I'd openly appreciate Sweden doing a nuclear test, preferably with almost plausible deniability (like Israel).

I'd also count support for this from any of our politicians as a plus for any party in our election this fall.

We have lots of money, the Swedes has nuclear power, know how, industrial expertise and probably a few guys left that still remember last time (they could have done it a number of times) they covertly almost built a nuke.

> After yesterday's events in the White House, Haltbakk Bunkers, one of Norway's largest marine fuel companies, appears to have announced that it will no longer refuel American Navy vessels

https://bsky.app/profile/osinttechnical.bsky.social/post/3lj...

And building a simple nuke is not that complicated - when you have the nuclear material. Europe does.

The 2024 French legislative (not Presidential) snap election was Macron calling the electorate's bluff that even though they disliked low growth, carbon taxes, inflation, unemployment, immigration, they still wouldn't vote for a FN govt (in the second round; view the first round as a protest vote where some voters for FN are tactically expressing discontent with the govt).

The 2027 French presidential election is a long way away yet and Polymarket doesn't even have a prediction market open for it yet, but Oddschecker puts Le Pen as frontrunner but not "very likely"; and that's before Bayrou emerges as Macron's successor [0]. Macron stands to gain a lot of influence in Europe if he can forge a good relationship with Germany's Merz.

Anyway, obviously a European nuclear deterrent would have to firewall against any of the large member-states or their leaders going rogue. Rutte and NATO haven't commented publicly yet on Trump's recent stance. See what happens at the next G7 summit in Canada, 6/2025. And of course the Ukraine settlement and who provides security guarantees for it.

[0]: https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/european-politics/frenc...

The last we want, are Nazis with nukes on top of it all.

Drones make nukes obsolete anyway. After you nuke a country its generals no longer have any incentive to surrender; they have nothing to go home to when they leave their bunkers.

The effects on a country of 1000 or 2000 radioactive mushroom clouds seem like they'd be quite a bit larger than the one or two we've seen previously. You could see a billion people dead within an hour.

But they're very unselective weapons. The reason for the trend toward these sub-megatonne warheads is that it makes them more selective so they have more strategic value. But they really can't compete with simple precision weapons there. The US's force of 2800-some warheads costs about US$60 billion per year to maintain, about 20 million dollars per year per warhead. US$200 million will buy you 200 000 commercial drones with which you can kill almost 200 000 individually selected people with grenades. That's enormously more strategically valuable than the million random people you can kill with the warhead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujfC0NgdU48

Instead there is NATO, totally dominated by the US.

"Swedish nuclear weapons program" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_nuclear_weapons_progra...

Also, Thomas Nilsson, head of Sweden’s military intelligence service (MUST), said that Sweden must be ready for any eventuality [with Russia from the Finnish border to the Arctic] after a Ukraine settlement.

[0]: https://www.sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/prime-minister-open-to-...

They should take control. That's why it puzzled me why they are okay to get deindustrialized, are okay to destroy their nuclear plants, and are okay to rely on imports of natural gas from Russia

(1) Yes, there is the challenge of dark days with little wind, but there are many, many avenues to solve this one (better grid interconnections across Europe, green hydrogen backup plants, overbuilding cheap capacity, …)

What hindsight? Everyone knew at the time that it was premature. It was a deliberate choice to bear the burden of increased pollution and to make the country more dependent on the whims of a foreign dictator, because nuclear bad.

The phase out of nuclear had already started. Merkel reversed that, than in the wake of Fukushima reversed that once again, paying the nuclear companies hundreds of millions of damages in the process.

The Nord Stream pipeline was completed in 2011, the same year Merkel decided to accelerate the phase out of nuclear. The US had repeatedly warned against constructing the pipeline because of energy dependence on Russia.

Everyone knew that apart from coal Germany has no energy resources. Given that it wouldn't be possible to meet climate goals with coal the energy would need to come from either the newly constructed pipeline or renewables.

That the newly created energy dependence would give power to dictatorships may not have been at the forefront of the public's mind. But treating it as something unknowable without hindsight lets the politicians who caused this travesty off too easy. If Merkel had been honest to the public about the potential consequences of her decision, perhaps it would've been a part of the debate.

