it has so much potential

Maybe we don’t want to do that again… people have some really short memories.
- You need to allow for the possibility that you're surrounded by nazis
  
  they're living within.
- You guys don't have the same suprise factor anymore. Europe will never be a long term power. True Power is moving back east
  
  In your dreams maybe.

I'm not getting out of bed for anything less than spices or gold.
- shakes baggie of chiles

You can do it, Europe. Everyone that cares about "the west" is rooting for you.

It’s nazis all over here, that said, it can’t be worse than United States of Gilead right now

Cause it worked out so well last time...

Perhaps let someone from global south take the controls (if humans even have more than few decades as species)
- Like who? Which bloc is economically as large as the EU and is considered a full democracy. Like we’ve seen what happens when an economically powerful nation with a weak democracy becomes a super power.

"Become a world power"
You know, we've had that experience before, "everywhere else" would pretty much prefer that didn't happen again, thank you very much.
- lol yea. I’m an American and fully support other nations boycotting our goods but I’m noticing an overlap with these boycotts and nationalist-imperialist sentiments.
  
  THIS; I feel deranged, not hearing anyone else say they've noticed it.
  
  Weirdly enough, from what I've seen, European nationalists tend to be very much against the EU.
- Seriously. Why do people genuinely think this is a good idea? Colonialism and imperialism is bad.
  People should have learned after the US's faults, and overreliance of it due to being a world power; but people just want to do it again???
  
  Yes and no. Countries like Russia and China are always going to exist. That means places like the Philippines, Taiwan, Ukraine, and Georgia are always going to need a strong ally if they don't want to be invaded. There are a lot of countries that are going to be very worried now that America has turned heel (Especially Taiwan). Europe has mostly grown out of the need for constant expansion, so having them take on the role of world police wouldn't be the worst thing to happen.
  
  How does this have anything to do with colonialism?
  
  People should have learned after the US’s faults
  The U.S. huh? That's who you are going to go with during a discussion of European Imperialism and world power? The Euro's were out fucking up the world before the United States existed and a full half of the world is still desperately fucked up from literal centuries of horrifically brutal European Imperialism.
  If you need lessons on anti-imperialism you don't need the United States, just take a gander at the Europeans own histories.

As an American, yes please, because we can't get our shit together as the mutated, corrupt, idiotic half's monster is running roughshod over our wishy-washy, whiny, "centrist" half's.
- Half’s what?

They need to poke the planet, then we can all work together to get the fuck off this rock. We've fucked it up enough and there are plenty of planets to mine resources from. Let's all band together for an exit. Then go our separate ways after launch.

I remember watching Gundam 00 and thinking "man, the US being in a separate power block from Europe sounds crazy!"

It always has been…

You want Europe, the continent that killed and tortured the people of Congo for rubber to become a super power? What in the imperialist scum post is this?
- (They don’t care about that because it affected non-white people so they don’t care)
- Morons who's world history starts is gapped with biblical bs, Romans, ww2 and that's basically it. They never learned the true horrors of what they did (coming from someone educated in Britian)

Europe needs to be strong enough to stand on its own at all levels, but I think it's a pretty bad idea for it to become a neo-Imperial power in the style of America.
For all the great things of Democracy, the one thing people forget in their rosy propaganda-tainted view of it (living inside of it, we're constantly bombarde by political messaging about its greatness) is that by definition even the most perfect Democracy only has the duty to represent the will of its citizens, not of people who are not citizens of that Democracy.
So there is no ideological element in Democracy to make it less nasty at exploiting people from other countries than authoritarian regimes.
All this to say that Europe shouldn't get into the business of power projection like the US has done for decades (leaving a long trail of death, suffering and destitution all over the World, especially the Middle East and Latin America).
And I say this as an European and somebody who would stand to gain indirectly from Europe going systematically (it's already done by businesses and some governments in it, just not openly and systematically) into the business of exploiting non-Europeans.
A peacefull when not provoked giant would probably be the best philosphy for a strong Europe, IMHO.
(Edit: for avoidance of doubt I want to state that for me Russia trying to advance westwards by invading Ukraine counts as a provocation)
- And I say this as an European and somebody who would stand to gain indirectly from Europe going systematically (it’s already done by businesses and some governments in it, just not openly and systematically) into the business of exploiting non-Europeans.
  One great myth of imperial power plays is that the exploitation benefits the imperial power. It often doesn't. The scramble for Africa, for example, was a net economic drain for all the great powers that participated. Every little thing they gained was generally lost as they spent immense amounts of money on being manipulated into useless conflicts by client chiefs. Similar dynamic for England in India during the later periods and associated areas (the British conquest of Myanmar was particularly useless). The only real benefit is economic dominance and the ability to trade (like that was seen in Singapore and Canton). For all it's imperialism and interventionism from the Philippines to Korea to Vietnam to Afghanistan to Iraq, America hasn't seen a gain. Most of the moves by the great powers only benefits a select few of private citizens while the state spends lives and treasure on conquest and subsequent administration for an illegitimate government that becomes corrupt and fragile.
  
