Comment by richwater
2 days ago
> The United States funds 57% of Argo's $40 million annual operating expenses, while the EU funds 23%.
Why the hell is the US on the hook for practically 2/3rds the cost of a system that monitors the entire worlds' ocean?
1. Why should the EU monitor the Pacific? The Pacific is big.
2. The EU claims the EU as its sphere of influence. The U.S claims The U.S and Central and South America by virtue of the Monroe Doctrine.
3. The U.S wanted to be in charge and be big and important, so if you want to be big and important you gotta do more.
4. The EU has military bases in the EU and the waters which touch the EU. The U.S has a military presence in every Ocean of the world.
> The EU claims the EU as its sphere of influence. The U.S claims The U.S and Central and South America by virtue of the Monroe Doctrine.
The Monroe Doctrine is a policy from the 19th century. A lot has happened since then.
> The U.S wanted to be in charge and be big and important
The EU isn't a sovereign country unto itself, so it either must be "big and important" or it has no other reason to exist. The EU is the second or third largest economy by GDP and not far off from the U.S. but it expects the U.S. to pay disproportionate levels for everything as if it's still 1946.
> The EU has military bases in the EU and the waters which touch the EU
The EU doesn't have military bases.
>The Monroe Doctrine is a policy from the 19th century. A lot has happened since then.
Like Kennedy invoking it during the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Now it's true that John Kerry said the Monroe Doctrine was over in 2013, but John Bolton said it was "alive and well" in 2019. Bolton being National Security Advisor at the time to the guy currently occupying the White House.
>The EU doesn't have military bases.
hmm, you're right - obviously the EU should pay less.
on edit: added "at the time"
1 reply →
> The EU has military bases in the EU and the waters which touch the EU. The U.S has a military presence in every Ocean of the world.
UK/France and I’m sure others have bases all over the world.
But that is their business and not the EU. And I have no idea why you included the UK anyway - not in the EU.
Here is a list, by the way: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/overseas-...
Something else: Let's also ignore (or not) that the headline of the submission is waaayyy too grand for what's actually in the article. It's only about meteorological data collection. As important as it may be, there's a lot more science than that.
Well France does, I do forget how pugnacious they are at times. UK obviously doesn't matter in discussion of EU. However here is a list of countries with overseas military bases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_oversea...
outside of France and Italy it seems all EU countries that have overseas military bases still have those bases in the EU, furthermore looking at that list you can see that the U.S has significantly more military bases in Europe than the EU countries have military bases outside of EUrope.
on edit: so in conclusion I am sorry about forgetting that there was in total 6 military bases outside of Europe maintained by EU lands (hopefully haven't miscounted here)
$820 billion in hurricane damages since 2016, and the cost center we should focus on is some $40 million/year spent researching causes of that? That's roughly similar in proportionality—and in reasoning—to a datacenter deleting its smoke detectors. (If that is what you want for your discounts, there is OVH).
https://www.wunderground.com/article/storms/hurricane/news/2...
The hurricanes will continue, as they always have, as will aerial, satellite, and oceanic monitoring of hurricanes, but that is not what the OP article is talking about.
Because they chose too?
It more than likely has uses in defence?
Hegemony isn't free.
It is one of the side effects in terms of costs that a country has in order to enable the safe flow of global trade.
Why the hell should I have to live a worse life with more storm damages, less military preparedness, etc. etc. etc. just because sycophants are willing to make up ridiculous excuses for extremely unwise decisions? Such is the pain of democracy, while we still have one.