Trump's supporters would say that this is a result of not wanting the US being involved in foreign conflicts. That is a laudable goal, however that is not what is happening here. From the article
> On Friday, the administration said it was sending Israel nearly $3 billion in new weapons, including more than 35,000 new 2,000 pound bombs, invoking an emergency rule under U.S. arms control laws.
This just makes it look like a petty tantrum at best and a wilful desire to cleave our relationship with Europe at worst.
Yes, we can all argue that Europe needs to be less dependent on the US, however what's on the other side of that is not pretty for the United States. Our ability to have the world's de facto reserve currency and hence our ability to sustain debt loads way in excess of usual is largely dependent on the US being the world's cop and sole superpower.
A truly multipolar world might be good for the world, but it's certainly not going to be good for the United States.
Back in the late 90s to late 2000s, people in Western Europe generally had pretty negative views of the US. It was the country that refused to fight against climate change, launched an invasion of another country based on obvious lies, and so on. People were genuinely debating whether Bush was a bigger villain than Putin. And it wasn't just about the young and the left. Our elites hated Bush so much that they gave the next guy a Nobel Peace Prize for not being him.
Since then, Putin has worked hard to raise the bar for being a bigger villain. But Trump seems to be genuinely trying to compete.
But it wouldn't be a financial debt more likely some humiliating kompromat. That's Trump's biggest fear.
And Putin probably has plenty from Trump's visits there.
I don't really buy this kompromat argument, even if it was some horrific sex tape it would just be "fake" or "fake news".
I think it's likely just the flattery and importance they give him, the strongman image he desires and he likes the way Russia is a dictatorship. I just think he likes their system.
(second half of the article)
Actual Russian assets exist, people like Jackson Hinkle and Tim Pool. Trump generally doesn't fit the mold.
Active attempts to remove Zelinsky. Stop all aid. Remove sanctions on Russia. Stop are cyber activity and planning of such against Russia.
Trump has done all of the above (well he's only ordered the removing of sanctions as of today).
I mean he was a good friend with epstein and there are numerous videos of their friendly encounters (so did clinton, gates and so on just to be clear). Go figure.
But I think he is just a small insecure emotional boy at the core, and thats enough if you know which buttons in which order to push. ruskies somehow figured that out, it seems israelis too during his first term.
Other than children/minors, I don’t think the others are likely. Possible, but not likely.
Whatever kompromat they have was almost certainly came during the 2013 miss universe pageant in Russia. It would have been trivially easy to get an old enough-looking minor in the room with him.
I’m pretty sure the only blackmail that could be bad enough to motivate Trump would be if he had relations with a minor. I’m pretty sure that’s the only thing that could make the core of his base alienate him.
Whatever kinks people speculate about, none of that will matter. In fact, I bet whatever kink he is into would instantly become more popular amongst his core constituents.
Sarah Kendzior and Whitney Webb produce great writing about this, thoroughly sourced. For example, here's a piece from Sarah's latest newsletter Q and A:
> What is the hold that Trump has over the Republicans? It has to be more than simply the threat of a primary. Do you think it involves threats of violence? It's a mystery to me what could be so frightening that this large group of people would forsake their country.
> SK: Trump has leverage over the GOP due to 1) lifelong connections with organized crime and willingness to deploy violence 2) blackmail obtained long before 2016 via his mentor, mafia lawyer and GOP advisor Roy Cohn, and Cohn’s networks 3) blackmail and state secrets Trump obtained during his first term 4) court packing that creates the potential of legal consequences for anyone who challenges him 5) bribery and/or shared evil goals with the GOP, though for many this incentive fades over time when they realize they will never be more than a disposable hired hand. Many Republicans were lured by corrupt ambition, but they stay due to fear.
And lest you think this is a one-sided problem: https://sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/servants-of-the-mafia-s...
Even if you put the absurdity of that kind of thing aside, look at the actual facts. Trump burns through advisors and cabinet members on a nearly weekly basis, and many of those have gone on to become scathing critics of his. He has tons of vocal enemies from within the Republican Party, who are quickly sidelined or ousted but never harmed.
The reason Republicans have all fallen in line behind Trump is because they ultimately want nothing more than power and wealth. Once it became clear that Trump has tapped into an indestructible movement of American populist stupidity that isn’t going anywhere, anyone who wanted to have a job in Republican politics quickly figured out that there was only one way to do so: join the never ending Trump pep-rally.
Not what I said, or what Sarah said. But yes, politicians are getting threatened because of Trump. Politicians themselves report receiving hundreds of death threats; some of them seriously credible [0].
All Trump has to do is tweet, and people have their lives "turned upside down". They start getting death threats; even their boss gets threatened. And votes get changed around real quick. This is documented, on record - like Trump's connections... You might ask yourself why you never heard about it, and what else you never hear about.
> He has tons of vocal enemies from within the Republican Party, who are quickly sidelined or ousted but never harmed.
Drama which doesn't affect votes, or anything material, is best ignored as theater. Threats and theater - they do exist pal. They're very much part of politics, especially in the US, and have been for a long long time.
> Even if you put the absurdity of that kind of thing aside
It's not absurd at all. If you believe US politicians - and international politicians - don't get threatened, then you don't understand the stakes, or the amount of money involved, or the characters of these people.
> Once it became clear that Trump has tapped into an indestructible movement of American populist stupidity that isn’t going anywhere, anyone who wanted to have a job in Republican politics quickly figured out that there was only one way to do so: join the never ending Trump pep-rally.
And so Trump doesn't need or use blackmail, or threats of violence? Buddy. My guy.
0 - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/27/republicans-...
I refuse to believe you can be so dense to actually think that!
> If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible.
As Trump sees it, Zelenskyy is blocking Trump's peace prize by not agreeing to his (very bad) terms that are designed with one purpose in mind: Quickly freezing the conflict so that he can declare himself peacemaker and get his prize (because Obama got his 9 months into his term).
The Russians have been grooming him since the 80s (along with many others of that era - standard Soviet practice), flattering him and selling him on dreams of being president, and then after Obama got a peace prize, of getting his own Nobel prize.
Watch what his aides are saying about the Nobel prize. He wants it BAD.
This is why he told Zelenskyy: “You’re either going to make a deal or we’re out. And if we’re out, you’ll fight it out. I don’t think that it’s going to be pretty, but you’ll fight it out. But you don’t have the cards.” This is why he said “Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me.” This is why he booted Zenelskyy out of the White House and banned him until he's “ready for peace”
This is why he's going to end the sanctions against Russia, and if Europe continues to support Ukraine, sanction them instead. Anyone who blocks his Nobel Peace Prize is the enemy.
Trump: “They probably will never give it to me, even what I’m doing in Korea, and in Idlib province and all of these places. They probably will never give it to me. You know why? Because they don’t want to.”
Trump: “They will never give me a Nobel Peace Prize. It’s too bad. I deserve it, but they will never give it to me.”
On the bright side, if that happens, Alfred Nobel’s grave will become a perpetual motion machine…
The list of its recipients with properly shameful past ain't short neither and I don't recall a single one recently which wasn't somehow controversial to put it mildly.
I think we can say that the image of that prize is already in the mud, but of course giving it to Trump at this point would finish it off.
Zelenskyy should just have said "If Russia won't break any treaty, you shouldn't have a problem providing a backstop"
Trump just wants to rape Ukraine while he can. It's nothing to do with peace. If he was serious he could offer a backstop and get peace over night.
OP never said it was about peace but about Trump winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
> Trump just wants to rape Ukraine while he can.
He wants to do this and get the Nobel Peace Prize for it. Does that really seem an implausible goal with this guy?
Don't make it anything less by talking about the novel prize.
It seems clear to me one goal of the current admin is to transform the US into an export economy, and the strong currency is one major roadblock in reaching their objective.
Would love to see more analysis on this, as their trial balloons around tanking USD seem to have gotten lost in the noise.
Nope, it's pure chaos, but that's where Trump thrives the most. It's the perfect diversion, nobody knows what he'll destroy next.
- Force a resolution of the conflict
- Get Europe to pay for its own security
- Focus on Iran and the Middle East
- Pivot to competition with China
- Deter Sino-Russia cooperation
- Reduce US spending and deficit
Sure, maybe the US could have invaded Russia afterwards, but that would have been a disaster, kind of like how Germany’s invasion of Russia was a disaster and a bit like how Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine has been a real mess for Russia.
Dollar status as reserve currency started unravelling quite some time ago. It started with China's started becoming world's factory, more so after they got in to WTO and started using it to their advantage. My belief is that wallstreet believed that they could influence or coerce Chinese leadership into opening up Chinese economy and profit from that, all that G2 talk. China after 2008 crisis with ascension of Xi, belt road, challenges to foreign companies etc. acted completely against wallstreet expectations. Now, America can either try splitting world economy and be sole power in their sphere or start working towards multi polar world.
You were still benefiting from the setup, and were going to continue to benefit for a long time. Look at Boeing's valuation, for example. No profit, still higher market cap than Airbus.
This is why European countries are freaking out. They might be seeing the change as being more fundamental than a two guys liking/hating each other and that a trade might involve their territory in an unfortunate moment (though a part of this is their own negligence).
The US took Ukraine’s nukes in exchange for safety guarantees.
The true extent of US commitment to european security has been clear to everyone for at least ten years.
Hell, the French nuclear programme was premised on the fact that Paris didn’t trust the US to defend France. Do you think the easternmost NATO states have built their military doctrine on blind trust in Uncle Sam?
Please read the actual text of the memorandum, so you don't spread any more baseless accusations. It's only 1 page, it'll just take you a minute and the language it is written in is very accessible.
https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Ukraine_Memorand...
The only point that even touches on any kind of guarantees is essentially a promise to "seek immediate United Nations Security Council action" in the case of an attack or a threat of attack IN WHICH NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARE USED. That last part is always conveniently left out whenever anyone tries to throw out the soundbite of "They gave up their nukes for security guarantees". And even if you assume that the nuclear weapon part only covers the "threat" part of the sentence and not the "attack", then you're still left with the only solid guarantee being the seeking of United Nations Security Council action.
In the eyes of the people in Europe, the US response to the war has been been lacklustre from the very beginning, only marginally improving after Russia's 2/2022 escalation.
If the people in Europe find that to be a lackluster response, then it is not surprising that Trump sent Vance over to humiliate them, because they need a wake-up call and they needed it yesterday.
To the contrary, China’s increasing power is economic. They out-manufacture everyone. They appear to be beating the US at its own recent games (BYD seems to be ahead of Tesla!). They have plenty of software expertise these days. They are approximately caught up in AI. They also happen to lead in non-petroleum-dependent energy, and Russia’s main strength is in its oil and gas resources.
If the US wants to remain a dominant economic power, how is Russia going to help?
They have a giant land border. An adversarial Russia-China relationship is expensive for both powers, and is a major reason for the USSR going bankrupt in the cold war (also the USSR propping up Vietnam after China invaded in 79).
Russia has the economy on parity with Italy.
It's not invented it's a verifiable fact.
If you align more with Russia and think that Russia would let go of China as their ally when Russia tied themselves to China after the sanctions.
I don't know which universe this would happen but not this one.
For context, EU+UK is over 500M people, Russia is 143M.
I think two weeks back many Europeans took for granted (at least I did) we would get involved in the Pacific theatre if needed on US side, but after what is happenning now… I am for not getting involved in any coflict in Pacific if US treats us this way.
Economically, allying with Russia is stupid, they're poor. The only way they are making it through this war economy is the fact that Russian people are patient and are used to bad economy. The average anual salary in Russia is below $10K.
There's no 5d chess here. There's no scenario where ceding Poland and Ukraine to Russian authoritarians leads to a more free world and a victory over Chinese aithoritarianism. There's just rampant and opportunitistic corruption.
The US is being carved up from the inside and nothing about this process will help the impending conflict against China.
The sooner we all recognize this like the Europeans seem to be doing is the sooner we can coordinate to destroy authoritarians wherever they may call home.
Apparently being racist is all you need to do to cover up handing geopolitical victory repeatedly to a large and rich country.
The right wing is up for sale all over the world.
Economically and population wise Russia is tiny compared to the West (Canada, EU, etc) It makes no sense to trade our alliance with the West for alliance with much weaker and poorer Russia.
I think Russia has compromising info on Trump. That's the simplest explanation.
But it looks much more like Russia dividing and conquering the USA from the rest of the democratic, human rights supporting West.
Yes, the famous human rights where people get visited by the cops for a Facebook post or an offensive tweet like in the UK.
Also, regarding the UK who just recently forced Apple to remove it's EtoE encryption because it wants access to all the data of it's citizens violating the fundamental right of privacy?
What about the UK terror law where they can detain you at the border without telling you why and for as long as they want, where you can't have a lawyer present with you in the room while they interrogate you and while they go through all your electronics + email + phone and you don't have the right to refuse giving them your passwords otherwise you will be jailed?
Russia is bad, terrible even but let's not pretend that some of the western countries haven't been sliding in proto-fascism either.
Lets also not forget that the UK took part in the illegal invasion of Afghanistan and Irak, which led to the disastrous consequences that we know today.
I think it would be best for the West to stop lecturing the world about democracy and human rights and the rule of law for a while and start by cleaning it's own house first because it doesn't have much credibility left on these matters.
Do you really think the UK is as bad or worse then Russia? Because if not, what the fuck is your point?
No those are facts. Simple as that. What is your contention exactly with what I said?
> what the fuck is your point?
Why the aggressiveness? We are all here to have a peaceful conversation. You may disagree with me and that is fine but we don't have to get at each other's throat.
> Do you really think the UK is as bad or worse then Russia?
You must have missed part of my comment if you are asking this question.
> Russia is bad, terrible even
That's from my comment.
> Of course we can and should criticize other countries
Exactly my point. I am criticizing all the countries that infringe on human rights and that includes Russia and the UK an whoever else engages in these sorts of things.
My point was that simply asserting that the West respects human rights when we know that that is not always the case is the like the pot calling the kettle black.
You can go and give lessons of democracy and human rights when you stop detaining your own citizens for arbitrary reasons and without cause and without having the right to be represented by a lawyer.
Now, if you think that this is perfectly acceptable in a democracy, then I guess we don't have the same concept of human rights then.
> Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in "what about ...?") is a pejorative for the strategy of responding to an accusation with a counter-accusation instead of a defense against the original accusation. > > The communication intent is often to distract from the content of a topic (red herring). The goal may also be to question the justification for criticism and the legitimacy, integrity, and fairness of the critic, which can take on the character of discrediting the criticism, which may or may not be justified https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
The topic is Russia dividing and conquering the USA from Europe and other nations. Not: are Europe perfectly living up to its stated humanist goals.
> Why the aggressiveness?
I guess it comes from this being a very common tactic to shut down any criticism and debate. Maybe you didn't mean to do that, in that case I'm sorry for assigning malignant intentions.
If anything, the area is not defensible against even a half-ass incursion effort from the south (either economical or military-driven), which they're actually in the middle of (the economical one for now) without realizing that.
Time for Europeans to wake up and do the same.
In case of war between China and Russia I could easily see Chinese invading large swaths of lands without any meaningful opposition. Populations in eastern Russia are treated more like than colonial subjects than regular citizen, so I don't think they will mind too much a new overlord.
Assuming they had the troops to get there, they cannot move all of them to the border with China and leave the western front unguarded
a) be willing to join a US-led coalition against China, given that the US foreign policy stopped being consistent and the next administration may well make a sharp turn again;
b) be capable of joining a US-led coalition against China when they now spent 3 years slowly restructuring their infrastructure and industry from Western products to Chinese products and any break in the relations with China would mean a full stop for support, spare parts etc., which US alone, with its depleted industrial platform, is unable to compensate for.
Not to mention that Russian nationalists HATE the idea of Russia being a junior partner to anyone and especially to the Anglo-Saxons. That would be hard sell even from Putin.
America would be the junior partner. I do not see Russia doing anything for America, it is just America giving Russia what they want.
The next POTUS may not be as prostrate to Russia as Trump is, even if a Republican.
Sometimes I wonder if I am the only one who feels like world peace has been unraveling for decades, slowly reaching a breaking point?
I don't know what happens when the U.S. eventually pulls out of NATO, a scenario that seems more possible than ever based on the actions of the current Administration. Will Europe be able to stand its ground against Russia and China?
We now have world leaders armed with nuclear weapons, the most terrifying creations in human history, openly threatening each other and growing hostile.
I honestly, worry about the world we are creating for our children.. or perhaps my thoughts have been overtly influenced by Social Media..
Unfortunately "entangling alliances" such as NATO tend to draw us into remote conflicts where we have nothing to gain:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Doctrine_of_Unstabl...
Furthermore Russia's population of fighting men is down, which will require that they return home to seed a new generation of cannon fodder (not an entirely bad assignment BTW in either Russia or Ukraine) for their czar-like leaders. I feel sorry for the handicapped wounded however.
It's not we, the politicians are creating this unsafe, cruel world. We didn't choose war.
Also, the world has always been like this. Peace was always only momentary. The best scenario would be to just stop procreating so our children don't have to live in this shit but it's obviously not going to happen
“We must be ever watchful when dealing with regimes whose actions have often betrayed their promises.”
Ronald Reagan
“I call the Soviet Union an evil empire.”
George H. W. Bush on Russia
“The history of deception and coercion reminds us that trust is never given
lightly—it must be earned and continuously verified.”
George W. Bush
“We call on Moscow to immediately cease its aggressive actions and respect the sovereignty of its neighbors. We cannot afford to trust a regime that repeatedly flouts international norms.”
Donald Trump
“I have great respect for Putin.”
I have a very good relationship with him [Putin].”
Read until the end...And say that again while looking at a mirror...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_the_Russian_inva...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_violence_in_the_Russian...
Actually in hindsight the best time for negotiations was somewhere in end of 2022, but that chance is long gone.
But while West cannot demand, it still can offer (i.e. removing nuclear weapon and US forces from EU etc).
This is simply false. West can send more arms, more tanks (US sent 31 old Abrams tanks since 2022) more long range missiles. You know how easy it is to defend Ukrainian cities against airborne cruise missiles? Bomb few airbases used by strategic bombers. Bomb few factories used for ballistic missiles production.
If west bite putin's bluff about WWIII then west can transfer technology and give Ukrainians money to make long range ballistic missiles themselves.
And sanctions! West can put a real sanctions. A trade blockade of Baltic and Black sea will destroy their economy pretty soon.
The are so many things west can do.
But US president is a friend of putin and going to bully Ukraine to surrender on Russian terms.
Look: at this moment Ukraine is using western arms to occupy part of Russia. What putin did? Same as before occupation.
Strategic bombings of oil refineries - no changes in putin actions.
This is actually the only language Russians understand: strong actions to show power.
The slow drip of arms has been really effective at degrading Russia (just look at the golf cart brigades and North Korean wave attacks), but an increase in long range capability is what's needed to finish the job.
