European leadership is a pathetic circus of suit‑wearing amateurs, stumbling from crisis to crisis with the strategic IQ of a broken toaster. They wag fingers, issue statements, and call it “policy,” while the continent slides into chaos. warmongering bureaucrats, drunk on moral posturing, terrified of reality, and incapable of anything beyond press conferences. Europe feels like it’s being steered by spineless, clueless, self‑congratulating clowns who mistake noise for leadership.
They are not amateurs or clowns at all. They are professional crooks and frontmen for crony capitalism.
European people need to take this seriously. It's not a clown show or amateur stuff. The people are being robbed. Systematically. These politicians KNOW this is bad for the economy, and they use all tooks to skirt resistance. For instance routing money to Ukraine via "loans" that everyone knows will never be paid back, but by calling it a loan...they avoid a public uproar. Or Germany for example breaking it's budget rules to go in debt to enrich arms makers, while skirting its own rules by calling this a "special fund".
These are professionals, systematically robbing the public, to enrich the owners of arms companies, for which they get a cut, paid out as "political donations", appointments to boards of companies and foundations, fees for speaking at or hosting events, jobs for their children, investment in companies owned by their relatives etc.
People must begin to rise up and reject all these crooks, instead of constantly putting them in power.
Also, as far as Europe is concerned. I read this week that Merz summoned the Chinese ambassador, or close to it, because it has been reported that Russian soldiers received training by China. Presumably in drone technology and deployment of Chinese hardware.
China is, apparently, considering a complete trade freeze with Europe in response, not just to the call by Merz, but also in response to the hardening trade relations tension between China and Europe and China thinks it is just not worth it, for them.
It's about eight percent of Chinese trade globally. They don't really care that much. But if Europe is suddenly frozen out of trade with China... Well. I suspect it will not turn out well for European citizens and countries.
China has other stuff to do and many irons in the fire, so to speak. Check out "Walmsly" I think his name is and his reports on China business and science and technology. They are racing ahead, like you also wrote.
We Euro peeps are out of touch with reality in ways that are profound and almost comical, if it wasn't kind of serious.
Yes, that is a good point. But I am feeling pretty sure that nobody quite realized how consequential drones have become until very recently in Iran.
The point about China and the cost is kinda incidental, from my point of view.
The more interesting point is about what a drone is as a cultural object. Unlike the nuclear bomb, which was exceedingly difficult and dangerous to produce, at first and continually. Only state level actors/organisierens can produce and deploy nuclear deterrence. The drone by contrast has just displayed its democratic potential as a deterrence for the masses. Explosives attached to a cheap drone, produced in large numbers are already becoming a fact on the ground in south America and Africa and by various actors and orgs with various agendas.
The sky as a constant threat is almost poetic in how it nestles with climate change angst. Drones killing from above by some person in the next suburban enclave is madly democratic distribution of lethal force with a demonstrated effectiveness in both Ukraine/Russian and Iran/US conflicts.
Artillery production doesn't come close to matching a similar threat and distribution either.
I'm probably more an egg spurt, than an expert, myself. But I do like to read and learn. All this opaque defence financing seems like the epitome of the closed, obscured and "trust us" of the industrial defense industry of times past.
I'm reading sharp seeming commentary about how WWIII is already underway, but being fought with commodity access battles and technology restrictions against adversaries (perceived, conjured, or actual). It's caused me to begin reading much more about the markets, business, trade and the extraordinary complexity of resource flows and manufacturing and all such things, which are turning out to be quite interesting and educational from a kinda engineering perspective. A perfect irony, as I have often snickered about engineers and their, predominantly, limited grasp of the Humanities, high minded ideology and the like. And now they have become et forbillede for mig.
Then, when you post about the desire for peace to prevail, relatively speaking, it strikes me that perhaps the world really has changed and that physical war is for chumps who didn't know how to seal the deal and the game through logistics organization and simply getting an iron grip on supply. The supply is the battle. Which fits "nicely" with the whole climate change narrative around and the scarcity of that looming/current problem.
So, I am spinning in circles, which is also informative in its own way.
Thanks for your generous sharing of your experience and knowledge.
Haha - I did not think you were whiny, and thanks for these your thoughts. Let me only add that none of us should believe the doomsayers who believe they can predict WWIII. I happen to have written a little piece that contrast them with Possibility Explorers - a designation I had to invent because there is no word for the opposite of Doomsayers...