  Are you fucking kidding me? Britain stands where it is only because of wealth it looted from its colonies.
  
  For folks that don't know. This is what colonial power propaganda looks.
- That will never happen because EU has already failed multiple times.
  The 2008 recession and accompanying austerity was the first. This austerity is directly responsible for the rise of far right in EU.
  The second were the multiple economic crisises from EU countries like Greece, etc.
  The third was Brexit.
  The fourth was China dumping all its steel.
  The fifth was it failure to hold Poland and Hungry accountable for democratic backsliding, which continues to this day.
  The sixth was the abysmal handling of refugee crisis.
  The seventh was Ukraine.
  The list goes on.
  EU will never work because majority of EU countries are center right (including neo liberal) or far right. As such regular EU citizens have little to no faith in the system and do not want to die for EU oligarchs
  
  It's a little unfair to blame the EU for the credit crunch. Most of that was due to the Americans. Likewise, Brexit was a democratic action. The British wanted Brexit at the time.
  The UK under the conservatives was the member state that applied the strongest austerity measures and it has been subsequently shown to be a mistake economically but it was a great excuse to advance their agenda.
  Old and ignorant people voting against their own interests, populists and first past the post are the current villains. The British ruling class are all educated in the same few schools on the same topics, e.g. the classics and liberal arts. They have created a fetish out of business, home ownership and cars. The rational humanist does not have a place in this society. At least the EU is defending human rights and basing it's decisions more firmly on enlightenment values.
  
  That's basically a "You stubbed a toe hence you failed" tribalist take, cleary spinned along Russian Propaganda lines.
  The spin is painfully obvious by the very first example being the 2008 recession, which was a problem for the whole World hence by your definition the whole World failed. The rest is just a mix of consequence of the former (Greece crisis, Brexit), not an EU thing (China steel dumping, Russian invasion of Ukraine), outdated-info/lies (Poland is no longer ruled by the Far-Right), your pure opinion (that there was an actual crisis with refugees and the quality if its handling).
  You claim the "The EU will never work" even whilst it keeps on working and has worked for decades: you're fantasising.
  That shit is pure "you have to give up and die (and let us get our fill from whatever is left)" anti-EU propaganda straight out of Moscow.
  
  The fourth was China dumping all its steel.
  You had me in six of these, but how on earth does the EU suffer from cheap steel? For all the sins of the member states and their collaborative governing efforts, I've yet to see "too much industrial development with low-cost raw materials" on the list.
  EU will never work because majority of EU countries are center right (including neo liberal) or far right.
  I could see a future in which the white supremacist strains within the EU create an ideological confederacy through which a unified nationalist identity forms. Simply hating Africa, Arabia, and East Asia might be enough to galvanize large coalitions of Europeans together. But what are they unifying into, if not a bitter, hostile, solipsistic, rump?
  The EU without an eye towards free Mediterranean trade and travel is just a suicide pact. Might as well go full Hermit Kingdom, rebuild the Iron Curtain, and stop pretending to matter globally,.

please don't try to do this again.

United European Federation When?
- Never Europeans are racist even against themselves 😹

Moldova will join the EU, which will allow a Romanian and Moldovan union. They will be able to take over Europe and then the world using vampires and deadly lasers and stuff
- Good. Been looking forward to getting sucked off till I pass out.

