[correcthorse123]

I'm so glad your government is helping to keep us safe!

To express my gratitude I'll help boost your economy with some ad revenue today and aid the good fight. The profits should trickle down to you eventually.

On a more serious note, I think (possibly in my naive ignorance) the geopolitical implications are quite different. I have the impression that American cultural influence has become increasingly prevalent throughout Europe, since of course WO2 and especially since the dawn of the internet. A non-negligible part reads and writes more English than their native language, and the majority consumes mostly US media; for entertainment at least [citation needed].

This is one of many reasons leading me to believe that US-EU interests and popular opinions are even more aligned relative to other potential geopolitical/economical US "adversaries" than is obvious already (modulo the rep hit from the last 4 years). This may be only tangentially related to what you're saying, but I wonder whether the degree of spying on European countries and vice-versa is more of a low-profile intel maintenance thing as opposed to full-blown strategic warfare. I.e. I'm not sure to what extent I should consider this to be problematic.

[allendoerfer]

> I'm not sure to what extent I should consider this to be problematic.

Okay, I'll help you: By doing this shit, the US is losing goodwill and Germans will align more with Russia, e.g. by building pipelines instead of buying US gas.

Russia is a long-term threat to the expansion plans of the EU and is hindering us at creating a true union across all of Europe.

The US is a threat to our economy. China is becoming our biggest economic partner. We cannot trust them, but by doing shit like this, the US shows time and time again, that we cannot trust them either.

China and Russia are ultimately not to blame for the big migration crisis caused by ISIS filling the power vacuum left behind in Iraq and Syria. This is causing real consequences for us over here.

So Germany is more and more pushed towards aligning with Russia and China. Of course culturally we are much closer to the US. We condemn what these countries do to their own people. But in the end unfortunately, the US is stupid enough to make itself look worse and worse, when it comes to outcomes for our own people.

This cannot be what the US wants. Once you have fully lost Germany, you are basically done in Europe and can go look East and see if you can hold on to Korea, Japan and Australia.

I think, it would be much easier for the US to stop doing shit like this and keep the countries, which already kind of think like you, and would want you to stay number 1.

[tored]

Syria civil war was a CIA operation to oust Bashar al-Assad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore

Libya civil war also probably CIA. And then you have Iraq.

These wars created multiple migration crises to Europe.

And not only that, by funding and training rebels in Syria it lead to a hotbed for terrorist, some of these terrorist slipped into Europe and committed terrorist attacks, like the Paris 2015 attacks (130 murdered).

[oezi]

If it was, it certainly was a failed CIA operation.

No but honestly: while the US had some interest with the Kurds, they didn't engage to cause the Syrian civil war nor did they were able to stop Russia from gaining influence.

And I am not really sure if your mixing up ISIS supporters in your narrative. I haven't heard that they were links to the CIA for any terror in Europe connected to Syria.

[tored]

CIA trained and funded rebel groups, some ended up fighting alongside Al-Nusra (Al-Qaida in Syria). US weapons also ended up with Al-Nusra. In the same way there where islamist rebel groups in Libyan civil war (LIFG) and CIA did clandestine operations during that time too with different rebel groups.

And every US bombing campaign against the Syra regime de facto helped ISIL/ISIS.

Turkey, a NATO member, trained their own rebel groups and also made sure to have allow every jihadi to pass into Syria. Turkey is strongly anti-kurd. (Parts of this jihadi militia was this year sent to Azerbaijan by Turkey to fight against the Christian Armenians)

It is almost impossible for us outsiders to know what rebel group fought with what group and what objectives CIA actually had, however just the fact that US helped create a terrorist hotbed in Syria, together with a NATO ally, which in turn lead to terrorist attacks in Europe. Or the terrorist hotbed that was sprung up in Libya after the fall of Gaddafi.

Depending on the level of trust you have for American intelligence services you could either say that because of unintended consequences it resulted in terrorist attacks due to incompetent management or that working with the enemy of my enemy is part of their tactics and collateral damage is part of the game.

On the surface it looks like a failure for CIA because Bashar al-Assad is still in power, however it was not a failure for the coalition behind US/CIA, like Israel and Saudi Arabia, e.g. Israel has now permanently annexed the Golan Heights from Syria. Syria war was proxy war against Iran, which is an ongoing conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, see the Yemen war.

[jacquesm]

> If it was, it certainly was a failed CIA operation.

That's not rare at all. See also: IS, Al Quaeda, vast swaths of Africa (which are now being ceded to the Chinese) and Latin America. The world is littered with failed CIA plots, and the fall-out of those will last for decades.

[tored]

With multicultural societies who knows what the sum of cultural alignments ends up as, combined with shallow consumer culture, where anything can align to anything as long it has a cheap price tag and a nice packaging, US-Europe cultural alignment will be in the near future a thing of the past.

[correcthorse123]

Alright thanks, it sounds like being reasonably worrisome if what you say reflects what's going on. I feel like I don't have the faintest clue as to how these things actually affect geopolitical dynamics though, so I find it hard to evaluate stuff like this.

[m00dy]

You forgot to mention Turkey

[drran]

Who pushed Schröder to work with Gasprom and lobby Nord Stream 2? Russia started the war with Ukraine to help Nord Stream and Gasprom by capturing of Ukrainian natural gas fields, so Schröder is partially responsible for that.

[ClumsyPilot]

"I have the impression that American cultural influence has become increasingly prevalent throughout Europe"

I am failing to see the relevance of this - shared culture does not mean shared interests or shared benefits, the world is full of conflicts between states with shared culture, see Russia and Ukraine.

[correcthorse123]

Yes. I don't think it is significantly relevant either in hindsight.

[Stranger43]

I think you like most American's and Brit's overestimate how big of an influence it have that English have become the international common language by underestimating how much of that culture and language have been internalized as an European thing that is no longer owned/controlled/dominated by AngloAmerican interest.

In terms of cultural sympathies the internet have opened the door for the European public to understand and pick sides in the internal debates that happens inside of America which further limits the influence the American state/establishment have on European public opinion, and the general disgust most Americans feel for Washington is shared across the pond where it gets amplified by the fact that Europe's geopolitical interests is radically different from the dominant neocon/neoliberal agenda's that dominate Washington policy making.