[jacquesm]

I think when you start to threaten your former allies by wanting to attack/invade them you probably should be dinged in the trust department for that.

The same goes for when you try to strongarm a country into fabricating evidence to shore up your lies.

The USA was an ally in 1945 and has since steadily eroded that. In 2001 they briefly regained a lot of sympathy but squandered it just as fast and now we're at low tide. And I wonder how much lower it will go before people with common sense will be back at the helm and reparation of the relationship can begin, but I don't expect the aftershocks of this to be gone quickly.

And no, help was not offered '90% of the time'. Most of the time it was just business in disguise, altruism did not factor into it as far as I can see.

[pedroma]

Would you say we're worse than China these days (if so, what % of the time did China help Ukraine in the conflict)?

[Quarrelsome]

I would suggest that China are currently a more reliable partner than the US because of their predictability, given that I cannot be sure whether or not this statement alone might result in a change of tariffs for my nation at the whim of America's king. I'm still looking for congress in all of this (did they ever even approve this war in Iran?!?) but idk if the republic is a thing anymore or not.

[pedroma]

Yeah I can see that. The other poster is right about it being multi-faceted. My question is intentionally somewhat provocative. It forces someone to pick between two bad options, and I always gain respect for people who decide to pick one instead of intentionally avoiding it and just saying "oh they're both bad, idk".

[Quarrelsome]

hopefully this will all start to settle down around the end of this year if congress gets its teeth back and hopefully by the end of 2028. If it doesn't.... well then I despair, as the world I once knew is over.

Already within the subreddits of my nation there is an increasingly dismissive attitude to the historic alliances that kept us safe for around the last hundred years and I can't blame them. Especially if Hormuz remains blocked and the US just walks away leaving this pile of sick of its own creation on the floor. I imagine a new rather loose coalition might rise of such a status quo and its possible that China becomes a major player in that, given its likely desire as a major manufacturer to keep trade open and shipping flowing, which is the opposite of what the US has been doing since 2025.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> It forces someone to pick between two bad options, and I always gain respect for people who decide to pick one instead of intentionally avoiding it

IDK, if someone sees that a question is bullshit and refuses to play along with it, you lose respect for them? This is not a heuristic that will help you in life.

[jacquesm]

Both China and the USA have made many moves that benefit Putin. I would say neither party is a friend of Ukraine. China plays its own long games and the USA is being run by madmen. Why do I have to prefer one over the other? I don't like the way either is behaving on the world stage, and each for different reasons.

[pedroma]

>Why do I have to prefer one over the other? I don't like the way either is behaving on the world stage, and each for different reasons.

This is the perfect encapsulation of what I mean in my original response to you. This IS the popular European sentiment. And this is what is off-putting to many Americans. The weight of China and the US is not even worth preference, despite the US having contributed positively to the Ukrainian conflict and European defense. We are not even WORTHY of being placed above China, we're either just as bad or worse is the typical response I see.

[jacquesm]

You seem to be completely out of touch with the way the USA has been behaving towards the EU as of late, maybe get with the times and then report back.

Last I checked China hasn't threatened to take over either Canada or Greenland, has not started any major wars for which they expect the EU to pay for cleaning up their mess, has reasonably sane leadership and on top of that has been a fairly trustworthy business partner that does not engage in whim driven economic warfare. They also have a bunch of very dark sides that I am going to assume we are all familiar with.

I really wonder why you think that the USA should be given a free pass for what it has done in the last decade.

And that's before we get into human rights issues and other 'details'. Comparing yourself to China is not the flex you think it is.

Your bio says that "Farming negative karma is not trolling when you're expressing your honest views." and that's all fine, you have a right to your honest views but if they're indistinguishable from trolling to the point that you feel you need to pre-empt that classification then maybe HN is not the place for you?

[SideburnsOfDoom]

I think that one of the reasons for this "popular European sentiment" is the purely emotional one - it's emotionally more affecting when someone who was a close friend starts behaving badly towards you, than when someone who was a colleague with no close relationship remains thus.

The the popular European sentiment is understandable and IMHO correct though. Saying "it's off-putting" is no in way a coherent argument that it's wrong.

[jacquesm]

Indeed, it is breaking trust.

[watwut]

Europe has oil crisis right now because of an illegal war USA started, not because of China. Also, China did not locked accounts of international court justices, it was USA.

One of these two countries is an unpredictable threat and danger right now. The other is predictable threat in the future.

