Although I agree with the conclusion that the necessity of NATO is to be questioned, some of the observations made are purely in the eye of the
beholder. E.g.
> Nations apparently willing and eager for American taxpayers to assume the growing security burden left by reductions in European defense budgets.
From a European perspective, the "growing security burden" is largely an American self-serving assertion. Standing on the other side of the pond, one could also read the situation as "the USA apparently willing and eager for European taxpayers to assume the growing burdern to maintain the apparatus required for global American hegemony".
>the USA apparently willing and eager for European taxpayers to assume the growing burdern to maintain the apparatus required for global American hegemony".
What you say here is sort of absurd. The USA has by far spent much more on subsidizing and covering European defense than it has ever asked European powers to pay into its own global hegemony. Europe has inordinately benefited from this for decades, regardless of whether it also helps the U.S in its own defense or for that matter hegemonic needs, or not.
The postwar US policy was to defend Europe to prevent Europe from re-arming. Just like the Japan policy exists in an odd super-position of helping the US defend against China while not being allowed to have aircraft carriers.
(the suspiciously long decked ship named after one of the Pearl Harbor carriers, the JSDF Kaga, is a helicopter carrier. For treaty purposes this a completely different kind of thing, nothing to see here)
Edit in response to [deleted] comment:
> Until recently, "covering European defense" from what? What were the dangers that Europe was threatened with?
Russia (again); also "terrorism" and, in the 90s, the Balkan conflict.
The war in Ukraine began in 2014, not 2022, explictly in response to Euromaidan. Shortly afterwards Russian forces shot down a Malaysian civilian airliner carrying Dutch nationals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
A targeted assasination attempt, as despicable as it may be on its own right, is miles away from a "chemical warfare terrorist attack" against a country, don't you think?
> A targeted assasination attempt, as despicable as it may be on its own right, is miles away from a "chemical warfare terrorist attack" against a country, don't you think?
Potato, potato. If it had been done by a Muslim the reaction would have been very different. One guy's failed shoe bomb plot (Richard Reid) caused every airline security worldwide to make everyone take off their shoes for years.
> A targeted assasination attempt, as despicable as it may be on its own right, is miles away from a "chemical warfare terrorist attack" against a country, don't you think?
Given how weak most terrorist attacks are, I'd say it's absolutely the same ball park as most such attacks.
Of course, as various media noted at the time, the media reporting of terrorism during the war on terror was wildly out of kilter with the actual risk.
Due to the standardization provided by NATO, much of the money spent by European countries has gone to American companies.
It is hard to determine whether the European countries have gained more by spending less on defense than they have lost by buying more American weapons.
At least for the newer members of NATO it is pretty certain that their admission has brought great profits for USA, because in most cases it has been conditioned by the requirement to fund expensive contracts with US companies, e.g. for military aircraft.
It's almost like both sides benefited enormously from the relationship. But this is likely a very costly mistake for the US.
The hegemony was chaired by the US obviously which was on the other side of an ocean.
It's true that the US is a maritime power and is therefore easy to defend, but maritime empires are also difficult to administer and exert direct influence. Imagine if Germany had the level of hegemony (not in the nazi sense, just the absolute geopolitical power sense), being any country around it would be very dangerous, because it is inevitable that continental superpowers throw their weight around in ground military actions. Example: Russia obviously, and they aren't even really a superpower.
This may awaken a sleeping tiger in the EU. An unreliable US and a common enemy (Russia) may integrate the largest collective GDP association and a half a billion people into a cohesive military power.
France has occasionally been pseudo-imperialist in Africa in recent years, but the EU is poised to dominate Africa and possibly (if it can defeat them in the correct way) all of Russia if it properly arms.
Because if you force people to militarize, there has to be a justification for it economically. The natural justification of a militarized EU is to dominate its continental neighbors and exert trade dominance over its hemisphere.
The US should be concerned about its naval dominance as well, the pillar of its maritime power. The Ukraine war has shown that drones make littoral combat extremely dangerous for any capital surface ship, and it's likely in the next ten years that a swarm drone fleet will do the same for submarines in nearshore.
The next question is when drones become usable against deepwater ships. Carrier groups may still be able to project air power, but air drones may whittle away at even high altitude air superiority that carriers can project.
Brazen nazi salutes by US leaders are critically damaging the "brand" of the United State in EU. I can't think of anything short of actual military action against the EU that would more motivate disentanglement from the US.
People need to remember that the US doesn't really make anything anymore, it was all outsourced to China. Our maritime dominance kept us (eg the petrodollar system) in a position of global economic control, but if the EU and China simply cut America out of the equation, and only treat it as a consumption market (what would the EU need from America that Africa and Asia/China could not provide?).
EU was created to stop European countries from trying to dominate each other. And one can say that it worked very well, despite any political grudges.
EU did try to extend the paradigm to relations with Russia. And it also worked for a while, until USA started meddling with Ukraine to avoid drifting into irrelevance as a superpower.
The people in EU no longer feel any need to dominate their neighbours. It is the USA that attempts to force their hand, aided by the current corrupt EU political elite (hello Mark Rutte).
The EU will dominate its theater neighbors: Russia (once Putin dies and the country turns into total chaos), Africa, Middle East, Arctic (because Canada will closely align with the EU, that provides right there about 50% of arctic control by EU/non-US NATO, and when Putin falls and Siberia is up for grabs, it will be the EU or China that grab it.
Again: since then end of the Cold War - and even before - the US has undercut at every turn both the European Military sector and any political attempt at a common military policy. At every turn.
The US has always wanted the EU to be a "junior" partner, dependent on the US, to make sure it doesn't challenge it one day.
The proof to what I write? Watch how quick Trump and his coterie will become belligerent when the EU doesn't buy US weapons or begins to show strategic autonomy.
During the cold war the US needed markets in Western Europe. Countries like Germany were literally supposed to stop communist armies until the US troops arrive and possible get nuked in the process.
That does not sound like a win at all, except for the US.
Furthermore, without US military spending and protection claims, the dollar would collapse.
Then Europe should be cheering that the US now has an administration that’s no longer interested in maintaining American hegemony. If that were so valuable, Germany or France would be rushing in to displace the U.S. as hegemon, right?
The second answer is all the bordering states; support for the war is extremely high there, as they understand they might be next. This is particularly true in countries that were occupied by Russia in the last century. In these places there is lots of grassroots suppport like the Radarom campaign. https://radarom.lrt.lt/en
> It seems to me that both the US and Europe see some benefits, but it's primarily Europe?
All the money that the US sent "to Ukraine" has actually mostly gone to US defence manufacturers that are building weapon systems and ammunition to shoot at Russia.
This resurgence in defence building is a primary benefit to the US as it has been a convenient excuse to get is procurement act together against the larger threat of China.
Do you want to have nuclear proliferation? Because if countries can redraw borders by brute force, then nukes are necessary for every state that want to survive.
Weaning Europe off Russian energy supply used to be seen as a strategic goal for US, and Ukraine could have done just that with what was in the occupied areas.
Eastern bits of Ukraine have very large untapped stores of hydrocarbons. It is unknown what exactly were/are the goals for the ongoing invasion (assuming there are any plausible ones in the first place) but one of the more reasonable guesses is denying Ukraine access to those stores in order to maintain russian supremacy in providing cheap gas and oil to Germany etc. both as a source of revenue and a political tool.