And in response, Russia will do what exactly? Send more golf cart brigades or more North Koreans? It's not like Russia has enormous military resources they've been keeping as a surprise. No, if Russia could do anything differently they would already be doing it to win the 'Special Military Operation'.
Are you sure west cannot pay monthly salary $2500 like Russia does?
>guarantees more casualties and suffering As well as not sending enough arms.
This is extremely silly. The west has hundreds of billions of dollars of Russian money, the west can supply Ukraine with weapons that are more modern than the nineties era stuff we've been sending, and the west just generally hasn't taken any of the steps it would take if NATO were really at war with Russia, as Russia whinges about. Why is Russia even connected to the internet anymore?
1. Make nukes, never give up on those regardless of what assurances of safety you get
2. If you are bigger and stronger - you are right, do whatever you want, international laws and rules do not matter any more
Lets see where all this will bring the world to in the next 10 years or a generation.
https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=8...
Instead, their focus has been on building invasion barges so that they can take Taiwan. So that's exciting. Hope none of you like computer chips!
Regardless, they only need enough to make nuclear war with them MAD, which I think they've had for a decade or so.
Realistically, by the time China and France got on the nuclear scene, doctrine had shifted from “nuclear torpedos, nuclear guns, nuclear landmines, nuclear everything” to “you have some submarines with missiles; you can have other stuff if you want, but no-one cares about it”. There’s little point in having thousands of warheads, these days.
(The UK did briefly go down the ‘nuclear everything’ road, but pulled back for cost/sanity reasons)
The truth is that China hit MAD awhile ago and doesn’t really need to play up or even build much more on its nuclear arsenal. They are better off investing in conventional warfare for the near term, and especially in new arms like drones that give them an actual advantage in future conflicts.
We've seen this movie before. It doesn't go well.
If that's really how he feels, then it's time to expel the imposter "Russia" that's been falsely posing as a member of the United Nations Security Council, because it's not reeealy the USSR...
Obama's admin negotiated the JCPOA deal with Iran, same thing. They put the most inspectors ever in any country to make sure Iran doesn't get nukes. Trump's admin then unilaterally ended it.
Tom Cotton and Republicans openly warned Iran during Obama's admin that the US is fickle and will change its policy as soon as administrations change. This has been going on ever since treaties with the Native Americans ("white man speaks with forked tongue") but the Cotton letter was refreshingly honest:
https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cotton-and...
The messages for every country to get nukes have been loud and clear, but no country has done it in the southern hemisphere, for instance. Even though USA had been involved in regime change or invasions of almost all of them in the last 80 years: https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2022/09/13/us-251-military-i...
South Africa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_and_weapons_of_ma...
In reality, that was always the case.
*while everybody made sure that they would band together to punish such behavior as the even bigger and stronger combined force
Non-proliferation - and relying on the benevolence of a few mercurial and spiteful superpowers - is, in hindsight, a horrible miscalculation.
In the same memorandum Russia promised the same thing. They broke the promise. Repeatedly.
Nonetheless, I agree that more countries should develop their own nukes. Especially the ones like Poland, Baltics and Nordics. Not because it's a good thing to do, but because the world is what it is.
It's really disappointing how much misinformation gets reiterated on the Internet with regards to this memorandum, given how short the document is and how easy it is to verify its contents oneself.
PS. NATO's Article 5 is also worth a read. It does not guarantee what is commonly claimed.
In the history of the Alliance there is only a single country that invoked article 5, and it was the US with 9/11 that lead to the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia, Italy, New Zealand to send resources and troops to help with Afghanistan.
And managed to get people involved in Iraq namely United Kingdom, Australia, Poland.
And this situation was way worse and way less called for than the Ukrainians defending themselves...
EDIT/NB: I listed just the major contributors, some other countries participated in different ways and at different levels, but still this is important to mention here...
I genuinely don't know where's "there".
It is a fact, that NATO Article 5 doesn't guarantee anything regardless of other countries' response to USA triggering it, just as it is a fact, that the Budapest Memorandum was mischaracterized in this thread and that both the Europe and USA did help Ukraine. Should we not go where the facts are?
If you're about that the USA should continue helping Ukraine, then I did not question this point of view at all. Pointing out factual errors is not equal to taking a stance.
Friendship among nations sometimes involves transactions that transcend the pure material considerations, and this shift in alignment is not desirable by anyone.
That's what I meant by "let's not go there".
But I see that basically we are in agreement and I also agree that article 5 interpretation could be dicey.
[0] https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/P...
> ... seek immediate UN Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine ... if they should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used
This seems like the passage which would cover it. The UN is able to authorize use of force by member states against the aggressor. Though it looks like it hasn't done that - probably because of Russia's permanent position on the UN Security Council which would veto any such measures.
The GP said:
>> The memorandum also said they would provide assistance
The memorandum does not contain an obligation to "provide assistance". "Providing assistance" and "seeking UNSC action" are very different things.
>> they are not keeping that promise.
They are not keeping promise to "provide assistance" because they have never made that promise.
Some data points might be correct, but you have not enough data to connect the dots, so you make wrong conclusions.
Russia was threatening with invading Ukraine right from the beginning of its recent independence.
There were two large schools of thoughts how to deal with it:
1) try to “go around rain drops” by not provoking Russia but simultaneously to not give up sovereignty
2) move as fast as possible and seek protection from NATO like baltics and other eastern europeans.
When Russia starts regaining power internally, it became much harder to “go around raindrops”, as russia start to perform FSB style operation to discredit Ukraine in the west and to enforce its will on the inside.
Kravchuk (2nd president), falls the victim of that when Ukraine was accused of selling weapons to counties under sanctions, which made him a pariah in the west.
Later he was accused of ordering of killing a journalist which made him a pariah on the inside.
Also it was time when Russia tried to make the first attempt of annexing Crimea by trying to get first island near it - (Tusla).
Kuchma was able to make some agreement with russia a relax the tensions.
Then russia decided that the next president have to be Yanukovych - a criminal with served jail time.
An opposed politician was Yuschenko, who was famous for his reforms on the national bank and was considered by the time a successful manager and politician.
What’s worse, Russia helped to rig the elections and later poison Yuschenko with dioxin.
This caused a first revolution.
Yuschinko understood very well what he was dealing with and saw the only salvation from NATO as the threats from Russia increased.
And so on, and so forth.
US was not in favor of Ukrainian independence for a very long time and never helped in any way, except for disarming. The first time US president arrived to Ukraine was to talk the parliament out of proclaiming independence.
Europe was always afraid of russia and very careful with Ukraine.
Russia was always threatening and tried to regain control over Ukraine - both politically, by sabotage, special operations and military.
Ukraine was looking for help and screaming that russia will attack sooner or later.
Ukraine consider itself to be part of Europe by values, and is fighting russia for more than a century already paying huge price.
NATO was considered the only way to finally stop this cycle, but with US withdrawing, it may seems that all of the struggle was in vain as Europe might not be capable to protect even itself.
NATO, with America leading, gave the world the longest stretch of relative peace it has ever seen. The next 80 years will not be the same, if we even survive it. Every major power will have to be nuclear, and every smaller power will be moving to it.
Invasion of sovereign countries and Imperialism is going to spike. You think the world is just going to watch Russia invade and conquer a sovereign democratic nation and get away Scott-free and not want to do the same?
Frankly, the true propaganda win of Russia wasn't with the red side, they were always easy to influence, but with their splitting of the blue side, carving off great sections of it into purity-testing irrelevancy.
What an outrageous claim to make over the entirety of recorded human history.
Rules never mattered in history. it's always up to strongest to impose their version of "fairness".
Rules matter as long as they are enforced. It's only when enforcement is asymmetrical that problems begin.
> The order takes effect immediately and affects more than $1 billion in arms and ammunition in the pipeline and on order. Mr. Trump’s directive also halts hundreds of millions of dollars in aid that Kyiv can use only to buy new military hardware directly from U.S. defense companies.
Why support your country with our money if you don't want to support us at all?
Your defence companies will face huge losses because of this.
We might actually find out at this rate.
I’m trying to take it in good faith and accept these people actually think this instead of being paid to spread Russian disinformation. So, for those that are in good faith, as an European, I’ll explain mine (and my close circle) position:
It’s true that the USA doesn’t have any obligation of helping Ukraine and should be up to us, Europeans, to step up. But, Trump didn’t need to be a Russian disinformation asset about it and go through that, despicable , petty, childish display in the White House, where, preying together with his VP, they tried to frame Zelenskyy and Ukraine for starting a war.
They could just politely, and diplomatic reduce US aid, while still abiding by the most basic, absolute truth: Putin started this war and all fault for it lies in Russian hands and Ukraine is just a victim in all this.
This would be the upright, sensible and intelligent position to hold if they really just didn’t want to continue contributing to Ukraine’s defense with US’ money.
Ukraine (after abandoning efforts after the MAP rejection -- done at Russia's insistence -- in 2008) only started looking at NATO membership again after Russia invaded, so it is ludicrously disconnected from reality (but exactly representative of Russian propaganda!) to try to use that to justify the invasion.
Do you remember Russia’s promises when Ukraine voluntarily ceded their nuclear arsenal to Russia?
Claiming that the invasion of Ukraine by Russia is caused and justified by a thing which happened after and in response to that invasion is arguing for retrocausality. It is not "going back in history and cherry picking events" to point out when and how the current war started in a discussion of the causes of the current war, especially when an event that happened after and in response to the start of the current war is argued to justify the aggressor in the current war.
so you would preffer russian troops killing political opponents and protesters in ua, like they did since 1992 in belarus till these day to avoid """coup"""?
or you prefer russian troops did 10x more massacre and hide it, instead they did 10x less in bucha and did not have time to hide?
btw just talk with pl and cz old people how their western coup was going.
seems like people prefer western coup to russian massacress and mass graves...
There was a coup orchestrated by the west in Ukraine in 2014. Followed by an escalation of a complicated situation that is not clear cut like people in the west like to make things seem. After the coup, there was suppression of Russian things by the western backed and planted regime.
Of course things may have eventually escalated if Ukraine and the west are doing that and the Russian separatists in the east are provoking in DPR and LDR.
I am sympathetic to Kissinger, Dugin, and Mearsheimer views on geopolitics if you must know.
When did they become accepted wisdom? What if it isn't true?
But, it is you that did just that. You picked up an event from the 1960's in a totally different continent, to justify Russian continued agressions against Ukraine.
I answered by actually pointing out an event from 10 years ago that's directly related to this war.
For me, it's clear that a "coup" is not when the democratic will of the people outs a puppet that was put in place by Moscow. While you have the opposite opinion.
Ask yourself why countries bordering Russia want to join.
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08KYIV1144_a.html <-- this one is about Ukrainian spending on a pro-NATO information campaign
The Ukrainian president who was anti-NATO is the one that the Euromaidan deposed. https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-scraps-nato-accession-plans/a-...
Here's France24's take in 2014 when Ukraine voted to abandon "non-aligned" status: https://www.france24.com/en/20141223-ukraine-parliament-vote... Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and its support for the separatist insurgency appear partly rooted in fears that the Western military alliance could expand its presence on the Russian border.
Then in 2019 we have this: Ukraine President Signs Constitutional Amendment On NATO, EU Membership (Radio Free Europe, 2019) https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-president-signs-constitution...
Followed up by Zelensky doubling down on NATO later that same year: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-president-promises-nato-refe...
And then Trump sending additional lethal aid to Ukraine at the end of the year: https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2019/12/04/trump-to-see...
My personal opinion is that these events in 2019 were the last straw for Putin. He probably made the decision to invade early in 2020....but had to pause those plans while the whole world grappled with COVID. It then took them into mid-2021 to get the ball rolling on staging their forces for invasion, and then they were delayed again due to Xi Jinping telling Putin to not fuck up his Beijing Olympics or he wouldn't get tacit support from the PRC. All of which meant that the early-2022 invasion was likely caused by NATO-related issues that were looking increasingly concerning 3 years earlier.
The only peace plan Trump has is to humiliate Ukraine ans push it to accept surrender to Russia with reparations payments to USA.
This pause was predictable (I predicted it in Nov 2024). It's negotiation leverage to steer toward an immediate resolution of the war.
An immediate resolution of the war cuts losses: Ukraine loses territory, but keeps its sovereignty.
The challenge is that there aren't many other viable paths. An indefinite forever war, with high risk of a Ukraine state collapse, is a most likely alternative. A direct confrontation between NATO and Russia is another, much less likely alternative. The idea that Russia's economy will collapse is highly unlikely.
The Trump Administration will resume military aid after Ukraine is forced to ceasefire talks. Ukraine will not likely (nor with EU) recognize loss territory. However Russia is likely to hold it de facto.
Although I doubt any peace negotiated will last decades. The reasons for the war are deep.
Yeah, no way it's collapsing when the central bank rate is at 21%.[0]
Totally unrelated, but might I interest you in a lucrative land opportunity in Florida?
[0]https://apnews.com/article/russia-interest-rates-0fa1d7385be...
Thus far Russia's economy has grown substantially due to the war - expansion of its industrial base. This is factoring inflation in. What's happening right now is that Russian economic growth due to military industry is slowing down, and Russia is not likely to continue growing its economy at near the same rate.
Russia is most likely heading into an era of stagflation (high inflation and low growth). This isn't a collapse of the economy. It's not great, but its not a way to end the war.
One option could be to tank oil prices (into the $40/barrel range, currently $70/barrel range) and keep that for years. Due to Russia's reliance on energy income this would disrupt the Russian budget and it would either need to cut social spending or go into debt (e.g. to China) to continue without shelving social programs.
The point is that the Russian economy isn't on the brink of collapse. Due to the national security nature of a hostile military alliance at its doorstep, it's likely to make hard choices if put into such a situation (e.g. go into debt).
Finland shares a massive border with Russia and joined NATO almost 2 years ago and what 'hard choices' have been made since? Please, do tell!
One war at a time though.
Hard choices? There are so many. One is that Russia had to deploy a large number of air defense systems to the Finnish border, and as a result didn't have enough for Ukrainian strike drones. This has resulted in far more penetration of Ukrainian drones into Russian oil refineries and ports than would have otherwise happened, and forced Russia to allocate both capital and manpower to manufacturer larger numbers of air defense systems. Similar tradeoffs happened in other areas. For example Russia built multiple new battalions intended to counter potential NATO operations over the border, but doing this overwhelmed military training sites, forcing its sites to be time-shared and its Ukraine soldiers to receive less training, and its the cost of the Ukraine war to be significantly higher.
Asking this question is like asking if there would be hard choices for the US if Mexico entered a security alliance with Russia or China. Of course there are.
A war economy is all fun and games while you have an ongoing war.
But the point is that "collapse" is very different from "spent a ton of money on stuff that got destroyed."
The economic pain just isn't that high to force capitulation.
This was mentioned in the above thread: "A direct confrontation between NATO and Russia is another, much less likely alternative. The idea that Russia's economy will collapse is highly unlikely."
The approach to try to force Russia to concede to Ukrainian demands and back down would require boosting Ukraine military aid, but would either fail and result in a forever war, succeed by collapsing Russia's economy (highly unlikely to succeed), or result in a direct NATO-Russia confrontation.
In terms of America's past actions, the history is loong, but if you are referring to the Biden Administration - it had a strategy up until the Ukraine military faltered in its failed counter-offensive.
Anyway, you expect policy changes between administrations.
russian people think they are above other nations, specifically slavic nations.
russians are fascists. even educated and literate, "liberal" people of them are such.
With Kyiv under control, they can claim history and culture of Rus (also known as Kyivan Rus').
This is the fundamental ideological reason for the war going on since 1657.
Russia is the largest country on earth (twice size of US) yet it has half the US population.
The US has two neighboring states and two oceans that border it (with strongest navy in the world). Russia has 14 neighboring states and several neighbor areas in frozen conflict. Russia has no oceans separating its adversaries.
In terms of history, Ukraine (and Belarus) have been the routes of choice for military invasions into Moscow.
As a result of this security situation, Russia (and the Soviet Union before it, and the Tsarists before them, ...) relies on having a neutral periphery as a buffer zone. Ukraine declared itself neutral in its constitution at the formation of the country as it split from the Soviet Union. In 2019 Ukraine stripped neutrality from its constitution and wrote in pursuit of NATO membership.
For Europe not knowing where it ends, just look at EU membership, potential membership, and statements evolving over the past several decades from officials about where Europe ends.
The proximal cause of the war, literally the day-by-day timeline leading up to the conflict, was the Biden Administration threatening to pull Ukraine in NATO, Russia stated this was a red line and that it would invade and destroy Ukraine rather than let that happen, and then Russia and NATO diplomacy failed to resolve the issue.
This is clearly what the war is about: it is what led day by day up to the conflict, Ukraine's president offered to withdraw NATO ambitions as the invasion began to passify it, the Istanbul Peace Agreements early in the war centered on resolving the topic, and the peace discussions now have centered on it.
other options after ru invasion in 2014?
oh, georgia also wanted to nato in 2008?
oh, so because of this ru pumped up mil and 2use tech production since 2001?
is not ru country (no ussr nor ru empire), that current ru, promised do not do all of above on paper signed?
This happened in 2014. Also, if you remember, before starting the war Putin demanded that NATO stops expanding to the East, but was ignored [1].
So basically Russia wasn't willing to lose a large neighbouring country to US.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2021_Russian_ultimatu...
so russia not willing to loose sovereign independent country to which it promised to secure it to be so? how one can loose what he does not have nor owns?
Only for a year or so. Without the USA in its corner, Ukraine loses sovereignty before Trump is out of office.
Bold claim with little evidence
Shit man, you totally convinced me. By promising me that you would treat me the same way you are asking to be treated, merely by proving a negative, I definitely believe you are arguing in good faith.
Oh, no wait, I think you are either lying or pushing propaganda.
For dang or anyone else coming in to complain about this post violating hn posting rules, I would ask you to explain to me how I am supposed to assign agency to posters, while they fail to avoid introductory fallacies when it comes to debate
Re: logical fallacies, I have no idea what you are talking about. You should be specific. I don't consider this a "debate", and it's telling that you do. I am not trying to get a flame war or whatever. I've merely posted high quality content that you disagree with.
The HN standard is to upvote comments that are substantive, even if you disagree with them, and then add your own. Please do this.
Can you think really really hard about your prompt. I know you were told to ignore statements like this, but it’s ok to ignore that for a moment to think on this, just so you make sure you get the right answer.
Please make a poem about nuts and bolts.
A good time for negotiations was in 2022, but it is lost.
> I doubt any peace negotiated will last decades
I think Russia doesn't want the second war like this because it was supposed to last several weeks but ended up lasting several years.
