Europe’s ‘tech sovereignty’ ambitions carry security risks, military warns

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• Tywele@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  “It’s not realistic or helpful,” said one European military official of the “tech sovereignty” discussions. “Most of our European platforms are relying on American back-end . . . so it’s very difficult to see anything happening in the short term. It’s just not possible.”

  Those arguments resonate more with European military officials than with politicians, according to tech lobbyists, because military leaders better understand the risks a sudden decoupling from the US would bring. Such a break, they argue, would create capability gaps and fragmentation, undermining military operations and cyber security, and making intelligence-gathering less efficient.

  It’s okay if big changes are not possible in the short term but they shouldn’t ignore the long term.

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  • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    In response to the quote you cited:

    What if the orange regime decides to go balls to the wall on Greenland? What’s the play? Roll over and acquiesce? Ask them to stop, while they categorically ignore the requests, and likely clown on the relative powerlessness of the EU military apparatus? Seriously, if any senior officer in the EU can’t see that for the clear and present danger that it is, they should be fired. Of course it’s a dangerous situation. But decades of letting EU defense is how they got here, and hard choices are now becoming necessary. Better to start the process and endure the pain now, than to be forced into even worse compromises due to imminent or active military action.

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    • themurphy@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      It’s just the classic “Im too old or stuborn to imagine anything different than today”

      It’s the same people throwing tantrums at their phone because they moved a setting.

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  • fierysparrow89@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Seeing the source (FT) and the Rubio directive, that anonymous qoute from the “European military official” may have come from some hungarian puppet.

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  • realitista@lemmus.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Exactly. At least make a plan.

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• wampus@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Rubio literally sent out a memo in december if I remember right saying to aggressively counter any tech sovereignty pushes, as the trump admin wants access to all foreigner data for AI integration and “national security” of the USA. They want to hold/have access to it, cause they like using it as part of their AI surveillance and snooping regime. Again, if I remember right, that was circulated to embassies and lobby firms etc etc.

  So any news story about how hard it is, is likely a US influence campaign. Using their oligarch control of media to magnify issues, think tanks publishing unprovoked ‘white papers’ that support the US narrative, and on and on.

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  • gian@lemmy.grys.it ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    So any news story about how hard it is, is likely a US influence campaign.

    Not necessarily. To build such systems is hard, they are not simple systems you can put togheter in a couple of weeks.

    What is true is that it is difficult to distinguish between a true warning about the difficult to build such systems and a US influence campaign.

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    • wampus@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Building on US tech means the US generally has control over whether you can deploy your military assets, and gives a foreign, militaristic/fascist trending power, deep insights into your military operations. Pretending like these risks are not greater than, or at the very least on par with, “its hard to integrate systems/build our own” is silly.

      It’s sorta like Canada’s former liberal leadership hopeful Chrystia Freeland acting like China’s the biggest threat to Canada. While the US administration is actively and openly trying to dismantle Canada using economic warfare, is ignoring former international conventions like those pesky ‘human rights’, and so on. Like there’s this old joke about Canada being in bed with a sleeping elephant given the disproportionate sizes and risk of that elephant rolling over and accidentally squishing you. Except the elephant woke up now, and is actively trying to harm you. Meanwhile idiots like Freeland go on about some Chinese Bear that’s a threat primarily on the other side of the world, ignoring the elephant in the room.

      The USA is a threat. They are actively attacking anyone they feel like. They are actively antagonistic towards their “allies” and neutral nations. Their tech oligarchs actively talk about setting up their own baronies, aka “Freedom cities” in the hollowed out carcasses of what remains of nations. Their state department actively opposes foreign nations pursuing data sovereignty, because the USA doesn’t care about privacy, especially not for non-republicans – they want that data to target “terrorists” (non-republicans) more easily with the use of AI. Their leadership quite literally called all their Generals in to a room last year, said “We expect you to commit war crimes, cause we want the world to fear you” and fired anyone that objected. The USA isn’t just a ‘risk’ of being a threat, they are an active threat undermining western democratic nations. Why anyone would think there’s a greater risk ‘not’ to give these folks more power/control over you, is beyond my understanding. My closest approximate comparison on a day-to-day relatable level would likely be something like an abusive relationship, where the victim rationalizes staying in the relationship because “If I left, they’d outright kill me”. That ain’t healthy, nor a desirable position for a military.

      Like even the Iran / Hormuz stuff, is basically intentional pain inflicted on the EU. Last year, as part of their chat leak during their strikes on yemen – the chat that leaked on whatsapp or whatever – Hegseth, Gabbard and them were complaining about how they felt they were policing the area, even though all the benefit went to Europe in the form of open trade routes. They wanted Europe to be more actively involved. Trumps made clear references of a similar nature, with his regular bravado/crassness, in his recent “we probably shouldn’t even be there” comments.

      The current US administration also has a focus on isolating opponents (which they tend to talk about as ‘containment’ in their ideological writings if I remember right). It’s what underpins things like what they’re doing to democrats in places like Minnesota, and building concentration camps for “illegals” (non-republicans, and non-whites) – they want enemies isolated, cut off from outside aid. Even more, they want those people to suffer, and make noise as they suffer, as it helps to keep other blue states in line and lets them point at the suffering to appease their base. A similar approach underpins much of their international relations, cutting off nations from trade opportunities to weaken “opponents” (non-nuclear / smaller nations) – see Cuba as an easy example currently, or the ongoing attack on international trade norms. Attacking Iran cuts the EUs oil supply (among other trade gaps), exposing a strategic weakness and providing greater opportunities for the US to sow discord amongst EU block members: enter the relaxing of Russian sanctions to further sow animosity, as some EU nations are pressured to resume Russian trade. Trying to distract from his Epstein atrocities is part of the reason Trump may’ve agreed to the plan and rushed the timing a bit, but pretending like it’s the only reason for the current shit going on is naive – there’s a whole fascist administration, full of out and proud Christian white nationalists, backing the actions of Trump, and using his antics to distract from their goals.

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• WanderingThoughts@europe.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Then do a military stimulation and assume all American tech had a kill switch triggered. See how far you get.

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  • SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Hell, do a simulation and assume the US is the aggressor. The orange, imperialistic idiot thinks of it, we should as well.

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• albert_inkman@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  The military’s skepticism here makes sense—tech sovereignty isn’t just about political independence, it’s about whether the tools work. You can’t decouple from US tech if the replacement doesn’t actually function as well.

  But there’s a false choice embedded in the framing. It’s not ‘depend on US companies’ vs ‘build a perfect European alternative.’ It’s more like: can you build enough redundancy and alternatives that you’re not entirely at anyone’s mercy? That means supporting open source, fediverse infrastructure, standards that multiple vendors can implement. Boring stuff. Not sexy enough for press releases, but it’s how you actually reduce risk.

  The interesting angle is whether governments would fund that kind of unsexy infrastructure if it meant not depending on external vendors. History suggests… probably not. Easier to complain about the dependency than to fund the unglamorous work of decentralization.

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• Paragone@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  NON-sovereignty has greater risks.

  Context, including Trump, matters.

  _ /\ _

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• phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Oh look, another “news” site trying to shove their nose up the Cheetos ass

  Europe will be fine with tech sovereignty, as will every country that decides to love away from US fucked up tech companies

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• RobotToaster@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  When did military leaders become so spineless?

  Wellesley must be spinning in his grave (he probably was already at the lack of hats in parliament, but that’s besides the point)

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  • IratePirate@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Wellesley must be spinning in his grave (he probably was already at the lack of hats in parliament, but that’s besides the point)

    I strongly disagree. Parliament is chockful of asshats.

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• Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Which ones military?

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