Blog Post #1 – Ale Andrade – Global Issues
As someone who both studies political science and travels quite a lot, I would say I am more informed than the average American on global issues. To stay informed, I read articles from many notable news sources such as The New York Times, Fox, and the BBC. I try to make sure I research a topic via multiple sources, as each source has its own bias. All in all, I would say I’m relatively well-informed.
Based on what I know, I would say the US certainly has some influence in/over Central European countries. Firstly, many Central European nations are a part of the European Union (EU), which, as an institution, works very closely with the United States. The EU and the USA have strong economic ties, as the US is the European Union’s second-largest trading partner for exports. Politically, the 5 Central European member-nations interact with and are thus influenced by the US via the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Within NATO, which the US helped found, the United States has a strong sphere of influence as its military budget makes up 60% of NATO’s total military budget.
With all that being said, due to the interconnectedness between the US and the EU, it's important to stay informed about EU affairs as well as US ones. Political, economic, and cultural events that occur in the US result in effects that can trickle into the EU, and vice versa. If US events have the potential to affect EU nations, then EU events also have the potential to affect the US. For example, Germany has been trying to up their defense spending as a result of the US’s scaling back on investments in European defense. This has led Germany upping weapons manufacturing and increasing investment in military advancement. They are starting to try to develop their own weapons, which results in a lower number of sales of US weapons.
The US and EU, despite their differences, are relatively similar ideologically and consist of nations founded on similar values. This means that what happens in the US politically and socially can also potentially happen in EU nations, and vice versa. It is true that political systems do look different; the US setup is different than that of the UK, which is different than that of another EU nation. However, the values on which they are founded are similar, and they have a strong shared past and present. These similarities and shared history make it easier to interchange ideas between the nations.
Ale, you offer such a unique perspective with your ancestral background and your amazing travel experiences. Every time you ask a question or respond to a comment, you bring in thoughtful questions that apply to a broad group of people most of us don't initially think of. I think it's so important to bring up economic activity when analyzing the relationship between the EU and USA, because they truly do rely on us for lots of “protection” with military budget and allyship. They want to be the leaders in sustainability, but it's because they have the money and resources unlike us, because we spend it to protect them. The way the EU is set up is also very important when looking at the huge cultural differences of Europe vs the States. Parliament joins 24 languages and 800 people from all different countries and locations which would never happen if North America wanted to join together to meet up for laws to govern all 3 of our countries. They get more done as all these individual countries than our congress does.
ReplyDeleteExcellent points about military spending. On one hand, the U.S. does not profit as much if Germany increases it armaments, and on the other hand, it becomes an economic issue for Germany to invest in rearming. The U.S. does not have to spend as much to protect Germany when decreasing our security forces. There are so many issues involved in our military "protection" policies. Great work!
ReplyDeleteAle, I like that you're self-aware of your knowledge on global issues due to your frequent travels and I think that those experiences are the best way to educate yourself. As you said, the EU and the U.S. are interconnected and sometimes more so than we think. You bring up insightful points about their economies as well as how cultural shifts or changes in either nations influence each other. What one country does or changes affects what another country just as you mentioned. You also highlight the fact that the U.S. and EU have different political and social foundations. This is due to cultural differences, economics, and the overall infastrucutre of the nation. For instance, the culture and structure of Germant is vastly different from that of Texas which affects how sustainability is implemented. Overall, you provide a great perspective on this topic and you organized your thoughts very well.
ReplyDeleteAle, I admire how aware you are of the information you read online when attempting to gather a more factual narrative of the event at hand. As you mentioned before, the media has definitely become an industry that behave for the sake of their own interests and have tendencies to exaggerate the news. It's gotten to the point where whatever agenda or narrative is pushed out the most whether its false or true within the news cycle, becomes factual in the eyes of people. So, it's definitely important to always keep that in mind when reading the news. I also wanted to pitch to you a question, do you believe that biases in news reporting can ever be avoided, or are there some aspects of biases that are just inevitable? This is something that I always think about myself. I also wanted to touch on the German defense spending. Your comment on this made me think of an article I read in the news that mentioned how the US left Germany "orphaned" when it came to defense spending.
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