Are you referring to that time when allies asked Poland not to mobilise the army to avoid provoking Hitler, so Poland did not mobilise… And Hitler did not attack, instead they all smiled and danced together and 1939 is remembered as a year when diplomacy prevailed! /S

Or the one when Ukraine handed over their nuclear weapons to Russia and in exchange Russia agreed to never attack them

Or to Switzerland that is neutral in every conflict. Has only 9 million citizens but 100 000 soldiers in active duty, 50 000 in reserve and more than half million civilians with army training. They also had explosives under every bridge, and a lot of weapon stashes all over the country, just in case.

It implies that when you are strong, people are afraid to attack you.

What’s ignorant about it?

“be put on war footing”… By having an army? Did you ever heard that old saying “if you want peace, prepare for war.”?

Poland is also buying… But I am not sure if our government is smart enough to reconsider. They want to be nice to the Orang Dictator hoping he will spare them… Ignoring that lord Musk already started attacking them on twiXter.

oligarchs in Russia and the oligarchs in the US, and they have control each of their respective countries

When oligarchs in russia behave like Musk, they soon fall out of the window.

Russia has allocated 25% of its current (2025) budget to military spending.

On what grounds? Are you suggesting a soviet style government takeover of existing business? If you would like to do it in the “civilized way” you would have to buy that business and while it might be profitable in a very long run it would cost you much more right now (and state owned companies tend to get less efficient).

Ok, but what is your proposed solution to the current problem? Problem being: aggressive Russia, and isolationist USA (and possibly aggressive in the future).

Start the nationalization process and if someone attacks, we will shout “give me 10 more years, I’m almost done restructuring”?

Ok, but you could use exactly the same argument against ANY government expanse.

Free health care? Free education? Why “waste” money on that?

We are just one of the richest regions of the world, we can’t throw money around on luxuries like safety and freedom. If the little green men try to take over Estonia, we can always show our solidarity by drawing hearts next to the Estonian embassy. When Adolf Trumpler reaches for Greenland we can express serious concern /s

Why? If we use that money to develop our own manufacturing capabilities (as we should) that might actually create a lot of jobs.

Da! Da Vania! No more vodka for you, go to sleep now.

Please don’t judge Americans too harshly. They just don’t have intelligence to spare anymore. They have no trace of intelligence left in the White House.