"Which country is the largest threat to world peace?"

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Lol at all the countries freeloading on the US military who think the US is the largest threat to world peace. Especially countries like Germany (which spend only 1.2% of GDP on defense compared to 3.3% of GDP in the US) really should be more grateful.

They don't view it as freeloading. They view it is being part of an alliance they don't care for and being forced to host weapons they dislike on their soil.

[Mr. Morden]

Lol at all the countries freeloading on the US military who think the US is the largest threat to world peace. Especially countries like Germany (which spend only 1.2% of GDP on defense compared to 3.3% of GDP in the US) really should be more grateful.

Like I said upthread, the %age in Western European countries saying the US is the biggest threat isn't that much bigger than the %age in the US itself saying the US is the biggest threat.  In this poll, 17% of people in Germany said the US, which isn't *that* much higher than the 13% in the US who said the same.  So I guess the US is being ungrateful to itself? 

[parochial boy]

Lol at all the countries freeloading on the US military who think the US is the largest threat to world peace. Especially countries like Germany (which spend only 1.2% of GDP on defense compared to 3.3% of GDP in the US) really should be more grateful.

America saved Western Europe in WW2 by liberating it from the Germans in 1944 and 1945 then its presence saved it from falling to the Soviets during the Cold War and this is what thanks we get. So America saved Europe from being a fascist or communist dictatorship and this is the thanks we get.

This sort of attitude is precisely what drives a lot of Europeans to feel resentful of the US.

[bilaps]

American exceptionalism talk, america giving lessons in values and human rights, all that we are role models crap is what drives people to these feelings in Europe. While at the same time when American allies are at question like Saudis then nevermind that women can't drive etc. Hipocricy is what drives people away. Not to mention American interventionism from coups in S America and C America to open military interventions in Balkans and Middle East. I'm truly surprised to see that people are surprised by these numbers.

I mean you don't have to go further than this Russia histeria. Yeah, Russia wanted Trump, so what? America influence elections all over the world all the time and America is threatening Russia much more than the other way around. US has the military budget like next 10 nations combined, is only superpower in the world, NATO is at the Russian border, west was supportive of a prowestern coup in Ukraine, of course Russia will react. What would happen if Russians install their government in Mexico or send missiles to Cuba, oh wait...

[DavidB.]

Lol at all the countries freeloading on the US military who think the US is the largest threat to world peace. Especially countries like Germany (which spend only 1.2% of GDP on defense compared to 3.3% of GDP in the US) really should be more grateful.

Yeah, lots of Germans suffer from America Derangement Syndrome. As for Computer's point, however...

This sort of attitude is precisely what drives a lot of Europeans to feel resentful of the US.

Whether fair or not, this is also true.

[ApatheticAustrian]

there is a looooooot of US-scepticism over here ...especially after snowden....but putin has easily reached the same amount of hate and fear with his crimea-annexion....until trump came along.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Lol at all the countries freeloading on the US military who think the US is the largest threat to world peace. Especially countries like Germany (which spend only 1.2% of GDP on defense compared to 3.3% of GDP in the US) really should be more grateful.

They don't view it as freeloading. They view it is being part of an alliance they don't care for and being forced to host weapons they dislike on their soil.

Wouldn't the preferable option for Germany be to leave NATO, then?

[bilaps]

there is a looooooot of US-scepticism over here ...especially after snowden....but putin has easily reached the same amount of hate and fear with his crimea-annexion....until trump came along.

In Austria? I can get Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, baltic states, but in central Europe and western Europe? I mean he did annex Crimea against international law, no doubt, but when Kosovo declared independece where was international law then? I mean he was provoked to do that by things happening in Ukraine. If NATO and Russia are enemies, then when NATO threatens your borders, what would you do? Not to mention that in Eastern Ukraine and in Crimea there is Russian ethnic majority. The country was divided evenly before the coup 50-50 prowestern prorussian. Now there is prowestern government which controls 90% of the country. So if ocupation is word people use one could argue that there are many ocupied Russians in Ukraine right now.

