Comment by bryanrasmussen
2 days ago
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"
> Like Kennedy invoking it during the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Kennedy didn't significantly reference it as far as I can tell:
https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-k...
The one question asked on Monroe Doctrine was not answered with precise reference to Monroe. Either way, JFK was responding to the challenges of the Cold War, which were altogether different than the circumstances under which Monroe opined on the Western Hemisphere. The Cuban nuclear missile crisis was sufficiently terrifying on its own, there was no need to harken back to Monroe to justify action there, even if he did at one point or another.
Part of Monroe's doctrine was for America to stay out of Europe and for Europe to cease colonizing the Americas. A lot changed since then, including World War I and World War II and then the ensuing Cold War. We ended up fighting two wars in Europe and establishing military bases there to fend off the USSR after WWII.
When Monroe Doctrine is invoked, it's usually in reference to maintaining influence and dominance in the Western Hemisphere. WWII forced our hand to extend our power projection to Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. The most significant evidence of this is NATO, of which the U.S. carries 68% of the defense spending.
> 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.
Right, because Monroe Doctrine is just an opinion on how foreign policy and strategy should be played out and not a binding law of any kind, it can be invoked or uninvoked arbitrarily depending on whatever is convenient for the administration in power.
>The EU doesn't have military bases. > hmm, you're right - obviously the EU should pay less.
The OP article references deep water buoys being deployed for oceanic temperature measurements under the Argo program, with the primary aim being scientific and having nothing to do with national defense. If you want EU to pay less, this should probably just move to NOAA and cease to be an international collaboration.
> 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)