One could argue it already is - mainly on a soft power level. Now that Ursula has chopped the chains off the war chest we can get back the hard power as well. I feel very good about this, it's rare to feel optimistic about the way your country and union is going...
Yup yup... A little scary though...
That is the reason why I gotta just trust that the people running the country and EU know what they are doing.
I am in Finland and I really do trust we are doing what we need to, our defense forces and government is very shush shush regarding defense, every government and defense outlet was adamant that we weren't joining NATO until the foreign minister and president announced the move. At least in a country of 5 million we are really thinking of each other here. Let's just hope that is the case for the rest of the EU and the overall union.
Slava Ukraini
Trust? I don't trust any politician... Here in Portugal we're almost certainly going for early elections because the government is gonna fail a confidence vote...
Well it's either that or we'll end up being steamrolled by Russia, China or the US
Being able to defend your territory does not make you a "superpower" being able to step on other peoples territory does. The EU needs to build up good defensive capabilities, but it should refrain from offensive capabilities to project power like the US or Russia. Instead we need to focus on improving diplomatic ties with Africa, South America and non-China Asia to become the forerunners of a new Third World.
I think "World Power" is not that desirable. The US was a world power, look what they had to do and what culture they had to develop to become one. Same for the Soviets. Same for a surging China, becoming more imperialist by the day. Your emotions may tell you "yes!!!", but the reality is - it will not benefit you much, it will mostly benefit your rulers.
I'd rather have the power of the EU in service of getting a proper, international organisation like the UN capable enough to do its job.
The EU is definitively a world power or great power. The EU might rise to the level of superpower, which is where the US is.
Being a great power just means that you can exert influence over events on the world stage. Having a meaningful say in how international organizations are run, or the ability to influence conflicts outside of your direct realm of control.
The EU is not yet at a point where no power can take a meaningful action on the world stage without considering how the EU will react to that action, which is one of the defining criteria of a superpower.
Despite having burnt an enormous amount of soft power for no reason, the US still holds a position where they can't be disregarded. EU military spending patterns are changing because the US is changing it's stance on a conflict they aren't really involved in beyond a "superpowers are involved in everything" sense.
Being either type of power has benefits beyond what it gives to those in control. In general, the leverage is used to effectively bribe the populace of the power. Pushing international organizations to prefer vendors from your country, driving business to it. "Thank goodness that agricultural development program bought their equipment from us, we had a great year, our jobs are intact and we actually hired more people".
It also brings cheap goods preferentially.
The benefit to the people in control is that it simplifies distributing favors to the people who keep them there, which in part includes the general population. "I'll let you buy these tractors from me on the condition you sell me every mango in your country for a decade. I'll even give you the tractor money back over the course of the decade. If you don't accept the deal no one will make a different one with you for fear of me not renewing my contract with them".
You don't have to have our broken internal culture to be a power. That only makes it so people take our position for granted.
"Become a world power"
You know, we've had that experience before, "everywhere else" would pretty much prefer that didn't happen again, thank you very much.
lol yea. I’m an American and fully support other nations boycotting our goods but I’m noticing an overlap with these boycotts and nationalist-imperialist sentiments.
Weirdly enough, from what I've seen, European nationalists tend to be very much against the EU.
That's not entirely true. Europeans tend to dress up racism as national pride and concern for cultural norms (with a few exceptions). So it isn't so much "I'm proud of my country" as "I don't want Arabs and Africans on my street".
A lot of European countries have a long and detailed history that paints a grim picture that most people like to distance ourselves from.
Seriously. Why do people genuinely think this is a good idea? Colonialism and imperialism is bad.
People should have learned after the US's faults, and overreliance of it due to being a world power; but people just want to do it again???
Yes and no. Countries like Russia and China are always going to exist. That means places like the Philippines, Taiwan, Ukraine, and Georgia are always going to need a strong ally if they don't want to be invaded. There are a lot of countries that are going to be very worried now that America has turned heel (Especially Taiwan). Europe has mostly grown out of the need for constant expansion, so having them take on the role of world police wouldn't be the worst thing to happen.
We tried that a few times, and war/imperialism crimes.
But this time it will be diffident. We is evolved now.
(Never mind the rising support of the alt-right parties in the last decade.)
For the love of God Europe, we need a world power that actually respects human rights, not outright rejects them like Russia, pretends to embrace like America, or outright rejects them while tankies pretend that China embraces them.
You're looking in the wrong place. Several EU members have far right leaders already, many more are moving right. The EU (and UK) are about 4 or 5 years behind the US. Don't confuse disagreement with Trump over Ukraine with meaningful ideological differences.
What do you define as "human rights"? Because I would say that the western ideas of them have failed pretty heavily especially when it comes to deciding who they are enforced for and who they are not.
I think we need to be more critical of past ideas as they are the exact ideas that have brought us here. Doomed to repeat it and all that.
I would say to learn from all of the societies you mentioned instead of simplifying something into "China bad" or "Russia bad" or "America Bad".
It's ignorant to look at a world power like China and throw out all of the good they have done for their people. There are absolutely things we can learn from their success and failure. But I guess saying this is gonna make me a "Tankie".
As Carlin said. If God gave us "rights" he'd have given us a right to a good meal everyday. I think it's important to not fall into western superiority. It's especially important for us to rethink what we think of as "rights" because it has not been working that well, no matter the intention.
Europe needs to be strong enough to stand on its own at all levels, but I think it's a pretty bad idea for it to become a neo-Imperial power in the style of America.
For all the great things of Democracy, the one thing people forget in their rosy propaganda-tainted view of it (living inside of it, we're constantly bombarde by political messaging about its greatness) is that by definition even the most perfect Democracy only has the duty to represent the will of its citizens, not of people who are not citizens of that Democracy.
