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This is more geopolitical than culture war. There is a guy with naval experience that has been writing a theory that the US does not want to open the Straight of Hormuz. And Trump has hinted at the thesis. Especially Europe but the rest of the world has depended on the US to keep global shipping open. Europe also looks down on the US as Neanderthals. They do not have the guns to go do things like reopen the Straight and are dependent on the Americans. The US does not directly suffer from the closure as we do Neanderthal things like put little straws in the ground all over Texas sucking oil out of the ground. Europe hurts much more than the modern US today in an energy crisis (US may be net winner).
Besides being a nice FU to Europe it also exposes their geopolitical weaknesses as real. Which hopefully gets them to do things like build big guns, drill for oil, restart nuclear programs, forget Greta ever existed, etc. Which long-term I believe a strong Europe is in Americas interests. America’s relationship with Europe historically and especially Dems has been to go over there and talk nicely to them. Trump has a different philosophy which is basically poke them with a stick. On immigration it does seem like Europe is getting better.
And here is the article. [https://gcaptain.com/the-hormuz-hypothesis-what-if-the-u-s-navy-isnt-in-a-hurry-to-reopen-the-strait] (The Hormuz Hypothesis)
He talks about it more on his twitter. I am mostly posting this to see if he’s crazy or is this a good example of Trump playing 4D chess.
Edit: Based on early comments FU Europe is appropriately culture war
There is an assumption here, that if the EU hurts more than the US from this, then the US "wins". I would think, that if both sides suffer otherwise avoidable losses without directly gaining anything in return (the idea that the EU would become more aligned with America from this is uncertain to say the least), then both have lost. The populations of both are worse off than they otherwise would have been, and their standing relative to other powers (Russia and China) has weakened considerably. And this is assuming there are sides to begin with. The very notion assumes an adversarial relationship between the EU and the US. Something that has largely not been the case before Trump.
I would also like to point out, that Europeans looking down on Americans is a fairly recent development. Until around 2016 (rhetoric around the culture war also looks bad. The left is not exempt from this), many Europeans looked up to America and dreamed of traveling or living there. Trump specifically looks like an idiot from a European perspective, and the fact that you elected him twice and that he continues to enjoy widespread support makes your entire population look bad by proxy.
Starmer looks like an idiot. Merkel screwed the whole European pooch.
And yet, I still want to visit (parts of) the UK and Germany!
Neither Starmer nor Merkel started a trade war with the US nor threatened to invade the country just for the lulz.
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I'm old enough to remember very similar comments about the Bush administration. The Internet wasn't quite as culturally ubiquitous, but every phpBB forum, mailing list, or similar seemed to have a smug European or two (usually German, it seemed) that made everything about the Culture War: Iraq, per capita carbon emissions, then-current issues like stem cell research, state surveillance, or the war on drugs.
Bush was certainly not the best president, but the degree to which these folks prostrated themselves at the beginning of the Obama administration was almost laughable, especially given how little actually changed: from my seat in the US here, none of those changed drastically, but the smug commentary on it certainly did. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if an Internet forum like that turned out to be part of the JD Vance origin story.
Every republican administration prompts them.
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Americans have a slightly mythological view of Europeans as a separate and independent culture, when in reality the European consensus is just what's on American TV told back to you in an exotic accent.
In hindsight, a lot of European commentary of the era was almost certainly heavily filtered to competent English speakers, which may have skewed it heavily towards certain countries (UK, NL, DE) and education levels.
Long-term I'd expect those filters to start fading (see Twitter and auto-translating Japanese recently), but the above bias is probably true still today in places like this one. I'm curious if our LLM rules apply to pure translations, but it doesn't immediately impact me.
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Well, the EU really really wants to be on good terms with the US. Do not underestimate the delusional capabilities of people who desperately want a certain narrative to be true. I am not even sure if this time is different. Maybe in four years, with the election of a charismatic democrat, the EU countries will have blissfully forgotten about everything and returned to being America's lapdogs.
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Not almost laughable, it was laughable. He got the Nobel Peace Prize for not being Bush.
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Ehh I dunno, the way I remember it any such European admiration for America ended much earlier, with the Iraq War.
I have no first-hand experience of Europe in the 90s, but growing up in America in the 90s, that Europeans looked down on America and Americans for being backwards religious conservative hyper-capitalists without basic human decency like universal healthcare was pretty much cliche in my experience. Obviously this was strongly a function of the environment in which I grew up, but I don't think it was purely a function of that. So, at the very least, Americans admiring Europeans based on the belief that those Europeans have disdain and contempt for America for its American qualities has been around for 30+.
It's intermittent at least since the Reagan administration -- and corresponds to whether the President has a (D) or an (R) after his name.