You do realize that Germany is not allowed to do any uranium enrichment or waste processing? All of this was outsourced, partially to France, but primarily to Russia.

How is that not "dependent on the whims of a foreign dictator"

Started? The anti-nuclear movement has been around since the 70s.

That's technically true, but France's representation is completely outsized in that, as the one country which went hard on nuclear it's got more than half the nuclear production of the continent: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

And that's being down 25% from its historical peaks because a significant fraction of the park was offline for unscheduled maintenance due to corrosion issues (I believe the park's been ramping back up and should be back to full).

IIRC France is the number 3 nuclear electricity producer on the planet behind the US and China.

Add on top the insane costs of building, maintaining, and waste disposal, nuclear power plants are, without subventions, just not economically viable. But keep on researching, there is interesting stuff happening in this space, and -- who knows -- maybe something moves the equation around.

All those options are currently non-viable because they are too expensive.

The problem is that the few dark days with little wind cost as much to produce as all remaining days of the year (and may even surpass it). Interconnections added to the problem, with worse long term allocation of hydro storage and increased volatile in the energy market. Market forces has been a direct hindrance, with citizens in practically every EU country demanding government subsidizes to solve the issue of energy shortage, rather then reducing demand.

Looking at a typical energy bill from northern Europe, you almost don't pay anything for hours when wind production is optimal. The cost of those hours are basically a rounding error and all you pay are grid fees. The issue is the average price are more than 20x of that, and the peak price are well over 100x.

Power in Germany is expensive mostly due to gas and lack of storage capacity. Check back in four years when the storage capacity has gone up tenfold.

And storage is typically something thay doesn't scale, which is why Germany needs coal or gas to complement renewables. Polluting the rest of Europe while doing so.

Even the term of "renewables" is untrue, given the relatively short lifespan of most windfarms and solar panels. After 25 years you have to trash them, with no real way to recycle it.

Grid infrastructure requirements alone likely negates any ecological benefits given the amount of copper needed and the abysmal ecological conditions of copper mining.

If Germany were to split its electrical grid into two (north and south), as economists and the EU demand, things would be clearer.

The northern grid would produce more renewable energy than is required in total (hovering between 120-300% production vs usage). It'd have electricity prices around 10-15ct/kWh

The southern grid would have more pollution than even poland, as it's primarily fed with lignite, and would end up with an electricity price above 90ct/kWh.

The issues in Germany are not caused by technical or economical challenges, but by political ones. The southern states have passed laws to restrict renewables and limit construction of new power lines to gain favors with conservative NIMBYs and newage NIMBYs.

The idea might well have come from the Schroeder Government but he did not make the final decision. In fact, the idea of nuclear exit is an idea of the Greens, Schroeder was pandering to the Greens in his coalition government back in the day. (Schroeder being SPD ("socialist"), Merkel being CDU ("conservative") and the Greens being the king makers back in the day - 2002 elections).

One has to remember that it was different times: the Greens were a serious alternative to SPD and CDU, one of their main ideals (since their foundation) has been an exit from nuclear (generally). So once they came into power with the SPD and Schroeder, they were naturally keen on asserting their influence.

Schroeder needed an alternative power source so he started looking to Russia. Russia was a serious partner in Europe, not only for Germany but all of Europe. After the fall of the wall, the policy of Europe was Russian integration into Europe. Why? Because this policy of interdependence of nations within Europe brought peace to Europe. Interdependence is - within capitalism - best achieved via trade amongst nations. Hence Germanys (not only Schroeder but german industry too) decision to accept (more) cheap gas and oil from Russia. The Russians were keen to bypass Ukraine and deliver gas directly to Germany, hence the idea of building the Nordstream 2 pipeline - an idea supported by the Schroeder Government and most probably german industry.

The Nordstream 2 pipeline was completed in Merkels times but it was never brought online. Olaf Scholz (SPD) made the final decision not to take the pipeline online because of Russias official recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as Russian. It was bombed - destroyed? - by unknown persons during the current war in 2022.

