9 ms·

Managers given 200 characters to justify not firing nuclear regulators

146 points by seo-speedwagon 2y ago

2muchcoffeeman 2y ago
Has the rest of the democratic world been making plans to reduce reliance on the US since the first Trump administration? Will this term be the end of the craziness or is this the end of the US as a super power?
- deleted 2y ago
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- littlestymaar 2y ago
  France has spent half a century being like “Look at me, I can offer nuclear umbrella, and also sell modern weapons, who need the crazy US when you can have me”, and is finally hoping to score !
  - jdmoreira 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - bryanrasmussen 2y ago
      yes, France has won a lot of wars. France and England basically divided most of the world between themselves at one point. Germany being a distant runner up. But on the other hand Groundskeeper Willie on The Simpsons said a funny thing one time so Americans now think they must be wimps.
      - misnome 2y ago
        > But on the other hand Groundskeeper Willie on The Simpsons said a funny thing one time so Americans now think they must be wimps. Is this a deep-cut joke I'm not getting about Scotland?
        krapp 2y ago
        No, it's a joke about how Americans are so ignorant about history and the rest of the world that they form their worldview entirely based on memes and pop-culture references, and the Simpsons is where the phrase "cheese eating surrender-monkeys" came from.
        jemmyw 2y ago
        Which is ironic because historically the Scotts and the French were teamed up against the English. They swapped a lot of royalty.
      - snowram 2y ago
        It is a whole lot more complicated than a Simpsons joke. While it is still pretty much completely unwarranted, French bashing has been a thing that started way earlier in history. Check this Reddit thread for a well documented summary : https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/vmkpr1/when_did_the_canard_that_the_french_were_prone_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/vmkpr1/when_...
    - nkrisc 2y ago
      I would love to hear your understanding of French military history. Genuinely curious to know what year you would choose to begin with.
      - Sharlin 2y ago
        Americans vaguely know from war movies that they capitulated to the Nazis and then the US (and the US alone, of course) had to come rescue them, and that they refused to participate in the US's illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, which then led to a propaganda campaign against France, including Freedom Fries and other nonsense. (France absolutely did partake in the war in Afghanistan, deploying several thousand troops in 2001, so nobody can say they didn't come to aid when requested.)
        nkrisc 2y ago
        As an American I am unfortunately very familiar with that narrative.
    - speedgoose 2y ago
      Here you go: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_France https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Franc...
    - mdemare 2y ago
      There is one war France won so comprehensively that everyone in this forum is still using words with a French origin in almost every sentence.
      - jdmoreira 2y ago
        You mean the cultural war between Britain and France that lasted hundreds of years? Yeah pretty sure the Anglo world won that one. Since you are writing in English in an internet forum and all
        mdemare 2y ago
        No, I meant the Norman conquest (conquête) in 1066, in which the English aristocracy (aristocratie) was replaced (remplacé) by French warlords, who kept speaking French until well in the 14th century, and changed the English language (langue) beyond recognition (reconnaissance), to the extent that Dutch or Scandinavian speakers find it easier to understand Old English than English ones do. You might view the Hundred Year War as quarrels (querelles) of different (différent) branches (branches) of the French aristocracy. Therefore, the current (courant) Anglo-Saxon hegemony (hégémonie) has its roots in France.
- deleted 2y ago
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- lawn 2y ago
  It really does feel like this is the end of the US as the dominating super power and world police. Who wants to buy weapons from the US when you won't get permission to use them to defend themselves? Who wants to make deals with the US when they will just get torn up and the US will even threaten their allies with economic sanctions and even invasion? Who in their right mind will lean on the US to protect them, when they're showing how incompetent and unreliable they are? The answer is obvious.
  - Hikikomori 2y ago
    They'll transition to be an even bigger bully.
    - lawn 2y ago
      Yes, the US is moving towards a Russian-style oligarchy with frightening speed.
- lm28469 2y ago
  They're sabotaging all their soft power and alliances by themselves so the rest of the world doesn't really have a choice this time: https://www.reuters.com/world/china-tells-eu-it-is-willing-enhance-communication-2025-02-15/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china-tells-eu-it-is-willing-e...
  - 2muchcoffeeman 2y ago
    This is the one that really gets me. I can’t tell if Trump understands what he’s doing or not.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  Yes the rest of the world has been making plans https://www.politico.eu/article/us-recedes-nato-scrambles-find-new-leader-munich-security-conference/ https://www.politico.eu/article/us-recedes-nato-scrambles-fi... Latin American countries are increasing ties to China https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/12/trump-china-south-america-foreign-policy https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/12/trump-china-... Canada is moving toward diversifying its global trade https://www.investmentexecutive.com/news/industry-news/u-s-tariffs-remind-canada-to-diversify-global-trade/ https://www.investmentexecutive.com/news/industry-news/u-s-t... > Will this term be the end of the craziness or is this the end of the US as a super power? No Democrat could ever say we need to spend more money on foreign aid, rebuild the CFPB, or do anything that is seen to be spending taxpayer money to help poor people either domestic or abroad. The Republican Party seems like it will be populist at least for a generation. No traditional Republican could ever win a primary today. Reagan himself would be called a RINO today.
