Considering last night's results, I don't expect NATO to be credible 4 years from now

I mean if Europe wants to increase their military funding and move items in house I think that would be a wonderful idea. Because America is not a reliable partner in this at all in the past two decades.

The perfect excuse for the military industrial complex to move manufacturing overseas.
- So I'm going to say that the military industrial complex is already there, it would simply be a rapid expansion.
Multiple EU countries want to, but they also want to give stuff to Ukraine and it's difficult to do both.
The problem is that America has all the money.
- all the unhinged currency but also all the debt.
If Europe gets into a war of course the US will help. But the same can't really be said if the US gets into a war. The rest of NATO needs to be able to hold the fort if the US were to get suddenly ....distracted in the Pacific
- If Europe gets into a war of course the US will help.
  How sure are you of that? Sure, if Russia marches towards the Atlantic Ocean, but if Russia decides to create a security buffer zone in Finland? Or the Baltic countries?
  NATO has only survived for as long because of the commitment of the US. Come January NATO is dead as well as a sovereign Ukraine.
- If Europe gets into a war, the US will side with Russia. Trump has been a Russian asset since the 80s, and it's clear that he gave Putin classified documents relating to American spies and informants during his last presidency when they suddenly started dying a few days after he met with Putin. And even more classified documents relating to American espionage against Russia than the ones he requested before that meeting were found in Mar a la Go.
- Are you fucking stupid? Which is the only country to ever invoke article 5? How many other countries listened to the call for this injust war?

Good job to all of the fucks who stayed home because of Gaza, thinking that not voting and letting the GOP rise to power would actually help the situation.

Yeah, because Netanyahu's extreme right-wing policy was a problem with the US's left-wing party, right?