Sad that picture doesn't include UK - like it used to.
And will do again, if we get a grip.
- UK is an a rosy position right now politically. Can play friends with both US and Europe, like a Cinderella at a ball
  
  While being hated by both. Maybe hated is too strong. Disdain? Exasperation?

Just for clarification, that's EU and not Europe. Yes, i'm in the hole in the center.
- So, already a world power.

On a tangent, is it possible to block/ignore lemmygrad and it's users? They are obviously trolling here with good old whataboutism and russo talking points
Edit: corrected the stupid spelling of this stupid place
- Heads up, I can assure you the Lemmygrad and Hexbear folks are not trolling. They are legitimate believers of Chinese/Russian/North Korean talking points, and some of them even live there
  Welcome to the federated Internet
  
  So real fascists taking over the biggest lemmy instance then?
  Don't know what to think about Lemmy right now tbh. Most of the content is quite based, awesome, fresh memes, and especially the programming stuff js top notch.
  But the amount of russo shit and antisemitism is on another level...
- If you are using the Connect app for Lemmy, you can block Hexbear and Lemmygrad in the settings. I did that as well.
- You can always check the /instances endpoint of every lemmy server to see its blocked instances.
- Awww, sorry the rest of the world doesn’t cowtail to your far-right neo-fascist delusional view of the world. It must be so hard for you, being exposed to differing views and all
- In Voyager I can block instances in the settings. Not sure if that’s only voyager/specific apps or if that’s a Lemmy default.
  Besides that, migrating to an instance that has defederated from lemmygrad also works. I’m on lemmy.world and I’ve never seen anything from 'grad.
  
  Ditto. I’m using this instance right now and I have never seen any of them so why don’t you come on over here? It’s nicer.

Libs really believing that white people haven't been destroying, robbing, and murdering the global south.
- Libs can't comprehend that white people have been destroying, robbing, and murdering one another. The idea that residents of Spain, Greece, and Germany are just going to join hands and do a kumbayah after 16 years of brutal austerity imposed through the ECB is delusional. And this after Brexit, with anti-EU parties gaining traction in France and Italy.
  Never even mind how this vision of the EU excludes Turkey, the lynchpin of the whole operation. It would be like saying "We need a United Africa but NO EGYPT!" Like, what are you even fucking doing here, guys?
  
  Yep. If Europe become a country the central countries will loot everything from peripheral contries
  
  That's because Türkiye has drifted away from western ideals (democracy, freedom, respect, ...) under Erdogan. There were talks about them joining the EU before that.

yeah, in the next lifetime, maybe.

Simply whip up an F35 program overnight. No big.
- 'old my cup of wine...
- Just spin up the largest military manufacturing industry on the planet. Ez pz
- Those are looking increasingly like Russian tanks.

For the love of God Europe, we need a world power that actually respects human rights, not outright rejects them like Russia, pretends to embrace like America, or outright rejects them while tankies pretend that China embraces them.
- You're looking in the wrong place. Several EU members have far right leaders already, many more are moving right. The EU (and UK) are about 4 or 5 years behind the US. Don't confuse disagreement with Trump over Ukraine with meaningful ideological differences.
- What do you define as "human rights"? Because I would say that the western ideas of them have failed pretty heavily especially when it comes to deciding who they are enforced for and who they are not.
  I think we need to be more critical of past ideas as they are the exact ideas that have brought us here. Doomed to repeat it and all that.
  I would say to learn from all of the societies you mentioned instead of simplifying something into "China bad" or "Russia bad" or "America Bad".
  It's ignorant to look at a world power like China and throw out all of the good they have done for their people. There are absolutely things we can learn from their success and failure. But I guess saying this is gonna make me a "Tankie".
  As Carlin said. If God gave us "rights" he'd have given us a right to a good meal everyday. I think it's important to not fall into western superiority. It's especially important for us to rethink what we think of as "rights" because it has not been working that well, no matter the intention.
  