- Manheim 2y ago
  I think it is increasingly clear that Europe, Canada, the UK, and other Western liberal democracies are laying the groundwork for a new strategic direction, one where the United States is no longer viewed as a dependable superpower or a guaranteed partner. This does not mean the US will be written off entirely, at least not in the foreseeable future. However, the era in which the US could dictate the global agenda, particularly in Europe, appears to be coming to an end. A recent example is the US Vice President’s speech in Germany, followed by meetings with the AfD rather than the German Chancellor - an unmistakable signal that Washington no longer prioritizes its European allies in the same way. A similar shift may be seen in the area of technology. Reliance on American tech companies and investments is likely to decrease, with governments and businesses seeking alternatives. Even China could play a role in this transition, despite the security risks it presents. Economic growth depends on global trade, and many nations may be unwilling to let US protectionism dictate their technological and economic choices. It is an unexpected turn, but in hindsight, one we could have seen coming. The transformation of the US Republican Party, coupled with growing public support for politicians who embrace extreme rhetoric, reject objective facts, and show little respect for science or democratic principles, has reshaped the country’s global standing. Many of these figures claim to uphold democracy but, from an outside perspective, promote an increasingly authoritarian vision through their policies and rhetoric. Ultimately, it is up to the American people to choose their government and shape their society. However, the US has become increasingly unstable and polarized, straying from both common sense and the ideals of a liberal democracy. As this internal turmoil continues, it is no surprise that its traditional allies are beginning to seek a future less dependent on American leadership.
- cbg0 2y ago
  > Has the rest of the democratic world been making plans to reduce reliance on the US since the first Trump administration? Plans were already being drafted before Trump won the election, given his strong polling, but bureaucracy makes things move a little slow. I think it has united EU countries who understand that this over-reliance on the US can be problematic given how quickly policies can shift, and will lead to a stronger EU. The NATO framework is there and all countries part of it can keep following it to work together even without the US, and regardless of the memes, EU countries have a very advanced arsenal and lots of trained military personnel - with Russia struggling against one country, it's hard to believe they can ever make a move against 27 EU states, especially due to historical bad blood between many of them and Russia, which only serve to amplify the desire to stand up against them. > Will this term be the end of the craziness or is this the end of the US as a super power? I think it's a correction we've been due for a while, especially with the rise in extremist parties in recent years all across the world. Whether things will reseat themselves smoothly or whether we'll be in for a rough ride, it's hard to say. If the current trend keeps going in the next few years with the US becoming more isolationist, I think it will be almost impossible for them to comeback to being a superpower even with a future president that wants to do a 180, as it takes more than nukes to be a superpower.
  - mnky9800n 2y ago
    My fear is not that Russia and allies will fight a giant land war with all of Europe. It is that Putin will continue moving his lukachenko and viktor orban pieces and acquire new ones through out Europe that will effectively make Europe reliant on russia and in some ways controlled by Russia. They don’t need to own everything to control everything.
    - cbg0 2y ago
      This push has been ongoing for year and the success has definitely been less than expected, with Finland and Sweden joining NATO. I think with the Americans stepping back, this will only strengthen ties between EU countries, though there still are issues which have to be solved on the energy sector to reduce reliance on Russia.
- Yoric 2y ago
  I actually have been speculating since Trump 1 on whether Europe would eventually join the Chinese block. On the one side, we (now) have Trump both threatening Europe with the potential of an invasion of Groenland, and explicitly telling Russia that it won't intervene if Putin bombs Europe, so if I were a European leader, I'd be looking for allies. On the other side, we have China and Europe being the two powers who actually pay a little bit more than lip service to long-term thinking, in particular the future of the planet, while Trump is explicitly saying f*ck to the environment. Yes, there are countless divergences between China and Europe, in addition to competiton. But we've seen stranger bedfellows.
  - karmakurtisaani 2y ago
    It's crazy how Trump is making China look like a good partner. At least they would be reliable and predictable to large extent. The human rights violations and ambitions to grab Taiwan are obviously worrying. Europe may need to give up on the ideal of promoting human rights, democracy and peace, and just be happy to be able to preserve them at home.
- barrkel 2y ago
  Yes. There are many in the US who have a particular strand of thinking. It goes a bit like this: The US is meddling too much in other country's affairs. Only a handful of countries actually have agency - US, Russia, China mostly. All the wars out there are actually proxy wars, because the US is up to no good and interfering with one of the other countries with agency. It follows that all that is required for global peace is to withdraw US support for foreign adventuring. America looks after America, Russia looks after (extended) Russia. The more isolationist a country is, the better it is. Hungary is a better friend than the UK because it opposes American adventuring, just like us. There are other elements of the logic. America interferes abroad for cynical reasons. In Afghanistan, it was the poppies. In Iraq, it was the oil. They scratched their head a little over Ukraine, but then decided it was for rare earth minerals. I don't know if it's the end of the US as superpower, but what Musk is doing is destroying US state capacity from within, and what Trump's representatives are doing are destroying US influence abroad. If the goal is ending the US as a superpower, the actions are certainly shaped in a way that look like they're trying to end it.
