this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2025
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[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 52 points 2 days ago (2 children)

"Become a world power"

You know, we've had that experience before, "everywhere else" would pretty much prefer that didn't happen again, thank you very much.

[–] afronaut@slrpnk.net 25 points 2 days ago (2 children)

lol yea. I’m an American and fully support other nations boycotting our goods but I’m noticing an overlap with these boycotts and nationalist-imperialist sentiments.

[–] El_Scapacabra@lemm.ee 14 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Weirdly enough, from what I've seen, European nationalists tend to be very much against the EU.

[–] Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

That's not entirely true. Europeans tend to dress up racism as national pride and concern for cultural norms (with a few exceptions). So it isn't so much "I'm proud of my country" as "I don't want Arabs and Africans on my street".

A lot of European countries have a long and detailed history that paints a grim picture that most people like to distance ourselves from.

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[–] tomenzgg@midwest.social 8 points 2 days ago

THIS; I feel deranged, not hearing anyone else say they've noticed it.

[–] fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 2 days ago (6 children)

Seriously. Why do people genuinely think this is a good idea? Colonialism and imperialism is bad.

People should have learned after the US's faults, and overreliance of it due to being a world power; but people just want to do it again???

[–] Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago (19 children)

Yes and no. Countries like Russia and China are always going to exist. That means places like the Philippines, Taiwan, Ukraine, and Georgia are always going to need a strong ally if they don't want to be invaded. There are a lot of countries that are going to be very worried now that America has turned heel (Especially Taiwan). Europe has mostly grown out of the need for constant expansion, so having them take on the role of world police wouldn't be the worst thing to happen.

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[–] darthelmet@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Maybe we don’t want to do that again… people have some really short memories.

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[–] OrloNorppa@sopuli.xyz 115 points 3 days ago (5 children)

One could argue it already is - mainly on a soft power level. Now that Ursula has chopped the chains off the war chest we can get back the hard power as well. I feel very good about this, it's rare to feel optimistic about the way your country and union is going...

[–] gon@lemm.ee 53 points 3 days ago (10 children)

Yup yup... A little scary though...

[–] OrloNorppa@sopuli.xyz 33 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (9 children)

That is the reason why I gotta just trust that the people running the country and EU know what they are doing.

I am in Finland and I really do trust we are doing what we need to, our defense forces and government is very shush shush regarding defense, every government and defense outlet was adamant that we weren't joining NATO until the foreign minister and president announced the move. At least in a country of 5 million we are really thinking of each other here. Let's just hope that is the case for the rest of the EU and the overall union.

Slava Ukraini

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[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 27 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (6 children)

Europe needs to be strong enough to stand on its own at all levels, but I think it's a pretty bad idea for it to become a neo-Imperial power in the style of America.

For all the great things of Democracy, the one thing people forget in their rosy propaganda-tainted view of it (living inside of it, we're constantly bombarde by political messaging about its greatness) is that by definition even the most perfect Democracy only has the duty to represent the will of its citizens, not of people who are not citizens of that Democracy.

So there is no ideological element in Democracy to make it less nasty at exploiting people from other countries than authoritarian regimes.

All this to say that Europe shouldn't get into the business of power projection like the US has done for decades (leaving a long trail of death, suffering and destitution all over the World, especially the Middle East and Latin America).

And I say this as an European and somebody who would stand to gain indirectly from Europe going systematically (it's already done by businesses and some governments in it, just not openly and systematically) into the business of exploiting non-Europeans.

A peacefull when not provoked giant would probably be the best philosphy for a strong Europe, IMHO.

(Edit: for avoidance of doubt I want to state that for me Russia trying to advance westwards by invading Ukraine counts as a provocation)

[–] roguetrick@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (4 children)

And I say this as an European and somebody who would stand to gain indirectly from Europe going systematically (it’s already done by businesses and some governments in it, just not openly and systematically) into the business of exploiting non-Europeans.

One great myth of imperial power plays is that the exploitation benefits the imperial power. It often doesn't. The scramble for Africa, for example, was a net economic drain for all the great powers that participated. Every little thing they gained was generally lost as they spent immense amounts of money on being manipulated into useless conflicts by client chiefs. Similar dynamic for England in India during the later periods and associated areas (the British conquest of Myanmar was particularly useless). The only real benefit is economic dominance and the ability to trade (like that was seen in Singapore and Canton). For all it's imperialism and interventionism from the Philippines to Korea to Vietnam to Afghanistan to Iraq, America hasn't seen a gain. Most of the moves by the great powers only benefits a select few of private citizens while the state spends lives and treasure on conquest and subsequent administration for an illegitimate government that becomes corrupt and fragile.

