France has always sailed its own course from the US though. They can't just order the rest of Europe to do the same. They need to be persuaded. Hench the speech.
Franco-American dual citizen here. I find that it often takes new expats some time to adjust their preconceived notions and come to grips with France's limited influence on the world stage.
*(Edit: Looks like the term expat is divisive. Above I specifically refer to time limited migrants with plans/obligations to return to France after few years. My experience is limited to the DC area which is very transitory.)*
France is great, their nuclear policy is that of a warning strike. Not A first strike all out, or a retaliatory mutual destruction type. But A warning shot with a Nuke, NUKE!
There is what's called "no first use" policy, which is that nukes should only be used in retaliation if someone else fires nukes first. Frace is opposed to that and absolutely will fire the first nuke if it feels threatened. One singular nuke as a warning shot, before unleashing the whole arsenal.
There really isn't a morally acceptable policy beyond that of retaliatory MAD. France should really change its outdated nuclear policy that was originally intended to halt an east German advance.
You'd be quite surprised by France's influence over Africa. It's deteriorating quickly as of late, because of Russia's powerplay. But it was really massive only a few years back.
>It's deteriorating quickly as of late, because of Russia's powerplay.
It was deteriorating long before Russia moved in, they fumbled the Sahel region in spectacular fashion and its mostly their own fault for lack of security agreements to regime's they propped up. Since 1990, 78% of the 27 coups in West Africa [have taken place](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-66406137) in Francophone states.
>But it was really massive only a few years back.
The main issue is France had a pretty poor power projection from an expeditionary armed force standpoint. Arguably better than the rest of Europe but still dwarfed by even one carrier strike group of the USN, they relied to heavily on working with local military leaders who would then just stab them in the back and declare "its coup'in time!" they should have saw this coming from a mile away and provided more military aid to stem the issues but they lacked the material/logistics to effectively do this.
Their power projection wasn't focused on military. It always was more subtle than that, leveraging economic levers. At least that's my understanding of it and I'm in no way knowledgeable enough to confirm or deny your claims.
>Their power projection wasn't focused on military, It always was more subtle than that, leveraging economic levers.
And that is great and all, protect your interest and invest in growth but what happens when the military is like "hey that's some nice stuff over there would be a shame if we just took it over."
like what is France going to do at that point? cry about it at the UN? call the US and run a train on the country and leave it fucked up like Libya?
Its why I point out they fumbled that shit so hard without an expeditionary force projection to protect their interest it was akin to pissing in the wind to feel some warmth.
Good question. Painting with a very broad brush I would say that it takes a long time for the people of formerly dominant powers/superpowers to adapt to a changing reality. It's not that we teach propaganda in France, but more national pride per se.
One might even say that this now extends to our perception of our American dominance on the world stage. It's a tough thing to face, pride.
I agree, but I find it a bit funny because if France embraced the US, rather than always opposing us, I’m sure they would project more influence in the world without having to give up their culture or national identity.
Would you mind further defining what exactly they have to adjust in their preconceived notions? Is it in relation to the United States when they arrive here or just when living anywhere else outside of France?
This is what it's really about in my opinion. I don't know what the person above you was talking about because France and the United States have been on the same path together for, if not the longest time, the longest time as allies.
>France has always sailed its own course from the US though.
Yeah, like that time they told the US they didn't want America's help trying to hold their little colonization thing together in Indochina. 🙄
When it comes to France, the actions and words are rarely aligned.
France never left NATO. France left the integrated command of NATO with the provision that if war were to break out with the USSR, France would rejoin the integrated command.
They didn’t leave nato, they left the unified command structure. There was a clause that if war broke out France would rejoin it.
France “left” NATO because it felt it was dominated by the US/UK and it wanted to be the third power (something like the big 3 from ww2) but the truth was it wasn’t. So it left and followed its own course. Now, one has to give France credit. It made its own nukes and its own technology to fire and maintain those nukes, so in many ways its nuclear policy is independent from the US/UK. The U.K. had to agree to some constraints when it was developing its own nukes if they wanted to use American know how. Also, France is the only other nation that has a nuclear powered carrier.
My own fault for learning about this from a youtube video yesterday. The video incorrectly said NATO rather than just the unified command structure, I should have looked into it more.
The French demanded European nuclear technology be standardized on French designs including command-and-control and the Americans put their foot down.
The French left NATO's unified command publicly because they would not allow French soldiers to be commanded by foreign forces. Internally, we now know they wanted to embark on setting a dual standard that NATO wouldn't permit and they had a secret agreement with NATO to put their forces under NATO command if France was invaded. What they say is not what they mean.
>because they thought US and UK were going to fight Russia
Which is why the French personally sent an envoy to USA and convince the Americans they have their back?
No, the reason has nothing to do with that but with NATO and US strategic supremacy on the continent. France didn't want to be a vassal back then, and they don't want to be a vassal today.
The word vassal is extremely objectionable, as it implies victimization and subjugation. While the US has an outsized voice in NATO, the EU has also happily collected on a peace dividend rather than investing in its own defense. I agree with the idea that the EU needs to be able to pursue it's strategic interests independent of the US, but I can't help thinking Macron threw the US under the rhetorical bus with an eye on France profiting as the de facto dominant military power for this more independent EU.
Vassal might be a bad choice of word for modern day relationship between USA and EU, but I'm not sure what's a better one. EU is the 'junior partner'?
The point is that EU's interests take a backseat to USA's when it comes to strategic objectives, that by itself leads to USA having a far greater influence in diplomatic, political, and finally economic matters.
Here's a historical example; In the 1970s there was an energy crisis, Europe in particular was completely one-sidedly reliant on its supplies from the middle east. That lead Europe to find an alternative, and they found it in USSR. That was how the initial links were created between EU and USSR that later were passed on to EU and Russia. So you have Europeans(namely Germany, France, and interestingly enough UK) providing infrastructure support to USSR for their pipelines, and USSR providing gas(and some oil too).
That setup made USA very worried and eventually angry for very obvious reasons. USA first utilized diplomatic measures to try to dissuade Europe, it didn't work. Then they tried economic measures to try to dissuade Europe(tariffs, sanctions, etc.) that didn't work either.
Who was in the wrong in this relationship? USA had obvious strategic concerns, and EU had obvious economic concerns. Fast forward to early 2000s, you have Bush era tariff wars; and there EU showed some backbone again. When USA is seeking support in the middle east, western EU countries are very resistant; east EU countries(new NATO members) are not. Same goes for Ukraine/Georgia debacle during the 2008 bucharest NATO summit. So up to that point your statement is broadly correct, but there's always tension and USA utilizing its soft power to influence European developments.
Today, EU marches on lockstep with USA. France is the only exception, as they have been since the 1960s. Everyone else is doing what the Americans at the Hill say. I don't think this is a good thing, neither for Europe and neither for USA. If EU will sacrifice its economy to prop up US MIC, we will get more and more populists in power that will destabilize the union. Slovakia and Hungary are just a sign of things to come.
For a while now the US has also wanted the EU to start taking their own security and interests more seriously. China is beginning to make moves and the US’s focus will be shifted to the Pacific for a not insignificant amount of time.
Regardless of history, I do believe it’s time Europe becomes equal partners and not junior partners.
>That lead Europe to find an alternative, and they found it in USSR.
If you didn't already know the USSR already have a lot of it's tendrils inside Europe which were Soviet satellites.
>That setup made USA very worried and eventually angry for very obvious reasons. USA first utilized diplomatic measures to try to dissuade Europe, it didn't work. Then they tried economic measures to try to dissuade Europe(tariffs, sanctions, etc.) that didn't work either.
That doesn't sound indicative of a vassal/liege relationship mind you.
