Some people in the US deride it's close allies as "freeloaders" because they choose to use and buy US tech, reinforcing the US's position as a global powerhouse. (Meanwhile US tech is built on the shoulders of their allies.) Now we see these same allies are starting to look inward and invest in technology they own completely because the US is acting decisively not like an ally. Something unthinkable since WW2.
I don't see this news as anything but a good thing. For every technology out there, the EU needs a native alternative. It's clear the current US administration wants to make the EU worse based on a politics of grievance.
I agree, this is a good thing. Long term stable large contracts are great simulation for a market. Airbus obviously has a large amount of military work, and its data needs to stay in Europe.
What we also need is a faster acceleration of military spending so this can happen with more companies.
> thing. Long term stable large contracts are great simulation for a market.
They are not. It can hurt Airbus very much if a provider says they can provide a certain level of hardware/software for 10 years and in three years the RAM or storage goes through the roof and the provider is not big enough to absorb all the losses.
People don’t choose the hyperscalers because they are based in the US, they choose them because they are too big to fail and have pretty much unlimited resources and have multiplr streams of revenue.
Airbus is ~30% government owned by France/Germany/Spain and others. It is funded both as a private business and as a European "champion" to compete with Boeing.
It is also likely to get the majority of the European civil, commercial, and military orders now.
There is no reason why Europe can't build a hyperscalar cloud service. The skills and the software and hardware are all transferrable technology.
European defence budgets are being ramped up, spending some billions on data centres and comms is a no-brainer as part of that.
European governments contracting to a European cloud provider would be more than enough to fund the provisioning.
I would expect a contract review for millions in hosting to review how the company will mitigate those costs. Normally you would expect them to contract away the risk themselves. In fact the current rise in RAM costs is due to exactly this, big hosters contracting for long term RAM certainty.
There's a futures market for RAM prices if you want to hedge that risk. No different than corn.
> There's a futures market for RAM prices if you want to hedge that risk. No different than corn.
Yeah, and that's a fine vehicle for insuring against this risk for a finance company or for an individual.
I am prepared to be wrong on the following take (as it is based on nothing more than just "it came to me in a dream"), but my hunch is that neither Airbus nor the EU state governments are currently even attempting to hedge the RAM price risk by accumulating a RAM futures stash on the market.
Of course it's a good thing. It's an excellent thing. Is there any European company or individual arguing otherwise?
Country of Ukraine? Those suckers who bought F-35s or at least paid for them? And few other cases.
Long term, I agree with you.
What's the problem with F-35s? Israel actively uses them and appears to be very happy. They provided them advantage no one platform could.
> What's the problem with F-35s?
They will not be very useful in a conflict against the US, since the US can basically disable them remotely.
The problem is about politic, not F35s capabilities: US is a strong ally of Israel but many don't feel the same in Europe.
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> Almost all computer equipment companies are from US.
Made in a few Asian countries. I think it's kind of funny reading the contents of your post and how it ignores Asia, that's actually behind most of it. How much of a Dell PC is US-American?
> > Almost all computer equipment companies are from US. > Made in a few Asian countries.
Using European technology (ASML).
Was it laziness and stupidity, or was it protection money. I thought the deal since WW2 was a US security guarantee, in return for letting the US have our money. A protection racket. Or perhaps it was more like Europe paying tribute to its colonial master.
Anyhow it is clear the protection is not to be relied upon, so it is time to stop paying. It is dangerous making deals with gangsters. It is perhaps more dangerous to change the deal. But when the protection is not there, it is time to build strength.
Well done to France for maintaining its independent nuclear deterrent through this era. Britain made a mistake letting that go
> I thought the deal since WW2 was a US security guarantee, in return for letting the US have our money
No. The Marshall Plan was about rebuilding Europe so it could be a military ally against the Soviet Union. The trade stuff came afterwards.
Was the Marshall plan the only piece of policy between the US and Europe since WW2?
> Was the Marshall plan the only piece of policy between the US and Europe since WW2?
What do you think.
>Britain made a mistake letting that go
https://thebulletin.org/premium/2024-11/united-kingdom-nucle...
It is not clear what point you are trying to make?
That Britain has a nuclear deterrent.
Wait so the US is supposed to provide security at no cost forever? Are you talking about NATO or something else? The only thing I see a problem is all countries paying the same rate to be in NATO.