  - Hikikomori 2y ago
    Yet Canada should be the 51st state, Panama canal should be owned by the US, Greenland should be turned over to the US, Ukraine should just sign over 500B of rare earth mineral rights to US for nothing in return. Its not the end of US meddling, its the start of becoming an outright and corrupt bully without the thin veneer of democratic good guys they've tried to project before.
- FergusArgyll 2y ago
  > the end of the US as a super power This take will age well and doesn't come from a place of rage. at all.
- orwin 2y ago
  The most obvious one was mostly build to get rid of visa and mastercard (and for a part of the immigrated population, Alipay and other "services" to transfer money externally), it's called the EPI and it has been in the works for a while, but i assure you that if Musk threaten a big enough european company, that shit will be ready in a month at worst.
actionfromafar 2y ago
Foreign intelligence agencies must pinch themselves right now.
- tjpnz 2y ago
  Or exercising every exploit they've banked knowing the chances of being caught are now even lower.
- prawn 2y ago
  Serious case of "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake", I suspect.
- scotty79 2y ago
  Last few decades of what US is doing might be described as heroically snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, in slow motion. Basically since US was orphaned on the world stage by USSR it gradually falls apart.
  - generic92034 2y ago
    Something similar as the USSR might be back in a couple of years, though.
    - deleted 2y ago
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    - actionfromafar 2y ago
      It might, but if so funded by China. (Or maybe you just meant China?)
    - scotty79 2y ago
      It doesn't really matter. After failed attempt at adopting "terrorism" as new enemy, USA firmly fixated its sights on China in hopes that a strong enemy will help US regain former prosperity. What Trump currently is doing fits perfectly this goal. Russia is natural, local ally of USA against China, that's what Trump means when he voices hopes for future cooperation between "our great countries". It is further reinforced by plans to sell F35 to India, another natural ally, which means those planes will be copied by Russia as soon as possible. In all this Europe is just abandoned. USA knows that in conflict against China, Europe is useless as it has no business in making enemy out of China. What he might be not appreciating sufficiently (because he percieves Europe as weak and restricted by its morals) is that Europe can be motivated to align themselves with China against Russia. While Europe can't (and doesn't want to) threaten China in any way they can offer China a lot. For starters they could start delivering most advanced litography machines, which only they know how to make to China, instead of Taiwan. And they could also internationally recognize China taking into their zone of influnece eastern parts of Russia if China agrees to provide military assistance and suplemental nuclear deterrence in the war of Europe against Russia that's almost inevitably coming. I think at some point sobering realization will come that evading your responsibility of global hegemon (even if at this point it's only nominal role) and leaving Europe hanging might have severe consequences for Trump's imperial project.
jgord 2y ago
Bruce Schneiers thoughts : https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/02/doge-as-a-national.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/02/doge-as-a-nat... https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/02/ai-and-civil-service-purges.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/02/ai-and-civil-...
- wewewedxfgdf 2y ago
  >> Assuming that anyone in the government still cares. Schneier hits the mark here. Government only works at all if people care. And if you tell someone that their job, and the organisation they work for - are of no value - then those people won't care any more. I don't know what the outcome would be of large swathes of the government either being fired or not caring any more but we're going to find out and I don't think it will be good. Or maybe not, maybe Trump and whathisname are right and government really is a complete waste of money. In which case there will be great money savings and the USA will be the better for it.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    Any great money savings isn’t going to come from getting rid of personnel. Spending on government employees is only 6.8% of the budget. If they reach their goal of cutting 10%, that’s still less than 1% of the budget. They are going to have to cut Medicare, Social Security and military spending to make a dent.
    - deleted 2y ago
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    - retinaros 2y ago
      If you believe Musk wont reach it you are dreaming. Just cutting all funding to all those NGO and those foreign news institutions will do it. In many countries a big chunk of governments workers are bs jobs and are just there to maintain an aging machine look like its working while helping reducing unemployment rate by financing useless jobs.
dqv 2y ago
Department tasked with reigning in bureaucracy finds out where bureaucracy comes from.
wewewedxfgdf 2y ago
The Presidential Pardon being the underlying legal basis of everything. With that power, everything is legal.
- gigatexal 2y ago
  Yup. Basically that and the president being the executor of laws and having a standing army that he is chief of … effectively makes him a king. Especially since Congress is bought and paid for and won’t impeach him.
  - mrkeen 2y ago
    I'm putting this one on the voter, not Congress. As dumb as it is, Trump ran on these policies and is delivering.
    - _petronius 2y ago
      No electoral mandate can make illegal actions legal, or abrogate the law. The refusal of the congressional majority to enforce their authority under article 1 is what is causing this constitutional crisis. (Also, Trump did not run on these policies -- he's implementing policies he explicitly repudiated when he lied about not being affiliated with the Project 2025 manifesto.) I don't want to let the voters off the hook, but continuous, ongoing responsibility for this unfolding economic and political disaster lies with the people who hold institutional authority, and are refusing to use it to comply with the law as it stands.
