492
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2024
492 points (97.5% liked)
Europe
8326 readers
2 users here now
News/Interesting Stories/Beautiful Pictures from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: Thunder mountain, Germany, 🇩🇪 ) Feel free to post submissions for banner pictures
Rules
(This list is obviously incomplete, but it will get expanded when necessary)
- Be nice to each other (e.g. No direct insults against each other);
- No racism, antisemitism, dehumanisation of minorities or glorification of National Socialism allowed;
- No posts linking to mis-information funded by foreign states or billionaires.
Also check out !yurop@lemm.ee
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
It’s the credibility as an ally. If the EU fails to supply Ukraine, even though the EU shares a land border with Ukraine, Taiwan, Armenia and other nations currently threatened will not rely on the EU’s support, but rather just surrender to aggressors. Especially with Taiwan, any conflict there would blow up world-wide trade, as everyone and everything is dependent on taiwanese microchips. It would also mean that many Ukrainians feeling betrayed by the West would flood into the EU (or are already here), which would lead to a lot of strife. Lastly, every dictator will feel emboldened, as precedent shows that you only have to keep your offensive going until the public loses interest. When the current world order is upset, many conflicts will form and grow. Any power vacuum left by a retreating power will be fought over and filled.
I'd argue that nobody relied on the EU for defense in the first place. Prior to the war in Ukraine, Europe was not exactly known for getting militarily involved in conflicts or as a defensive ally, quite the opposite. See all the "strongly worded letter" jokes. I don't think Taiwan is under any illusions about getting major military support from Europe, no European country (except Vatican) even recognizes it. The EU and Ukraine were never formally allied prior to the war, so if anything, the amount of support was/is larger than expected.
Noone relied on the EU for protection, because the EU was largely unaffected by wars in the past. However with the war in Ukraine, the EU is directly affected. And a war over Taiwan would affect the EU in a similar gravity. A war over Albania less so, but a NATO member and a (former) candidate to join the EU, Turkey, is likely to be directly involved in such a war. If the EU shows that it is unwilling to push back against aggression, even if the EU is directly affected, then the EU will lose a lot ofinfluence with other regional powers.
I'd say the Chinese salivated a bit then aggresively moved up their Taiwan timeframe after looking at the shit show of a response that Ukraine got.
Armenia never relied on the EU's support lol - the West has always supported Turkey (even back in the Cold War), which supports Azerbaijan.
That is why Armenia is in CSTO.
No-one in Europe is going to war over Taiwan, it's thousands of kilometres away. Whereas Russia has carried out multiple attacks in the UK, and shot down a civilian airliner full of Dutch nationals, and borders many EU nations to which it is hostile.
Armenia was in CSTO, they are no longer. And if Taiwan is attacked, the US and Europe will be affected above all others, as both economies are highly industrialized and thus highly dependent on the microchips coming out of Taiwan and South Korea.