The EU thread

[Jacob]

I didn't know Switzerland had arms manufacturers. I though they all died out when the pike became obsolete.

The Swiss arms industry is actually pretty big, as I understand it. It's a classic neutral country thing to do - sell weapons to the non-neutral countries. It might be a little less effective if you insist your buyers can't use the weapons they get from you the way they like, I reckon.

[HVC]

Looks like that industry won't be big for long.

[Sheilbh]

The Swiss arms industry is actually pretty big, as I understand it. It's a classic neutral country thing to do - sell weapons to the non-neutral countries. It might be a little less effective if you insist your buyers can't use the weapons they get from you the way they like, I reckon.

That does feel like a pretty big issue for an arms manufacturer.

I suppose they could just focus on very repressive regimes or states unlikely to get involved in wars with states who also like Swiss banking. Saudi feels like a safe bet because I doubt they'd care about shelling Yemen, say.

[Josquius]

Yeah, the Swiss arms makers have already been hurt by their decisions over Ukraine. Interesting to see it's official.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/swiss-weapons-exports-plunge-neutral-stance-hurts-trade-2024-03-05/#:~:text=Despite%20its%20long%2Dheld%20neutrality,Stockholm%20International%20Peace%20Research%20Institute.

[Jacob]

Yeah, the Swiss arms makers have already been hurt by their decisions over Ukraine. Interesting to see it's official.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/swiss-weapons-exports-plunge-neutral-stance-hurts-trade-2024-03-05/#:~:text=Despite%20its%20long%2Dheld%20neutrality,Stockholm%20International%20Peace%20Research%20Institute.

According to that article Denmark was the second biggest buyer of Swiss arms in 2023 (after Germany). That makes the report that Denmark is considering excluding the Swiss from future procurement more weighty I think.

[Admiral Yi]

Okay, I'll try again

My general view about constitutions is that everyone should be looking to comply. If it is too political it makes the operation of normal politics difficult because everything is constitutional and if it is too prescriptive it makes all procedure constitutional.

I think debt rules fall into the category of both. Tax and spending power is normally the base of democratic politics. And crises are regular (just not predictable) that may require extra spending or tax cuts for various reasons. Or it could simply be shifts in in-year accounting in the Finance Department or short-term shifts require a change because they have constitutional impacts?

On the one hand you could, in effect, ignore it. Or get around it through accounting tricks where the debate around policy decisions moves from being about the thing itself, to whether you can do it off-book or not. Or use the emergency exceptions. If you are regularly having to declare states of emergency to do normal politics of responding to crises, that is a problem.

But I think all of those have a problem because the constitution is no longer a document that you are trying to comply but one that you are regularly working to get around. I think that's not a good thing - and I think precedent matters. You'd be able to say "the other side did it" because non-compliance/working around the constitution gets baked into politics.

These are all valid arguments.  But all these advantages of flexible borrowing will be lost if your country defaults.  I suppose the counter to that is what's the point of working to save the ability to borrow for future generations if no one, including those future generations, ever gets to use it.

And I suppose I don't consider "well, who cares if we default" to be a very rationale response to the issues I've raised.

As to the historical stuff: OK?  They should rewrite it?

[Valmy]

It seems weird to sell weapons if you think them being used in a war will violate your neutrality. That seems like a good scenario compared to other uses your weapons could be put to.

[HVC]

Besides, they're  doing neutrality wrong. You're supposed to be neutral so that you can take money from both sides. So let Russian oligarchs keep using your banks to store I'll gotten gains, while still suppling the Ukrainians with arms. They're disappointing their Swiss forebearers.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Besides, they're  doing neutrality wrong. You're supposed to be neutral so that you can take money from both sides. So let Russian oligarchs keep using your banks to store I'll gotten gains, while still suppling the Ukrainians with arms. They're disappointing their Swiss forebearers.

And have mercenaries fight on the various battlefields

[Sheilbh]

Don't think we have a Germany thread - but robust on Merkel's memoir (by a committed centrist liberal ). And frankly, I think if anything he goes a bit too easy:

Merkel-worship was liberalism at its worst
Fans of the former German chancellor should be contrite — even if she isn't
Janan Ganesh

Janan Ganesh December 7 2024

In the future, perhaps during one of her Baltic walks, Angela Merkel might reflect that calling her memoir Freedom, as Ukraine fights for just that against a Russia she did so much to enable, didn't exude good taste. But let us be fair. The 700 pages after the title are worse. In a book of tireless self-pity, people are always underestimating the author. You are meant to conclude that she proved them wrong. You come away asking if they had half a point.

Merkel, a one-person case for constitutional term limits, is entitled to look out for herself. "I was the most damaging European leader since 1945," was never going to be the gist of her book. To her credit, she doesn't even use her best excuse: that a generic German chancellor of the period would have done the same things — on energy, on defence, if not on asylum — such was the then national consensus.

