I said they have been threatened over their domestic policies. Mostly these were about copyright law.
Which is completely irrelevant to the topic.
The topic being whether you can be trusted.
You can be trusted to break the Molotov-Ribbentropp pact.
The topic being, whether a country's willingness to wage and win a war pushes its friends to arm themselves. You've asserted earlier, that such willingness causes one's friends to arm themselves against you:
This encourages your friends to invest in defenses against you specifically.
Your reading comprehension is lacking.
I said that such a policy encourages your friends to invest in defenses against you. I said nothing about armaments specifically.
But of course the Japanese Defense Force could be taken as such.
Although you have established that you don't have any friends.
Your ally in the first Gulf War, the one you had attack Iran (after he negotiated a peace treaty with them that was very favourable to his country) and break ties with his allies and friends in neighbouring countries as part of a weapons deal, was not your friend either. But he did invest in military defenses specifically against you: Decoy tanks and trunks from Italy, air surveillence radar systems from Japan, domestic propaganda about your treason, and body guards. We all know how it ended. It didn't end well.
He is dead, sentenced to death in a country that didn't even have the death sentence. His country: Destroyed by a war that violated international law. And everyone saw it.
You probably think that that shows that you are strong and should be obeyed.
What the world saw was that you are willing to lie and cheat to destabilise allied countries, and are either unwilling or unable to pacify them.
Expect them to respond in kind. Expect your country to cease to exist before the century is over. And nobody bothering to send the military.
Right. You did. I should have expected that you take opinion pieces as fact.
In fact, several have been threatened by the US over their own domestic policies.
Your citations? Who's been threatened by the US for spending too much on defense?
I said they have been threatened over their domestic policies. Mostly these were about copyright law. What's interesting is that those threats were often rather vague. Spain was told that if they ratified the law they had planned, they would be on the list. No explanation what that meant, but Spain caved in anyway. When the USA demanded that the EU embargo Russia, the EU did so, except only Germany actually reneged on any standing contracts. During that time, trade between Russia and the USA increased.
Regarding defense: The USA have put pressure on Japan to ignore that the USA forbade them to have a military. The USA would never threaten anyone for spending too much on defense, which, seeing how nobody spends even close to them in both absolute and relative terms, would be hypocritical. They threaten countries for not spending enough. That despite Japan's trade deficit already exceeding even the USA's.
The quote by then Assistant Secretary of the American State Department Victoria Nuland regarding Europe's lack of involvement in the coup in the Ukraine is still well remembered by Europeans. And yes, I know that it was published by the FSB.
In World War 2, China was you ally against Japan, Russia was you ally against Germany.
They have been allies — out of necessity. They've never been friends.
If you put it that way, you don't have any friends. The only friend you ever had gifted you a statue as a parting present.
But you had troops in China even before WW2. And you actively supported Chiang Kai-shek in the civil war. I assume that, like the alliance with Stalin, that was strictly out of necessity.
USSR in particular was allied with Hitler up until June 22, 1941
Not exactly. They had a pact that they would not attack each other, and do trade instead. Russia overfulfilled their obligations, Germany neglected their part, and then broke the pact.
German fighters strafing British ships evacuating Dunkirk were burning Soviet-provided oil, for example...
Not really. The Luftwaffe planes ran on oil by Standard Oil, an American company. They were constructed around the expectation that Rockefeller would continue to supply them.
Unlikely. Not only has Putin never started a war, France is also an important business partner for Russia. And there are a few countries between Russia and France.
Europeans won't fight for their countries and their militaries are an underfunded joke.
No, they are busy fighting for your country, and paying for it with their own taxes.
If me and my neighbour each have one WiFi locker, and one of us brings a new device, will it receive the credentials to both our wireless local area networks?
Can this be used for connection sharing and bandwidth bundling?
For example, showing the inside of a female thigh was considered pornographic in the USA as late as the late 1960s. Curiosly enough it had not been so in the late 1950s.
Why the hell are we in the business of defending Europe from...the Germans? Why isn't it Europe's responsibility?
And how come Germany is part of the defense against itself? How does that make sense?
Why aren't they paying for themselves?
They are. Every NATO member has to pay for the upkeep of the NATO.
They can't even pay the minimum 2%.
Nobody can without going into ever increasing national debt. And the Maastrict criteria for the Euro's stability don't allow that. I know that 2% doesn't seem like much, but it's of the GDP, not of tax revenue. So these 2% can be a multiple of a government's entire budget. Especially when only a small percentage of the budget goes to the military, as is the case is most countries.
They're cheapskates
As I said: There is only one NATO member who has ever been late with their payments. And it is not a European one.
They repay our generosity with hateful rhetoric about how we are baby-killing monsters who need to get out of Europe. Yaknow, I agree with them.
What generosity? Nobody invited you. There wouldn't even have been a Cold War if not for the military's fear mongering so that they could keep riding the gravy train of a war-time economy. As General Eisenhower put it: Every war ship is bread stolen from a number of families.
