Comments by "Luredreier" (@Luredreier) on "All of Europe's Overlapping Security Alliances Explained - TLDR News" video.

Oil and gas just isn't readily available within European territory, except for in Russia. It's all outside or in the outskirts except for the north sea that we're already being exploited fully and past its peak. Our only way towards independence in that regard is to simply not need as much anymore by switching to renewables, something that we're already doing as fast as we can. As for military independence... We've had a lot of wars on our continent in the past, and it has caused a lot of suffering. As a result we're rather war weary by now, it's deeply ingrained culturally in most of Europe. Just like it is in Japan. Getting our militaries back up and running is going to take time. And in any case they're oriented towards defense and to compliment other European forces and NATO forces rather than intended to really work all that well alone. Especially when fighting outside of Europe. Most European nations have given up on long distance power projection a long time ago. France operates in northern Africa etc and still have some limited capability to fight far away from home. The UK used to have that too, but they're reforming their forces so their remote power projection is somewhat limited right now, although that should return back to normal with time. Germany basically doesn't have a functional military. Countries that border Russia do but it's rarely even close to enough to actually defend against Russia. Ukraine was probably the nation most capable of defending against Russia. With the invasion Europe is building up again. And we're probably going to help out in Asia too with time. But like I said, it's going to take time to rebuild.
2
@demoniack81 If we are to reach the climate goals then building and starting up nuclear power plants takes too long, even restarting old ones takes too long. It's also way, way, way too expensive. Nuclear power plants might produce a lot of power, but it's just not economically viable anymore without heavy subsidized, and they're not compatible with a energy grid that's compatible with a large renewable power share, because it's a base load that can't easily be switched on or off.
2
@echidnanatsuki882 Thanks. But yeah, we're not going to be self sufficient when it comes to resources or militaries anytime soon. It's also incompatible with the ideology of modern Europeans. We honestly don't want to be "independent". Rather we'd prefer to cooperate with other nations economically, politically and militarily. Yes, we do need to improve our own long distance power projection capabilities somewhat, do we actually can cooperate with others in that regard and offer something in return for the military help. Till now it has been economic help. We've essentially subsidized the Dollar. Helping the US afford it's gigantic military, among other things in return for Pax Americana.
2
@obrnenydrevokocur9344 It's not senseless to contain China. The thing is that Historically China has been the Dominant power in the world, and modern times where Europe is more powerful is honestly a kind of outlier. The US is currently powerful enough to support a world order where we all live in Democracies, even if their own has plenty of flaws. B6they are getting replaced. And in the surroundings of China they have everything they'll need to take all of the world eventually. Personally I'd rather have the US replaced by another democracy then whatever we should call China... I'd support India if it wasn't for their issues with Hindu nationalism and a first past the post electoral system. A India with proportional representation and more balance between the parties could be something we in Europe could work with as a good potential future superpower. We've managed to have a working relationship with the US for all these years and Britain before them. India shouldn't be too hard. And a fully Democratic India could be a good counter to China that will remain a great power even if we support India and try to contain China. Eventually one of them will come out enough on top of the other to start impacting the rest of the world more. I don't know... Honestly given the recent developments I'm starting to lean more towards supporting Indonesia to see if they can balance things out a bit, but they're just not as well positioned to counter China as India is... Anyway, don't underestimate China. Having that many people means that their creativity will beat ours if not checked somehow. Something it definitely has been for centuries. And unlike India with their constant drive towards decentralization China has the potential to unify all of that into one purpose, defeating us... Russia is pussycats compared to China...
2
@demoniack81 You're making several assumptions there that's just wrong. The process of getting a nuclear power plant up and running involves a lot more than just building the plant itself. You need a mine that's mining the fuel itself (unlike nuclear power plants these can't be made safe for the surrounding environment and the people there, so they've been closed down rapidly with the fall in demand and increasing hostility towards them, so supply isn't what it was in the eighties. Even if you get a mine willing to sell to you there's the issue of transporting fuel into and waste out from the plant from the mine and to the disposal site. That's a logistical nightmare that takes years to set up in a democracy because people there have a right to be involved in the process of what happens near them. Then there's the complete lack of people willing to invest in or insure nuclear power plants. As it turns out that when you factor in the costs of dealing with the waste products and decommissioning a nuclear power plant isn't profitable anymore as these easily outstrip the income generated in its lifetime, because nuclear waste while technically does become safe one day in practical terms never does so and remains a permanent cost from the day of their creation, long after the plant has shut down and no longer generate power. In the eighties it was possible to get fuel and store waste and get financing where these concerns didn't need to be factored in as costs, in today's world companies and goverments are held responsible and that kind of behavior is no longer possible. Getting past all of that and setting it all up as well as just training the engineers needed and qualified to run a power plant safely takes time. The ones that used to run them have retired. And while the fifties where seen as the age of nuclear power when a lot of people studied the field there's a shortage of qualified engineers now. Training people in the field takes time. Time we don't have. Technically we're already too late to avoid irreparably damaging our planet and causing huge amounts of suffering. It takes time for the damage we've already caused to move through the system of our Earth climate and even if we produced 0 new CO2 and even started removing was one from the atmosphere the effects of climate change would continue to get worse for many years to come, especially when you factor in feedback loops and Earth running out of one of the major stabilizing factors that held climate change from impacting us much in the nineties (the sea floor used to be full of alkaline substances that helped neutralize some of the acidity then, that's practically all gone now). So, no, we don't have time for this. Also the very concept of a base load that traditional power grids built on is a problem for renewables. And sure, you can disconnect a powerplant from the grid, but all that does is making them even more uneconomical. And they still need power for the cooling etc. And nuclear fuel being radioactive can't just sit there unused without degrading in quality. So nuclear power ends up always being a base power that other sources has to come on top off. Works great with coal, gas etc that can be turned on and off as needed. Works poorly with renewables that needs a system where power is distributed over much larger areas from much larger areas, where customers themselves will produce power at times completely and utterly outside the control of the electricity companies destroying the very concept of base load, where power production will exceed what's needed but actually be stored for sale when prices are higher (something that requires them to sometimes *get higher) again a base load is problematic. And if you have the energy production of a powerplant it ensures a constant amount of power in the market that discourages investment in other power generation at a industrial scale (customers will still do it) meaning that power prices will be too low for building of large scale renewable power, and continued CO2 production from nuclear fuel mines, fuel and waste transportation etc. All of this ignores nuclear accidents, terrorism, wars faught on ground powered by nuclear power like Ukraine right now. Russian forces only recently retreated from around Chernobyl, and when they took the Chernobyland other nuclear sites they where shelling them. You can't build a nuclear power plant immune to the ingenuity of humans that wants to cause damage. They can be as smart or smarter then the engineers and others that got the powerplant and the surrounding systems (fuel mining and refining, waste management, transportation, security etc) up and running to begin with. And there's always people who don't care about the suffering of others. Putin being a example here... Basically, we don't live in the eighties anymore.
1
@obrnenydrevokocur9344 Sorry? What comment are you replying to?
1