Trump is going to destroy our relationships with Europe, Mexico and Canada and when he is hit in the face by reality by believing in his false words, thats when his usual denial of cognitive dissonance will begin.

Hopefully he can get somewhere with this nuclear reduction treaty. The world needs lesser nukes.

The "nuke" deal will be a farce too, like maybe some out of date nukes that were going to be decomissioned anyway will be part of the deal. It's a bone Trump is hoping he can throw out there. 

I'm looking at the compositions of the militaries of NATO, and I've already discerned something potentially dangerous. Take out the USA and Turkey, and you suddenly find a third of your army coming from PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain), who aren't exactly exactly famed for the health of their economies. I took out the USA for obvious reasons, and Turkey because the coup attempt pissed them off.

With that considered, I'd rather ally myself with Russia while aiming for a controlled break-up of the European Union. For starters, push the Netherlands and Denmark out. Gently, but firmly. It's better than having to go to war, at least.

(Slowly prying Russia away from China would be a really nice bonus, too, for that matter. Like it or not, Outer Manchuria is still prime lebensraum for the Chinese.)

By the way, how does Greece have a larger air force than Germany? The navy part I can understand, because the Hellenic mercantile fleet is huge, but the air force? Doesn't Airbus partially manufacture in Germany as well?

vivster said: NobleTeam360 said: Honestly, Russia is a more powerful ally than Europe anyway. I would actually welcome if all the world policing is done by Russia and US, leaving Europe out of all the stupid fighting.

Ocassionally, someone will mention how the sole reason Russia acts aggressive towards Europe seems to be because the rest of Europe wants to kick them off the continent. In other words, if the US left NATO and it dissolved, Russia literally might do nothing there. Their only concern remains keeping any missiles looking elsewhere and at least two hundred miles away from their border. 

People act as if Russia was Alduin the World Eater. It's not. Almost everything it does has always been a response to a trigger someone else pulled. When it comes to them, all that matters deals with not threatening Russia. You do not insult them, you do not hurt them, you do not attack them, you do not threaten them and you do not isolate them. You certainly do not join NATO or the EU if you have a border with them. As long as you respect these dispositions, Russia will do nothing. 

Seriously, all it took the EU to prevent either was to permanently ban all states bordering the Russian Federation from membership. All NATO needed was a treaty saying "NATO will never place forces or missiles within two hundred nautical miles of Russian territory and will keep troops at a distance of at least 66 statute miles from their frontier in any event". 

Every time I hear some fool suggesting that "Lügenpresse" is "Nazi-speak" I want to facepalm, or alternatively: force these people to actually investigate the correctness of that claim for themselves (instead of just parroting some media narrative without thinking). The ridiculousness of that claim is probably only beaten by people who believe "Gutmensch" to be "Nazi-speak".

I always imagine such people as guys who get their news almost exclusively from sources like "BILD" or "SPIEGEL Online", yet believe themselves to be well-informed.

I still don't get it. Am I missing some obvious plot here? Why would anyone go against Europe? I mean yeah, people can break off their relations but you're talking as if it's a sure thing that someone will start a war against Europe.

Hah, I knew somebody would get #triggered hard by that, lel.

The term was coined well earlier and probably most used during WW1, but it's also fact that it was part of the official NSDAP party manifesto and that the tactic of discrediting all press (using "Lügenpresse" among several other expressions) but their own news outlets was essential to their rise to power.

So in my opinion your "just fervor" to absolve the word from it's Nazi stink amounts to little more than vapid nitpickery and I love to see people like that get all worked up.

I was stating a hypothetical that may occur due to, say, a deterioration of the situation in the Ukraine. I apologize for the misunderstanding, but I didn't mean to insinuate what is bolded.

The reason I was outlining that scenario for a controlled break-up for the EU is because a power vacuum is left in the case that the United States pivots overtly to Russia and mishandles it such that relations with EU members are harmed greatly. In that case, what I said should suffice. It's not as if PIGS and Deutsche Bank aren't ticking time bombs anyway.

Besides, considering the election results in Austria and the normalization of anti-EU sentiment in Denmark and the Netherlands, I wouldn't be surprised if Brexit is followed up soon. May as well make the break-up painless, I guess.

I wouldn't consider military might a factor at all. I doubt any country would honestly threaten Europe, not even Russia.

And some people might leave the EU but that's basically just a formality anyway since there are so many ties between European countries. You can leave the EU but you cannot leave Europe.

It's all just political and economical struggles that will be resolved in time. Do you really think the whole of EU will be thrown into turmoil because of tiny quarrels and a bit of economic instability? The individual European countries are too strong to let that have any significant effect.