That Germany was not a threat after it had been occupied was blatantly obvous when it was made a member of the alliance that was ostensibly against itself. So what is it really about?
Do we really have something to lose as Americans if we pull back our external activity? The Cold War is over, and it seems the more fingers we have in pies like NATO, the Middle Eastern countries, and so forth, the more problems we create.
I see it the same way.
The USA are spending more money on the military than the next five biggest spenders combined. That is insane. That is a lot of starving American families.
Giving Europe its self-determination is the mark of a true ally.
You say that as if you were in a position to give that. As if you owned Europe. You don't.
Europe is self-determined, and always has been. The oldest democracies in the world are all European countries. Even the word itself is from a European language.
You are not in a position to grant them anything, and, sadly, you have nothing of value left to offer.
Granted, it might mean compromises to their various social welfare states or tax increases
Quite the opposite. NATO is expensive to maintain. More expensive than a purely domestic military. Every member country could save a fortune if they dropped out.
But the military is adamant about the importance of maintaining a military to protect us from the military. It is a parasite, a leech on the world's economy that latches onto weak countries and bleeds them dry.
Japan and South Korea aren't even bordering the North Atlantic. Why don't you grant them independence?
But that would require thinking. Moving is much simpler and easier.
And partying sounds really stressful, like it involves a lot of moving and loud and distracting noises. Why would anyone voluntarily subject themselves to such?
Slashdot Mirror
Which is completely irrelevant to the topic.
The topic being whether you can be trusted.
You can be trusted to break the Molotov-Ribbentropp pact.
The topic being, whether a country's willingness to wage and win a war pushes its friends to arm themselves. You've asserted earlier, that such willingness causes one's friends to arm themselves against you:
Your reading comprehension is lacking.
I said that such a policy encourages your friends to invest in defenses against you.
I said nothing about armaments specifically.
But of course the Japanese Defense Force could be taken as such.
Although you have established that you don't have any friends.
Your ally in the first Gulf War, the one you had attack Iran (after he negotiated a peace treaty with them that was very favourable to his country) and break ties with his allies and friends in neighbouring countries as part of a weapons deal, was not your friend either. But he did invest in military defenses specifically against you: Decoy tanks and trunks from Italy, air surveillence radar systems from Japan, domestic propaganda about your treason, and body guards.
We all know how it ended. It didn't end well.
He is dead, sentenced to death in a country that didn't even have the death sentence.
His country: Destroyed by a war that violated international law.
And everyone saw it.
You probably think that that shows that you are strong and should be obeyed.
What the world saw was that you are willing to lie and cheat to destabilise allied countries, and are either unwilling or unable to pacify them.
Expect them to respond in kind.
Expect your country to cease to exist before the century is over.
And nobody bothering to send the military.
I offered citations.
Right. You did. I should have expected that you take opinion pieces as fact.
Your citations? Who's been threatened by the US for spending too much on defense?
I said they have been threatened over their domestic policies. Mostly these were about copyright law.
What's interesting is that those threats were often rather vague. Spain was told that if they ratified the law they had planned, they would be on the list. No explanation what that meant, but Spain caved in anyway. When the USA demanded that the EU embargo Russia, the EU did so, except only Germany actually reneged on any standing contracts. During that time, trade between Russia and the USA increased.
Regarding defense: The USA have put pressure on Japan to ignore that the USA forbade them to have a military.
The USA would never threaten anyone for spending too much on defense, which, seeing how nobody spends even close to them in both absolute and relative terms, would be hypocritical. They threaten countries for not spending enough. That despite Japan's trade deficit already exceeding even the USA's.
The quote by then Assistant Secretary of the American State Department Victoria Nuland regarding Europe's lack of involvement in the coup in the Ukraine is still well remembered by Europeans. And yes, I know that it was published by the FSB.
They have been allies — out of necessity. They've never been friends.
If you put it that way, you don't have any friends.
The only friend you ever had gifted you a statue as a parting present.
But you had troops in China even before WW2.
And you actively supported Chiang Kai-shek in the civil war.
I assume that, like the alliance with Stalin, that was strictly out of necessity.
USSR in particular was allied with Hitler up until June 22, 1941
Not exactly.
They had a pact that they would not attack each other, and do trade instead.
Russia overfulfilled their obligations, Germany neglected their part, and then broke the pact.
German fighters strafing British ships evacuating Dunkirk were burning Soviet-provided oil, for example...
Not really. The Luftwaffe planes ran on oil by Standard Oil, an American company.
They were constructed around the expectation that Rockefeller would continue to supply them.
You certainly don't...
I don't think you are qualified to assess that.
Putin's panzers would be in Paris in no time.
Unlikely. Not only has Putin never started a war, France is also an important business partner for Russia. And there are a few countries between Russia and France.
Europeans won't fight for their countries and their militaries are an underfunded joke.
No, they are busy fighting for your country, and paying for it with their own taxes.
Except, it does not happen. To a fault — for many years many European countries did not invest in their defenses, counting on the US to help them.
Where do you get such nonsense?