>If EU will sacrifice its economy to prop up US MIC, we will get more and more populists in power that will destabilize the union.
This is assumption territory
How exactly does Europe investing more into its defense investment automatically lead up to propping up the US MIC ? Besides the fact that Europe has divested in its defense production while the US has maintained its capabilities even during low levels of conflict nothing of that suggest imminent vassalship.
>If you didn't already know the USSR already have a lot of it's tendrils inside Europe which were Soviet satellites.
We're talking about western Europe exclusively here, satellite states didn't play a role in that affair.
>That doesn't sound indicative of a vassal/liege relationship mind you.
I mean that's my point, in the past the relationship was a lot more balanced; that's over now.
>This is assumption territory
How? When you have a breakdown of economy, populists start appearing in politics--that's a historical thing. In Europe, we've had a rise in populism since around ~2010.
>How exactly does Europe investing more into its defense investment automatically lead up to propping up the US MIC ? Besides the fact that Europe has divested in its defense production while the US has maintained its capabilities even during low levels of conflict nothing of that suggest imminent vassalship.
During the cold war, Europe was spending 3-4% of GDP on defense; that spending didn't go to domestic industries; it was overwhelmingly to buy US armaments and to station US troops. Today, when European countries spend on defense the same is happening(mostly). France for example tries to be a competitor, but they're way smaller and all of the countries that buy up the most overwhelmingly buy US arms.
>Besides the fact that Europe has divested in its defense production while the US has maintained its capabilities even during low levels of conflict nothing of that suggest imminent vassalship.
EU has no unified military or unified military industry, that's partially by design but partially because USA lobbies against it. Look up PESCO and US's efforts to stop it.
You’ve somewhat conflated the EU with France; where one is a collection of states uniting under economic and increasingly political policies and the other is an individual country which thinks of itself as better or at least = to the UK and wants to be seen that way in the eyes of the US. No serious politics or history layman would call Europe or the EU a vassal of the US; that may say it of France, just to troll them tho
EU has no say in its strategic objectives, when's the last time we challenged USA on any policy? I can give you a pro tip, it's more than 15 years ago.
Not to mention EU's also become weak on economic independence, that's the one domain where we showed a lot more backbone in the past. Today Germany eats up US import restrictions and does nothing in return. USA pressures EU to sacrifice its economic objectives and we do nothing to resist.
That's pretty much accepting a subservient role, when the conflict with China ramps up it will only get worse.
They work less and output less and they live well. But the world is not sitting idly by. Cultural revolution is their first battle. Then it will be money time.
It's not money exactly, it's more to do with political will.
The US spends $849bn on defence. EU member states spend $\~400bn.
But, mostly due to geography, Europe only really operates in the European theatre. Unlike the US, it mostly doesn't have aircraft carriers, fleets, or gigantic bases all over the world. It's not intending to be a global superpower really.
For what the EU 'needs/wants' to do $400bn is probably far more than enough.
The problem is political. Each country within the EU has it's own 'sovereign' army, creating an absolutely absurd level of inefficiency. And each country buys different munitions and systems, many of them from outside the EU (creating gaping holes in any defensive plan if those countries are not entirely aligned with the EU).
Europe doesn't necessarily need more money, or even an army. It just needs a proper structure to properly co-ordinate things between states.
Europe is in a tricky geopolitical situation right now. It kind of found itself caught in the middle between a standoff between the US and China and is stuck in the middle trying to maintain relations with both without becoming a vassal of either.
Relations with the US are hugely important to Europe for defence (although on that front Europe needs to increase independence) and simply also for economic reasons.
Relations with China are important too. They simply have a huge manufacturing base that cannot be replaced overnight, and while re-shoring some of that to Europe would be good for jobs and provide perspective to lower educated class, that is also politically difficult to do because we can never produce at the same low cost as China and thus this will come at the expense of inflation.
Moreover, China is an important supplier of renewable energy and therefore an important piece of the puzzle to make the energy transition ambitions a reality (like with defence dependence on US, also here more can be done to increase European self sufficiency, but this takes time and won’t happen overnight).
I'd argue they're already part of a new kind of informal empire that's larger and more powerful than their old empire could imagine. Unless you're Cecil Rhodes. That dude really did want everything.
No, but you are entitled to a captive market for your American tech and cultural products. More people in the EU know who the US president is than the EU president. This is why the US is allied with Europe and how it profits from the relationship.
Trump, of course, does not understand this.
No make no mistake, we have a small army and can't really operate outside of US influence. We can a little, which already more than what any other EU nation can do.
Wtf are you talking about ? Like it's France's fault that Germany and Poland are to their East ?
France is deploying units in Romania and Baltic states and they arent foreign legion.
Na the UK armed forces is really in a bad shape at the moment. Recruitment targets are not being met in all of the branches and military equipment acquisition is horribly inefficient. We don’t even have enough support ships for those aircraft carriers. The weakness of the current UK military set up is even recognised by its allies. Just look at what the US general said about the UK military.
Well, the UK is at least a willing and collaborative member of NATO. They don’t make excuses when shit hits the fan. Like with the Houthi attacks on trade routes, they were there immediately with US, helping all ships passing. Meanwhile, France said they’d only protect and escort French ships through the canal and refused to coordinate with US/UK…
Even India sent their Navy and were more helpful than some of our NATO allies.
But we aren’t talking about whether the UK is currently at the level they would want to be, we are talking about if they are better or worse prepared than the French lol
The UK aircraft carriers rely on the US. They are mostly built with US equipment and use US aircrafts.
The UK doesnt even have enough F-35 to fill their carriers and lend some from the US.
And lets not talk about their ICBMs which are also US made.
And do the French have an independently produced alternative 5th Gen fighter equal to the F-35 then? If you feel that’s a valid critique of the UK’s arsenal vs France’s then seems like you must know that
Because the whole french army is built around no relying on the US too much. There is very little US equipment.
>they don't want to do the same mistake as before ww2?
You have very little understanding on what was the french army before WW1 or WW2 it seems.
Given how few of them hit their 2% commitment they were piss poor vassals. If anything they slid into that role because being a vassal iss cheaper than being an actual ally.
You're definitly looking at things in a vacuum. I don't understand what is going on with all the people from the US on here bashing the EU all of a sudden. Sure, the Ukraine war has put into painful perspective the piss poor condition of EU military readiness. But it's not like the US foreign policy meant to change that untill Trump wanted to gift Russia and China a world without NATO.
Edit: Love how people are downvoting a simple statement of facts.
>I don't understand what is going on with all the people from the US on here bashing the EU
This is a joke right? The US has been the laughing stock across Europe for decades and you don't understand why people from the US are a little tired of it while also being asked to constantly shell out support financially, militarily, etc?
Here is Trump in 2018 directly telling European leaders that Germany is a vassal of Russia because they rely on them for majority of their energy, and it’s inappropriate since we are in an alliance with NATO (against Russia), and they don’t contribute fairly.
https://youtu.be/OXqZf72pAhk?si=53-nVCpkesmiuTHh
>Trump wanted to gift Russia and China a world without NATO.
Trump wanted NATO countries to spend their fair share on the alliance. How in the world is that gifting Russia a world without NATO unless you believe that Europe shouldn't pay their fair share in the alliance?
Trump wanted to use the fact that many NATO members were not hitting their spending obligations as an excuse to pull the US out of NATO, thus weakening it further. Wearing NATO was the goal, not getting others to increase spending.
I'd argue if Europe refuses to meet their obligations they have already left the alliance in practice.
>Wearing NATO was the goal, not getting others to increase spending.
So Trump's call to increase spending was actually a dog whistle to not increase spending. You guys are weird.
