According to former United States general Ben Hodges, the withdrawal of US troops from Europe is only a matter of time. In an interview with SonntagsBlick, he advises Switzerland to prepare for war.
This is blatant fear mongering, russia can’t even defeat the Ukraine. How the fuck do they manage a second front?
Basically: Si vis pacem, para bellum
It’s unfortunate that we’ve configured our world like this, with rival nation states and militaries vying for supremacy. In reality, the conflict is between humans and militarism. Militarism will kill us all, in one way or another.
Switzerland been preparing for war since 1648.
Make him a present, some winter vacations in Switzerland and some summer ones in Italy. Cool those US guys down, down to the bottom of earth
Has the USA ever won a war?
I’m see to recall a pretty successful one against the British…
Their civil war?
Nailed it.
Yes, they win most of them. They mostly lose when they try to occupy a foreign country and do counterinsurgency.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States
Counter insurgency is tough to overcome. As you kill insurgents, more insurgents pop up because the initially killed insurgents were their family and friends. The only way to do it is to rule with an iron fist.
I disagree that there is any way to do it. Ultimately, people don’t want you there and are unhappy enough that they’re willing to die rather than cooperate. It is simply too expensive in terms of man hours, lives, and money to keep a population under occupation like that. At the very least, you need to do as the colonial powers did and exploit a local division to deputize some of the locals to rule on your behalf.
Tangentially related, he once said: “I had a German tell me one time, he said, the two pillars for us are NATO and the EU. NATO is for life, EU is for quality of life.” I wonder how that’ll play out in the near future.
“According to everything I hear from Washington, Europe is no longer a priority.” Trump sees China as the main opponent of the US.
This didn’t start with Trump, it has been building for a long time. I haven’t seen anyone spell it out so clearly before though.
Soo. Uhh… what exactly happens when US loses it’s soft power and trust in Europe and Europe slowly cozies up to China?
Oh thats easy, Europe becomes the enemy, which you already see happening. You dont say you’re getting another country 's territory one way or another if they’re not your enemy.
That’s an enemy they’ll have a hard time take on though.
Frankly I think Trump sees western nations not led by dictators as threats.
Anyone taking bets which Country gets threatened next I’m thinking Jamaica had to hand over 50percent of its rum.
This isn’t really a threat, because the person saying it doesn’t make those decisions.
“Puerto Rico needs to end it’s vicious trade war against the US or risk it’s government being overthrown and made a US state.”
Lmao this guy
It’s high time that we throw out the US army from Europe. They’ve been waging war in the middle east from Rammstein for decades.
It seems like they want to downsize. I wonder if Europeans can convince the orange guy to sell some equipment at a discount rather than ship it home.
We’d better build our own IMO.
I was thinking of a country that might be able to use it now.
Sure, hopefully we’ll do as much as we can and buy the rest, but the USA might not sell it (like information).
Yeah you guys need to build.
US troops often withdraw leaving way too much equipment behind.
I better not see civilians with “cool military” gear! That’s worst than any weeb or m’ladyian/fedorian.
But maybe I get to burn a Humvee or two since we “lack” those (now obviously surplus too) cybertrucks over here.
Shoving helos off a carrier deck comes to mind, when we were actually trying to evacuate refugees instead of lowering plane flaps to push off the hangers on. Guess the Taliban has Strykers and MRAPs now just like our cops, yay murica
I feel sorry for their mechanics.
They’re about to learn the real lesson of the Big Green Weenie…logistics
Switzerland… war… lol
Doing my service 🫡 (I am a conscript and don’t want this)
Switzerland is always prepared for war. Prepared to stay the fuck out of it and profit from it.
I mean, if that’s an option …
My exact reaction lol. News is like satire now.
Humans are so fucking stupid.
Standing in the middle of a fully stocked supermarket saying, “well, I guess this is it. We have no choice but to kill and eat each other.”
Most are ok. It’s the spoiled nepo babies who’ve grown into privileged assholes that are the problem.
some people have to vote for them and put them up there. So i would say most is accurate sadly :/
People let them stay in power
Plus the morons that keep voting them into power.
Plus the morons that keep voting them into power.
Nobody voted Schmusk into power.
But everybody who wanted to could have known that Trump was going to appoint the most comically unqualified people.
electoralism is not the root cause of this particular problem
Ele… what? Phew, for a second there I thought I had accidentally posted on .ml again.
electoralism. sorry for using hard words, didnt know you were a ‘hurr ml’ person.
it means that fascism would get to power anyway, regardless of you scribbling on a paper in favour of diet fascism or not.
So how do you decide who gets to govern, if not through elections? And yes, I am very much a “hurr ml” person. I’ve rarely seen such an accumulation of blockheads outside r/thedonald, back in the day.
Elections don’t work when education has been systematically degraded. Elections don’t work when there are no restrictions on the amount of contributions that oligarchs can contribute to a political candidate. Elections don’t work when there is no safeguard against election tampering. Elections don’t work when oligarchs own the media.
its not about deciding who to govern here. burgeois elections in a burgeois state will only elect people aligned with their agenda, which means you will keep walking towards fascism regardless of who wins an election, and none of the alternatives will actually enact your will, even when they have a majority. democrats and their warmongering are especially bad to us in the periphery of the planet
as for solutions, join a leftist political organization or union. it will involve talking to people around you, striking, helping and building community and participating in direct action with systemic change in mind. the more people get involved, deeper gets the change we can enact. it doesn’t have to involve capitalist institutions at all. in most socialist/anarchist systems they chose their leaders, yes, by debating and voting in a council but that assumes the system is not rigged against us, which pretty obviously is in capitalism for the reasons mentioned above and more.
you think us as blockheads because you probably read no political theory beyond liberalism, if that. be more open minded towards leftists, and do a bit of studying and you will notice our ideals are close to the left-leaning liberals. we think you as blockheads because you keep trying to change things in a misguided or misinformed way that is pretty obviously not solving any problems.
you can shake your fists all you want at the hefty percentage of people that recognize this (not only us leftists btw, which are a tiny minority in the US) and doesnt bother to vote, but you won’t change anything because a compelling candidate for leadership is not viable in the current system. my country has mandatory voting and nothing changes either, electoralism is not the solution.
It’s hard to know where to begin with people like this. They are more ideologically unhinged than anyone in the Middle East, more indoctrinated than any communist, more institutionalised than a life sentence prisoner, and more ignorant than a drunken donkey.