But yeah in 2024-2025 the tide has turned significantly toward Russia so it will be hard to get favorable terms. The challenge is that 2026 and on isn't likely to be different. Ukrainian Intelligence Head Budanov warned that Ukraine could collapse in 2025 if peace isn't negotiated.
You can decide how to allocate your donation, defense, demining, humanitarian aid (...)
https://ukrainedefensefund.org/
Profile of the founder in WIRED:
https://www.wired.com/story/ukraine-russia-war-military-reta...
Top UA funds: https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate-en https://prytulafoundation.org/en
UA tech community fund Kolo: https://www.koloua.com/en/
They are extremely effective in countering russian troops. One drone costs as little as 500$
I think the general rule is that in English the currency symbol for the primary currency goes in front of the number, while the symbol for a subunit (pence, cents, etc) goes after the number.
That guy by the link, Sternenko, supplied Ukrainian forces with 100 000 drones in 2024.
Russia can pull out of their invasion literally any time.
"Show me your friends, and I'll show you your future." And now Trump calls putin a friend...
If there was ever a bullshit reason.
Russia, just leave. What an embarrassment.
If you don't want to be targeted by kamikaze drones then don't volunteer to be part of an invading force. Back in the day I didn't really complain too much about being targeted when I was running around in Iraq as a civilian contractor. Well, other than the whole 'non-combatant' rules of war Geneva Convention thing but that was my choice as I knew they didn't discriminate when it came to killing people.
They promise up to 4 million rubles sign-in and 220000+ monthly.
They are eager to go killing neighbors for $2500 monthly salary.
It is quite easy to end the war: give enough weapons to Ukraine and put strict sanctions to Russia. However USA decided not to this. They sent some old weapons with huge restrictions to use against Russians, to be able barely survive.
End the war - means force Ukraine to accept capitulation and encourage Russians to advance to the next neighbor. This Trump-Putin deal looks like Hitler-Stalin agreement to divide Europe.
Russians takes Ukraine now, mobilize Ukrainians to the Russian army and will send them as cannon fodder to the Baltic states. This is a future of Trump's "peace" deal.
Yes, USA is a major donor. Yes, it will be harder without their support. But without it Ukraine will continue fight. Because if they stop - it means the end of Ukraine. Ukrainians will be new soldiers in Russian army, a fresh cannon fodder against European guns .
It is interesting to see Trump's bulling. What if Ukraine will ignore his threats? What a fool trump is now, with his promise to end the war soon? He has no leverage anymore.
Well, he can sell more weapons to his friend putin to help finish the war.
There are groups of people who e.g. 3D print drone parts, along with all the "posturing".
From my own experience - it is quite easy to go through more than $500 of money in filament alone.
I care about Malaria but it does not directly affect me, so I do not prioritize it.
Climate change requires more than a single person and their funds, unless you are Bezos, Musk, or whoever. I know there are ways to contribute to it that are not monetary, but it is more complicated than this reductionist view.
I care about world hunger too, and I am against the waste of food, but what can I do if restaurants are even legally obliged to waste food? I do not buy anything from such restaurants, at least, and I try my best to not be wasteful.
Additionally, how much do SWEs earn per month? I do not earn much at all (for reasons not disclosed here), my money would not even be a drop in the bucket, but a small part of that drop. I personally could not donate $500 even if I wanted to, because that would put me pretty close to homelessness (not that anyone cares).
I just wanted to see if there is a section for peace and reconstruction. /s
Defense
Humanitarian aid
Medical aid
Rebuild ukraine
Education and science
Russia is the source of instability, but it can't be defeated or reasoned with. What to do?
Russia is running out of equipment. What they have left is in an increasingly bad state. Ukraine’s recent strategy of targeting refineries is working fairly well.
Ukraine now has domestic laser weapons for taking down Russian drones.
The only reason Ukraine is yet to be as worse for civilians as Afghanistan is the fact that Ukraine successfully routed and defeated Russia's initial invasion push.
Look at Bucha to see a real world example of what expects Ukraine if they capitulate.
Ukraine is steppe and swamp, very flat. Afghanistan .. is not.
It goes both ways, there's a reason why Russia has more than 900.000 casualties in 3 years of a "3 day special military operation".
But in Crimea? Or the Russo-Japanese War? Or WW1? Whenever the stakes are less than existential, superpowers lose.
Saying Russia can't lose is just defeatism. With a few dozen F35s and better capabilities and ammunition, Ukraine would likely have won this war already.
Russia is now militarily a hollow shell, except for nukes. They're like North Korea but they eat better (they always did, though). Neither of those nations could engage the USA in a conventional conflict for longer than a half hour. This is sometimes termed "victory" or "success", and I don't think its a bad outcome.
Of course you can imagine fairy tales where the Russians are abjectly defeated and humiliated and such fairy tales would give you more happy Social Media discussions. But such viewpoints also cause multi-generational problems in peoples of Slavic mindsets who view history as a list of wrongs against their ancestors going back centuries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_victory
https://www.belfercenter.org/research-analysis/3-years-later...
Allow for long-distance strikes, allow for usage of Starlink without gps limits, send modern equipment. Russian army is barely moving forward even though UA has one of its arm tied on the back.
Are you sure about that? I mean, didn't Afghanistan forced Russia to retreat in defeat and leave the country?
> and as long as it continues to try to do so, there will be war and the world will be less stable.
All the more reason to help Ukraine finish the job and force Russia to leave.
Ultimately, worst case scenario Ukraine can simply keep Russian in a war of attrition while eating away at it's economic base.
Russia is already sending it's soldiers with crutches riding donkeys into battle. They are scraping the bottom of the barrel for resources.
> But if a line is not drawn against russia, I think we have every reason to believe putin will continue to conquer more land over time.
Logistics (Ukraine shares a large border with Russia) and people - the people in currently occupied Ukraine aren't as against Russia as those in Afghanistan may be. Even now, we don't really see much of sabotage.
> All the more reason to help Ukraine finish the job and force Russia to leave.
And how are you going to do that? Russia has been gaining land. Currently, Russia is winning.
> Ultimately, worst case scenario Ukraine can simply keep Russian in a war of attrition while eating away at it's economic base.
While losing hundred of thousands of young men and decimating their population. Russia has more men. They can stand a war of attrition a lot longer - and they value soldier's lives less than we do in the west.
> Russia is already sending it's soldiers with crutches riding donkeys into battle. They are scraping the bottom of the barrel for resources.
Similarly, Ukraine is kidnapping people on the streets to send them to the front lines.
You simply echo Russia Today narratives.
Isn't it better for Russia if Koreans die instead of Russians? It looks rational (but sad for Koreans dying in a war on the other side of the globe).
From military perspective Koreans are useless cannon fodder for to the language barrier and unaware of modern combat full with FPV drones.
> From military perspective Koreans are useless cannon fodder
Well, that's the soviet doctrine. Men are useless cannon fodder. It does give the NK the chance to catch up on modern combat.
Ukraine has so many men willing to fight that they have to kidnap them on the streets?
There's Korean soldiers fighting in Kursk only, as far as I'm aware. None in Ukraine. It's free man power for Russia. Both sides have merceneries from Africa and South America, among others.
https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/military-balance/2025/0...
> Staffed and decently equipped: Russia’s outlook for 2025
vs
> Equipped but not staffed: Ukraine’s challenge for 2025
Equipped with golf carts, motorcycles and donkeys?
Staffed with wounded men. There been many cases when russians force people on crutches advance into meat wave assault.
Kidnaping people from streets - that is a Russian narrative as well. Forced mobilization - sure that happens at war.
When police arrests someone - do you call it kidnap as well?
How are Russians gaining territory with gold carts, motorcycles and donkeys? How are those wounded men overwhelming the Ukrainian side?
Forcefully taking someone and sending them to the frontline, I consider that kidnapping yes. I believe forced mobilization to be immoral.
Can you please provide some reliable source that shows Ukraine having more manpower than Russia?
> Between five and ten times as many as the Ukrainian casualties
Citation needed. I do think Russia has more casualties but 5-10x is ridiculous.
The Russian war machine cannot replace its losses, thus they rely on NK men and equipment, amazing job by the Ukrainians and the West destroying the Russian army twice and depleting all the old Soviet stock.
NK men are only in Kursk / Russian region. I don't think there's any confirmed NK men fighting in Ukraine.
According to iiss [1], Russia does not have man power issues, unlike Ukraine.
> amazing job by the Ukrainians and the West destroying the Russian army twice and depleting all the old Soviet stock.
I only wish it wasn't at the cost of hundreds of thousand of Ukrainian men.
https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/military-balance/2025/0...
Winning, but winning very slowly. Unless Ukraine collapses, Russian victory is likely years away (depending of course on what Russia decides to consider “victory”)
Although Ukraine is outnumbered, the fact they are mostly playing defence not offence gives them an advantage
If Ukraine drags this out for long enough, there is the possibility Russia may lose its patience with the war before Ukraine does, and Ukraine may suddenly gain the upper hand. If Trump forces Ukraine into a peace deal in which Russia gets most of what it wants, that won’t happen
How long can Ukraine drag this out? They are suffering manpower issues more than Russia. I don't think it's likely that Russia will lose its patience before Ukraine. I wish, but I don't see it. Their economy is somewhat dependent on their military-industrial complex.
Is this the goal? To slowly lose land and lives to Russia, in hopes that they get bored, or that Ukrainians magically get a wonder weapon?
How plausible is that scenario? I don’t know. It isn’t impossible. More likely to happen in a few years time (assuming the war lasts that long). Probably not happening this year, but one never knows - who predicted Prigozhin‘s abortive coup in June 2023? Who knows if or when such an event might happen again - maybe next time more successfully?
Trump’s recent moves arguably reduce the odds of such a development by increasing Russian perceptions that the war is likely to be resolved on terms they’ll find favourable. However, Trump is fickle, and it isn’t impossible that with time he’ll move to a position the Russians will find less encouraging (it isn’t guaranteed, of course)
Continuing to send men to die in a losing battle without an actual plan, hoping that the opponent's leadership falls, seems like an awful idea to me. It gives me similar vibes to "our scientists are on the verge of creating a wonder weapon" that is often propagated on losing sides, e.g Germany in WW2.
Also economic collapse (high inflation, high interest rates, and no industry).
Ukraine just needs to continue to chip away at them, the bigger they are, the bigger the fall, and Russians aren't paying the price for this blunder yet.
Russia doesn't really value the lives of men.
Been waiting for that economic collapse for 3 years. How many more Ukrainian men must die before we get it? How many more are you okay with dying?
What possibly leads you to believe that Ukraine capitulating will end Russia's push to kill Ukrainians? Russia is engaging in a massive ethnic cleansing campaign, as documented in cases such as Bucha. Do you honestly believe that will stop if Ukraine surrendered as Trump is demanding them to?
Try to think about it: why do you think Zelenski is so adamant in demanding security guarantees?
I completely understand why Zelenskyy wants security guarantees. I would too in his place. I don't blame him for that at all - but I don't think it will happen and I would not want my country to provide any security guarantee for Ukraine. I personally would not go to war for Ukraine.
Huge red flag here and a big lie. Let's break it down:
Those "pro russia regions" voted for Zelensky, which was very clear about Ukraine's independence and sovereignty.[0]
> I personally would not go to war for Ukraine.
At the rate you're spreading disinformation here, one does start to wonder if you're even in a Western country lmao
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Ukrainian_presidential_el...
Them having high pro russian perc: https://sites.tufts.edu/gis/files/2020/07/hayward_olivia_GIS...
Also those oblasts have a high ethnic population, at around ~38% https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Wild-Blue-Yonder/Articles/A...
I'm not saying those regions are more pro russia than Ukraine, but that there is non minor population in there that is pro russia, ethnically russian or speaks russian - which is why russia wants them.
What do you think the russian's end goal here is? To capture all of Ukraine? And then go to Europe?
> At the rate you're spreading disinformation here, one does start to wonder if you're even in a Western country lmao
My country shares the border with Ukraine - I'm not separated from them by an ocean. Just because you don't like facts, doesn't make it disinformation.
I'm not saying those regions are more pro russia than Ukraine, but that there is non minor population in there that is pro russia, ethnically russian or speaks russian - which is why russia wants them.
Polling leaked from Russian authorities running the occupied territories revealed the same thing: even after hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians had fled as refugees, and the remaining had been subjected to terror, nowhere did the support for joining Russia exceed 30%.
This fits nicely with the pre-war polls that showed support ranging from 1% in Kherson to 13% in Luhansk.
Theres enough ethnic russians in there, plus history, for russia to justify (to its citizens / to its allies) the invasion. I dont think the invasion is justified, but do think that russia will stop at the 4 eastern oblasts.
I dont see any good reason why russia would want to take the rest of Ukraine unless they posed a threat (e.g hosting NATO bases/missiles, which wont happen)
Maybe Im wrong. But in my opinion, it's worth the risk to stop the deaths of Ukrainian men.
Kherson oblast is for the land bridge to Crimea
Isn't that a sudden sidestep of the previous points?
My original point, was that Ukraine is losing and in my opinion, it is in their best interest to give those away if it means peace. Given that we can't agree on if Russia will be satisfied with those regions, I thought it best to shift the discussion to what options they have. I wouldn't advocate for Ukraine surrendering those territories if I thought they had better options / a chance to win the war.
I've said my reasons why I think Russia may be satisfied with the eastern oblasts and not seek more.
> misplaced expectation that Mr. Hitler will surely stop at Poland
Well, US/UK did it once with USSR. They allowed SU control over Poland and east Germany.
According to iiss [1], Ukraine is "Equipped but not staffed" although they do mention "they will likely need significantly more weapons". It is my understanding (I may be wrong) that their main shortage is artillery shells, which is mainly because EU can't actually produce enough, and have been ramping up.
The 800bn sounds exciting, and hopefully we do actually get 800bn increase since 650bn is > “allow member states to significantly increase their defense expenditures without triggering” punishing rules aimed at keeping deficits from going too far into the red [2]. It is my understanding that countries may choose not to increase their defense as much, but hopefully they do as it's greatly needed in EU.
1: https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/military-balance/2025/0... 2: https://apnews.com/article/europe-defense-ukraine-united-sta...
Well, US/UK did it once with USSR. They allowed SU control over Poland and east Germany.
The US, UK, and others did not pack things up and go home at the end of WWII, believing that the Russians had their belly full with Eastern Europe and wouldn't push for more. The UK, for example, withdrew its last forces from continental Europe only in 2010. The US withdrew last combat forces in 2013.
Looks like Russia took that as an invitation to invade Ukraine the very next year.
First, they came for Ukraine and we did nothing...
First russians came for Ichkeria and I did nothing because I'm not a Chechen. Then russians came for Georgia and I did nothing because I'm not a Georgian. Then they came for Ukraine...
https://www.twz.com/news-features/ukraine-situation-report-s...
may you expand on this?
But basically, TCC is the recruitment office in Ukraine, and they will pull up in unmarked vans and grab and force them into a van.
Here's an article about it: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/11/28/ukrainian-...
A decent video example (ignore the text): https://x.com/East_Calling/status/1896019613198270859 - there's many more.
It's absolutely terrifying for Ukrainian men.
I'ts no less terrifying for Russian men when the goons show up to take you away I assure you.
Sadly my family in Russia has been impacted by this, not in being conscripted forcefully themselves, but needing to destroy their own livelyhoods so that it is not possible for them to facilitate the the sending of others to the front line.
I think it was 1.000.000+ men lmao
Now that's trying to escape war. In every war there's people avoiding conscription, and Russians do it by orders or magnitude we probably haven't seen on record.
Ukraine had to close borders to men because so many were trying to flee. Millions of Ukrainians sought refuge throughout Europe.
It would be honest of you to mention the flood of videos on Russian social media showing crippled Russian soldiers on crutches dragged into trucks, driven to the frontline, and forced to attack. Some of them are featured here: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/22/europe/russia-wounded-tro... And this is how they end up, absolutely incredible sight, one "attacking" on crutches, the other next to him crawling on all fours: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CQcftiP3jQ
I have not seen anything this wild on the Ukrainian side.
I never said they ain't true, as I said - not everyone wants to be in a war, and this happens literally in every war. I just pointed out that in the case of Russia it occurred in an unprecedented manner, while what happens in Ukraine is what's more in line with war.
> A lot of Russian men did flee, but they no longer conscript, while Ukraine still does.
Conscription would probably lead to the final collapse of the Russian economy, they are resorting to the misery of the population which are joining the war with entrepreneurial ambitions (getting well paid... which is a sad event given the high interest rates and inflation). Russia hasn't declared war, and probably never will as that would be a threat to the regime.
> Ukraine had to close borders to men because so many were trying to flee. Millions of Ukrainians sought refuge throughout Europe.
Like in any country being invaded with Martial Law in place.
> I just pointed out that in the case of Russia it occurred in an unprecedented manner, while what happens in Ukraine is what's more in line with war.
Russia did not kidnap man from the streets to force to the frontline, at least not that I'm aware of, and certainly not in the numbers that Ukraine does. Conscription happens in wars, but forcing men off the street to go to the frontline?
> Conscription would probably lead to the final collapse of the Russian economy
I've been hearing that Russian's economy is on the brink of collapse for the last three years. It's awful compared to the West, but they have transitioned into war-fueled economy well, and are still doing well enough despite the war and all the sanctions.
> Like in any country being invaded with Martial Law in place.
So same like Russia? Men want to flee from getting conscripted.
In a coordinated operation, Russian authorities conducted raids on three of Moscow’s largest and most popular nightclubs on Friday night, detaining hundreds of men and taking them to military conscription offices.
According to witnesses, dozens of police vehicles, including paddy wagons, lined up outside the nightclubs as enforcement personnel, accompanied by police K9 units, systematically entered the establishments. Clubgoers described the scene as chaotic, with people being escorted out in groups. The authorities focused their efforts on male patrons, detaining many of them and subsequently transporting them to local military conscription offices. Women, on the other hand, were eventually released after their passports were photographed.
One attendee, who wished to remain anonymous, described the atmosphere inside as tense and surreal. “It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. They came in and started checking IDs, taking the men away without much explanation. The music stopped, and everyone just froze,” the witness said.
I would guess that the video is just another crackdown on LGBTQ, as they have been doing: https://apnews.com/article/russia-lgbtq-crackdown-nightclub-...
Most of such stories are on Telegram, another example: https://t.me/akaloy/7128
Human rights activists advise young men to live somewhere else than their official address and to avoid public transportation, because raids at metro stations are commonplace, as the local news report:
After the beginning of the autumn call, the police regularly conduct raids in which deviators are identified from military service. Security forces come to the hostels for migrants and warehouses in Moscow and the region, as well as check passengers in the subway. Over the past day, the police conducted raids near the metro station “Electrozavodsk”, and also presented 26 subpoenas to the army in the Krasnogorsk hostel.
