- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
Summary
European officials are preparing a multibillion-dollar defense package to bolster regional security and support Ukraine, announced by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock at the Munich Security Conference.
The package, potentially valued up to 700 billion euros, will fund military training, arms deliveries, and security guarantees amid concerns over Russian aggression and diminishing U.S. contributions to NATO.
The move follows calls for Europe to boost its own defense spending while U.S.-Russian talks, which exclude Ukraine and Europe, on ending the Ukraine conflict continue.
Imagine spending 700 billions in useful things and not to fight a proxy war against russia.
Imagine not being a complete moron. I know that’s impossible for you.
Says the pro russian
If they don’t spend 700 billion on this, the “proxy” war with Russia (that is currently “cheap” for most of Europe to support), will cost them far, far, far, far more than 700 billion in a few short years/months.
This is why you support proxy wars when they’re in your interest.
It’s like outsourcing a future war to a country that won’t touch your shores.
Ukraine is getting fucked up by Russia right now. Mines, bombs, guns, battle, towns destroyed, infrastructure disruptions, etc.
You want that contained in Ukraine as much as possible. The second they lose, it will spill out into all of Europe and will be far more expensive and too late to contain.
And this is if we only strictly try and think about this fiscally. The human, social and moral side only expands from this, and are much more important, too.
Could do that if tanks weren’t rolling across the border, and missiles weren’t raining down. Could avoid the whole thing by just kneeling and kissing the ring, capitulating to economic and cultural domination by a foreign mafia. Could really simplify life by abandoning European identity, self-respect and agency to become a pawn to the East instead of looking to the West for help.
Too bad they are top strong a people for that.
Hah, strong reply. 👍
You are already doing that, bend the knee and kiss orange man and his oligarch boots.
We don’t have to imagine
Yeah, imagine ignoring the aggressor next to you in order to by nice things.
It’s not just nice things, but useful ones.
There are people living in poverty that could be brought out of it with this money. Instead it’s being used to kill each other.
Ensured sovereignty sounds pretty useful to me.
We are all humans living in the same planet countries are invisible lines draw on a map
Then you’d be fine living in a world run by Kim Jong Un, right? Countries are invisible lines.
Or under trump, as clearly its all the same right?
The world run by kim jong un is a military dictatorship that spend the equivalent of european billions in war. Unlike you i don’t want any of this shit, i would like public billions to be spend on useful things and not to fight proxy wars against made up enemies.
You’re changing the subject. I was talking about how sovereignty is useful.
And I’d say it’s pretty fucking useful when a dictator is threatening to take over where you live.
In my country the only one threatening to take over is the fascist pm who backed public billions in war. Meanwhile public services are crumbling and people are literally dying because of it
And we want to keep living, so we need to be prepared.
True: they could get decent income in a weapons factory.
Or they could get decent income in a factory building almost anything else.
I am sure the russian/US/whoever will really like all those useful things. Those people in poverty will really do well under the aggressors rule. After all they will be all given a job (disposable soldier, baby machine, etc.) and when they die their family might even get a lada.
And if Putin could calm the fuck down then we could.
Putin leverage military spending the same way: “if the west calm the fuck down we could”
USA, Russia, China, Europe they are all corrupted as fuck ruled by maniacs who seek war and power.
All of Europe? All EU leaders? Just the EU president, who has a mostly ceremonial role?
I’m being nitpicky, no state is anyone’s friend and no superpower (or wannabe) comes even half as close as a state to being on your side.
Whoever spend billions in war instead useful things is the aggressor
You have to spend money on weapons in order to have the privilege of sitting peacefully with those weapons rather than dying on your enemies.
Peace is not achieved by spending trillions in war. Look around yourself what’s happening there’s no peace.
In all of history peace has only ever been achieved by being strong enough to deter would be conquerors. Without deterrence Russia would crush Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Ukraine whilst threatening all of Europe. The US would take Canada, Greenland. NK would take South Korea. China would take Taiwan.
The world has never been free of evil powerful men who would take from their neighbors. What you think looks like peace has only ever been most of the situations being stable based in large part on people’s willingness to murder people who would come to murder and take from them. If you aren’t actually willing to fight you won’t find yourself safe very long.