European countries have been paying for their defenses, and NATO members more than others. Nobody is counting on the US to help them.
In fact, several have been threatened by the US over their own domestic policies.
Everyone is counting on the US to be at war constantly, and hoping it isn't them. You have attacked former allies before.
China and Russia also try to improve their militaries, but they aren't — and never have been — our friends.
Except they have been. In World War 2, China was you ally against Japan, Russia was you ally against Germany.
Don't you know your own history?
You absolutely can be trusted — to wage and win a war, if crossed.
You can be trusted to wage war, at least.
This encourages your friends to invest in defenses against you specifically.
Correct. I fully support the disbanding of NATO.
I'm talking about the cost of resources and shipping.
Ammunition is cheap. So are soldiers' lives: They are a self-replenishing resource.
But until they expire, you need to feed them, and keep the logistics pipeline going.
And yes, you are building a reputation by waging war.
The reputation that you can't be trusted.
It doesn't matter if you win or not.
In this case, victory would be its own punishment.
You expend lots of resources to win exactly nothing.
You aren't even able to recoup your expenses.
And that is assuming that you would win at all.
I see.
You didn't demonstrate that it's usually not the case.
You speculated that the necessary conditions might have been rare throughout history.
The ancient Greeks were known for their science and technology, as well as their art, throughout the Mediterranean.
I thought they already had AR devices. If that wasn't good enough, then what is wrong with Google Glass?
The USArmy has to care about weight.
GIs carry more hardware than any other unit in history.
They invested in research in exoskeletons to increase their GIs' carrying capacity.
With everyone dead, what would you have won?
A free trip to Den Haag?
If the Great Barrier Reef gets electricied, will Adani have to stop dumping waste from the Carmichael coal mine into the Coral Sea?
If me and my neighbour each have one WiFi locker, and one of us brings a new device, will it receive the credentials to both our wireless local area networks?
Can this be used for connection sharing and bandwidth bundling?
Indeed.
For example, showing the inside of a female thigh was considered pornographic in the USA as late as the late 1960s. Curiosly enough it had not been so in the late 1950s.
But its not laziness.
But it doesn't have to be done at all.
No, that was until almost exactly 100 years ago.
Do you have a point?
Why the hell are we in the business of defending Europe from...the Germans? Why isn't it Europe's responsibility?
And how come Germany is part of the defense against itself? How does that make sense?
Why aren't they paying for themselves?
They are. Every NATO member has to pay for the upkeep of the NATO.
They can't even pay the minimum 2%.
Nobody can without going into ever increasing national debt. And the Maastrict criteria for the Euro's stability don't allow that.
I know that 2% doesn't seem like much, but it's of the GDP, not of tax revenue. So these 2% can be a multiple of a government's entire budget.
Especially when only a small percentage of the budget goes to the military, as is the case is most countries.
They're cheapskates
As I said: There is only one NATO member who has ever been late with their payments. And it is not a European one.
They repay our generosity with hateful rhetoric about how we are baby-killing monsters who need to get out of Europe. Yaknow, I agree with them.
What generosity? Nobody invited you.
There wouldn't even have been a Cold War if not for the military's fear mongering so that they could keep riding the gravy train of a war-time economy.
As General Eisenhower put it: Every war ship is bread stolen from a number of families.
That Germany was not a threat after it had been occupied was blatantly obvous when it was made a member of the alliance that was ostensibly against itself.
So what is it really about?
Do we really have something to lose as Americans if we pull back our external activity? The Cold War is over, and it seems the more fingers we have in pies like NATO, the Middle Eastern countries, and so forth, the more problems we create.
I see it the same way.
The USA are spending more money on the military than the next five biggest spenders combined. That is insane.
That is a lot of starving American families.
Giving Europe its self-determination is the mark of a true ally.
You say that as if you were in a position to give that.
As if you owned Europe.
You don't.
Europe is self-determined, and always has been.
The oldest democracies in the world are all European countries. Even the word itself is from a European language.
You are not in a position to grant them anything, and, sadly, you have nothing of value left to offer.
Granted, it might mean compromises to their various social welfare states or tax increases
Quite the opposite.
NATO is expensive to maintain. More expensive than a purely domestic military. Every member country could save a fortune if they dropped out.
But the military is adamant about the importance of maintaining a military to protect us from the military.
It is a parasite, a leech on the world's economy that latches onto weak countries and bleeds them dry.
Japan and South Korea aren't even bordering the North Atlantic.
Why don't you grant them independence?
But in order to use it, it first has to be developed.
The ability to use technology may cater to laziness.
But it first has to be developed.
And that is not laziness.
Dancing? Because it's a socially accepted way of touching the other sex inappropriately without getting slapped.
Nonsense.
You don't get to touch anyone inappropriately by dancing. Until about 203 years ago you didn't get to touch anyone by dancing at all.
People also hunt for sport.
But that would require thinking. Moving is much simpler and easier.
And partying sounds really stressful, like it involves a lot of moving and loud and distracting noises. Why would anyone voluntarily subject themselves to such?
It already has.