>>MOD WARNING<<Germany threatens retaliation if U.S. sanctions harm its firms

Boring topic anyway. Threats from a nation with no army....

 

I do not think what you are saying conflicts with the premise of my last post. While there is 89% disapproval of the US in Turkey "this year", I do not think that has been the case for 45 years. US disapproval is pretty high no matter where you go these days .. the majority of Americans disapprove of the US Gov't these days. I am not sure what the foreign policy approval rate is in the US but, I do not think it is very high - even considering that the ave Joe is mostly ignorant of most of this policy.

Many countries have not resisted US economic hegemony. This was often not on the basis of military reprisal but economic reprisal.

 

We have an army.

Beside that what army do we need to fine american corporations or cancel orders at Boeing?

Lufthansa alerady say it has little interest in holding ots Boeing 777x order.

Apple was fiend with a 13 billion € fine. Google just friday with a 2.5 billion € fine.

 

Not really. The Turks or Iranians would overtake your military capabilities. You wouldn't even stand a chance against the Russians. Lucky for you, you don't have to, because the Americans have kept them at bay.

A trade war with the US would not be in your interest. We are one of your biggest trading partners, you simply can't afford to lose us and Britain simultaneously.

 

Trade is probably only around 10% of Germany's economy. They can afford to become more isolationist if they wish.
Possibly they are even self sufficient. And can afford to cease all international trade if needs be.

But yes, Britain and America are their two biggest foreign markets.
If they can't keep their politics out of their business arrangements, they will suffer for it economically.

You don't need an army to make fines on American companies. But you might need one to collect them.

If you don't buy from America, they won't buy from you. Trade is a mutual exchange.
If you refuse to trade, you refuse to trade.

No biggie. There are other airlines out their that want planes. 777 order books are full for the forseeable future. They can't make them fast enough to meet demand anyway.

You can buy British made planes instead. Please do.

 

Exports, exports, are something like a third of their economy.

That's a really big deal.

 

A third is a very big deal.
In the UK total imports plus exports = 10% of the national economy.

Yup. Just Googled it you are right. That is a stupid amount. Very exposed indeed.
I hadn't realised.

46% if GDP was exports in 2015. 46%!!!
A trade embargo will destroy the entire economy. Boy that is weak.


No credible army and no credible trade clout.
Sorry Germany. Probably not a good idea for you to play hardball with anyone right now. Diversify your economy and then try throwing you weight around.
Being able to stand on your own two feet is very important if you seek to become isolationists.

 

I think you dont understand the situation.

It was Trump who started brining penalties for German corporations into the debate. I think we all agree that in such a case its just fair to answer with the same method, right?

And no, there is no big 777X demand. Infact Boeing developed that new type because Lufthansa demanded it. We dont need to buy british. Airbus is made in Germany.

On a sidenote German biggest market is France and China.

 

Then US should not start a trade war. So there wont be a problem. If USA imposes sanctions on German products we answer accordingly and do the same.

As for your nonsense about armies...The Turks and Iran are primitive 3rd world countries. Germany has a military in the top 9 of the world.

http://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.asp?country_id=germany


Iran is 20th.

And then again the typical american fear for russia How often do i need to repeat, no one in Germany fears Russia. They are a economocal weak country. They were never a threat and never will be a threat. We deal with them since 1500 years.

 

We lay hard game. We smash the UK at BREXIT and show zero concessions. We have the absolute economic power in Europe. Thats the reason why the entire EU Block sides against EU. Because we wish so.

Its also the reason why the EU smashed heavy penalties on evry big american corporation. 13.8 billion fee for Apple alone.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/30/apple-pay-back-taxes-eu-ruling-ireland-state-aid

 

Don't just look at a list and "call it." The Iranians have a more powerful air force, a more developed missile system, and one of the best power projecting intelligence communities in the world.

Of course "who beats who" depends on a number of factors, but when I'm thinking about future great powers I'm not thinking about Germany, I'm thinking about Iran.

I'm not afraid of Russia, I live in Arizona.

You live on the North European Plain, and the Russian army is far and above the most capable army on that plain.

You don't need to fear Russia, because the United States isn't demilitarized. The only reason the Russians didn't come to dominate Europe in the 1940s is because the Americans took half of it first. The only reason they don't continue to dominate Eastern Europe is because the Americans offer a credible threat of violence. The Germans groan at mere economic sanctions against the Russians, I can't even imagine the Germans sending an army to push the Russians back. They have neither the capability nor the will.

 

@Sobo.
12% of your economy is exports to the UK. You won't be smashing anything at all.
For every 1% of our economy you smash, at least 12% of your own gets destroyed.

