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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   1542 thread views

Transnational Thursday for February 27, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Norway is a US treaty ally

Norway was a treaty ally until Trump signaled extremely clearly that Nato countries cannot depend on US if the push comes to shove by making threats about annexing another Nato country's territory into US and cosying up to the country Nato was founded to protect against (that's actively engaged in sabotage in Norwegian territory as well as Norways neighboring countries' territories).

If the US says "Fuck you, you're on your own now!" to a group of countries, it's no wonder when those countries say "Ok, if that's how you want it..." in response.

cosying up to the country NATO was founded to protect against

This is called diplomacy. Ten, twenty years ago it was Western Europe that was interested in good relations with Russia, fuel imports and trade... while the US was very keen on NATO expansion and taking a hard line on Russia.

Now it's the other way around as the US is more interested in Asia while Europe seems to be mentally stuck with the old US policy platform.

The mature and sensible thing for Norway and other European countries to do is not throw a tantrum but to adapt to the changing global dynamics and reflect on the workability of their strategy. Maybe it was a poor decision going out of their way to get Russian soldiers killed with military aid? I wonder why there are Russian sabotage operations going on, what could possibly be the reason why these munitions plants keep having anomalous explosions?

If the Russian threat is so great, why antagonize the US? Wouldn't you want to appeal more to the US? If the US is a threat, maybe consider rapprochement with Russia? Or China? There's a massive shortage of strategic flexibility in Europe.

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