As of 2024, 1% of US GDP equals approximately 290 billion dollars per year. A return to Cold War era baseline would mean 1.8% increase or about 520 billion more spent on the military each year. (Probably even more, since the US entered the Cold War with a massive WWII-era army and the industry to support it. The US isn't currently capable of producing a new main battle tank every 20 minutes like back then.)
The US has spent 120 billion in all forms of aid (military, financial, humanitarian) to Ukraine over three years. That's 40 billion dollars per year on average. Why would anyone throw away the current support for Ukraine that effectively keeps Russia in check, only to replace it with renewed Cold War standoff in the middle of Europe that is bound to cost at least ten times more?
It's as if some people have fallen into collective amnesia and forgotten what the world looked like just 40 years ago. Germany was split in half by barbed wire and minefields, and civilians were gunned down from machine gun nests if they tried to flee from totalitarian oppression in East Germany to the free West Germany. Along the border that separated free people of Europe from those under Moscow-controlled dictatorships, massive armies stood facing each other.
I understand why Putin wants it all back. This was the world he was born into, the system he grew up with and indoctrinated into at the KGB. These were the glory days of the Russian empire of his time. But why on earth would any European or American want to turn back time?
European countries closest to Russia have already started increasing military spending to about 5%, and even countries as far west as France have floated the same idea. With the return of Cold War era threats that the sitting American president is cheerleading, it's just inevitable.
Yes, Ukraine can fulfill the role of West Germany during the cold war.
That means we have to stop the hot war, which just gets people killed and has caused at least 10 million refugees all over Europe.
So, like Germany, it can give up territories in the East for practical reasons.
The fortifications need to be build, the borders need to be secured and Ukraine has to be armed. Ukraine can then live well like Germany and Austria (not in NATO) during the cold war.
And Ukraine gets to keep the Russian territories it holds?
And also Ukraine gets under a Nuclear umbrella?
The US was already supposed to protect Ukraine's borders according to the Budapest memorandum. What proof do you have the US will now commit to protect Ukraine like it protected West Germany during the Cold War?
The war will continue until Russia decides it ends. And that's not going to happen with an armed Ukraine; one of their alleged justifications for the war was precisely that Ukraine was becoming too well defended.
Refugees is another way of saying "demographic infusion".
Europe is in such desperate need of immigration to offset their population decline.
And Russians/Ukrainians are generally a lot better at integrating that Middle Eastern muslims or Africans because of the religious divide.
In the short run if I was the EU I would send troops to comprehensively defeat the Russians in Ukraine, including taking Crimea back, and then take Belarus. The westernization of Belarus and Ukraine would make a mighty wall of defense against Russia and allow the EU to wait out the fall of Putin and the massive chaos it will cause.
Poland and Romania also make a mighty wall of defense against Russia without causing an expected tens of millions of deaths like your plan would cause.
Till the invasion of Ukraine, I did not know so many people were so eager to kill young men and civilians.
Radical pacifism cannot stand up to depraved aggression.
Putin is a ghoul that sends prisoners and "lesser" ethnicities to their deaths in meat waves assaults in Ukraine. He looks at Soviets machine gunning their own retreating underequipped death assaults as the proper way to run an army. He steals children, attacks civilians, bombs nuclear plants, mocks your leaders, threatens nuclear armageddon.
Look, you fight him in Ukraine, or you fight in Eastern Europe, or you fight him on your home soil. You honor your democratic oaths and commitments to alliance and protection, or you cowardly abandon your allies to Putin.
There is no magic land where no soldiers die in this age. The 75 years of pax americana post-WWII peace is over.
The current "peace" accord is appeasement and imperial robbery by the US. Russia will simply use it to learn, restock, marshal forces, and reattack in 2-5 years, only a moron wouldn't see that. Putin's stated strategic goals are to attack the Baltics and Poland at a minimum, and if he successfully does that with a still functioning army, he will proceed westward until he is stopped.
If we really cared about not spilling blood, NATO would have provided unrestrained aerial superiority and bombing to nullify all Russian artillery, missiles, and bombing, and brought their logistics to a halt. Instead we chose to arm Ukraine with the minimum amount of resistance and annoyance to drain both the Ukrainian and Russian forces.
These decisions on when a weaker power should appease a great power on its border and when it should stand up to it are made (and should be made) by people who've spent a career specializing in such matters. It's not like us amateurs in this comment section need to settle on a single simple policy suitable for any country at any point in time.
But even a simple analysis conducted by amateurs in a comment section can see
that Finland's decision to join NATO in 2023 does not discredit their decision not to join in 1947 because the
line past which the great power to the east cannot project military
force has moved east a great deal between 1947 and 2023 and because the
decisionmakers in the Kremlin might reasonably have seen the Finnish border as
the Kremlin's point of greatest vulnerability in 1947 whereas in 2023 it was
obvious that they would be seeing their border with Ukraine as the greater vulnerability (by a wide margin)
since it is close to Moscow and important strategic-nuclear installations and since it is very densely populated compared to its border with Finland and since it is where much of Russia's food is grown.
I don't mean to sound harsh, your analysis has nothing to do with what actual experts discuss regarding Finnish-Russian relations.
It was precisely in Helsinki, Finland, where representatives of all countries of Europe met in 1975 and adopted joint principles for cooperation to reduce Cold War tensions. These principles became known as the Helsinki Accords and are considered a major milestone in European diplomacy and security.
Among the most important principles was the inviolability of national borders and a pledge to refrain from the violent alteration of international borders in Europe:
III. Inviolability of frontiers
The participating States regard as inviolable all one another's frontiers as well as the frontiers of all States in Europe and therefore they will refrain now and in the future from assaulting these frontiers.
Accordingly, they will also refrain from any demand for, or act of, seizure and usurpation of part or all of the territory of any participating State.
By brazenly violating this commitment with the invasion of Ukraine, Russia proved that it is a far less trustworthy country than the USSR, which had upheld that commitment until the very end. In many ways, Ukraine had had a similar approach as Finland to east-west relations. Ukraine had tried to maintain good relations with both sides, but in the end, this did not save Ukraine from the Russian invasion and provided them with less support from the West than they might have received as a full ally.
For Finland, this was a learning moment and the final nail in the coffin for Finnish neutrality. Experts abandoned it, and the public opinion followed them. Finnish diplomacy had for the longest time tried to establish clear principles to foster good relations between different blocs in Europe, but Russians just flushed it all down the drain and there was nothing left to work with.
Common people and rulers usually have different perspectives.
As a European, you would have such a perspective. But in the eyes of European politicians, they wouldn't view the issue as you do. This is because their sole purpose of existence is to be vassals of the hegemony. They are unable to accept the consequences of a U.S. strategic contraction. If the U.S. withdrew from Europe, Europeans would still be Europeans, but the politicians might not necessarily be.
As European I only care about what might go in continental Europe. Any other part can fend of themselves, whoever the aggressor might be. It probably being USA...
We really should focus on isolationism and global trade. Even securing shipping lines is short term thinking. Let the conflicts happen and then things stabilize.
That makes no sense. If you care about global trade, you care about securing shipping lines. As has been shown, piracy from Somali and attacks from Yemen has significantly increased the cost of shipping, which puts a dampener on international trade.
I can understand the economical argument. If the US wants to disengage from NATO and Europe it can do so orderly. But the way this handled makes the retreat from Afghanistan look exemplary in comparison.
In addition. Extorting a country that is victim of military aggression. Going to bed with a bloodthirsty dictator. That has nothing to do with the defense-spending arguments. That is just amoral, to put it lightly.
The simple explanation is that Russia overwhelmingly won their war of propaganda and bribery. The American news organizations and public welcomed it because it was "anti-woke".
