jts-khorat

Look up who is the biggest weapons merchant after the USA on the planet. Frankly I would have thought that it is the better solution to not have a new German army involved in an arms race for planetary dominion. But if push comes to shove, I think the economic power and resolve of all Europeans combined would be well sufficient to make all kinds of uncomfortable scenarios true. However, this would mess up my argument that we Europeans are all so enlightened, so I let you have your point.

If you look at what lead to the failure of Hitler's march on Moscow: he was a crazy person with initial luck in his strategic decisions (making him wrongly think that he was a strategic genius); he attacked with his army badly prepared and at the wrong season; and he thought to win immediate "living space" instead of a long-term solution where he simply waited for the Russians to turn on each other (difficult to do while they got stronger by the day with Allied help). That the Russians cannot be defeated is simply a myth. As is that Germany are good ingenieurs (we cannot even get our trains to come on time), or that the Americans are fair and free. Maybe it is time to throw away some of those old misconceptions and test them against reality. Only one thing is true: in all this, the Europeans are the only ones keeping to law and order and democratic values (i.e. being enlightened).

Enlightenment is not part of the American way, that at least has been proven.

They already do that outside of Moscow and St Petersburg. Therefore Putin has prioritized to send men from the impoverished provinces of the far east to the front. He got a lot of them killed, which will prevent any economic pay-off from the war. But worse in the long-term for Russia, those that have survived are now well-trained and likely armed people with a grudge for having been used for meatwave attacks by the "city people". Cue what happened last time: 1917. So in my book, Russia is cooked, only the timeframe is unclear.

Having sane superpowers protecting their allies would be an argument for less nukes (maybe not a 100% sane one, but the best we had so far). However, it has become very clear from the actions of the USA and Russia, that smaller nation states owning nukes is essential to protect themselves from the rapacious assault by those superpowers. Therefore the only option for not needing nukes is, having no superpowers at all! I am quite sure that the economic damage to Russia due to the war in Ukraine is so big, that a break-up is unavoidable (compare what the much smaller Afghanistan war did to the USSR). So already the enlightened Europeans will need to find ways to disarm the resulting micro-states. The USA is in a very precarious economic situation as well. Affronting all of their allies while at the same time being in a debt death spiral with China is a sure way to put the ship on the rocks. Maybe a fascist coup is a way out of this, see what would have happened in the case of an unopposed Germany. However the chance is much higher, that Trump with his severely restricted world-view and limited intelligence role-playing as a fascist dictator will lead the USA into the same or worse situation as Germany 80 years ago. Which again would mean, that indeed the left-over states would have to be de-militarized. The question is only, how much porcelain will have been broken until the Americans and Russians have been subjugated by the free and democratic world?

Note the de-militarization. Do you think the world is currently safer with those nukes in the hands of a lunatic who wants to own Greenland and Gaza?

In the beginning I thought, that he actually might try, to the best of his diplomatic ability -- which is not and never has been great. Or maybe that he simply was deluded. By now I do think that his crazy statements are not random, they are a perfect smoke screen for a fascist coup. The playbook follows actually pretty close to what Hitler did after he was elected in power: bring industrialists on their side, start removing dissidents, closing down education and arts, spouting imperialist plans to distract the masses (Canada, Panama, Greenland, Gaza). The only question for me is, is it Trump or is it Elon having and following a plan, and will the military be on their side when push comes to shove as was the case in Germany. Either way, even in the best case and Trump's coup failing, the destruction and trust lost after only a month of this madness will take the Americans easily a generation to fix.

Factually incorrect. But even if an American president would have promised something to the Russians, that has nothing to do with Ukraine or their nukes. If you did not notice, Ukraine is a sovereign nation state currently not in NATO. How are they responsible for the USA going back on their word? And Trump is doing the same thing, making "peace deals" without Ukraine present, making promises he has no right to make -- and no ability to keep. In the end it is the USA breaking a written contract, the Budapest Memorandum, signed as an accord to the non-proliferation treaty. They are breaking it now, in typical US oathbreaker fashion, putting the USA in exactly the same category of international pariahs the Russians are in. I hope karma gets to them, the world would frankly be a better place, if the both superpowers, the US and the Russians, break apart in a multitude of tiny statelets, easily de-militarized by more enlightened and cultured people (like the Europeans)

The USA are obligated by treaty to defend the Ukraine, within their full territory. They promised so in the Budapest Memorandum, in exchange for Ukraine giving up their nukes. Do all those MAGA followers want to tell me, that the word of an American cannot be trusted??! (a rhetorical question BTW, looking at all the contracts the United States did with other nations, from their inception onwards until today -- Native Indians, Korea, Vietnam, Afganistan, etc etc. We Europeans know that whenever an American talks about democracy and freedom, he is talking out of his ass, but I guess the time has come to get emboldened and finally throw off the American yoke)

Of course I know his previous posts. But why not take some things at face value? To me personally it makes no difference whatsoever if he is actually rich. But he seems happy, so that is something that I choose to brighten also my day with. And this is how the world would be a much happier place for all.

I am pleased to see that somebody enjoys their life and I would never begrudge anybody their riches. There are some things that only money can buy. At least in my case, having had much or having had little had basically no relation to my state of happiness. But good on you, if you have a good time!

You just described an absolute monarch. Was the US constitution not specifically written to prevent exactly this?

Looking at the wars since Vietnam, having been an ally of the USA has always been worthless and ended in betrayal. Maybe it is time not to wait for Trump to betray NATO, but to actively kick the USA out of it?

As I mentioned above, having a nuclear deterrence is not expensive, and in the year 2025 is basically off-the-shelf for a country like Germany. The technology, good enough to reach Moscow, is basically 80 years old. But I remind everybody once again. What was the reason, 80 years ago, that everybody thought it a good idea that there is no independent military build-up in central western Europe? Maybe the question should be, why Trump wants a Germany, controlled by a far-right political party (see the last talks on the Munich security conference).

I think the main issue is, that durign the last 80 years, the USA has been very happy with having their 100,000 troops stationed in Germany, where they have a central strike capability and did house all kinds of illegal attack weapons without any control or interference. The idea was always that it is better, to pay a relatively minor amount for this capability to keep guaranteed political influence over Germany and prevent an independet military buildup. I am not sure what has changed, but I personally would not applaud Germany having their own nuclear deterrence (technical not really difficult to do, so we could have that within a year or two, well before Putin is strong enough to attack Poland and than move westwards). But thosew who say 'A' also need to say 'B', the law of consequences. Of course, if Trump really wants Germany to spend 5% of GDP on their own weapons, stop telling us what to do and <deleted> right off out of Ramstein airbase.