In any such discussion, the term "defense" should be replaced by "military". Hence: military spending. This appears in the sentence: "Despite the largest rearmament wave since 1945, not a single major European research institute has produced a study comparing military and civilian multipliers," which says it all nicely.
Precisely. The term "defense industry" in the NATO countries is pure propaganda, as in fact the owners of these companies have gotten rich on the back of: wars of choice and aggression.
The politicians of course know this, as they are the ones who play the role of selling these endless wars of agression to the public, whose taxes and government bond liabilities pay for enriching this carefully misnamed "defense industry".
I really don't understand all the technical terms and perhaps that's my bad, but some more flesh on the bones of how all these processes hang together would be helpful to me. It's a branch of industry that operates partially hidden due to various strategic constraints, obviously. But this also makes the business side seem more opaque and essentially dodgy, by implication.
For the current so-called expansion of European defense capabilities, the dual use technology of drones does seem to offer more scope for broad applications than thermonuclear devices and artillery production. And with rare earth metals controlled by China and their refusal to sell these materials on anti-weapons proliferation grounds it might be a relatively good time to engage with more honest research efforts on all sides. Selling F35s without radars in the nose cone due to lack of gallium (or whatever the metal is called), might actually offer a better chance to explore dual use technology than has existed for a long time.
My apologies if this text prevents a well-informed person like you from understanding something. But it is somewhat theoretical and "difficult" things. That said, what you then venture out into around drones, rare earth metals and F35s without radar is way beyond what I feel I have any expertise on. And sorry for that!
If drones were so great to get into....they would not have needed any excuse of wars of aggression in order to do so.
In fact the Chinese companies have already gotten far ahead of them on commercial drone products and the European countries are unlikely to ever produces these at any cost levels that could complete. They should just buy what they need from the Chinese producers.
The real reason Europe wants to produce this is not any commercial "dual use" benefit - it's purely because their main goal is to attack Russia and China with the drones.
Well, but by getting control over Russia and its enormous resources, and thereafter China, the US and the EU imperialists may think that this exceeds the military costs.
European leadership is a pathetic circus of suit‑wearing amateurs, stumbling from crisis to crisis with the strategic IQ of a broken toaster. They wag fingers, issue statements, and call it “policy,” while the continent slides into chaos. warmongering bureaucrats, drunk on moral posturing, terrified of reality, and incapable of anything beyond press conferences. Europe feels like it’s being steered by spineless, clueless, self‑congratulating clowns who mistake noise for leadership.
Bravo - Jan Oberg
They are not amateurs or clowns at all. They are professional crooks and frontmen for crony capitalism.
European people need to take this seriously. It's not a clown show or amateur stuff. The people are being robbed. Systematically. These politicians KNOW this is bad for the economy, and they use all tooks to skirt resistance. For instance routing money to Ukraine via "loans" that everyone knows will never be paid back, but by calling it a loan...they avoid a public uproar. Or Germany for example breaking it's budget rules to go in debt to enrich arms makers, while skirting its own rules by calling this a "special fund".
These are professionals, systematically robbing the public, to enrich the owners of arms companies, for which they get a cut, paid out as "political donations", appointments to boards of companies and foundations, fees for speaking at or hosting events, jobs for their children, investment in companies owned by their relatives etc.
People must begin to rise up and reject all these crooks, instead of constantly putting them in power.
Well said absolutely right
Also, as far as Europe is concerned. I read this week that Merz summoned the Chinese ambassador, or close to it, because it has been reported that Russian soldiers received training by China. Presumably in drone technology and deployment of Chinese hardware.
China is, apparently, considering a complete trade freeze with Europe in response, not just to the call by Merz, but also in response to the hardening trade relations tension between China and Europe and China thinks it is just not worth it, for them.
It's about eight percent of Chinese trade globally. They don't really care that much. But if Europe is suddenly frozen out of trade with China... Well. I suspect it will not turn out well for European citizens and countries.
China has other stuff to do and many irons in the fire, so to speak. Check out "Walmsly" I think his name is and his reports on China business and science and technology. They are racing ahead, like you also wrote.
We Euro peeps are out of touch with reality in ways that are profound and almost comical, if it wasn't kind of serious.
Yes, that is a good point. But I am feeling pretty sure that nobody quite realized how consequential drones have become until very recently in Iran.
The point about China and the cost is kinda incidental, from my point of view.