Military aid between nations creates stability by drastically increasing the cost of attacking one party lest an empire expand by taking one bite at a time and becoming strong enough to threaten larger neighbors in the process.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
This phrase didn’t age well in the past 2000 years
It absolutely did.
So, the US and Russia are the aggressors, so, they need to be repelled, right?
Which costs money.
Is your point that Russia should be allowed to steam roll through Ukraine? Europe shouldn’t help their allies and neighbors defend themselves? Standing up to bullies is worse than being a bully?
Genuinely curious if you even have a point to make at all. I hope I’m just interpreting you wrong.
Nobody should help authoritarian governments and nobody should sell weapons to them. Ukranian people and the ukranian government are two different things, same goes for every country.
Nobody is standing up to shit, russians are chilling in saudi arabia docked next to americans yachts bought with money from the military industry.
Stand up against useless wars and military spending
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-preparedness-the-road-to-universal-slaughter
Meanwhile, read about Ukrainian anarchists building drones and sending supplies for their comrades in army.
They know: if you get Putin’s regime deployed on yourself, your chances for peaceful activism tumble down to nothing - you can’t even hold a blank sheet of paper.
https://takku.net/article.php/20250106233015550
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/errico-malatesta-the-european-war-and-the-international-workers-organization
World governments don’t care about ukrainians the same way they don’t care about children in gaza getting murdered. They don’t care about democracy either as they are in bed with saudi arabia and other dictatorships.
Watch out when you ear about “anarchists” fighting along side authoritarian governments because that’s something anarchists don’t do by definition.
So since adjusting by PPP Russia has spent over a trillion in USD on the war, that makes Russia the aggressor?
Is this a joke? Sorry so much time living in clown world has made it hard to tell.
I already have him flagged as a troll, so you can just ignore him.
In a world where everyone is brainwashed by state propaganda advocating for peace and military spending cut is considered a joke.
The sentiment is understandable and in a naive sense I agree, but the paradox of tolerance applies here, and it’s not so straight forward.
Sometimes you just have to punch a nazi in order to stop them getting too comfortable and getting bold. Well, right now the equivalent of the nazis here are, and have been, emboldened for over a decade, and it’s unfortunately going to take a lot of punches to stop them swallowing everyone whole and imposing even worse environments and even more poverty for all.
Here’s the paradox of tolerance to you: we are ruled by maniacs corrupted by money and power who seek war and chaos as a leverage to get more wealth and fuel their insanity. We either stop them and oppose their military spending or we are all ending up in a meat grinder fighting one against the other.
Yeah, well, say we successfully block any further military spending here in the eu.
Is Russia going to stop their spending? USA?
No?
Then what will we do when they come for us next?
This wouldn’t be a factor if our nations were almost alike and no practical changes would occur should they conquer majority of Europe, but most of Europe is comparatively in another sphere in terms of progressiveness and social stuff. Compared both to USA and Russia.
Would the 700bn used, right now, in some better causes be worth it, if in somewhat near future we’ll have our minorities in concentration camps, killed or expelled? Our social systems torn to shreds, poverty and income differences rising? The authoritarian/oligarch rule we’d get then would spend that 700bn in many multiples in warfare, but also similar amounts extra for police and other oppressive powers to silence any and all opposition.
I’m just saying there are things worth defending, such as lgbtq+ rights, (comparatively much more progressive and universal) social equality and you know, the basics such as low levels of impoverishment, guaranteed housing for everyone, quality and unhindered education etc etc.
Even if you assume the whole world is trying to invade you (which is not true) you can defend yourself even without a government spending billions on war designed to murder other people.
You are describing the scenario you don’t want to happen. Our social system is torn to shred already, poverty and income differences are rising and billions are going to oppressive powers such as the military
Russia literally said they want to take an entire list of places where 100M people live and make them Russia. The US said it intended to take CA and Greenland.
Anyone willing to stand up to defend these places would end up in a war. If everyone abandons their neighbors then there is absolutely no reason for Russia, the US, and China to divide up the world between them. These are people with their own plans, nations, cultures who don’t want to choose whose boot to live under. The only way to do this is to be able to fight.
