I don’t think this is appeasing a bully, this is actually giving him very little. Appeasement would have involved actually giving him something. The increase to 3.5% is back to around cold war levels, which seems very appropriate for the current geopolitical situation. The final 1.5% is essentially an accounting trick to make whatever expenses you like count towards the 5%, like road maintenance or technological R&D, it would be hard not to reach this target. Plus this money can now be increasingly spent on Europe’s own companies instead of sending 1-2% of yearly GDP straight to the US economy, especially once economies of scale start picking up.

This is just what Europe was planning to do on its own, but framing it in a way that strokes Trump’s ego and lets him claim it as his victory. Especially after a few years this will not be a positive change for the US. I’ll happily sacrifice Rutte’s pride if it means Europe gets exactly what it wanted.

The central command is there, but it’s led by America. This means that, if we rely on NATO mechanisms, America effectively controls collective responses by Europe, which is undesirable now that they are not on Europe’s side in the conflict with Russia, and they state over and over again that they intend to annex Greenland.

A European central command and standardisation between countries makes a lot of sense to me. If member states don’t want to give up autonomy, maybe with some kind of opt-out clause. That way the countries that are willing won’t need to coordinate poorly through dozens of bilateral communication channels, but can jointly operate with a common strategy, and at worst, not all member states would contribute to every action. Plenty of possibilities for problems still, but a step up from the current situation.

I would personally still prefer to see a more integrated European military, though. While we will have a bunch of low-population countries all doing all possible tasks poorly, instead of having some specialise to specific strengths and sourcing collectively, the EU will always be weaker militarily than a comparable force that is not split in such a manner.

Probably many greedy reasons, but my personal favourite speculation: annexing Greenland surrounds Canada and stops any potential aid by its NATO allies in case of an invasion, since annexing Canada is one of the stated objectives of the US now.

In terms of strategy for actual national security, they already got all the access they wanted, if they wanted more all they had to do was ask. If they’re the ones doing the attacking of a common ally, though, they wouldn’t get that access. So it’s only of added strategic value to annex instead of maintaining the alliance if the goal is to attack members of the alliance.

Ukraine has one of the strongest militaries in Europe. This whole “they couldn’t even beat puny Ukraine” line I keep seeing is entirely too haughty for my liking. Their gear is less state-of-the-art, sure, but many European countries lack vital components of a functional military altogether. Including logistics and coordination of joint efforts which the Americans have until recently been doing.

Sure, no need to panic yet, but certainly a need to get a move on and actually respond proactively to make up for gaps, and respond jointly, to ensure that it’s not going to be a matter of small countries getting steamrolled one by one.

Korean democracy is not dead yet!

Me, checking what the damage is: oh good, my European defence stocks went up 2 to 4 percent today while the American stocks are tanking, happy days!

Me, after thinking on it a bit longer: oh God, my European defence stocks went up while the world economy is taking a hit, better get ready for whatever’s coming

While you are staying, your productivity is fueling the economy, and the taxes you pay go to the government you dislike. If you flee, that’s a big economic difference you’re making over the years. I guess if you fight symbolically but non-pragmatically and get arrested, they have to feed you and house you in a prison which will cost a little extra, but compared to your non-productivity that’s just a small bonus. Fleeing also means you get to proactively contribute to competitors and reward them for being a better place to live, which in a way doubles your economic impact. There’s a reason the Berlin wall was built and North Korea executes 3 generations of the families of defectors. People are valuable, and they can’t afford to lose too many of them.

On the other hand, if your threshold for fleeing is too low, there are no competitors to support, because every country has their issues, and some may be at a risk of the same developments as the country you’re fleeing from, making it a pointless exercise. And your loved ones could be essentially hostages that can be used to make you stay.

So it kind of depends, but at least the cowardice argument seems pointless to me. Pragmatic small-scale effectiveness tends to beat symbolic perfectionism at making an impact.

While nice, this seems at odds with the budget cuts to science that are horribly undermining our existing, high-quality scientific institutions. It would be much nicer if luring these US-based scientists were an addition to a larger package to invest in, rather than cut and destroy, science in the country.

We could certainly use the help, so they’d be very welcome, but if we’re still getting rid of hundreds of fully set up scientists while gaining a few new ones from this, that’s still a net loss…

Plus, any US-based scientist who might consider doing this would surely look at these budget cuts, see how countries like France and Germany are actually investing in scientific infrastructure, and take this into account when selecting a destination. If you want to “lure” people over, you do need to have an actual high-quality and functional system to show off.

One caused by counting on internal division in the EU, the probability of which increases when we fail to have a unified response right now. Basically just gambling that countries like the Netherlands won’t be willing to defend, e.g., a Baltic country. Russia could certainly beat the militaries of small Baltic states one by one, if it is breaking even with Ukraine. No joint response would mean selling out member states and effectively disabling the whole concept of the EU. Joint response would mean war for everyone.

I would prefer a future that minimises the probability of this gamble being made, and nobody gets invaded.

I suppose this is karma for me getting too excited about European unity getting a massive boost as a silver lining to the state of the world. My own country is joining Hungary in attempting to sabotage it.

This is not the time to make an ideological show to your populist national electorate. If this doesn’t get implemented properly and the newfound unity is not credible, the continent and the EU will be faced with war. Which, if that on its own is not convincing enough, also tends to be somewhat suboptimal for fiscal stability and the economy.

I sometimes wonder now if the plan is to stop having allies, and instead just make an American version of Wagner. Privatised American military fights for the highest bidder, buys lots of material from the American MIC, makes the world a worse place but makes a lot of money of it. I doubt it would be more profitable than a permanent inflow of 2% of the yearly GDP from several of the richest countries in the world, but I wouldn’t put it past them to think that it would be.

I’ve spent years now trying not to consume products from companies I consider immoral. There are a lot of them and, realistically, you won’t make a big dent or bring the company down. The average person is, by definition, average, so a boycott based on people doing the good thing at the expense of some personal discomfort will always fail.

But that doesn’t mean it’s pointless. Companies like Amazon are almost impossible to compete with because of their size. The most important impact you can have as a consumer is not that the lack of your personal revenue is going to keep the likes of Jeff Bezos up at night. It’s that you’re providing revenue and a user base to alternative businesses that are struggling to exist in a world where most people just use Amazon.

You can make a real difference this way! Focus on growing competitors rather than hoping the bad company will go away because of your abstention. Kind of like using Lemmy instead of Reddit.