We can take it easily. Can you?

I appreciate a man who is nationalistic, willing to give battle and who advocates for his country first.
But you aren't in any condition to start fights. You have a lot of shaping up to do. North Korea is in a much better position than Germany on the isolationism front.
If America trade embargoes you, you are done as a country.

In a world of deep doo doo. Maybe even famines.

I'm flabbergasted to find out how weak you guys are economically. Not what I expected from a modern independent country.
Diversify. And do it before you go to war, not after. Develop your domestic economy man. FFS.
Become independent. Walk tall.

If you take 13 gazillion from Apple that America was going to take, they will retaliate. Fine Volkswagon and Porsche more.

Start on BMW and Merc. Start on your banks. Not just ban you from trading with them, but ban all their trade partners from trading with you. They have lot of clout and they just love to use it.
You are picking fights beyond your weight level. Well beyond your weight level.
This is a mistake.

Disassociate yourself from perceived attacks on America.
Pissing them off is about as big a mistake as any country in the world could ever make.

I'm having a German music day. Here's one you may like.


Americans and Germans, you are making the same mistake. You think Empire makes you strong.
It doesn't. It makes you weak.

Learn from two countries that have had way more experience in empire than any other people in human history.
To be strong, you must be independent. Able to tell the others to F off.
Do not be reliant on trade. This is an Achilles heel.
It almost sunk us. The Germans exploited this weakness and damned near beat us. Don't do it. It is a strategic mistake.

Russia is stronger than the USSR.
Britain is stronger than the British Empire.
We survive without them. It was a hard lesson to learn.

Trade is a luxury. Plan for it's end.

 

Trade can be totally cut off to the EU at sea. There are choke points.
Suez and Gibraltar. The mother of all naval wars will be fought here. Time and time again.

The Baltic is another choke point. Without access to international trade, the EU stagnates. Like Iran, Like USSR. Like NK.
And the rest of the world, doesn't. The whole carrot of the EU is riches through international trade and it fundamentally doesn't control it. Isn't in command.

That is a tap that can be switched off.

The EU isn't in the right league to have a trade war with us. It's a bunch of ****wits in a palace. They tell you they can control the world in your name and you lap it up willingly.
It plays to your ego. Strokes the vanity, swells that national pride.

You will fold like a pack of cards in a whirlwind. We don't need to negotiate with China to end world trade with you.
We don't need to negotiate ending your world trade with you either. We can just do it. Tomorrow, for a laugh.
Just to yank your chain in negotiations with us. For a quick vote and newspaper headline back home.
And people will laugh.

Your only trade routes left in the world will be Russia and Turkey. And you've been pissing them off. Shooting your mouth off at them too.
You have forgotten what hard ball is Sobo. If indeed you have ever learned. No international banks will trade with you. The money markets all closed. Ban all external flights. Drop that iron curtain down between us.

Your negotiating position is this "whine whinge whelp". "I am all powerful. You will obey me.". Not really listening to it to be quite honest. My Zen engages and it gets filtered out.
If you dick around with America, you are ****ed. Arse raped by your own blind stupidity.
Everyone around will be standing well back and telling you what's coming but you still won't see it coming. Because your self confidence is blinding you.

It is a Chihuahua yapping at a Bengal Tiger. All full of beans.

And when this happens all we have to say is to each EU member government, if you want this to stop for your country, negotiate with us bi-laterally... and it ends.
And they will do it.
EU dead. Gone. Broken. It speaks for no one, they prefer to speak for themselves.

So if you piss them off it won't happen all at once, they'll just gradually ratchet up the pressure until you see they've got you beat. Which they do.

 

Even though I found Sobo's description of Iran and Turkey offensive and rather misguided, I am certain that Germany doesn't need the US to protect it against either country nor does it need to follow America's dictates in how much it needs to bankroll American foreign policy via NATO. The idea that either Turkey or Iran pose a military threat to Germany is not just fanciful, it is rather silly. Indeed, the Germans are the strongest advocates within the EU of trying to make sure Trump and the Israelis do not derail the nuclear deal with Iran. Although Germany's "guilt complex" and penchant to appease Israel sometimes sees them pursue counterproductive measures (such as the sale of German subs capable of carrying nuclear weapons to Israel), with these kind of things almost in the nature of extortion paid to Israel so Israeli leaders won't start somehow equating the current German government with the Nazis etc, at the end of the day the Germans aren't the ones pushing for the policies that are risking a war against Iran.

 

Trump's tough talk with NATO has had an effect. They are going to increase their spending 4 percent next year.

Thank you, PRESIDENT TRUMP

 

The Germans don't need anyone to protect them from Turkey or Iran, they need someone to protect them from Russia.