      - krapp 2y ago
        >Also, Trump did not run on these policies -- he's implementing policies he explicitly repudiated when he lied about not being affiliated with the Project 2025 manifesto. Where do you think Project 2025 came from? Trump may not have run on the specific, enumerated list of items in the Project 2025 agenda, but everything in that agenda falls in line with Trumpist goals and right-wing Republican ideals, and it had deep connections with the Republican Party establishment and Trump's own network. It was published by the same group that selected Trump's Supreme Court nominees. It didn't simply emerge from the aether. The narrative that "this isn't what Trump voters voted for" is being pushed hard right now for understandable reasons. That may be true in some cases, but it's also true that this is exactly what a lot of Trump voters voted for. At worst, they simply didn't expect the consequences of their actions to affect them, but they knew what they wanted to happen to everyone else.
lakomen 2y ago
[dead]
cess11 2y ago
Great news for Iran, which might not need to assemble its own nuclear warheads and instead could buy them off some shady salesperson in Bulgaria once they've been pilfered from the US.
- ta2234234242 2y ago
  I don't know. Has DOGE accessed the nuclear codes yet for a first strike offensive towards Iran yet?
  - cess11 2y ago
    I don't think there are any "nuclear codes". I think they might have been a thing at some point in history since the idea is so pervasive, but in a crisis you'd not want someone to have to figure out some non-trivial password before MAD doctrine can be applied. Maybe I'm wrong, I know more about field tactics and guerilla warfare than grand strategy.
    - Yoric 2y ago
      I remember reading somewhere (atlas obscura, maybe?) that the US military was much more scared of a rogue general launching a nuclear strike than of the USSR starting the war. So I'm going to assume that there is _some_ kind of code.
    - pjc50 2y ago
      Apparently at one point they were set to "0000000".
      - magicalhippo 2y ago
        Reference: https://sgs.princeton.edu/00000000 https://sgs.princeton.edu/00000000
apples_oranges 2y ago
Imagine if crypto proponents were tasked like this with remaking the monetary systems, without having a real clue why it currently is how it is. It could be interesting and even work, but more likely than not it will just repeat the errors of the past and would be tweaked again and again until it resembles something similar to what it is now, with massive fallout in the meantime.
- ImHereToVote 2y ago
  The irony the eurodollar system already works like decentralized crypto. There is a ledger of assets and liabilities and the international banks keep tabs on each other.
bambax 2y ago
> Nuclear security is highly specialized, high-pressure work, but it's not particularly well paid, one employee told NPR. Given what's unfolded over the past 24 hours, "why would anybody want to take these jobs?" they asked. The people who will be hired in those jobs in the future are the ones who can't find any other job, and don't care one way or another. It will be a catastrophe of epic proportions, but hard to notice at first because it happens so slowly. Which makes it all the more dangerous.
- fifilura 2y ago
  I guess the EU should hire them, since they probably need to enhance their nuclear weapon capabilities now.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    > I guess the EU should hire them The EU doesn't have control of defense policy - that is the mandate of individual European states. The only EU member with nuclear weapons is France, which has it's own domestic nuclear ecosystem. More critically, public sector hiring is not the same as private sector. Working for a foreign government's NatSec apparatus would be a red flag for any sort of hiring - especially in the domestic nuclear industry in France.
    - throw0101d 2y ago
      > The only EU member with nuclear weapons is France, which has it's own domestic nuclear ecosystem. The UK has US-derived (?) nuclear weapons, and so it would perhaps make sense for them to hire the Americans that maintained them: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_of_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_of_the_United_... Given the 'waffling' of Trump on NATO support, Poland may want to develop their own. Also South Korea and Japan may want to ramp up their own native infrastructure given the waffling of US Pacific support.
      - alephnerd 2y ago
CafeRacer 2y ago
Challenge accepted. Less than 200 characters. "Man fire, big boom, Trump look bad" Here is another version but Haiku Man Fire Big Boom Trump look dumb
hingusdingus 2y ago
In nuclear the saying "there's always enough time to do it right the first time" comes to mind. Preventing rework and reducing risk to the safety of the public. When it comes to the doe there are likely departments that could be trimmed back and interpretations of some laws to the cfr made a little more clear, but since the doe is in charge of everything nuclear it might be good to do a more indepth look at each department instead of a quick and careless wipe. Currently nuclear power is regulated in a way of "bring me a rock and I'll tell you if it's the right rock, but if it isn't the right rock it will be painful.
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ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43055119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43055119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43063512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43063512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43061481 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43061481
nativeit 2y ago
The headline is "Trump firings cause chaos at agency responsible for America's nuclear weapons"
itsdrewmiller 2y ago
This should be fixed to match the article title, but if these jobs are important it seems easy to justify not firing them with 200 characters? "Avoid nuclear war" is only 17, and changing "war" to "meltdowns" only adds another 6.