I doubt Gaza was the deciding factor for 20 million people, but I could be wrong. Especially since anyone that aware of the whole would see trump would worsen the situation not improve it. I'm curious why they did stay home.
I also guess Americans don't want a woman president and they do want a hard crackdown on migrants. Especially Latinos, who apparently overwhelmingly came out for trump.
- I also guess Americans don’t want a woman president and they do want a hard crackdown on migrants. Especially Latinos, who apparently overwhelmingly came out for trump.
  Latinos voting for hard crackdowns on immigrants is the biggest "fuck you, I've got mine" energy I've ever seen.
- It wasn't deciding factor at all. People get far too internet poisoned and fail to realize how the median voter is actually motivated in this country. Foreign policy is nearly irrelevant to most voters.
  If there is any validity to the idea that Harris' position on gaza tanked the campaign it's in the motivated active base lost interest in giving their time, sweat, and energy to putting boots on the ground for someone that has made every promise to continue bombing children.
- It was a multitude of reasons, Twitter being in the hands of Elon (who pushed the hashtags #genocidejoe and #holocaustharris, but I wouldn't be surprized if he also misinformed people about the election dates), other social media stopped enforcing their community guidelines to be "unbiased", media was way harder on Kamala than on Trump (including the downplaying of the mental decay and insanity of Trump), the whole "let's try to appeal to moderate conservatives" thing, etc.
- If it mattered: Fuck the Dems for doing a genocide that cost us the Republic.
  If it didn't matter: Fuck the Dems for doing a genocide that didn't even matter in costing us the Republic.
Millions of people stayed home. I really doubt Gaza was the reason for all of them.
- Urgh, even now before the votes are all in (this will take weeks to finalize) this election was the second biggest turnout since 1932. I hate living in this "post truth" world where everyone just goes off of feelings and emotions. People turned up, for trump.
My argument is what did the democrats have to lose for supporting Gaza/Palestinians? It's obvious not running a fully left facing candidate and campaign was a mistake.
We are mad at the wrong people. The reality of the situation is that the democrats can't win without the far left of the party. So why won't we extend an olive branch? If we get a next time, what are we going to do differently?! This is the reality. Either we wake up to that or keep losing. Pick one.
- Fuck the people who didnt vote based on gaza. They are even dumber than Maga hats. They help the candidate that is even worse for gaza win . No one should offer these people any branches. Fuck them. Treat them like the idiots they are just like we do with MAGA.
- I don't think it's mutually exclusive. Why can't we be mad the the DNC for shit strategy and be mad at the folks who stayed home?
Fucking chat bots convinced enough dipshits to stay home that our country was taken by fascists. Humanity is doomed.
Good job the democrats alienating their base by trending right. I get you but this was completely avoidable if the democrats were competent and not a big circlejerk for themselves. Bernie could have beat that spastic in 2016.
Gaza is a serious issue, the US is supporting a genocide. If you cant come out against that then why bother, there isnt much more important to a lot of people. I know Trump will be worse for the region, they do too but if you cant take a principled position that aligns with people you cant complain they didnt vote for you.
- You can be rightfully mad at the party that's failing to represent you correctly (I certainly am) and still make the pragmatic choice of not getting the guy who will make those issues worse elected.
  We need to come together nationally and locally to attempt to affect change within the DNC more often than every 4 years, because it seems like every time we're all reminded how incompetent they are, it's too late for us to do anything about it for that election cycle.
- Good job the democrats alienating their base by trending right
  Ok, but
  Bernie could have beat that spastic in 2016.
  Bernie lost in the primaries, it’s our own fault (I voted for him…)
- The mythical left dem base doesn't out vote average centerist group. If you are looking for a perfect group you'll never find it
Tbh, there’s a very dark part of me that makes me just want sit back, watch Gaza and the West Bank get fully reduced to rubble, and all the Palestinians getting put into woodchippers, and just smirk while saying “wow, good thing we dodged a Harris administration. Who knows what that would have meant for Palestine.”
- We know libs have been saying that for nearly a year.
- Oh look, "scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds" right here!
Yeah, that'll teach the do-nothing-dems!!1
- "Good job to all the fucks who repeated genocide wasn't that big of a deal lmao."
  "You lost. You should really shut the fuck up."
  I don't think anyone was saying that "genocide wasn't that big of a deal." What I repeatedly heard was people rightfully pointing out that the Gaza genocide would be much worse under a Trump presidency. Only bad-faith actors were twisting their words and pretending that that was condoning genocide. You fell for the propaganda... or you're one of the ones spreading it.
- Everybody lost this week. You just don’t realise it yet.
So you want me to reward holocaust Harris and genocide joe for not doing ANYTHING to stop it? No, I chose to teach them a lesson. Don't blame us. Blame the dems for not doing enough and putting a shit candidate.
- What lesson exactly? That if the ideal candidate isn't run, a subset of liberals will pick the worse of two options?
  All that does is teach the conservatives that if they can convince you that the democrat candidate fails you enough on a single issue, they effectively have your vote. Regardless of the conservative candidate's stance on that issue.
  You have made the choice to make the problem you care about profoundly worse because there wasn't a way to make it completely better. Have fun watching that play out as you intended I guess.
- No, I chose to teach them a lesson.
  The only lesson you taught them is that the general public wants more right-wing ideas. What you've done is teach trans, blacks, and other minorities a lesson, the lesson that they should be beaten and driven out of their country. You've taught that women should be submissive, treated like property, like they are in Saudi Arabia.
  Good job. I hope you reflect on your "lesson" in the next four years, as your right to vote is systematical dismantled.
- Gloating as the Palestinians receive news that help isn't coming is something that someone who cares more about their own image than a genocide would do.
- I'd rather lose my hearing than vision if those are the only two options, despite not actually wanting to lose neither - which is not an option.

It will just be renamed to No America Treaty Organization

Technically not... They'd still have Canada.
- Don’t you dare call us American! Next thing you know we’ll stop apologizing for everything and actually build a military with jets instead of snowmobiles!
- Rename it NUTO. No US Treaty Org.
- Expecting the US to not maintain its monopoly on the demonym "American" is the same thing as expecting dogs not to bark at the mailman. Other western hemisphere countries shouldn't have dragged ass becoming independent.
- It's not the "no americas club," they're allowed 1

Thank fuck we didn’t give up our nukes in the UK.

What does that accomplish?
- Not a lot. The British weapons are reliant on US maintenance. Won't be credible for long if the US doesn't support them.
- Defense
- Putin won't invade you
- Autonomy.