The Russians might not be inclined to invade Germany, but they would be inclined to invade Eastern Europe. The idea that Russia's foreign policy objectives have changed since 1991 is nonsense. The Russians still want hegemony in Eastern Europe, and for good reason, they don't trust the West. The only thing keeping the FSB from stirring up ethnic tensions in the Baltics and Balkans is that they understand the risk of a very real war with the US given that scenario, and that's a risk they're not willing to take yet.

To be clear, I wasn't comparing the Germans to the Iranians and Turks because I thought they were going to be fighting either country, just making a point about Germany's status as a military power as of this moment. The fact that Western European countries are demilitarized is a very important aspect of modern geopolitics, and one that needs to be fully understood.

Further, the Germans aren't "bankrolling American foreign policy" at all, and they never will. The German-American foreign policy partnership has two aspects: We have bases in Germany, and they align with us in the concerted use of soft power.

EDIT: I also don't think that a war between Germany and Turkey is entirely out of the question, but that's a discussion for a later date.

 

Four percent total? That's meaningless.

The idea that we would tie our power projection to some arbitrary 2% spending mandate is nonsensical. The fact of the matter is that most European countries don't want to militarize for the time being, and that's their business. Trump's rhetoric on the matter has been laughable at times and embarrassing at others. Were he to erode confidence in America's resolve in the region among Eastern Europeans it would be a disaster, and the second foreign policy disaster he would be responsible for.

We're lucky we're so lucky, because we're not good at electing politicians.

 

Not unless the US succeeds in forcing Russia to assume the role the American military industrial complex wants them to assume. Even then, it will depend on whether the Americans have by then managed to force this approach on the Europeans or have simply managed to isolate themselves! In the latter case, the rest of the world will need to find how to control the US/Israel/Wahhabi Arabia axis and will hopefully be on board on the real threats and not imagined ones. But, of course, if the Europeans are pushed to play the role of America's poodle in its various foreign policy pursuits, at some point, the Russians might have to revert to their old cold war posture and that will then have its own dynamics.

Except in Israeli/neocon minds, the era of controlling and establishing hegemony over regions by brute force is over. The Russians can and should expand their influence and relations in areas which are conducive to closer cooperation with the Russians. But except for those who want to make a zero-sum game out of this, that is neither bad nor a threat to anyone else.

The militarized regimes in the world right now are primarily the US, Israel, Wahhabi Arabia and a few others. Much of the rest of the world, and not just the Europeans but to include Russia as well as Iran, have a balanced approach to the issue in their budgets.

Much of the world, including Germany, bankroll American foreign policy. But that is a whole another story for a another day!

The idea isn't preposterous if you assume Turkey will one day become a neo-Ottoman empire of sorts. But certainly Germans and the rest of the Europeans have what it takes to make sure that even a neo-Ottoman empire isn't going to be heading to the gates of Vienna again.

 

There hasn't been an American military-industrial complex for centuries, but there have been Russian attempts to establish hegemony in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and South Asia. You know all about that, your country was heavily involved in those Russian attempts.

Russian involvement in Georgia, in Ukraine, and in Central Asia have not been innocent humanitarian missions, nor were they orchestrated by masterminds in the Pentagon. The Russians, like everyone else, are trying to secure as strong a hand as they can.

Why? Why are we to assume that the nature of mankind has changed forever, except when it comes to Americans, Israelis, and Saudis?

Do you honestly believe that the post-WWII world, without heavy American involvement, would be peaceful?

American military spending is reasonable, Saudi military spending is out of control due to the petrodollar phenomenon, and Israeli spending is out of control because they don't trust their neighbors, and there are about 8 million Israelis. I have no idea where you get the idea that the Russian budget is "reasonable" where the American budget is not.

I also think it's preposterous to say that either German or Japanese military spending is reasonable. It's obvious why they're inclined not to re-arm, but their security is essentially at the mercy of the Americans and Russians/Chinese.

 

Concord;

Apparently you are in the minority on increased defense spending. Your reason to oppose a 4 percent increase in common defense spending doesn't matter.

What does matters is fact that the NATO allies are going to do what Trump asked.

The only question left is are you pro-Putin, Anti-Trump or what?

 

That is ridiculous. Whenever you have close to a trillion US dollars spent on military and military related things, you end up with a whole lot of interested people in making sure that money continues to be spent! You can call the collection of those interests by whatever name you wish, but these are the folks who want to make sure spending on their pet projects continue and accelerate.