Has the rest of the democratic world been making plans to reduce reliance on the US since the first Trump administration? Will this term be the end of the craziness or is this the end of the US as a super power?

deleted 2y ago
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littlestymaar 2y ago
France has spent half a century being like “Look at me, I can offer nuclear umbrella, and also sell modern weapons, who need the crazy US when you can have me”, and is finally hoping to score !
- jdmoreira 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - bryanrasmussen 2y ago
    yes, France has won a lot of wars. France and England basically divided most of the world between themselves at one point. Germany being a distant runner up. But on the other hand Groundskeeper Willie on The Simpsons said a funny thing one time so Americans now think they must be wimps.
    - misnome 2y ago
      > But on the other hand Groundskeeper Willie on The Simpsons said a funny thing one time so Americans now think they must be wimps. Is this a deep-cut joke I'm not getting about Scotland?
      - krapp 2y ago
        No, it's a joke about how Americans are so ignorant about history and the rest of the world that they form their worldview entirely based on memes and pop-culture references, and the Simpsons is where the phrase "cheese eating surrender-monkeys" came from.
        jemmyw 2y ago
        Which is ironic because historically the Scotts and the French were teamed up against the English. They swapped a lot of royalty.
    - snowram 2y ago
      It is a whole lot more complicated than a Simpsons joke. While it is still pretty much completely unwarranted, French bashing has been a thing that started way earlier in history. Check this Reddit thread for a well documented summary : https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/vmkpr1/when_did_the_canard_that_the_french_were_prone_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/vmkpr1/when_...
  - nkrisc 2y ago
    I would love to hear your understanding of French military history. Genuinely curious to know what year you would choose to begin with.
    - Sharlin 2y ago
      Americans vaguely know from war movies that they capitulated to the Nazis and then the US (and the US alone, of course) had to come rescue them, and that they refused to participate in the US's illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, which then led to a propaganda campaign against France, including Freedom Fries and other nonsense. (France absolutely did partake in the war in Afghanistan, deploying several thousand troops in 2001, so nobody can say they didn't come to aid when requested.)
      - nkrisc 2y ago
        As an American I am unfortunately very familiar with that narrative.
  - speedgoose 2y ago
    Here you go: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_France https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Franc...
  - mdemare 2y ago
    There is one war France won so comprehensively that everyone in this forum is still using words with a French origin in almost every sentence.
    - jdmoreira 2y ago
      You mean the cultural war between Britain and France that lasted hundreds of years? Yeah pretty sure the Anglo world won that one. Since you are writing in English in an internet forum and all
      - mdemare 2y ago
        No, I meant the Norman conquest (conquête) in 1066, in which the English aristocracy (aristocratie) was replaced (remplacé) by French warlords, who kept speaking French until well in the 14th century, and changed the English language (langue) beyond recognition (reconnaissance), to the extent that Dutch or Scandinavian speakers find it easier to understand Old English than English ones do. You might view the Hundred Year War as quarrels (querelles) of different (différent) branches (branches) of the French aristocracy. Therefore, the current (courant) Anglo-Saxon hegemony (hégémonie) has its roots in France.
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lawn 2y ago
It really does feel like this is the end of the US as the dominating super power and world police. Who wants to buy weapons from the US when you won't get permission to use them to defend themselves? Who wants to make deals with the US when they will just get torn up and the US will even threaten their allies with economic sanctions and even invasion? Who in their right mind will lean on the US to protect them, when they're showing how incompetent and unreliable they are? The answer is obvious.
- Hikikomori 2y ago
  They'll transition to be an even bigger bully.
  - lawn 2y ago
    Yes, the US is moving towards a Russian-style oligarchy with frightening speed.
lm28469 2y ago
They're sabotaging all their soft power and alliances by themselves so the rest of the world doesn't really have a choice this time: https://www.reuters.com/world/china-tells-eu-it-is-willing-enhance-communication-2025-02-15/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china-tells-eu-it-is-willing-e...
- 2muchcoffeeman 2y ago
  This is the one that really gets me. I can’t tell if Trump understands what he’s doing or not.
scarface_74 2y ago
Yes the rest of the world has been making plans https://www.politico.eu/article/us-recedes-nato-scrambles-find-new-leader-munich-security-conference/ https://www.politico.eu/article/us-recedes-nato-scrambles-fi... Latin American countries are increasing ties to China https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/12/trump-china-south-america-foreign-policy https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/12/trump-china-... Canada is moving toward diversifying its global trade https://www.investmentexecutive.com/news/industry-news/u-s-tariffs-remind-canada-to-diversify-global-trade/ https://www.investmentexecutive.com/news/industry-news/u-s-t... > Will this term be the end of the craziness or is this the end of the US as a super power? No Democrat could ever say we need to spend more money on foreign aid, rebuild the CFPB, or do anything that is seen to be spending taxpayer money to help poor people either domestic or abroad. The Republican Party seems like it will be populist at least for a generation. No traditional Republican could ever win a primary today. Reagan himself would be called a RINO today.
Manheim 2y ago