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[–] witnessbolt@lemm.ee 12 points 2 days ago

You can do it, Europe. Everyone that cares about "the west" is rooting for you.

[–] McYankee@lemm.ee 12 points 2 days ago

Cause it worked out so well last time...

[–] AbnormalHumanBeing@lemmy.abnormalbeings.space 64 points 3 days ago (3 children)

I think "World Power" is not that desirable. The US was a world power, look what they had to do and what culture they had to develop to become one. Same for the Soviets. Same for a surging China, becoming more imperialist by the day. Your emotions may tell you "yes!!!", but the reality is - it will not benefit you much, it will mostly benefit your rulers.

I'd rather have the power of the EU in service of getting a proper, international organisation like the UN capable enough to do its job.

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[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 44 points 3 days ago (23 children)

For the love of God Europe, we need a world power that actually respects human rights, not outright rejects them like Russia, pretends to embrace like America, or outright rejects them while tankies pretend that China embraces them.

[–] leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 2 days ago

You're looking in the wrong place. Several EU members have far right leaders already, many more are moving right. The EU (and UK) are about 4 or 5 years behind the US. Don't confuse disagreement with Trump over Ukraine with meaningful ideological differences.

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[–] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 53 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

We tried that a few times, and war/imperialism crimes.

But this time it will be diffident. We is evolved now.
(Never mind the rising support of the alt-right parties in the last decade.)

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[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 12 points 2 days ago

It always has been…

[–] bingBingBongBong@lemm.ee 24 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (5 children)

On a tangent, is it possible to block/ignore lemmygrad and it's users? They are obviously trolling here with good old whataboutism and russo talking points

Edit: corrected the stupid spelling of this stupid place

[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 31 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (8 children)

Heads up, I can assure you the Lemmygrad and Hexbear folks are not trolling. They are legitimate believers of Chinese/Russian/North Korean talking points, and some of them even live there

Welcome to the federated Internet

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[–] RandomVideos@programming.dev 15 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Moldova will join the EU, which will allow a Romanian and Moldovan union. They will be able to take over Europe and then the world using vampires and deadly lasers and stuff

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[–] sirico@feddit.uk 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm not getting out of bed for anything less than spices or gold.

[–] nomy@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 days ago

shakes baggie of chiles

[–] FatLegTed@piefed.social 15 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Sad that picture doesn't include UK - like it used to.

And will do again, if we get a grip.

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[–] dance_ninja@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

I remember watching Gundam 00 and thinking "man, the US being in a separate power block from Europe sounds crazy!"

[–] Lucky_777@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

They need to poke the planet, then we can all work together to get the fuck off this rock. We've fucked it up enough and there are plenty of planets to mine resources from. Let's all band together for an exit. Then go our separate ways after launch.

[–] scifun@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Perhaps let someone from global south take the controls (if humans even have more than few decades as species)

[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

Like who? Which bloc is economically as large as the EU and is considered a full democracy. Like we’ve seen what happens when an economically powerful nation with a weak democracy becomes a super power.

[–] Etterra@discuss.online 5 points 2 days ago

As an American, yes please, because we can't get our shit together as the mutated, corrupt, idiotic half's monster is running roughshod over our wishy-washy, whiny, "centrist" half's.

[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

United European Federation When?

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[–] missandry351@lemmings.world 4 points 2 days ago

It’s nazis all over here, that said, it can’t be worse than United States of Gilead right now

[–] Redredme@lemmy.world 19 points 3 days ago (2 children)

We've done that already a few times. After over 3000 years of empires must we really? Again? The Greek empire, the roman empire, the spanish empire, the holy roman empire, the dutch golden century, the British (largest globe spanning empire ever) and French empires, Austria Hungaria and I'm quite certain even Portugal had its day. And let's not forget Germany. Or the Soviet union and tsarist Russia. Also nice as far as empires go.

Anyway..

Sigh.

Fine.

But dont come crying if you dont like the outcome.

Pax Americana only ended because you guys voted for it. We where fine with it, hanging out, buying your shit. Using your tech.

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[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Just for clarification, that's EU and not Europe. Yes, i'm in the hole in the center.

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[–] the_swagmaster@lemmy.zip 15 points 3 days ago (2 children)

They let themselves be subservient to the Americans cause they didn't trust each other (understandable given the shared history of the continent).

Now that the USA has flipped the switch so dramatically given Trump is unpredictable and incompetent, I hope the Europeans realise they can trust each other more than their far away who doesn't give 2 shits about them. I'm optimistic but whilst they can do stuff for Ukraine, I'm not sure how they will go about EU reform (if they can even get it done given Orban exists). They need to be bold and I'm not sure they will all be on the same page for that

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