The result of these events has been raising energy costs in Germany. Which has lead to disenchantment in the political system, which in turn has lead to a shift to the right in Germany and a raise in the AFD. Ironically, it has now come full circle with a CDU suggesting an easing (if not removal) of the "Schuldenbremse"[1] ("brake on debt") - meaning that Germany is not allowed to borrow money above a certain limit. A policy that has destroyed investment in the country and lead to an evasion to risk-taking. A policy introduced by the CDU back in 2009.

In the end, it is all rather academic since we're now here and pointing fingers at the past is pointless. We're now facing a populist president in the USA, a populist Kanzler (prime minister) in German and chaos in Europe and the World.

For me, it seems that good ideas are always the success of those that commit to those ideas, never those that actually had the ideas. Bad ideas, on the other hand, are always the fault of those that had the ideas, never those that committed to those ideas. Unfortunately hindsight decides between good and bad ideas.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_balanced_budget_amendme...

The US has benefitted hugely by being the reserve currency, but that strength is also a weakness that can be used against them, but only if the other countries collaborate, which the EU is most capable of.

Basically, there's never a sensible reason to use the nukes. Let's suppose the EU invades Russia. We seize Pskov, should Russia use its nukes? Of course not, we will nuke them in turn. If we take Novgorod, should they use them? Of course not, it'll be nuclear annihilation. St Petersburg, Pskov, Novgorod? No. Moscow? No.

There's never any reason to fire the missiles, and if they respond with a limited nuclear strike, we just match it with one causing, let's say, 10% more damage and keep pushing.

As long as you have nukes yourself nukes are irrelevant and won't be used other than in a limited way even as your conventional forces march through your enemy's capital.

While there are no European armies in Ukraine, we are not neutral and thus in principle in some way at war with Russia. Presumably this is why our PM here in Sweden has said that we are neither at war nor not at war-- i.e. we're legally at war with Russia, but it's a sort of phony-war á la 1938.

We have never had a weaker president that caused so many self-inflicted wounds.

This administration is shaping up to be self-immolation covered by the veneer of strength, for people that don't understand what strength is.

The small fraction of Silicon Valley that bent the knee to this narcissist wanna-be-king have shown themselves to be unbelievably weak too. It's surprising. I have lost so much respect for so many people over the past 6 months, but I fear much more for the future prosperity that we have needlessly destroyed.

Having said that, Biden was a pretty crap and useless leader. That doesn't mean the opposite of Biden is doing better. At least Biden did fairly minimal damage with his inaction.

Do I disagree with Biden's take on AI? Sure, but did they actually have any teeth to stop progress? China's progress in AI proves not.

You were very quick to blame others for being successfully propagandized. I suggest you point the same magnifying glass on yourself.

We dislike in others what we see in ourselves.

He was a good (not great) president in unprecedented bad times. He's no FDR but "inaction" would have had America in a truly awful situation. So where did all his "useless leader" narrative come from? Did people really get that brainwashed from one bad night as the proceeding precedent is spouting nonsense on the daily?

Trump does an amazing job messaging. Sure, 99% of what he says is either a lie senile ramblings, but he’s out there all the time. A social media POTUS indeed.

Another data point is when many other politicians have tried to be like Trump, they have lost. We’ll just have to see what happens in 2 and 4 years.

You kinda make a good point regarding Covid, but at the same time, I think the action he took there was basically what any non-lunatic would do. It wasn't like he had some massive amazing plan and he actioned it. He just stopped the ignorance of previous administration.

WRT Ukraine, "letting them stand strong" wasn't strong enough. The delays and lack of significant support is, I believe, what has caused the war to drag on. It's like there being a person with cancer, and rather than giving them enough chemo to kill the cancer, you give them just enough that the cancer has difficulty spreading.

What was necessary was a conclusive coordinated action among allies, so that isn't entirely Biden's fault, but everything did seem haphazard.