Putin always had designs to re-create the Russian empire, with Europe included, and the US as a puppet state.
The thing is, there are no ideal options here. While the 700bn goes to violence, at least in my country I know for a fact it goes to defense, since we very explicitly have no general armed forces, only defense forces. The same is not true for Russia or the US.
But I suppose you are right in that it depends on the specific country. I’m from a progressive social democracy, the world’s happiest people multiple years in row according to some studies, so it’s easy for me to say I’d rather choose the current situation over getting Russia or US conditions here… but maybe the same is not true for all European countries. There are many, after all, and in case of Hungary, for example, I would probably feel the same as you. There wouldn’t be much of a difference, just the flavor of who gets to oppress you and your people.
But there is no choice here, in my country, in which the current social situation remains as good as it is here, and in which we also do not spend any money on defense, local as well as Europe at large.
If the choice is between oppressive leadership, I’d much rather choose my current flavor. People can be who they are here, there’s no militia silencing our voices, and while things could be better in a million different ways, they also could be so much worse, as demonstrated by the two dickswingers, Russia and USA.
In an ideal world we would not spend on violence. I agree with that. It’s a waste. It leads to people dying, especially innocents. But it’s not an ideal world. And until it is, the choice has to be between different flavors of bad, I suppose, and personally I would 100% always choose the flavor in which I feel safe, happy and supported as a gender identity and sexual minority with mental health problems and adhd. And I would hope that most would do the same.
Because the alternative is just going to be fatal for me, at least, and a lot of people like me.
Edit: And yeah, you can pick out my points and their details in many ways, but the fact that the alternative can be picked out in so many more ways, remains. It’s all relative. I don’t see it as a good option to sacrifice good, just because it is not perfect, and get an outright horrible outcome. I’d much rather just try and help things remain at least good…
Edit2: Also, to address the “everybody wants to invade you” part: The US has declared it will start expansion and assimilate parts of other sovereign countries. One of those being part of Europe… An European country is currently deep in a defense war against a nation that has also declared that letting my country gain independence was a mistake and that is listed in multiple writings of prominent leadership members as one of the next countries that will be part of Russia “again”. So I don’t think everyone wants to invade us, not by a long shot. But there are countries that have been very explicit in their want, or even need, to fucking invade us and start enrussificating us.
The fact that you aren’t even considering these things, things that are well known and plainly and openly broadcast by these dickswingers, in some cases for many decades now, just tells me that you fail to understand what it actually is like being an openly stated target of assimilation. You make it a joke, as if nobody ever wants to conquer anyone, but it’s just fucking fantasy to think that. Right now, the same country that has stated my country “is in fact” part of their country, is, in real time, fighting a war of assimilation not too far from our borders… I get that this might not be close to you, you may live somewhere far away and don’t know this, but it hits a bit different when you are actually here. I can’t even imagine what it is like for Ukraine…
I do hope you could also try and expand your point of view and gain some perspective. The world is fairly shit in terms of things like this. Pretending otherwise won’t change that. The moment you blink, the nazis and oligarchs just do what they already have told you, over and over, what they will do. And next thing you know, you are being raped in a prison for being “a deviant” and your murder is then hidden away as your peers continue to face this reality.
You notice that’s a luxury exclusive to one side in that conflict? This freedom of speech, even forming a vocal political opposition. There have been people trying to do exactly that in Russia, but they all have died, vanished or gone silent.
If the dictatorship takes over (for example, due to a lack of resistance), you lose these privileges and are then sent to the grinder anyways.
Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning got persecuted for exposing war crimes. The west is as much corrupted as russia, just take a look at the news reporting on the latest US oligarch
Truly a shame, but does not lead to your conclusion. If you cannot get the irony about you publicly complaining that you cannot publicly complain much like in Russia, then I’m afraid I cannot help you further.
You did not check. Go and find some sources to confirm your claim.
I claim that the west is considerably less corrupt than Russia. I offer a source too (below). I also claim that the west is an incredibly safe place to be in opposition, and that power changes hands frequently.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index
“Both sides bad” is running like a disease among some leftist circles. Mostly Western leftists who have never seen Russia up close. It’s a nice excuse to do nothing.