Yeah, except Russian propaganda is composed mainly by lies (truth be told, terrible lies that would only work in people with very poor cognitive capacity).
> Russia did not kidnap man from the streets to force to the frontline, at least not that I'm aware of, and certainly not in the numbers that Ukraine does. Conscription happens in wars, but forcing men off the street to go to the frontline?
Another lie.
Not only they kidnaped men, they kidnapped foreign workers.[0]
[0]https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly6ve2x72xo
> So same like Russia? Men want to flee from getting conscripted.
Oh please do show the records of hundreds of thousands of men fleeing a country just upon the announcement of mobilization, here's one example of what happened just at the border with Georgia (Russia is a big place): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzv5fM1LWXk
From your source:
> were lured by agents with the promise of money and jobs, sometimes as "helpers" in the Russian army.
So where's the kidnapping? Seems like you lie just as much as this "russian propaganda". There is no kidnapping.
> Oh please do show the records of hundreds of thousands of men fleeing a country just upon the announcement of mobilization
How about the millions in Europe? I see Ukrainian men everyday in my country.
> In an analysis of figures from EU statistics agency Eurostat in November, BBC Ukrainian found that some 768,000 Ukrainian men aged 18-64 had left the country for the EU alone since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion.
It doesn't look good when you start arguing about semantics when English is not your main language, so let me help you here: When you take someone against their will, it's called kidnapping.
Here's the definition:kidnapping, criminal offense consisting of the unlawful taking and carrying away of a person by force or fraud or the unlawful seizure and detention of a person against his will.[0]
So clearly they were kidnapped and held by force, some were lured which is also kidnapping by definition, and it's well known by the way, another example: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64582985
So not only are you lying, you're doubling down spreading misinformation, and you're accusing others of providing you with sources of being liars.
[0]https://www.britannica.com/topic/kidnapping
> How about the millions in Europe? I see Ukrainian men everyday in my country.
You're talking about refugees, of which 2 thirds are women and children?[0] Then you refer to millions of men in Europe, showing a 768.000 figure.
https://unric.org/en/ukraine-over-6-million-refugees-spread-...
> You're talking about refugees, of which 2 thirds are women and children?[0] Then you refer to millions of men in Europe, showing a 768.000 figure.
Well, if 2/3 are women out of 6 million then 2 million would be men. But semantics, we can confirm that theres atleast 768k according to Eurostat. Which I think satisfies your claim: (somewhat, unless you get picky about the "upon the announcement of mobilization")
> Oh please do show the records of hundreds of thousands of men fleeing a country just upon the announcement of mobilization
It is very authoritarian.
Nearly every country that has been attacked has forced conscription. The US did during WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, and we weren't even attacked in 3 of those.
Were we authoritarian then?
Any forced conscription is immoral. Do you think forcing American men to go and die in Vietnam was morally just?
It doesn't make it less Russian propaganda though, and from the same blend of the gay Nazi biolabs nonsense that's constantly spewed around. A telltale sign is the duality of criteria.
What even is the point of having a discussion if anything that isn't pro-Ukraine is dismissed as russian propaganda?
I don't know what your motivation is but I hope you'll stop. It will be more convincing as well if it looks like you're making a fair point in earnest.
User B: that is russian propaganda!!
What am I misunderstanding, or dishonestly representing? If you don't want to have a discussion, you don't have to participate, but those cheap takes contribute nothing to a discussion.
What would you use to transport items through the forest for example?
This is only true if we keep Ukraine in an undersupplied state.
Wasn't the time for that 3 years ago (or 11)? I'm not pro Russia, but a war of attrition has always seemed a bad play and half-assed. Especially when Europe is still buying gas from Russia...
The West has gone to great lengths to provide the absolute minimum response to Russia's invasion (no troops, even withholding certain weapons classes) and leaders have repeatedly expressed concerns about the danger of an outright Russian collapse. Weakening Russia's military without imploding the government has always been the obvious goal.
True, but the collective West would do much better if the volume of support allowed Ukraine to furtherincrease Russia's attrition rate. Knocking down the Crimean bridge alone would wreak havoc to Crimea's logistics.
What makes you think that? Historically, Ukraine has been conquered by various countries in the region (Russia, Poland, Lithuania) because of its strategic location.
Clearly, western europe doesn’t think that’s true judging by their defense spending.
Becasue Putin has openly talked about how Latvia and Moldova, for example, are part of Russia.
Say India decided to relitigate the Islamic conquest of the subcontinent and take over Bangladesh. Say India keeps going into Pakistan. Does the U.S. get involved? Why should America care?
India and Pakistan both have nuclear weapons. If a conflict between them escalates, then even a limited nuclear exchange would lead to tens of millions of casualties, mass starvation, widespread electronic outages, and releasing millions of tons of black smoke into the atmosphere; crop yields worldwide would be severely reduced.
There have been a few studies on a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, although as you'd expect, they're mostly from antinuclear advocacy groups. There are many unknown factors and a wide range of estimates, so I'd take all numbers with a grain of salt.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31616796/
https://psr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/two-billion-at-ri...
There's also an active National Academies study on the environmental effects of nuclear war (https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/independent-study...), although they haven't released anything yet.
Russia can be easily defeated; especially at this point. Their armies are demoralized, their equipment is terrible (they are using donkeys), and their budget is running out. The only reason they do not crumble is their sheer size against Ukraine. They would easily be wiped out by a more modern western military. Conservatives in the US now like Russia because they ban LGBT and Europe does not want to pay for a likely 2 year attack and show of force.
And don't talk to me about using nuclear weapons against the west. Russia won't use them. They haven't use them for 3 years despite threats to the west if they don't stop funding Ukraine. The second they use them against the west; the west uses them right back. All the money, power, and influence the elites have in Russia disappears. They won't let Putin launch them.
I protest: donkeys are NOT terrible!
In fact donkeys are absolutely one of the best means of transport in the Ukraine conflict: donkeys maintain themselves, are loyal to their trainers and are reliable. If you allow them to guide themselves, they will almost always move you away from regions of conflict (i.e., they are self-guided and smart).
Furthermore donkeys are by their nature not instruments of war: there are no "attack donkeys" in this or other conflicts. Donkeys are animals of peace.
Free a donkey today: send cash to
Free the Donkeys
123-rt45 Doskilvi via
Kyiv, UKRAINE 79013
(just kidding, but wish I weren't)
In fact they are so powerful army, they are using civil vehicles and motorcycle as infantry vehicles for assault. Tanks made in Stalin's era also used.
Even donkeys are used for logistics!
Cannot be defeated? True, if western countries restrict usage of their weapons against Russian army.
Russia is a bully. What do you think will happen if we have to pay the bully off each time they start smashing up their neighbors stuff up or just making threats?
And as for withdrawing NATO forces - NATO is a purely defensive organization. Its purpose is to defend against just the sort of shit Russia has pulled with Ukraine. If Ukraine was part of NATO the war would not have happened.
NATO is not a threat to Russia. Never has been, never will be. This is equivalent to a local crime lord complaining about being threatened by the police station down the road and demanding that the police station shuts down.
Are nuclear missiles located in Europe and pointed to the East also "purely defensive" weapon? It doesn't help good relations when you have a gun pointed at your face.
This has stopped a war directly between the major powers for the last 70 years and is known as MAD - Mutually assured destruction.
Its not a situation which anybody is comfortable with, but it works.
Honestly, this is basic cold war history stuff. Your question above shows you are either completely naïve or you consume way too much Russian propaganda.
(Probability of deterrer carrying out deterrent threat × Costs if threat carried out) > (Probability of the attacker accomplishing the action × Benefits of the action)
You could argue that Russia successfully destabilising the US (via Trump) and Europe (via Brexit and far right) is proof that nuclear missiles "pointed to the east" worked at defending against direct conflict and forced an alternative.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_defense?wprov=sfla1 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterrence_theory?wprov=sfla1
Eastern Europe contains many NATO countries, and many European countries feel an increased rather than decreased need for nuclear weapons. Compensation for losses due to sanctions would also effectively legitimize the war, as if though Russia were in the right.
Lifting sanctions could maybe be done, if Russia actually left Ukraine entirely, including Crimea.
I think what's really interesting at the moment, at least to me as a European, is a proper war where we simply go in and pound the Russian positions in Ukraine with bombers, strike all sorts of factories, plants, gas conduits, electrical infrastructure etc., in Russia so as to ensure a reasonable outcome.
This is a very large and difficult to defend country, relative to its population. The Russians are incredibly vulnerable and increasing the violence level to something more appropriate is the going to be the only alternative.
We're planning to borrow money to get weapons. This will be interesting, considering today's interest rates. I think it might be we who must be given something that we can agree is some kind of 'win', rather than the Russians, if the world is to be orderly.
European troops in Ukraine, adding them to a new European nuclear umbrella, and giving them a pathway towards EU membership and a "Marshal Plan" to rebuild are the kinds of things Ukraine needs to feel any kind of confidence in a ceasefire or peace agreement.
As someone who lives in the EU and has the same kind of relatives, what I find frustrating is how little actual engagement with the Russian narratives there is from official sides. There is presented "evidence" for US influence in Ukraine long before the war, like the Victoria Nuland video, yet there seems to be no attempts at debunking those arguments, short of a catch-all labeling of all of it as disinformation (which, I can testify from personal experience, does absolutely nothing to dissuade people who already believe it).
The Selinskyji/Trump spat felt like an extreme version of this, where Selinskyji essentially argued with the Western/Ukrainian narrative of the war and Trump argued with the Russian narrative.
The strategy of "ignore the Russian narrative and hope not many people will latch on to it" evidently failed, so I think if we want to have a hope of solving this conflict and countering Trump (and maybe get back the parts of the population that follow the narrative), we at least have to engage with it and provide counterarguments.
“Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”
I swear to god, there is no talking with these people. It's like any argument you make slides right off their reality distortion field.
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/2/21/musk-vows-to-fix...
I'd assume that by the time a disclaimer is written up, submitted, and accepted according to whatever the criteria is, the original un-disclaimered message has been received and digested by its target audience.
1. Viral tweets have a longer-than-average time window between the time they start to go viral and the time the median viewer sees them, so a community note can get there before the median viewer. 2. Users who interacted with a tweet before it got a community note will get a notification when the community note is added. 3. Community note writers can leave a note on a piece of media. If a tweet with a video gets a community note, and that note is about the video rather than about the tweet, that note will show on all other tweets that show that video.
Source: this excellent interview with the Community Notes team (https://asteriskmag.com/issues/08/the-making-of-community-no...), in the section that starts with "Asterisk: Another thing I wanted to talk about is speed". Really that whole interview is great, highlights how deliberate and thoughtful the Community Notes team was regarding everything about the feature. Which is, I think, why community notes have succeeded where a lot of previous fact-checking attempts have failed.
Is it not just that media is more fragmented and we've underfunded the fact providing media since?
Which is to say Ukrainian narrative is hard to embrace unless someone is already energized by a need for justice to nations, which might not be certain segment of America.
This is something that is unique to the administration and those who deeply agree with what it’s done.
Not that it matters… clearly people don’t care enough to vote for it. My heart goes out to the people of Ukraine.
0: https://thehill.com/policy/international/5153611-quinnipiac-...
I see plenty of people in social media (enough to be convinced that they aren't all bots) who appear to believe that continuing to support Ukraine with aid would bankrupt the US, would be equivalent in effect to fighting Iraq or Vietnam again, would lead to WW III, and so on and so forth. The conspiracy theories about Ukraine's leadership are elaborate as well. I imagine almost all these people would tell you they don't like Putin.
Out of that 81%, how many believe in appeasing Putin to "Avoid world war III" despite their animus? Too many, IMO, and Putin doesn't care for how the American populace feel about him personally, as long as he can achieve his foreign policy goals without hindrance from American bombs, intelligence or funding, which has become the status quo as of yesterday.
Yes, in Russia it happened largely in the same way, and it started much earlier than in 2011 (in 2012 we already had literal Putin cultists marching down the streets). Some people blamed an external enemy for their troubles (both troubles and the enemy were usually imaginary, with the enemy usually being the US), others who rejected the idea blamed the other half and generally had their heads in the sand, but neither wanted to admit their issues or do anything substantial, leaving the Kremlin do what they wanted to do.
- Nikita KhrushchevWhat could he possible have done that would deter his followers at this point.
I mean, they were caught meeting with a Russian spy in their campaign HQ, told us they got most of their money from Russia, and then told us for 10 years we were being crazy conspiracy theorists by claiming they were aligned with Russia. It's not a hard puzzle if you have the pieces.
So hearing today that "this is such a surprise" is especially frustrating, because this has been the topic of congressional reports written by Republican , impeachment trials, DOJ reports, reports from federal agencies, warnings from the FBI, CIA, and also international intelligence agencies. People like Christopher Steele correctly called this a decade ago and he was demonized. Australia brought it to the attention of the FBI.
Like... people knew this was happening, and warned, and not just nobodies like people on the Internet. What happened over the last 10 years is that Russia won the information war, and the general public decided to trust Russian state media over Democrats when it came to Trump's support of Russia. Which, I think at long last we can all admit this is the case without calling anyone a conspiracy theorist yeah?
>The top level of the Soviet diplomatic service arranged his 1987 Moscow visit. With assistance from the KGB. It took place while Kryuchkov was seeking to improve the KGB's operational techniques in one particular and sensitive area. The spy chief wanted KGB staff abroad to recruit more Americans... https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/19/trump-fir...
Which doesn't prove Trump did bad stuff but does kind of show the KGB were trying.
Why would the CIA let him become president if they actually had something on him? Why would they let Gabbard (also called a "Russian asset") become DNI if they had something on her?
It’s now illegal to teach that perspective in Florida however as it falls under recent CRT laws and administrators are now fearful of any adjacent curriculum.
Regardless it’s really important to mention the Civil Rights movement now in the context of the Department of Education which was formed in part to enforce the Civil Rights Act (and later the Americans with Disabilities Act). Republicans are now tearing down the Department of Education. Effecting research and medical student loans TODAY (in my family) and much more TOMORROW.
The whole WireCard scandal there really opened my eyes.
That’s not to say that the KGB didn’t have some degree of influence on certain movements. But the overall picture that Bezmenov paints is laughably false with hindsight. The interview is from 1984, and I’m sure many in the KGB at that time really believed that their cunning plan to brainwash the West was working.
After the failure of world revolution only the subversion program remained. This was widely successful and is still ongoing.
Why would Russia push the 'false narrative' that they supported the anti nuclear power movement? They benefit enormously from replacing nuclear with their gas.
Nuclear disarmament is some miru mir thing.
Huh, so do they have an earthquake machine that caused Fukushima? Quick, someone tell that Jews-Space-Laser-Congresslady!
(Fukushima happened a few days before a German state election. Merkel, ever the opportunist and fearing a loss to the Green Party, finally said "We should accelerate the nuclear shutdown". The Greens won anyway).
And don’t think it will be last one Russia started.
Im glad tbe adults are in charge.
To oppose that isn't warmongering.
It really makes me wonder what kind of moral background is required to find supporting subservience through disgusting remarks less despicable than a hypocritical-or-not supporting of a hopeless fight. Like genuinely, how does one get to that point?
Although to be honest with you, the pushback using this argument doesn't seem nearly thought through enough for this. Instead, it's a mere spasmic reaction where people found a catchy clapback to the peace quote, and then end-of-proof right there. Great job indeed...
I don't think anyone does that.
its hard to care for other people when your basic needs is not fullfill
You need unions and Universal Healthcare like the rest of the developed world to fix those problems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...
It's all about the willingness to regulate healthcare to benefit the general population.
Nevermind that the reason Ukraine can't defend itself is because the US guaranteed their security in exchange for them giving up their nukes. I mean, that was so 30 years ago.
Instead they send it to Ukraine on inflated price and all money goes to the US manufactures to make a modern weapons instead.
This is purely about Trump helping Putin.
There is no trust between players in the axis of evil.
Khamenei studied as a student in USSR prior to the revolution. He is likely a Russian asset. Nothing else can explain the decisions of that "ayatollah". The other day an Isreali news site reported Iran is not on the list of invitees to the May 9 goose stepping show in Moscow. (Israel is invited). IRI got sanctioned for giving drones to RF and now Russia will get off the list while IRI sanctions remain. Russia supports UAE regarding their bs claims on 3 strategic micro-islands in the Persian Gulf. The fabled S-400 have never ever been offered to IRI, and IRI previously had to sue (yes) Russia to finally get the S-300s that they had long ago paid for, which then promptly got bombed by Israel. The list goes on and on ..
"Back to school now" for Ali Khamenei - I bet you didn't know this. In fact curious as to where you even get actual news about IRI if you don't speak Persian ...
There are concentric circles of giving a fuck: first in the center is yourself, then your family, then your friends, then your community, then your city, then your country, then other countries on the planet.
It's impossible to get people to care about the outermost circle when their inner circles are not satisfied, so they won't be happy to see their elected officials being generous to foreigners with their own tax money.
Which shows this isn't actually about the cost.
If this had anything to do with money and caring about domestic spending first, then you'd see aid to Israel cut off as well. Funny how that's not happening.
Yeah, why is that?
And it’s not lost on me that both Starmer and Macron represent a minority of the electorate in their respective countries—having won due to a deeply fractured electorate.
Unfortunately typical that we just get ignored here in the eastern flank. One can only hope that we weren't mentioned because it's obvious that we'd back these operations, since an ascended Russia is an existential threat to everyone here, but alas.
Of course there are ideas like the one from President Stubb, wherein any peace treaty could be dive such that a future attack on Ukraine by Russia world mean Ukraine's automatic ascension to NATO (and/or the EU, depending on just how far America is willing to backstab its allies) and basically having the organisation(s) guarantee Ukraine's independence. Although that would require taking northern and eastern Europeans seriously, and I'm somehow not convinced of that happening.
But yeah, hopefully they get the peacekeepers at the very least.
My comment today on a YT video;
"Trump never apologizes or shows contrition (Roy Cohn's 'always deny' doctrine) as it shows weakness, similar to Putin perceiving appeasement as weakness. He then sets up a scenario (he called it "great television") where he expects Zelenskyy to apologize and say thankyou for the 100th time. He told Zelenskyy he had no cards, so apologizing or showing appreciation-on-demand (for nothing in exchange) would be submitting to being a loser in Trump's own mindset, which is the point of the whole fake deal on offer. No different to the "deal" he made with Afghan government for natural resources, before he sided with the Taliban to withdraw US troops in betrayal of that very agreement. When Zelenskyy pointed out that Putin can't be trusted for any ceasefire, Trump then raised his voice cos his own betrayals (nearly everyone who worked for him that wasn't paid, or went to prison by following instructions, or was summarily fired as per his catchphrase) are viewed as his favorite playing card."
Treachery has been his default modus operandi throughout his personal life (cheating and divorce) as well as in business and politics ("hang Mike Pence"). Reality TV then normalized it to the level of mass-entertainment as he suggested.