The cost is us buying their stuff instead of building our own.
Wouldnt say its laziness.
The US has a long history of funding the Silicon Valley expansion using Darpa and other federal agencies for example.
Europe never had such a thing, and they had a fragmented market for a long time.
The big money is in the US, thats why the talent goes there.
And where would Silicon Valley be without CERN, that created the www?
Silicon valley has its origins with HP and Intel, producing hardware and chips.
Yes, the www was created at Cern, but this is only a small part of the whole tech industry and history as a whole.
Also before that, Arpanet, the precursor of the Internet, was created and funded in the US by the military and the top unis.
This trope with CERN/EU created the WWW is just chauvinism. That contribution to the internet is just infinitesimal small. Just stop repeating it as it was the cornerstone of today’s world.
Is just one little stone in a gigantic castle made in the united states. I’m European, and I think is just silly to look who “invented” each thing, trying to feel patriotic about that. Every invention is based on other inventions, research, ideas and necessities around the world. Trying to put flags on it, is just stupid.
Is the castle made in the US? Why cut it off at precisely that point?
Where was binary logic invented? Where was boolean algebra invented? Where was the turing machine invented?
Hell, we can go back even further. Where would any of this be without Aristotle?
Of course, this castle has been built by many many stones. But I think it's fair to say most stones came from Europe.
Could be, but so what?
The fact is the US and China are steamrolling us with their IT companies since decades.
We need to wake up and do it ourselves.
>> Is the castle made in the US? Why cut it off at precisely that point?
Because I was talking about this “internet was invented in CERN”, which is just not a little bit true
About the rest: So what?! Thanks Thanks Europe and Europeans!! We just killed 6 Mio. Judes and burned people in the middle ages… but wait. We invented the Web!!! And we can forget everything that came from Asia and middle East also. All is our merit!!! Again, my point is it is stupid to say some country invented X.
What kind of cheap chauvinism is that? Please give me a break. Many things where invented everywhere in the world, and I could not care less, because that will not make me better or worse because of being part of a country which borders were defined not 100 years ago.
The starting point of this thread in HN is about starting to develop some kind of digital independence, because frankly, the EU may have GDPR, but in everything else is much worse and stuck like 5 decades ago.
Everyone knows Al Gore invented the internet.
Your words are displaying the mindset that is the main driving force behind the currently ongoing decline of the American empire. Incredible hubris paired with ignorance and a lack of self reflection. Great qualities if you want to go further down that line.
Almost all computer equipment is from China.
Production yes, but design is firmly in American hands - for now.
Well, the currently best OS widely deployed is Chinese only. HarmonyOS, a microkernel OS replacing Android on Chinese phones. About 10x faster development than in the US. And secure, unlike Linux.
Fuchsia never made it widescale. They started a couple of years before the Chinese and then got stuck
"Best OS" as determined by who? Even just checking the Wikipedia page for HarmonyOS is sure to give a chuckle:
> supporting both tablet mode and full desktop counterpart in line with Huawei MateBook
I'm sorry, "MateBook"? Lol, I wonder where they possibly got the idea for that name from.
> More on the laziness and stupidity of their allies.
s/laziness and stupidity/corruption/g
See, for instance, what happened to Gemalto.
> Some people in the US deride it's close allies as "freeloaders" because they choose to use and buy US tech
This is a disingenuous straw man. The allies are derided for literally freeloading on US military protection while underinvesting in their own defense.
Freeloading?
My country spends less on defence as a percentage of GDP than the US. But it spends much of that with US companies. This is not Freeloading. It was a deal. Cancel TSR-2, and buy American and we will lend you some money. Cancel your nuclear program and buy US submarine launched missiles and we will help you look after yourself. Now let Visa and Mastercard skim off all your transactions and we will keep you secure to keep the money flowing. Sweetheart tax deals for US companies to operate, and we will keep you safe to keep the money flowing. It is not Freeloading, it is colonialism
Agreed those things exist, in most contracts one or both parties feel they are not getting a 'fair' deal and will renegotiate terms, this is very common.
I can hear the whoosh going over the head of anyone associated with Trump. Thanks for trying though.
The current U.S. President has insisted that Europeans are freeloading. Given that he’s been the primary proponent of this idea, and given that he’s been cutting off aid and has made cutting off this “freeloading” the central plank of his defense strategy, the U.S. defense budget must have gone down significantly right?