How old are you? American liberals have been complaining that US neocons have been trying to relive the Cold War my entire adult lifetime. Obama was the one mocking Romney for his obsession with Russia. Trump is just an Al Gore liberal on this front: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-oct-24-mn-41201...
It was plausible to say the Soviet Union was a threat to America because it sought to export communism worldwide. Nobody thinks Russia has any such designs.
It’s not remarkable. The Reagan GOP was a coalition of capitalists, religious conservatives, and neocons united by anti-communism. The Soviet Union collapsed 35 years ago. Russia no longer poses any threat to capitalism or Christianity, leaving just the neocons. But neocons are liberals, and so have migrated back to the Democratic Party with the other liberals. It’s the reverse of the what happened when they left the Democratic Party in the first place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism
this article is better than i expected since most English articles about geopolitics are filled with ideologically driven whining.
i like how it referenced Planck's principle
> Cultures do not change when people replace their old ideas with new ones; cultures change when people with new ideas replace the people with old ones.
I want to add something, here, 'people with new ideas', is not trump, trump is a man without any ideas, the one with new ideas is JD Vance
I think you misunderstood what I said, Here, 'new' is not a compliment but an objective description to differentiate it from 'old'.
What I mean is, JD Vance represents the ideas of the group of Americans who voted for Trump - the group of Americans who believe they don't reap benefits from the hegemony
Vance is just Thiel's tool to spread the same anti-government rhetoric that has been widening the wealth gap in the US since the 50s. People like Musk and Thiel want weak, isolated governments, because that paves the way for their libertarian utopia where the only rule is money.
You’ve got it backward. Globalists want weak governments that they can play in a global race to the bottom. Vance is a conservative nationalist, and is one of the least “small government” types in the party.
It is in English. Thus to call it an "English article" is both grammatically and factually correct. However it would have been less ambiguous to describe it as an "English-language" article, if the GP's intent was to contrast geopolitical thinking from the Anglosphere with that expressed in, for example continental Europe.
You think it hasn't got any ideologically driven whining because you agree with the content. You cant talk about politics without being political and ideological. Neutrality doesn't exist.
For a proper European deterrence the EU would needs its own nuclear force and an independent foreign policy. Which the US would attempt to shut down very quickly.
What the US really wants is for the EU to buy US hardware with kill switches and manufacture shells for US directed proxy wars. Perhaps also supply EU soldiers in Ukraine that function as a tripwire for the continuation of Nuland's pet conflict.
The status quo is that the EU is happy with its abusive vassal relationship, pays slightly less for defense and lets the US reap benefits from a sovereign foreign policy and a dollar that is propped up by its military might.
France and the UK have nuclear capability sufficient for MAD, including I believe a full nuclear triad, certainly the sea-based and land-based parts.
To reiterate, the EU is the largest GDP bloc and a half a billion people, and they have theater dominance over Africa and the Middle East, and possibly Russia if Putin dies and Russia fades further.
If you force a country to arm, it looks for historical and geopolitically practical ways to benefit from that armament. That is geopolitical inevitability.
The EU is dismissed as too fragmented to unite, but there are two very convenient boogeymen to unite the EU: Putin, an authoritarian ghoul of naked aggression with vast historical echoes in European history, and the openly nazi saluting US, with its own historical echoes and the simmering resentment of soft dominance.
This bullshit can look reasonable, but the US has undercut the European Defense initiatives and industry at every turn during the last 30 years, using their geopolitical reach and tools like Echelon for industrial spying to win military procurement programs, and their special relationship with the UK to veto any EU-wide initiative towards defense.
The US goals have been for decades to force the EU to buy US military hardware and to make sure the EU can't become an independent military power. They kept Europe on a leash, kept it tame, and now they complain that "we depend on us".
Make no mistake, the second the EU becomes militarily independant and strong, they will complain as loudly. Look first for Trump applying pressure because we don't buy American weapons, and then him or his cult casting the EU into their geopolitical adversary.
But the Trump administration is ... charitably ... being isolationist and is poised to fire a massive number of generals from the existing military leadership. They have also massively purged the CIA and NSA, while installing moronic stooges at the head of all of those agencies.
Uncharitably ... he is doing Putin's bidding for whatever unknown reason Putin has such absolute influence over Trump, because Putin thinks it will allow him to invade eastern NATO and retake the Sulwalki gap and possibly the former warsaw pact, which is basically a pipe dream of a madman. Russia does not have the military hardware to beat Ukraine, and it doesn't have the manpower: Russian meat waves can barely be sustained in Ukraine, and certainly wouldn't against the EU NATO forces as they exist now.
European Democracies should start a, new, NATO-like military Alliance on their own, but without Trump's America.
(and without the notorious US-made military equipment kill-switches)
And while we're at it, this time will be different:
Instead of the membership criteria being anti-communism, it should be effective *Liberal Democracy*. So, to be part,
1. Compulsory ICC membership - hence no exceptionalistic US, and no exceptionalistic Israel.
2. No "Illiberal Democracies": say, for example, composite of a minimum 0.67 score on the WJP Rule of Law Index and others:
therefore no Orbanic Hungary, and no illiberal others like it. Poland, Slovakia, Italy: you better watch your ways if you want in.
3. Democratic backsliding removes you rights in the Alliance, and, can proportionally lead to outright expulsion.
Not one more *new* military equipment purchase from the US, (or other non-qualifying nations). Member nations should use their - substantial - industrial capacity to equip themselves with indigenous military materiel.
Hey, it would be actually great for their economy!
Initially European scope, but bridges to a broader global scope (or even a secondary sister-Alliance) with open-ended partnerships with Canada, Australia, New Zeland, Japan, South Korea, and yes: Taiwan.
US and/or Israel want to join, if a more Democratic future selves? Simple: fully join the ICC, and meet the Alliance's full criteria as every other member.
The term “liberal democracy” is newspeak. What you mean is the opposite of democracy—a society run by judges and administrators that overrule democratically supported measures that offend their liberal ideologies.
Newspeak is discarding the post (Yalta and) Universal Declaration of Human Rights global consensus.
The use of the expression "Liberal Democracy" is just to counter the indeed newspeak self-named "Illiberal Democracy" - you, and everyone, knows very well today what that is.
And no one is above the law, including elected leaders.
Liberalism, in this sense, is about guaranteeing universal freedoms, not imposing ideology. Your subtext actually counters:
- Equality before the law;
- Free speech, assembly and religion;
- Protection from arbitrary (state) power, as due process is actually a thing.
Labeling these principles as "ideological" is misleading. Liberal democracy ensures:
- Civil rights movements (e.g., LGBTQ+, racial equality) succeed through debate and persuasion, not judicial fiat.
- Property rights and independent courts attract investment and foster prosperity (e.g., Denmark vs. Venezuela).
You seem to forget that Liberal Democracy’s constraints on power are openly debated and codified in constitutions—unlike autocratic regimes that manipulate language (e.g., Russia’s "managed democracy").
Finally, Liberal Democracy is not a bug but a feature:
- It prevents "51% oppression" (majorities violating minority rights / rule of the mob).
- It enables peaceful power transitions (e.g., Biden to Trump in 2025, vs the reverse).
- It fosters long-term stability by balancing popular will with rule of law.
> discarding the post-Yalta and Universal Declaration of Human Rights global consensus
That was never a “consensus.” It was a quasi-religious moral framework imposed on the world by Wilsonian elites who turned out to be minorities even within their own western countries. Those ideas have little purchase in India or China or Bangladesh, or even Poland or, these days, Florida.
