Neville Chamberlain tried to appease Hitler by letting him remilitarize the Rhineland, annex Austria and invade Czechoslovakia. Look at how well that worked out.
It’s worth remembering specifically why appeasement doesn’t work. The one trying to appease the egotistical bully thinks the bully had limited goals , so if you grant some fraction of that you can avoid their aggression. In reality, bullies don’t have limited goals (they will take exactly as much as they think they can take and no less) and only see appeasement as weakness, which further drives their aggression. That is why appeasement always leads to disaster beyong the immediate short term - it shows you can be successfully leveraged and threatened and so it invites more leveraging and threats.
I hate to use this example but Star Trek Discovery rather clumsily covered this concept in the first season in the Klingon war. The Vulcans realized that Klingons see war and conquest as an inherent part of their culture, and exploiting weakness in others is one of their core beliefs. So they adopted the policy of shoooting at any Klingon vessels on sight (“the Vulcan Hello”) , and the Klingons left them alone.
It’s anathema for people who believe in peace which is why the Federation couldn’t bring themselves to behave this way. It took ruthless logical analysis to arrive at that course of action.
He is right. Some other EU countries are too afraid to face the facts.
Which ones?
Italy, Meloni is scared of him.
France ought to know better than any country that appeasement never turns out well when it comes to fascists.
That’s literally what he’s doing with the far right here though. He’s very much a “both sides” guy, it’s just that the situation in the US is too blatant to ignore. But he’s leading us down the exact same path internally.
Still not my favorite leader, but Macron says the right things wrt transatlantic relationships these days. I hope other EU countries’ leaders can put their pride* away and go along.
Agree and agree. At least the man is uncomplicated; its right on the face of the US and will never bend down. Neither will I.
France approved the 5% GDP expenditure requested by Trump to all NATO countries, he’s only pretending not to bend down because of public opinion
France would approve 30% if it was up to them, they are one of the biggest military producers of Europe if not the world.
Trump was stupid and when he thought that increasing the military budget would mean that all that money would go to buying US weapons. Even Orbán who was glazing Trump as much as he could bought German and Swedish arms instead of US.
Trump had been had at that discussion as well as the big trade deal by Europe.
France would approve 30% if it was up to them
Up to whom? Has the majority of the population been consulted on military escalation and draining of state budget in welfare in favour of weapons?
Also, you really don’t think the EU will spend a significant amount of that budget buying weapons from the US military industrial complex?
Up to the French government, and everyone who works in the French weapons industry.
France is the world’s second biggest arms exporter behind the US, and the EU just agreed to buy a shitton of weapons.
On top of that, the 5% (actually 3.5%) was literally approved with a hanger-on saying that at least 80% has to be EU-domestic. Which practically means largely French.
The rest is mixed US and other, but for example South Korean imports are also going strong.
I’ve been saying this since about 2017, about 18 months after the orange child rapist was elected the first time.
Any country that elects a person that’s obviously stupid, 100% corrupt, and completely evil cannot be trusted.Boris Johnson is another shitbag of corrupt disgustingness, but not as bad americas top paedo. I’m English, and I never wanted to leave the EU but I can totally understand if the EU said “Nope” just based on bozo Boris alone.
Any country that elects a person that’s obviously stupid, 100% corrupt, and completely evil cannot be trusted.
But it’s never the whole country; usually less than 50% of voters.
And IMO (and I’d appreciate your insights, since I’m not British) Brexit is a perfect example of how easy it is to manipulate a people with targeted content mostly on social media. Of course that sort of propaganda has always been a thing, but social media put it on overdrive, and most of it is perfectly legal even for politicians during elections.
This is the point; you’re completely right. If every time a country makes a mistake they are shunned by those around them then those who are trying to disrupt progressive politics are succeeding. Johnson was elected by far fewer than 50% of the population; indeed in that election (2019) progressive parties won 52.8% of the vote, and under any decent election system we would then have had a progressive coalition. At the very worst we’d have still been within the single market and customs union, and in all probability they would have been a confirmatory referendum (which would have doubtless left us within the European Union).
However it was over 50% of voters that voted for tRump, and they knew what they were getting. So I fear the US has gone beyond a threshold.
Socialists have been saying it since NATO was created, maybe we were right all along?
“We have to bow to Israel instead”
Probably works for the politician doing it, in bribes and revolving door jobs.
Macron will drown with the rest of them
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