Nato without USA is still bigger military than Russia.

But with a fraction of the nukes, which is the actual big stick part of NATO
- It took two nukes for Japan to wave the white flag. Do we really need 5,000+ nukes for anything? France has 290 and UK has 225. Thats enough to wipe one or multiple countries clean off of the map without any form of surrender.
- In the game of nukes you don’t really need many.
  You can destroy the world just so many times.
  The rest is just for showing who has it bigger (the arsenal)
- A lot of that is because rest of NATO is under US umbrella. Not like nukes are high tech at this point. Most of Europe could get nukes real fast if they wanted, but everyone has been better served by it being to many Nuclear Powers up to this point
- But are we bringing nukes to a biological warfare... umm... party? Or hell, AI drones/nanobots?
Yep, and thankfully the EU has seen the way the US is going and started to react appropriately.
Problem is that without going to actual war, we get to use only a small part of that.

It seems like a very real possibility. A new, EU followup seems like a natural next step to protect the borders and peace.

Next stage of russian ops will focus more heavily on splitting Europe now that UK and US have been severed off
- Straight out of Alexander Dugins book...
- It's death by a thousand cuts and nobody seems to care. Smh
Would be nice. Hungary tho 😤
- Hungary can join the Russian union state alongside Belarus.
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NATO will be fine. They'll just have to up their game a bit militarily. If America wants to be insular and wrap a flag of isolationism around them, it'll hurt in the short term, but after four years of being more independent of Americas tit, its more than likely the US that will find itself less relevant globally.

Even before this, there was already rumblings, not just in China, but elsewhere, about ditching the american dollar standard and returning to the gold standard. That's just going to gain momentum as soon as Trump starts trying to wave his mushroom around.

I think that’s unlikely.

But I also thought Trump winning was unlikely,

So what do I know?

Hopefully the EU takes over. It has a lot more economic strength then NATO. Also the UK is strong as well, but that can be managed. Turkey does its own things anyway and I would not trust them. Norway and Iceland are not that important. Canada is going to go with the US anyway. The advantage is easier common funding for projects, due to the EU having more direct access to money. There are also a lot of the basics in the works already.

Norway and Iceland are crucial to European defense - what are you talking about?
Yeah, what is your reasoning behind that statement about Norway and Iceland?

Let’s just kick America out if need be.

No need, Republicans will leave it at the behest of their Russian handlers.

The biggest thing will be all those nato countries who can't do anything with their US weapons if the US says so.

That is only if they want to continue to buy new weapons, not if they intend to male weapons in Europe
- No. I mean the weapons they have now. F35 for example. If a war happens in Europe, will those planes be useful without US support and authorizations? US can do a lot of harm to Europe with that.
If only there was a country in europe that had voiced this concern in the 50s, all of that could have been avoided... Oh wait.

NATO will kick us to the curb and rise to the challenge. We will need them one day and they will say no.

It isn't credible now. It likely won't exist at all in 4 years. Unless it cedes even more decision making authority to the US and becomes even more of a puppet.

The main point I was making is that Trump is almost certainly going to pull the US out of NATO altogether.
- If not attempt to destroy it outright in an attempt to extort it.
Doesn't all authority already lie with the USA? If we're going to be real, I mean. I'm sure France thinks otherwise but let's be real: NATO was always the "Uncle Sam will protect Europe from Russia"-treaty.
- France knows this, that's why it wasn't in NATO for most its history. This only changed when one of our president needed war crime buddies

Can NATO still mean something if the US leaves? I think so, but there is much soul searching to be done.

Sorta, but not really tbh. The US was always intrinsically backstopping the security side of things. Without us in it - and I mean this very seriously - it’s not really a credible threat to Russia or anyone else anymore.
- NATO article 5 will still have use in self defence, but obviously it will be way less impressive

NCD not beating the MIC bootlickers allegations

4 years? Try 6 months from now.

Now watch red maga walk back on that too, like all of blue/red maga promises.

The only good thing that could've possibly come out of this, and it won't even happen.

For people outside NATO it hasn’t been credible for a long time now.

