And the US defending the EU is the underlying reason??
A few years after proving a sub case of the Taniyama Shimura conjecture (now known as the modularity theorem that the full thing is proven), Andrew Wiles expressed an interest in moving back to Cambridge. He offered to take a 50% salary cut to do so. Cambridge still couldn’t match. Academics come to the US because everyone else does, and the money is much better.
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There are significant cultural reasons why Germany has not wanted a strong army (memories of Nazism) and using trade to build a long standing peace is the principle that led to the EU. It is so baked into the German psyche that this leads to mutual prosperity that the idea that Putin would have willingly chosen to upend it was unthinkable.
We had the first Chechen war in 1994, the second in 1999-2009. Russia occupied Crimea in 2014.
But Germany was shocked, SHOCKED by Russia’s actions in 2022.
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Germany, and the rest of NATO, agreed to increase defense spending as a result of the 2014 invasion of Crimea. This was accomplished quietly and effectively by the Obama administration without undermining US diplomatic efforts.
From 1.2% to 1.4%?
To 2%. The agreement was for a 10 year implementation period.
What a farce
Not just Germany. Most of Europe were complacent and felt Putin would not go so far. Crimea considered a special case as many living there wanted to join Russia. It was felt that he wouldn’t try for territory where this was not the case.
And how lucky to have a safety net. Even now Europe needs the US to be the guarantor of their potential peace agreement.
I don’t think it can be described as Europe’s agreement and I can think of many times where European countries helped the US in their military campaigns. Mutual help is out the window now of course.
2% was agreed to in 2006, and pretty much ignored by most of Europe/Canada.
Non-US Defense spending was even decreasing prior to the new 2014 agreement despite being nowhere near the agreed amount.
Even after the 2014 agreement spending went up, but barely (2-4% annual growth).
In 2022 only 7 were meeting the target.
NATO EU/Canada spending increased 9% in 2023 and 18% in 2024 and 23 countries meeting the target, but that’s probably mostly just EU buying US weapons for Ukraine since they’ve neglected their spending for so long.
It would at least be nice for Europe to pick up the slack, the US spends a ridiculous % on military in comparison and if we spent that money on social issues instead we’d be the envy of the world.
Maybe the EU can offer to fund public healthcare pre 65 in the US?
I think that is fair. What isn’t fair is expecting us to fund the military requirements for a deal made solely between US and Russia. In the short term, we would need support to build up certain capabilities that the US have and we don’t. Note that previously it was considered in the US interest for them to have those capabilities and us not to. Examples include air-to-air refueling, large-scale troop and equipment transport, space-based intelligence, and missile defense.
Happy to introduce socialism to the US, can’t see it being allowed under this administration.
We already have plenty of socialism, just less than others (see medicare, medicaid, social security)
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No chance of that happening, especially not with this administration.
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I think you can say goodbye to all of those