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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   14169 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

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Who is this 'we'?

Liberal Western State Dept Consensus

It is certainly a take that a country that was not a member of a regional defensive alliance, and repeatedly disagreed internally and externally about any need to join a defensive alliance, getting repeatedly invaded and suffering major losses when countries that did join the defensive alliance were not invaded is thus a proof against value of being a party of a regional defensive alliance.

A true statement if we hadn't declared them a proxy via pouring in oodles of money and having leaders going around making declarations. The Biden-NATO philosophy appears to be "Speak loudly and carry a tiny stick."

Again, I will ask who this 'we' is, because this goes beyond a lack of shared consensus.

"We" are NATO and establishment American foreign policy persons.

Just as importantly "they" are foreign belligerents. What you seem to care about is what France or Finland thinks of these entities. That is largely irrelevant. What Russia thinks is relevant. And they decided that the Biden administration was a good time to invade. They decided that Germany had crippled its own economy with Green pipedreams.

Also its important to keep an eye on one of the most important, but mercurial NATO members: Turkey. Turkey has bucked the rest of the members more than ever and was closer to exiting the alliance 2021-present than any time since it joined.

And in 2024 NATO is presumably weaker than in 2020 because the addition of Finland and Sweden, years of greatly increased military-industrial investment in their armaments capabilities, and consensus that the Russians are indeed a common threat is... is presumably worth less than the stockpiles given to Ukraine shoot NATO's primary potential adversary in the face, who... apparently grew in relative strength the more NATO munitions were shot in its face and the more of its own munitions it shot at a non-NATO country.

That capacity has proven both far too slow to materialize and far to expensive for the welfare states to maintain.

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