Rising tensions with the U.S. are spurring new plans in Europe to do something that has long seemed impossible: break with American technology in favor of homegrown alternatives.
President Trump this week dropped his threat to take control of Greenland by force if necessary. But even the possibility of armed conflict with allies has injected new urgency into long-simmering debates in Europe about how to reduce its reliance on U.S. tech infrastructure and tools that support swaths of the economy.
The worst-case scenario for European officials? A White House executive order that cuts off the region’s access to data centers or email software that businesses and governments need to function.
In living memory there were none of these systems and the governments functioned probably better. They didn’t get everyone else’s information stolen. The US government had to really work to steal all of their information, hackers, criminals, oligarchs, etc were mostly out of luck.
It is dumb to kowtow to the US on any of this, build out parallel systems, and set everything up to work the old way, with paper, as well. There is no reason society shouldn’t be able to function even without electricity, we know it can work because it did work.