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It was Victoria Nuland, former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the United States Department of State, who said "fuck the EU." [youtu.be] She was nominated by Obama

So you contrast a phone call on Youtube that I cannot even in any way verify to be from the actual people you claim it to be from, to the sitting president of the US openly calling the European Union an enemy. How the hell does that make any sense? The Union and the US have had their disagreements in the past as well and no-one is denying that, but geopolitically speaking the alliance between the continents has been strong ever since the 2nd world war, and the Trump era marks a clear shift in this policy. This is obvious to anyone who follows global politics even at a cursory level.

What do you call people who rip you off on trade to the tune of $150 billion every year?

Uhm.... people that the Americans like buying stuff from? I mean, no-one's forcing Americans to buy European cars and other stuff, but you guys seem to like it. I thought you of all people would understand this, since you've been the nr. 1 proponent of free trade for decades, and are the world's second largest export economy after China.

The idea that everyone needs to be trading the exact same amount with everyone else lest someone is getting 'ripped off' is ridiculous. It's called trade because your exchanging money for goods and services that you want-

The EU is a security free-rider that exploits American generosity to run a massive trade surplus.

I agree that European defense spending overall is too low. The collapse of the soviet union lulled many into a false sense of security and defense spending was cut in many places. However at the same time calling it 'exploitation' as if the US did not have their own interests in mind with their defense spending here is misleading to say the least. That is, to say that the US is doing this out of sheer generosity and not because global stability is something you also benefit from is twisting the truth. You have troops and based all over the world because of this, and no-one's forced you to do that, you've done it out of your own volition after the last world war presumably because you don't fancy a new one, and neither do we.

Moreover, 150 billion represents ~1/rth of the total US defense spending. I did some googling and according to this your defense spending in Europe is about 5 % of your total defense budget, which comes down to about 30 billion. That's still a lot obviously, but even if that were to be eliminated entirely we'd still be running a surplus.

That being said, European defense spending has been on the rise for a few years now, since before Trump.

For a continent flush with cash and a large budget surplus, every member should be able to spend an adequate amount on its own defense.

Agreed. This is also why we're not in NATO and are actually paying for our own defense. However note that this does not mean NATO should be done away with. Defense spending needs to be increased, for numerous reasons of which Russia is only one but that still doesn't mean we shouldn't be allied with the US, because of all the major players out there in the field of geopolitics, the US is far closer to EU in terms of values and policies than say, China or Russia.

The EU needs to create its own collective defense treaty without US involvement.

Agreed again, and that's now beginning. You must understand that since the EU is a trade zone and not a federation, EU-wide defense co-operation has been a difficult subject because any notion of an 'EU army' is often perceived as a step towards federalization and that's something that the majority of people do not like, s

...the war in South Ossetia, which, may I remind, was started by a Georgian attack on the area of responsibility of Russian UN peacekeeping force, and specifically on said peacekeeping force (10 people KIA from hostile fire - artillery and tanks shelled peacekeepers' barracks).

Well......

On Thursday of last week, South Ossetian separatists, supported by Moscow, escalated their machine gun and mortar fire attacks against neighboring Georgian villages. This past Thursday and Friday, Georgia attacked the separatist capital Tskhinvali with artillery to suppress fire. Tskhinvali suffered severe damage, thus providing the pretext for Moscow's long-planned invasion of Georgia.

As Russia responded with overwhelming force, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin flew from the Beijing Olympics to Vladikavkaz, taking control of the military operations. Putin sidelined his successor, Dmitry Medvedev, thereby leaving no doubt as to who is in charge. The 58th Russian Army of the North Caucasus Military District rolled into South Ossetia, reinforced by the 76th Airborne "Pskov" Division. Cossacks from the neighboring Russian territories moved in to combat the Georgians as well.

Russia is engaged in a classic combined arms operation. The Black Sea Fleet is blockading Georgia from the sea and likely preparing a landing, while Russian ballistic missiles and its air force are attacking Georgian military bases and cities. At the time of this writing, it looks as if Russian troops will not stop at the South Ossetian-Georgian border but may press their advantage further. -- The Russian-Georgian War: A Challenge for the U.S. and the World

The war has fundamentally transformed the realities on the ground in and around the conflict zones. Russia’s military intervention in support of South Ossetians and its peacekeeping forces has transformed its role from a mediator into a party of the conflict. Furthermore, Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states and its decision to veto the extension of the UN and OSCE missions operating in these conflict zones have led to a collapse of the peace process. This has led to the emergence of a dangerous security vacuum. A new security system has emerged on the ground with the establishment of Russian military bases and border guard units in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Georgia sees this as evidence of Russian occupation of its territories which are still recognised as part of Georgia by the absolute majority of the UN member states. Moreover, the presence of unarmed EU monitors on the Georgian side of the administrative border line with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, has not been effective in helping to resolve humanitarian problems associated with the war nor to prevent or minimise the violent incidents within the conflict zone. The Geneva discussions co-chaired by the EU, OSCE and UN offer the only platform for political dialogue between representatives from Russia, Georgia, US, as well as experts from Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in regard to post-war challenges. - Analysis of the Russian-Georgian war

More: The Five-Day War

I think it would require a fair amount of cheek to imply that Georgia constituted an actual threat to Russia. On the other hand, Russia almost managed to repeat the Soviet "success" of Finland in the war with Georgia.

