US officials object to European push to buy weapons locally

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Pioneer

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How far can you take the notion of self-righteousness and dictate such demands?

I think it's very evident that many countries have evolved beyond the reliance on many U.S. weapons systems. Add to this that for sometime now, given countries around the world are making better and or cheaper weapons systems than the U.S.
Add to this the fact that some countries have infact been threatened or burnt by the U.S. and as a consequence learnt from this in becoming far more independent and weaning themselves off reliance of the U.S. - Turkey being a perfect example.
Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you see it, many countries are devising their own little Military/Political Industry Complexes as a means of their economies....



Regards
Pioneer
 
Pioneer said:

How far can you take the notion of self-righteousness and dictate such demands?

I think it's very evident that many countries have evolved beyond the reliance on many U.S. weapons systems. Add to this that for sometime now, given countries around the world are making better and or cheaper weapons systems than the U.S.
Add to this the fact that some countries have infact been threatened or burnt by the U.S. and as a consequence learnt from this in becoming far more independent and weaning themselves off reliance of the U.S. - Turkey being a perfect example.
Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you see it, many countries are devising their own little Military/Political Industry Complexes as a means of their economies....



Regards
Pioneer
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I wholeheartedly agree that at the very least under the current US administration Europe has to belatedly grow a pair or ten.
 
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Pioneer said:
How far can you take the notion of self-righteousness and dictate such demands?
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Welcome to the world, where most of mankind lives; the world, where USA are making outrageous demands and got sincerely confused why other peoples did not view the situation exactly as them. ;)
 
Dilandu said:
Welcome to the world, where most of mankind lives; the world, where USA are making outrageous demands and got sincerely confused why other peoples did not view the situation exactly as them. ;)
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Hello Dilandu, I wholeheartedly agree with you, just as long as the decisions of those other peoples where presumably most of mankind lives are *verifiably* expressed and *objectively* documented in *free and fair* elections.
 
Dilandu said:
Welcome to the world, where most of mankind lives; the world, where USA are making outrageous demands and got sincerely confused why other peoples did not view the situation exactly as them. ;)
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People keep mentioning the Ukraine support situation as being a catalyst here, but that is abolutely not the case. Ukraine is not a longstanding ally and member of NATO.

What has damaged trust in the US as a provider of military equipment is threats to annex Canada and Greenland, statements that Europe has to look after its own defence, public and private statements of current administration showing utter loathing and contempt directed at Europe, and tariff wars.

If you repeatedly punch your friends in the stomach, don't be surprised if they start avoiding you.
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
People keep mentioning the Ukraine support situation as being a catalyst here, but that is abolutely not the case. Ukraine is not a longstanding ally and member of NATO.

What has damaged trust in the US as a provider of military equipment is threats to annex Canada and Greenland, statements that Europe has to look after its own defence, public and private statements of current administration showing utter loathing and contempt directed at Europe, and tariff wars.

If you repeatedly punch your friends in the stomach, don't be surprised if they start avoiding you.
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Essentially it was not so much the situation changing, but merely the situation not happening before. There weren't any significant discord in US-EU relations for quite a long time, so Europeans basically started to assume US special attitude to them as granted. Like, "yeah, Americans are pushy, but su-re-ly they would never behave in such way toward us, civilized people". And they underestimated American exceptionalism rather seriously, again, assuming that American elites would never dare to use "screw the rules, I have the power!" against them.
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
If you repeatedly punch your friends in the stomach, don't be surprised if they start avoiding you.
Click to expand...
It was kinda more complicated. America is, in general, more worried about China and Pacific, than Europe and Atlantic. Europe, on the other hand, mostly not interested in Pacific and would NOT want to participate in any hostilities with China. Americans don't understand, why they should be committed to defense of Europe, if Europe refused to committ itself to opposing China. Europeans don't understand why USA insist on them opposing China, which is not in European interests at all.

Basically, it's kind of friends drifting apart because their interests are not align anymore.
 
Pioneer said:

(NB, updated URL)

How far can you take the notion of self-righteousness and dictate such demands?
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On a similar theme https://www.theguardian.com/media/2...k-to-free-speech-caused-by-online-safety-laws

TLDR: State Department objecting to UK's Online Safety laws.

It's very apparent they're only concerned with US-right-wing backed 'Christian' protesters, and have no issue with, for instance, prosecutions of climate change protesters, which are the things actually raising concerns about free speech and the balance of laws within the UK. (And freely happening in the US).

The US has always had an issue with accepting that other people may have different priorities than they do, but it now seems to be moving to an 'our way or no way' approach, without understanding how that's going to be viewed by non-USians.
 
