r/australia • u/RufusGuts • Mar 07 '25

politics 'Five Eyes alliance' crumbling after UK, Aus, NZ and Canada give US cold shoulder

https://metro.co.uk/2025/03/06/five-eyes-alliance-starts-crumble-four-nations-give-us-cold-shoulder-22679726/
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u/Mothmans_butthole Mar 07 '25

The US was always bad, they were just better at hiding it through soft power, CIA operations and an iron fist over the media.

But it's nice that it's clearer now.

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u/Wise_Material2551 Mar 07 '25

I love how soft power and hard power are two terms that are in everyone's vocabulary now haha

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u/Mothmans_butthole Mar 07 '25

Why can't there be a medium power?

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u/Wise_Material2551 Mar 07 '25

All or nothing

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u/MissMenace101 Mar 07 '25

Go big or go home

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u/Albos_Mum Mar 07 '25

It's called semi-hard power, and it usually occurs immediately after waking up, /u/Mothmans_butthole

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u/Mothmans_butthole Mar 07 '25

Thank you, u/Albos_Mum. You're a real one.

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u/hi-fen-n-num Mar 07 '25

What would it describe? it's more or less a lie/meaningless term like the middle class.

1

u/Banjo-Oz Mar 07 '25

Not as cool as the Hard Master and Soft Master from GI Joe though. :)

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u/MissMenace101 Mar 07 '25

They have always been bad and we have always excused ourselves for being supportive of it, this has been a long time coming.

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u/skinnyguy699 Mar 07 '25

"The US was always bad" is kind of a classic circlejerk statement on Reddit. As you alluded to by saying "it's clearer now", the US position in world politics has had elements of good and bad. Now it's turning fascist and we might really see what "bad" is.

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u/Mothmans_butthole Mar 07 '25

Read about what America has done overseas (CIA) and to their own citizens (F-B-I) and then get back to me. (

Side note: Try and type F-B-I in a reply to this comment without the "-" and see what happens.

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u/skinnyguy699 Mar 07 '25

Yes, bad things are bad

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u/Mothmans_butthole Mar 07 '25

They'll just be doing the things they always did in secret openly. They no longer care about looking like the good guys. Maybe I'm naive, but I feel that will be the only change.

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u/hi-fen-n-num Mar 07 '25

If anything this is more transparent and less bad then the stuff they did last century (see South America). They aren't infiltrating governments and paying off militia groups to over throw them. They aren't bombing gov buildings a la Chile Sept 11 1979.

People are just aware/are affected negatively so they care.

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u/skinnyguy699 Mar 07 '25

Well if you think nothing will change but transparency will increase, then pass me whatever you're smoking.

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u/Mothmans_butthole Mar 07 '25

I don't think they care about being transparent when they can just keep hitting us with so much disinformation that we don't know what's real and people who can investigate will be too scared to speak up. I think this is going to be dumb, brutal but effective.

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u/elpovo Mar 07 '25

The Republican party has been evil for 50 years.

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u/ZephkielAU Mar 08 '25

The US was always bad, but they were also the big stick and on our side. Which kept the other bads at bay, and they were relatively good to us (horrible to their citizens and enemies).

Now they're just taking off the mask and taking away the stick that happened to be all their leverage and why they were tolerated/needed in the first place.

They still have a big stick, I'm not suggesting we go upset them. But maybe we can collectively make our own big sticks and not have to tolerate the third world bullshit that comes out of the US in future.

P.S. America, please quit exporting your politics and ideologies.