> And no one is above the law, including elected leaders.
If you implement that concept literally, you have a society where the real power is held by judges and prosecutors who interpret the law. That’s not democracy.
> Liberalism, in this sense, is about guaranteeing universal freedoms, not imposing ideology.
What “freedom” entails reflects ideology. Thais don’t agree with Americans don’t agree with Germans, for example, about what constitutes “free speech.”
Not only that, “freedom” is such a broad and vague concept that if you empower unelected philosopher kings to decide what constitutes “freedom” or not you displace democracy.
To use one specific example:
> ensures:
- Civil rights movements (e.g., LGBTQ+, racial equality) succeed through debate and persuasion, not judicial fiat
At least in the U.S., the proponents of supposed “liberal democracy” achieved both through judicial fiat, overriding electoral majorities. And they continue to press ideas that are broadly unpopular with voters (such as affirmative action) through unaccountable bureaucracies. I expect you’ll see the same thing happen with immigration issues in Western Europe.
That is the predictable result of the whole concept of “liberal democracy.” Once you declare that major issues are too important for the political process then ideologues have tremendous incentive to reframe every issue in those terms.
What quasi-religious framework imposed by Wilsonian elites?
Know your History better:
The UDHR was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948 with 48 votes in favor, including nations from Latin America (e.g., Mexico, Brazil), the Middle East (e.g., Lebanon, Iran), and Asia (e.g., India, Philippines). Only eight countries abstained (Soviet bloc, Saudi Arabia, South Africa). Hardly Wilsonian.
More! Actually the Indian delegation insisted on gender-neutral language: “all human beings” instead of “all men”.
Clearly it was a global compromise, not a Western diktat.
As for "societies run by judges" - this fundamentally misunderstands Constitutional Democracy.
Judges interpret laws created by elected bodies within constitutional frameworks that were themselves democratically approved. They protect the system's integrity, not override it.
When courts strike down laws violating minority rights, they're functioning as intended - preventing democratic processes from being used to undermine Democracy itself. This isn't anti-democratic; it's ensuring democracy remains sustainable.
Your example about Florida is telling. When democratic backsliding occurs, it's not "freedom from liberalism" but rather the dismantling of crucial democratic guardrails. True democracy requires both electoral processes and institutional protections.
On LGBTQ+ rights and affirmative action - these weren't imposed solely by courts. They emerged through complex interactions between social movements, legislative actions, and judicial decisions. The courts didn't act in isolation but responded to evolving societal understanding of constitutional principles - or should we go back to segregation?
Your alternative to liberal democracy isn't "more democracy" - it would be a vulnerable "elected regime" that can be dismantled from within (ever heard about a certain election in 1933?). History shows that without institutional protections, electoral systems alone can facilitate their own destruction.
Liberal Democracy isn't perfect, but it's proven more resilient and just than any alternative system of governance yet devised.
Indeed: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”
India for example was ruled by Oxford-educated westernized elites at the time. They didn’t speak for the Indian people.
Democracy has nothing to do with “minority rights.” That’s a fixation of liberalism, and it’s in tension with democracy. And in practice it’s a vehicle for liberals to overrule the democratic majority on almost everything, because everything can be framed in terms of “rights.” (See Sanders’ recent push to reframe healthcare as a right.)
Constitutions and laws haven’t meant anything for a century. At one time you could argue a constitution was a way for a democratic super-majority to bind future transient majorities. But the prevailing American view of constitutional interpretation in the 20th century posited that “emanations from penumbras” was a source of constitutional law. That means that something that the people never ratified in the past could overrule democratic majorities in the present.
“Liberal democracy” is nothing more than rule by philosopher kings, either judges or these days administrators. It’s not meaningfully democracy. It’s indistinguishable from Iran’s Guardian Council, which overrides democracy to ensure compliance with Islamic law. Same shit, different religion.
The comparison to Iran's Guardian Council is particularly ludic…, better: olympically contortionistic. Constitutional courts interpret frameworks created through democratic processes, amendable by the same. Iran's clerics impose religious doctrine with no democratic foundation.
Your concern about "everything framed as rights" ignores that rights frameworks actually limit government power rather than expand it. They create boundaries the state cannot cross, protecting citizens—including those who voted for the *losing* side.
As for India's representation being dismissed as "Oxford-educated elites"—this reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of decolonization movements. India's constitutional democracy was chosen deliberately after colonial rule, reflecting broad-based aspirations for self-determination.
Were the Salt March events or the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, Oxford garden parties?
The historical record is clear: societies without minority protections inevitably descend into conflict when majorities abuse power. Liberal democracy isn't perfect, but it's the only system that has consistently enabled peaceful transfers of power, protected basic freedoms, and fostered both stability and accountability over generations.
Your argument isn't for "more democracy"—it's for temporary majority license without responsibility. True democracy requires institutions strong enough to survive their own processes.
Aha - the attempt to discredit Bernie Sanders' "healthcare as a right" stance backfires spectacularly if we look, for example, to Portugal:
Portugal enshrined healthcare as a constitutional right in 1976 after overthrowing a *fascist* dictatorship. Far from undermining democracy, this constitutional provision emerged directly from democratic revolution and enjoys overwhelming popular support across the political spectrum 50 years later.
Portugal's healthcare system delivers universal coverage at half the cost of America's while achieving better outcomes. This constitutional right didn't emerge from "judicial fiat" but from democratic consensus, and its implementation occurs through elected parliaments, not courts.
The Portuguese example demolishes your argument - it demonstrates how rights frameworks strengthen democracy rather than undermine it, creating stable systems that survive multiple transfers of power between left and right governments without threatening democratic foundations.
Perhaps study actual functioning democracies before lecturing others about what democracy means?
PS: Interesting how your critique of 'philosopher kings' only applies to judges protecting rights, never to leaders eliminating them.
Although I agree with the conclusion that the necessity of NATO is to be questioned, some of the observations made are purely in the eye of the beholder. E.g.
> Nations apparently willing and eager for American taxpayers to assume the growing security burden left by reductions in European defense budgets.
From a European perspective, the "growing security burden" is largely an American self-serving assertion. Standing on the other side of the pond, one could also read the situation as "the USA apparently willing and eager for European taxpayers to assume the growing burdern to maintain the apparatus required for global American hegemony".
>the USA apparently willing and eager for European taxpayers to assume the growing burdern to maintain the apparatus required for global American hegemony".
What you say here is sort of absurd. The USA has by far spent much more on subsidizing and covering European defense than it has ever asked European powers to pay into its own global hegemony. Europe has inordinately benefited from this for decades, regardless of whether it also helps the U.S in its own defense or for that matter hegemonic needs, or not.
The postwar US policy was to defend Europe to prevent Europe from re-arming. Just like the Japan policy exists in an odd super-position of helping the US defend against China while not being allowed to have aircraft carriers.
(the suspiciously long decked ship named after one of the Pearl Harbor carriers, the JSDF Kaga, is a helicopter carrier. For treaty purposes this a completely different kind of thing, nothing to see here)
Edit in response to [deleted] comment:
> Until recently, "covering European defense" from what? What were the dangers that Europe was threatened with?
Russia (again); also "terrorism" and, in the 90s, the Balkan conflict.
The war in Ukraine began in 2014, not 2022, explictly in response to Euromaidan. Shortly afterwards Russian forces shot down a Malaysian civilian airliner carrying Dutch nationals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
In 2018 Russia carried out a nerve agent chemical warfare terrorist attack against the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_... ; this was extremely under-emphasized at the time.