Dilandu said:
It was kinda more complicated. America is, in general, more worried about China and Pacific, than Europe and Atlantic. Europe, on the other hand, mostly not interested in Pacific and would NOT want to participate in any hostilities with China. Americans don't understand, why they should be committed to defense of Europe, if Europe refused to committ itself to opposing China. Europeans don't understand why USA insist on them opposing China, which is not in European interests at all.

Basically, it's kind of friends drifting apart because their interests are not align anymore.
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I think Americans, as individuals, may understand better than you're giving them credit. I think it's more a cultural thing among some Americans that a) the rest of the World should consider themselves beholden and b) obedient. Complicate this with a head of state who seems to behave like a subordinate to an autocrat who ordered the invasion of a neighboring country, a head of state that immediately abrogates treaties, and threatens to abrogate more, one should not be surprised if "trustworthy" is no longer applied to the US.
 
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But then, what to expect when the leader of the country that was at the helm of the North Atlantic Treaty has clearly stated that he wanted out?? What logic would there be in "we no longer want to actively defend you but we still want you to buy our weapons? European countries are more than capable of producing quality hardware and weapons? The only reason why Europe continued to rely upon US material was political — our leaders didn't want to alienate America, because ultimately they knew it was the ultimate safeguard of world democracy. Now that it's clear that US policies are headed in another direction, it makes every sense to finally shake off this uneven relationship and work together to help ourselves.
 
Stargazer said:
because ultimately they knew it was the ultimate safeguard of world democracy
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That's was essentially one of the reasons of the split. Both sides weren't acting pragmatically toward each other. They essentially assumed that "we are ideologically close, so we are natural allies" - which was a grave mistake, repeated, of course, numerous times in history. It's like Bismark (the author of "realpolitik" concept) underestimated the possibility of Russo-French alliance, because he assumed that ideological differences ("Tsar and Marseillaise would never mix") would keep two nations from realizing that they have common enemy and not much conflicting points. The EU assumed that ideological similarity with US - at least partially imagined - would keep US and EU as natural allies, despite their pragmatic interests not being aligned anymore.
 
DWG said:
It's very apparent they're only concerned with US-right-wing backed 'Christian' protesters, and have no issue with, for instance, prosecutions of climate change protesters, which are the things actually raising concerns about free speech and the balance of laws within the UK. (And freely happening in the US).
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The Christian protestors are basically just using speech - or even silence - and getting smacked around by the British government. Climate "protestors" on both sides of the pond are blocking traffic, damaging property public and private, threatening harm. The two are not equivalent in terms of "free speech."

But then, Britain has decided to institute two-tier justice with the native population being subjected to greater punishment than foreigners who want to mess with Britain. That's baffling.
 
A long time ago, in a universe far far away, when somebody tried selling goods to somebody else, they had this curious notion being nice to a prospective customer would help secure a sell ... hang on, I must be getting old ... must be me confusing the extortion game with the shopkeepers of my youth.

Silly me. "Buy my stuff, or I will thump you" - works every time, right?
 
Orionblamblam said:
The Christian protestors are basically just using speech - or even silence - and getting smacked around by the British government.
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It would have taken you five seconds to check this and ascertain they violated a no-harassment zone in order to harass women seeking an abortion. They could legally do exactly the same thing from outside the no-harassment zone, but they chose to breach the law. That's not exercising freedom of speech, it's intentional harassment followed by rending their garments to proclaim how they're a persecuted minority.
 
DWG said:
It would have taken you five seconds to check this and ascertain they violated a no-harassment zone in order to harass women seeking an abortion. They could legally do exactly the same thing from outside the no-harassment zone, but they chose to breach the law. That's not exercising freedom of speech, it's intentional harassment followed by rending their garments to proclaim how they're a persecuted minority.
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www.thefp.com

She Was Arrested for Praying in Her Head

Citizens in the UK have been arrested, prosecuted, and convicted for silently praying outside abortion clinics. Even organizing pro-life meetings in your own home may be a criminal offense.
www.thefp.com www.thefp.com

reason.com

British man convicted of criminal charges for praying silently near abortion clinic

In Britain, it can be a crime to think the wrong thoughts in the wrong place. It sounds absurd—not to mention Orwellian—but a handful of people have been
reason.com reason.com

cbn.com

UK Abortion Buffer Zone 'Absurdity': Praying Inside One's Home Could Now Be a Risk

While many already knew about the "thought crime" case against British Army veteran Adam Smith-Connor, Vice President JD
cbn.com cbn.com
 
