u/Foni

It's not Spain that's pushing the EU, it's Trump.

I don't think it's a bad plan, but I believe a good first step would be to close all government accounts on Twitter and open them on Mastodon instead. I'm talking about all levels of administration within the EU27. The impact on journalists, the press, reporters, and others would be massive.

As I said, it varies from one country to another, but some kind of agreement with a high military command is usually required. In any case, she is currently the head of the European executive power, she was elected by the citizens less than a year ago, yes, she should be an important point in this regard. She and whoever her successor is in the future

well, the nuclear launch protocol varies between powers, but I suppose it would have to be the chief of the executive in some kind of according with a high military chief

France also has political groups opposed to this and with government options. We need a European nuclear button, not a national one with promises, nor 27 national buttons. One. European. Everything else will lead us to more war later.

Zelenskyy is a shell of a human being, and so are Trump and Putin

You're not criticizing things about Zelenskyy that are worth criticizing; you're equating him to Putin, putting the aggressor and the victim on the same level, and you do it with the obvious intention to minimize Putin's faults. You're not adding nuance to a leader or contextualizing things; you're simply implying that the one who has invaded and violated a country's sovereignty is the same as the one defending against it.

I'm not going to respond to you again because you're making a fool of yourself if you think this is going anywhere. But if you wanted to have a serious conversation about what Ukraine could or couldn't have done differently (Ukraine, not Zelenskyy, who has been in office since 2019, when Russia already had everything ready, not since 2014), you'd have to start by understanding that Russia is the aggressor, that Putin is an imperialist, and that nothing others do will change that.

Oh, come on. Fine, I'll put it in writing if you need it.

The first step in the oldest playbook in the business says: if the leader you want to defend (or the company, or the country, it doesn’t matter) does something so obviously wrong that it’s indefensible, make the rival look the same. It doesn’t matter how, it doesn’t matter how much, just muddy the playing field.

Putting Putin and Zelenskyy on the same level is exactly that, and it’s damn transparent to anyone with half a functioning brain.

Of course, sure, Zelenskyy, Trump, and Putin are exactly the same. My goodness, how could this kind of cheap, third-rate propaganda be influencing some people so much?

Of course, Zelenskyy is an evil ruler who hates his people, and that justifies a violation of his sovereignty and the annexation of their territories, because ... well because ... I don't know something that blames Brussels bureaucrats, neither is that you strive a lot in the narrative

It could be, I'm not a military expert, but I have eyes in my face and I can see that they're not capable of gaining air superiority against one of the poorest countries in Europe. Maybe they didn't want to, but I believe they couldn't. I see that it's almost been three years since the Moskva sank, and there's still no replacement in sight. Maybe they don't want to build one, but I think they can't.

Maybe I'm quite deluded about Russia.

That is the only way, to tell Ukraine that it still has real allies, that as much as the USA withdraws, we will put in. Any other option is to be a *removed* and pay for the night.

Of course, that’s why they’ve been able to devastate Ukraine without facing much resistance. They’re certainly not being humiliated, are they?

But let’s be real, there’s a big difference between being able to build tractors with a cannon attached and actually producing proper tanks. Europe has one capability, and Russia has the other—I don’t need to spell out which is which, the convoy heading toward Kyiv at the start of the war made that pretty clear.

I have not found data on arms production grouped by country, but I have found data on exports and this makes me doubt your statement. In any case, we do not have to face a war right now, considering R&D and industrialization as defense objectives could put us at the right level in perhaps a decade.

Ok, my failure, I believed that if the problem was to spend your defense budget on US weapons, the option to spend it on non US weapons was evident. In any case, surely the French, Belgian, Spanish or British defense industry would be happy to have new clients

Luckily that is a problem with a solution as simple as obvious

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_highest_military_expenditures

Just taking Germany+France+Italy+Poland+Spain already comes more than what Russia spends

Nor am I a military expert, I do not know how reliable they are that data or I will discuss the efficiency of the expense, but I am sure to have 27 army generates many inefficiencies that could be resolved by centralizing things

The European Union as a whole already spends more on defense than Russia or China, it is just a matter of coordinating spending by unifying efforts