> In 2018 Russia carried out a nerve agent chemical warfare terrorist attack against the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_... ; this was extremely under-emphasized at the time.
And now it is extremely over-emphasized. /s
A targeted assasination attempt, as despicable as it may be on its own right, is miles away from a "chemical warfare terrorist attack" against a country, don't you think?
> A targeted assasination attempt, as despicable as it may be on its own right, is miles away from a "chemical warfare terrorist attack" against a country, don't you think?
Potato, potato. If it had been done by a Muslim the reaction would have been very different. One guy's failed shoe bomb plot (Richard Reid) caused every airline security worldwide to make everyone take off their shoes for years.
> A targeted assasination attempt, as despicable as it may be on its own right, is miles away from a "chemical warfare terrorist attack" against a country, don't you think?
Given how weak most terrorist attacks are, I'd say it's absolutely the same ball park as most such attacks.
Of course, as various media noted at the time, the media reporting of terrorism during the war on terror was wildly out of kilter with the actual risk.
Due to the standardization provided by NATO, much of the money spent by European countries has gone to American companies.
It is hard to determine whether the European countries have gained more by spending less on defense than they have lost by buying more American weapons.
At least for the newer members of NATO it is pretty certain that their admission has brought great profits for USA, because in most cases it has been conditioned by the requirement to fund expensive contracts with US companies, e.g. for military aircraft.
It's almost like both sides benefited enormously from the relationship. But this is likely a very costly mistake for the US.
The hegemony was chaired by the US obviously which was on the other side of an ocean.
It's true that the US is a maritime power and is therefore easy to defend, but maritime empires are also difficult to administer and exert direct influence. Imagine if Germany had the level of hegemony (not in the nazi sense, just the absolute geopolitical power sense), being any country around it would be very dangerous, because it is inevitable that continental superpowers throw their weight around in ground military actions. Example: Russia obviously, and they aren't even really a superpower.
This may awaken a sleeping tiger in the EU. An unreliable US and a common enemy (Russia) may integrate the largest collective GDP association and a half a billion people into a cohesive military power.
France has occasionally been pseudo-imperialist in Africa in recent years, but the EU is poised to dominate Africa and possibly (if it can defeat them in the correct way) all of Russia if it properly arms.
Because if you force people to militarize, there has to be a justification for it economically. The natural justification of a militarized EU is to dominate its continental neighbors and exert trade dominance over its hemisphere.
The US should be concerned about its naval dominance as well, the pillar of its maritime power. The Ukraine war has shown that drones make littoral combat extremely dangerous for any capital surface ship, and it's likely in the next ten years that a swarm drone fleet will do the same for submarines in nearshore.
The next question is when drones become usable against deepwater ships. Carrier groups may still be able to project air power, but air drones may whittle away at even high altitude air superiority that carriers can project.
Brazen nazi salutes by US leaders are critically damaging the "brand" of the United State in EU. I can't think of anything short of actual military action against the EU that would more motivate disentanglement from the US.
People need to remember that the US doesn't really make anything anymore, it was all outsourced to China. Our maritime dominance kept us (eg the petrodollar system) in a position of global economic control, but if the EU and China simply cut America out of the equation, and only treat it as a consumption market (what would the EU need from America that Africa and Asia/China could not provide?).
EU was created to stop European countries from trying to dominate each other. And one can say that it worked very well, despite any political grudges.
EU did try to extend the paradigm to relations with Russia. And it also worked for a while, until USA started meddling with Ukraine to avoid drifting into irrelevance as a superpower.
The people in EU no longer feel any need to dominate their neighbours. It is the USA that attempts to force their hand, aided by the current corrupt EU political elite (hello Mark Rutte).
You misunderstand me.
The EU will dominate its theater neighbors: Russia (once Putin dies and the country turns into total chaos), Africa, Middle East, Arctic (because Canada will closely align with the EU, that provides right there about 50% of arctic control by EU/non-US NATO, and when Putin falls and Siberia is up for grabs, it will be the EU or China that grab it.
Again: since then end of the Cold War - and even before - the US has undercut at every turn both the European Military sector and any political attempt at a common military policy. At every turn.
The US has always wanted the EU to be a "junior" partner, dependent on the US, to make sure it doesn't challenge it one day.
The proof to what I write? Watch how quick Trump and his coterie will become belligerent when the EU doesn't buy US weapons or begins to show strategic autonomy.
During the cold war the US needed markets in Western Europe. Countries like Germany were literally supposed to stop communist armies until the US troops arrive and possible get nuked in the process.
That does not sound like a win at all, except for the US.
Furthermore, without US military spending and protection claims, the dollar would collapse.
Then Europe should be cheering that the US now has an administration that’s no longer interested in maintaining American hegemony. If that were so valuable, Germany or France would be rushing in to displace the U.S. as hegemon, right?
Who benefits from the defense of Ukraine?
It seems to me that both the US and Europe see some benefits, but it's primarily Europe?
The first answer is "the Ukranians".
The second answer is all the bordering states; support for the war is extremely high there, as they understand they might be next. This is particularly true in countries that were occupied by Russia in the last century. In these places there is lots of grassroots suppport like the Radarom campaign. https://radarom.lrt.lt/en
> It seems to me that both the US and Europe see some benefits, but it's primarily Europe?
All the money that the US sent "to Ukraine" has actually mostly gone to US defence manufacturers that are building weapon systems and ammunition to shoot at Russia.
This resurgence in defence building is a primary benefit to the US as it has been a convenient excuse to get is procurement act together against the larger threat of China.
>Who benefits from the defense of Ukraine?
Do you want to have nuclear proliferation? Because if countries can redraw borders by brute force, then nukes are necessary for every state that want to survive.
> Do you want to have nuclear proliferation?
"Japan, South Korea, and Poland need nuclear weapons immediately":
* https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/japan-south-korea-and-poland-n...
Originally posted last year, but re-upped now due to the new US stance to Ukraine/Russia and Poland may wish to consider things more seriously.
I feel like almost no one understands this. The US Russia and few other countries made an agreement with Ukraine to give up their nuclear weapons.
This just demonstrates to every country to get your nuclear weapons to protect your self, each country is on its own.
Weaning Europe off Russian energy supply used to be seen as a strategic goal for US, and Ukraine could have done just that with what was in the occupied areas.
> Ukraine could have done just that with what was in the occupied areas
Didn't Ukraine switch to Europe as it's energy supply?
Imho the Russian invasion pushing Europe to secure its energy supply has been a positive impact from the war.
Eastern bits of Ukraine have very large untapped stores of hydrocarbons. It is unknown what exactly were/are the goals for the ongoing invasion (assuming there are any plausible ones in the first place) but one of the more reasonable guesses is denying Ukraine access to those stores in order to maintain russian supremacy in providing cheap gas and oil to Germany etc. both as a source of revenue and a political tool.
> Who benefits from the defense of Ukraine?
Everyone who values peace and cooperation over war and conquest.
US military spending is currently at a historic low, at 2.7% of the gross domestic product (GDP). During the Cold War, military spending never fell below 4.5%. Chart: https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Photos/igphoto/2002099941...
As of 2024, 1% of US GDP equals approximately 290 billion dollars per year. A return to Cold War era baseline would mean 1.8% increase or about 520 billion more spent on the military each year. (Probably even more, since the US entered the Cold War with a massive WWII-era army and the industry to support it. The US isn't currently capable of producing a new main battle tank every 20 minutes like back then.)
