According to former United States general Ben Hodges, the withdrawal of US troops from Europe is only a matter of time. In an interview with SonntagsBlick, he advises Switzerland to prepare for war.

  • RetroGradeBE@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    73
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    18 days ago

    As bad as it sounds, if our European leaders can get their head out of their collective US-aligned asses, it could finally be a push to a more cohesive EU-defence policy that is not dependant on US logistics and firepower.

    We have allowed ourselves to be way to complacent for far too long.

  • Teknikal@eviltoast.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    edit-2
    18 days ago

    Anyone taking bets which Country gets threatened next I’m thinking Jamaica had to hand over 50percent of its rum.

    • Agent641@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      18 days ago

      “Puerto Rico needs to end it’s vicious trade war against the US or risk it’s government being overthrown and made a US state.”

      • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        18 days ago

        They better start exporting their bountiful electricity! They got so much of it, enough for a good 3 or 4 days of AI questions about how awesome our beautiful leader Mr orange is.

        • garbagebagel@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          17 days ago

          I hear Puerto Rico is actually stocked full of paper towels, so much so that their politicians are literally throwing them around! They should definitely be sharing with the US.

          /s

  • Raylon@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    18 days ago

    If anyone is interested in the state of things in Switzerland:

    Our defense is in chaos right now. A scandal in our state-owned but public weapons manufacturer just broke a few weeks ago and shortly after the secretary of the departement of defense announced her resignation. We will see if the newly elected one will improve the situation.

    The army is generally seen as somewhat of a joke, especially by people who served, which is more than half of all Swiss men. We like to call it a “Pfadiverein” (boy scouts association).

    Even with all that, the right wing parties want to give a shitload more money to defense, and cut costs in social spending and foreign aid to compensate. Left of centre the need to improve defense is also accepted, but 1) before the army gets more money, they need to get their shit together and 2) more important than the army itself is integration with the european security Infrastructure (the left parties are also very pro-EU). The centre politicians usually mix blth stances and lean more one or the other way.

    Also we still stand to buy fighter jets from the US, and only the left parties are calling to cancel the deal.

    • Droggelbecher@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      17 days ago

      If it makes you feel any better, we have a joke in Austria that we might as well not have an army, because we border 1) NATO, 2) Switzerland, and if either of those become a threat, we might as well capitulate immediately.

    • Paragone@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      7
      ·
      edit-2
      18 days ago

      Then you don’t understand what’s REALLY going-on:

      Trump wants to smash Canada & Greenland, so that between Trump+Musk on ALL of North America + Greenland,

      & Putin-backed-by-China,

      the hated-by-them EU can be DESTROYED,

      & then they get to be the ONLY “kings” ruling the world.

      FIGHT TO THE DEATH TO SAVE EUROPE’S LIFE, if you have to!

      Trump’s declaring war against Canada, my country, is certain, within 2-2.5y, maximum.

      _ /\ _

      • Paragone@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        18 days ago

        Oh, while the US is waging TOTAL WAR against Canada, 3y from now, if anyone think that China-backed-Russia isn’t going to be rampaging Europe, they’re mindblind/incompetent.

        This is THE GREAT FILTER: humankind’s species-“puberty”.

        Grow-up transformation either will be earned, by some remnant of our world’s people,

        XOR

        the galaxy will be silent of our-kind, permanently, by the end of this century, forever.

        Natural Selection, it’s called, within an Extinction Event, too…

        _ /\ _

  • Clbull@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    17 days ago

    If Putin had any desire to conquer Switzerland, all I’ll say is good luck. They’re:

    • Heavily fortified, with hundreds of bunkers dotting the countryside
    • Highly mountainous, which would heavily slow down a ground invasion.
    • One of the few states to still practice mandatory military service.
    • Pretty lax with gun ownership, to the point where citizens have a statutory duty to bear arms in the event of an invasion.
    • A substantial player in the banking sector with many oligarchs using their service. Any freeze they’d put on Russian assets would likely go above and beyond what NATO and the EU managed, just because of how synonymous their banks are with the wealthy. They would probably send the Russian economy into freefall long before they could even get anywhere near Zurich.
    • Surrounded from all sides by NATO and EU member states, and would likely have plenty of time to prepare their own forces in the unlikely event that Russia mounts a full-scale invasion and takes over the rest of Europe.
  • ZMoney@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    16 days ago

    It’s unfortunate that we’ve configured our world like this, with rival nation states and militaries vying for supremacy. In reality, the conflict is between humans and militarism. Militarism will kill us all, in one way or another.

  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    33
    ·
    18 days ago

    I’m so ready to never fly or drive to the 51st or 52nd states or Alaska. Alaska and Hawaii and Puerto Rico are the WTF parts of the US. Like how come they are not just independent nations?

    • kreskin@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      23
      ·
      18 days ago

      Hawaii was an independent nation, until they allowed some US business interests in. Those businessman bolstered by a US Marines contingent + some artillery and a tugboat with a single cannon on it invaded when a new constitution was written by the Queen that would strip the companies of some power and give it to the poor. They imprisoned the queen. After a failed attempt at rescuing her and a “trial” by a hastily set up “US military court” she signed over the country to the US in exchange for the release of her would-be rescuers, who would have been executed. In 1993 the US apologized to Hawaii and acknowledged that the actions had been illegal and a coup d’tat of a legitimate government, and an illegal use of military force. But there were no reparations or offers to return Hawaiians to power.

      Many Hawaiians are still pretty vocal that they’d like the US to get the eff out of their country. They are disorganized though and theres a colossal amount of white wealthy that are against making the injustice right in even small ways. Capitalism is insidious and unaccountable. It doesn’t balk at murder and uses laws only when it benefits them and ignores them otherwise.