The more interesting point is about what a drone is as a cultural object. Unlike the nuclear bomb, which was exceedingly difficult and dangerous to produce, at first and continually. Only state level actors/organisierens can produce and deploy nuclear deterrence. The drone by contrast has just displayed its democratic potential as a deterrence for the masses. Explosives attached to a cheap drone, produced in large numbers are already becoming a fact on the ground in south America and Africa and by various actors and orgs with various agendas.
The sky as a constant threat is almost poetic in how it nestles with climate change angst. Drones killing from above by some person in the next suburban enclave is madly democratic distribution of lethal force with a demonstrated effectiveness in both Ukraine/Russian and Iran/US conflicts.
Artillery production doesn't come close to matching a similar threat and distribution either.
Hmm, 😏 yes, sorry I didn't mean to sound whiny.
I'm probably more an egg spurt, than an expert, myself. But I do like to read and learn. All this opaque defence financing seems like the epitome of the closed, obscured and "trust us" of the industrial defense industry of times past.
I'm reading sharp seeming commentary about how WWIII is already underway, but being fought with commodity access battles and technology restrictions against adversaries (perceived, conjured, or actual). It's caused me to begin reading much more about the markets, business, trade and the extraordinary complexity of resource flows and manufacturing and all such things, which are turning out to be quite interesting and educational from a kinda engineering perspective. A perfect irony, as I have often snickered about engineers and their, predominantly, limited grasp of the Humanities, high minded ideology and the like. And now they have become et forbillede for mig.
Then, when you post about the desire for peace to prevail, relatively speaking, it strikes me that perhaps the world really has changed and that physical war is for chumps who didn't know how to seal the deal and the game through logistics organization and simply getting an iron grip on supply. The supply is the battle. Which fits "nicely" with the whole climate change narrative around and the scarcity of that looming/current problem.
So, I am spinning in circles, which is also informative in its own way.
Thanks for your generous sharing of your experience and knowledge.
Haha - I did not think you were whiny, and thanks for these your thoughts. Let me only add that none of us should believe the doomsayers who believe they can predict WWIII. I happen to have written a little piece that contrast them with Possibility Explorers - a designation I had to invent because there is no word for the opposite of Doomsayers...
https://transnational.live/2026/06/27/doomsayers-and-possibility-explorers/
In any such discussion, the term "defense" should be replaced by "military". Hence: military spending. This appears in the sentence: "Despite the largest rearmament wave since 1945, not a single major European research institute has produced a study comparing military and civilian multipliers," which says it all nicely.
Precisely. The term "defense industry" in the NATO countries is pure propaganda, as in fact the owners of these companies have gotten rich on the back of: wars of choice and aggression.
The politicians of course know this, as they are the ones who play the role of selling these endless wars of agression to the public, whose taxes and government bond liabilities pay for enriching this carefully misnamed "defense industry".
I really don't understand all the technical terms and perhaps that's my bad, but some more flesh on the bones of how all these processes hang together would be helpful to me. It's a branch of industry that operates partially hidden due to various strategic constraints, obviously. But this also makes the business side seem more opaque and essentially dodgy, by implication.
For the current so-called expansion of European defense capabilities, the dual use technology of drones does seem to offer more scope for broad applications than thermonuclear devices and artillery production. And with rare earth metals controlled by China and their refusal to sell these materials on anti-weapons proliferation grounds it might be a relatively good time to engage with more honest research efforts on all sides. Selling F35s without radars in the nose cone due to lack of gallium (or whatever the metal is called), might actually offer a better chance to explore dual use technology than has existed for a long time.
Perhaps?
My apologies if this text prevents a well-informed person like you from understanding something. But it is somewhat theoretical and "difficult" things. That said, what you then venture out into around drones, rare earth metals and F35s without radar is way beyond what I feel I have any expertise on. And sorry for that!
If drones were so great to get into....they would not have needed any excuse of wars of aggression in order to do so.
In fact the Chinese companies have already gotten far ahead of them on commercial drone products and the European countries are unlikely to ever produces these at any cost levels that could complete. They should just buy what they need from the Chinese producers.
The real reason Europe wants to produce this is not any commercial "dual use" benefit - it's purely because their main goal is to attack Russia and China with the drones.
Well, but by getting control over Russia and its enormous resources, and thereafter China, the US and the EU imperialists may think that this exceeds the military costs.
Reuters, for once, tells the truth on this, today:
https://www.reuters.com/commentary/reuters-open-interest/european-growth-could-be-casualty-increased-defence-spending-2026-07-08/
European growth could be a casualty of increased defence spending
by Mike Peacock, July 8, 2026