The US has spent 120 billion in all forms of aid (military, financial, humanitarian) to Ukraine over three years. That's 40 billion dollars per year on average. Why would anyone throw away the current support for Ukraine that effectively keeps Russia in check, only to replace it with renewed Cold War standoff in the middle of Europe that is bound to cost at least ten times more?
It's as if some people have fallen into collective amnesia and forgotten what the world looked like just 40 years ago. Germany was split in half by barbed wire and minefields, and civilians were gunned down from machine gun nests if they tried to flee from totalitarian oppression in East Germany to the free West Germany. Along the border that separated free people of Europe from those under Moscow-controlled dictatorships, massive armies stood facing each other.
I understand why Putin wants it all back. This was the world he was born into, the system he grew up with and indoctrinated into at the KGB. These were the glory days of the Russian empire of his time. But why on earth would any European or American want to turn back time?
European countries closest to Russia have already started increasing military spending to about 5%, and even countries as far west as France have floated the same idea. With the return of Cold War era threats that the sitting American president is cheerleading, it's just inevitable.
Yes, Ukraine can fulfill the role of West Germany during the cold war.
That means we have to stop the hot war, which just gets people killed and has caused at least 10 million refugees all over Europe.
So, like Germany, it can give up territories in the East for practical reasons.
The fortifications need to be build, the borders need to be secured and Ukraine has to be armed. Ukraine can then live well like Germany and Austria (not in NATO) during the cold war.
Continuing the hot war is insane.
And Ukraine gets to keep the Russian territories it holds?
And also Ukraine gets under a Nuclear umbrella?
The US was already supposed to protect Ukraine's borders according to the Budapest memorandum. What proof do you have the US will now commit to protect Ukraine like it protected West Germany during the Cold War?
The war will continue until Russia decides it ends. And that's not going to happen with an armed Ukraine; one of their alleged justifications for the war was precisely that Ukraine was becoming too well defended.
Refugees is another way of saying "demographic infusion".
Europe is in such desperate need of immigration to offset their population decline.
And Russians/Ukrainians are generally a lot better at integrating that Middle Eastern muslims or Africans because of the religious divide.
In the short run if I was the EU I would send troops to comprehensively defeat the Russians in Ukraine, including taking Crimea back, and then take Belarus. The westernization of Belarus and Ukraine would make a mighty wall of defense against Russia and allow the EU to wait out the fall of Putin and the massive chaos it will cause.
Poland and Romania also make a mighty wall of defense against Russia without causing an expected tens of millions of deaths like your plan would cause.
Till the invasion of Ukraine, I did not know so many people were so eager to kill young men and civilians.
I would think the number of people who are eager to kill young men and civilians approaches zero.
When Russia invades your country, will you roll over to avoid killing people?
Radical pacifism cannot stand up to depraved aggression.
Putin is a ghoul that sends prisoners and "lesser" ethnicities to their deaths in meat waves assaults in Ukraine. He looks at Soviets machine gunning their own retreating underequipped death assaults as the proper way to run an army. He steals children, attacks civilians, bombs nuclear plants, mocks your leaders, threatens nuclear armageddon.
Look, you fight him in Ukraine, or you fight in Eastern Europe, or you fight him on your home soil. You honor your democratic oaths and commitments to alliance and protection, or you cowardly abandon your allies to Putin.
There is no magic land where no soldiers die in this age. The 75 years of pax americana post-WWII peace is over.
The current "peace" accord is appeasement and imperial robbery by the US. Russia will simply use it to learn, restock, marshal forces, and reattack in 2-5 years, only a moron wouldn't see that. Putin's stated strategic goals are to attack the Baltics and Poland at a minimum, and if he successfully does that with a still functioning army, he will proceed westward until he is stopped.
If we really cared about not spilling blood, NATO would have provided unrestrained aerial superiority and bombing to nullify all Russian artillery, missiles, and bombing, and brought their logistics to a halt. Instead we chose to arm Ukraine with the minimum amount of resistance and annoyance to drain both the Ukrainian and Russian forces.
We live in interesting times.
>There is no magic land where no soldiers die in this age.
During the 4 decades of the Cold War, Finland and Austria studiously avoided joining NATO to avoid provoking the Soviet Union and no soldiers died.
The unprovoked nature of Russian invasion of Ukraine utterly discredited this long-standing approach to national security and Finland abandoned it.
Share of Finnish adults saying that they agree with their country seeking NATO membership:
Finland joined NATO on 4 April 2023.These decisions on when a weaker power should appease a great power on its border and when it should stand up to it are made (and should be made) by people who've spent a career specializing in such matters. It's not like us amateurs in this comment section need to settle on a single simple policy suitable for any country at any point in time.
But even a simple analysis conducted by amateurs in a comment section can see that Finland's decision to join NATO in 2023 does not discredit their decision not to join in 1947 because the line past which the great power to the east cannot project military force has moved east a great deal between 1947 and 2023 and because the decisionmakers in the Kremlin might reasonably have seen the Finnish border as the Kremlin's point of greatest vulnerability in 1947 whereas in 2023 it was obvious that they would be seeing their border with Ukraine as the greater vulnerability (by a wide margin) since it is close to Moscow and important strategic-nuclear installations and since it is very densely populated compared to its border with Finland and since it is where much of Russia's food is grown.
I don't mean to sound harsh, your analysis has nothing to do with what actual experts discuss regarding Finnish-Russian relations.
It was precisely in Helsinki, Finland, where representatives of all countries of Europe met in 1975 and adopted joint principles for cooperation to reduce Cold War tensions. These principles became known as the Helsinki Accords and are considered a major milestone in European diplomacy and security.
Among the most important principles was the inviolability of national borders and a pledge to refrain from the violent alteration of international borders in Europe:
By brazenly violating this commitment with the invasion of Ukraine, Russia proved that it is a far less trustworthy country than the USSR, which had upheld that commitment until the very end. In many ways, Ukraine had had a similar approach as Finland to east-west relations. Ukraine had tried to maintain good relations with both sides, but in the end, this did not save Ukraine from the Russian invasion and provided them with less support from the West than they might have received as a full ally.For Finland, this was a learning moment and the final nail in the coffin for Finnish neutrality. Experts abandoned it, and the public opinion followed them. Finnish diplomacy had for the longest time tried to establish clear principles to foster good relations between different blocs in Europe, but Russians just flushed it all down the drain and there was nothing left to work with.
> Who benefits from the defense of Ukraine?
It's primarily the American MIC. And following a peace deal, the American companies that will do the "reconstruction" of the country.
Common people and rulers usually have different perspectives.
As a European, you would have such a perspective. But in the eyes of European politicians, they wouldn't view the issue as you do. This is because their sole purpose of existence is to be vassals of the hegemony. They are unable to accept the consequences of a U.S. strategic contraction. If the U.S. withdrew from Europe, Europeans would still be Europeans, but the politicians might not necessarily be.
As European I only care about what might go in continental Europe. Any other part can fend of themselves, whoever the aggressor might be. It probably being USA...
We really should focus on isolationism and global trade. Even securing shipping lines is short term thinking. Let the conflicts happen and then things stabilize.
That makes no sense. If you care about global trade, you care about securing shipping lines. As has been shown, piracy from Somali and attacks from Yemen has significantly increased the cost of shipping, which puts a dampener on international trade.
The problem is that you get the whole package, like WOT, color revolutions and so on.
I can understand the economical argument. If the US wants to disengage from NATO and Europe it can do so orderly. But the way this handled makes the retreat from Afghanistan look exemplary in comparison.