For people inside NATO its surprising how much credibility they have considering how much just straight terrorism they've carried out over the years. Defensive alliance my arse

Love the implication that the shitty imperialist anglo organization was ever credible.

Wait ... NATO was credible now?

The Baltic states certainly think so. Their entire defense posture relies on it

NATO hasn't been credible since they helped the US perpetrate a brutally violent colonialist pity party in Afghanistan.

Trump's point about NATO countries needing to adhere to the funding that was agreed with mutually is a good one and I'm super confused why he was ridiculed about it when he said it. I mean, what's the point of the alliance if we don't do the things we agree to do?

@vga @gravitasdeficiency Adhering to the much-flaunted spending commitments wasn't ridiculous, but Trump's framing of it was.
Back when he raised it, he was threatening to withdraw the US from the alliance if other nations didn't start adhering to it, and as recently as this year he's said he'll encourage Putin to do "whatever the hell he wants" to states who don't meet the spending commitment, directly undermining the collective defence principle of NATO.
He was ridiculed because he thought that America was paying these countries to close the gap. He thought he could save money if the other countries would own up. Which is just not true. Since the US didn’t put a dime into these countries’ military spending. If all NATO countries would reach the requirement it wouldn’t move the US military budget. It’s in America’s own interest to keep the forward operating bases in Europe fully staffed and armed.
I despise him, but 1 of 2 good things I think he did was call out NATO nations for not contributing their fair share. Merkel's face when he said this was like that of a dog that's been caught getting into the cupboard.
(the other thing he did was to call out drug companies for making medications so expensive. of course he didn't followup, but that was a good thing to say)
The problem is the technology gap between nations. Europeans are literally sending over their smartest and they are going over because all they care about is greed, politics be damned because because to them it's a rest of the world going around in a cycle of stupid problem. Which is stagnating both societies, science, and global security. The US is using those engineers to build the most modern weapons against fictitious "if we won't, they will" enemies, weapons that are disseminated to opposing world powers through corruption except those still stuck in the system of legitimacy rapidly devolving into subservience, weapons that are getting battle-hardened through imperialistic use throughout conflict world wide through the industrial military complex.
Europe militarily has been in shambles since WW2, evidenced by how much of its colonial ambitions it had to give up. It wasn't just oligarchs suddenly becoming good. What is going to happen is not that Europe is suddenly going to become capable of sustaining NATO, it's that it is going to have to give concessions to the nations that aren't going to be cutting them off. Before, that was the US, now it will have to be Russia and China.

Good.

NATO is a trash organization. It's basically Reich Lite.

It is the Fourth Reich

good?

No
- it's pretty good

I don't think NATO is in any danger. Trump has a very aggressive and bombastic style of negotiation. You saw this with NAFTA. Trump called it the worst agreement in the history of the world. But the USMCA is just NAFTA with a new acronym and now it's apparently the BEST trade agreement in the history if the world. Its the same with Trump and NATO. The Europeans are the worst freeloaders in the history of the universe...until they up their defense spending by half a percentage point to appease the Donald, and then NATO will be the best alliance ever. Typical bombastic bullshit.

Let me get this straight, you're siding with the enemy occupation? If not, then why would you have a problem with a sovereign nation retaking their own country.
"A stay-behind operation is one where a country places secret operatives or organizations in its own territory, for use in case of a later enemy occupation. The stay-behind operatives would then form the basis of a resistance movement, and act as spies from behind enemy lines."
They leave spies in their own territory when being invaded in order to get their country back. How dare they‽

NATO colonies deserve their freedom. They need a backbone to stop being US slaves, and Trump demeaning demand terms, is an opportunity for that backbone. It is categorically absurd that Russia threatens to invade current NATO members, and the idiocy of continuing a war on Russia needs to be more obvious to the colonies.

The fuck are you smoking bro
- Their comment reads like a bad MAGAcid trip
Tell this to an Estonian or a Pole or a Lithuanian and they'll punch you. You might not know this, but Russia has been working on a cassus belli (A reason for war) against all those countries. You can read national defense strategies on each of those countries to see what they are concerned about.

🙏🙏🙏 here's hoping 🙏🙏🙏