[ApatheticAustrian]

I mean he was provoked to do that by things happening in Ukraine

he was not - clearly and without any question.

don't want to derail this thread too much but.....the NATO defense is imho utter nonsense. the NATO would never ever invade russia and even if it wanted to (ridiculous), the question of nuclear weaponry prevents this anyway.

if russia would try to cooperate with democratic states, independent from moscow, on a friendly level and wouldn't treat EX-Sovjet-states like slaves who should be happy about hand-outs, it wouldn't need to be scared all the time about losing control.

otherwise....your numbers are bogus, no offense.

only a minority of eastern "left-wing" ukrainians want to secede, even if they detest the western/central government and if anybody crushed any hopes for a pro-eastern political revival, it's russia itself.

the crimea doesn't hurt very much in terms of elections...the people's republics of donetsk and Luhansk do.

if those 2 areas would vote......it's possible to create an anti-kiev alliance. without them....there are not enough votes left, especially votes which would prefer russian dominance.

the majority of eastern ukrainians think about secession as treason..plain and simple.

[The_Doctor]

Re: Russia and the Commies.

#1 - Yes, they did learn a lot about destabilizing internal regimes in other countries. I'll acknowledge that freely. The point is that we should teach them not to mess with the United States.

#2 - This is not "hysteria" about Russia. The point of American hegemony is to keep other nations in line and stop them from competing with us or working against our objectives. Russia is a threat to American hegemony and national security interests. Ergo, we need to work to cut Russia down to size. Sure, THEIR objective is to make sure we're destabilized, but that doesn't mean we should allow them to destabilize us or stop trying to cut them down to size. Or to install someone they want over someone they fear as our President.

[ProgressiveCanadian]

Lol at all the countries freeloading on the US military who think the US is the largest threat to world peace. Especially countries like Germany (which spend only 1.2% of GDP on defense compared to 3.3% of GDP in the US) really should be more grateful.

America saved Western Europe in WW2 by liberating it from the Germans in 1944 and 1945 then its presence saved it from falling to the Soviets during the Cold War and this is what thanks we get. So America saved Europe from being a fascist or communist dictatorship and this is the thanks we get.

This sort of attitude is precisely what drives a lot of Europeans to feel resentful of the US.

As a Canadian I can agree with this. Lots of people view Americans as arrogant.

[bilaps]

I mean he was provoked to do that by things happening in Ukraine

he was not - clearly and without any question.

don't want to derail this thread too much but.....the NATO defense is imho utter nonsense. the NATO would never ever invade russia and even if it wanted to (ridiculous), the question of nuclear weaponry prevents this anyway.

if russia would try to cooperate with democratic states, independent from moscow, on a friendly level and wouldn't treat EX-Sovjet-states like slaves who should be happy about hand-outs, it wouldn't need to be scared all the time about losing control.

otherwise....your numbers are bogus, no offense.

only a minority of eastern "left-wing" ukrainians want to secede, even if they detest the western/central government and if anybody crushed any hopes for a pro-eastern political revival, it's russia itself.

the crimea doesn't hurt very much in terms of elections...the people's republics of donetsk and Luhansk do.

if those 2 areas would vote......it's possible to create an anti-kiev alliance. without them....there are not enough votes left, especially votes which would prefer russian dominance.

the majority of eastern ukrainians think about secession as treason..plain and simple.

it is far from clear. you saying it is clear doesn't mean it's true. was there a legitimate govt in ukraine? was there a coup? legitimate govt wanted to stop euro-integration process, you may not like it, others may not like it but it's a simple fact. if majority of ukrainians wanted euro path they could have opted for one astonishing path. it's called ELECTIONS. so they overthrow legitimate govt with western help ofcourse, screw the laws there nevermind and they install prowestern government. that's what happened. imagine now this happening in mexico.

you're talking about hand outs is really funny cause that is how us foreign policy works. and essentialy every foreign policy works that way. europe may not want to be russian slave but surely many countries are nato or us slaves. they don't have their foreign policy, it's what comes from Washington.

if my numbers are off i would like to see your numbers. also i didn't talk about independence, i was talking about a number of russian native speakers who are living in ukraine.  