In addition. Extorting a country that is victim of military aggression. Going to bed with a bloodthirsty dictator. That has nothing to do with the defense-spending arguments. That is just amoral, to put it lightly.
The simple explanation is that Russia overwhelmingly won their war of propaganda and bribery. The American news organizations and public welcomed it because it was "anti-woke".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates...
How old are you? American liberals have been complaining that US neocons have been trying to relive the Cold War my entire adult lifetime. Obama was the one mocking Romney for his obsession with Russia. Trump is just an Al Gore liberal on this front: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-oct-24-mn-41201...
It was plausible to say the Soviet Union was a threat to America because it sought to export communism worldwide. Nobody thinks Russia has any such designs.
It's quite remarkable how the parties flipped on this. I wonder if you could pin it down to a specific date? Perhaps it really was just Euromaidan.
The NRA getting infiltrated happened in or before 2015: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/nra-2015-moscow-trip-wasnt-o... => https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/26/maria-butina...
It’s not remarkable. The Reagan GOP was a coalition of capitalists, religious conservatives, and neocons united by anti-communism. The Soviet Union collapsed 35 years ago. Russia no longer poses any threat to capitalism or Christianity, leaving just the neocons. But neocons are liberals, and so have migrated back to the Democratic Party with the other liberals. It’s the reverse of the what happened when they left the Democratic Party in the first place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism
Might be less of a problem if America hadn’t bankrupted itself militarily with 20 years of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that it didn’t need to be in.
this article is better than i expected since most English articles about geopolitics are filled with ideologically driven whining.
i like how it referenced Planck's principle
> Cultures do not change when people replace their old ideas with new ones; cultures change when people with new ideas replace the people with old ones.
I want to add something, here, 'people with new ideas', is not trump, trump is a man without any ideas, the one with new ideas is JD Vance
The people with new ideas are the authors of project 2025, not that I agree with any of that nonsense. JD is a sycophant.
I think you misunderstood what I said, Here, 'new' is not a compliment but an objective description to differentiate it from 'old'.
What I mean is, JD Vance represents the ideas of the group of Americans who voted for Trump - the group of Americans who believe they don't reap benefits from the hegemony
it's quite obvious base on what he said
https://x.com/JDVance/status/1892569791140946073
https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/02/18/vance-speech-munich-ful...
Vance is just Thiel's tool to spread the same anti-government rhetoric that has been widening the wealth gap in the US since the 50s. People like Musk and Thiel want weak, isolated governments, because that paves the way for their libertarian utopia where the only rule is money.
You’ve got it backward. Globalists want weak governments that they can play in a global race to the bottom. Vance is a conservative nationalist, and is one of the least “small government” types in the party.
This isn't English, the author is American
It is in English. Thus to call it an "English article" is both grammatically and factually correct. However it would have been less ambiguous to describe it as an "English-language" article, if the GP's intent was to contrast geopolitical thinking from the Anglosphere with that expressed in, for example continental Europe.
You think it hasn't got any ideologically driven whining because you agree with the content. You cant talk about politics without being political and ideological. Neutrality doesn't exist.
i agree with the methodology of materialism which the author analyze it with
Since Trump's inauguration the new talking point on all social media is that "the EU is freeloading on the US".
This is patently false. Whenever the EU starts its own defense initiatives, the US interferes immediately:
https://www.euractiv.com/section/defence/news/eu-fends-off-u...
For a proper European deterrence the EU would needs its own nuclear force and an independent foreign policy. Which the US would attempt to shut down very quickly.
What the US really wants is for the EU to buy US hardware with kill switches and manufacture shells for US directed proxy wars. Perhaps also supply EU soldiers in Ukraine that function as a tripwire for the continuation of Nuland's pet conflict.
The status quo is that the EU is happy with its abusive vassal relationship, pays slightly less for defense and lets the US reap benefits from a sovereign foreign policy and a dollar that is propped up by its military might.
Be careful what you ask for!
France and the UK have nuclear capability sufficient for MAD, including I believe a full nuclear triad, certainly the sea-based and land-based parts.
To reiterate, the EU is the largest GDP bloc and a half a billion people, and they have theater dominance over Africa and the Middle East, and possibly Russia if Putin dies and Russia fades further.
If you force a country to arm, it looks for historical and geopolitically practical ways to benefit from that armament. That is geopolitical inevitability.
The EU is dismissed as too fragmented to unite, but there are two very convenient boogeymen to unite the EU: Putin, an authoritarian ghoul of naked aggression with vast historical echoes in European history, and the openly nazi saluting US, with its own historical echoes and the simmering resentment of soft dominance.
Article is paywalled?
This bullshit can look reasonable, but the US has undercut the European Defense initiatives and industry at every turn during the last 30 years, using their geopolitical reach and tools like Echelon for industrial spying to win military procurement programs, and their special relationship with the UK to veto any EU-wide initiative towards defense.
The US goals have been for decades to force the EU to buy US military hardware and to make sure the EU can't become an independent military power. They kept Europe on a leash, kept it tame, and now they complain that "we depend on us".
Make no mistake, the second the EU becomes militarily independant and strong, they will complain as loudly. Look first for Trump applying pressure because we don't buy American weapons, and then him or his cult casting the EU into their geopolitical adversary.
But the Trump administration is ... charitably ... being isolationist and is poised to fire a massive number of generals from the existing military leadership. They have also massively purged the CIA and NSA, while installing moronic stooges at the head of all of those agencies.
Uncharitably ... he is doing Putin's bidding for whatever unknown reason Putin has such absolute influence over Trump, because Putin thinks it will allow him to invade eastern NATO and retake the Sulwalki gap and possibly the former warsaw pact, which is basically a pipe dream of a madman. Russia does not have the military hardware to beat Ukraine, and it doesn't have the manpower: Russian meat waves can barely be sustained in Ukraine, and certainly wouldn't against the EU NATO forces as they exist now.
European Democracies should start a, new, NATO-like military Alliance on their own, but without Trump's America.
(and without the notorious US-made military equipment kill-switches)
And while we're at it, this time will be different: Instead of the membership criteria being anti-communism, it should be effective *Liberal Democracy*. So, to be part,
1. Compulsory ICC membership - hence no exceptionalistic US, and no exceptionalistic Israel.
2. No "Illiberal Democracies": say, for example, composite of a minimum 0.67 score on the WJP Rule of Law Index and others: therefore no Orbanic Hungary, and no illiberal others like it. Poland, Slovakia, Italy: you better watch your ways if you want in.
3. Democratic backsliding removes you rights in the Alliance, and, can proportionally lead to outright expulsion.
Not one more *new* military equipment purchase from the US, (or other non-qualifying nations). Member nations should use their - substantial - industrial capacity to equip themselves with indigenous military materiel.
Hey, it would be actually great for their economy!
Initially European scope, but bridges to a broader global scope (or even a secondary sister-Alliance) with open-ended partnerships with Canada, Australia, New Zeland, Japan, South Korea, and yes: Taiwan.
US and/or Israel want to join, if a more Democratic future selves? Simple: fully join the ICC, and meet the Alliance's full criteria as every other member.
Same applies for prospective new members.
Not interested? Bye, your problem.
The term “liberal democracy” is newspeak. What you mean is the opposite of democracy—a society run by judges and administrators that overrule democratically supported measures that offend their liberal ideologies.
Newspeak is discarding the post (Yalta and) Universal Declaration of Human Rights global consensus.