I think it is increasingly clear that Europe, Canada, the UK, and other Western liberal democracies are laying the groundwork for a new strategic direction, one where the United States is no longer viewed as a dependable superpower or a guaranteed partner. This does not mean the US will be written off entirely, at least not in the foreseeable future. However, the era in which the US could dictate the global agenda, particularly in Europe, appears to be coming to an end. A recent example is the US Vice President’s speech in Germany, followed by meetings with the AfD rather than the German Chancellor - an unmistakable signal that Washington no longer prioritizes its European allies in the same way. A similar shift may be seen in the area of technology. Reliance on American tech companies and investments is likely to decrease, with governments and businesses seeking alternatives. Even China could play a role in this transition, despite the security risks it presents. Economic growth depends on global trade, and many nations may be unwilling to let US protectionism dictate their technological and economic choices. It is an unexpected turn, but in hindsight, one we could have seen coming. The transformation of the US Republican Party, coupled with growing public support for politicians who embrace extreme rhetoric, reject objective facts, and show little respect for science or democratic principles, has reshaped the country’s global standing. Many of these figures claim to uphold democracy but, from an outside perspective, promote an increasingly authoritarian vision through their policies and rhetoric. Ultimately, it is up to the American people to choose their government and shape their society. However, the US has become increasingly unstable and polarized, straying from both common sense and the ideals of a liberal democracy. As this internal turmoil continues, it is no surprise that its traditional allies are beginning to seek a future less dependent on American leadership.
cbg0 2y ago
> Has the rest of the democratic world been making plans to reduce reliance on the US since the first Trump administration? Plans were already being drafted before Trump won the election, given his strong polling, but bureaucracy makes things move a little slow. I think it has united EU countries who understand that this over-reliance on the US can be problematic given how quickly policies can shift, and will lead to a stronger EU. The NATO framework is there and all countries part of it can keep following it to work together even without the US, and regardless of the memes, EU countries have a very advanced arsenal and lots of trained military personnel - with Russia struggling against one country, it's hard to believe they can ever make a move against 27 EU states, especially due to historical bad blood between many of them and Russia, which only serve to amplify the desire to stand up against them. > Will this term be the end of the craziness or is this the end of the US as a super power? I think it's a correction we've been due for a while, especially with the rise in extremist parties in recent years all across the world. Whether things will reseat themselves smoothly or whether we'll be in for a rough ride, it's hard to say. If the current trend keeps going in the next few years with the US becoming more isolationist, I think it will be almost impossible for them to comeback to being a superpower even with a future president that wants to do a 180, as it takes more than nukes to be a superpower.
- mnky9800n 2y ago
  My fear is not that Russia and allies will fight a giant land war with all of Europe. It is that Putin will continue moving his lukachenko and viktor orban pieces and acquire new ones through out Europe that will effectively make Europe reliant on russia and in some ways controlled by Russia. They don’t need to own everything to control everything.
  - cbg0 2y ago
    This push has been ongoing for year and the success has definitely been less than expected, with Finland and Sweden joining NATO. I think with the Americans stepping back, this will only strengthen ties between EU countries, though there still are issues which have to be solved on the energy sector to reduce reliance on Russia.
Yoric 2y ago
I actually have been speculating since Trump 1 on whether Europe would eventually join the Chinese block. On the one side, we (now) have Trump both threatening Europe with the potential of an invasion of Groenland, and explicitly telling Russia that it won't intervene if Putin bombs Europe, so if I were a European leader, I'd be looking for allies. On the other side, we have China and Europe being the two powers who actually pay a little bit more than lip service to long-term thinking, in particular the future of the planet, while Trump is explicitly saying f*ck to the environment. Yes, there are countless divergences between China and Europe, in addition to competiton. But we've seen stranger bedfellows.
- karmakurtisaani 2y ago
  It's crazy how Trump is making China look like a good partner. At least they would be reliable and predictable to large extent. The human rights violations and ambitions to grab Taiwan are obviously worrying. Europe may need to give up on the ideal of promoting human rights, democracy and peace, and just be happy to be able to preserve them at home.
barrkel 2y ago
Yes. There are many in the US who have a particular strand of thinking. It goes a bit like this: The US is meddling too much in other country's affairs. Only a handful of countries actually have agency - US, Russia, China mostly. All the wars out there are actually proxy wars, because the US is up to no good and interfering with one of the other countries with agency. It follows that all that is required for global peace is to withdraw US support for foreign adventuring. America looks after America, Russia looks after (extended) Russia. The more isolationist a country is, the better it is. Hungary is a better friend than the UK because it opposes American adventuring, just like us. There are other elements of the logic. America interferes abroad for cynical reasons. In Afghanistan, it was the poppies. In Iraq, it was the oil. They scratched their head a little over Ukraine, but then decided it was for rare earth minerals. I don't know if it's the end of the US as superpower, but what Musk is doing is destroying US state capacity from within, and what Trump's representatives are doing are destroying US influence abroad. If the goal is ending the US as a superpower, the actions are certainly shaped in a way that look like they're trying to end it.
- Hikikomori 2y ago
  Yet Canada should be the 51st state, Panama canal should be owned by the US, Greenland should be turned over to the US, Ukraine should just sign over 500B of rare earth mineral rights to US for nothing in return. Its not the end of US meddling, its the start of becoming an outright and corrupt bully without the thin veneer of democratic good guys they've tried to project before.
FergusArgyll 2y ago
> the end of the US as a super power This take will age well and doesn't come from a place of rage. at all.
orwin 2y ago
The most obvious one was mostly build to get rid of visa and mastercard (and for a part of the immigrated population, Alipay and other "services" to transfer money externally), it's called the EPI and it has been in the works for a while, but i assure you that if Musk threaten a big enough european company, that shit will be ready in a month at worst.