[ApatheticAustrian]

it is far from clear. you saying it is clear doesn't mean it's true. was there a legitimate govt in ukraine? was there a coup? legitimate govt wanted to stop euro-integration process, you may not like it, others may not like it but it's a simple fact. if majority of ukrainians wanted euro path they could have opted for one astonishing path. it's called ELECTIONS. so they overthrow legitimate govt with western help ofcourse, screw the laws there nevermind and they install prowestern government. that's what happened. imagine now this happening in mexico.

you're talking about hand outs is really funny cause that is how us foreign policy works. and essentialy every foreign policy works that way. europe may not want to be russian slave but surely many countries are nato or us slaves. they don't have their foreign policy, it's what comes from Washington.

if my numbers are off i would like to see your numbers. also i didn't talk about independence, i was talking about a number of russian native speakers who are living in ukraine.  

3 points.

1) i am ofc talking about my own opinion.... and how i see the facts...since this is an US-style-board i am more outspoken than on a german one....but in the end, i am only defending my own case.

the current government of ukraine is democratically elected and the last one has been too....until it decided to use violence against protestern. without the violence, the students would have been finished after a few weeks, after the violence, their parents joined the fight too.

the last government became the enemy of the people. so it has had to got.....if earlier elections would have been negotiated earlier, all of this would have ended without additional bloodshed.

2) you are misrepresenting the positions of the former ukrainian president...he came as a a pro-western east-ukrainian, promised to sign the pro-eu-treaty and chickened out in the last moment after getting threatened by moscow. if the people would have had the choice at that moment, they would have preferred western inclusion on a narrow majority...but the next election was too late, since the last president tried to rush everything through. plain and simple. i won't dignify your conspiracy theories with an answer...the pro-western government isn't installed, it's ELECTED with russia's help.

3) you are proposing, ethnical russians are automatically enemies of the west or automatically wishing for russia as a savior...which is not correct. there are muuuuuuch more ethnical russians in ukraine than those who wish for russian dominance or would prefer russia to the EU......


let's look at recent polls..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_Ukrainian_parliamentary_election,_2019

ukraine is crawling through chaos since years, and the pro-russian parties get COMBNED less than 20% of the vote....moscow has killed any chance for an old-school "party of regions" alliance with his east-ukranian war.

[bilaps]

it is far from clear. you saying it is clear doesn't mean it's true. was there a legitimate govt in ukraine? was there a coup? legitimate govt wanted to stop euro-integration process, you may not like it, others may not like it but it's a simple fact. if majority of ukrainians wanted euro path they could have opted for one astonishing path. it's called ELECTIONS. so they overthrow legitimate govt with western help ofcourse, screw the laws there nevermind and they install prowestern government. that's what happened. imagine now this happening in mexico.

you're talking about hand outs is really funny cause that is how us foreign policy works. and essentialy every foreign policy works that way. europe may not want to be russian slave but surely many countries are nato or us slaves. they don't have their foreign policy, it's what comes from Washington.

if my numbers are off i would like to see your numbers. also i didn't talk about independence, i was talking about a number of russian native speakers who are living in ukraine.  

3 points.

1) i am ofc talking about my own opinion.... and how i see the facts...since this is an US-style-board i am more outspoken than on a german one....but in the end, i am only defending my own case.

the current government of ukraine is democratically elected and the last one has been too....until it decided to use violence against protestern. without the violence, the students would have been finished after a few weeks, after the violence, their parents joined the fight too.

the last government became the enemy of the people. so it has had to got.....if earlier elections would have been negotiated earlier, all of this would have ended without additional bloodshed.

i'm not going to argue with 3rd point because a) we shouldn't beleive in polls in a country that is essentialy at war b) of course that support will drop down, they are at war vs russia, what do you think is propaganda in countries that are in war. i can tell you, i was in a country like that and it's not nice and people generaly turn to their leaders even if they don't like them. we will see hopefuly after the war what will happen

i don't want to go much further even though i don't think it's too much offtopic. i just want to make a case for why your first point is silly. do you really think that's what happened? in your heart of hearts as it's said. i mean this is like a bad sciense fiction movie, peaceful protesters and with no reason somebody shoots at them? second thing, even if i accept your premise and there are many reasons why that's not the case if police uses violence against protesters than it should be a coup in a country. fast forward to usa in 21st century. how many times obama should been thrown out of office when protesters were attacked by police on for example dakota land. it's propaganda. there were many "bad hombres" among the protesters there, they shot at the police, they shot at the army, they even had special units coming, it was a classic coup.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Lol at all the countries freeloading on the US military who think the US is the largest threat to world peace. Especially countries like Germany (which spend only 1.2% of GDP on defense compared to 3.3% of GDP in the US) really should be more grateful.

They don't view it as freeloading. They view it is being part of an alliance they don't care for and being forced to host weapons they dislike on their soil.

Wouldn't the preferable option for Germany be to leave NATO, then?

Would not be surprised if this happens to be honest, if this TWO PERCENT arbitrariness is kept up. Germans don't want to go it alone, but they are uncomfortable with the military in general (even now, Germans routinely disapprove of NATO exercises in the Baltics) and the idea of their military being the most powerful in Europe kind of worries and disgusts the populace.

Basically both countries are at odds because America thinks Germany is gleefully freeloading, while Germany thinks America are asking for money for military adventures that they don't care about.

[ApatheticAustrian]

, peaceful protesters and with no reason somebody shoots at them?

you are mixing the timeline.

at first, there was no shooting, just police brutality.

i don't pretend to know who exactly the snipers, weeks later, have been.....i am pretty sure, we are never going to find out.

there are a lot of open questions.

but no one really argues, that i wasn't a top-down-decisions to clear the maidan, at the end of november, as the protests died down...and the police, coming from other regions of the ukraine, acted quite violent...a typical political mistake.

the former president just wasn't skilled enough...a few more days and nothing would have been left......rushing things is stupid.

you can think whatever you want about the end of this chapter but in my opinion, the government made one mistake after another - there haven't been one million soros-CIA-agents in kiev but 1 million people mad as hell about the economy and sovjet-like government actions. i won't pretend, they protested for the EU...but the protested against the government.

[bilaps]

i really find that hard to beleive, no outside help, no nothing just people rose up? not buying that. sure, govt made mistakes, but at the end of the day it was a coup in which legitimate govt was overthrown and new one was installed. in democracies that is done on election day.

[ApatheticAustrian]

i really find that hard to beleive, no outside help, no nothing just people rose up? not buying that. sure, govt made mistakes, but at the end of the day it was a coup in which legitimate govt was overthrown and new one was installed. in democracies that is done on election day.

my last post right now, since i have discussed that stuff 29473973 times and at some point, both of us are just rinning in circles:

sure there has been outside help...for both sides. some billionaires and states helped the government, some billionaires and states helped the protesters, but they only jumped on running machines.....without "outside help", the former government wouldn't have changed their position from pro-EU to pro-russia, against the will of the people and the pro-maidan billionaires didn't creat the protest,.....first they ignored it but after the big government failure end of november, they invested into organization and stuff. and to be sure, the former president has alienated MANY former allies, but this would go too far into ukrainian inside baseball again.

if your point would be the truth, there could never ever be some kind of "early election".

there wasn't a coup, there was a big protest, which the government mishandled and the army wasn't ready to kill the protesters (other than in say egypt or libyia), so the government needed some way out......

as i said..you can cry about the results, but early elections aren't something special and since the maidan, both president and parliament got elected again.....fair and square....the only difference is the russian meddling, which killed any chance of east-ukrainian revival.

the current president is not only elected, he got a FAAAR bigger mandate than the last one...plain and simple.

have a nice day.

[bilaps]

i have to respond sorry

i mean early election is when there is a fall of govt support in the parliament, or when president calls for them, or pm resigns, you are confusing the terms. change of govt was here prior to any election and when new elections were scheduled country was already in war. elections were not held legaly at all here, there was a protest followed by clashes followed by ousting of the govt in undemocratic way. sure million people were on the protest, so that leaves how many million that were not.

