I really dont see how Europe is moving towards energy independence. We're still awfully dependent on Russian gas and Middle Eastern oil. And as I mentioned previously, nuclear power depends on reliable uran supplies, which Europe has to import from outside. (Most notably Africa.)

It is the United States and Canada which are moving towards energy independence fueled by fracking and shale oil. Not Europe.

Obviously, both the NA and the EU economies still depend on the world economy, and the world economy still depends on being well greased by cheap oil, so we still have a veritable interest in a stable situation in the Middle East. If only our track record in that region wasnt so abysmal.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 8 2019 04:51am

One of the first thing LePen (heavy & far right) or Melanchon (heavy & far left) want to do is to quit NATO. They have different view for Europe tho.

The sad truth is once being in charge they could both realize NATO is convenient and that things cannot be quickly changed. It could be definitely a mistake because it's not simple annual budget but a whole chain of command & processes to re-build.

It's always better to have idiots paying for the whole shit in the name of their foreign policy & their 50k $ toilets seats private contracts, and then keep the money for welfare or education... Until a certain threshold get reached. Which here is Article 5, helping Turkey against Assad ?

I think NATO will stay for a while, it's still good to criticize it to push US & Orange-Clown to stop whining for payments: well played Pres. Macron.
It can be a good thing to keep things running like this the time EU countries start to spend more on defense budgets...

The US has 1.4 million active duty soldiers, the entire rest of NATO, added together, has 1.8 million active duty.

Macron's blunt NATO diagnosis was risky but necessary, French officials say

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-france/macrons-blunt-nato-diagnosis-was-risky-but-necessary-french-officials-say-idUSKBN1XI23W







Macron is making sense. I had relaxed into thinking Saucy's view of the world and it's politics was representative of France in general. Apparently, it isn't.

Not necessarily - but European countries should be consistent and either accept the US' protection while meeting the 2% target or spend under that and forego protection.

Heinrich wants to have his cake and eat it.

I think it has been clarified repeatedly by US diplomats and NATO representatives that article 5 has to be understood in the sense of "an attack of aggression on one member state is an attack on all of them". That is, if a NATO member itself starts a war of aggression and later gets under attack during such a war that it itself started, then article 5 wont apply. Afaik, even Trump himself has warned Erdogan that he should better not hope for NATO support if he carries out the invasion of Syria, which Erdogan proceeded to do anyway.

It should also be noted that Turkey's military is faaaaar stronger than the pitiful, depleted remains of Assad's Syrian army. Turkey would definitely not need NATO support to deal with them. And the Russians are too smart to risk the ground they have gained in the region by attacking a NATO member with their own forces.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 8 2019 10:18pm

either you're severely struggling with reading comprehension, or you don't know what 'to have one's cake and eat it' means, dorothy. i could not have been any clearer about NOT wanting america's nukes and drone murderer camps in our country, i don't want ANY of that 'protection' - i'm for a european military alliance, so that the billions we already spend will be used more efficiently.

To help Assad Russia does not need to fight.
We are not in a würste lottery, how can you be 100% sure that nothing will go wrong with Turkey vs Assad ?
IMO the Macron speech was more about overbidding Trump for next NATO summit. Which is good.

Different resources, demand different approaches. The main reason apart from the moral one of not destroying our habitat for Europe to have a need to move towards renewables: is that Europe simply doesn't have the fossil resources like the US and Canada. The ones we have are rapidly depleting, notably the Dutch gas resource in Groniningen, making us as rich as we are today, without the future benefits of depleting Norway's oil resources. Fossil independence means lowering fossil needs below local possible/desire-able production, now we might be moving too slow, but don't bump your head against a windmill, they are there (as a strawman). When coal plants are closing and house heating is moving from oil towards gas, just for a "short" term reduction of emissions (gas > coal). Then, yes, it doesn't look great as a stat talking about gas/fossil dependency for Germany. But is fracking and shale even a valid option for Europe? I'd love to explore the option but are inclined to expect a low gain from our land at a higher risk of earthquakes in populated areas. On the long term money better spend on an energy wende.

Btw^.. I don't really buy the "needing stability" for a well greased cheap oil supply. Within the world wide power struggle for cheap resources from any perspective: you need turmoil to demand a reliability of selling their resources cheap and connect it towards the ability to survive/stay in power for bilateral advantages. This is why Trump stayed in Syria. Not giving he Kurdish oil resource to either Turkey or Russia (for a part commendable in supporting kurdish supplies), while most likely greatly benefiting from extremely cheap prices by given protection... Needing stability is only propaganda from those benefiting from bilateral trade deals ensuring power. World wide cheap energy is created by destroying oil producing economies.

Or by reducing the need.. coming back to the EU stratergy that should be supported at higher costs for faster change.

This post was edited by Knoppie on Nov 15 2019 04:27pm