DWG said:
It would have taken you five seconds to check this and ascertain they violated a no-harassment zone in order to harass women seeking an abortion. They could legally do exactly the same thing from outside the no-harassment zone, but they chose to breach the law. That's not exercising freedom of speech, it's intentional harassment followed by rending their garments to proclaim how they're a persecuted minority.
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Now here's a report from the BBC, which can be expected to be slanted in favor of the politically directed opinion. It reports that the most he did was pray silently within a "buffer zone," at a substantial distance from the clinic. He harassed nobody. Certainly less so than blocking a street with people praying loudly or whipping themselves/each other or chanting "death to fill-in-the-blank."

www.bbc.com

Praying man breached Bournemouth abortion clinic safe zone

The physiotherapist said he had been praying for his unborn son who died by abortion 22 years ago.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 
Unlike in the US abortion is not a political issue. The large majority of Brits are content with the arrangements we have.
There have always been and probably always will be religious zealots who get tangled up in local legal provisions.
Religion is one area where we definitely do not need lectures from America.
 
uk 75 said:
Unlike in the US abortion is not a political issue. The large majority of Brits are content with the arrangements we have.
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Then why set up draconian anti-free-*thought* rules on the subject?

uk 75 said:
There have always been and probably always will be religious zealots who get tangled up in local legal provisions.
Religion is one area where we definitely do not need lectures from America.
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Y'all will be getting lectures and more on religion in the years to come. Not the religion you've been used to...
 
Orionblamblam said:
It reports that the most he did was pray silently within a "buffer zone," at a substantial distance from the clinic
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The question is, did whatever he done violate the letter and spirit of law? In both case yes. Mostly the spirit, of course, since the letter apparently have some leeway for interpretation, but he clearly have the intent of violating the spirit of law. Nobody forbade him from praying anywhere else, and if I recall correctly, no Christian holy book demands to pray nearby abortion clinic. So whatever he done, no matter how harmless, was done with intent and with the specific purpose to challenge the law.
 
Orionblamblam said:
Then why set up draconian anti-free-*thought* rules on the subject?
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Why US make such a fuss over the abortion? Why can't Supreme Court just decide that public opinion does not matter in questions of medical science and forbade individual states from denying abortion rights? Why, indeed?
 
If there were strong thought control laws maybe people would stick to the topic under discussion instead of shoe-horning in tangents that increasingly sound like shouting at clouds.
 
Dilandu said:
It was kinda more complicated. America is, in general, more worried about China and Pacific, than Europe and Atlantic. Europe, on the other hand, mostly not interested in Pacific and would NOT want to participate in any hostilities with China. Americans don't understand, why they should be committed to defense of Europe, if Europe refused to committ itself to opposing China. Europeans don't understand why USA insist on them opposing China, which is not in European interests at all.

Basically, it's kind of friends drifting apart because their interests are not align anymore.
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Okay, depending on the situation that would be a load a horseshit.

If China STARTS a war with the US in the pacific, YES, the other NATO members would come and help. Hell, we've come to the US's help when it was decidedly NOT a NATO question. For the last fifty years NO US Soldiers have died in wars that a EU nation started. The opposite, however, is decidedly not true.

But if the US is the one to start a rumble, then no. There's a chance the reception to such a situation would be "Did you really have to?"

Except Trump has spend a hundred days kicking allies in the balls, so a NATO reply is no longer guaranteed either.
 
MihoshiK said:
If China STARTS a war with the US in the pacific, YES, the other NATO members would come and help
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Are you so sure? Because, you know, Pacific and Taiwan is NOT the NATO jurisdiction in any way.

Not to mention, that US political positions in conflict with China are dubious at best. USA did not recognize Taiwan; they have no legal ground for supporting what is basically an armed insurrection against legal, recognized Chinese government. The basic of US rhethorics here boil down to "we want Taiwan to stay independent, because we want it".

So even if China would make a first move against Taiwan, the US involvement would be extremely hard to justify.
 
Dilandu said:
Are you so sure? Because, you know, Pacific and Taiwan is NOT the NATO jurisdiction in any way.

Not to mention, that US political positions in conflict with China are dubious at best. USA did not recognize Taiwan; they have no legal ground for supporting what is basically an armed insurrection against legal, recognized Chinese government. The basic of US rhethorics here boil down to "we want Taiwan to stay independent, because we want it".

So even if China would make a first move against Taiwan, the US involvement would be extremely hard to justify.
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Unless I'm seriously wrong the NATO treaty does not actually talk about the location of battlegrounds, just about member states being attacked.
Which is why I said "If China STARTS a war with the US."
 
MihoshiK said:
Unless I'm seriously wrong the NATO treaty does not actually talk about the location of battlegrounds, just about member states being attacked.
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I think you are mistaken here:

Article 6​

For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:

  • on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France, on the territory of Turkey or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer;
  • on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.
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The NATO agreement have a very defined territorial considerations. US did not want to let Europeans to demand NATO involvement in their colonial wars; Europeans did not want to get involved into US actions far from Europe.
 