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5656174-trump-si...
> The bill approves a record $901 billion in military spending for fiscal 2026
Oh…
Obviously faulty logic. This isn't a zero-sum game. In fact, the whole point is to increase our combined combat power.
For too long European NATO countries have kept token militaries lacking any substantial combat power. They have centered their national defense strategies around holding off Russia for just long enough for Uncle Sam to swoop in, fight the Russians, and save the day. But the US does not have the combat power to fight both Russia and China. So our total combat power must increase. Should the US bear this increased burden alone? Or should the rest of NATO finally get serious about funding and fielding effective militaries?
European states have been freeloading, and US defense budgets are not going to decrease just because Europe finally starts to take some responsibility for its own defense.
How's that? How many Middle Eastern refugees are America sheltering from the fallout of American aggression and the regimes it props up?
The US isn't anywhere close to paying its way.
Pray tell, how much of, say, the latest Afghanistan war did the US pay and how much do their allies need to bear? The rebuilding of a whole country, the reinstatement of the Taliban regime, the destabilization of the region, and the still ongoing stream of refugees? The political aftermath of which is still felt in Europe.
Europe could have simply denied entry to the refugees and avoided their entire refugee problem. It's especially silly to blame the US when most EU states strongly supported the downfall of Qaddafi and Assad.
That's the thing though. Most European states (inside and outside the EU) consider the US their strategic ally, and they will support whatever it takes to make that strategy work. Policy at international level is made for strategic reasons, and you have to look at what countries do, not at what they say.
The strongest state, economically and military, can get away with a lot others wouldn't, since everyone else will want to be on their good side. The new US administration has clearly shifted in terms of what they say, but not yet much in terms of what they do. Maybe Ukraine will be the exception here.
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Does the US plan to pay for this wall?
> Building a wall and shooting on site anyone who crosses it is a very simple and effective method of keeping immigration in check.
Ah yes a wall, like that famously effective one that Trump built. Tell me has US managed to actually finish it yet?
I'd argue the savages are the people shooting civilians.
The EU is so much more civilized by bribing Turkiye [0], Libya [1], Morocco, Mauritania, Tunisia [2], and other nations to shoot and/or indefinitely detain them for you guys instead.
Yet we as Americans are the savages.
European civil society needs to drop this charade of moralizing and being "rules based". The reality is EU policymakers are equally as mercurial and open to making deals with devils. The issue is a subset of you guys have a weird form of "white saviourship" and sense of exceptionalism.
Finally, a plurality of us Americans either never had or no longer have blood ties with Europe. As an Asian American who used to work om the Hill, I myself and my peers increasingly ignore or overlook Europe despite having went to college with a number of your up-and-coming decisionmakers. In 2025, the majority of us Americans are Latino, Black, Mixed, Asian, or multi-generational White American.
Any positive historical ties we had with Europe (in reality, a fluke from 1939-2011) was because of 1.5 gen Central and Eastern European immigrants turned NatSec Advisers like Kissinger (German), Albright (Czech), and Brzezinski (Polish). From a soft power perspective, when we don't look inward we increasingly look to Latin America or Asia. And economically as well - our total trade with all of Europe is barely $975B compared to $1.5T with all of the Americas and around $2-2.5T with Asia.
[0] - https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/03/the-eu-turkey...
[1] - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/05/eu-dea...
[2] - https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-06-01/mass-arr...
What are you talking about? Are you guys shooting people at the border?
I was reacting to the guy above, not Americans.
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> The allies are derided for literally freeloading on US military protection while underinvesting in their own defense.
1. No one forced the US to spend a bajillion dollars on defense.
2. The US did so out of their own free will, and out of self-interest: their power hegemony allowed for peaceful trade routes that benefited the US economy and US corporations.
3. Their own defense against what? What threats, until fairly recently, did the Europeans face that they needed to spend money protecting against?
> Their own defense against what? What threats, until fairly recently, did the Europeans face that they needed to spend money protecting against?
Same ones the US built the most expensive army in the world to defend against
Let's not pretend this was something the US didn't want for most of the last seventy years.
Guess which country had never any interest in a strong (politically and militarily) Europe, to maintain the world hegemony?
A Europe with an independent defense is dangerous competition for the US. Maybe it means that some international trade will be done in Euro. Maybe it means foreign policies in Europe's interests.