Re: OT: Cracking Speech by JDV!

On 16/02/2025 6:41 am, Cursitor Doom wrote:

On Sat, 15 Feb 2025 10:53:37 -0700, Don Y
<blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
 

On 2/15/2025 3:07 AM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

<snip>

So, if he was afraid of having a NATO Ukraine on his border, he
hasn't yet realized what a threat a re-ARMED Europe would pose in
that same geographical position.  Trump's trash talking may result
in a EUTO (without the US) that feels empowered to push back on
future issues without "consent" from the US.

 Getting Europe's military up to the job would take at least a decade.
But there's no money available. Germany - once the economic powerhouse
of the continent - is on its knees and France likewise. And even if it
could be afforded - which it can't - we now know Putin can call upon
China and N. Korea, so if push ever came to shove, continental Europe
would be toast.

The US Abrahams tank relies on a German gun and UK (Chobham) armour.
Europe's armies are perfectly adequate - more cost effective than the baroque arsenal that the US military-industrial complex has got the US to pay for. The US wants it allies to buy it's over-priced weapons, and makes inflated claims about their effectiveness.
Cursitor Doom is a gullible twit, and believes that kind of nonsense.

And, of course, US administrations change -- often.  So, he has no
reassurance that the next won't seek to *bolster* a Europe that has
opted to reinvest in its own defense.

Europe has invested in its own defense all along - just less extravagantly (and more cost-effectively than the US).
The way the Russian armored column that tried to take Kyiv at the start of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine got chewed up and stopped by cheap Ukranian drones is a fact that American commentators seem to ignore.
<snip>
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney