As a member of the EU the UK has to accept the free movement of people, so Schengen is wholly irrelevant. That's why we've got 2m Poles and Romanians in the country.

Here. I stole this from a post by Beo...just to help with Brexit...

meanwhile in france



you sure you are doing ok over there sauci?
a driving bus raided in broad daylight

nothing to worry about folks

loser need this each time he does a shitpost

Most Germans think Europe can defend itself without U.S. help: poll

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-security-poll/most-germans-think-europe-can-defend-itself-without-u-s-help-poll-idUSKBN1KD1DB




Interesting.

It's probably right. The combined defense budget of the UK, France, Germany and Italy is $180bn, while Russia only has $66bn according to this list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

Western Europe also has a much larger industrial base and a much higher population than Russia. And Russia is pretty much the only country that would remotely be a candidate for a conventional mlitary attack on Europe.

I think that the US would assist in case of war, anyway.
I guess the US could just cut back on the money going to NATO if they wanted to do that.

I wouldn't want to see anyone attacking Europe though. That could get seriously bloody. We're still too close to WW II. Hopefully that might prevent any incursions into Europe.


/e Trump's style leaves a lot to be desired, but the US really has to stop hemorrhaging money all over the world.

This post was edited by Ghot on Jul 23 2018 06:08am

Eventually it's gonna hit you like a tonne of bricks that nobody on this entire planet is forcing the US to spend so much money on "defense" but themselves.

Well, the excessive american spending on its military also serves as a deterrent: everyone, even Russia and China, but also middle powers like egypt, iran or saudi-arabia know that the United States would be capable of outright flattening them if they mess with the current, american-led world order. We cant really quanitfy the extend of this effect, and we dont know the costs a more unstable world order would cause.

For example, imagine if Iran with Russian backup decides to block the street of Hormus without being provoked, just because they can - or imagine Egypt blocking the Suez canal in an attempt at blackmailing the industrialized world - moves like that could throw the entire world economy into chaos; and would make costly wars much more likely.

I personally believe that the US could cut their 600bn defense budget down to at least 400bn without harming their hegemony, so yes, their spending is excessive. But lets not pretend like any dollar spent on defense beyond what's necessary to defend the homeland itself is automatically wasted.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jul 23 2018 08:32am