Disentangling Britain from America

[Samdelila]

I know we are reliant on the USA for security and they are a major trading partner, but I would like to know what, if anything, could be done to disentangle us from the USA in the future. Does anybody have any ideas?

What Europe learned from WW1 and WW2 is that a world order based around violent abuse of power and conflict will ultimately kill off humanity (except possibly a small number of humans in bunkers who would soon conclude they would rather be dead, too, or who would realise they had actually made the earth uninhabitable for humans and then die, anyway). The US has barely ever been invaded and it has profited hugely from war mongering. Its memories and experience of war are therefore different from Europe’s, and it is incapable of learning from the lessons of others. Humans generally also seem to be incapable of comprehending the concept of over-exploitation, so we are all busily making ourselves sick and unviable.

Obviously not, that’s why the Nazis had to get into power first and only then implement such strategies, once they had a stranglehold.

And one other thing - imvho, those currently leading the US know the global climate is changing rapidly and they know and understand why, it just doesn’t suit them to acknowledge the main causes and mitigations. They think admitting the main causes and cures is idiocy, as then you have to admit moral culpability. The fact that they are pursuing a path of non-cooperation, acceleration of climate chaos and of environmental degradation is all the proof I need that they are deeply relaxed about a final solution, namely the death of most people, with the fantasy that the few left behind will be able to live comfortably on what is left (winner takes all). They plan to achieve this initially by getting people to walk into the metaphorical gas chambers willingly, because they think they are being led by the Pied Piper of Trumpsville into a world where America is “great again,” (or Farageville in the UK) and then, when necessary, by force. As they are more relaxed about the death and destruction of everything the little people hold dear than those who would oppose them, it makes them hard to deal with, because they are willing to go where angels fear to tread.

There are some preposterous comments about the EU in this thread.

We should have stayed in. I voted that way. But the EU is an economic block, not a war-fighting alliance.

We should just be honest and admit that we’ve freeloaded on US money for defence. If Trump pulls back, we’ll have to pick up the bill or accept that we have no credible defence. As things stand Putin’s forces would be destroyed quickly in any attack on an EU state because of US military strength. Without the US it would be a Russian sightseeing tour of European capitals.

From an alternative viewpoint, the US dictated to Europe how things would be after WW2 and it suited it that Europe should not be a heavily armed continent - the US favoured American bases and American interference on European soil. It engineered a situation where the EU would trot along in its wake like an obedient puppy, because that suited it then and it suits it now.

I agree. Yes, we did freeload, but for a long time that was what America wanted us to do.

We have a load of their Nukes here too

Post-war the US wanted Europe as a bulwark against the USSR. It was quite a close run thing that Greece and Italy didn’t become USSR-aligned communist shitholes.

But the world’s greatly changed. If we (Europeans) were so stupid as to think that the US would carry on as an expensive security guarantor after Europe rebuilt, formed the EU and then started whingeing about US economic power, more fool us.

President Fart is just doing all this to divert our attention away from the Epstein scandal.

I am going suggest they as you have posed the question you be the first to give some idea of how the UK should begin to do this. Seriously!

We need to ditch all our Palantir contracts for a start! That would start to unpick it, keep our Defence & NHS Data to ourselves!

Agree. I think Brexit was actually all about the US getting hold of the NHS and all the riches that would bring…

See Resolute 1850 now known as Centre for a Better Britain.

And to ‘pump and dump’ shares…

No one put a gun to your head and made you slash defense spending after the end of the cold war.

Most European countries had fairly robust and capable military forces until you started to cash in the “peace dividend”.

“You”? Nice to know I have such power, authority and advanced age that I have had so much control over defence spending 🤣. My point still stands, it currently suits the US down to the ground that Europe is militarily weak.

Surely the opposite is wanted hence the 600bn euro recent addition. Plus the pp has a point, electorates voted for other priorities. Fine it didn’t feel as important but that’s with voters not the US.

Get Greenland first, let Europe increase in military strength after. The US has plenty of time… it’s not as if the EU can be militarily stronger overnight, and the US will want to be able to blackmail its “allies” into only buying American - and not becoming too powerful in their own right.

No, it does not. The US forces deployed there are massively expensive and would be better deployed elsewhere, or the funds put into military procurement.

I honestly can’t see that at all. The US will retain a huge military. But it does want to pivot towards the Pacific. The US would be all for a strong European military. It would prefer not to have to protect Europe at great cost.

And, accepting that Trump is scathing about some European countries, particularly France (reasonably enough in my view), Western European states are still allies of the US.

If Putin snarls at Poland or the Baltic states I think we’ll find out pretty quickly how feeble we Europeans have made ourselves.

Of course we have chosen this. No one wants a country like America where only the wealthy can get healthcare. That is why they die on average 10 to 15 years younger than UK citizens. Who wants their crime rates and poverty issues either. Owning weapons doesn't make it a country we want to emulate.

Except that as the ice melts, Greenland is very exploitable. Why would the US not want to acquire it and then, having made Europe strengthen its armies, get Europe to help defend it while the US lays claim to the assets? It’s everything Trump loves - landmass, oil and rare earth elements, so long as countries opposed to its exploitation can be kept to heel.

The EU didn’t earlier because they didn’t have to. It was only due to the recent changes the 600bn was a necessity.

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what, if anything, could be done to disentangle us from the USA in the future. Does anybody have any ideas?
I don't think that the problem is purely the US. The problem is globalisation: the world is run by companies instead of Nation States.

Europe needs to be able to defend itself from Russian aggression.

In case you're not following the news, Trump just backed down on Greenland.

European nations have never had a significant military presence on Greenland; the US has.