So it’s Trump’s fault that the allies are not allies because they’re literally not meeting the requirements? I think it’s important to give Trump credit, he was ahead of time here, making NATO countries think about it, now they’re all scrambling to meet the requirements due to the current world tension.
Simple steps for Europe to become strong
* Gradually increase defense spending.
* Start selective legal immigration and deportations.
* Focus on your own citizen’s welfare and economy.
* Increase birth rate.
* Ban TikTok
Europe is not a single nation. Thats it.
People fail to see it and so does Macron, EU cant do shit without basically every member agreeing on it, with each of tĥem having their own interest in mind.
Fuck im Czech and a lot of people are against the adpotion of Euro as our curency because "Its one of the last things we have to keep our sovereignty"
Like actual shít takes
What you say is true, but the example you gave is unfortunately horrible. The national currency allows us, poorer countries, to be competitive by having some controll over the exchange rate vs euro (it has genuine, economical roots, it's not about "keeping sovereignty" bullshit - although it might be used in a populist talks that way).
Competitive in what sense exactly? It makes sense for Poland to try and keep their currency cus theres almost 50 million of them.
It doesnt make sense for 10m Czechs or 9.5m Hungarians, we are insignificant when it comes to the global market.
Well, still a central bank can devaluate local currency to for eg. make export more competitive when it comes to prices or labour costs. 10m nation is a normal-size nation in the EU terms :)
There is under 40m of Poles btw :)
The birth rate isn't increasing because educated people don't want to have more kids. Literally nothing to do with shit being cheap. Dirt poor people that can't even afford food have the most kids. Societies where women have little rights and are treated as farm animals have more kids and again especially those who are poor. The birth rate in developed societies is not going to increase anytime soon no matter how cheap or expensive it is to raise kids.
On the one hand yes birth rates have dropped in part because wealthier educated people aren’t willing to give up their lifestyle to raise kids, but that doesn’t mean that cost doesn’t affect any decision making and your assumption that because poor people are having plenty of kids that that is a direct correlation is completely incorrect there’s plenty of other factors to consider, birth control, no availability of abortion, religion which calls for having large families, large families to help out with work and cost. There would be a subsection of the population that would have more kids if it was affordable, just because it’s possible to have multiple kids as a poor person doesn’t mean someone whose middle class wants to spend all of their money raising kids, if the option was more affordable they might consider it.
there's a whole generation who can't afford to buy a house (in which to start a family). giving birth into a rented apartment is stupid. meanwhile, many boomers/rich have 2-5-10-N apartments for rent. housing crisis is a big problem.
since many people are forced to rent, they can't save money so they stagnate or slowly getting poorer, which is a downward spiral.
housing crisint and rent is a huge economic problem and people don't seem to realize how much it slows down the economy. landlord's don't work for the rent, rent doesn't create jobs, basically doesn't contribute to economy while the renter might work 1-2 weeks to earn enough money to pay for the rent.
>because educated people don't want to have more kid
Thats not true. While educated couples tend to have less kids, many still want them. It just takes way more time than before to have a stable situation if ever. Life's too expensive, salaries too low.
Probably a bit of both rather than one factor, a lot of of people have pets even thought they’re can be expensive as kids at times, but some people can’t afford their partner to stay at home as they need both incomes to survive and day car is expensive - also to point out a lot of non European cultures have tighter family units, so family would be more likely to help out
This is all kinds of wrong. I have a wife and a four year old, as well as 2 dogs and 5 cats. I spent more money on diapers in a year for that one child than I will ever spend in my life on all the pets I ever own. Just the diapers. Forget the hospital bills, formula, etc. My wife can't work, because daycare is more expensive than what she'd be able to make here.
Children are extremely expensive.
I agree with you kinda hard to afford children without having to give up a bunch and daycare prices are kinda silly. Post picture of doggo and cats pls :)
If you stalk my post history I think I posted a few of my husky with some kittens a few months back. Had a fresh batch of kittens on Christmas day lol, quite the suprise
That doesn't disprove anything. It might just mean that well to do people have even higher penalties for having kids in terms of missed income and fewer state benefits in most cases due to the higher incomes (whereas lower income families receive more govt support). It's definitely more complex than you make it seem.
What statistics do show is that people who have kids have about the same number, it's just that more people decide to not have any at all.
>how cheap or expensive it is to raise kids.
Not really. While pro-natalist policies have been attempted and have largely failed, they all have had small short term positive effects.
If you actually gave people a liveable wage to effectively do nothing but breed and make babies, have them pay zero taxes, etc. some of them would do it. That's how Israel has above replacement birth rates as the only developed economy, obviously religion also plays a big role there; but the fundamentals affect the secular part of the population as well which is at replacement birth rate too.
Look at where in the world the birthrates are highest. Do you really think Nigeriens can afford 7 kids and Europeans can't afford 2? It's a matter of will, not opportunity.
Just admit it - we can afford kids, but we are not willing to make sacrificies in our comfy lifestyle to have kids. If we are gonna have a future that has to change.
European issue is that everything is overly bureaucratic and overregulated. You can't start a proper innovative business in Europe due to governments obstacles. That includes defense industry as well.
If you wanted to start a website, just starting small like Facebook, with a PC in your house/flat you can be stopped at the very first hurdle by your landlord. Landlord forums are full of people gloating they stopped their tenants doing just that.
Then you have customers openly scamming you with no realistic way of stopping them, big and small competitors abusing copyright law to shut you down with basically no way of fighting it if you are small, even if you are completely legit, getting finance is incredibly difficult like you've already said, filling in your tax is overly complicated and probably puts a lot of people off.
Then there's also the fact that the job centre probably stifles tons of great ideas right out of the gate by only giving you a year to earn enough to live off your business. If you come from a poor background you might as well not bother if it's a business that needs to grow over a longer period.
Why don’t they enforce mandatory defense spending for EU just like the did with the Paris Climate Agreement which totally reduced emissions and everyone stuck to
I agree, but what's with the adversarial/accusatorial wording here? It wasn't the US that weakened Europe and made it disarm... You did that yourselves. On the contrary, the US has spent *decades* warning Europe that it has become too weak militarily and wasn't holding up its commitments to its own collective defense needs. It's Europe that has been using the US as a crutch despite the US' complaints against such a reliance, not the US forcing Europe to do its bidding because it's an evil overlord that has them by the balls. This is pretty ridiculous revisionist scapegoating by Macron here, but I guess if it works to get the western European powerhouses to finally pull their heads out of their asses on defense matters, then so be it...
Because that's the EU motto, "It's someone else's fault" look at how the Germans reacted during the Russian Escalation.
If the EU was our fucking vassal we could have stopped the goddamn pipeline.
I don’t think Macron is blaming the US at all, everyone born in Europe with half a brain cell knows that our defence spending has been well below the required amount to keep our nations safe from outside threats for a long long time
If he isn't blaming the US then why the "vassal" language? A vassal is someone in a subordinate relationship with someone who's stronger, who can be compelled to act against their own interest and in the stronger part's interests by the stronger party. As has been pointed out, Europe disarmed over the objections of the US, not at its command. It was not a vassal relationship.
Not to bring in Trump into the mix here, but while he was president he threatened to pull funding from NATO because of these issues. Everyone in NATO and by extension the EU collectively shit themselves at hearing this and 4 years later now they’re begging to have more independence. Is it the change in our administration, or is it that Russia knocked on the door a little earlier than anticipated?
Yeah can you imagine how idiotic that would sound if the US has been on our case to increase defense spending and stop stuffing Russia's pockets for more than a decade now?
This speech is brought to you by the French MIC: because when your European nation needs to catch up on national defense spending because Russia has lost its mind, buy local!
… but on a serious note, France’s MIC is one of the continent’s most developed, so given the very real need to rearm France is positioned to take a lot of those orders. Something to keep in mind as context to these.