Also, being in Australia, I think from an economic standpoint, you are overstating the easing of the economy. Everyone has faced some level of inflation, but when I go to the US, it seems to me that "real" inflation has hit you more than other countries I've visited.

a16z investments are mostly Cryptos and some AIs.

Andreesen loves Crypto and he hates that it's being regulated like mad (cause tons of scamming going on).

That is the claim from Andreessen, and the way he told it sounded rather far-fetched. Has anyone else confirmed it?

Andreessen also claims (see Joe Rogan interview) that the US nuclear weapons testing program was some elaborate fake complete with fake movies of nuclear bomb tests. When someone makes such ludicrous claims, I tend to doubt anything else they say.

> was so incompetent on the Afghanistan withdrawal

That was based on a deal Trump made with the Taliban. I don't know if Trump would have botched it too. I would put that on Bush who f*ed up that war completely.

But ultimately it boils down to the moral inability of Americans to fight an uneven war. The problem here is the appeasement policy that unfortunately both sides suffer from.

> projected tremendous weakness

I think that's overblown. There are cases where it was true and others (such as Ukraine) where Biden showed how he can hold back Russia without risking a single US soldier. That was pretty good.

> Biden did nothing for Silicon Valley

The CHIPS act? Intel etc. got a ton of money. Battery manufacturing moved back to the states with multiple factories opening up.

He brought back manufacturing to the USA and gave a lot in that sense. The fact that he kept policies going (no tariffs etc.) was a huge benefit to tech which relies on stability and globalization.

> Freethinking requires courage, and I see none of it in the typical SV limousine liberal.

I think using language like that goes counter to free thinking. I despise Trump as a person, but I accept that some of the policies and stances aren't wrong. Unfortunately, discourse is at a level where we can't even have adult conversations on the issues without name-calling.

If you wish to instead accuse me of propaganda with no basis, thanks for justiying one of the reasons I hate the administration and their supporters. Mud slinging doesn't interest me in this day and age and your entire rant is not only baseless but has so many holes and inaccuracies that I'd recommend reading your history before trying to re-write such statements. .

Embarrassed to be an American today. You're on the wrong side of history.

Where did they say anything about moral inferiority?

> I'm sure that will help you persuade them in the future.

Why does this argument only work in one direction? Why can the conservatives mock liberals, "coastal elites", blue cities and states, and more than half of America endlessly and still win? Why

> Interesting that you ignore the fact that the previous president was mentally incapable of the job for increasingly long intervals as his term progressed, and was so incompetent on the Afghanistan withdrawal that he projected tremendous weakness that acted as an invite for Putin to launch a full scale assault less than a year later.

Ironic you talk about "successfully propagandized" earlier and are regurgitating right wing talking points.

> The moral inversion it takes to claim that the people willing to stand agains the Valley's intense social conformity "weak" is also revealing about how brainwashed you truly are. You're just part of the mob, and if you lived in a super conservative place, you'd be part of that mob too. Freethinking requires courage, and I see none of it in the typical SV limousine liberal. Just a bunch of millionaires who hate the billionaires they envy.

It takes special kind of mental gymnastics to end up supporting murderous dictators while talking about "free thinkers", "moral inversion", and "brainwashing". What did they teach you next, whatabouttism?

Part of NATO's charter is literally "spend minimum 2% GDP on military" and it was just ignored for much of the time.

But honestly I don't know why this entire comment section has turned to NATO NATO NATO. Ukraine isn't in NATO. And if the Budapest Memorandum is what you're referencing, France and UK signed too. It's not as if the US hasn't contributed to the war already.

No, it is literally not. The charter is here[1], read it yourself.

To my knowledge it was first mentioned in 2006, the press briefing [2] states

  Finally, I should add that Allies through the comprehensive political guidance have committed to endeavour, to meet the 2% target of GDP devoted to defence spending. Let me be clear, this is not a hard commitment that they will do it. But it is a commitment to work towards it. And that will be a first within the Alliance. 

  aim to move towards the 2% guideline within a decade

1: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_17120.htm

2: https://www.nato.int/docu/speech/2006/s060608m.htm

3: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_112964.htm

It's much better to acknowledge that the deal the United States signed up for was to cover security for the entire European continent until 2024.