actionfromafar 2y ago

Foreign intelligence agencies must pinch themselves right now.

tjpnz 2y ago
Or exercising every exploit they've banked knowing the chances of being caught are now even lower.
prawn 2y ago
Serious case of "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake", I suspect.
scotty79 2y ago
Last few decades of what US is doing might be described as heroically snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, in slow motion. Basically since US was orphaned on the world stage by USSR it gradually falls apart.
- generic92034 2y ago
  Something similar as the USSR might be back in a couple of years, though.
  - deleted 2y ago
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  - actionfromafar 2y ago
    It might, but if so funded by China. (Or maybe you just meant China?)
  - scotty79 2y ago
    It doesn't really matter. After failed attempt at adopting "terrorism" as new enemy, USA firmly fixated its sights on China in hopes that a strong enemy will help US regain former prosperity. What Trump currently is doing fits perfectly this goal. Russia is natural, local ally of USA against China, that's what Trump means when he voices hopes for future cooperation between "our great countries". It is further reinforced by plans to sell F35 to India, another natural ally, which means those planes will be copied by Russia as soon as possible. In all this Europe is just abandoned. USA knows that in conflict against China, Europe is useless as it has no business in making enemy out of China. What he might be not appreciating sufficiently (because he percieves Europe as weak and restricted by its morals) is that Europe can be motivated to align themselves with China against Russia. While Europe can't (and doesn't want to) threaten China in any way they can offer China a lot. For starters they could start delivering most advanced litography machines, which only they know how to make to China, instead of Taiwan. And they could also internationally recognize China taking into their zone of influnece eastern parts of Russia if China agrees to provide military assistance and suplemental nuclear deterrence in the war of Europe against Russia that's almost inevitably coming. I think at some point sobering realization will come that evading your responsibility of global hegemon (even if at this point it's only nominal role) and leaving Europe hanging might have severe consequences for Trump's imperial project.

jgord 2y ago

Bruce Schneiers thoughts : https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/02/doge-as-a-national.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/02/doge-as-a-nat... https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/02/ai-and-civil-service-purges.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/02/ai-and-civil-...

wewewedxfgdf 2y ago
>> Assuming that anyone in the government still cares. Schneier hits the mark here. Government only works at all if people care. And if you tell someone that their job, and the organisation they work for - are of no value - then those people won't care any more. I don't know what the outcome would be of large swathes of the government either being fired or not caring any more but we're going to find out and I don't think it will be good. Or maybe not, maybe Trump and whathisname are right and government really is a complete waste of money. In which case there will be great money savings and the USA will be the better for it.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  Any great money savings isn’t going to come from getting rid of personnel. Spending on government employees is only 6.8% of the budget. If they reach their goal of cutting 10%, that’s still less than 1% of the budget. They are going to have to cut Medicare, Social Security and military spending to make a dent.
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  - retinaros 2y ago
    If you believe Musk wont reach it you are dreaming. Just cutting all funding to all those NGO and those foreign news institutions will do it. In many countries a big chunk of governments workers are bs jobs and are just there to maintain an aging machine look like its working while helping reducing unemployment rate by financing useless jobs.

dqv 2y ago

Department tasked with reigning in bureaucracy finds out where bureaucracy comes from.

wewewedxfgdf 2y ago

The Presidential Pardon being the underlying legal basis of everything. With that power, everything is legal.