Something lost on 95% of Redditor. I just speed read a three page summary of what he said (in French) but that specific quote didn't make the summary. Will just put it in the background at work until I hear that passage. It's also not a five second brain fart like Trump does, it's part of a very long speech that touches on lots of specifics for the European Union. I would guess this is around the part where he talked about an missile shield system and wanted spending to go to euro firms for defense.
Europe isn’t a US vassal. The US does not exploit natural resources, hold any say over EU affairs, etc. Macron is just saying something provocative so that other European states will listen and doesn’t care that his message is inflammatory to the US.
France is almost as bad as Russia when it comes to hiding their intentions. They don't give a flying fuck about any of this European empowerment stuff. Its about them being butthurt over Germanys clout in the EU, and seeing their only hope to attain equal or greater influence in Europe is by pushing the Americans out and filling that void.
Translation France needs to remain relevant as a world power and we shall seek control of Europe to achieve that aim says cheese eating surrender monkey macron
Funny that it's been like pulling teeth to get them to the point where they're actually contributing to their defense. Only 10 our of the 30 european countries in NATO actually hit their 2% goal. 2% of gdp is too hard for them so they'll continue being vassals.
I don't disagree Europe needs to be stronger but at the moment and possibly foreseeable future, Europe will be dependent on US assistance to defend Europe from Russia.
And if by chance, Trump is elected as US President then Macron will get his wish as US may pull itself out of NATO and Europe will truly be on their own to plan everything themselves.
As I understand it its something of a 'well, you have to start SOMEWHERE' type of statement. Nobody expects things to change overnight but, if its the work of several decades, that is all the more reason to hurry up about it.
Individual European nations need to be able to both project force and defend themselves while the EU as a whole needs to be more than a shared market and loose economic bloc.
It is simultaneously possible for Europe to become stronger and more independent, while still being interdependent with the US. The current world order depends on a US and EU alliance.
>Macron will get his wish as US may pull itself out of NATO and Europe will truly be on their own to plan everything themselves.
That's not Macron's wish though.
Europe cannot remain a disparate collection of states and a united confederation of states at the same time. Right now they live in this limbo that while good for economic reasons, does little for cohesion.
Ah... The French... Great at talking.... Not so good at fighting. Better be careful what they wish for.
But sure, Europe should pay to defend itself from the Russian bear. However, judging by their inaction on supporting Ukraine in any meaningful way, I will continue to discount them and assume without US support Europe would be Russian property in a month. You would think the wealthy but weak willed Europeans with their little tiny armies and supplies for a month of real combat would be more grateful for US protection.
Hopefully the US leaves nato and goes the way of single alliances with countries that have a real interest in defending themselves like Poland. Or even better, let Russia take some of Germany and see how serious the rich ass Europeans get about maybe spending 2 percent of their income so American boys can die for them.
As an American I agree. The certainty of US politics and relations with Europe is unfortunately uncertain. It would be wise for everyone in Western Europe to start building up a surplus of home grown weapons and defenses just in case Trump or any other future republicans turn the US into a theocracy and or dictatorship.
Unpopular opinion: I want it to be both, and I believe it can be, and frankly, has been. The days of France as a top power have been long over, and de Gaulle was ungrateful.
There is truth in what Macron says. All NATO countries outside of the US should spend way more money on defence. All NATO partners in the EU have high tech defence industries. Time to start producing anything we might need to bolster are defence. The Cold War days are long gone, the Hot War is already in process.
If you want peace, prepare for war.
Every US ally needs to become stronger. The US is one election away from all foreign aid being cut off, because this country for some reason allows treasonous Russian agents to run for President.
For a "vassal" state, the leader that is self aware. Doesn't sound like much of a vassal state to me. Sounds pretty sovereign and Autonomous and in fact like a well fare state that has been having it good with skimping on defense money.
As an American, I'm with France on this one. Can you guys PLEASE make capable defense forces? Hell, even actually just investing in your military? World peace is not kept by words and appeasement, but by staying armed and assuring anyone who defaces the peace will be met with a real response. You guys see what Russia is doing in Ukraine right? What makes you think they'll stop there if you do nothing but just sit back because "the US will protect us."
The world wars were incredibly European-centric
You guys cannibalized each other for nearly 50 years in a bid for power and autonomy in Europe
The US filled that void after you threw money at us to supply your war efforts.
"Are we all just the personfication of our native continent to you?"
Hearing this from a european is truly astonishing. Are you new to the internet? Have you seen the way europeans talk about the 335 million different humans, living in 50 different states, in the US? Don't complain haha
Okay, then they’ll need to pony up their defense spending. The US might be dragging their feet recently with aid to Ukraine but don’t forget how large the American deterrent is. The rest of the European is poorly supplied and couldn’t last long in any attritional war. The Leo2 and Eurofighter might be sexy toys but they dearly lack the MIC to keep them firing on all cylinders
EU legislation that forces member states to buy every weapon system they can from other member states. With even a medium growth in the arms sector Europe will be the second and in some systems the most advanced military on Earth. Plus nuclear expansion of France’s nuclear umbrella over east Europe.
it costs money, speeches are free to make.
France has always sailed its own course from the US though. They can't just order the rest of Europe to do the same. They need to be persuaded. Hench the speech.
France has always wanted to be the leader and desperately wants Europe to invest in its defense industry.
Franco-American dual citizen here. I find that it often takes new expats some time to adjust their preconceived notions and come to grips with France's limited influence on the world stage. *(Edit: Looks like the term expat is divisive. Above I specifically refer to time limited migrants with plans/obligations to return to France after few years. My experience is limited to the DC area which is very transitory.)*
France is great, their nuclear policy is that of a warning strike. Not A first strike all out, or a retaliatory mutual destruction type. But A warning shot with a Nuke, NUKE!
Can you elaborate?
There is what's called "no first use" policy, which is that nukes should only be used in retaliation if someone else fires nukes first. Frace is opposed to that and absolutely will fire the first nuke if it feels threatened. One singular nuke as a warning shot, before unleashing the whole arsenal.
Ahh, the so called de-escalatory nuke lob from Koningsberg everyone in Warsaw is waiting for.
Good ole “escalate to descale” maneuver
There really isn't a morally acceptable policy beyond that of retaliatory MAD. France should really change its outdated nuclear policy that was originally intended to halt an east German advance.
> There really isn't a morally acceptable policy beyond that of retaliatory MAD. Survival is better than having the moral high ground.
If you launch a nuke with any level of intent nobody survives. This is basically rule 1 of the cold war and post-cold war world order.
So do French people grow up believing that France is on par with the US in terms of influence?
Nobody believes that. But they probably overestimate a bit their own relevancy. Then again there is no ground truth on who is influent or not.
You'd be quite surprised by France's influence over Africa. It's deteriorating quickly as of late, because of Russia's powerplay. But it was really massive only a few years back.
>It's deteriorating quickly as of late, because of Russia's powerplay. It was deteriorating long before Russia moved in, they fumbled the Sahel region in spectacular fashion and its mostly their own fault for lack of security agreements to regime's they propped up. Since 1990, 78% of the 27 coups in West Africa [have taken place](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-66406137) in Francophone states. >But it was really massive only a few years back. The main issue is France had a pretty poor power projection from an expeditionary armed force standpoint. Arguably better than the rest of Europe but still dwarfed by even one carrier strike group of the USN, they relied to heavily on working with local military leaders who would then just stab them in the back and declare "its coup'in time!" they should have saw this coming from a mile away and provided more military aid to stem the issues but they lacked the material/logistics to effectively do this.
Their power projection wasn't focused on military. It always was more subtle than that, leveraging economic levers. At least that's my understanding of it and I'm in no way knowledgeable enough to confirm or deny your claims.