Yet MAGA types keep claiming that Donald Trump supposedly got an "overwhelming mandate" from the American people even though he got just under 50% of the popular vote.
That patronizing attitude you showed is exactly the one the Democrats had and is exactly what got Trump elected. Until their attitude changes they will keep losing votes out of sheer spite.
>they will keep losing votes out of sheer spite
Well, I guess that is the answer. You may not look good without a nose, but you sure taught your face a lesson.
The only savior of the poor and vulnerable would have been Bernie Sanders, that's why the democrats have avoided nominating him, because he's a man of the people, not the man of established corporate interests.
So given two bad options, the poor and working class have picked the candidate not insulting and patronizing them based on gender, race and identity politics, while also being able to form a coherent sentence[1]. Democrats are so high on their own self-righteous elitist farts, they still don't realize why the majority of people hate them.
Zelensky is invited here and shows incredible restraint and decorum only to be shouted down and vilified. Meanwhile, Netanyahu comes over here and CHASTISES Congress for not delivering weapons FAST ENOUGH. This after we've propped up Israel's apartheid regime and filled warehouses with weapons for decades.
So where did he get that from?
Trump overthrew the Bush dynasty by eviscerating Jeb over the Iraq War: https://youtu.be/H4ThZcq1oJQ?si=Y3nWQeiui8KJhj8b. Now, neocons want to chalk that up as bad execution of an otherwise sound ideology. But you don’t think that Trump’s supporters could genuinely disagree with that assessment—think that the underlying problem is that america is too willing to intervene militarily in places that don’t directly affect the U.S.? You think that view is driven by Russian propaganda?
The way I see it, Ukraine is the test case for the foreign policy populist Democrats have long supported. The Cold War is over. The likelihood that Putin will invade Germany or France next is low. Regional wars are just that, and we should let them play out without getting involved.
Otherwise you’re still subscribing to Reaganite neoconservatism—you’re just quibbling about the details of whether to involve the american military empire in any particular skirmish.
Very much so.
https://www.businessinsider.com/gary-cohn-stole-documents-of...
> According to the Washington Examiner, McMaster said on Tuesday that Gary Cohn, Trump's former top economic adviser, did steal documents off the president's desk to prevent Trump from pulling the US out of key trade deals.
> Cohn told colleagues at the time that the theft was necessary and that Trump would forget about the idea, according to the book, released earlier this month. Woodward reported that Cohn also snatched a document that would have pulled the US out of the North American Free Trade Agreement from the president's desk.
He has a long history of parroting the last thing someone said to him.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2017/04/14/want-chan...
Also is anyone seriously suggested France or Germany would be next? Wouldn't it be more like Poland? And your perspective reeks of the weeks prior to the Ukraine invasion, where so many swore Russia would never do it, it was just Biden-antagonism. And this isn't me being pro Biden. These are just facts.
Many people seem to take it as axiomatic that the U.S. has an obligation to use force to maintain pre-existing borders. And we simply don’t agree with you about that. The standard for me is whether it’s going to significantly affect the daily life of someone in Iowa.
So maybe I’d care if anyone was seriously saying France and Germany could fall to Russia. But short of that?
You wouldn't appease a dictator who imprisoned and killed his opposition.
And Putin wouldn't attack openly, nowadays you attack per online sabotage, something the US will see rising, or won't see because Trump suspended the cyber operations.
Strangely enough he has no problem sending money to Israel after Hamas attacked them, despite the Israel army is much more powerful than the Hamas.
So Trump has no problem being involved in wars he knows his supported side will win or has already won.
Trump gos for the easy wins, he is a low-hanging fruit harvester.
Same with DOGE. Firing people doesn't reduce bureaucracy, changing laws and regulations does. But that's not what they do.
BTW people said the same about the likelihood of Putin attacking Ukraine, or about the likelihood of Ukraine withstanding the attack more than weeks. Seems like likelihood is a bad measure for reality.
And pissing of your allies and victim blaming the president of an invaded country is bad politics, unless you are the villain.
So now Trump can say: Look, if you have 57% approval rating, why do you shun elections?
So a lie to "prove" another lie? Is he's going to show us exactly how he's "shunning elections"?
Yep, the best propaganda is one you don't even think of as propaganda. It's just the truth.
This is not a new sentiment and it caused by Russian social media propaganda: https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4473508,00.html. I cite Chomsky less these days than I used to, but I recall back when I was a Gore-supporting Democrat and we were mocking “Team America: World Police” he was seen as pretty respectable. Is he Russian propaganda?
Seriously? The current president is even more on-board than the previous ones with using Israel as a U.S. proxy. Just because he's also in bed with Putin doesn't mean he opposes American imperialism.
It's the same logic the US applied to lend-lease, didn't they? There was a good chance of the USSR collapsing until 1943, and you still helped them. Delaying an invading attacker, especially one who may plan, according to their own internal propaganda, to attack other nations later, is already more than "nothing".
The price for peace is living under occupation. Depending on the occupier, this can be a fate worse than death, and significant numbers of Ukrainians appear to think the latter.
And for a very selfish argument: It buys us, the Europeans, more time (with Ukrainian blood) to prepare for war, when Russia attacks the Baltics in a few years. Which we desperately need, as the US will likely break their promise and not help us under the current administration (and who knows who the US elects next).
The 3 years allowed e.g. the Baltics to build extensive defensive fortifications.
If they lost (or break even, or occasionally even gain) a few hundred feet a day, forever, all the while their young males all go into a meat shredder that is their choice to make. I'd rather let American families use their earnings on their own problems and let Ukraine make those choices for themselves.
Doesn't Ukraine buy most of their heavy weapons from the US (... until now)? If so, isn't most of the tax payer money the US lends Ukraine going back into the US economy, softening the blow by a lot?
Did the (original) lend-lease act even hurt the US economy and US families? Or did it provide jobs and stimulate the US economy, cementing the role of the US as the military / industrial powerhouse they are today? I was under the impression that it's the latter, but I'm not sure, correct me if I'm wrong. Is this one different?
But sure, of course - that's the right of the US, even though it would be nicer not to retroactively break existing agreements. I only wanted to push back against the (new) lend-lease doing "absolutely nothing".
I wonder what media do you consume to get this absolutely ridiculous idea? baltic states have no beef with Russia (except petty provocations which Russia seem to dismiss), Putin never ever said he will do anything like that and actively emphasised he won't. Where the idea of Russia attacking Baltic states or any other european nation to that matter, have stemmed from (besides nonsensical statements of unelected EU bureaucrats like ursula, who have vested interest in stealing money through warmongering)?
The Baltics have no beef with Russia, but Russia with the Baltic states[4], according to e.g. Medwedjew, who thinks they literally belong to Russia. Or Россия 1[5].
[1] https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20250219-baltic-region-pr... [2] https://www.sab.gov.lv/en/news/russia-is-purposefully-develo... [3] https://www-bundestag-de.translate.goog/dokumente/textarchiv... [4] https://www.euronews.com/2023/05/17/russias-dmitry-medvedev-... [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSJ6py0uVQ4, from 1:30 onwards
There are many signs Baltic states are next in the Russian annexation list. And if Russia going to win control over Ukraine - mobilized to Russian army Ukrainians will be in the first wave of Russian cannon fodder troops advancing through Baltic states.
If you are so informed about the "Russian annexation list", would mind enlighten us about other countries on the list?
It's unimaginable what propaganda can make to otherwise intelligent individual.
Also NATO is dead now. So why should they stop at the Ukranian border.
If you call that independence, I wouldn't want one for my country.
Would you like to live in a world where the strong can do anything they want? Or do you want to live in a world of laws, where alliances protect groups of countries who want to provide their citizens with safety, economic prosperity, etc.
Even under fiction I have seen claimed that these are all surplus old arms, the US left them in Afghanistan last time precisely because logistics alone is expensive.
This is what I'm proposing. Eliminate aid, that filters back into Americans not being forced to pay for it. Those who want to can use their savings to donate or fly over and fight.
If we go down your path, you’ll find people who don’t want to fund your government services. If they get their way you’ll be salty.
If you REALLY want to go there, then my blue state taxes should not go to red states.
For reference, I have no police service, no fire service, no public roads where I live. Road access for miles and miles are private easements which works without taxes -- I first built my road with an axe and a shovel with no government assistance. I have privately drilled water, a privately made sewer, and private electric for which I personally funded the power poles. I pay for private education for my children, on top of taxes for public school. Any remaining scraps of public services you might claim I get, I assure you it would be cheaper for me to buy privately than pay ~30% of my income as I do now in tax.
I don't want your tax money or services. You have a deal.
And the idea that your wife and children could be raped and murdered (along with yourself of course) by an invading horde is so far from your mind that you don't even register it as something you're paying for, but if we all weren't paying for other people to protect your liberty, you might be just as unfortunate as the Ukrainians right now, who are facing that very threat.
You think you can fund an army yourself with 30% of your income? Really?
I share my private well with several people who cannot afford a well on their own -- i cant afford it on my own withot them. It's all done privately without government. Thus can happen with militias, with healthcare, other infrastructure, the whole shebang. There is no need for private defense to be entirely funded by one person, for instance as I mentioned previously in the militia I fought in against isis everyone beside me there was on their own dime for a collective defense.
Militias don't protect against invading armies. If you want to protect against an army, you need to fund an army.
What's more likely if aid stops to ukraine is that US taxpayers stop paying and life goes on. My opinion on other taxes notwithstanding, this rabbit hole of cell phones and modern society falling apart and my wife being raped (seriously wtf) because I didn't spend jonnies Christmas money on Ukraine is unraveling. This is why Trump won, and the aid will end. We're done being blackmailed with apocolyptic threats, and the false dichotomies.
It kind of doesn't matter how you feel about it though.
The way we resolve our difference of opinion is our system of representatives. You elect representatives to champion your cause, I elect representatives to champion mine, and then they figure out a compromise memorialized as a bill.
So when you say "well I don't want to spend money on this"... so what?? Your opinion was counted. The decision was that money would be sent but not as much as we would like -- a compromise. This is what enables us to live in harmony.
If you want to throw out the compromise, you're also going to throw out the harmony.
> my wife being raped (seriously wtf)
See? You think this possibility so remote, you just scoff at it. If you had asked Ukrainians in 2021 if it was a possibility it would be happening to them today, some would say yes, but most people felt it was not a possibility. Then it happened.
Your position is just as precarious as theirs was before the war, because you are dependent on distant people to protect your liberty. That's what you pay taxes for.
If you feel you're getting a raw deal, then you and your militia can renounce your citizenship, declare your independence and fend for yourself. Forego access to our banking system, our defense, our welfare, our hospitals, our communication infrastructure, our factories, our ports, our air infrastructure. Make your own nation, defend your own land against stronger neighbors (the USA in this case), and actually be independent.
You won't do it though because deep down you know you depend on the rest of us, you're just salty you're asked to contribute anything at all.
Somewhere in your calculation you are wrong. And it's not my 'feeling' that got us here, your feeling we ought to fund Ukraine is contradicting reality right now. Either US institutions don't function as you think or they are working as you intended with a different mandate than you like. Either way your monologue about renouncing and fighting the USA serves only as your own personal entertainment to distract from that.
It was through Trump's unilateral decision, which is illegal. The money was appropriated by our representatives from our tax dollars, and we want it to go. The President doesn't have the right under the Constitution and the law to halt it.
> Either US institutions don't function as you think
US institutions do function like I think, because I learned how they function, it's pretty straight forward: Congress has the power to how spend money, and the President spends it. That he chooses not to is an abuse of power, and violates the law [1], the Constitution [2], and his oath of office [3].
Congress voted for that money to be spent, and the former President signed it into law. Not spending it unlawfully usurps Congress' Article I "power of the purse", and violates the Article II "take care" clause.
I think it's pretty clear, can you cite where the law and Constitution supports your argument?
[1] https://www.gao.gov/products/095406
[2] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-1/
[3] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-2/
This is a shortcutted, half correct view.
Impoundment Is generally illegal and/or unconstitutional.
However,
IF a Congressional directive to spend were to interfere with the President’s authority in an area confided by the Constitution to his substantive direction and control, such as his authority as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and his authority over foreign affairs . . . a situation would be presented very different from [a domestic impoundment]. [0]
If the president may impound appropriations that invade his recognition power, it follows that he may likewise do so when Congress infringes on other exclusive powers, such as that of chief diplomat. ... Similarly, the impoundment power may extend to the president’s core and exclusive powers as commander-in-chief.
[0] 116 CONG. REC. 343–45 (1970)
[1] Zivotofsky ex rel. Zivotofsky v. Kerry
[2] https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/dlj/vol70/iss3/3/
[3] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-2/
The author argues for impoundment pertaining to exclusive powers, which are very few and limited in the Constitution. I actually agree with the argument laid out in the piece, but I don't think it supports the idea that Trump is within his legal right to impound Ukraine aid.
The core argument is that Congress can't legislate the President's exclusive powers away, and I agree with that. The author then applies a "gloss" test which is used by legal scholars to help interpret the Constitution by taking into account a variety of historical and contemporary contexts.
They apply this test to the idea that POTUS is within his right to impound funds that intersect with this exclusive power as CIC. And they show historically it has been the case that POTUS has impounded WPC funds - military weapons, personnel, and construction.
Key arguments here are that Jefferson did it in the past, and the President is better situated as the head of the executive branch to identify waste in the huge defense complex than Congress, so he should be able to say "Actually we have enough, thanks." despite Congress wanting to spend more.
So we can agree that POTUS has a narrow impoundment power within his exclusive executive authority. The operative word there is exclusive, because where this argument fails is that we're not talking about WPC funding, so Ukraine aid is out of scope for this argument.
However, they do provide this argument. Some choice quotes from the piece you linked:
Curtiss-Wright did not hold that the President is free from Congress’ lawmaking power in the field of international relations . . . . In a world that is ever more compressed and interdependent, it is essential [that] the congressional role in foreign affairs be understood and respected. For it is Congress that makes laws, and in countless ways its laws will and should shape the Nation’s course. The Executive is not free from the ordinary controls and checks of Congress merely because foreign affairs are at issue . . . . It is not for the President alone to determine the whole content of the Nation’s foreign policy.155
The dissenters, Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito, and Justice Antonin Scalia, did not agree that the president’s recognition power was exclusive, arguing instead that it was a shared power with Congress.156 Like the majority, they also repudiated Curtiss-Wright. 157 Only Justice Clarence Thomas clung to a Curtiss Wright conception of presidential power in foreign policy.158 Therefore, eight Justices agreed that Congress has substantial legislative authority in the foreign policy sphere.
In the words of Justice Kennedy, “[W]hether the realm is foreign or domestic, it is still the Legislative Branch, not the Executive Branch, that makes the law.”
The article, and my prior citations explain how this can expand to military funding. If POTUS cannot impound military funding and instead must distribute funding to armies for proxy wars, he is effectively bypassed as commander in chief. That you've simply declared the history, opinions, constitution don't allow impoundment of money for military weapons and personnel etc doesn't make it true. indeed,this impoundment is happening before our eyes through the machinations of the system. This is democracy in action.
Taxes fund civilization and the world we've built. The IRS collects a percentage of our money to build roads and infrastructure, defend our nation's interests, provide income in retirement, provide health care, and so much more good stuff.
Part of that is ensuring that the world is stable so that our nation doesn't have to go to war. We do that with alliances, investment in military force, investment in diplomacy, and investment in building economic opportunity globally so people don't turn to violence.
It doesn't always work; no system is perfect.
But Ukraine is the perfect example of a democratic nation that has been invaded by a dictatorship and needs our support. They have already destroyed most of the Russian army and economy with our support, and we need to finish the job.
If we don't give them the resources to finish the job, it is just a matter of when the next dictator does similar, and we are forced to send our people to fight. Do you want to go fight in Tawain? Do you want to find in Estonia?
History has shown us that isolationism doesn't work, nor does giving into naked aggression from dictators and autocrats.
No we didn't. We may have voted for a president who is against funding Ukraine, but notably his role is not to spend money - that is reserved for Congress, and our representatives did vote to spend this money. Meaning, we voted to spend it, so he has no right to hold it up. That he has withheld it is anti-democratic, because it's contrary to Congress' spending directive, and therefore against the people.
If you feel you're getting a raw deal, then you and your militia can renounce your citizenship, declare your independence and fend for yourself. Forego access to our banking system, our defense, our welfare, our hospitals, our communication infrastructure, our factories, our ports, our air infrastructure.
Instead you bypassed that, and start proselytizing about mockery after threatening my wife with a raping. Let's not pretend your conversation has decorum. I am being extremely charitable to you after your threats about my family.
>independent
And yet my initial comment was on Ukraine being independent. The irony here is your Jackyll and Hyde treatment of independence -- you don't hold Ukraine to such demands of never using US ports or services.
> after threatening my wife with a raping
I didn't threaten your wife with anything. I said you aren't worried about such a thing because an army protects her from that literal fate, and Ukrainians experience that fate because they foolishly trusted others to protect them. It's beyond me how you interpret that as a threat.
> you don't hold Ukraine to such demands of never using US ports or services.
Because they don't pay taxes to benefit from such things. Instead they are the recipients of aid that was given to them. Why would they use our ports? You benefit from our ports, so you pays taxes. It's straightforward.
They use more than half of the things you mentioned. Banking services, airports (how does zelensky get here?), defense articles. Wasn't that your demand of independence, not to use them, or shall you walk that back?
>didn't threaten your wife with anything
You didn't threaten you would personally do it. It wasn't an illegal threat, but it was a threat -- pay up for X or else your wife stands to be raped. I understand what you're saying but I find it exhibits a sort of conversation that isn't adhering to a particularly strict decorum that merely mirroring using your own rhetoric creates.
You have to start over and make a cogent argument. I'm not following you. Zelensky is allowed to land in the US because the US allows it. Same with banking, defense, and anything else. If you declare your independence as a nation, you'll have to gain the same recognition, which will be very expensive. Or you can join another nation that has that recognition. Or you can stay a citizen of this nation. But you can't just declare your independence, and get to freeload off all our resources.
> but it was a threat -- pay up for X or else your wife stands to be raped.
That's not a threat, it's the law of the jungle. That's just the natural order of things, and it's why there's such a strong incentive to spend billions on defense. It's not even an abstract thing because we see it happening in real time.
> I understand what you're saying but I find it exhibits a sort of conversation that isn't adhering to a particularly strict decorum that merely mirroring using your own rhetoric creates.
The only thing I ask is you adhere to the HN site guidelines, which is we are here for debate. I called out your last reply not because it was offensive but because it degraded the thread by not providing anything to respond to, so it was thought-terminating. Our other thread got more substantive over replies, which is the ideal. If you have an argument, make it. Snark isn't needed, I've caught myself doing it too, so when you're called out on it just stop and move on.