[ApatheticAustrian]

i have to respond sorry

i mean early election is when there is a fall of govt support in the parliament, or when president calls for them, or pm resigns, you are confusing the terms. change of govt was here prior to any election and when new elections were scheduled country was already in war. elections were not held legaly at all here, there was a protest followed by clashes followed by ousting of the govt in undemocratic way. sure million people were on the protest, so that leaves how many million that were not.

only responding to the election-thingie:

look for example at thailand and/or romania....

both countries have a strong  political "separation", like ukraine, but between cities and rural areas....

both countries are (or have been in the case of thailand) always in danger of early elections, cause of mass protests and gridlock.

and both countries.....again and again...voted the same party into power, cause even if government agrees to resign, a majority is the majority.

if the ukrainian majority would really have stood behind the old government, it would have been re-elected.....even without the party of regions, there were major east-ukrainian parties participating.

[bilaps]

i have to respond sorry

i mean early election is when there is a fall of govt support in the parliament, or when president calls for them, or pm resigns, you are confusing the terms. change of govt was here prior to any election and when new elections were scheduled country was already in war. elections were not held legaly at all here, there was a protest followed by clashes followed by ousting of the govt in undemocratic way. sure million people were on the protest, so that leaves how many million that were not.

only responding to the election-thingie:

look for example at thailand and/or romania....

both countries have a strong  political "separation", like ukraine, but between cities and rural areas....

both countries are (or have been in the case of thailand) always in danger of early elections, cause of mass protests and gridlock.

and both countries.....again and again...voted the same party into power, cause even if government agrees to resign, a majority is the majority.

if the ukrainian majority would really have stood behind the old government, it would have been re-elected.....even without the party of regions, there were major east-ukrainian parties participating.

to be honest I have to read it twice to understand what you're trying to say. look, thailand is no comparison, they still have monarchy there as i recall it, i think it's very volatile country for many different reasons.

now romania is a good example. however, romania is relatively stable country. it's a member of EU, member of NATO, it's still a poor country, you are right about huge difference between urban and rural areas but how exactly this compares with ukraine? they were not at war at any time, they don't have national separation like in ukraine, they are romanians, they speak the same language, it's just not comparable. only thing is yes they have some protests. they have it right now, but nobody is shooting at anyone, govt isn't changed through coup etc. so yes, why ukraine was not like romania is excellent question and answer you may not like.

[BuckeyeNut]

It's interesting Japan thinks it's China and not North Korea; also that Pakistan thinks it's the US and not India when India think it's Pakistan.

[Mr. Morden]

It's interesting Japan thinks it's China and not North Korea; also that Pakistan thinks it's the US and not India when India think it's Pakistan.

Here are the top 3 in each:

India:
Pakistan 25%
USA 19%
India 12%

Japan:
China 38%
North Korea 22%
USA 7%

Pakistan:
USA 44%
India 15%
Israel 13%

[Shadows]

I don't know if any nation is a major threat but the Saudis are doing a lot of damage exporting radical ideology. Pak is an unstable & terror haven, Iran funds nefarious activities. Most of the fundamental Muslim nations are a huge threat & unless radicalism stops, a new ISIS type group will always crop up. USA is too big into military interventions.

Human Rights are a huge concern too - Some communist states are in bad shame. And ofcourse Israel the biggest abuser of human rights who have kept millions of people under military occupation, targeting sometimes civilians & innocent people (who weren't used as human shields), building walls inside Palestine territory (not just West Bank border) every few miles & creating settlements into the West Bank. And ofcourse discriminating in even providing water to Palestine people in West Bank. After Rabin who was a good leader of Israel got killed, Israel became highly oppressive.


I think ISIS will be defeated but the Israeli abuse & settlement is going to create a 3rd Intifada which will be much worse in nature !

[Mr. Smith]

Wait, so building up a bunch of bases all over the world, amassing a military ten times greater than the rest of the world combined, overthrowing lots of democratically elected leaders on a whim doesn't get you friends?

Whodathunkit!