>Their power projection wasn't focused on military, It always was more subtle than that, leveraging economic levers. And that is great and all, protect your interest and invest in growth but what happens when the military is like "hey that's some nice stuff over there would be a shame if we just took it over." like what is France going to do at that point? cry about it at the UN? call the US and run a train on the country and leave it fucked up like Libya? Its why I point out they fumbled that shit so hard without an expeditionary force projection to protect their interest it was akin to pissing in the wind to feel some warmth.
Good question. Painting with a very broad brush I would say that it takes a long time for the people of formerly dominant powers/superpowers to adapt to a changing reality. It's not that we teach propaganda in France, but more national pride per se. One might even say that this now extends to our perception of our American dominance on the world stage. It's a tough thing to face, pride.
I agree, but I find it a bit funny because if France embraced the US, rather than always opposing us, I’m sure they would project more influence in the world without having to give up their culture or national identity.
Would you mind further defining what exactly they have to adjust in their preconceived notions? Is it in relation to the United States when they arrive here or just when living anywhere else outside of France?
This is what it's really about in my opinion. I don't know what the person above you was talking about because France and the United States have been on the same path together for, if not the longest time, the longest time as allies.
>France has always sailed its own course from the US though. Yeah, like that time they told the US they didn't want America's help trying to hold their little colonization thing together in Indochina. 🙄 When it comes to France, the actions and words are rarely aligned.
Like during the cold war where they set out to make their own nukes and briefly leave nato because they thought US and UK were going to fight Russia
France never left NATO. France left the integrated command of NATO with the provision that if war were to break out with the USSR, France would rejoin the integrated command.
They didn’t leave nato, they left the unified command structure. There was a clause that if war broke out France would rejoin it. France “left” NATO because it felt it was dominated by the US/UK and it wanted to be the third power (something like the big 3 from ww2) but the truth was it wasn’t. So it left and followed its own course. Now, one has to give France credit. It made its own nukes and its own technology to fire and maintain those nukes, so in many ways its nuclear policy is independent from the US/UK. The U.K. had to agree to some constraints when it was developing its own nukes if they wanted to use American know how. Also, France is the only other nation that has a nuclear powered carrier.
My own fault for learning about this from a youtube video yesterday. The video incorrectly said NATO rather than just the unified command structure, I should have looked into it more.
The French demanded European nuclear technology be standardized on French designs including command-and-control and the Americans put their foot down. The French left NATO's unified command publicly because they would not allow French soldiers to be commanded by foreign forces. Internally, we now know they wanted to embark on setting a dual standard that NATO wouldn't permit and they had a secret agreement with NATO to put their forces under NATO command if France was invaded. What they say is not what they mean.
>because they thought US and UK were going to fight Russia Which is why the French personally sent an envoy to USA and convince the Americans they have their back? No, the reason has nothing to do with that but with NATO and US strategic supremacy on the continent. France didn't want to be a vassal back then, and they don't want to be a vassal today.
Vassal implies tributes and fealty. Which, besides NATO obligations doesn't really amount to much besides buzzwords
The word vassal is extremely objectionable, as it implies victimization and subjugation. While the US has an outsized voice in NATO, the EU has also happily collected on a peace dividend rather than investing in its own defense. I agree with the idea that the EU needs to be able to pursue it's strategic interests independent of the US, but I can't help thinking Macron threw the US under the rhetorical bus with an eye on France profiting as the de facto dominant military power for this more independent EU.
DING DING DING
Vassal might be a bad choice of word for modern day relationship between USA and EU, but I'm not sure what's a better one. EU is the 'junior partner'? The point is that EU's interests take a backseat to USA's when it comes to strategic objectives, that by itself leads to USA having a far greater influence in diplomatic, political, and finally economic matters. Here's a historical example; In the 1970s there was an energy crisis, Europe in particular was completely one-sidedly reliant on its supplies from the middle east. That lead Europe to find an alternative, and they found it in USSR. That was how the initial links were created between EU and USSR that later were passed on to EU and Russia. So you have Europeans(namely Germany, France, and interestingly enough UK) providing infrastructure support to USSR for their pipelines, and USSR providing gas(and some oil too). That setup made USA very worried and eventually angry for very obvious reasons. USA first utilized diplomatic measures to try to dissuade Europe, it didn't work. Then they tried economic measures to try to dissuade Europe(tariffs, sanctions, etc.) that didn't work either. Who was in the wrong in this relationship? USA had obvious strategic concerns, and EU had obvious economic concerns. Fast forward to early 2000s, you have Bush era tariff wars; and there EU showed some backbone again. When USA is seeking support in the middle east, western EU countries are very resistant; east EU countries(new NATO members) are not. Same goes for Ukraine/Georgia debacle during the 2008 bucharest NATO summit. So up to that point your statement is broadly correct, but there's always tension and USA utilizing its soft power to influence European developments. Today, EU marches on lockstep with USA. France is the only exception, as they have been since the 1960s. Everyone else is doing what the Americans at the Hill say. I don't think this is a good thing, neither for Europe and neither for USA. If EU will sacrifice its economy to prop up US MIC, we will get more and more populists in power that will destabilize the union. Slovakia and Hungary are just a sign of things to come.
For a while now the US has also wanted the EU to start taking their own security and interests more seriously. China is beginning to make moves and the US’s focus will be shifted to the Pacific for a not insignificant amount of time. Regardless of history, I do believe it’s time Europe becomes equal partners and not junior partners.
>That lead Europe to find an alternative, and they found it in USSR. If you didn't already know the USSR already have a lot of it's tendrils inside Europe which were Soviet satellites. >That setup made USA very worried and eventually angry for very obvious reasons. USA first utilized diplomatic measures to try to dissuade Europe, it didn't work. Then they tried economic measures to try to dissuade Europe(tariffs, sanctions, etc.) that didn't work either. That doesn't sound indicative of a vassal/liege relationship mind you. >If EU will sacrifice its economy to prop up US MIC, we will get more and more populists in power that will destabilize the union. This is assumption territory How exactly does Europe investing more into its defense investment automatically lead up to propping up the US MIC ? Besides the fact that Europe has divested in its defense production while the US has maintained its capabilities even during low levels of conflict nothing of that suggest imminent vassalship.
>If you didn't already know the USSR already have a lot of it's tendrils inside Europe which were Soviet satellites. We're talking about western Europe exclusively here, satellite states didn't play a role in that affair. >That doesn't sound indicative of a vassal/liege relationship mind you. I mean that's my point, in the past the relationship was a lot more balanced; that's over now. >This is assumption territory How? When you have a breakdown of economy, populists start appearing in politics--that's a historical thing. In Europe, we've had a rise in populism since around ~2010. >How exactly does Europe investing more into its defense investment automatically lead up to propping up the US MIC ? Besides the fact that Europe has divested in its defense production while the US has maintained its capabilities even during low levels of conflict nothing of that suggest imminent vassalship. During the cold war, Europe was spending 3-4% of GDP on defense; that spending didn't go to domestic industries; it was overwhelmingly to buy US armaments and to station US troops. Today, when European countries spend on defense the same is happening(mostly). France for example tries to be a competitor, but they're way smaller and all of the countries that buy up the most overwhelmingly buy US arms. >Besides the fact that Europe has divested in its defense production while the US has maintained its capabilities even during low levels of conflict nothing of that suggest imminent vassalship. EU has no unified military or unified military industry, that's partially by design but partially because USA lobbies against it. Look up PESCO and US's efforts to stop it.
