[Skybird]

From an Austrian (national, not economy-theoretical) blog: lessons that Europeans should learn from the non-reaction to the Iranian attack on Saudi Arabia, but refuse to learn, apparently.

https://translate.google.de/translat...ernen-msste%2F

Strange: It was a massive military attack on Saudi Arabia, one of the USA's closest allies. The attack on the economic heart of the desert state has affected the global oil supply. There is absolutely no reasonable doubt about the guilty party behind the attack. And yet, as a result of such a heavy attack, no war breaks out - even though they have already broken out of much more lenient events. There is not even a retaliatory approach. Strange. What's going on there?
(...)
There are several Iranian motives for the attack:

1. Radical Iranian forces may have attempted to prevent the first - very tender - signs of a possible thaw between the US and Tehran leadership (notably the dismissal of the current US security adviser and the possibility of a meeting between the two presidents Signs have been evaluated).
2. Iran also needs a demonstration of its strength for domestic purposes.
3. Iran could at the same time want to show the Saudis how vulnerable they are despite their gigantic arms purchases.
4. Iran also wants to counter the American sanctions against its nuclear armaments plans with the answer: "With us, the opposite can be achieved with pressure, we can not bring us to our knees."

(...)
Why the US and Saudi Arabia are not yet against Iran:

1. Obviously, Iran is relatively well equipped to fight off attacks. Otherwise, Israel, which is more concerned about the aggressive mullahs than any other country, would have long since destroyed strategic or nuclear installations in Iran.
2. The Saudis and especially the Gulf States are very concerned about their own safety in the event of war.
3. In particular, the large Shiite minority in Saudi Arabia, which in the event of war is unlikely to remain peaceful, is threatened by terrorist, partisan and insurgency attacks.
4. Most important, however, is the rapidly growing isolationism in the US, which has reached its peak in Trump. Which is traditionally also found in many Democrats. Its core: "We have not been attacked, so this is primarily a problem of the Saudis
5. (...)

Trump has instead, as so often, announced new sanctions against Iran. But that is now an empty threat. Because against the Shiite state, all conceivable sanctions have long been imposed. And they still do not work. However, Trump's threats to the strength of the US armed forces are also now empty. They have been exposed as a bluff. Whenever threats are constantly voiced but never realized, nobody takes them seriously anymore.
The return of American isolationism, as it had prevailed before the First World War, the US's unwillingness today to take up arms for allies, can not be overestimated in their significance. It is a historic change in the postwar fundamental geopolitical parameters.
In Japan, Taiwan or South Korea, this has been attentively and anxiously registered. There one knows today: We can not rely on the USA anymore. Despite alliance agreements, we run the risk of being alone in the event of an attack. For today, the (former) ally obviously only applies: America First. And the rest does not matter.
(...)

It is high time that Europe realized that EU countries can no longer rely on the US for their security. They should desperately give up their illusions that one hardly needs a military anyway, that there are no longer armed conflicts, that old conflict lines will not break up again anyway. They should have learned that as well in the various bloody Yugoslav wars as in the face of the wars of the "Islamic State", the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists around the Mediterranean.
Moreover, there are completely new dangers: From the cyber wars, which can paralyze a whole country, to the exposure of the (energy and communication) infrastructure of a modern society to terrorism in various forms.
And there is one more thing one can learn from Saudi Arabia: how paralyzed and threatened by security is a country, if there is a minority in its territory that is unassimilently assimilated and who, for religious reasons, demonstratively rejects any integration. But even to say that, has been banned from the EU (for example, by the Verhetzungsparagraphen), Political Correctness and a partially ideologized judiciary. It could be thought forbidden thoughts.
But what is Europe doing instead of learning from it? To give just one very recent example, the EU majority is unwilling to accommodate Britain, even though the British are the only serious military force in Europe besides France. Therefore, we should definitely continue to integrate them. The European treatment of the British is not only economic, but also security political insanity.