  Jesus christ give it a rest or people will start to think this is your job.
  Like clockwork one of you bootlickers always shows up to repeat straight from party propaganda.
- Ah yes, because the EU is a bastion of respecting human rights. Supporting genocide politically and financially is a great marker of that? 🙄
  
  Compared to the US? yes

As an American with an insanely good job and life square in middle class, I'll fucking move over there in a heartbeat.
- I wouldn't. The EU / Europe as it exists right now in 2025 might, and that's a definite might, look better than America but it's going to look very different in 10 to 20 years. Every nation in the EU is standing on an economic knife edge while waiting for their demographic bomb to go off.
  The European rearmement that's being discussed makes it worse; when things go bad, and they will, they'll be armed up and ready to repeat their last 2,000 years of near constant warfare.
  Unless your over 65 its quite likely that you'll see it happen in your lifetime.

One could argue it already is - mainly on a soft power level. Now that Ursula has chopped the chains off the war chest we can get back the hard power as well. I feel very good about this, it's rare to feel optimistic about the way your country and union is going...
- Yup yup... A little scary though...
  
  That is the reason why I gotta just trust that the people running the country and EU know what they are doing.
  I am in Finland and I really do trust we are doing what we need to, our defense forces and government is very shush shush regarding defense, every government and defense outlet was adamant that we weren't joining NATO until the foreign minister and president announced the move. At least in a country of 5 million we are really thinking of each other here. Let's just hope that is the case for the rest of the EU and the overall union.
  Slava Ukraini
  
  Well it's either that or we'll end up being steamrolled by Russia, China or the US
- I'm glad Europe is finally getting it's act together on trying to defend itself.
  But i'm not a fan of the EU itself being too involved - the EU is not democratically representative enough to be getting involved in military stuff. If the EU is going to militarise, then the commission and the president need to be directly elected by the people, and the parliament needs to be given proper power.
  Instead we have the continued messy system of horse trading of power between governments based on national interests rather than the overall interests of EU citizens. And also we have Hungary which has slipped into an authoritarian regime, and Poland that has just skirted past descent into a right wing nightmare (it's not even clear yet if the current centre left government can undo the damage wrought by right wing, nor what will happen in the next election).
  Personally I don't want to see the defence of our continent in the hands of the EU. Either it should stick to running the single market OR it should be a fully democratic superstate. This in-between quasi nation state is undemocratic and constitutionally weak. it has no way of dealing with Hungary, it had no way of dealing with Poland, it would have no way of dealing with France should Le Pen win power.
  I'm in the UK; I'd support the EU becoming a full superstate and I'd want my country to rejoin. But I can't trust what the EU is currently is to achieve that. We've all seen in the last year how weak the US constitution really is - it's enabled an autocrat to take power. The EU is weak too - it can't be taken over directly by an autocrat which is good, but it's failed to deal with Putin up until now (Putin invaded Georgia in 2008, and Ukraine in 2014, and Ukraine again in 2022), it's unable to do anything about Viktor Orban in Hungary. Hungary has already held the EU's response to Ukraine back, and the Czech republic looks set to elect a pro-Putin populist party to power too.
  European defence being dependent on an organisation that is unable to be decisive and is unable to be truly representative is weak. We need decisive and unified decisions in an emergency, not paralysis and not to be held back by outlier nations.
  If you want to see why the EU is not the route to go to strengthen defence just look at the calls already to use the supposed defence spending boost to instead shore up healthcare spending. It's a laudable aim but when the wolf is as the door this is crazy way to divert defence spending.
  For the EU to be a super power, it needs to first become an actual superstate. It needs to be the democracy it purports to fight for.
- Do you know Ursula's history of corruption? If so, how can you feel good about it?
  
  Ursula is a muppet, but it wasn't her decision alone, or even at all.
- stares in jealous American

We tried that a few times, and war/imperialism crimes.
But this time it will be diffident. We is evolved now.
\ (Never mind the rising support of the alt-right parties in the last decade.)
- this time it will be diffident
  will it be though?
  
  The sarcasm was blindingly obvious there, did it really need the /s?