I think a lot more countries have become very astute to the geopolitical games of the U.S. and as such, with the combination of the growth in their economies, education standards and industrialisation have delibratly and strategically decided to diversify their weapons acquisition from countries/sources who don't play such geopolitical games and or wisely acquire weapons systems which the selling country/company are willing to allow licence-building, which contributes further to self-sufficiency and further development of indigenous industry and technological advancements within the given country.
Speaking of indigenous development, one seriously needs to appreciate the staggering priority placed by countries these days, who'd otherwise willingly have excepted the copious amount of surplus U.S. military equipment/weapons.
Then of course, I think there's the obviously reality of business/political entanglement in 'bling programs' like the F-35 program, which has literally entrapped countries/militaries into a top-tear weapons system in their ORBAT, which has become over priced, delayed and has imposed technical and political restrictions.

Then there are given weapons systems which literally out perform U.S. weapons systems in terms of capabilities, price, offers of licence production and no geopolitical constraints.....

Regards
Pioneer
 
To be honest, if China and the United States do have a conflict in the Pacific, if the European leadership is smart and bold enough, this is a good opportunity for Europeans to rise, but based on what Europeans have done in recent years, it seems impossible.
 
Dilandu said:
The question is, did whatever he done violate the letter and spirit of law? In both case yes.
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Agreed. But sometimes the law is an ass. This is a *thought* *control* law, and would be *massively* unconstitutional in the US. The UK can have whatever totalitarian laws it wants... and Americans can point at them and say "that sucks."
 
Dilandu said:
Why US make such a fuss over the abortion? Why can't Supreme Court just decide that public opinion does not matter in questions of medical science and forbade individual states from denying abortion rights? Why, indeed?
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Because abortion is murder. It is the intentional taking of a human life by another without the justification of defending life (the great majority of abortions are done for reasons other than medical necessity). Now I'm not saying that that's necessarily adequate reason for banning abortion, it's simply the reason that those who tend to oppose abortion point to. Me, I'm all in favor of abortions up to the 300th trimester. Not just for the health of the mother, but for rioting and raping and murder and illegal border crossing and welfare abuse and talking in theaters and all manner of activities that suggest that the subject having been conceived was a mistake.
 
Hood said:
If there were strong thought control laws maybe people would stick to the topic under discussion instead of shoe-horning in tangents that increasingly sound like shouting at clouds.
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There's always someone who thinks that thought control laws will actually work, if *this* *time* the authorities just enforce them hard enough.
 
Orionblamblam said:
That would be the government in Taiwan, not the Communist junta in West Taiwan.
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Can't one argue that the legitimate government of China was overthrown by revolutionaries?

The Nationalists came to power by violent revolution, too. The government the Nationalists overthrew, the Qing, came to power by overthrowing their predecessors.

"Legitimate" is by usage and agreement. Go back far enough, and just about all governments started by an extra-legal action.
 
Orionblamblam said:
That would be the government in Taiwan, not the Communist junta in West Taiwan.
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Since United States of America recognize only the legal Communist government of China, the personal attitude of some Americans toward the rebellous decendants of failed Fascist junta on Taiwan is... irrelevant to the point of absolute. From both the letter and spirit of international law (as well as American law, by the way) USA support an unlawful rebellion against legitimate, recognized government, supplying the rebels with weapons and threatening to support them in case legitimate government would attempt to suppress the rebellion. To put it simply, the US legal position here is absolutely nonexistent, and boil down to "we want thing to be like that because we want it".

P.S. On the other hands, considering that Trump imposed a 32% tariff against Taiwan, the whole situation may be resolved soon by Taiwan re-joining the China absolutely peacefully and voluntary, because Chinese at least would not attempt to rob them dry. The KMT is already in favor of reconciliation, anyway.
 
Orionblamblam said:
Agreed. But sometimes the law is an ass. This is a *thought* *control* law, and would be *massively* unconstitutional in the US. The UK can have whatever totalitarian laws it wants... and Americans can point at them and say "that sucks."
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You realize that even US have an exception of free speech protection? It's not a qualitive difference, merely quantative.

Orionblamblam said:
Because abortion is murder. It is the intentional taking of a human life by another without the justification of defending life (the great majority of abortions are done for reasons other than medical necessity).
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I agree, that abortion right reasonably should be restricted by medical consideration. After all, there is a lot of perfectly reliable ways of contraception around. On the other hand, USA aren't exactly the shining beacon of light in that matters also, since there seems to be no reasonable middle ground, but two crouds, one of which shouthing "ABORTION IS RIGHT!!!" the other shouting "ABORTION IS MURDER!!!" and both interested only in shouting louder.
 
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