If I do what the bully tells me to do, he leaves me alone and attacks other people. That's not security, that's abuse.
Most of the western world and the US have extremely aligned interests when it comes to security. And most of it revolves around making sure that trade routes stay open, and also making sure that instability doesn't end up messing with trade.
Are you sure Europe couldn't manage its security by itself?
I mean, while keeping strong relations and cooperation directly with the US and inside NATO I don't understand why European countries wouldn't be able to defend themselves especially if we started thinking about a stronger cooperation between our defence systems or even a unique European army instead of keeping one for every country.
Europe isn't financially situated, nor does it seem to have the social stomach for it.
We just don't spend it on an imperial posture and wars of aggression.
There are no European security interests in invading mid-eastern or latin-american countries, propping up dictators and toppling democratic governments in these regions and creating/financing the next wave of "terrorists", so that tab is all yours.
Furthermore, there is no "on your behalf" for the troops stationed in Europe. While some would argue that these are occupying forces in all but name, it's really in many cases just a convenient staging area for operations in the middle east.
In addition, and this tends to be forgotten, the nuclear shield is not a sign of generosity, but simply a tool to maintain US nuclear supremacy, by trading protection under the shield for a guarantee that those nuclear-capable countries under the shield don't, in fact, go nuclear.
US troops are stationed in those countries as assurance, human shields so to speak: if those countries are hit with nuclear strikes, US troops will die, ensuring a US retaliatory response.
The US is not just Germanys' biggest partner - it controls Germanys' sovereignty. The German intelligence services are all run from Washington. When Merkel says 'it does not matter', its because its really not relevant that America is spying on Germany: its allowed to. Germany lost WW2, and has not had a restoration of the sovereignty of its intelligence services in its constitution. That part is still held by the occupying power.
Please don’t spread this bullshit. There is (mostly) mutually beneficial strong cooperation with a power-differential. That’s all. Stop spinning your dumb conspiracy theories.
Germany is, at most, a puppet state - a model for what America had hoped to pull off in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and so on ..
Seriously, everyone who works for the NSA has lost all my respect. You're undermining civil rights for everyone including yourself.
Another hint about the sovereignty: there are still army bases on German ground, from which drones are controlled and people are killed ...
After all, USA is the biggest partner of the EU/Germany.
Germany can't afford a dent in the relationship with the
US.
America doesn't realize it fully yet, but it's making itself very unpopular in the last 5 years and this will be a huge problem in the future when all that's left is UK, Mexico & Canada (Maybe India) as your friends.
America has enough power and influence to shut down any possible discontent - both within the country and of their minion states in Europe. It's been ruling over EU for many decades now and knows well how to handle "unpopular opinions".
The biggest fear for Merkel is twofold:
- Industry espionage. This would attack Germany at what they're best at and be huge problem. USA has been lucky to not be caught about that (in Germany).
- The much bigger problem for Merkel is however the growing Anti-Americanism in Germany. There has always been a good amount of it. But mostly, Germans see the US as a partner. There is in huge decline and it's a growing problem. Germans are much more serious about their privacy than Americans and the spying scandal didn't help America. Merkel also knows that she has to listen much more to the German public than for instance Obama has to listen to Americans. Germany has a very well functioning Democracy and any pressure from the public will quickly result in resignations or losing the next election. Germany has done this before: Kohl's affair got his party out. The FDP got thrown out of the parliament last year. You can quickly go from 40% to under 20% in Germany. Due to the many US scandals in the last 2 years, Germans see America very very skeptic these days. Der Spiegel yesterday's issue has some numbers: Who should Germany work together with? USA: 56%. Russia: 53%.
If you read many of the forums in Germany you'll see the growing dissatisfaction with the US as a partner. And more and more understanding for Putin these days.
My point of this post is: What this means it that if USA continues to bully the German people, then Merkel will be forced to take action and do something that she doesn't actually want to. She knows very well that America is extremely important and without a good relationship things will get much tougher in Europe/Germany. After all Germany is benefiting from the huge security the US provides to us. But Germans don't think that far ahead and only see the bully in America these days. I hope it doesn't get this far that Merkel is forced (by the German people/media) into getting distance from America since it would hurt both, Germany and the US. I'm very certain that Obama know that Merkel will always be his friend. But I'm not so sure if he realizes that the German people can make Merkel do something that she otherwise wouldn't do.
America: Watch out how far you take the bullying. It might just happen that the next generation of Westerners will end up hating you in 10-20 years down the road. And then, you will have no friends left but only enemies. What Obama and America's government does can be very dangerous for America in the future.