[collabs]

I saw a YouTube short video recently that claimed something that might seem obvious to many but not to me — it claimed then Prime Minister of UK and the President of France were displeased by the reunification of Germany because their own countries' relative status would go down. Is this really how people think?

Is this how our allies think?

[1-more]

> Is this how our allies think?

The old quip about NATO is that its purpose was to keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down. I don't know how much that really reflected elite sentiment or not.

EDIT: well it was coined by the first Secretary General of NATO so make of that what you will https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hastings_Ismay

[dotancohen]

Interestingly, I see now that the Wikipedia article mentions that this famous quip was made three years before he was Secretary General.

Did NATO not have a Secretary General for the first three years? And what does that say of the organization that elected the guy who said this as their first SG?

[stkdump]

Yes, France had the idea to weaken Germany in exchange by forcing it off the D-Mark. A move that unexpectedly had the opposite effect and further strengthened Germany's economy.

In post war Germany the sentiment of relative status compared to our allies in the most powerful people was mostly gone. You can expect as we move more towards the right, and WW2 gets more and more forgotten, it will come back.

[dotancohen]

The intended effect of having economically-strong Germany subsidize the poorer European states (e.g. Greece) definitely succeeded. Or at least the Greeks think so. But nobody expected that it would also strengthen the German economy to more than make up for that.

[UncleSlacky]

I don't think it was concern about relative status, more the risk that a reunited Germany could once again become a significant economic/military power that could threaten the stability of Europe.

[rrr_oh_man]

I love reading historical documents, and this is how people have been thinking for as long as there is recorded history.

[vrganj]

Why do you think the Trump admin is so set on sabotaging the EU?

They even put it into their National Security Strategy: https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2025/12/make-europe-great-...

[thaumasiotes]

Did you miss all the explicit American messaging about "we need to keep China down, or else it might surpass us"?

[wiseowise]

> I saw a YouTube short video recently

You could’ve stopped there.

[RobotToaster]

It's how the psychopaths in charge think