So there is no ideological element in Democracy to make it less nasty at exploiting people from other countries than authoritarian regimes.
All this to say that Europe shouldn't get into the business of power projection like the US has done for decades (leaving a long trail of death, suffering and destitution all over the World, especially the Middle East and Latin America).
And I say this as an European and somebody who would stand to gain indirectly from Europe going systematically (it's already done by businesses and some governments in it, just not openly and systematically) into the business of exploiting non-Europeans.
A peacefull when not provoked giant would probably be the best philosphy for a strong Europe, IMHO.
(Edit: for avoidance of doubt I want to state that for me Russia trying to advance westwards by invading Ukraine counts as a provocation)
And I say this as an European and somebody who would stand to gain indirectly from Europe going systematically (it’s already done by businesses and some governments in it, just not openly and systematically) into the business of exploiting non-Europeans.
One great myth of imperial power plays is that the exploitation benefits the imperial power. It often doesn't. The scramble for Africa, for example, was a net economic drain for all the great powers that participated. Every little thing they gained was generally lost as they spent immense amounts of money on being manipulated into useless conflicts by client chiefs. Similar dynamic for England in India during the later periods and associated areas (the British conquest of Myanmar was particularly useless). The only real benefit is economic dominance and the ability to trade (like that was seen in Singapore and Canton). For all it's imperialism and interventionism from the Philippines to Korea to Vietnam to Afghanistan to Iraq, America hasn't seen a gain. Most of the moves by the great powers only benefits a select few of private citizens while the state spends lives and treasure on conquest and subsequent administration for an illegitimate government that becomes corrupt and fragile.
We've done that already a few times. After over 3000 years of empires must we really? Again? The Greek empire, the roman empire, the spanish empire, the holy roman empire, the dutch golden century, the British (largest globe spanning empire ever) and French empires, Austria Hungaria and I'm quite certain even Portugal had its day. And let's not forget Germany. Or the Soviet union and tsarist Russia. Also nice as far as empires go.
Anyway..
Sigh.
Fine.
But dont come crying if you dont like the outcome.
Pax Americana only ended because you guys voted for it. We where fine with it, hanging out, buying your shit. Using your tech.
Maybe we don’t want to do that again… people have some really short memories.
Cause it worked out so well last time...
They let themselves be subservient to the Americans cause they didn't trust each other (understandable given the shared history of the continent).
Now that the USA has flipped the switch so dramatically given Trump is unpredictable and incompetent, I hope the Europeans realise they can trust each other more than their far away who doesn't give 2 shits about them. I'm optimistic but whilst they can do stuff for Ukraine, I'm not sure how they will go about EU reform (if they can even get it done given Orban exists). They need to be bold and I'm not sure they will all be on the same page for that
cause they didn't trust each other (understandable given the >shared history of the continent).
Oh man, don't you ever underestimate the most important rule of all time.
Sad that picture doesn't include UK - like it used to.
And will do again, if we get a grip.
UK is an a rosy position right now politically. Can play friends with both US and Europe, like a Cinderella at a ball
You can do it, Europe. Everyone that cares about "the west" is rooting for you.
It always has been…
Moldova will join the EU, which will allow a Romanian and Moldovan union. They will be able to take over Europe and then the world using vampires and deadly lasers and stuff
It will never be. It cannot be.
We all know how slow a democracy is. It takes a major event or crisis to stir up politicians to act in a timely manner and with vigor.
Now imagine the absolute dumpster fire that would need to burn to get 27 democracies to get their shit together. I doubt anything short of a full-scale invasion of EU territory by Russia would do.
Libs really believing that white people haven't been destroying, robbing, and murdering the global south.
Libs can't comprehend that white people have been destroying, robbing, and murdering one another. The idea that residents of Spain, Greece, and Germany are just going to join hands and do a kumbayah after 16 years of brutal austerity imposed through the ECB is delusional. And this after Brexit, with anti-EU parties gaining traction in France and Italy.
Never even mind how this vision of the EU excludes Turkey, the lynchpin of the whole operation. It would be like saying "We need a United Africa but NO EGYPT!" Like, what are you even fucking doing here, guys?
Perhaps let someone from global south take the controls (if humans even have more than few decades as species)
Like who? Which bloc is economically as large as the EU and is considered a full democracy. Like we’ve seen what happens when an economically powerful nation with a weak democracy becomes a super power.
They need to poke the planet, then we can all work together to get the fuck off this rock. We've fucked it up enough and there are plenty of planets to mine resources from. Let's all band together for an exit. Then go our separate ways after launch.
The complete ignorance of Europeans judging America while us Americans export all our brain rot to you guys. Always acting slightly superior as your neoliberalism continues to rot away your social safetynets and public programs. After all, next to Trump, you guys look normal.
If Europe becomes a world power right now it would be Nazi 2.0 but this time it would be a Holocaust on Arabs instead of Jews. You guys are following our same playbook right now. I don't know if you've noticed. If you aren't careful you'll spend all your time focusing on boycotting America while your own Oligarchs pick apart your countries for scraps just like ours are. Hell, in a lot of cases they're the same Oligarchs (Elon and AFD for example).
By all means. Fuck America. But this is a class struggle and will not be overcome by ignoring that. The trade wars are a direct attack on the working class as we pay the price. The people making these decisions will gladly let us all suffer as they consolidate their wealth even more.
Tarrifs are not a trade war between nations. They are a war on the working classes material conditions.
Just for clarification, that's EU and not Europe. Yes, i'm in the hole in the center.
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