• Ms. Merkel Identifies U.S. as global rival that, along with PRC and Russia...
    38 replies, posted
https://www.newsweek.com/angela-merkel-identifies-us-global-rival-along-china-and-russia-europe-must-1426742?amp=1 German Chancellor Angela Merkel lumped in the United States with Europe’s other global adversaries on Wednesday, arguing that the countries on the continent need to band together against the challenges posed by Russia, China and the U.S.
Really depressing that a close political relationship over decades has been destroyed by one idiot.
One idiot and his fascistic party
Germany should probably leave NATO if they see the US as an adversary rather than the ally that has protected them for 70 years
Would make more sense for the US to leave since the majority of NATO members are European.
Its called the North Atlantic treaty organisation for a reason lmao
What about Canada, then?
It's going to take a herculean effort for America to get back into favour because of the damage they have caused.
Honestly, the only way I see America ever being regarded as a close and reliable ally again, is by cutting away the Republicans entirely. They're way too hostile to anyone who will not bow to their demands, and they borderline demanding fealty from Europe.
I know that but that doesn't change what its primary objective was.
there's more to it, Bush also was an idiot that tore up our friendships.
He wasn't imposing tariffs on the EU and threatening to leave NATO though. I remember the Bush administration criticising France a lot due to them being against the Iraq war but it was nowhere near as bad.
The only way I see America cutting away the Republicans is the US politically shattering. Its going to take a catastrophic event that the republicans can't fix to lead them being cut away.
after iraq turned out to be based on fabricated evidence the germans didn't exactly have a good outlook on Bush. Also, its a brroken record policy, Bush did impose steel tariffs on all our allies he just never went so far as to fully implement them and then lost in the wto so they revoked them
If another world war happens, the us will be on the axis side this time. This is history being made.
It's more than that I think. Like a longer term change in circumstances. The global economic/political landscape has changed, and will keep changing. Relationships gotta change too. In the past the US had "special relationship" with Europe not only because of the cold war (as a means of political influence against the soviets) but also as a means of creating markets via the marshal plan, repurposing US industry away from military production (post ww2) toward consumer goods to stimulate it's own economy as a kind of macro scale international consumer side economics. Put simply to use europe and japan (and planned to use korea) as consumers to stimulate it's economy. Since then the American economy has changed massively, it's shifted to supply side neoliberal (the modern use of the word) economics; the economic relationship between the US and EU has completely changed, the roles we used to play aren't relevant anymore, we don't need each other in that way anymore. So we increasingly interact as equals which can lead to competition, especially where our politics don't align (US being very much more "free market" than European countries with their public sector and regulations) There are emerging conflicts of interest, biggest of all is the EU's growing power being a treat to US hegemony. The strength of the Dollar (since they moved away from the gold standard entirely) is decided entirely by people using it and the biggest contributor to that strength is oil trade, countries using the dollar to trade oil. A country moving away from the Dollar poses a huge threat to US stability. As the EU grows (in size and power) it becomes more convenient for countries to trade using Euros rather than Dollars.
The name doesn't have to mean anything lmao
US-led interventionist policies that have caused mass displacement, contributed to the refugee crisis and Islamic radicalism with our neighbours in North Africa and the Middle East is probably a good incentive not to align with the US as well.
The Republican party benefits massively from our continued use of FPTP voting, which suppresses all other right-wing parties, along with a bunch of other undemocratic bullshit that it and the Democrats abuse constantly to stay in power (though usually over one another in those cases). The big obstacles are the number of people who are in our government who either don't know what's wrong with it who aren't willing to do anything about it, and the enormous number of Americans who treat the constitution as its' currently worded as a flawless document that is effectively word of god when it is in dire need of an update.
Seeing Russia in the same sentence as the USA or China is kind of funny They are nowhere close to the latter two, in no single field. No economic threat, only militarily and even there the EU is ahead of them
I dont wanna be WW3 Poland
They're a big political threat, Russia has been fucking around in US and European politics and succeding at it, they don't need a big army if their game is to just skew a country's politics in their favour to the point they end up sucking Russia's dick.
ww2 soldiers are rolling in their graves
While FPTP is shit and needs to change, it wouldn't matter if we had an alternative voting system. The right wing has historically always unified under one party a lot more easily than the left wing. Just look at any country that has a parliamentary voting system that allows third parties to have a chance. almost every single one has 3-4 left wing parties and a right wing party with a far-right wing party as a flavor of the month if you're lucky. Look at Canada, the UK, Australia (the coalition basically acts as one big party), Germany, France, etc.
This. It was never in the books that our interests would align with Germany as it does with Britain and to a lesser degree France. Stressors in crunch times always expose this because it exposes differing stakes. When it comes to this, I would argue the wildly different response to the Ukraine crisis did more to show our differences with Germany than Trump.
Axis 2.0, this time, with 100% more MAGA.
That's not true, we only have two left-wing parties in federal parliment (ALP & Greens), compare that to the three centralist parties and 6 seperate right wing parties (that's not couting the Coalition). Almost all elected parties in Australia are slanted towards the centre or the right, in fact even if you include state governments there are only four leftist parties in power country wide.
Make Axis Great Again
Not sure this is the case in the UK anymore. Talking strictly economically we have: Green - Left Labour - Left SNP/other left wing regional parties - Left Lib dems - Right (economically they are right wing) CUK - Right (between Lib dem and Tories) Tories - Very right wing UKIP - Even further right wing Brexit Party - Same as UKIP, possibly further right Parties here are mostly right wing economically. Unpopular opinion: Some forms of ranked choice/alternative vote could cause a landslide of success for economically (and socially) far right parties. UKIP, Brexit (and Green) all got relatively more votes than they did MPs in the past, an alternative voting system would give UKIP, Brexit and Green party far more representation in parliament. Many working class people who used to vote for Labour now vote for, or are on the verge of voting for, UKIP/Brexit. If we had ranked choice then UKIP/Brexit party would be far far far more popular than they currently are. You might think FPTP is gameable (with jerrymandering and the like) but other forms of voting are exploitable too. All far right populists need to do is spam single issue parties (anti immigrant, pro fishing, pro "bring our jobs back", pro troops, pro freedom of speech, pro "traditional values", anti tax, generic make UK great again), voters will vote for those parties then those parties can form a coalition (probably with the tories) in the commons to get power. The economic left can do this but the crucial difference is money. Far right parties get a bunch of funding from businsses (people like Koch, Mercer, Prince, Farage's backers). Don't put all your hope into alternate forms of voting, the right wing are smart. Stuff like cambridge analytica shows they understand how to (and are willing to) manipulate people and the system far better than their rivals.
Why don't you leave the playground if you think that I'm not playing fair?
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