npm is centralized to start with, so how is this a problem?

So much evidence to suggest this.

No reason to think there will be follow up investments or even follow up thoughts.

As the parent comment said, the Warsaw Pact countries pleaded to join. Even Russia wanted to join at one point. America did it for its own reasons? Good, they win and we win.

I live in one of the former soviet republics. We begged to join NATO because we experienced the joy of living under 50 years of russian occupation

For some reason I can’t reply to your next comment on nato forced on your country.

When I’m implying that nato has been pushed to former soviet countries I’m referring to the influence done by US to support different governments. In Ukraine revolution in 2014 has been greatly supported by US.

I’m in no way saying China, Russia or whatever country is acting better, I’m just saying nobody can be so naive to not understand that there is no ideal of freedom involved in any US action but only political/power interests.

I’m curious to see which freedom-related justification will be used for the future annexation of Greenland

I have already said that living under soviet would have been worst but that is not the point.

The point is: usa is acting not in the falsey mith of global freedom but only in the name of extending its power and influence.

In Venezuela they didn’t combat narcotraffic otherwise I must expect Italy (my country) invasion since we are the home of one of the greatest cancer in history: mafia.

Don’t drink the lie USA are fighting for freedom otherwise a lot of human lives will be sacrificed uselessly

I am only responding to the retarded take that NATO was forced on us.

How is NATO a mobster? It's a collection of countries that band together to protect each other.

The Ukraine invasion is what happens when you don't have that kind of support.

This is a very strange case of false equivalence. You might not like the US but that doesn't impact on the basic idea of NATO.

Nato is an extension of usa in the sense that even if it is a group of nations, in reality, it’s under usa command and influence since usa is its “major shareholder”.

The US provides a large amount of the military force so it has a lot of influence but you're missing the point: it is a mutual protection agreement. Each country agrees to protect the other against attacks. This would be the case even without the US. It is not under US command since it a cooperative organization that elects its own leader and everything it does is though mutual agreement.

But you didn't answer my question: how is NATO a mobster? Because the US is involved? Even if one accepts your anti-US view in this regard, how does that make the other countries in NATO mobsters? Guilt by association? Other NATO countries have shown to be quite independent from the US in recent history.

You misread my comment: when I referred to mobster I was talking about the US “liberating” other countries and not to NATO.

So this is the response to your question.

Anyhow NATO is still under US great influence so in a way or another is acting as an extension of US.

There is nothing bad in joining a coalition but please don’t tell me NATO is not acting as a branch of US when exercising US influence.

Now go back to the point: US liberated Venezuela, yes for sure and it didn’t do for oil or other political interests and it won’t force it’s interests upon those of Venezuelans nor it will put people in command that are neutral and are not puppets in the hands of the US…come on how can you believe the bullshit of war to export democracy and freedom, how?

I responded to your comment as written, you're adding more to it in this reply or importing earlier of your comments. I still disagree with your characterization of NATO.

The US invasion of Venezuela illegal under both US and international and just plain wrong.

I don't support it and never said I did, go through my comment history and check if you want to.

It would be fun to station a few French nukes on Greenland as a response :)

But probably the wise choice is doing nothing publicly. Behind the scenes stop buying US weapon systems.

That was different. There was an ultimatum, there was a coalition.

Yes, the recreational wars were dumb, wrong, illegal and just all around bad ideas.

But there was a solid attempt at giving them legitimacy. This matters.

You’re describing how Iraq was sold, not why it was justified.

Oh, I wouldn't want to justify it ;)

But the fact that it had to be sold was probably a good thing.

You forget that the cold war wasn't won by the US alone. But by the alliance systems which centered around the US.

The US is no longer a credible partner, and without coalition forces the recreational wars in the 2000s would have been a lot less "fun".

I'm not so sure you want a global order based on strength. You don't want small countries with little to loose arming do with nukes. But voting for it is suddenly very attractive.

That's interesting because the post-WWII Western alliance system at large is largely born of the US military and economic might: most of those countries were invaded by the US and then helped economically by the US. Obviously a commom adversary (the communists) helped but it was, and still is "led" by the US for a reason.

The global order is based on strength, both military and economic strength. I am just stating the obvious here.

Countries that joined NATO did so voluntarily. The pressure to join NATO was never from the US, it was always from Russia.

> The global order is based on strength,

To an extend yes, but small countries wouldn't be as eager or willing to play with the US, if the rules weren't largely followed.

And he was head of state? (retorical question).

What Trump just did is an act of war, undeclared and deceitful in every way.

It makes diplomacy much harder to do in the future. It makes the US untrustworthy.

> It makes the US untrustworthy.

That's explicitly been the case since 45 was elected a second time. Even if we get an adult in charge again, there is no guarantee of stability anymore with the way the population is.

Like who? Biden a puppet with dementia, Obama invading Libya and helping kill Gadaffi (and actually killing his family), as well as drone strikes on individuals in lots of middle eastern countries, Bush and Iraq/Afghanistan, Clinton and .. Iraq? but also war on drugs and Mexico border fence. Previous Bush - Iraq again?? Before that, South America again.

Biden became worse in the last year, but he wasn't a 'puppet', certainly not like the current president is. I'm not a fan of Obama's actions but he at least gave justification instead of inventing it and lying like Bush.

Kamala was the obvious choice and the only adult running in the last election, but she lost largely due to sexism, racism and gullibility of the red state population.

Assuming we get to have another election, we'd hopefully have someone like Bernie or Elizabeth Warren.

Democratic rejected Kamala resoundingly in the primaries, and then the Democratic leadership tried to force her down everyone's throat. That's on them, not the voters. They asked people to eat a sandwich some shit on it instead of a shit sandwich and not surprisingly voters weren't too enthused.

No, it's on the voters, 100%. A primary would have been messy. She may not have been everyone's first choice, but she was 100% the responsible choice. People screwed over the country out of spite, but that's 100% in line with how immature and uneducated the US population is. Not to mention bigoted in various ways.

Obviously she was not everyone's first choice. She was almost no one's first choice. Democrat voters let her know that when they only gave her ~7% support in the 2020 primaries. Maybe a messy primary that everyone feels a part of would have been better than a few leaders of the Democratic party attempting to anoint the next president. Maybe you think it was the responsible choice, but that certainly isn't what Obama thought in 2024, since he was pushing for open primaries before his hand was forced into endorsing Harris.

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren both performed significantly better than Harris did in the 2020 primaries. Maybe one of them would have been the responsible choice.

> Obviously she was not everyone's first choice. She was almost no one's first choice.

Right, but that's irrelevant. It doesn't matter that she wasn't the ideal choice, it only matters that she was so much significantly better than the alternative.

Clearly that was a miscalculation then. Maybe because when people vote, most people don't think "Who is better - Trump or Harris?", they think "Do I like my party's nominee?"

I agree, the problem is the voting population. Democracy doesn't work when you have such a petty ignorant population.

Bernie Sanders vs. Trump. That would have been interesting. Two populists, but also two geriatric white men. Trump would have the advantage of insults and better media savvy, but Bernie would have the advantage of not being Trump (and not being tied to Biden either).

As a kid I always hated it when parents/schools locked things down. Getting free of the parental controls becomes a game.

So I've never imagined myself wanting to do parental controls. But I might change my mind when my kid is old enough to play with screens.

We should just silently turn up support for Ukraine, that's where it hurts. Everything else is a distraction.

Scaring people, distraction, etc.

In the grand scheme, repairing the cables and supporting Ukraine will cost less and hurt Russia more than escalating tentions in the Baltic sea.