This narrative that all NATO members are just freeloading of the USA is a fiction.

Furthermore, your argument that one partner in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, ie. the USA, is shouldering all of the work falls flat, because the only member of the NATO ever invoking the pact defense clause, ie. article 5, was the USA and ALL OTHER members responded by honoring the treaty, ie. supporting the USA to the best of their abilities in invading Afghanistan and maintaining an occupation force for 21 years. Even if you think not much of the abilities of US' NATO allies, most of the time the effort of the other NATO members at least matched the US effort. The USA couldn't have done it all by itself, just consider the range of transport vehicles. I can't change if you think that's nothing, but that's on you.

>The USA couldn't have done it all by itself, just consider the range of transport vehicles

Not sure how to parse this. No one has the transport capabilities even close to ours.

Frankly, this issue has been percolating for a while now and it's better that we rip the band aid off and get it over with. We should've done this 25 years ago, but 9/11 happened and we got distracted. The AFG Campaign was extremely telling, both in terms of what a post-Soviet Union NATO could bring itself to do and the actual capabilities of the non-US partners. For what it's worth, Robert Gates (SECDEF at the time) was making some similar points back in 2011[1]:

>Today, I would like to share some parting thoughts about the state of the now 60-plus year old transatlantic security project, to include:

>Where the alliance mission stands in Afghanistan as we enter a critical transition phase; NATO’s serious capability gaps and other institutional shortcomings laid bare by the Libya operation; The military – and political – necessity of fixing these shortcomings if the transatlantic security alliance is going to be viable going forward; And more broadly, the growing difficulty for the U.S. to sustain current support for NATO if the American taxpayer continues to carry most of the burden in the Alliance.

>The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress – and in the American body politic writ large – to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense. Nations apparently willing and eager for American taxpayers to assume the growing security burden left by reductions in European defense budgets.

>Indeed, if current trends in the decline of European defense capabilities are not halted and reversed, future U.S. political leaders—those for whom the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me—may not consider the return on America’s investment in NATO worth the cost.

Emphasis added. This was 14 years ago. Pity that it took the reality of a land war in Eastern Europe and the possibility of no American security presence for the Europeans to take this point seriously.

[1] https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/text-of-spe...

You came out pretty strong, stating that something was "literally part of the charter", and thats just wrong. And sometimes I think it is worth pointing out glaring errors.

Instead of "2%" beeing in the charter, it was a goal to have it done by 2024, and most countries managed. Which is very different from even the most charitable interpretation of your post.

> Europe’s dependence on the United States for its security means that the United States possesses a de facto veto on the direction of European defense. Since the 1990s, the United States has typically used its effective veto power to block the defense ambitions of the European Union. This has frequently resulted in an absurd situation where Washington loudly insists that Europe do more on defense but then strongly objects when Europe’s political union—the European Union—tries to answer the call. This policy approach has been a grand strategic error—one that has weakened NATO militarily, strained the trans-Atlantic alliance, and contributed to the relative decline in Europe’s global clout. As a result, one of America’s closest partners and allies of first resort is not nearly as powerful as it could be.

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/case-eu-defense/

Honestly, the interesting thing question here is: (A) Does the EU have to political will to bankroll Ukraine. (B) Will the US keep selling weapons the Ukraine, if funded by the EU.

I suspect (B) is a hard YES. Anything would end US military industry.

On (A) I'm less certain, the EU has had a hard time finding consensus. The EU can do big things, even when it's hard, the EU did so under covid.

0. https://www.ifw-kiel.de/publications/news/ukraine-support-af...

I mean, that's true for any democracy. The EU has its fair share of them elected to high offices.

Ukraine’s potential NATO membership is one of Russia’s main demands for ending the war. Additionally, Ukraine participated in the coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003.

Arguably the US isn’t either anymore . It is pretty clear that Trump won’t enforce Article 5 when Russia is the aggressive party. Which, by itself, might be a preparation to take Greenland. Both US and Russia are already interfering in the upcoming elections there.

