Donald Trump’s declaration at the NATO summit that the U.S. had returned to war with Iran didn’t lead to the usual gasping allies or perplexed officials.
If anything, it cemented Europe’s increasing reliance on itself.
As motorcades sped out of Ankara’s presidential place and down the barricaded streets ringing the Turkish capital on Wednesday, a half-dozen European officials said the ceasefire’s end only stiffened their resolve to be less dependent on the American militarily and stand alone.
“After seeing what’s happening in Iran and Ukraine, we first of all, have to build our own military might, and then everybody will respect us: Americans, Russians, Iranians or Chinese,” said a European official. “The more muscles you have, the less political anger you show.”
The sanctions have not stopped Russia from fighting the war. It is clearly not enough to just sanction a country. Especially with the world splitting into different blocks right now and China and somewhat the US liking countries like Russia. So strong sanctions are no longer a viable option for everything. Similar story with Iran btw.
Also arms races have ended peacefully. The Cold War certainly did. The trick here is to still have the credibility to be able to defend yourself. Having a strong military is part of that.
The sanctions didn’t stop Russia, and the Maginot Line didn’t stop Germany. No system is perfect, but I prefer not to have countries invest in weapons if possible.
You could argue that nuclear weapons managed to deter a third world war, but they also created a very tangible risk of wiping out humanity. I’m not sure I like that trade-off.
Finally, keep in mind that the full effect of the sanctions hasn’t manifested yet. It’ll be a long, long time before Russia recovers from this war, and it’ll be a reminder for all wannabe warmongers of the consequences of invading another countries for quite a while.
France declared war on Germany, after Germany invaded Poland. In that sense the Maginot line actually worked to deter Germany from invading France.
This is not true. The maginot line was easily avoided by the German and any war historian will tell you that it was a stupid and stupidly expensive idea. In no way it was a threat to the German invasion.
So what’s the end goal? Start a war to stop a war? Arms race have very often ended with war. The cold war ended because the Soviet Union disintegrated from the inside, using it as an example of a “succesful” rearming race feels intellectually dishonest, especially when we have countless of examples of arms race ending in war.
The goal is to show the other side that you are willing to fight and at best a war is impossible to win for them. The issue here is that just saying it does not work, you have to pay for it, so the other sides believes it.
In this case Russia has proven they willing to go to war. They also have a fairly large military and have repeatedly threatened other European countries. So they need to show that they are willing to fight Russia. The big issue is that the US, who has a stronger military than Russia and has made claims they would not protect European allies. So they need to show that they have both the means and will to defend themself. Hence more military spending, moving soldiers closer to Russia and so forth.
The ideal outcome would be Russia collapsing again or a deal, where both sides agree to reduce their military. However it has to be both sides.
And so forth, right. You are proving my point. What’s the “so forth”? Russia feels more threatened and feel forced to rearm themselves. Europe sees russia rearm themselves and say “they are getting stronger, we need to rearm even more”. Does anybody expect Russia or anybody else to say “Hey our enemies are rearming themselves, better stop producing weapons and start diplomatic relations instead!” Did this ever happen? Does anyone expect it to happen? No, but we have countless proofs of the opposite happening. This is WWI all over again. I wish people would study history to see that the things they are saying are not new, they were said in past and the results were always disastrous.
Is any of the people who praise the rearming have an idea of what happens in case of war with Russia? Did people forget that they are in a military alliance with China, Iran and N. Korea? How do you think a war in this situation will look like? Do you think the world will survive it?