[microcolonel]

> People like to paint enemies of the east while essentially letting the west get away with much more heinous stuff.

> It is clearly a double standard. But the answer is to hold the US to account. Not bring more of this hostile crap in.

I mean, I think it's the nature of things like this that they are justifiable but not pleasant to suffer from. This is weaponry, not poetry; if theirs is better we suffer, that's it.

[dijit]

Even if you're right it is not perceived that way.

It's akin to economic dependence. The thought of Europe depending on Russia (or the USA) for energy/electricity is unfathomable, yet we allow the US in particular to be the "holder" of an enormous part of our economy. IT is literally used by every industry and in some cases is very central to it. (IE; power stations make heavy use of automation and computers with CPU's and Operating Systems living at the very heart of that.)

It's troubling that we don't do more to offset this, especially if you're right, and holding this industry is a weapon of sorts.

[YUMad]

Europe does depend on Russia for energy, at least in winter.

[dijit]

In natural gas; https://www.forbes.com/sites/annalisagirardi/2018/12/12/grow...

However there is no strong dependence: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2018/07/19/how-depe...

tl;dr: 23% of German power comes from gas; that 35% of that gas comes from Russia. That's a power dependency of roughly 8%.

Personally I don't think that's the same as being held entirely captive by a monopoly country as is the case when it comes to IT.

But, it's a fair point, I'll take it. Replacing 8% of a countries energy input would be difficult, but I would argue that it's not impossible.

[YUMad]

> In natural gas; https://www.forbes.com/sites/annalisagirardi/2018/12/12/grow....

> However there is no strong dependence: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2018/07/19/how-depe....

> tl;dr: 23% of German power comes from gas; that 35% of that gas comes from Russia. That's a power dependency of roughly 8%.

> Personally I don't think that's the same as being held entirely captive by a monopoly country as is the case when it comes to IT.

> But, it's a fair point, I'll take it.

Dependence used to be worse, this is result of efforts to lower it because Russia was using it as a blackmail tool.

But I'm just nitpicking anyway, it's not the actual topic.

[dijit]

>But I'm just nitpicking anyway, it's not the actual topic.

Maybe not, but it's a very good point.

We used to have a reliance on Russia but due to poor behaviour we took steps to remove their power.

I believe we should do that again with technology in regards to the USA.