Trump supports Putin to attack NATO.

[Penelope]

16 hours ago, Rewulf said:

Or they give the vote to every illegal and convict in the country.

That's being planned at a local voting level in the states.

[Rewulf]

3 hours ago, Penelope said:

That's being planned at a local voting level in the states.

Absolutely .

If you cant win fair , change the rules, or get your opponent arrested.

[Penelope]

1 hour ago, Rewulf said:

If you cant win fair , change the rules, or get your opponent arrested.

Trudeau and Singh are looking to change the voting rules in Canada, in an attempt to cling on to power, too.

[oowee]

Now European politicians are drawing the UK into the debate for European security. With the uncertainty of US support France and the UK could provide an upgraded nuclear deterent under European management. 

Cooperation with the UK around defence might unlock the UK barriers to co-operation. A change of gov't might help find a way though the minefield. 😍

Speaking this week, Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, said Macron’s offer of a possible Europeanisation of nuclear weapons to create a common security system should be taken “really seriously”.

Edited February 15 by oowee

[London Best]

1 hour ago, oowee said:

Now European politicians are drawing the UK into the debate for European security. With the uncertainty of US support France and the UK could provide an upgraded nuclear deterent under European management. 

Cooperation with the UK around defence might unlock the UK barriers to co-operation. A change of gov't might help find a way though the minefield. 😍

Speaking this week, Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, said Macron’s offer of a possible Europeanisation of nuclear weapons to create a common security system should be taken “really seriously”.

The one BIG fly in that ointment is that you cannot trust the French.

[Mungler]

1 hour ago, oowee said:

Now European politicians are drawing the UK into the debate for European security. With the uncertainty of US support France and the UK could provide an upgraded nuclear deterent under European management. 

Cooperation with the UK around defence might unlock the UK barriers to co-operation. A change of gov't might help find a way though the minefield. 😍

Speaking this week, Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, said Macron’s offer of a possible Europeanisation of nuclear weapons to create a common security system should be taken “really seriously”.

Look at the level of French support for Ukraine and ask yourself if they are to head up and be in charge of a European army? They don’t even make the page. 

Indeed, I’d also be intrigued to see how language barriers are overcome in that the French are particularly frothy about their language and culture as too their hatred of all things American - I’ll have a fiver on the European army, at some point in the future, being required to communicate in French. 

The events to hand have shown that arrangements made decades ago don’t necessarily stand the test of time. 

[oowee]

1 hour ago, London Best said:

The one BIG fly in that ointment is that you cannot trust the French.

Unlike the fickle flip flopping US? 

I had not appreciated that the French nukes are outside of NATO. 

[amateur]

2 minutes ago, oowee said:

Unlike the fickle flip flopping US? 

I had not appreciated that the French nukes are outside of NATO. 

Surely the French have been outside NATO since De Gaulle had a hissy fit?

[Mungler]

51 minutes ago, oowee said:

Unlike the fickle flip flopping US? 

That’s a deflection.

The bottom line is that the groovy liberal elite put far too much store in these Unions, alliances and pacts. History has taught us that when push comes to shove, national interests come to the fore everything else gets ripped up / abandoned.

In short, every country needs to constantly and consistently be able to feed itself and arm itself. Each and every European country has become complacent having got far too used to peace and having reappropriates defence budgets elsewhere.

A European army is an interesting concept but is nothing to be relied upon. Moreover, say Finland gets invaded by Russia - who in the UK will send their children to the defence Finnish borders? Indeed, the reality is that all of the countries immediately surrounding Finland should be sending their men first and should be spending on military budgets like there’s no tomorrow.

Then look at immigration levels into Europe and ask who will be fighting what country? What is your country to defend and fight for when you and your family are from Albania, Yemen, Somalia etc?

This brings us to case in point and Ukraine. Each and every European country surrounding Russian territory and the Ukraine should immediately be reappropriating 10% of GDP into defence budgeting and moaning less about the US pulling stumps. But that’s not going to happen. 

[JohnfromUK]

2 minutes ago, Mungler said:

In short, every country needs to constantly and consistently be able to feed itself

In WW2 the UK struggled - rationing and some imports still happening.  The population then was around 40M.

Now we are around 70M, and generally expect a MUCH higher standard of nourishment. 

Short of a dramatic reduction in population ........

Similarly with energy - in WW2 the individual use of energy was far lower than today - and much of it came from home mined coal.  Virtually no coal is mined now.

We are in severe trouble if we need to be self sufficient on food and energy.  We cannon (or soon won't have the capacity to) make steel, so keeping any army/navy supplied is not possible .........

It really doesn't look good.  But - the old saying - to get peace - prepare for war has a sound basis.

[oowee]

Every country depends on aliances including the US. 

[old man]

Personally, just waiting for the first big outage.

[Rewulf]

1 hour ago, oowee said:

Every country depends on aliances including the US. 

Thats not really true though is it, unless youre talking about trade alliances rather than military, and even then...

China doesnt need to be in an alliance to trade with, well everyone.
Russia doesnt need to be in an alliance to sell gas and oil to half the world.

