I watched a few minutes of the press conference after their dinner/lunch meeting, with Orban taking his turn to answer questions after DJT had spoken. As an outsider, your PM seems to me to have done a good job of using his EU veto to dampen Brussels-centric hysteria and bear-poking over the last few years. Keeping the US onside has to be a massive lift for his international profile as well. All of which will have Queen Ursula hyperventilating of course. I enjoyed your colourful description of Hungary's geographical neighbourhood by the way.....
It's nice to have America on your side, but the Americans have their own interests and make you pay a steep price even when they're friendly, and their C-17s can take off any moment, leaving you behind to deal with your local adversaries, alone.
It's unwise to burn local bridges, to antagonize neighbors because a superpower one ocean away stands behind your back. The Polish Right learned it the humiliating way, having to suck up to Biden once the Ukraine war started.
It's more valuable to have the Visegrad 4 back together, than the fleeting and unreliable support of the White House. One of the major European powers flipping (abandoning national suicide) is also more valuable.
Absolutely. I am sure that Orban knows that “America First” means exactly that, and the Trump administration will have its own geopolitical and possibly strategic interests uppermost-at all times. He is walking a fine line, it seems. Perhaps Germany at least will have some sort of a non-terminal shock to end the steady march over the green cliff. Maybe rolling but short blackouts or brownouts will be the sort of jolt required under the political classes. And you are right of course: we all need good , functional relations with our next-door neighbours. The most cost-effective trade arrangements are almost always local. But I wish him well, in any case. Just a few thoughts from a UK observer, with no pretensions to any insights!
When I saw "The Joules did this", my immediate reaction was Emerson, Lake & Palmer's "Welcome Back, My Friends, to the Show That Never Ends", thinking "Joules" was a conflation of "Jews" and "Jules" (short for "Julius", a common-enough Jewish name), and that you'd written yet-another "something" (Welcome Back!) about Israel, Gaza, and European-Judeophobia. So, a pleasant surprise. EROEI is both educational and entertaining (try saying it, and see if, in your mind's-ear, you don't hear the Flying Monkeys from the Wizard of Oz, chanting it -- "E-RO-EI, yo-ho, E-RO-EI, yo-ho"). Welcome back... I hope we'll see you again, more frequently.
I watched a few minutes of the press conference after their dinner/lunch meeting, with Orban taking his turn to answer questions after DJT had spoken. As an outsider, your PM seems to me to have done a good job of using his EU veto to dampen Brussels-centric hysteria and bear-poking over the last few years. Keeping the US onside has to be a massive lift for his international profile as well. All of which will have Queen Ursula hyperventilating of course. I enjoyed your colourful description of Hungary's geographical neighbourhood by the way.....
It's nice to have America on your side, but the Americans have their own interests and make you pay a steep price even when they're friendly, and their C-17s can take off any moment, leaving you behind to deal with your local adversaries, alone.
It's unwise to burn local bridges, to antagonize neighbors because a superpower one ocean away stands behind your back. The Polish Right learned it the humiliating way, having to suck up to Biden once the Ukraine war started.
https://www.magyar.blog/p/how-many-poles-can-you-fit-on-a-c
It's more valuable to have the Visegrad 4 back together, than the fleeting and unreliable support of the White House. One of the major European powers flipping (abandoning national suicide) is also more valuable.
Absolutely. I am sure that Orban knows that “America First” means exactly that, and the Trump administration will have its own geopolitical and possibly strategic interests uppermost-at all times. He is walking a fine line, it seems. Perhaps Germany at least will have some sort of a non-terminal shock to end the steady march over the green cliff. Maybe rolling but short blackouts or brownouts will be the sort of jolt required under the political classes. And you are right of course: we all need good , functional relations with our next-door neighbours. The most cost-effective trade arrangements are almost always local. But I wish him well, in any case. Just a few thoughts from a UK observer, with no pretensions to any insights!
If there's one force in Europe I respect and fear is the German tendency to stay zealously committed to an idea until the bitter end.
There's an infinitesimally slim chance that they come to their senses. I'm an optimist, the glass is 0.1% full.
When I saw "The Joules did this", my immediate reaction was Emerson, Lake & Palmer's "Welcome Back, My Friends, to the Show That Never Ends", thinking "Joules" was a conflation of "Jews" and "Jules" (short for "Julius", a common-enough Jewish name), and that you'd written yet-another "something" (Welcome Back!) about Israel, Gaza, and European-Judeophobia. So, a pleasant surprise. EROEI is both educational and entertaining (try saying it, and see if, in your mind's-ear, you don't hear the Flying Monkeys from the Wizard of Oz, chanting it -- "E-RO-EI, yo-ho, E-RO-EI, yo-ho"). Welcome back... I hope we'll see you again, more frequently.
It's a reference to this ancient meme:
https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/29734f/ronaldo_always_blaming_the_scapegoat/
I'm thoroughly disinterested in the Middle East, so no worries.
I didn't think it would happen. It's also only for a year ( which i guess is a good deal for everyone involved...) Choose wisely in April 8-[
I expect the 2026 results to be very similar to 2022.