[u8080]

>illegal war

LOL

[watwut]

Yes, international law exists and this war is illegal. Simple as that.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> This IS the popular European sentiment. And this is what is off-putting to many Americans.

You're not saying that it's wrong though. Just that you don't like it. So what, that means nothing. It's not wrong. Rejecting reality because it's "off-putting" will not help you.

[pedroma]

The reply chain got too long so I will respond here.

>You seem to be completely out of touch with the way the USA has been behaving towards the EU as of late, maybe get with the times and then report back. Last I checked China hasn't threatened to take over either Canada or Greenland, has not started any major wars for which they expect the EU to pay for cleaning up their mess, has reasonably sane leadership and on top of that has been a fairly trustworthy business partner that does not engage in whim driven economic warfare. They also have a bunch of very dark sides that I am going to assume we are all familiar with.

I'm aware of everything you've said. What I've noticed is Europeans just like to bash on the US given any reason. My original point is (proven by the exact quote of your words) that this type of European sentiment is accelerating a two-sided voluntary parting. Nothing much more than that. I am not defending the US's actions.

>Comparing yourself to China is not the flex you think it is.

Once again you are proving my point. Europeans are typically not willing to place the US above China. Any attempt to get them to do so will provoke this type of response.

>Your bio says that "Farming negative karma is not trolling when you're expressing your honest views." and that's all fine, you have a right to your honest views but if they're indistinguishable from trolling to the point that you feel you need to pre-empt that classification then maybe HN is not the place for you?

Calling me a troll is just an attack on me and not my argument. That's ok though, no offense taken. The bio is provocation for people who dig into people's profiles. I don't like to do that. I just take the person's posts as is.

[jacquesm]

> Europeans are typically not willing to place the US above China.

This is not a scalar, it is a multi-dimensional array with tons of values that all individually can be ranked. One some of these the USA is better than China on others it is definitely not. You may want to collapse that all to a single 'but we're better' picture but that is just not how the world works.

> The bio is provocation for people who dig into people's profiles. I don't like to do that. I just take the person's posts as is.

And that's not true either because you clearly checked my account upthread to link it to Europe.

[pedroma]

>This is not a scalar, it is a multi-dimensional array with tons of values that all individually can be ranked. One some of these the USA is better than China on others it is definitely not. You may want to collapse that all to a single 'but we're better' picture but that is just not how the world works.

This is correct... and like I said the common European sentiment. I think we've exhausted this dialogue. We're restating the same things in more words.

>And that's not true either because you clearly checked my account upthread to link it to Europe.

Your post I originally responded to says "Should have worn a suit." and also mentions Europe and Ukraine. That's basically the entire context of our back and forth. If you have many other posts about the US and Europe's relationship... well I have no knowledge of those posts.

[ImPostingOnHN]

> This is correct... and like I said the common European sentiment

It's actually the common *global* "sentiment", in that it is the natural conclusion of any rational actor regardless of location, and also in that most of the world feels this way.

Europe has nothing to do with it – all the countries being slighted by the USA, including non-European ones, are coming to grips with the same conclusion: the USA can no longer be relied upon*.

* – except when israel asks

[ImPostingOnHN]

> Europeans are typically not willing to place the US above China.

You keep saying this as if it's not a totally reasonable position given the behavior of the USA towards others over the past year or so.

[pedroma]

The other poster mentioned the opinions about the US and China being multi-faceted, I like to see it with vectors. My question is, given all the vectors, can you provide an average magnitude and average direction of the vector? If the average vector points left the opinion favors China, if it points right the opinion favors the US.

The American point of view is, yes we did make a claim towards Greenland which is European territory, but we also helped with European security. These are two separate vectors, right? Now average them. And plot China's vectors. I imagine the vectors China produces is much lower in magnitude, and as such provokes a lower emotional response in terms of opinions.

[ImPostingOnHN]

> My question is, given all the vectors, can you provide an average magnitude and average direction of the vector?

It's an interesting question! Since you seem to have your finger on the pulse of Europeans, I'll toss it back your way to answer (with data, of course).

> yes we did make a claim towards Greenland which is European territory, but we also helped with European security.

"Yes, we did threaten to invade a sovereign European country for territorial conquest, but we also did good things in the past" is really weak. How has the US helped Europe's security over the last year?

Most of the work in that direction over several decades is being intentionally destroyed as of late by the USA's ruler as a signature policy position of his. We all understand that past performance is not a guarantee of future results, right? What happened recently outweighs what happened previously.