The people I'm keener to hear from are her fans. Why did western liberals fall for Merkel? Because she was a woman? No, they disliked Margaret Thatcher, and mistrust Giorgia Meloni. Because she was of the left? No, her party is centre-right, even if the exchange rate between German politics and the Anglosphere kind isn't so neat. Because she let in a million refugees, then? She was hailed as the "Queen of Europe" well before that.

In the end, there was very little to Merkel-worship. Just a vague sense that she was a nice person and — crucially — that conservatives disliked her. Puddle-deep and tribal: the cult of Merkel was modern liberalism at its worst.

She herself has learnt no lessons from that era. But her former admirers still might, with some guidance. So here goes.

Lesson one. Scientists aren't "better". The line on Merkel was that while Britain was run by glib humanities graduates, here was a physicist-chemist who brought empirical rigour to government. Well, it wasn't the silver-tongued Oxonians who showed an almost theological aversion to nuclear power. Even if Merkel did have a thirst for detail, she also had the corollary: no larger picture, no sense of the connectedness of things. Whether a nation is run badly (Britain in recent years) or well (Britain in former times), generalists will tend to be in charge. The academic bent of the elite at the age of 18 can't be a variable that explains much. Stop worrying about the PPE degree.

Lesson two. Just because a person lacks outward charisma doesn't mean they have inner depths. (Call this the Gordon Brown Fallacy.) In all likelihood, there is even less to them than meets the eye. Merkel was said to embody a "post-heroic" style of leadership. A great strategic mind was said to smoulder away behind that quiet exterior and that coy rhombus of a hand gesture. Yeah, no. She was a sphinx without a secret. It is a type of person that recurs not just in history but in workplaces everywhere, forever having wisdom and high talent read into them. 

The last lesson? It is the one with the least chance of being heeded, I'm afraid. Bad people can have good judgment, and vice versa. An issue should be approached on its own terms, not on the basis of who stands where on it. Donald Trump was right that European defence spending was, with honourable exceptions, disgraceful. He was right that German energy dependency would help "expansionist foreign powers". And despite the constant suggestion in Merkel's book, none of this is hindsight. It's just sight. 

For a sense of the tribal shallowness that can overcome smart people, remember that Brits who hated "austerity" swore by this fiscal hawk. Not only did the tension not bother them, I'm not sure it occurred to them in the first place. What mattered was that Merkel, in some ineffable way, seemed to be on the right team. From there, the rest could be backfilled. Her policies? Her track record of judgment? Such a bore. 

Nothing captured Merkel Mania like the meme of her at a G7 summit, literally bearing down on Trump, who is seated with his arms folded. As soon as the photo was released, its message was unmistakable: the exasperated grown-up and the petulant child. No image since Dorian Gray's portrait has aged worse.

Email Janan at [email protected]

Edit: And reminded again of the clip of German diplomats laughing at Trump:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/world/german-delegation-at-un-appears-to-laugh-at-trump/2018/09/25/03ed3d1a-c0e4-11e8-9f4f-a1b7af255aa5_video.html

[Neil]

(Call this the Gordon Brown Fallacy.)

I laughed out loud at this. 

That was fairly harsh, but kind of fair.  When was the last time that a German Chancellor made anyone feel something positive?  But I guess it's a small sample size.  Since Kohl and the reunification, there's only been three people in that role, and Merkel was probably the best of them.

[Admiral Yi]

I like what I've read about Adenauer

[Syt]

(Call this the Gordon Brown Fallacy.)

I laughed out loud at this. 

That was fairly harsh, but kind of fair.  When was the last time that a German Chancellor made anyone feel something positive?  But I guess it's a small sample size.  Since Kohl and the reunification, there's only been three people in that role, and Merkel was probably the best of them.

And Kohl in his later years became rather unpopular. Like during the party donor affair where he refused to disclose the donor of a large sum (for German politics ) because "he had given the donor his word." Or a gaffe where a reporter addressed him as "Herr Kohl" and he corrected him, "Herr Doctor Kohl for you", adding that he didn't are not on such a close personal basis with the reporter. The politics of "aussitzen" (sitting something out until it goes away) was a popular strategy of his. That said, for German Unity (despite all the missteps in how it was handled) he was the right guy in the right place at the right time.

[Valmy]

I still cannot believe Merkel de-nuclearized Germany. That was such a fucking stupid thing to do. Right when we are trying to fight global warming. Just a bizarre decision.

I have always wondered if it wasn't some corrupt deal with Gazprom, like something Gerhard Schröder would champion.

[HVC]

I still cannot believe Merkel de-nuclearized Germany. That was such a fucking stupid thing to do. Right when we are trying to fight global warming. Just a bizarre decision.

I have always wondered if it wasn't some corrupt deal with Gazprom, like something Gerhard Schröder would champion.

I blame the simpsons.


And oligarch money. But mainly the simpsons.