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There is still widespread admiration for America across Europe. Almost everyone admires aspects of US culture/politics but not others – you could find different fault lines of debate around freedom, race, globalism, middle eastern wars etc depending on who you're talking to, even if there was a lot of disagreement on where America is superior and where it's not.
But Trump has been a great unifier because the majority of people, even those who might be naturally allied to some of his views and who in the past have said things like 'We need a Trump of our own', have come to the conclusion he is mad. The fact he was voted for a second time served as confirmation that there is something going on in many American minds that we find hard to understand, and to the extent we can't understand it we can't trust it either.
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I remember that was around when the advice for American tourists was to put Canadian flag patches on your backpack, so you wouldn't be hated for being American.
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The Iraq war definitely harmed the relationship, but the Obama administration did a lot to salvage it. Before 2016, and really until about 2020, I met several people who had either been or dreamed of going to the US. It was not uncommon for political parties to associate with American ones. Now, everyone I know caveats their wishes to go with a "I will wait until the situation improves. Any party with a positive view of Trump risks losing voters.
The people opposed to the US have historically been limited to extreme leftists (communists and the like), as well as refugees from the countries America invaded. With the second Trump administration, this opinion is now mainstream. The harm this administration has inflicted upon the American reputation is honestly ridiculous.
No, Obama being elected and having that all-important (D) after his name did a lot to salvage it. Obama bombed the shit out of brown people with the best of them.
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Precisely. Personally, reading this comment makes me want to ally with China. "Ha! I burned down your house! That'll teach you not to build with wood!" is not the kind of relationship with my hegemon that I want.
We are not burning your house down, but possibly we aren't going to put out the fire out of deference to you any more.
A month ago, Europe had an energy problem. Now, thanks to America going in without even the slightest thought for the rest of the world and setting fire to everything, we have a looming energy catastrophe.
OP is arguing that this is good, akshually. I think not. Nobody asked for this. Nobody wanted this. Even most Americans didn’t want this!
I am prepared to believe that America has a 50 year feud against Iran after the hostage crisis, but somebody who thoughtlessly gets in fights and wrecks all your stuff is not a good friend and him saying, “well, why’d you put your stuff there?,” afterwards will not make him so.
But Iran's wrecking your stuff. The US isn't mining the strait, Iran is. It turns out Iran thinks you're their enemy too!
If China bombed Pearl Harbor, and in response the US bombed the merchant ships of every nation in the Pacific regardless of where they were going or who they were selling to, you would say, "The US is not our friends here. The US is our enemy now." And act accordingly. You wouldn't blame China for the US's actions, especially if they had a half-decent reason to bomb Pearl Harbor (say we were in a fight over Taiwan or take-your-pick.)
Iran is telling you , "I am your enemy! I will do whatever is in my power to cause you pain!"
Europe's response is, "America, control Iran better!" When the response should be, "Oh geez, these Iran fellas are harming our interests. I should protect our national interests better."
America isn't going to keep the seas safe on its own. Other countries that like having a global ship trade need to step up and protect their interests on the waters.
When it comes right down to it, America is the one who went in and started killing people and blowing things up. Without consulting anyone, without giving a shit about the rest of the world, Trump just decided 'I'mma kill these guys now.' Months after he made noises about attacking Europe to steal Greenland.
In my lived experience as of this month, the safest thing for the seas is for America to stay far, far away from the Middle East, or at least to give Trump some sleepy pills.
It's not that I don't get what you're saying, it's just that this is after a barrage of contempt and thoughtlessness from America and I'm tired of being friends with the big aggressive guy who keeps getting into fights with the people who make the stuff my civilisation needs to stay alive. The massive cope that it's secretly some kind of 4D chess to teach us a lesson makes it 10x worse. If America were actually in really serious trouble as a result of outside aggression, we would do what we could to help our ally if asked, and I hope the reverse is also true. But right now Europe is in very serious difficulties, we need time and space to find the will and the means to recover, and being friends with America is giving us the opposite of that. I'm quite happy to kiss and make up with Iran, and I don't see what UK interests are threatened by that.
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Tangentially, "why do Americans build houses out of wood?" always seems like one of the perinneal Transatlantic questions.
Because there's so much of it, I guess, and you have enough room that houses can be spaced apart and fire doesn't spread. The Nordics and the Swiss do it too, in the countryside.
We do it in the suburbs as well. Almost all 1-2 story houses are made from wood once you get north of the Scania region, and I think it's something like 95% of Swedish single family homes are made from wood. A fairly recent developments has also seen non-negligible amount of new apartment buildings being constructed from wood as well. I
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Why do we build by water? It looks better. Why does having a pool or lake look good to humans? It was evolutionary advantage to develop instincts to like being near freshwater. Wood I am guessing we also evolved to like trees because it was easy to build with and make tools.
Also true. Humans like natural, fractal patterns. I'd like to make a 'living' ubuntu desktop where all your windows are carved in foliate / acanthus patterns.
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