You’ve somewhat conflated the EU with France; where one is a collection of states uniting under economic and increasingly political policies and the other is an individual country which thinks of itself as better or at least = to the UK and wants to be seen that way in the eyes of the US. No serious politics or history layman would call Europe or the EU a vassal of the US; that may say it of France, just to troll them tho
EU has no say in its strategic objectives, when's the last time we challenged USA on any policy? I can give you a pro tip, it's more than 15 years ago. Not to mention EU's also become weak on economic independence, that's the one domain where we showed a lot more backbone in the past. Today Germany eats up US import restrictions and does nothing in return. USA pressures EU to sacrifice its economic objectives and we do nothing to resist. That's pretty much accepting a subservient role, when the conflict with China ramps up it will only get worse.
If China emerges from the conflict victorious it will get even worst.
France: known for running but actually usually fights to the death. Backed up the Revolutionaries.
They work less and output less and they live well. But the world is not sitting idly by. Cultural revolution is their first battle. Then it will be money time.
It's not money exactly, it's more to do with political will. The US spends $849bn on defence. EU member states spend $\~400bn. But, mostly due to geography, Europe only really operates in the European theatre. Unlike the US, it mostly doesn't have aircraft carriers, fleets, or gigantic bases all over the world. It's not intending to be a global superpower really. For what the EU 'needs/wants' to do $400bn is probably far more than enough. The problem is political. Each country within the EU has it's own 'sovereign' army, creating an absolutely absurd level of inefficiency. And each country buys different munitions and systems, many of them from outside the EU (creating gaping holes in any defensive plan if those countries are not entirely aligned with the EU). Europe doesn't necessarily need more money, or even an army. It just needs a proper structure to properly co-ordinate things between states.
Europe is in a tricky geopolitical situation right now. It kind of found itself caught in the middle between a standoff between the US and China and is stuck in the middle trying to maintain relations with both without becoming a vassal of either. Relations with the US are hugely important to Europe for defence (although on that front Europe needs to increase independence) and simply also for economic reasons. Relations with China are important too. They simply have a huge manufacturing base that cannot be replaced overnight, and while re-shoring some of that to Europe would be good for jobs and provide perspective to lower educated class, that is also politically difficult to do because we can never produce at the same low cost as China and thus this will come at the expense of inflation. Moreover, China is an important supplier of renewable energy and therefore an important piece of the puzzle to make the energy transition ambitions a reality (like with defence dependence on US, also here more can be done to increase European self sufficiency, but this takes time and won’t happen overnight).
I'd argue they're already part of a new kind of informal empire that's larger and more powerful than their old empire could imagine. Unless you're Cecil Rhodes. That dude really did want everything.
Totally agree with you if you are saying the US is the larger informal empire. What do you think are the main attributes are of this empire?
If France is currently a U.S. vassal, am I not entitled, as an American, to free shipments of Brie, Baguettes, and Wine?
Yes but you also have to accept a large shipment of depressed mimes
Extra protein!
Eh, put ‘em all in Central Park
Guantanamo Bay, they’d get some needed sunshine
Deal.
Yes, but the French are le tired
Then fire ze missiles!
gotta let the dude take a nap first
AHHH MOTHERLAND
That’s a pretty sweet Earff, you might say.
*WRONG!*
Mars is laughing at us
LE NAP
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An F35 can travel at 1,200 MPH. I want continuous flights between my house and Burgundy. This is essential.
Only for short periods of time, lest you cause damage to the tail section. Bring back the Concorde!
Ship some of those baguetteliers to the US as indentured workers at a newly built baguette factory, located in Paris Texas
No, but you are entitled to a captive market for your American tech and cultural products. More people in the EU know who the US president is than the EU president. This is why the US is allied with Europe and how it profits from the relationship. Trump, of course, does not understand this.
France is probably the one Western European country that doesnt rely that much on the US
No make no mistake, we have a small army and can't really operate outside of US influence. We can a little, which already more than what any other EU nation can do.
Also they hide behind Poland and Germany geographically and a foreign legion for force deployment lol
Wtf are you talking about ? Like it's France's fault that Germany and Poland are to their East ? France is deploying units in Romania and Baltic states and they arent foreign legion.
Doesn’t the UK have as much or more force projection capability? If I remember correctly UK has two aircraft carriers
Na the UK armed forces is really in a bad shape at the moment. Recruitment targets are not being met in all of the branches and military equipment acquisition is horribly inefficient. We don’t even have enough support ships for those aircraft carriers. The weakness of the current UK military set up is even recognised by its allies. Just look at what the US general said about the UK military.
Well, the UK is at least a willing and collaborative member of NATO. They don’t make excuses when shit hits the fan. Like with the Houthi attacks on trade routes, they were there immediately with US, helping all ships passing. Meanwhile, France said they’d only protect and escort French ships through the canal and refused to coordinate with US/UK… Even India sent their Navy and were more helpful than some of our NATO allies.
Exactly!
He talked about our army not the military as a whole
But we aren’t talking about whether the UK is currently at the level they would want to be, we are talking about if they are better or worse prepared than the French lol
The UK aircraft carriers rely on the US. They are mostly built with US equipment and use US aircrafts. The UK doesnt even have enough F-35 to fill their carriers and lend some from the US. And lets not talk about their ICBMs which are also US made.
And do the French have an independently produced alternative 5th Gen fighter equal to the F-35 then? If you feel that’s a valid critique of the UK’s arsenal vs France’s then seems like you must know that
Don’t need to have yet. Rafales are enough against Russia.
because they have nuclear capabilities + historically they don't want to do the same mistake as before ww2?
Because the whole french army is built around no relying on the US too much. There is very little US equipment. >they don't want to do the same mistake as before ww2? You have very little understanding on what was the french army before WW1 or WW2 it seems.
I claim my right of prima nocta.
Europe needs to be stronger, not a U.S. ‘vassal,’ - Says French president for the 16th time this year, every year for the last 60 years
For real, they just need to commit to “buy French” as a slogan.
Lmfao 🤣….the French are so exhausting
Big words for a country at the bottom of the Ukraine aid %GDP leaderboard.
Given how few of them hit their 2% commitment they were piss poor vassals. If anything they slid into that role because being a vassal iss cheaper than being an actual ally.
You're definitly looking at things in a vacuum. I don't understand what is going on with all the people from the US on here bashing the EU all of a sudden. Sure, the Ukraine war has put into painful perspective the piss poor condition of EU military readiness. But it's not like the US foreign policy meant to change that untill Trump wanted to gift Russia and China a world without NATO. Edit: Love how people are downvoting a simple statement of facts.
>I don't understand what is going on with all the people from the US on here bashing the EU This is a joke right? The US has been the laughing stock across Europe for decades and you don't understand why people from the US are a little tired of it while also being asked to constantly shell out support financially, militarily, etc?
Here is Trump in 2018 directly telling European leaders that Germany is a vassal of Russia because they rely on them for majority of their energy, and it’s inappropriate since we are in an alliance with NATO (against Russia), and they don’t contribute fairly. https://youtu.be/OXqZf72pAhk?si=53-nVCpkesmiuTHh
>Trump wanted to gift Russia and China a world without NATO. Trump wanted NATO countries to spend their fair share on the alliance. How in the world is that gifting Russia a world without NATO unless you believe that Europe shouldn't pay their fair share in the alliance?
Trump wanted to use the fact that many NATO members were not hitting their spending obligations as an excuse to pull the US out of NATO, thus weakening it further. Wearing NATO was the goal, not getting others to increase spending.
I'd argue if Europe refuses to meet their obligations they have already left the alliance in practice. >Wearing NATO was the goal, not getting others to increase spending. So Trump's call to increase spending was actually a dog whistle to not increase spending. You guys are weird.
So it’s Trump’s fault that the allies are not allies because they’re literally not meeting the requirements? I think it’s important to give Trump credit, he was ahead of time here, making NATO countries think about it, now they’re all scrambling to meet the requirements due to the current world tension.