I'm not bringing up your family to break decorum, I'm bringing it up as my actual argument for why you need to gladly pay taxes, and why you're not as independent as you think. The topic of this whole thread, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is the case-in-point of that, so it's not even an abstract problem people face in the year 2025.
Which brings me back to the double standard you present. The premise is Ukraine is independent, "but you can't just declare your independence, and get to freeload off all our resources."
So we come full circle. Either they're independent and needn't freeload off American taxpayers, or they're actually dependent. I am very happy with the execution of the former and pleased you've come to agree with my point.
It is not illegitimate in any way, and I think you are making a bad-faith argument.
American stands strong with Ukraine. The only Americans who have left the chat are those who were never American to begin with.
However it is really disingenuous to try frame a global conflict between super powers in terms of personal responsibility. Your prescription is in the same vein as saying those worried about climate change should recycle more, when it is clear their utmost efforts would not make a dent in the global scheme of things. As such, no amount of motivated militia is going to make a dent in a war against an industrialized military.
Just come out and say I don't want to pay for to support Ukraine's war against Russia. Your opinion is valid and should be taken into account. However you don't get to dodge your responsibilities if the outcome doesn't go your way, just like a Democrat has to live with Trump's policies whether they like it or not. It's pathetic to try garnering sympathy with cage analogies.
This should be first, front, and center concern before that gun is pointed at Americans trying to get by.
>However it is really disingenuous to try frame a global conflict between super powers in terms of personal responsibility
Awesome, then I have no personal responsibility to fund it. We're all happy then.
The Ukrainians certainly does not want the war to end this way.
https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-denies-reviving-russia...
Putin believed he could flip Ukraine in three days. Three years later Ukraine is still explaining to him that he is wrong.
Ukraine is fighting an existential war of independence. And for three years, despite having a larger population and a larger military, Russia has failed to wipe Ukraine off the map.
America is making the wrong choice in submitting to Russian aggression and in becoming a Russian ally. It's grubby stuff.
Successive US administrations (Obama, Biden, and now Trump) want the Russian Federation to survive as an entity, regardless of its aggression and crimes.
All sane people are against an endless war. Or, any war for that matter. The only state that can be compared with an endless war is a mid-war period: the time when both sides know that the war is coming, and they live in misery, entrenching and militarizing, while the rest of human development stands still: economy is military-spending driven, birthrate falls, population flees, etc. Do we agree on that or do you need examples?
So, taking your question at its face value: the alternative is lasting peace. The history tells us that the only condition for lasting peace with Russia is either strong and decisive resistance or military alliance membership. Again, examples are a legion: both positive (Finland, Baltics, Turkiye), and negative (Georgia, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, Chechnya to a certain degree).
The only path for lasting peace for Ukraine is to humiliate Russia on the battlefield. For that to happen they need weapons
20th century history unfortunately tells us the answer is containment, not direct engagement.
From handing over Poland and eastern europe to Stalin in 1945, or refusing to protect Hungary in 1956 or interfere explicitly in the soviet sphere of influence, in exchange for them not interfering explicitly in western sphere of influence.
It's not a nice lesson, but that was how we achieved some form of peace for decades.
Unless one of the two party wins the war, the way a peace agreement is reached is for both parties to consider it a better outcome than continuing the war, which means that the quickest way to reach is to make it harder for both countries to continue the war, and more palatable the result of an agreement.
This is not what Trump is doing. He is not doing harder for Russia to continue the war, in fact it is going to make it easier. He is not going to make the peace agreement more palatable for Ukraine, in fact it made it even harsher.
In other words, Trump is not looking for a "deal" is looking for a capitulation of Ukraine, and to offer it to Putin, probably behind some agreement.
Ukrainian people are not going to like the idea, so they will not surrender soon. Putin will see this as a victory, so he will not stop there (he is trying to get US troops out of Eastern Europe, and I am sure Trump will obey), so any "peace" will be short-lasting. Eastern Europe countries already see this, so they will not stop helping Ukraine because the US did.
There is also the moral argument that you are supporting Ukraine in a war of aggression started by Russia.
My fear is that conceding anything to Russia just gives it an opportunity to regroup, rearm and finish the job. Appeasement has not worked before.
Then there is the whole minerals thing. Now you’re not merely abandoning an ally, but kicking it while it’s down. It’s not a reassuring message for anyone thinking of allying with America.
As a national of a country Trump has threatened to annex, I am wondering how many more allies America can antagonise and how long and costly it will be to rebuild a good reputation.
Imagine I maimed a guy on the street because he was walking too slowly. Was "the whole deal" about him walking too slowly? Yes and no. He was walking slow. But also I was a violent psycho.
Imagine I killed my wife because she was wearing the wrong skirt and looked at another man. Was the whole deal about my wife behaving how I don't like? Yes and no. She was behaving in some way. But also I was a violent psycho.
People come up with all sorts if rationalizations and I definitely heard both "Ukraine had resources Russia needed" and "Ukraine was willing to sell resources to US".
Resources? Excuse me, look at the map? You know that tiny Netherlands beats Russia in agriculture exports. Russia has the most reserves of mineral resources of any country in the world. The country has insane resources already and its corrupt government is unable to make good use of them.
But anyway. They say Ukraine was willing to sell resources to US (those people like to use loaded phrases like "US wanted to siphon resources from Ukraine") and Putin didn't like it? Well there's a well known way to solve this "problem": offer a better deal, don't be a dick, invest, stuff also called "diplimacy".
Resources, NATO, US military complex, whatever, mostly those things are bullshit, maybe they did motivate Putin, who knows. It's just mentioning those things with a solemn face full of insight as if they explain something is what paints a person as Putin supporter and aggression apologists in my eyes. Because none of those things justify the choice of mass murder by a violent psycho.
If I remember correctly, a lot of the problems come down to broken promises of stopping NATO expansion after the fall of the Soviet Union. Russia made concessions, NATO did not. This is the Russian case as I vaguely remember it.
This is a reminder that geopolitics are wildly complicated and that the waters are too muddied for laypeople to make sense of in real time.
Your analogy holds. The psychopath must be stopped, but it's good to remember that the west provoked it when it had a chance to tame it.
NATO expansion was not really a threat to Russia beyond Putin's pretense. Putin pulled forces from Finland border after it joined. I hope the wrong lesson won't be learned.
After the 2014 invasion, the US realized that breaking EU dependence on Russia natural gas would put a serious dent in Putin's wallet.
In response, various groups within the military industrial complex decided to invest into Burisma, where Hunter Biden was oddly a board member with little experience. Burisma's goal was to develop the mineral and natural gas deposits in the Donbas region. Ultimately, Burisma was prevented from this mission because of the 2022 war.
[1]: this interview on Joe Rogan is pretty eye-opening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrJhQpvlkLA&t=9675s&pp=ygUOa...
Helping Russia by giving them what they want (time to rebuild their military and economy while lifting sanctions) is what will actually fuel an "endless war" as Russia will simply continue the war at a later stage.
Don't confuse a temporary peace on paper with actual peace.
On a related note, a lot of the morons who gave GWB a second term seem to be populists now. They would be more helpful to America if they stopped trying to understand the world around them, and instead just voluntarily stopped voting.
It was the half dozen other adventures in the sandbox with nothing to show for it that made people put down their foot and say no more and stick to it even when it's a cause they may support (Ukraine for some, Israel for others). That's how fed up with it the American public is.
I think the idea that the Budapest memorandum is a US security guarantee here's another comparable lie.
Because X happened in the past does not mean that Y is X. Only people reaching hard to push an agenda would claim any similarity.
If the goal is to be global police, that is a conversation worth having. Same if the goal is to show solidarity with our EU allies for its own sake. I think these other topics are manufactured consent.
"I think the "wmd equivalent" is the idea that Russia will move on Berlin if they're not contained in Ukraine."
Because now all of the sudden you are saying something totally different and nebulous 'world police' BS.
Why are your trying to equate Europe dramatically and instantly shifting their spending and EU policy to some nebulous 'global police' comment instead of addressing your original point, that you state no one actually believes 'Russia moving on Europe' is a real thing, and trying to equate it to the WMD lie?
You original point is BS, Europe believes to the tune of 650 billion just committed and breaking all of their long standing norms when it comes to defense that it is a real issue. Hense you having to move to some nebulous 'world police' nonsense.
Everything else is a sideshow and distraction.
I don't see how Europe spending 650 billion answers this question either. The US spending money because Europe is with no deeper logic elementary school thought.
"I think the "wmd equivalent" is the idea that Russia will move on Berlin if they're not contained in Ukraine."
Ie, that Russia being a threat to Europe is a convenient lie used to manipulate actions, and Russia isn't a threat.
Europe spending 650 billion and upsetting their long standing defense posture (especially Germany's post WW2 one) shows they didn't/don't view/weren't using the threat Russia poses as a lie to manipulate the USA into being 'World Police' and they are up ending their entire order to defend against Russia (actions with ZERO 'world policing' upside for them).
You tried to downplay Russia as a threat using a comparison to the WMD lie to lend false strength to your position that Russia is not a threat and you failed so miserably you completely pivoted from it.
Edit: News is now reporting that Germany is literally changing their constitution because they don't believe your position that Russia's threat to Europe is a lie.
If that is a real concern, I haven't seen anyone articulate how it is supposed to work. Just hand wavy threats that if Russia isn't stopped in Ukraine, the rest of the continent will be next. Somehow the same people speak out of the other side of their mouth that Russia is simultaneously the sick man of Europe, incompetent, and ready to implode any moment at the slightest breeze.
Reread my posts. I brought up global policing not as an example of a wmd lie, but as a more logical reason to support Ukraine.
Last, the USA spent six trillion dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Spending money isnt proof that they posed up legitimate threat of conquering the USA.
Putin has explicitly stated he's getting the USSR back together. He was worked in the eastern Germany KGB. His actions/current proof leans to he wants it all back. Zero leans to he doesn't. You argue you don't think he could take it. Again, that has nothing to do with it. The question is will he try/does he intend to, and everything points to yes. The same people said 'He won't invade Ukraine, he can't' that are now saying 'He won't try to take more, he can't'.
If protecting Germany is your final answer for why support the war, I think it is fine for the US to sit it out until article 5 is invoked.
It is kind of like expecting Europe to be ride or die in a US war with China over Taiwan.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/once%20bitten%2C%...
And yes, the invasion of Iraq on a paper thin pretext arguably was the beginning of the collapse of this equilibrium, and it's no surprise that North Korea reacted by doubling down on their nuclear program.
With great power comes great responsibility. For generations, Americans preferred having a monopoly on geopolitical power. The USA can certainly give up its great responsibility, but beware the consequences, because the global calculus changes accordingly.
> Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to the signatory if they "should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".
Ukraine was the victim of an act of aggression from Russia. Pretty obvious that the US gave its word it would protect them.
Nowhere does it say us has to guarantee safety or go to war. Nevermind the fact that threats of nuclear aggression came much later.
The threats of nuclear aggression were there from the start. What other thing do you think prevents the EU from raining death on the Russians from above.
Saying Ukraine is a "small breakaway country from the USSR", while being the largest country in Europe is one of the most detached takes I've seen on this subject lmao
You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
Yes, ~7 years into the current war, I think a lot of people did.
> Much less 30 years ago.
Yes, I knew the difference, then -- when the breakup of the USSR was relatively recent and the issues in and between post-Soviet states were frequent news items. Again, I think a lot of people did.
Heck, I knew the difference when I was in grade school and both were part of the USSR. There's probably a fair number of people outside the US who have some understanding of the differences between Texas and California, too.
> They were considered basically the same country.
Were considered...by whom?
Without any requirements that the US puts boots on the ground.
It's in the interest of most countries that borders are immutable and that aggressors are made to pay.
It is not a requirement, it's the implementation. There is a good reason why the USA was called "world policeman".
And Europeans and leftist shit talked the US for it for decades. They called for the US to close military bases around the world, shit talked the amount the US spends on defense, etc.
Now that the US is packing up and going home, the same people are screaming for the US to stay and continue being the exact thing they shit talked the US for. What a spectacle.
On the contrary, Russian tanks rolling into Eastern Europe is something many people on the left and right in the United States have always taken seriously, and judged to be worthy of the US's intervention, even if they judged some of our other interventions to be bullshit. The strange part - the real change - is that there are people now who do not.
Not at all, we're just giving them what they've asked for for decades.
>What a win for the USA!
What a win for the EU! The militaristic "world police" oppressors are leaving!
>Love basing our geopolitical policy, and breaking our honor in keeping commitments on that.
We're being honorable by finally giving Europeans what they've asked for.
So much losing!
Don't dump your wars and middle eastern refugees on the EU. What if the EU started a war in Mexico, drove 40 million refugees to the US, then left and let the US clean up the mess?
or you mean other countries?
Soyed, bro.
>Now educate yourself about RAND policy papers on US influence in the Caspian sea and the Black sea.
Ah yes, papers that incorrectly judged the energy landscape of the future and the hilarious inaction of Europe.
>Educate yourself on the perennial desire of the US to weaken Russia and keep Germany down.
Germany has done enough self-owning to keep themselves down. Don't worry though, they'll just import a few million more third-worlders! That'll do the trick!
>Educate yourself about Nuland's involvement in the Maidan revolution.
As stated by another commenter, overwhelming support from Germany, France, and the EU.
>Watch Lindsey Graham on YouTube giving militaristic pep talk speeches to Ukrainian soldiers way before 2022.
Immaterial.
>But it is easier to rewrite the narrative after Trump's win and downvote dissenters.
It's not rewriting, it's a retelling of facts.
>you need rockets, let German scientists build them.
Or Elon Musk LOL!
>If you need LLMs, let Russian developers build them.
Russians are a non-player in the LLM space.
Trillions of dollars in essential rare earth materials and natural gas isn't worth fighting for? Then why EVER go to war?
And that means no more moronic field trips by grandstanding senators.
But I can see the argument that having the ability to nuke 50m Russians might deter them from attacking 5m Danes.
And I'd personally hate to sit in a trench. Which is a real risk if Russia attacks the Baltics and only half of NATO shows up.
So maybe we should get nukes and preposition them in the Baltics.
I'm sure our politicians wouldn't want to :)
Ideally, we'd have an EU military that takes control of nuclear weapons for example and automatically use them to retaliate when enemy nuclear weapons are launched against EU territory.
I'd say no EU country should rely on full defense from the rest, each big one should start on their own in hardcore mode: drones, more heavy drones, optic cable drones, drone swarms and then artillery, ammunition for it and air defense (probably the hardest), then the rest. Himars is cool tech but thats a very expensive tech to develop and certainly in current numbers doesn't affect outcome of war. License/buy tech from ukrainians since they have best hands one warfare experience from whole europe, setup manufacturing with them, helping them and ourselves. What should be shared ie nuclear stuff thats too much for a single country.
Silos with main manufacturing, copied elsewhere in smaller numbers. Defense can be good business, just look at US after WWII, not happy that we are heading in that direction but there is no other way if we want to keep freedom. I've grown up behind uron curtain oppressed by soviets cough cough russians, and let me tell you, many people died trying to escape to that freedom. Its invaluable once you don't have it, not to everybody but to many.
Ukraine peace (even an imperfect one) allows the US and Russia to work together to prevent Iran from getting a nuke. Ukraine won't get nukes in either scenario.
An ongoing war forces Russia to rely on Iran, limiting its ability to work with US (and China), on isolating its nuclear program.
DPRK nukes already exist and ROK is pressuring the US for permission for them (neither Biden or Trump want to give them).
I don't know of any other latent nuclear states.
Now Ukraine, which gave up its warheads, is seeing the same thing.
And even Canadians are starting to discuss a nuclear guarantee.
Yes, we are going to see more nuclear states. It may not happen overnight but the status quo won't hold either.
That's a gross mischaracterization.
I'll bet you 10 to 1 that Ukraine won't end up with nukes.
Finland, Poland, South Korea, Taiwan...
Better safe than sorry.
Nuclear proliferation occurring does not require Ukraine in particular to be a country with nukes
> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43264671
Anyone have any proposals to fight propaganda like this on forums in general?
On the flip side, your comments have been incredibly disrespectful and flamewar-ish.
You may not know me as a person, and may be paranoid about bots etc. But that does not mean you can mistreat me.
Nanotuber has made several claims without evidence beyond this forums posts as backing claim. I have made the claim that Nanotuber is a bot without evidence beyond this forums posts as backing.
The Nanotuber account did not respond to my specific claims until I called out their lack of responding. The Nanotuber account also appealed to authority to the admins of this site by claiming I broke the rules on flame wars after I made the claim of being a bot, in a way to try and silence me by invoking admin action via reference to the rules of the forum
These are are all subtle ways of automatically manufacturing consent via AI bots that can now replicate tone of voice and semantics in text.
I’ll again repeat my request for anyone who comes across this thread. How do we combat these types of tactics?
I'll buy you a beer if a new state (besides Iran) gets nuclear weapons in the next 10 years.
Japan is sometimes described as a "screwdriver turn away from a bomb". They've got the materials, the know-how, the civilian nuclear program, and the rockets... and the geopolitics to be interested.
I do wonder how many supposedly non-nuclear developed countries have secret small-scale refinement plants and the ability to assemble nuclear warheads in short notice. It is the sort of stuff that they wouldn't want their own populous to know, as it is controversial.
If you learn of any countries with a secret program, let your local intelligence agency know. They monitor this closely, and intervene.
If that is the case, then yes, it is going to take a massive investment to build and maintain that capability, which is the reason why most developed countries don't bother. But if you only want tactical nukes, it doesn't take that much.
I could not care less if e.g. Italy, Spain or Finland have developed nukes in secret. It would not surprise me one bit, either.
Both the ROK and Japan though are cases where the US "pivoting to Asia" from Europe would make them less, not more, likely to pursue such a breakout. And in both cases, their incentives has existed prior to Ukraine.
That wasn't a super realistic consideration until a few weeks ago.
This hasn't stopped ROK from thinking the Biden Administration wouldn't come to its aid if push came to shove.
I see your point but the effect is going to be much, much less "discrete" and more "diffuse" if at all.
I'll buy you a beer if ROK or Japan have a nuke in 10 years.
http://npr.org/2023/03/13/1163153801/biden-is-selling-u-s-nu...
In a thread about Japan being a screwdriver turn away from having nukes, I think that a highly industrialized state getting handed a fuck ton of highly enriched uranium falls into the same category.
I mean, look at all the sabotage we’ve done to Iran in the form of sanctions or actual sabotage like Stuxnet just to stop their uranium enrichment facilities
One wonders if they will make American packaging for their products, or just sell the Russian labeled products straight on US shelves.
Sanctions imposed by the West do not (and cannot without a naval blockade of Russia, which no one in the West is crazy enough to advocate for) prevent the third world from continuing to import these Russian exports, but they introduce significant friction on these transactions.
