I don’t know what this is
Are you being deliberately obtuse? The number of around 1000 US foreign military bases is well collaborated, even by US professors and researchers. The existence of organisations like AFRICOM and US foreign troop deployments to countries like Germany and South Korea is well known. It’s not a matter of belief.
And let me just end by saying that this reflects the political reality that nations are sovereign.
I mean that’s just factually untrue. Every nations sovereignty is restricted by geopolitical realities. No nation can just do whatever they desire, including joining certain alliances. Mexico will not be joining BRICS for instance, because of the geopolitical situation. And that’s not even a military alliance, which NATO is! Europeans are not special, they have to play by the same rules as everybody else. To claim otherwise is to ignore the reality on the ground right now, both in Ukraine and globally.
Also none of this factors in that joining NATO, by definition, involves giving up some part of your nations sovereignty. NATO in reality acts as an extended arm of the US military and it’s industrial complex, and in joining, countries are subjected to this reality of Atlanticism.
Ahh yes, NATO, an alliance well known for respecting sovereignty. That’s why they invade and bomb any third world nation with a sovereign project against US interests…
And how did these nations join NATO post cold war? Surely there was no manipulation of the sovereignty of Eastern European nations at that time right?
And do NATO countries have sovereignty themselves, or are they just US vassal states? Be honest here, because the answer is quite clear. It’s gotten to the point that the US can bomb the gas pipelines of another NATO country (see nordstream) and nothing can be done about it. And every NATO country has to buy US weapons systems, engage in specific international training exercises, etc. Very sovereign.
Let’s be clear, realpolitik is all there ever was, and all there ever will be in geopolitics. The “sovereignty” of every nation on the planet is subject to this. Unless you want to do the Turkey/Cuban missile crisis again. There’s a reason Mexico can’t join BRICS, there’s a reason Cuba can’t claim Guantanamo bay as theirs, etc.
You know synonyms exist right? And “enlargement” and “expansionism” are cleary synonyms in this context.
The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that. The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO.
NATO is not a friend or friendly force, it is one of the great evils of our time, anyone arguing otherwise just wants to bomb third world countries.
Ask the citizens of Libya and Iraq how defensive and friendly NATO is.
The process of “joining NATO” is not anything equivalent to making friends, any country joining NATO essentially becomes a vassal for US interests. There’s a reason why Sweden and Finland held out for so long.
I personally, do not have much, if any, sympathy for someone who collaborated with the apartheid government
They also kill performance if you’re still using a hard drive as your system drive. I know we should all be using SSDs, it’s 2023, but sometimes it’s not always possible
It’s the start button, I agree
I have the opposite problem, I’m struggling to get enough calories. We’ll come back stronger next week I hope!
They do according to the article and what I know
Yeah, everything to do with secularism. That’s why France has Christian public holidays. And Macron called for closer ties between the state and Catholic church, and said Europe has “Judeo Christian roots”. Oh wait…
If Ukraine enters peace talks now, have they gained anything or put their country in a better position since the original peace talks, which were sabotaged by Boris Johnson and British intelligence, over a year ago? Have they gained any significant territory since what was proposed then? Is their army in a stronger position? Are any gains since then worth the losses?
Just looking at it from a purely pragmatic and realpolitik perspective, I don’t see how anyone can argue that Ukraine has gained anything significant in this stalemate of a conflict. If they get similar results now, as what was on the table originally at the first peace talks, it means that their Western backers essentially sold a pipe dream to Ukraine that never materialised. Is the collective West ready to explain that to Ukraine, and the rest of the world? That they used Ukraine as a testbed for their weaponry against Russia, sold Ukraine a utopian fantasy that they’d be able to regain significant territory using Western weapons and tactics which never happened, and hundreds of tens to hundreds of thousands of people got killed or injured to accomplish very little.
Yeah the big trucks suck and are pointless. Here in South Africa they keep making the Ford Ranger and Toyota Hilux bakkies bigger and bigger to try copy American trucks. Honestly only a matter of time before a Ford F-150 or Toyota Tundra model is available at a car dealership in South Africa. Also EVs won’t get popular here until rolling electricity blackouts are solved, and since they’ve been an issue for 15 years now, it’s not looking good.
The first world lifestyle/“American Dream” of everyone owning a car and living in a nice house is unsustainable in the first world itself, nevermind a world of 8 billion people. EVs or no EVs. If we want to actually start tackling global warming, these people need to get used to the idea of public transit.
And? How does that make non-binary gender any less real? Which is what you implied with your original comment, by asking if it exists or not.
Many things are matters of social practice, doesn’t make them any less real.
It’s like, a person disagrees on a leftist issue like do non binary genders exist (a matter of sociological theory)
Go ahead and tell all the non binary people that they actually don’t exist, it’s just all sociological. Is this the new “it’s all in your head” stuff they used to tell gay kids back in the day?
Not even going to get started on the transphobia in your comment, trans kids shouldn’t get the medical treatment now because some countries are banning it. Great logic, it’s not like countries have ever prescribed incorrect medical treatment to LGBT people before. Alan Turing? Who’s that again?
What the hell is wrong with artificial hair colours? I’d never dye my hair an unnatural colour myself, but it’s a cool look on some people. What is the “blue haired leftist stereotype?” Is it some right wing American meme?
The funniest part is when two instances federate, but the userbases of both instances want to defederate with each other immediately afterwards lol.
But they usually always do, because of the implication…
You are aware that the US and UK were not the only countries to deploy troops to Iraq (not Iran, as you mistakenly claim). There was a whole NATO training operation involving 13 NATO member states. 20 of the current 31 NATO members had some form of troop deployment in Iraq between 2003 and 2011.
I am not American, and it’s quite clear the US does use it’s military might when it needs to, to dictate the order of the world, and there is nothing that the EU can do about it. Precisely because their sovereignty is curtailed due to being US vassal states. Of which NATO membership is a key part. This includes actions against the EU. Unless you want to argue that the nordstream gas pipelines just spontaneously combusted.