The elephant in the room is the NEED for alliances, for an alliance to be necessary , there needs to be an adversary, whoever that may be.
Would it not be better to create the conditions where there were no adversaries, especially nuclear armed ones ?
We are all bought up to believe, and fear , that enemies exist, sometimes they do, but an alliance of all superpower, nuclear armed countries, presenting a united front, many of these smaller groups of hostiles would not dare lift their head, all the proxy wars after WW2 , and all because we decided that we didnt like communism, after 1991 we should have worked towards a worldwide peace, instead we just created more enemies.

The EU doesnt need an army, the combined forces of Europe under NATO command are more than enough to counter any perceived Russian aggression.
And an EU army under the  EU commission  isnt for that anyway , its to keep unruly European nations under control , not Russia.

[12gauge82]

6 hours ago, oowee said:

 under European management. 

 

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[Rewulf]

31 minutes ago, 12gauge82 said:

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Verhofstadt said the other day that it might be a good idea if the EU had nukes....
I mean , what could go wrong there 

[old man]

French reliability perhaps should be measured by thei ability or desire to stop the rubber boats?

[Gordon R]

Gotta love a European Army and European joint nuclear force. That would merely be the French having a bigger army and more nuclear weapons, without paying.

They must think we are truly stupid.

Laugh at what Trump said, but he was on the money. Too many EU countries don't want to pay for the security which they demand. They aren't paying now, so what gives any rational person the idea that they might suddenly start paying.

[oowee]

3 minutes ago, Gordon R said:

Gotta love a European Army and European joint nuclear force. That would merely be the French having a bigger army and more nuclear weapons, without paying.

They must think we are truly stupid.

Laugh at what Trump said, but he was on the money. Too many EU countries don't want to pay for the security which they demand. They aren't paying now, so what gives any rational person the idea that they might suddenly start paying.

It's right we all have to pay. Big difference between that and encouraging Russia to attack those that do not. 

Positive step forward with new drone partnership for Ukraine with UK and Latvia. 

[old man]

17 minutes ago, Gordon R said:

Gotta love a European Army and European joint nuclear force. That would merely be the French having a bigger army and more nuclear weapons, without paying.

They must think we are truly stupid.

Laugh at what Trump said, but he was on the money. Too many EU countries don't want to pay for the security which they demand. They aren't paying now, so what gives any rational person the idea that they might suddenly start paying.

You know we are stupid.

[Gordon R]

Quote

It's right we all have to pay. Big difference between that and encouraging Russia to attack those that do not. 

The problem is that the UK and USA do pay, but others don't.

Trump didn't encourage Russia to attack other countries. He merely pointed out the consequences of free loading. It was a wake up call to non payers, but there was always going to be the hysterical reaction. It's a shame that those critics don't put the same effort into berating non payers, but that doesn't grab the woke headlines, does it?

[Dave-G]

47 minutes ago, Gordon R said:

The problem is that the UK and USA do pay, but others don't.

Trump didn't encourage Russia to attack other countries. He merely pointed out the consequences of free loading. It was a wake up call to non payers, but there was always going to be the hysterical reaction. It's a shame that those critics don't put the same effort into berating non payers, but that doesn't grab the woke headlines, does it?

[Rewulf]

1 hour ago, oowee said:

It's right we all have to pay. Big difference between that and encouraging Russia to attack those that do not. 

Short memories.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-ukraine-comments-cause-furor/2022/01/20/3e078aea-7a0a-11ec-bf97-6eac6f77fba2_story.html

1 hour ago, oowee said:

Positive step forward with new drone partnership for Ukraine with UK and Latvia. 

The drone issue is a delicate one, there will be R + D going on in NATO and Russia/China , on how to nullify this warfare 'revolution' 
Whether it will take the form of active jamming, already being experimented with , or an active point defence system, like the Phalanx systems on ships in miniature.
Russia has already equalised the early advantage Ukraine had in mini surveillance and attack drones.
China is the one to watch in this field....

[oowee]

4 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

Short memories.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-ukraine-comments-cause-furor/2022/01/20/3e078aea-7a0a-11ec-bf97-6eac6f77fba2_story.html

The drone issue is a delicate one, there will be R + D going on in NATO and Russia/China , on how to nullify this warfare 'revolution' 
Whether it will take the form of active jamming, already being experimented with , or an active point defence system, like the Phalanx systems on ships in miniature.
Russia has already equalised the early advantage Ukraine had in mini surveillance and attack drones.
China is the one to watch in this field....

Whilst Ping has almost limitless resource what he lacks is innovation. The structure of control does not encourage freedom of thought. 

What we have in Ukraine is a ready made test bed. 

[Gordon R]

Rewulf - I had forgotten Dopey Joe's comments. The big difference is that Biden wasn't being sarcastic, Trump was.

[Rewulf]

32 minutes ago, oowee said:

 Ping has almost limitless resource what he lacks is innovation.

China doesnt NEED innovation, they can just copy what good ideas we develop, and then mass produce them far cheaper, using their superior manufacturing capacity.

32 minutes ago, oowee said:

What we have in Ukraine is a ready made test bed. 

For EVERYONE, dont think Russia and China arent learning too, and by the time its over , Russia will have around 1 million combat hardened veterans, that have faced western tech , and know how to defeat it, this they will share with the Chinese.

36 minutes ago, Gordon R said:

Rewulf - I had forgotten Dopey Joe's comments. The big difference is that Biden wasn't being sarcastic, Trump was.