@hanse_mina Europe doesn't need or especially want uberpowerul military corporations. German gov't or the EU should place competitive orders for designs and then distribute manufacturing across partners in Europe.

They should keep the crucial software, IP and circuits manufactured under separate high security arrangements of course.

The original developers would still get licensing fees, but right now volume is the key. Supposing we're watching Ukraine getting relentlessly hit every day and learning from their suffering.

World's democracies condemned the crackdown in Hong Kong, but did nothing to impose costs on the CCP dictatorship. Instead business (read: Chinese exports) only grew and grew. Gotta empower them despots! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Hong Kong's pro-democracy struggle presented an opportunity for democracies to stand up against dictatorship, but we failed miserably.

Giving the #CCP yet another free pass (after its repressive occupation of Tibet in 1950-1951 and the 1989 Tiananmen massacre) surely emboldened #putin to invade #Ukraine in 2022.

Repression of Tibetans, Uighurs, South-Mongolians, Hongkongers... or a billion+ voiceless Chinese brought no consequences, but at least the invasion of *European* Ukraine gave us Europeans a limited wakeup.

It's not enough. We could have aided developing democracies when the Soviet empire fell in 1989-1991 and *not aided* repressive regimes. Instead we doubled down on doing business without limits and empowered the likes of Chinese dictatorship.

There are things I love about Europe, and things I am deeply ashamed of. Talking about human rights while empowering despots belongs in the latter category.

Some foreign individuals did "Stand with Hong Kong" though. At least one here in Mastodon is, as always, still busy fighting authoritarian takeover. Now in her homeland of the USA.

“Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.“
— Nelson Mandela

@EUCommission A good way of boosting security is not empowering hostile regimes through trade and technology transfer in the first place.

Imagine if all developed democracies had decided to support developing *democracies* through aid and mutually beneficial trade since say 1990 onwards. We'd now have a large community of democracies instead of the revanchist imperial dictatorships like Russia and China which we built up in their place. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@AliceStollmeyer @anneapplebaum This might be the first time that I must politely disagree with @anneapplebaum. Pacifism in itself isn't the problem here, but the absolutist version of it advocating for total surrender.

I'm a (peacetime) pacifist who believes (believed?) not only in credible *deterrence* in military terms but also in holistic *avoidance*.

I have advocated against empowering dictatorships through business, normalization and appeasement (without credible actions towards democracy and human rights) since the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. First over the bonkers and near instantaneous rehabilitation of the CCP-ruled China out of sheer greed, and in the 2000's the revisionist putin regime which noted how the CCP got away with murder without consequences because *business and greed dictated policy in democracies*.

Our democracies had a pacifist way forward after the Cold War: Support developing democracies with trade and aid while targeting repressive regimes with punitive tariffs (yes the could be used for good!) and technology embargoes.

Instead of a strong global alliance of democracies we now have military-expansionist and revanchist China and Russia using all their wealth, power and guile to subvert those still-struggling democracies to the dark side. And not only that, they're trying to disrupt and fragment our once-powerful developed democracies as well! (Hello russian influence on the trump regime!)

The era of potential pacifist deterrence ended in February 2022 and we're *still funding* those hostile regimes.

(Anne's piece was posted on the fundamentally anti-democratic substack site so I steered clear )

...and I was just watching the Fallout series last night
-----
Following #Britain’s withdrawal from the #EuropeanUnion, #France is the only member of the bloc to possess its own nuclear weapons.

#Russia’s invasion of #Ukraine and the possible return of the isolationist #DonaldTrump as US president has given new life to calls for greater #EuropeanDefence autonomy. #EU

#Macron ready to 'open debate' on nuclear European defence
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20240427-macron-ready-to-open-debate-on-nuclear-european-defence