logoalt Hacker News

whatsThisBtn4yesterday at 11:30 PM2 repliesview on HN

I'd split it into 2 camps. Elites who realize Europe isn't a unified group or has a military strong enough for defense..

And people who get wet when France says they are going to send soldiers to Ukraine and it never materializes.

The general population has 0 understanding of international relations. It's the United States and China right now. Any other belief comes from someone who has read 0 international relations Realism books.


Replies

gman83today at 12:02 AM

Its not that Europeans havent read Mearsheimer. its that for the best part of three hundred years the whole of Europe has been trying that same realist script until there was nothing left but total ruin across the entire continent. Europeans who created the EU knew about balance of power geopolitics so well, they created this slow bureaucratic mess specifically to stop Germany and France sliding back into the same old lethal habit. While clumsy positioning between the US and China is a headache in the present moment for Europe, compared to a tedious Union Europeans prefer reawakenings of 1914 in their backyard. Well at least so far.

show 1 reply
sebmellenyesterday at 11:32 PM

Realpolitik sorely lacking

show 1 reply