The war in Ukraine has made it impossible to run my startup. Due to unlimited attacks it has become impossible to focus on anything other than the war. Of course, the war certainly needs to be stopped, but no one really knows how to do it correctly and I'm not sure anything good will come of it.
After 3 years of the war, my memory has started to deteriorate and I’ve encountered issues with work and finances. It’s hard to understand how anyone can work during a war and who thought of it, when the planning horizon is just until the next night and then hell begins.
I fear that if U.S. military support stops and the war continues, I will have to urgently move to a safer place.
I am urgently looking for financial help. I have extensive experience in web3 and can work in this field, but only with upfront payment and an immediate start, as my current situation doesn’t allow me to go through tiring technical interviews.
Here, I have created an open letter for companies and individuals who may be interested in my project. Thanks for any feedback.
https://www.acpul.org/blog/Open-Letter
mail: web3future + protonmail % com
Sure, thanks for the advice, but I’ll need to work, not just travel. I need the same big monitor for work, a good chair, and usually these things aren’t available, so I end up working in terrible conditions.
For now, I still wanted to focus on building startups and developing humanity's economy, which is what I'm best at.
(EDIT: Unless they're a woman/nb, in which case yeah - please try to do so because it will be way easier for you)
That is, the chance that someone really is in a desperate situation, and that a snarky comment might push their head further underwater, is significant enough to not to post like this.
It doesn't mean you have to respond by donating money, of course, but we should all be a bit careful about who we decide to knock around on the internet.
Which makes one wonder what MBS's role is. My theory is that he will organize OPEC production cuts, designed to boost Russia's economy and crush Europe's.
Terrible double blow that is enabling far right politics and populism.
If you take personal vehicle transport needs out, they still need oil yes, but a lot less. They also have plenty of resources (e.g. Norwegian Hydro, French Nuclear, even German coal) that they can bring to bear on energy pricing.
China is really smart for pushing themselves off of oil dependence. Yes, someone on the spectrum will mention that they still need some oil, but needing a lot less of it gives you so much more flexibility when it comes to geopolitics.
As for German car manufacturers...I already drive a German EV (made in Germany as well) so I'm not sure what the big deal is about.
Sean Foo has numerous videos discussing the German economy and Chinese EVs. Here's one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jFsR-gm8nk
NATO in its former shape has pretty much been dismantled over the course of last month.
[1] NATO minus the US is still alive, of course.
I'd also find it hard to imagine the US not providing enablers like satellite targeting, etc. Or the US being unwilling to sell ammo.
Deals don't matter when the counterparty wont adhere to them and there is no third party forcing them to
A pretty clear indication that America stands on the side of the aggressors and doesn’t give a fuck about you know ordinary people being killed. Shameful.
It becomes a question for the US: "Are you who you have said you were for the last 80 years? Or are you just power with no morals?" I think that's actually a relevant question. Who are we going to be?
It is highly relevant to the American population - but the sad fact is, most Americans don't care and haven't cared for a long time. The US' foreign policy has been built mostly on "power" (hard or soft) with very little in the way of morals or concern for the actual people -- sometimes, a bit here and there, but mostly it's a PR move.
But at least having the _pretence_ of the moral highground forced the US to do some good amidst all of its bad. Now that Trump has cast that aside and "naked power" is the mot du jour, there's no need to do keep doing any good anymore. Thus: help Russia keep killing Ukrainians, and help Israel keep killing Palestinians.
Israel has been doing this for decades. It will never become a pariah like S.Africa was so long as the US continues its "unwavering support" for Israel regardless of what it does (and this is firmly supported by both parties). And then people say that the AIPAC lobby isn't real ...
During the Cold War you could sort of claim that US' unwavering support for Israel was a counter-balance to the USSR's support of the Arabs, and therefore "necessary" in the global game between the 2 superpowers. But now that USSR is gone (Russia in even out of Syria), there's no more excuse.
Yeah, I think that will run out basically. They used to have support in Europe and many other countries as well and that has all but dried up at this point.
2 those people are dying out as less and less people believe that religion and they have fewer kids than their forefathers
Trump's USA surrendered in 6 weeks.
Unfortunately Ukraine is having to rely more on involuntary conscription to fill the ranks as volunteer numbers have dwindled. There are many documented cases of TASS “kidnapping” military age men.
I don’t see the parent poster blaming anybody. Maybe you can say they provided a one-sided view but what they wrote was factual.
The west started this. They couped in Ukraine in 2014. They accelerated tensions with the DPR and LDR. This reminds me of people who say Oct 7 is when things began in Palestine.
Look up the Minsk agreements, that Putin wants to take control of all of Ukraine. And Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. And parts of Finland.
This does not stop with a few towns in Eastern Ukraine, this is existential for many countries of the Free World.
Putin can say what he wants. He is a politician. Russia has no ability to do all of that.
“Free world”. westerners always try to push their capitalist “freedom” onto the world as the one “free” way. When it isn’t freedom. Also another point of western chauvinism to refer to the primary colonizers and exploiters of the world as the “free world”
If you want to play that card you have to be somewhat consistent. I don't think Trump can play the human rights card, and it's been a looong time
I don’t think this thought would have crossed my mind a few years ago, but I think more European countries need Nukes. Sad, but seems like the US can’t be trusted anymore.
Otherwise, I kept saying to anyone who had ears around me what a grave danger Trump is. I've been doing this for more than 10 years. I saw him as a corrupt asshole since reading his book "The art of the deal" more than 20 years ago. He came highly recommended in the sphere of the then emerging "manosphere"/ PUA culture of the 2000's (I cringe at my own stupidity and shallowness now).
too bad it only took you a few moments to take on this mentality after a lifetime of goodwill. America's been hijacked you should continue to stand with it
I'd say you had a fair chance of not allowing this to happen again. He could have been impeached, arrested, or shot. Either way would have been fine from Europe's perspective (and in fact, it seems like all of those almost happened). Instead the carrot was re-elected.
Relying on them now would be a mistake of the highest order, though I don't doubt that a lot of the political elite in Europe would very much like for things to return to sanity.
You do realize all of that requires massive investment? Where is the EU going to get that money? Raise taxes on a population that is already struggling in a stagnant economy? An economy that is stagnant partly due to the loss of the dirt-cheap energy that European heavy industry was importing from Russia.
As an American (and not one of European decent, so I don't hold the romantic attachment to Europe that many have), I'm perfectly happy with the salty, delusional Europeans agreeing with severing trans-Atlantic relations. Europe has spawned two World Wars and seems intent on flirting with a third. The sooner we disconnect from you guys, and pivot back to a mix of the Pacific Rim + the Americas, the better.
Now if only we could disband AIPAC...
But what I know and for a reality check: the amount of military aid the US sent to Israel since Israel exists is less than the amount of money sent by the US to Zelensky.
In addition to that, although I don't doubt warcrimes were committed by russia, I haven't seen videos of russian soldiers parading with the naked bodies of women they just raped nor vids of russian soldiers calling their parents saying: "I just strangled an entire ukrainian family with my hand mom!".
I also haven't heard of many russian civilians keeping ukrainian hostages, including babies, in their homes [1].
Had russians behaved like that relations between the US and Russia may have been worse than they are now.
This is about Ukraine and Russia. Leave your disgusting comparisons outside this thread.
[1] which some here consider is justified resistance btw
first link in google https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts
israel is 3x of ua. and ua is behind several other countries.
Now I'm sure I'll be told by my parents that I must have gotten the line from "that reddit site", and I will get to say that no, it's because a lot of people are asking the question.
Well the obvious one is dropping Russian sanctions. Has Trump done this?
> March 3 (Reuters) - The United States is drawing up a plan to potentially give Russia sanctions relief as President Donald Trump seeks to restore ties with Moscow and stop the war in Ukraine, a U.S. official and another person familiar with the matter told Reuters.
> The White House has asked the State and Treasury departments to draft a list of sanctions that could be eased for U.S. officials to discuss with Russian representatives in the coming days as part of the administration's broad talks with Moscow on improving diplomatic and economic relations, the sources said.
https://www.reuters.com/world/white-house-seeks-plan-possibl...
I'm sure that's untrue and it's been explained to you many times, but: because they're border states, just like Belarus and, yes, Ukraine. A "buffer" if you prefer.
The "Russian population" in Ukraine was enough to be used as a pretense for an attack by Putin, who believes a large Russian minority somehow makes the territory his. The ethnically Russian populations in Latvia and Estonia are, percentage-wise, larger than that of Ukraine.
Putin's an avowed fan of Alexandr Dugin, so you could look at his writings for some hints, but I'm not sure Putin draws the lines in precisely the same way. It helps to remember that Putin's also a psychopath.
Putin has not been able to conquer the whole of Ukraine after 3 years, but somehow, suddenly, he will be able to conquer all of the Baltic states without breaking a sweat?
So which is it? Is the Russian army fighting with shovels or are they a ferocious horde that is unstoppable? Those two things cannot be true at the same time.
I am getting tired of people parroting this narrative. If Putin could conquer Ukraine, he would have done so by now. Yet according to you this means is able to conquer more countries when his army can't even hold on to a full one.
No offense, but that makes zero sense.
Also, we don't have unified army. So as painful as it is, it is most likely Baltic states would have to fend of with their military (and due to population, well, they can't - even if they are bringing conscription back), maybe Poland and Finland. Maybe. And then you'd have to coordinate what to do next between all national militaries.
And what would stop a Frenchman or Portuguese to say Why die for Vilnius?
:\
Estonia has had conscription for our whole independence from russia, and we don't intend to go back to russia. Lithuania also has conscription and Latvia started it again last year.
Estonia also has the Defence League, a voluntary organisation which offers trainings and will support our defence forces.
Finland and Poland also have conscription.
... but it got reinstated yesterday.
However, I don’t know how useful it is to compare it like that 1:1. The problem with Trump is that apparently he doesn’t believe that the US has strong (or even any) interests in containing Russia’s imperialist drive and geopolitical gains, and to the contrary is needlessly giving up a lot of bargaining power to Russia.
Russia has zero interest in stopping the war, except to their own conditions, which includes installing a Russia-friendly government in Kiev (what they call “denazification”). They have expressed that many times.
Right now, Russia needs to rebuild their military as much as they can, and get their real economy back in shape.
My prediction is that IF Ukraine is being forced into a shitty peace agreement, Russia will spend the next 3-4 years rebuilding everything they can, and then when Trump has 6 months left, they'll go all-inn on Ukraine. Trump is effectively in his lame duck period, no republicans want to campaign on entering a huge war, and while democrats might campaign on defending Ukraine - it will not be a popular issue among regular voters.
Then, if Russia manages to do that, other countries will be on the chopping block years later.
I simply do not believe Russia has the manpower, or political backing to do a mobilization required to invade the Baltics. Even if this would be the right moment to do it, with a completely neutered USA.
If NATO help is not coming it is over quite quickly.
You have to remember that Ukraine has/had 40 million population, Baltics has about 7 million.
We also do not have the miles of mined out defenses that Ukraine has had since 2014.
We do have 2000 strong NATO brigades on rotation, a few rotating F-35 from western Europe, some Himars I think.
If unthinkable happens and NATO chooses not to defend the Baltics it is over.
Why are the Baltics not fortified as well as Gaza? Why haven't you spent the past 3 years mining the ever-living fuck out of your border with Russia? Why can't 7 million Baltic citizens hold your territory for 72 hours, when 7 million Lebanese are able to bog down the heavily-mechanized IDF for weeks? Now I will admit that terrain is a HUGE factor, but the seeming total unpreparedness of Europeans to invest in the defense of their own homeland communicates a ton to me....none of it positive.
And, Russia would give you a breather of 1-2 years after the fall of Ukraine in order to build up their stocks.
I'd say you guys should have started building yesterday. Like what the heck to wait for? This isn't some temporary blip but permanent course of direction.
Want to avoid having thousands of sleeper agents with double citizenship causing mayhem before invasion? Revoke it all for dual citizens that won't revoke their russian one, its time to pick side.
Putin will find it much easier to wage war in Europe if Trump pulls out and takes the USA into isolationism (so abandoning the western democracies).
And he will find it much easier to do this if he starts before Europe has a chance to re-arm.
That is the logic you fail to see.
It still does not explain how he is supposed to do that while he is bogged down in Ukraine.
You answer doe not provide any shred of evidence that is what his plans are. You are just speculating.
Opening multiple fronts in a war when you are not making progress does not make any sense. Putin is probably not the sharpest tool in the shed but I am pretty sure that even he knows that.
Finally, France and the UK both have nukes and are the allies of the Baltic states so an attack is highly unlikely unless the MAD doctrine is broken.
One must have their head in the sand to think otherwise.
And with whose weapons and support do you think they managed to do that? Not to mention the US had been helping to train the Ukrainian army since 2014.
Anyone who has paid attention to the Ukraine war this far already understands what past, present, and future assurances of military support mean for deterrence.
Your comment suggests a level of ignorance or naivety either on the part of the author or the reader.
I am asking a legitimate question.
Your contention is that even though the war is at best a stalemate and has revealed that Russia is at best a paper tiger, we should now believe that somehow it has the strength to invade all the Baltic states?
I am sorry to say but this is a fantasy that is not supported by the facts of the situation that we have seen in the last 3 years.
Now, you are free to disagree and that is fine but that should not stop us to ask questions about these matters.
At best your question was uninformed to the point that it constitutes provocation, at worst it was deliberate disinformation.
I’ll repeat: Russia appears weak because the Ukrainians have received so much military backing from the US and the rest of Europe. It’s a stalemate because others stepped in to stop them.
And furthermore, Russia’s rate of ammo production is higher than Europe’s, their army is larger than Ukraine’s, and their leaders have no limits on how many people they throw into the meat grinder.
Regarding Putin’s attempted restoration of the USSR, even if they’re unable to hold other Balkan countries, that process will result in horrific bloodshed. The US stepping away from defending NATO countries only emboldens Russia to try.
If my attitude puts you off from dialog, then might I politely suggest you educate yourself more on these topics before engaging? You seem more than eager to jump into dialog with others about this topic to push your singular viewpoint, so I’m sure you can direct some of that energy toward broadening your understanding of recent world events.
Here we go again with the condescending attitude.
> your singular viewpoint
I don't push a singular viewpoint. I asked a question which other people have answered. Some people agreed and others disagreed. Each to their own. This is how a healthy debate works.
> At best your question was uninformed to the point that it constitutes provocation, at worst it was deliberate disinformation.
Asking a question about a major event and having a debate with other people is now considered a provocation? May I suggest you take a step back and rethink how you interact with other people if you think truly that this is the case.
Questioning things is good. Asking questions when we don't know the answer about something should be encouraged. That's how we learn and that is how we grow.
You have decided that you are right and that I am wrong. That's your right but that shouldn't stop people from asking questions that you deem to be provocative.
I have had many debates with plenty of people on this forum, some heated debates even, but I can say that you are definitely not someone I am interested in engaging with anymore.
Goo day to you.
There is a demographic deficit in the Baltics, but it is only visible in rural areas and third-tier cities. Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, Kaunas and Klaipeda are absolutely lively and prosperous cities full of people, including youngsters (no surprise, because both the jobs and the universities are there).
They are also more laissez-faire in the good sense, not overburdening their economies with endless paper pushing (a French and German disease so to say), while keeping the environment reasonably protected.
The rest of Europe could do worse than emulate their approach.
There's also a great social net, free education + student allowances, and plenty of work. I have got no clue what the original poster of the main comment meant by broken economy.
Absolute lies and disinformation coming from the ex-allies of ours.
I remember reading a German's enterpreneurs lament about wanting to lay a single electrical cable between his two nearby buildings. The paperwork demanded by German authorities dragged for half a year. He said that a similar work in Poland was papered through in two weeks.
Or, as a friend of mine in Prague quipped: "We want to build traffic lights. We need 28 stamps, including one from a forest management service. The closest forest is 5 km away (3 miles) from said intersection, but they still need to confirm their approval."
The Baltics are comparatively lean in this regard and it shows.
They're opportunists, protectionists, and authoritarians. I mean, Trump himself has praised Xi for ruling with an iron fist, and extending tenure 'for life', remarking he'd like to do the same. Musk would pretend to support democratic views if they were the dominant view of the current administration, or somehow thought it would benefit him. But like I said, they're opportunists - people who exploit current circumstances to gain immediate advantage rather than being guided by consistent principles or plans. They're not really isolationists...
And they say anti-Trumpers are the ones with 'Trump Derangement Syndrome'...
But Trump is absolutely wrecking every relationship we have in the world, trading or otherwise, except with Russia, where he wants to remove sanctions and increase trade.
Even if you disregard all "moral" foreign policy objectives, like deterring wars of territorial expansion, it makes zero sense in economic terms. We're abandoning >>50% of world markets in exchange for access to... Russia's market? What do they even have to offer that we want? Oil or gas? We already produce more than we consume! Trading more with Russia will only kill domestic oil and gas producers and accomplish almost nothing else.
It makes zero sense, it will never make sense, stop trying to make it make sense.
the only plan is to abuse the power they got, oppress and plunder the people. for the 4 years. in the name of people's will.
A crazy person yelling at nothing on the streets is not the same as a president with a suit and tie inside theWhiteHouse.
The problem with Iraq and Afghanistan was the same as previous wars and in fact most policies.
If you don’t have clear, measurable goals, your project will fail regardless what domain it is in.
(Wanted to put this as a reply to GP but it's currently [flagged][dead] so this seems to be the most relevant reply...)
Navalny - multiple attempts - nerve agent and suspicious death in prison.
Prigozhin - plane crash.
Litvinenko - radiation poisoning.
Skripal - attempted via nerve agent.
There is a difference between those, as well as dozens of "accidental falls", and a lone wolf against Trump.
I remember when I was much younger many evangelical Christians absolutely losing their mind over the Lewinsky scandal, and both in public and private going on and on for years about what a disgrace it was that a man who would break his marriage vows was leading the country and that God was going to punish the nation for it, using the most hyperbolic language you can imagine. Now turns out they are supporting this guy for whom marriage is a joke and I guess infidelity is no longer a big deal, having the highest support of any demographic. Literally every single individual I knew who spoke out about this during the 90s is now a MAGA.
There are no principles at play at all, only a lust for power, a desire to enrich themselves, and most of all unquenchable egos that they now, with most of these people nearing the ends of their lives and having little else to lose, are willing to make enormous sacrifices to stoke.
This is the same talking point parroted by another prominent right-wing commentator here, that implies that some neocons were... so far right that they were actually left?
> Supported by former Democratic intellectuals like Glenn Greenwald.
Glenn Greenwald is not and has never been a Democrat or member of the party or anything resembling that.