I think "World Power" is not that desirable. The US was a world power, look what they had to do and what culture they had to develop to become one. Same for the Soviets. Same for a surging China, becoming more imperialist by the day. Your emotions may tell you "yes!!!", but the reality is - it will not benefit you much, it will mostly benefit your rulers.
I'd rather have the power of the EU in service of getting a proper, international organisation like the UN capable enough to do its job.
- The EU is definitively a world power or great power. The EU might rise to the level of superpower, which is where the US is.
  Being a great power just means that you can exert influence over events on the world stage. Having a meaningful say in how international organizations are run, or the ability to influence conflicts outside of your direct realm of control.
  The EU is not yet at a point where no power can take a meaningful action on the world stage without considering how the EU will react to that action, which is one of the defining criteria of a superpower.
  Despite having burnt an enormous amount of soft power for no reason, the US still holds a position where they can't be disregarded. EU military spending patterns are changing because the US is changing it's stance on a conflict they aren't really involved in beyond a "superpowers are involved in everything" sense.
  Being either type of power has benefits beyond what it gives to those in control. In general, the leverage is used to effectively bribe the populace of the power. Pushing international organizations to prefer vendors from your country, driving business to it. "Thank goodness that agricultural development program bought their equipment from us, we had a great year, our jobs are intact and we actually hired more people".
  It also brings cheap goods preferentially.
  The benefit to the people in control is that it simplifies distributing favors to the people who keep them there, which in part includes the general population. "I'll let you buy these tractors from me on the condition you sell me every mango in your country for a decade. I'll even give you the tractor money back over the course of the decade. If you don't accept the deal no one will make a different one with you for fear of me not renewing my contract with them".
  You don't have to have our broken internal culture to be a power. That only makes it so people take our position for granted.
- 4 day old account and this is what you're going to post? How dare you aspire to be wholesome in a geopolitical context
  
  Funnily enough, I've been here for over 4 years, this is just my new account on my own server I'm in the process of setting up/maintaining. I've honed the craft of contrarian politics for a long time now, in the waters of .ml no less (no other servers really existed when I joined up)

That's not the spot to touch if you want Europe to rise again ...

why is the image not visible? is it just me?
- it's an drawing of a dude poking the map of the EU with a stick, captioned: "come on become a world power"

We've done that already a few times. After over 3000 years of empires must we really? Again? The Greek empire, the roman empire, the spanish empire, the holy roman empire, the dutch golden century, the British (largest globe spanning empire ever) and French empires, Austria Hungaria and I'm quite certain even Portugal had its day. And let's not forget Germany. Or the Soviet union and tsarist Russia. Also nice as far as empires go.
Anyway..
Sigh.
Fine.
But dont come crying if you dont like the outcome.
Pax Americana only ended because you guys voted for it. We where fine with it, hanging out, buying your shit. Using your tech.
- I don't think the EU is the successor to all of those
- It does feel like a whole bunch of analogies coming true: giving a former alcoholic a hard drink, waking a sleeping dog, tugging Superman's cape, poking a bear, hurting John Wick's dog...
  Europe has had a nice long run of peace, maybe we shouldn't feel too bad about them slacking a little bit on the defensive front. They needed it, and have done a lot with it.

They let themselves be subservient to the Americans cause they didn't trust each other (understandable given the shared history of the continent).
Now that the USA has flipped the switch so dramatically given Trump is unpredictable and incompetent, I hope the Europeans realise they can trust each other more than their far away who doesn't give 2 shits about them. I'm optimistic but whilst they can do stuff for Ukraine, I'm not sure how they will go about EU reform (if they can even get it done given Orban exists). They need to be bold and I'm not sure they will all be on the same page for that
- cause they didn't trust each other (understandable given the >shared history of the continent).
  Oh man, don't you ever underestimate the most important rule of all time.
  
  Not just that. Ape, monke, and gorilla strong together!

Why does a superpower need to be a united sovereign state? The EU as itself can function as a superpower despite being made up of separate sovereign states
- To exercise the amount of economic and military power to be a world super power you need centralized command, control and decision making. The EU won't be able to take on russia if each state is able to back out of the war, and a state isn't fully sovereign if it can't make it's own decisions on going to war.
  Same with economic policy, if one state is able to opt out of the free movement of goods and people then the benefits of a single market are diminished, but if a country can't make it's own decisions on trade and immigration policies then they've relinquished some of there sovereignty.
  Institutions like the EU already do some of this but it'll need to be a bit stronger to be on the level of the u.s. and China in terms of the central power it possesses. Doing so buts up against the euro-skeptic movement though, which holds the EU back.