The use of the expression "Liberal Democracy" is just to counter the indeed newspeak self-named "Illiberal Democracy" - you, and everyone, knows very well today what that is.
And no one is above the law, including elected leaders.
Liberalism, in this sense, is about guaranteeing universal freedoms, not imposing ideology. Your subtext actually counters:
- Equality before the law;
- Free speech, assembly and religion;
- Protection from arbitrary (state) power, as due process is actually a thing.
Labeling these principles as "ideological" is misleading. Liberal democracy ensures:
- Civil rights movements (e.g., LGBTQ+, racial equality) succeed through debate and persuasion, not judicial fiat.
- Property rights and independent courts attract investment and foster prosperity (e.g., Denmark vs. Venezuela).
You seem to forget that Liberal Democracy’s constraints on power are openly debated and codified in constitutions—unlike autocratic regimes that manipulate language (e.g., Russia’s "managed democracy").
Finally, Liberal Democracy is not a bug but a feature:
- It prevents "51% oppression" (majorities violating minority rights / rule of the mob).
- It enables peaceful power transitions (e.g., Biden to Trump in 2025, vs the reverse).
- It fosters long-term stability by balancing popular will with rule of law.
> discarding the post-Yalta and Universal Declaration of Human Rights global consensus
That was never a “consensus.” It was a quasi-religious moral framework imposed on the world by Wilsonian elites who turned out to be minorities even within their own western countries. Those ideas have little purchase in India or China or Bangladesh, or even Poland or, these days, Florida.
> And no one is above the law, including elected leaders.
If you implement that concept literally, you have a society where the real power is held by judges and prosecutors who interpret the law. That’s not democracy.
> Liberalism, in this sense, is about guaranteeing universal freedoms, not imposing ideology.
What “freedom” entails reflects ideology. Thais don’t agree with Americans don’t agree with Germans, for example, about what constitutes “free speech.”
Not only that, “freedom” is such a broad and vague concept that if you empower unelected philosopher kings to decide what constitutes “freedom” or not you displace democracy.
To use one specific example:
> ensures: - Civil rights movements (e.g., LGBTQ+, racial equality) succeed through debate and persuasion, not judicial fiat
At least in the U.S., the proponents of supposed “liberal democracy” achieved both through judicial fiat, overriding electoral majorities. And they continue to press ideas that are broadly unpopular with voters (such as affirmative action) through unaccountable bureaucracies. I expect you’ll see the same thing happen with immigration issues in Western Europe.
That is the predictable result of the whole concept of “liberal democracy.” Once you declare that major issues are too important for the political process then ideologues have tremendous incentive to reframe every issue in those terms.
What quasi-religious framework imposed by Wilsonian elites?
Know your History better:
The UDHR was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948 with 48 votes in favor, including nations from Latin America (e.g., Mexico, Brazil), the Middle East (e.g., Lebanon, Iran), and Asia (e.g., India, Philippines). Only eight countries abstained (Soviet bloc, Saudi Arabia, South Africa). Hardly Wilsonian.
More! Actually the Indian delegation insisted on gender-neutral language: “all human beings” instead of “all men”.
Clearly it was a global compromise, not a Western diktat.
As for "societies run by judges" - this fundamentally misunderstands Constitutional Democracy.
Judges interpret laws created by elected bodies within constitutional frameworks that were themselves democratically approved. They protect the system's integrity, not override it. When courts strike down laws violating minority rights, they're functioning as intended - preventing democratic processes from being used to undermine Democracy itself. This isn't anti-democratic; it's ensuring democracy remains sustainable.
Your example about Florida is telling. When democratic backsliding occurs, it's not "freedom from liberalism" but rather the dismantling of crucial democratic guardrails. True democracy requires both electoral processes and institutional protections.
On LGBTQ+ rights and affirmative action - these weren't imposed solely by courts. They emerged through complex interactions between social movements, legislative actions, and judicial decisions. The courts didn't act in isolation but responded to evolving societal understanding of constitutional principles - or should we go back to segregation?
Your alternative to liberal democracy isn't "more democracy" - it would be a vulnerable "elected regime" that can be dismantled from within (ever heard about a certain election in 1933?). History shows that without institutional protections, electoral systems alone can facilitate their own destruction.
Liberal Democracy isn't perfect, but it's proven more resilient and just than any alternative system of governance yet devised.
Indeed: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”
India for example was ruled by Oxford-educated westernized elites at the time. They didn’t speak for the Indian people.
Democracy has nothing to do with “minority rights.” That’s a fixation of liberalism, and it’s in tension with democracy. And in practice it’s a vehicle for liberals to overrule the democratic majority on almost everything, because everything can be framed in terms of “rights.” (See Sanders’ recent push to reframe healthcare as a right.)
Constitutions and laws haven’t meant anything for a century. At one time you could argue a constitution was a way for a democratic super-majority to bind future transient majorities. But the prevailing American view of constitutional interpretation in the 20th century posited that “emanations from penumbras” was a source of constitutional law. That means that something that the people never ratified in the past could overrule democratic majorities in the present.
“Liberal democracy” is nothing more than rule by philosopher kings, either judges or these days administrators. It’s not meaningfully democracy. It’s indistinguishable from Iran’s Guardian Council, which overrides democracy to ensure compliance with Islamic law. Same shit, different religion.
That’s one big straw men assembly.
I’ll get back to you, but I’ll say this for now:
Liberal Democracy’s fusion of majority rule and minority rights isn’t elitist—it’s the hard-earned lesson of centuries of bloodshed.
Dismissing it as “philosopher kings” ignores its core premise: *No one*, not even the majority, is above the law.
The comparison to Iran's Guardian Council is particularly ludic…, better: olympically contortionistic. Constitutional courts interpret frameworks created through democratic processes, amendable by the same. Iran's clerics impose religious doctrine with no democratic foundation.
Your concern about "everything framed as rights" ignores that rights frameworks actually limit government power rather than expand it. They create boundaries the state cannot cross, protecting citizens—including those who voted for the *losing* side.
As for India's representation being dismissed as "Oxford-educated elites"—this reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of decolonization movements. India's constitutional democracy was chosen deliberately after colonial rule, reflecting broad-based aspirations for self-determination. Were the Salt March events or the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, Oxford garden parties?
The historical record is clear: societies without minority protections inevitably descend into conflict when majorities abuse power. Liberal democracy isn't perfect, but it's the only system that has consistently enabled peaceful transfers of power, protected basic freedoms, and fostered both stability and accountability over generations.
Your argument isn't for "more democracy"—it's for temporary majority license without responsibility. True democracy requires institutions strong enough to survive their own processes.
Aha - the attempt to discredit Bernie Sanders' "healthcare as a right" stance backfires spectacularly if we look, for example, to Portugal:
Portugal enshrined healthcare as a constitutional right in 1976 after overthrowing a *fascist* dictatorship. Far from undermining democracy, this constitutional provision emerged directly from democratic revolution and enjoys overwhelming popular support across the political spectrum 50 years later.
Portugal's healthcare system delivers universal coverage at half the cost of America's while achieving better outcomes. This constitutional right didn't emerge from "judicial fiat" but from democratic consensus, and its implementation occurs through elected parliaments, not courts.
The Portuguese example demolishes your argument - it demonstrates how rights frameworks strengthen democracy rather than undermine it, creating stable systems that survive multiple transfers of power between left and right governments without threatening democratic foundations.
Perhaps study actual functioning democracies before lecturing others about what democracy means?
PS: Interesting how your critique of 'philosopher kings' only applies to judges protecting rights, never to leaders eliminating them.
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