This post was dead when I stumbled upon it. I don't agree with it, for the obvious reasons, including the fact that I'm not American. Yet, my understanding is that this kind of opinion is shared by a large number of US citizens. I don't believe censoring it is the correct way to deal with it - it's not even off-topic as we discuss NATO membership in the first place.
An account created 24 days ago using talking points generally considered incorrect and inflammatory and the account name is literally named "donthellbanme"? And that is whom you chose to give the benefit of the doubt?
Yes. Before vouching, I skimmed their "comments" page. In my opinion, 90% of the posts there were flagged unfairly.
Being incorrect or even inflammatory is not a crime. Being unable to voice your opinion just because it makes other people go "yuck" when they hear them is not something I would like to promote or support.
Regarding the nick, my guess is that the author opinions have been controversial for some time, and they probably were banned for voicing them before. After a third time I can see myself making an account with similar name - at least if I was stubborn enough to try again.
Downvote the GP and ignore them all you want - you can fold their comment along with the whole subtree below it - but don't flag the posts. As you can see, if you bothered to read, there's a lot of fact-based refutations offered by other users in this subthread. These are better weapons against disinformation (if it's that) than pretending people believing that disinformation don't exist, and moving them out of sight, and out of mind.
To be honest, I wouldn't be writing this if it was a few weeks ago. I probably wouldn't even have bothered with vouching, and definitely wouldn't spent time reviewing the comment history. I'm lazy, after all. Unfortunately, someone here linked an essay[1] by pg and it changed my mind. We need more, not less, incorrect and inflammatory voices, because sometimes, someone from the flock of crooks actually is right. And we all lose if they're right but keep it to themselves.
Do large amount of Americans think that " We all know Russia will win."? Also, Finland builds its army? As in, NATO seems to be so eager on Finland joining cause they think they will gain something too.
I’m an American. For many decades the idea that the U.S. props up the rest of world at the expense of focusing on our people has been a strong one. It was very strong going into the 80s but has becomes less so since then. It is still used from time to time galvanize right leaning people. There is a strong isolationist bent within the U.S. too.
I do believe Trump was correct to criticize the lack of defense spending by many NATO countries and I too think Europeans should largely defend themselves. Personally I favor a multi polar world and would like the U.S. to retreat so to speak.
European countries will only spend money on defense when they calculate it as a necessity. During the cold war the Netherlands had a tank division stationed in Germany waiting for the Red Army to invade.
And I want to emphasize DEFENSE. Not "invade other countries in trillion dollar regime change operations".
It was US Congress that signed off on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
I support an imperial retreat by the U.S. I strongly disagree with the the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and our policies against Iran, and our support for numerous brutual regimes. Unchecked power is dangerous and it’s time for the U.S. to engage is isolationism once again. The EU will need to learn to either strengthen federalism and defend itself or remain reliant of the U.S. military tit. I prefer the former option.
Vouched this not because I agree with it, but because I feel it deserves a reply.
You should note that even Trump held Finland as a counterexample to European NATO countries that don't pull their own weight.
Finland is not a country that spends all it's money on social programs and doesn't have a military. Instead, we still have mandatory male conscription, and a very well-armed reserve.
Historically, we have trusted our defense in the principle of being strong enough that even if we knew that the Soviets/Russians could eventually beat us, the costs we could inflict on them would massively outweigh any possible benefit from conquering us. This no longer works because in Ukraine Putin has shown that he does not do cost/benefit analysis for his foreign policy.
I was only presenting an American view regarding the notion of “we pay for others at our own expense”. Trumps comments were directed at NATO members and not Finland or Sweden. He also famously said South Korea and Japan needed to spend more.
My personal view on the matter is that I support an imperial retreat by the U.S. The EU needs to listen more to the Baltics regarding defense and foreign policy.
Hmm, wonder how many billions European/NATO-countries/Australia have spent of their own money in an effort to help the US on its somewhat 20 year long misguided war on terror...
That being said, I understand the american feelings about this, as a lot of stuff have had the wrong priorities in the US for a long time, which I would argue is an internal matter and nothing to do with NATO (or its members).
The U.S. hasn’t criticized British defense spending as far as I know. Yes other countries have spent money on our misadventures. They do so, as one Australian put it to me, because if someone is going to be a hyper power you could do a lot worse than have it be the U.S. In exchange for our protection other countries do support us.
I support a more isolationist U.S. policy. It’s time for America to engage in an imperial retreat.
Tho, some of that "defense" were invasions on false pretense. What americans do in Ukraine is great and they deserve all the credit. But, some of past wars were less great.
>"For many decades the idea that the U.S. props up the rest of world ..."
It does not do it for free. It gets many benefits from "the rest of the world". Like buying US debt, trading oil in US dollars, access to cheap labor, bigger market etc. etc. Nothing of what it does is "free". This giant war spending also helps them to bomb other countries into oblivion when they feel like.
Yes. I was just commenting on how Americans see things. As a people we are extremely ignorant of international matters and don’t take into account that our over sized military does pay dividends. I don’t agree that those dividends are worthwhile anymore though. We are a nation with a first class military, first class level of cultural influence, first class level of soft and hard power that has second rate social programs. I would like that to be reversed.
Funny thing is, the USA isn't "paying for everything".
The people who whine about NATO members "not paying enough" seem to think all the other NATO countries have got rid of their armies and are defended only by US troops permanently stationed there. That's not how it works: They all have their own defense forces. Trump was whining that those are not big enough (and he was probably even [at least mainly] right there), but that just means that if there is a war in any NATO country, it will only be able to do "too small a part" in its own defense, and the other ones (yes, given their size, mainly the USA) will have to help more than they otherwise would. But until that happens, this "missing money" doesn't actually come out of any US budget; it's just not being spent at all.
For once, not even "just another one of Trump's lies", but certainly a huge over-simplification by / for the more naïve of his followers.
>> But until that happens, this "missing money" doesn't actually come out of any US budget; it's just not being spent at all.
(Fyi Not American.) That seems wrong, because America does already spend so much on their Military budget to have a 'preventative' presence plus standing force ready to respond. They spend each year keeping that force built, trained, operating etc .. regardless of if it's used.
That seems pretty obvious too, I don't know if your argument was made in good faith?
> "But until that happens, this "missing money" doesn't actually come out of any US budget; it's just not being spent at all."
That's like saying a 4WD SUV, which is much heavier because it can in theory go off road at any time, doesn't burn any extra fuel if you never take it off road. Maintaining the capability to send a huge expeditionary force to Europe at any time is mind-bendingly expensive.
Wasn't Trump specifically complaining about many NATO members not seriously working towards the 2% of their GDPs they were expected to spend on defense?
Which was also in the news around February since Germany seriously committed to meeting that requirement in response to Ukraine, thus effectively saying that he was not all too unreasonable to demand that?
I agree with you. Sadly you sometimes see comments being downvoted not because of the quality of the argument, the technical correctness of the analysis or validity of the logic arguments. Instead because they are presenting a less popular view.
Minority should be respected just as much as the majority. Downvotes make "less popular views" also less readable and promote a "tyranny of the majority" which is bad.
If downvotes did not affect the visibility and were called "disagree" it would be fair. Instead they serve as a mob's club in my opinion.