There will be localized rivalries as long as we have human beings. But until someone's definition of what is "local" begins to cover the entire map, the way it has in some ways as it relates to the "American empire", these local rivalries can be handled locally. In this connection, we have built-in historical dynamics that define the scope of these "local" rivalries and unless someone disrupts those dynamics, they will produce more genuine and lasting solutions.

The difference can be understood as follows: For Israel to become established, and then to be expanded, it would need to completely destroy the socio-political and cultural layers which existed on the lands it was being established and expanded. For America to rule over Iraq, it would need to do the same, albeit with a bit more base of support than what Israel could ever hope to have given the universalist aspects of American ideology (or at least the non-Trumpian versions of it) as opposed to the particularists nature of Israeli ideology. For Iran to exercise influence over much of Iraq doesn't require Iran to clamp down and forcibly change everything in Iraqi society. The same with Russia in some of the places at issue.

I thought WWII ended and we had the "End of History"?
Actually, we could have had something close to it, meaning something close to the end of the kind of ideological rivalries that existed during the cold war if the US had decided on PNAC and instead focused on strengthening the universalist aspects of its ideology.

 

By who? By the Americans? I certainly believe that we could reduce our spending without sacrificing anything.

I'm not opposed to increased European defense spending. I think it would be a good thing, but ultimately I don't care all that much.

If I were a German I would. The idea of leaving myself at the mercy of the Americans and Russians would be disquieting.

No, they're going to do what they were already going to do. I doubt that Trump's "diplomacy" had much to do with it.

I tend not to care very much about political figures. Trump is particularly embarrassing, but like I said, we're lucky we're so lucky, because other countries wouldn't be able to survive this kind of mistake.

As for Putin, I think that he has undertaken a very daring geopolitical gambit in the Ukraine, but that his intelligence services failed him. His distrust for the West is overblown in my opinion, I think that Americans and Europeans would have loved to continue ignoring Russia as we did during the 90s. I honestly believe that most Europeans wanted Russia to eventually join the EU.

But asking people to sacrifice their uniqueness and their own position of strength in the world is a big ask. I admire the fact that the Russians have a desire to remain geopolitically active, even from such a weak position.

 

I want to be clear that I was saying the following: The American military-industrial complex had nothing to do with Russian assertiveness in the 17th, 18th, or 19th centuries, and it is not the cause of it today.

My look at history doesn't tell me anything about genuine and lasting solutions, only of the human desire to be in control, or at least capable of taking control.

I would say that American control of Iraq was an aberration of a particular administration with particular people. Typically, Americans are inclined to keep their distance for as long as possible. We would rather work with regional and local players, rather than coming in and remaking everything by force.

You know my thoughts on that matter, by now.

The idea that the Cold War was about ideology at it's core is a misconception, even one that American policymakers had. Communist ideology certainly played a part in making the Americans more afraid of the Soviets, but it was fear of Soviet power, not Soviet ideology, that drove American actions.

 

Okay, now I see what you were saying. Sure. Russian expansion had nothing to do with the US military industrial complex. Instead, it reflected the balance of powers at the time. Russia's power was growing and there were areas which were more or less conducive for such Russian expansion. As an Iranian, I hate the fact that this expansion included taking over areas that fell within Iran's sphere. But while I wish the expansion had not included the areas comprising what is today the Azerbaijan Republic, or certain areas in central Asia, I am not sure the Georgians - who played a major role in encouraging the Russian expansion in the Caucasus - or the Armenians would have preferred to be ruled by Iran as opposed to being ruled by the Russians. In any case, and I hate to say this, but there are consequences for falling behind and becoming weaker than your potential rivals. Whatever makes such rivals more powerful, also probably makes them more deserving. But with one important caveat: whoever wants to rule an area, must be able to enjoy the requisite, indigenous, base of power and influence in that area. Anything else would entail what I would consider crimes against humanity.

Nothing lasts forever. Or, as Keynes put it in a different context, "in the long run, we are all dead." But lasting in the sense that the order that is established will be more stable.
To be clear about how I see things: I don't mind competition and see it as natural and unavoidable. I dislike it when, through competition or otherwise, we have monopolistic forces that totally destroy the chance of competition. But the competition I like to see is one where brute force alone doesn't dictate the outcome. That whoever rules an area, is able to convince its people that they have a better recipe for the future than the alternatives being advertised.

These are the kind of norms that I want to see get established and find acceptance internationally. With instruments created to enforce them. And that should help give an idea about how I see the proper "End of History". It doesn't end, but its competition and the instruments used to further that competition, become more constrained. Instead of the law of the jungle, you will have something like the laws of the market: the market place of ideas, the market place of economic self-interest and instruments that would regulate the temptation to settle the competition through brute force.

 

You forgot to mark your post as satire