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  • 57 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
Cake day: June 22nd, 2023
  • RIotingPacifist@lemmy.worldtoWorld News@lemmy.world•NATO chief says Europe should ‘keep on dreaming’ if it thinks it can defend itself without the USEnglish
    7·
    10 hours ago

    Even with those numbers, Europe can match Russia (400 < 183 UKR, 97 DE, 91 FR, 85 UK) or even China (570 < UKR,DE,FR,UK,PO 62, IT 61) without factoring in other European countries that spend at least 200B more in that list alone.

    So even by those numbers in the only scenario In which Europe is outspent is if China & Russia attack at the same time, and it seems China has little interest in invading anywhere but Taiwan.

    I also don’t really buy those numbers given Russian performance in Ukraine and the fact that China uses their military to provide employment I think they overestimated the military strength of both countries.

    Additionally I don’t think anywhere else has the extent of pork barrel spending on the military the US does, so I don’t really believe those in numbers are accurate for PPP for European countries.

  • RIotingPacifist@lemmy.worldtoWorld News@lemmy.world•NATO chief says Europe should ‘keep on dreaming’ if it thinks it can defend itself without the USEnglish
    62·
    14 hours ago

    Defend from who?

    Russia (military budget of 145.9B) can barely invade Ukraine (miltary budget of 28.4B), meanwhile any 2 out of Germany (86B), UK (81B) & France (64B) can match Russia without even counting the rest of Europe.

    The combined spend of just DE, UK & FR (231B) is inline with China’s (235B), again without the rest of Europe that has Italy (35B), Poland (28.4B), Netherlands (23.4B), Spain (19.4B), Sweeden (12B) & Norway (10B) which can more or less match Russian spending (128B) especially if you include Ukraine.

    Europe alone basically spends the same amount as Russia & China combined, so unless the proposed attacker is the United States, the idea that European military budgets need to increase is ridiculous!

    There is also a lot to be said for smaller better trained forces vs large meat grinders, especially in modern warfare, the scale of grift and job creation in US, Russian & Chinese armies is significantly larger than the equivalent in European armies.

    And that’s all ignoring the nukes.

  • RIotingPacifist@lemmy.worldtoWorld News@lemmy.world•China has network of 75 covert influence outposts across BritainEnglish
    41·
    16 hours ago

    Interference by China a serious issue, and one is increasingly threatening democratic values in the West.

    We are arming a genocide, our former PM is joining a “peace” board that’s committed to ethnic cleansing, there are 100s if not thousands of influence groups operating across the UK in favor of said genocide, and you want me to be scared of China?

    It’s illegal to say you support Palestine Action! and you’re worried about threatening democratic values?

    Not that I know of even one.

    We spend £4-5B on MI6 and you don’t think we have any influence operations in China? What are we spending the money on?

    Tens of thousands of Chinese students studying overseas are required to sign a document pledging loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party

    Oh boy do I have news for you about Americans.

    There are tons of reports of Chinese students and scholars stealing high-tech military technologies

    1. Sure there are
    2. Who cares
    3. “high-tech military technologies” like what the military-grade encryption used by Lemmy?

    I don’t know of similar influence operations from any Western country in China.

    That’s because you’re very incurious about what the UK, US & Israel do.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_for_International_Development

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_States

    I’m no fan of the CCP but these hysterical times articles about China doing the same shit every nation state does are ridiculous. Sure all nation states should be abolished but fixating on China is ridiculous.