alt Hacker NewsIf the US and China were secretly conspiring to sabotage Europe it would look indistinguishable from the EU SFDR and other EU "ESG accountability" acts.
The SFDR and similar EU regulations were originally designed to tackle greenwashing, but has now made it almost impossible to raise money for nuclear, aerospace, and defense startups and ventures in the EU (and by network effects also in the UK).
Since 2025/2026 the EU has promised to find ways ease up these regulations because of the war in Ukraine.
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The funny thing about that is you can frame lots of things that way.
For example, "if China were secretly conspiring to sabotage the US, they would goad the US into a war with Iran".
Anyway, as far as Europe's self-sabotage goes, I don't think China has much to do with it. The US however does. Trump browbeating NATO countries to spend 5% of GDP on defense is both a gift to US weapons manufacturers and a foil to dismantle the social welfare states in Europe. Because of different versions of austerity, those defense dollars come directly at the expensive of the social safety net and the tenets of European social democracy. I really don't think that's an accident either.
It's also true that Europe has been asleep at the wheel, perfectly happy to outsource their defense to the US. I am skeptical that the political will exists to replace foreign military hardware with homegrown industries but I believe that Europe needs to be responsible for its own security if it's to survive long term.
Yesterday in the news there was a picture of a known ISIS terrorist being funded by the state shopping in Windsor while SAS members were being chased in court for spurious charges.
Something is really, really wrong in Europe. There will be books written about this in the future.