Ask Lemmy

I agree that, from a European perspective, the USA has unfortunately turned out to be an unreliable partner, mainly because of the Trumpist's strange closeness to Russia. But I don't see why Europe needs to massively rearm its military because of this. Europe has nuclear weapons, which makes open conflict pretty unlikely in the first place. What's more, I don't believe that Europe could build a competitive conventional army even with massive investment. For this reason, the path that Switzerland (not part of the EU) is taking, i.e. far-reaching neutrality with simultaneous economic cooperation with more or less all players, seems to me to make more sense. I just think that instead of spending billions on armaments, it would be much better to invest in futureproof infrastructure. There is a massive lack of this in Germany, for example - in terms of telecommunications, transport and in the energy sector. I am simply not convinced by the arguments of military deterrence, especially as I think that Europe has little prospect of ever reaching a corresponding level in conventional warfare capacity anyway - all the more so in the very unlikely worstcase scenario that is that the USA under Trump turns into an autocracy with Russia as a partner.