• fizzle@quokk.au
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    9 hours ago

    LOL. The thing everyone but Trump understands is that the US hasn’t been “helping” its allies out of altruism. Its money. Everyone wants money. Allies want money, the US wants money. Everyone can make more money if there’s a US military base just over the horizon because everyone can just be cool.

    Trump has always been transactional. He doesn’t understand equity, or good will, or anything that doesn’t product an immediate tangible benefit. Why invest in a partnership if that partner isn’t enriching him personally.

    He was playing fart of the deal with Australia a few months back. Wanted our military budget to be 3% of GDP (its about half that). In the end he gave us a pass because he was scared we would do rare earth deals with China.

    Yes hes doing incalculable damage to relationships while hes around, but these alliances have been built over decades, even millennia. They will outlast the Trump era, which only has months left to run id say.

    • trollercoaster@sh.itjust.works
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      6 hours ago

      It’s not only money, it’s global influence and ability to project power. The USA wouldn’t be able to do that without countries all over the world tolerating US bases on their soil. That’s likely going to change. The US will degrade itself from a global to a regional power due to giving some rich idiot with the mind of a toddler virtually unlimited powers.

    • finallymadeanaccount@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      I’m not gonna be happy if Albo makes us join the ‘Board of Peace’. But I honestly wonder if he has the ticker to turn Trump down. I’ve typically been a Labor voter, but Albanese’s been a thundering disappointment.

      If he does, though, it’d be the perfect opportunity to start moving our trade away from the US. There’s always the Pine Gap carrot to dangle in front of the orange moron, too. Doesn’t wanna treat us with respect? No more 5 Eyes for Donny.

      Let’s face it: There hasn’t been a war or ‘peacekeeping’ action we haven’t been dragged into by the US since we stopped getting dragged into them by England. With the exception of Bougainville, I suppose. China’s not interested in starting a war with a country that is happy to have trade with them. It’d ultimately be in our favour to distance ourselves from Trump.

    • rbos@lemmy.ca
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      7 hours ago

      NATO standardization of things like ammunition has enabled a lot of ability to specialize and achieve economies of scale. The USA is fucking that up, too. :(

  • Foni@piefed.zip
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    11 hours ago

    It’s incomprehensible that NATO allows the USA to make arms sales in enormous quantities, access military bases all over the world, and have subservient intelligence services in major countries only in exchange for the promise of perhaps protecting them in the event of an attack, something they haven’t done even once in almost 80 years, now they’re giving that up and the American people are applauding… well, I have no idea why, because having a black president was too much for some, I suppose.

    • flandish@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      it’s almost as if NATO exists to strengthen capitalism and its drive for profits instead of protect against attacks that were never going to happen anyway.

      • deHaga@feddit.uk
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        10 hours ago

        Funny that Sweden and Finland didn’t feel the need to join until the very attack you say didn’t happen, did

        • redditmademedoit@piefed.zip
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          8 hours ago

          But boy what a stupid move it proved to be to join Nato in panic. Historic blunder by Finland and Sweden.

          Rescued to a sinking ship with a mad captain, where the mid-level officers are just running around in disbelief, unable to decide between doubling down on loyalty to the captain or taking command for themselves. Who will the captain shoot next? Will he shoot at all against the people he’s sworn to protect you from?

      • Foni@piefed.zip
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        9 hours ago

        When it was created in the 1950s, the possibility of an attack was very reasonable; I’m not referring to that. What I mean is that all those advantages have never required their cost to actually be paid, not that it couldn’t eventually be paid at some point.

        I am also sure that the cost would have been paid if it had been necessary, at least for almost the entire duration of the agreement; the last 10 years may have been somewhat different.

  • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.caOP
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    12 hours ago

    High time we stop buying weapons from the US. The only reason paying the wildly overpriced gear is to have them provide military support when needed. If that’s not happening… then it makes no sense spending that money. Build it locally or buy it from the cheapest supplier.

    • stoy@lemmy.zip
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      11 hours ago

      That has already happened, looking at the orders placed and what it means for the US military industrial companies, they are about to lose hundreds of man years when looking at the loss of new orders and service contracts.

      This channel has done several break downs of the Trump regime’s politics with regards to weapon system orders:

      https://youtu.be/m1387Gm9KiE

    • Munkisquisher@lemmy.nz
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      10 hours ago

      Everyone else is making deals to partner with Ukraine, Co produce weapons in Ukraine and learn everything they can from the only modern battlefield there is.

      Drumpf is cutting them loose and leaving the US in the last century

  • muzzle@lemmy.zip
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    12 hours ago

    The enshittification on NATO: why not switch to our premium ally tier?

  • tomiant@piefed.social
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    10 hours ago

    I always thought the global order would collapse because of some competing entities gaining superior strategic leverage, not because the biggest one just started dismantling itself from within…

    Divide et impera. Well played, Putin, can’t argue with results.

  • gnutrino@programming.dev
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    10 hours ago

    In a significant shift to its security priorities, the US Department of Defense now considers security of the US homeland and Western Hemisphere - not China - as its primary concern

    Does this mean the “Pacific Pivot” cope will finally stop and yanks will admit that Trump just wants to burn down all their alliances?

  • Random_Character_A@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    Well yeah. Nobody is counting on you for shit anymore, because of the orange man toddler. We are rearming Europe as fast as is sensible. We still have that detaching from Russian energy thing going no.

    • tomiant@piefed.social
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      5 hours ago

      We also have a massive surge of far right extremists weasling their way into governments all across Europe, and they keep in touch, it’s like they are gunning for taking over the EU, honestly. They need to be… You know. Taken care of permanently, I feel like, or they are gonna start building camps again.

      • NABDad@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        Well, on the increasingly unlikely possibility that they are not increasing the budget to target American citizens, I hope other nations in the world know they have to dramatically increase their own defense spending.