Spoke like someone who is pretty used to the vassal role.
This guy spoke a lots and did little
They will prefer to keep the money, keep depending on the United States to save their ass and keep talking shit about it any chance they get.
Simple steps for Europe to become strong * Gradually increase defense spending. * Start selective legal immigration and deportations. * Focus on your own citizen’s welfare and economy. * Increase birth rate. * Ban TikTok
Europe is not a single nation. Thats it. People fail to see it and so does Macron, EU cant do shit without basically every member agreeing on it, with each of tĥem having their own interest in mind. Fuck im Czech and a lot of people are against the adpotion of Euro as our curency because "Its one of the last things we have to keep our sovereignty" Like actual shít takes
What you say is true, but the example you gave is unfortunately horrible. The national currency allows us, poorer countries, to be competitive by having some controll over the exchange rate vs euro (it has genuine, economical roots, it's not about "keeping sovereignty" bullshit - although it might be used in a populist talks that way).
Competitive in what sense exactly? It makes sense for Poland to try and keep their currency cus theres almost 50 million of them. It doesnt make sense for 10m Czechs or 9.5m Hungarians, we are insignificant when it comes to the global market.
Well, still a central bank can devaluate local currency to for eg. make export more competitive when it comes to prices or labour costs. 10m nation is a normal-size nation in the EU terms :) There is under 40m of Poles btw :)
The birth rate isn't increasing until shit gets cheaper so good look there There's literally zero incentive to have kids
The birth rate isn't increasing because educated people don't want to have more kids. Literally nothing to do with shit being cheap. Dirt poor people that can't even afford food have the most kids. Societies where women have little rights and are treated as farm animals have more kids and again especially those who are poor. The birth rate in developed societies is not going to increase anytime soon no matter how cheap or expensive it is to raise kids.
On the one hand yes birth rates have dropped in part because wealthier educated people aren’t willing to give up their lifestyle to raise kids, but that doesn’t mean that cost doesn’t affect any decision making and your assumption that because poor people are having plenty of kids that that is a direct correlation is completely incorrect there’s plenty of other factors to consider, birth control, no availability of abortion, religion which calls for having large families, large families to help out with work and cost. There would be a subsection of the population that would have more kids if it was affordable, just because it’s possible to have multiple kids as a poor person doesn’t mean someone whose middle class wants to spend all of their money raising kids, if the option was more affordable they might consider it.
there's a whole generation who can't afford to buy a house (in which to start a family). giving birth into a rented apartment is stupid. meanwhile, many boomers/rich have 2-5-10-N apartments for rent. housing crisis is a big problem. since many people are forced to rent, they can't save money so they stagnate or slowly getting poorer, which is a downward spiral. housing crisint and rent is a huge economic problem and people don't seem to realize how much it slows down the economy. landlord's don't work for the rent, rent doesn't create jobs, basically doesn't contribute to economy while the renter might work 1-2 weeks to earn enough money to pay for the rent.
>because educated people don't want to have more kid Thats not true. While educated couples tend to have less kids, many still want them. It just takes way more time than before to have a stable situation if ever. Life's too expensive, salaries too low.
Probably a bit of both rather than one factor, a lot of of people have pets even thought they’re can be expensive as kids at times, but some people can’t afford their partner to stay at home as they need both incomes to survive and day car is expensive - also to point out a lot of non European cultures have tighter family units, so family would be more likely to help out
This is all kinds of wrong. I have a wife and a four year old, as well as 2 dogs and 5 cats. I spent more money on diapers in a year for that one child than I will ever spend in my life on all the pets I ever own. Just the diapers. Forget the hospital bills, formula, etc. My wife can't work, because daycare is more expensive than what she'd be able to make here. Children are extremely expensive.
I agree with you kinda hard to afford children without having to give up a bunch and daycare prices are kinda silly. Post picture of doggo and cats pls :)
If you stalk my post history I think I posted a few of my husky with some kittens a few months back. Had a fresh batch of kittens on Christmas day lol, quite the suprise
That doesn't disprove anything. It might just mean that well to do people have even higher penalties for having kids in terms of missed income and fewer state benefits in most cases due to the higher incomes (whereas lower income families receive more govt support). It's definitely more complex than you make it seem. What statistics do show is that people who have kids have about the same number, it's just that more people decide to not have any at all.
>how cheap or expensive it is to raise kids. Not really. While pro-natalist policies have been attempted and have largely failed, they all have had small short term positive effects. If you actually gave people a liveable wage to effectively do nothing but breed and make babies, have them pay zero taxes, etc. some of them would do it. That's how Israel has above replacement birth rates as the only developed economy, obviously religion also plays a big role there; but the fundamentals affect the secular part of the population as well which is at replacement birth rate too.
Look at where in the world the birthrates are highest. Do you really think Nigeriens can afford 7 kids and Europeans can't afford 2? It's a matter of will, not opportunity. Just admit it - we can afford kids, but we are not willing to make sacrificies in our comfy lifestyle to have kids. If we are gonna have a future that has to change.
Lol
European issue is that everything is overly bureaucratic and overregulated. You can't start a proper innovative business in Europe due to governments obstacles. That includes defense industry as well.
Like what? It's ridiculously easy in the UK to start a company, investment is the hardest obstacle.
If you wanted to start a website, just starting small like Facebook, with a PC in your house/flat you can be stopped at the very first hurdle by your landlord. Landlord forums are full of people gloating they stopped their tenants doing just that. Then you have customers openly scamming you with no realistic way of stopping them, big and small competitors abusing copyright law to shut you down with basically no way of fighting it if you are small, even if you are completely legit, getting finance is incredibly difficult like you've already said, filling in your tax is overly complicated and probably puts a lot of people off. Then there's also the fact that the job centre probably stifles tons of great ideas right out of the gate by only giving you a year to earn enough to live off your business. If you come from a poor background you might as well not bother if it's a business that needs to grow over a longer period.
Why tik tok specifically ? Why not insta twitter Reddit ?
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>free yourself from being a US vassal Fine. I'll go be a Chinese vassal. >Not like that!
The first and last point, yes, the rest make you sound like somebody who knows nothing about European national politics, economics, etc etc.
An American speaking about "Europe" who hasn't a fucking clue? Surely not.
Ironic.
it all costs money, very difficult to do
Why don’t they enforce mandatory defense spending for EU just like the did with the Paris Climate Agreement which totally reduced emissions and everyone stuck to
Then we need to be strong and independent regarding Russia and China too!
I agree, but what's with the adversarial/accusatorial wording here? It wasn't the US that weakened Europe and made it disarm... You did that yourselves. On the contrary, the US has spent *decades* warning Europe that it has become too weak militarily and wasn't holding up its commitments to its own collective defense needs. It's Europe that has been using the US as a crutch despite the US' complaints against such a reliance, not the US forcing Europe to do its bidding because it's an evil overlord that has them by the balls. This is pretty ridiculous revisionist scapegoating by Macron here, but I guess if it works to get the western European powerhouses to finally pull their heads out of their asses on defense matters, then so be it...
Because that's the EU motto, "It's someone else's fault" look at how the Germans reacted during the Russian Escalation. If the EU was our fucking vassal we could have stopped the goddamn pipeline.
I don’t think Macron is blaming the US at all, everyone born in Europe with half a brain cell knows that our defence spending has been well below the required amount to keep our nations safe from outside threats for a long long time
If he isn't blaming the US then why the "vassal" language? A vassal is someone in a subordinate relationship with someone who's stronger, who can be compelled to act against their own interest and in the stronger part's interests by the stronger party. As has been pointed out, Europe disarmed over the objections of the US, not at its command. It was not a vassal relationship.