gigatexal 2y ago
Yup. Basically that and the president being the executor of laws and having a standing army that he is chief of … effectively makes him a king. Especially since Congress is bought and paid for and won’t impeach him.
- mrkeen 2y ago
  I'm putting this one on the voter, not Congress. As dumb as it is, Trump ran on these policies and is delivering.
  - _petronius 2y ago
    No electoral mandate can make illegal actions legal, or abrogate the law. The refusal of the congressional majority to enforce their authority under article 1 is what is causing this constitutional crisis. (Also, Trump did not run on these policies -- he's implementing policies he explicitly repudiated when he lied about not being affiliated with the Project 2025 manifesto.) I don't want to let the voters off the hook, but continuous, ongoing responsibility for this unfolding economic and political disaster lies with the people who hold institutional authority, and are refusing to use it to comply with the law as it stands.
    - krapp 2y ago
      >Also, Trump did not run on these policies -- he's implementing policies he explicitly repudiated when he lied about not being affiliated with the Project 2025 manifesto. Where do you think Project 2025 came from? Trump may not have run on the specific, enumerated list of items in the Project 2025 agenda, but everything in that agenda falls in line with Trumpist goals and right-wing Republican ideals, and it had deep connections with the Republican Party establishment and Trump's own network. It was published by the same group that selected Trump's Supreme Court nominees. It didn't simply emerge from the aether. The narrative that "this isn't what Trump voters voted for" is being pushed hard right now for understandable reasons. That may be true in some cases, but it's also true that this is exactly what a lot of Trump voters voted for. At worst, they simply didn't expect the consequences of their actions to affect them, but they knew what they wanted to happen to everyone else.

lakomen 2y ago

[dead]

cess11 2y ago

Great news for Iran, which might not need to assemble its own nuclear warheads and instead could buy them off some shady salesperson in Bulgaria once they've been pilfered from the US.

ta2234234242 2y ago
I don't know. Has DOGE accessed the nuclear codes yet for a first strike offensive towards Iran yet?
- cess11 2y ago
  I don't think there are any "nuclear codes". I think they might have been a thing at some point in history since the idea is so pervasive, but in a crisis you'd not want someone to have to figure out some non-trivial password before MAD doctrine can be applied. Maybe I'm wrong, I know more about field tactics and guerilla warfare than grand strategy.
  - Yoric 2y ago
    I remember reading somewhere (atlas obscura, maybe?) that the US military was much more scared of a rogue general launching a nuclear strike than of the USSR starting the war. So I'm going to assume that there is _some_ kind of code.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    Apparently at one point they were set to "0000000".
    - magicalhippo 2y ago
      Reference: https://sgs.princeton.edu/00000000 https://sgs.princeton.edu/00000000

apples_oranges 2y ago

Imagine if crypto proponents were tasked like this with remaking the monetary systems, without having a real clue why it currently is how it is. It could be interesting and even work, but more likely than not it will just repeat the errors of the past and would be tweaked again and again until it resembles something similar to what it is now, with massive fallout in the meantime.

ImHereToVote 2y ago
The irony the eurodollar system already works like decentralized crypto. There is a ledger of assets and liabilities and the international banks keep tabs on each other.

bambax 2y ago

> Nuclear security is highly specialized, high-pressure work, but it's not particularly well paid, one employee told NPR. Given what's unfolded over the past 24 hours, "why would anybody want to take these jobs?" they asked. The people who will be hired in those jobs in the future are the ones who can't find any other job, and don't care one way or another. It will be a catastrophe of epic proportions, but hard to notice at first because it happens so slowly. Which makes it all the more dangerous.

fifilura 2y ago
I guess the EU should hire them, since they probably need to enhance their nuclear weapon capabilities now.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  > I guess the EU should hire them The EU doesn't have control of defense policy - that is the mandate of individual European states. The only EU member with nuclear weapons is France, which has it's own domestic nuclear ecosystem. More critically, public sector hiring is not the same as private sector. Working for a foreign government's NatSec apparatus would be a red flag for any sort of hiring - especially in the domestic nuclear industry in France.
  - throw0101d 2y ago
    > The only EU member with nuclear weapons is France, which has it's own domestic nuclear ecosystem. The UK has US-derived (?) nuclear weapons, and so it would perhaps make sense for them to hire the Americans that maintained them: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_of_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_of_the_United_... Given the 'waffling' of Trump on NATO support, Poland may want to develop their own. Also South Korea and Japan may want to ramp up their own native infrastructure given the waffling of US Pacific support.
    - alephnerd 2y ago

CafeRacer 2y ago

Challenge accepted. Less than 200 characters. "Man fire, big boom, Trump look bad" Here is another version but Haiku Man Fire Big Boom Trump look dumb

hingusdingus 2y ago

In nuclear the saying "there's always enough time to do it right the first time" comes to mind. Preventing rework and reducing risk to the safety of the public. When it comes to the doe there are likely departments that could be trimmed back and interpretations of some laws to the cfr made a little more clear, but since the doe is in charge of everything nuclear it might be good to do a more indepth look at each department instead of a quick and careless wipe. Currently nuclear power is regulated in a way of "bring me a rock and I'll tell you if it's the right rock, but if it isn't the right rock it will be painful.

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ChrisArchitect 2y ago

Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43055119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43055119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43063512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43063512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43061481 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43061481

nativeit 2y ago

The headline is "Trump firings cause chaos at agency responsible for America's nuclear weapons"

itsdrewmiller 2y ago

This should be fixed to match the article title, but if these jobs are important it seems easy to justify not firing them with 200 characters? "Avoid nuclear war" is only 17, and changing "war" to "meltdowns" only adds another 6.