Been there, done that. Owned the world.

It will never be. It cannot be.
We all know how slow a democracy is. It takes a major event or crisis to stir up politicians to act in a timely manner and with vigor.
Now imagine the absolute dumpster fire that would need to burn to get 27 democracies to get their shit together. I doubt anything short of a full-scale invasion of EU territory by Russia would do.
- The US was, for better or worse, a sort-of functioning democracy until the late 2010s. And it did quite well.
  All it needed was a russian agent infiltrating the white house to damage the country
  
  I think the horrible truth might just be that democracy is flawed. I don't know if there is anything that is better than it but clearly it can be infiltrated by bad actors.
  Part of me really does wish that sci-fi AI existed that would just make the humans do the good things.
- I really hope Europe finally gets it's shit together and dominates the world. It's been 60 years and you all have been pacifist pussies the entire time and allowed Russia to take over everything.
  
  Yeah! Bring back the slave trade! Bring back the pillaging! Bring back the colonization! Just like before WW2! MEGA! Make Europe Great Again!
  
  @BaroqueInMind @bleistift2 pacifist because the org literally exists to stop everyone in it blowing each other up though

The complete ignorance of Europeans judging America while us Americans export all our brain rot to you guys. Always acting slightly superior as your neoliberalism continues to rot away your social safetynets and public programs. After all, next to Trump, you guys look normal.
If Europe becomes a world power right now it would be Nazi 2.0 but this time it would be a Holocaust on Arabs instead of Jews. You guys are following our same playbook right now. I don't know if you've noticed. If you aren't careful you'll spend all your time focusing on boycotting America while your own Oligarchs pick apart your countries for scraps just like ours are. Hell, in a lot of cases they're the same Oligarchs (Elon and AFD for example).
By all means. Fuck America. But this is a class struggle and will not be overcome by ignoring that. The trade wars are a direct attack on the working class as we pay the price. The people making these decisions will gladly let us all suffer as they consolidate their wealth even more.
Tarrifs are not a trade war between nations. They are a war on the working classes material conditions.
- The right has been on the rise in Europe for years. Just look at Germany and the UK.
  
  The only reply I've gotten among the downvotes. I don't disagree. My comment was trying to shake the average European into realizing that these issues are not unique to America. But I guess I was too aggro

Why is Poland crying?

No such thing as a good global power. I'd rather see the dissolution of the EU than see it evolve into a global power, especially if that means being anything like current global powers.
- Then what's the correct order? If the EU dissolves first, it'll become West Russia.

If China worked closely with Europe on free trade and defence, it could challenge any attempts at shenanigans from Russia and the US.
- China and Russia are allies....
  
  Of convenience. It's more like both hate the US. There is a possibility of aligning China to the EU, even against Russia.
  After all, given that Russia got us back to "spheres of influence", who says they get to have one and we won't just partition it between the EU and China?
  
  They sure are, and the US was also the world's guard dog until very recently. Past international relationships don't weight as much as they used to (or should) in the new paradigm.
  Things can change fast in world politics, even if they've been a certain way for a long time. If the benefit is there, leaders will choose to serve their nations / electoral interest first.

One way or another, Germany WILL have Eurpoe!
- Europe will have Europe. We are combined and need each other. Without the rest we in Germany would be nothing.
  
  Oh of course! Germany could never economically, industrially, or militarily dominate Europe. I mean, that's never happened before. Germany didn't fight half the world, twice, and almost win, twice. It's simply absurd to imply fiscally prudent Germany could even come close to dominating an economic union composed of strong, stately democracies. I mean look at Greece, they're doing great. Nobody made them undertake crushing austerity measures after 2008. Germany had nothing to do with that. I mean how could anyone even suggest Germany would run European Union. Ridiculous, just ridiculous.