Comment by justinhj
8 hours ago
"we don't need military because we live surrounded by peaceful neighbours" yes and the world was once nonstop warfare among tribes. it's child like to think peace just arose magically and does not need to be protected
8 hours ago
"we don't need military because we live surrounded by peaceful neighbours" yes and the world was once nonstop warfare among tribes. it's child like to think peace just arose magically and does not need to be protected
You know what protects peace? Cooperation.
The countries of Western Europe used to be at a state of continuous war for literal centuries, horrible atrocities inflicted on one another.
They all had their fancy armies, and they were all tempted to use them. Gotta get your money's worth, y'know?
Then they founded the world's most successful peace project, the European Union.
No wars between members since.
This adolescent behavior of threatening gestures is counterproductive and only leads to more conflict.
More mature societies have figured that out already.
Why stop there? Include Russia in the EU. Surely they'll be impressed by your maturity and cooperation and be inspired to maturely cooperate. Then you can rely on them to protect you from the US, instead of the opposite situation that you've enjoyed for 80 years.
I agree. The most painful mistake of European foreign policy in the last decades was not swooping up Russia in the 90s.
Again, the idea of "military protection" is overly primitive and simplistic. If we had integrated them in our system, we could've given them rule of law as we have done with many an applicant state (think other post-Soviet countries!) and nurtured peace through fostering mutual dependence.
We failed to spread the values of enlightenment and now we are paying the price.
The whole protection racket thing that's now exploding in our face would've been unnecessary and could've been avoided.
Violence is the language of the weak.
We've seen time and time again how ineffective it is, most recently when y'all tore up the deal the EU negotiated with Iran and instead went back to more primitive ways, with predictable results. Before that, in Afghanistan, where after countless dead the same group is in power again. When even is the last time your approach worked? WW2? Might be time to move with the times.
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