I recently submitted a story to /. that is related to this very topic. Chief of defence staff in the UK, General Sir David Richards, argued a little while ago that the UK should have a cyber command, and that the UK faces what he called a 'horse verses tank moment' in coping with modern warfare, saying the the rules of war had changed as a result of the success of insurgents in Iraq/Afghanistan, and the threat of non-state actors. In particular, he said that 'We must learn to defend, delay, attack and manoeuvre in cyberspace, just as we might on the land, sea or air and all together at the same time. Future war will always include a cyber dimension and it could become the dominant form. At the moment we don't have a cyber command and I'm very keen we have one. Whether we like it or not, cyber is going to be part of future warfare, just as tanks and aircraft are today. It's a cultural change. In the future I don't think state-to-state warfare will start in the way it did even 10 years ago. It will be cyber or banking attacks — that's how I'd conduct a war if I was running a belligerent state or a rebel movement. It's semi-anonymous, cheap and doesn't risk people.'"

I for one welcome our new bloodless cyber-war overlords. I think StarCraft 5 should be the medium mandated by the Seoul Conventions of 2025 and 2032.

I recently submitted a story to /. that is related to this very topic. Chief of defence staff in the UK, General Sir David Richards, argued a little while ago that the UK should have a cyber command, and that the UK faces what he called a 'horse verses tank moment' in coping with modern warfare, saying the the rules of war had changed as a result of the success of insurgents in Iraq/Afghanistan, and the threat of non-state actors. In particular, he said that 'We must learn to defend, delay, attack and manoeuvre in cyberspace, just as we might on the land, sea or air and all together at the same time. Future war will always include a cyber dimension and it could become the dominant form. At the moment we don't have a cyber command and I'm very keen we have one. Whether we like it or not, cyber is going to be part of future warfare, just as tanks and aircraft are today. It's a cultural change. In the future I don't think state-to-state warfare will start in the way it did even 10 years ago. It will be cyber or banking attacks — that's how I'd conduct a war if I was running a belligerent state or a rebel movement. It's semi-anonymous, cheap and doesn't risk people.'"

Yes, it is very simple to build many forms of WMD. I can definately build a nuke, if you give me enough weapon-grade uranium. Have you noted one of the chief arguments for going to war, well, it was the International Institute for Strategic Studies that said Saddam can build nukes within six months if he obtained weapon-grade uranium. Oh, and every physicist, and every kid with plans to build a breeder reactor goes "oh, so what, so can I", well what does that mean? It doesn't mean that Iraq has nukes. It means that there is something you haven't grasped here, and there is some political agenda they're not telling you about.

Well, basically, the thing is that while it is easy to build nukes, it isn't that easy to survive making them... The weird thing about WMDs is that they are pretty dangerous... They are very, very difficult to control. To use them in combat, you got to know exactly what you're doing, otherwise, you'll probably end up killing more of your own forces than the enemy. Iraq clearly has a lot of experience with chemical weapons, they could use that, so chemical weapons should be the main focus of the inspections. But for nukes to be useful in combat, you would have to have tests, and we would know about those. Iraq is pretty much locked in among other arab nations, the only real target for big WMDs, nukes, for example, are Isreal, but there are lots of Palestinians there. It is very hard to see what incentive Saddam would have for making large WMDs. North-Korea OTOH is a different matter alltogether, they have a very strong incentive for building nukes.

If I were in the US, I would be a lot more concerned about nuclear terrorism than of Saddam possessing nukes. It is far more likely that a group of suicide bombers would lock themselves in a container in a ship going to a US port, assemble the nuke inside the container and set it off in port. No testing, no problems concerning damage on friendly forces, and so on.

That Iraq is able to scoff at international law, kicking out the U.N inspectors and rebuilding their weapons of mass destruction [yahoo.com] while the rest of the world(except the U.S.) turns a blind eye.

Now would be a good time to point out soem of the things that the report on Iraq's WMD status actually says:

• Iraq does not possess facilities to produce fissile material in sufficient amounts for nuclear weapons.
• It would require several years and extensive foreign assistance to build such fissile material production facilities.
• It could divert domestic civil-use radioisotopes or seek to obtain foreign material for a crude radiological device.

Of course, the only logicaly title for the article on Yahoo is "Iraq Could Make N-Bomb". The titles of articles that appeared in other publications were equally asinine--"British think tank warns of Iraqi threat" for example.