It doesn’t sound crazy anymore, considering the shitshow we’ve seen the last four weeks sounded crazy before the inauguration.

The point of a democracy is to also have guardrails by splitting up executive, legislative and judicial powers - the U.S. is still not a dictatorship. European leaders know this, and professional politicians know that you can go hot and cold very fast. Today there is drama - tomorrow might rapidly turn over and flip.

They could've understood this in 2014 when Nuland said "Fuck the EU"[0], and the US pressed on with the coup in the Ukraine setting off the chain of events that has led us all to where we are now.

>Given the American people voted for this guy twice

American people voted twice for George W. Bush, the second time after the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. This might have given a hint.

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore

In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled that Florida, counting too slowly yet not carefully-enough, could not fully count their ballots. Every other state had successfully counted, but the Court sat through Florida's legal arguments, even though the state was a poster child for inadequate election planning. So, the popular vote would not matter. Statistically, if you don't count Florida, Gore's districts accounted for 60% of American GDP, and Bush's only 40%. This statistic becomes only more lopsided: in 2024, Biden would lose and election even though Trump represents only 30% of American productivity.

Anyway, in 2004, today's median American was still a minor. Giuliani would give the convention address for Republicans in New York; he re-used then-Senate candidate Barack Obama's catchphrases. It was the highpoint of his career. He would only be noteworthy among the unusually-named group "white ethnics" of the Republican Party from then on.

They don't seem to give an impression of being able to work out a coherent policy or show any initiative.

The EU leaders, include Ursula Von Leyen speak big noble sounding words, but do very little.

Btw, EU spent more than USA, both military and financially.

Look at the theatre of the UK giving him the "unprecedented" letter from the King.

Talk of "bending knees" just makes macho idiots think they're winning. It's more like distracting your really drunk friend with something shiny to stop him starting a bar fight or walking into traffic while hoping when he sobers up he'll change for the better, not continue his slide into becoming an permanent asshole.

European leader are desperate because they realize obvious truth - US will soon implement regime changes all across Europe... European elites are simply not up to task of dealing with this new revolutionary era.

Why wait that long?

https://xkcd.com/605/

JD Vance, Elon Musk, Ron DeSantis, all of these guys who think they'll be able to take over the cult lack the key ingredient - the personality. Musk has a sort of cult among specifically the HN crowd, but we are small and generally people clock him as a weirdo creep.

There is no successor to Trump, his movement dies with him. His age is our saving grace.

If Joe Biden has proven anything, it's that voters will vote for someone they barely like if they think it's helping their cause.

The only issue in play here is how many voters think lower crime, less wasteful spending, less racist hiring practices, and less illegal immigration is something they like. If they decide those things matter to them, JD is more than likable and capable enough for them to get behind.

Here's another fact to remember: Trump told Europe to kill Nord stream pipeline during his first term. He didn't want them tied economically to Putin. He didn't want Europe to depend upon Putin! Why? Because he's Putin's ally? Or maybe he is trying to make strong, independent countries that act as a deterrent.

That would be a hell of a deterrent, instead of old people with no kids droning on endlessly about NATO.

The only hope I have, is they want bolster their ego with a strong EU.

I've seen the contrary from Germany

https://youtu.be/K-yAvfGxQXE

Clearly each of the above parties have differing views on Russia-Ukraine, just like Obama/Biden/Trump. That's how coalitions work. It's very different to the US two-party presidential system, where you can directly measure a leader's power by their majority in seats or voteshare.

It is of course extremely likely that he'll become the next chancellor in a coalition with the SPD, but technically it could all still fail and lead to new elections. Unlikely, but not impossible.

Out of the parties you mentioned, mainly only CDU and SPD are relevant because it's the only realistic coalition (apart from decisions that require a 2/3 majority like reforming the debt brake). They're both pro-Ukraine although to different degrees (Scholz was dragging his feet quite a bit). Merz in particular has been rather vocal about this and as the chancellor he's probably going to be setting the tone. I don't like or trust the guy particularly, but I believe him in that respect. So I think the video got it essentially right.