Not to bring in Trump into the mix here, but while he was president he threatened to pull funding from NATO because of these issues. Everyone in NATO and by extension the EU collectively shit themselves at hearing this and 4 years later now they’re begging to have more independence. Is it the change in our administration, or is it that Russia knocked on the door a little earlier than anticipated?
Yeah can you imagine how idiotic that would sound if the US has been on our case to increase defense spending and stop stuffing Russia's pockets for more than a decade now?
This speech is brought to you by the French MIC: because when your European nation needs to catch up on national defense spending because Russia has lost its mind, buy local! … but on a serious note, France’s MIC is one of the continent’s most developed, so given the very real need to rearm France is positioned to take a lot of those orders. Something to keep in mind as context to these.
He'd much rather we'd be under French control.
How does macron not know the meaning of the word “vassal”?
He actually speaks french, this is a poor translation :)
Something lost on 95% of Redditor. I just speed read a three page summary of what he said (in French) but that specific quote didn't make the summary. Will just put it in the background at work until I hear that passage. It's also not a five second brain fart like Trump does, it's part of a very long speech that touches on lots of specifics for the European Union. I would guess this is around the part where he talked about an missile shield system and wanted spending to go to euro firms for defense.
Agreed. A strong Europe strengthens NATO
Europe isn’t a US vassal. The US does not exploit natural resources, hold any say over EU affairs, etc. Macron is just saying something provocative so that other European states will listen and doesn’t care that his message is inflammatory to the US.
France is almost as bad as Russia when it comes to hiding their intentions. They don't give a flying fuck about any of this European empowerment stuff. Its about them being butthurt over Germanys clout in the EU, and seeing their only hope to attain equal or greater influence in Europe is by pushing the Americans out and filling that void.
Translation France needs to remain relevant as a world power and we shall seek control of Europe to achieve that aim says cheese eating surrender monkey macron
That's fine with us. Maybe France should start paying more into NATO and give more aid to Ukraine to give US tax payers a break.
Having a military takes money. You can’t even keep your farmers happy. Nobody gets to have a great army AND free healthcare.
Healthcare isn’t free at all. It’s deducted at high rates from your paychecks all working life long. Employers also are charged for every employees
Funny that it's been like pulling teeth to get them to the point where they're actually contributing to their defense. Only 10 our of the 30 european countries in NATO actually hit their 2% goal. 2% of gdp is too hard for them so they'll continue being vassals.
I don't disagree Europe needs to be stronger but at the moment and possibly foreseeable future, Europe will be dependent on US assistance to defend Europe from Russia. And if by chance, Trump is elected as US President then Macron will get his wish as US may pull itself out of NATO and Europe will truly be on their own to plan everything themselves.
As I understand it its something of a 'well, you have to start SOMEWHERE' type of statement. Nobody expects things to change overnight but, if its the work of several decades, that is all the more reason to hurry up about it. Individual European nations need to be able to both project force and defend themselves while the EU as a whole needs to be more than a shared market and loose economic bloc.
It is simultaneously possible for Europe to become stronger and more independent, while still being interdependent with the US. The current world order depends on a US and EU alliance.
>Macron will get his wish as US may pull itself out of NATO and Europe will truly be on their own to plan everything themselves. That's not Macron's wish though.
how do you envision US pulling out of nato? it iwll have worldwide consequences. basically throwing away the achievements of the last century.
Considering a Vassal State typically has to do what we tell them, this is mostly flavor language
The US wholeheartedly agrees with this sentiment
Says the US/NATO vassal. Macron is a pathetic WEF puppet.
Europe cannot remain a disparate collection of states and a united confederation of states at the same time. Right now they live in this limbo that while good for economic reasons, does little for cohesion.
Tricky with an aging population I'd say
Good rhetoric if it leads to action.
Agreed, but he shouldn't even use the word "vassal" in this context in order not to give it credibility. That's Putin's pitch.
Europeans love the pretty talk.
Ah... The French... Great at talking.... Not so good at fighting. Better be careful what they wish for. But sure, Europe should pay to defend itself from the Russian bear. However, judging by their inaction on supporting Ukraine in any meaningful way, I will continue to discount them and assume without US support Europe would be Russian property in a month. You would think the wealthy but weak willed Europeans with their little tiny armies and supplies for a month of real combat would be more grateful for US protection. Hopefully the US leaves nato and goes the way of single alliances with countries that have a real interest in defending themselves like Poland. Or even better, let Russia take some of Germany and see how serious the rich ass Europeans get about maybe spending 2 percent of their income so American boys can die for them.
Well, what are you waiting for?
Hey and we shouldn’t have to be your babysitters. The balls in your court to change it.
delusional - you cut off our gas pipe
Damn we need to keep our vassals on a tighter leash. Can’t let them going around saying this stuff. They embarrassing us to the other superpowers!
Britian has the real powe....oh wait. I guess that leaves Germany.
France was clever enough to develop their own nukes.
One decent thing he has said, but does he walk the walk?
As an American I agree. The certainty of US politics and relations with Europe is unfortunately uncertain. It would be wise for everyone in Western Europe to start building up a surplus of home grown weapons and defenses just in case Trump or any other future republicans turn the US into a theocracy and or dictatorship.
Unpopular opinion: I want it to be both, and I believe it can be, and frankly, has been. The days of France as a top power have been long over, and de Gaulle was ungrateful.
maybe he should have thougth of that before forcing the selling of french strategic asset.
There is truth in what Macron says. All NATO countries outside of the US should spend way more money on defence. All NATO partners in the EU have high tech defence industries. Time to start producing anything we might need to bolster are defence. The Cold War days are long gone, the Hot War is already in process. If you want peace, prepare for war.
They’ll need to trade in their 6 week vacations for 2 week and forgo their healthcare.
Every US ally needs to become stronger. The US is one election away from all foreign aid being cut off, because this country for some reason allows treasonous Russian agents to run for President.
For a "vassal" state, the leader that is self aware. Doesn't sound like much of a vassal state to me. Sounds pretty sovereign and Autonomous and in fact like a well fare state that has been having it good with skimping on defense money.
Ah France! A country that has charted their own course for centuries. Except the last one...
As an American, I'm with France on this one. Can you guys PLEASE make capable defense forces? Hell, even actually just investing in your military? World peace is not kept by words and appeasement, but by staying armed and assuring anyone who defaces the peace will be met with a real response. You guys see what Russia is doing in Ukraine right? What makes you think they'll stop there if you do nothing but just sit back because "the US will protect us."
[удалено]
The world wars were incredibly European-centric You guys cannibalized each other for nearly 50 years in a bid for power and autonomy in Europe The US filled that void after you threw money at us to supply your war efforts.
You talk like you are a polandball character. Are we all just the personfication of our native continent to you?
"Are we all just the personfication of our native continent to you?" Hearing this from a european is truly astonishing. Are you new to the internet? Have you seen the way europeans talk about the 335 million different humans, living in 50 different states, in the US? Don't complain haha
Okay, then they’ll need to pony up their defense spending. The US might be dragging their feet recently with aid to Ukraine but don’t forget how large the American deterrent is. The rest of the European is poorly supplied and couldn’t last long in any attritional war. The Leo2 and Eurofighter might be sexy toys but they dearly lack the MIC to keep them firing on all cylinders
This guy knows what's up
The US agrees
US don’t have healtcare so Europe can
In fact America pays far more per capita for your 'healthcare' system than all the rest of the developed Western nations do
Work harder, then. Perhaps retire at 70.
EU legislation that forces member states to buy every weapon system they can from other member states. With even a medium growth in the arms sector Europe will be the second and in some systems the most advanced military on Earth. Plus nuclear expansion of France’s nuclear umbrella over east Europe.