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A comment on NSA Spied on Denmark as It Chose Its Future Fighter Aircraft: Report. Parent comment

Re:NSA Spied on Denmark as It Chose Its Future Fighter Aircr... by toyg on Thursday November 19, 2020 @02:31AM (#25147080)
Denmark is somewhat more reliant on the US than the average European country because of Greenland. Eastern countries like Poland are similarly beholden to NATO because Russia is an immediate threat for them. Everyone else is basically just lazy: relying on the Americans saves us a lot of money and effort that European public opinion is unwilling to spend. This allows e.g. France to play “Africa’s cop” to prop up their own economy and influence.

This laziness will probably bite us in the ass at some point. Trump was the first but won’t be the last US president pushing for disengagement from the Old World. You cannot build a superpower-sized army in a few months, and direct threats are only increasing (as well as Russia we now have Turkey, Lybia, Egypt, Algeria, Serbia - they could all go rogue at short notice and literally start firing shots at the continent).

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Re:NSA Spied on Denmark as It Chose Its Future Fighter Aircr... by avar on Thursday November 19, 2020 @04:23AM (#25147704)
> Trump was the first but won’t be the last US president pushing for disengagement from the Old World[...]

It was Obama who started pushing for the 2% policy and got NATO countries to agree to ramp spending up to that before 2024[1].

Before that there's been decades of the US trying to push Europe to take defense spending more seriously.

Trump's had more juvenile rhetoric on the issue, but he fundamentally wasn't saying anything to NATO or enacting any policies that Obama pursuing before him.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/27/world/europe/europe-begin...

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Re:NSA Spied on Denmark as It Chose Its Future Fighter Aircr... by toyg on Thursday November 19, 2020 @05:11AM (#25147956)
Yeah but with Obama and his predecessors it was just about money, everyone knew the score. This could be bargained at diplomatic level with other stuff. Trump looked willing and able to actually do the unthinkable and redeploy away, irrespective of strategic considerations, and his closeness with Putin and Erdogan was unsettling.

Biden will likely mark a return to the old haggling, but in 4 years' time the US might get another strongman and we'd be at risk again. Democracy will always need an arsenal, and it's not a given anymore that the US really want to be that arsenal.

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Re:NSA Spied on Denmark as It Chose Its Future Fighter Aircr... by saiya-jin on Thursday November 19, 2020 @04:29AM (#25147737)
Good point - as an european, I see for example Turkey as much bigger threat currently compared to Russia. They are aggressive as hell, directly (Syria, Greece, semi-open support of ISIS in the region) and indirectly (ie Karabach). Putin will be gone one day, and the idea that somebody more like Erdogan would be leading Russia gives me goosebumps.

You don't have to project power to distant places only directly via supercarriers and local military bases, various subversions can get you pretty far.

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Re:NSA Spied on Denmark as It Chose Its Future Fighter Aircr... by toyg on Thursday November 19, 2020 @05:22AM (#25148008)
Yep. It's not hard to think of a scenario where Bulgaria or Greece get in turmoil because of economic or social woes and Turkish troops advance into their territories to "ensure security" like they did in Syria.
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