible to allow competitive tendering.
Cool.
