[kbenson]

I don't think they were equating the US to North Korea (where is China mentioned?), but saying that since the US can no longer be relies on for protection (instead of the sheriff we're at best the anti-hero that will maybe protect you if there's something in it for us). This means countries need to put up a stronger front themselves since there's no larger stabilizing force to rely on.

It's interesting, because I'm sure Trump and Musk take advantage of the benefits that the regulated market provide (even when they just ignore it to their benefit because most others don't), but I'm not sure they've really considered what it means when that stability and security is gone, in more than a "I'm the biggest so I'll be okay" type of sense. There's a lot of positive externalities from that stability that maybe they are discounting too much (such as a relatively peaceful world, since it's been a while since we had a World War).

[cvwright]

Agreed that stability is super important.

So much so in fact that you’d think more rich countries would help pay to maintain it.

But yet here we are…

[simonh]

Bear in mind that after WW2 the US didn’t want European countries arming up too much, and was quite happy to pick up the slack and set the pace. Eisenhower in particular was pretty clear he didn’t want a heavily armed Germany or Italy, for reasons that should be obvious, and was Dubious about France. It was the US that wrote the heavily pacifist Japanese constitution.

[NicoJuicy]

US didn't want other countries to have a large military ( which includes nuclear with a Russian neighbour) power.

Germany didn't want that role too, as one of the biggest economies in Europe, because of... History.

Germany just enabled 1 trillion in spending for the military. That's historical

1,7 trillion of the Norway fund will be enabled ( partially ofc), that's entire Russia's GDP alone.