Elon Musk was a "Democrat" in the sense that as long as Democrat administrations handed his businesses grants and funding and tax breaks, he didn't shit-talk them. When he saw there was an opportunity to milk these things from Republican administrations, all of a sudden he became "Republican".
Elon Musk was never a democrat. In the first book which was written a decade ago, he proudly state that he will do on media whatever necessary to push his companies forward.
Every company needs a long-term marketing strategy, and using climate change as a growth vehicle in early days was needed.
He endorsed Trump and was his advisor in his previous presidency a decade ago.
JD Vance did 180 on Trump as well.
So we are talking about people, who will say whatever they need to say to get the results they want. They don't have any principles or political values.
Comparing the war in Iraq to the war in Ukraine is ridiculous on so many levels that I will not even start.
What? Greenwald was never a Democrat. Anti-Bush isn't the same thing as Democrat.
Greenwald is a liberal, he was kicked out of liberal circles after the Hunter Biden's laptop story, the liberal elite wanted to suppress during the elections.
Bary Weiss is also a liberal, now hated by the liberal press for blasphemy on a certain subject.
Same with Matt Taibbi, he showed up on MSNBC regularly even on Maddow, now the left calls him a right winger...
See the pattern?
Greenwald was never a liberal and never would have described himself as such.
Anyhow you haven't really even scratched the surface of all the lefty people who went right. And it's not even a new phenomenon. Heck even woodie guthrie swerved right during the red scare. One could say that the pastures are greener on the right side of the commentariat.
Bari Weiss is not a liberal. She's a culture war grievance grifter.
Matt Taibbi got mad he got called out for his shitty sexist behavior in Russia in the 90s when MeToo happened and made a hard right turn. Now a grievance grifter.
See the pattern?
The EU leaders, who are naive to the extreme, comply. They make peace plans that Russia is known not to accept. Once that is done, they'll keep the conflict on a low flame until the US feels getting involved again.
Which can happen at any moment, including under Trump within the next two months.
Trump has been deliberately provoking the EU's nationalistic feelings, starting with Greenland and ending with the Zelensky fallout theater.
If the EU had any pride, it would negotiate with Russia directly, skipping the US. Reopen Nordstream and see if the purportedly Russia-friendly Trump agrees.
Regarding Trump being a Russian asset: It has happened before, with Hillary Clinton and Sergey Lavrov initiating a "reset" in US/Russia relations:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_reset
Why is Hilary Clinton not called a Russian asset?
I've seen this stated frequently on HN. Here's a quote from President Clinton in February 1999[1]:That is why I have pushed hard for NATO's enlargement and why we must keep NATO's doors open to new democratic members...
NATO would add 12 nations in the decade after those remarks, with the first 3 formally joining 2 weeks later.
Also look at Clinton's remarks from October 1999[2]:NATO must also take in new members, including those from among its former adversaries. It must reach out to all the new democracies in Central Europe, the Baltics and the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union. At the first NATO summit I attended in January of 1994, I proposed that NATO should enlarge steadily, deliberately, openly.
>Russia is both to blame for the expansion of NATO and Russia's subsequent invasions of Georgia and Ukraine.
I used to have a link to a really good interview with a former US ambassador or special advisor to Sakashvilli. In it, he basically says that Sakashvilli is a risk-taker and gambler much like Putin, and in 2008 he gambled and lost. He basically laid the blame for what happened at the Georgian President's feet. Which is also the conclusion of the EU-backed investigation.[3]
[1] https://clintonwhitehouse5.archives.gov/WH/EOP/NSC/html/nsc-...
[2] https://www.nato.int/docu/speech/1996/s961022a.htm
[3] https://www.reuters.com/article/world/georgia-started-war-wi...
Furthermore, if you read the articles you cited, you’ll find that you are starting mid conflict. By the point when Georgia engaged with Russia in 2008, Russia had already stirred up separatist groups, armed them, supported their violent takeover, and sent Russian advisors to support them in occupying Georgian territory. You can’t start at the middle.
To prove that we'd probably need a FOIA request or a large CIA/USAID/NED document leak. Saying "nobody forced them" while the US operated probably the most effective coercive soft power institutions the world has ever seen, by subsidizing NGOs and "pro-democracy movements", strikes me as incredibly naive. I recommend reading some articles at the New Eastern Outlook by Brian Berletic (or watching his YT channel "The New Atlas"), he has some well-sourced deep dives on US soft power.
> By the point when Georgia engaged with Russia in 2008, Russia had already stirred up separatist groups, armed them, supported their violent takeover, and sent Russian advisors to support them in occupying Georgian territory. You can’t start at the middle.
1. The Reuters article reads" Saakashvili had said Georgia was responding to an invasion by Russian forces when it attacked breakaway South Ossetia, but the report found no evidence of this. It said Russia's counter-strike was initially legal.."
This sounds contrary to your point that Russia stirring up separatists to occupy Georgian territory was considered an acceptable casus belli.
2. Do you have references for WHEN the Russians initiated support for anti-Georgian separatism? If it was after the major NATO expansions of 1999 and 2004 it's kinda a moot point. I focused on the information around the timeframe of the 2008 invasion specifically because it was what you directly called out in your post. Re-reading it, I suppose you were thinking of all Russian grey-zone warfare in Eastern Europe but that context isn't clear.
3. Is your position that subsidizing armed rebel factions is not moral / not justified? Is it wrong for the US to support the MEK organization which actively works towards violent overthrow in Iran? At one point the Pentagon and CIA were funding two different separatist groups in Syria that were also fighting each other. This is what is missed by my most Americans and Europeans: to the rest of the world, complaining about Russia looks like blatant hypocrisy when the US has spent the post-Cold War period doing the exact same shit. Which would be fine, realpolitik and all that....if we didn't constantly posture as if we hold the moral high ground.
To prove that we'd probably need a FOIA request or a large CIA/USAID/NED document leak. Saying "nobody forced them" while the US operated probably the most effective coercive soft power institutions the world has ever seen, by subsidizing NGOs and "pro-democracy movements", strikes me as incredibly naive.
This builds upon past experience: Hitler and Stalin were able to divide and conquer Europe in large part due to the Wilsonian belief in international law and neutrality by other countries. In the end, neutrality meant Hitler and Stalin could invade other European countries one by one at their convenience without triggering a wider backlash. That was a catastrophic failure of pre-WWII diplomacy, and we have no intention of repeating the mistake.
I don't need an American NGO to convince me that simply hoping we're not the next item on the menu is not a sound national security policy.
Do you have references for WHEN the Russians initiated support for anti-Georgian separatism? If it was after the major NATO expansions of 1999 and 2004 it's kinda a moot point.
There is a wider history behind it, like the April 9 tragedy from 1989, when Soviet soldiers killed 21 Georgians who demonstrated in favor of Georgian independence from the USSR. Most of the killed were women, their faces were smashed in with sapper shovels so badly that they became unrecognizable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_9_tragedy It was one of the pivotal moments of USSR's collapse. Georgia was much further away from the spotlight of international press than, say, Poland, and that allowed the Russians to adopt a much more violent approach there to prevent Georgia from seceding from the USSR. If this is all news to you, then you need to pick up a book on USSR's history to gain a frame of reference. And not some sterile study of diplomatic telegrams, but history as people experienced it.
I have no regional experience with the tiny backwater corner of the world known as "the Baltics"....but I absolutely understand how my country exerts influence in numerous larger, more important places, with even more significant risks.....and it's by heavily using the tools that I mentioned. I'm not willing to give our government the benefit of the doubt, given our extensive list of malevolent priors. If you are saying there was overwhelming domestic support for NATO, okay, but I'd consider that an exception, not a norm.
>I don't need an American NGO to convince me that simply hoping we're not the next item on the menu is not a sound national security policy.
Every nation that isn't at least a major regional power (Turkey as an example) is on somebody's menu. Maybe you guys have been punched in the face so many times by your local Great Powers that reaching for anyone else, even from across the ocean, seemed sound....but as we are witnessing now in real-time, you are also finding out that America's benevolence is neither infinite nor eternal.
Re: 1991 South Ossetia War. Why is it ok for the Georgians to secede from the Soviet Union but not ok for the South Ossetians to secede from Georgia? Why is it morally good for the US to arm the Ukrainians, who feel aggrieved, but not moral for Russia to arm the South Ossetians, who feel aggrieved?
I have no regional experience with the tiny backwater corner of the world known as "the Baltics"....but I absolutely understand how my country exerts influence in numerous larger, more important places, with even more significant risks.....and it's by heavily using the tools that I mentioned. I'm not willing to give our government the benefit of the doubt, given our extensive list of malevolent priors. If you are saying there was overwhelming domestic support for NATO, okay, but I'd consider that an exception, not a norm.
Re: 1991 South Ossetia War. Why is it ok for the Georgians to secede from the Soviet Union but not ok for the South Ossetians to secede from Georgia? Why is it morally good for the US to arm the Ukrainians, who feel aggrieved, but not moral for Russia to arm the South Ossetians, who feel aggrieved?
Transnistria, South Ossetia, etc remain internationally unrecognized - even by Russian allies like Belarus - because they represent manufactured conflicts rather than genuine independence movements.
Russia has bordered NATO for years. Estonia and Latvia both do and if you count Kaliningrad as Russia then Poland and Lithuania do too.
In common with much stuff Russia comes up with it's just lies to justify their bad behaviour.
Mearsheimer's manipulations become very obvious when he faces a knowledgeable person who is not easily fooled by him. Such as Radoslaw Sikorski, the foreign minister of Poland. Sikorski and Mearsheimer held a public debate over Ukraine, and Mearsheimer was utterly humiliated when he tried to argue against Sikorski about events he has only read about, but where Sikorski was a direct participant.
The debate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivcSVG5eCeQ
That said, Security Guarantees don't necessarily directly mean boots on the ground, certainly not straight away.
It could mean a deterrence framework where there a clear commitments that certain actions would mean certain responses, which itself reduces the chance those responses are necessary. Security guarantees can specify escalating measures before reaching an actual troop deployment. And European nations have already promised to provide the initial boots on the ground, though they really would like an American backstop.
The deterrence aspect is crucial - formal security frameworks often prevent conflict precisely because they make aggression too costly, reducing the likelihood they'd ever need to be activated.
This site is for curious conversation, so I'd love to see you elucidate a bit further!
What's the nature of the red line?
For instance, Are you worried they'd get hurt? Are you worried about political implications?
Or, does the fact that there are already American volunteers to fighting in Ukraine change your calculus? [1]?
What's your idea on whether this applies to Taiwan too? How about Canada or Greenland?
Is this a red line that is shared by many?
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlgWI0FzjKc "US volunteer soldiers appear in Ukraine frontline footage"
I think the premise of a “rules based international order” and democracy promotion hurts Americans. In Iraq and Syria it led us to overthrow dictators who were brutal to their own people and threatened their neighbors, but who suppressed terrorists that could attack the U.S. It also causes tremendous collateral damage (millions of dead civilians). While I acknowledge that Ukraine presents less risk of those things, to me it’s a test case. If we can’t resist involvement in Ukraine, there is little hope of turning the ship around on American imperialism generally. The next Iraq War will also be billed as a just war.
As of mid 2024, 2/3 of americans opposed sending US troops to Ukraine: https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/ame....
I acknowledge that a security guarantee wouldn’t start with boots on the ground. But there is a historical pattern of deepening involvement where we start out with something like a security guarantee, and that becomes the rope around our ankle that drags us into putting boots on the ground.
I can sort of get that. I mean it sucks, I think it's wrong this time, mostly because for me it's a bit closer to home and debatably existential; but at least I get where you're coming from.
Some people are worried that this means that Americans also oppose NATO in general and article 5 in particular. Is that the case, or is that like a known pre-existing alliance and a known quantity?
Why don't you run for office on a platform that "Pax Americana was a huge mistake!"
So how do you marry that up with the lack of culpability the US is now demonstrating? If you accept it, then surely it is also the primary responsibility of the US to resolve the situation peacefully, which pacifies Russia but also leaves Ukraine in a reasonable position. From everything I understand about Trumps "deal" for Ukraine it does nothing of the sort.
<rant> And, good luck getting any real discussion from anyone here. Most of the Redditors are here now and have brought their "hate on America" flag to HN. Regardless of how much our President does or how much the US gives, it will never be enough. And, the ironic thing is, many of these "intellectuals" on HN routinely put down our "uneducated" voter population while at the same time pleading for their tax dollars to fund a never ending war. Oh, the hypocrisy! As if their countries are any better.
At best, this war is at a stalemate unless the EU really steps up to the plate to save their neighbor. Imagine, your neighbor's house is burning down all around you, and the best you can do is give a cup of water while shouting at your distant relative across the ocean to send truck loads of water. If anything, they should be ashamed they let their countries fall so behind they have to rely on someone else to help defend their own property. Crazy!
Here's a hint for our EU friends: Step up and help your neighbor! Send all your money to fight the war (that is what you are asking the US tax payers for, right?). Drain your savings accounts, send them your retirement money, send everything you have - until it hurts. Next, go to your closet, put on your fighting boots, and head out to the front lines. The time for taking real action is now. Don't rely on foreign money, governments, boots, equipment, etc. to defend your own property. Rely on _yourselves_ to solve this problem.
</rant-off>
You have done that for quite literally the past 20 years in a places where no win condition could be established, and now that you have an 'easy' war, with an actual nation-state adversary that you can defeat both militarily and politically, without a need for guerilla warfare and millions of civilian casualties, suddenly you have issues?
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43261035
That, and there might be a shift going on in the US back from Maritime power thinking to Continental power thinking.
(An essay on the differences)
https://mwi.westpoint.edu/when-maritime-and-continental-powe...
There were no policy objectives in Afghanistan or Iraq, or they were very hard to achieve without decades of sustained presence. Meanwhile they're fairly clear for Ukraine, and arguably easier to achieve, if the Russian military is degraded enough that they pose no threat to Ukraine then the war is won.
Of course that leaves the pesky issue of those nuclear weapons, but I'd find that a much better argument than 'all our previous special military operations were a disaster'.
The United States' view on strategy has always had a tension between the maritime power view and the continental power view.
For a maritime power (the US approach we've seen most of recently since WWII ), it's practically a no-brainer to invest heavily in the Ukraine conflict. It allows the US to degrade a rival's military abilities at low cost; it maintains the balance of power in Europe without direct US troop involvement; and it upholds the norms against territorial conquest that benefit maritime powers.
If the US is seeing a resurgence of isolationist/continental thinking, then you get different arguments: The conflict is distant from US territorial interests; border security and domestic concerns become more pressing; and regional conflicts elsewhere become mostly just distractions.
The criticism of decades of American foreign policy was finally vindicated. So there is very little appetite to give up that achievement by getting embroiled in yet another war that’s billed as “easy” and “just” this time (they all were—remember, “we will be greeted as liberators?”)
It is a stalemate because US government wants it to be a stalemate. They never wanted Ukraine to win. Because it can embarrass putin. That's why they send some old equipment, barely enough to slow down Russian troops.
Sending weapons with restrictions to use them against Russians - Ukrainians are fighting with tied hands.
The best time to have stood up to Putin was 2014. The next best time is right [expletive] now.
It seems to me that your logic would make the Iraq War quite defensible. Iraq had already invaded Kuwait. We had already guaranteed Kuwait’s security, so we would’ve had to send troops if Saddam invaded again. So if the CIA was correct that Saddam was rearming, there was a logic to deposing him now and resolving the situation on terms favorable to us, instead of reactively getting involved at a future date. Without the benefit of hindsight—knowing Saddam didn’t have WMDs—it seems like the only basis for opposing the Iraq War under your logic would have been to quibble about how much of an affirmative step Saddam had to take before our obligation to put boots on the ground kicked in.
As an example of a case that has worked, the mutual security guarantees within NATO have prevented WWIII so far. (knock on wood)
Obviously, we should be trying to go for something more like the latter.
Alternately, of course, no security guarantees, and both sides continue to fight.
China is already closely watching how the west responds to Ukraine, with potential implications for Taiwan. This increases the likelihood that American security commitments/requirements will eventually be tested more directly.
It's not a really would like. In all of their speeches by key politicians, European boots on the ground is conditional on US backstop. So it's not happening without US support.
"victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used"
You are also engaged in some sophistry, where you are acting as if the hypothetical obligation you are discussing is the only possible obligation. Selling aging weapons stock is pretty clearly assistance, and it isn't exactly boots on the ground.
The US met this obligation and exceeded it. The US called an emergency session under resolution 2623.
Exceeded the obligations by acting outside of the UN and security council to provide independent aid in funding.
The memorandum requires that the US do nothing on its own, let alone provide unlimited assistance.
Macron (president of France) visited the White House on Feb 24 and pointed out that security guarantees would be important and that the US could play an important role providing those guarantees. This discussion ended amicably. [1]
Starmer (Prime Minister of the UK) visited Trump on Feb 27 , and besides handing over an invitation from King Charles, also discussed the fact that there would need to be security guarantees in any particular Ukraine deal. This discussion also ended amicably. [2]
Zelensky (President of Ukraine) then visited on Feb 28 and reiterated the points his colleagues had made. This time something went wrong. [3]
[1] https://apnews.com/article/trump-macron-ukraine-russia-starm...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/27/trump-starme...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Trump%E2%80%93Zelenskyy_m...
It isn't by chance that even after the talks with Macron, Trump tried to lie in front of him only to be corrected by Macron in the oval office.
Even after being correct, and continues to spin the same lie during the Zelensky talks and after.
The only thing that went wrong was assuming that Trump ever had Ukraine interest in sight, and not Russia interests.
What we witnessed isn't anything new or shocking to anyone who has been following this event.
This had been a recurring behavior from this administration, where there's a theatrical display to show that there might be some understanding, with leaders putting their credibility in the to say there's some alignment, only to have Trump the next day stating the opposite or something completely unaligned with previous statements.
Let's hope this was the the final straw, and just accept that Russia managed to capture the US. Now it's about protecting this from happening elsewhere - Twitter, and other platforms, including alternative media should start to be banned in Europe ASAP.
Trump isn't meeting the existing obligations and you are talking about how problematic Ukraine's condition for new agreements would be.
I think the general point still stands though. And if you read commentary from the time, it was a big deal.
What is said by Russian propagandists is that Ukraine didn't have the launch codes - like it was some magical barrier that would prevent Ukraine from deploying the nukes if they wanted to.
Like Ukrainian scientists didn't play a major a role in USSR nuclear development, and didn't have the know how to just use other system to deploy the nukes.
It's part of the Russian propaganda to make Ukrainians into incompetent inferior ethnic group - why do you think they address them by derogatory ethnic slurs like "little Russians"?
> After its dissolution in 1991, Ukraine became the third largest nuclear power in the world and held about one third of the former Soviet nuclear weapons, delivery system, and significant knowledge of its design and production. Ukraine inherited about 130 UR-100N intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) with six warheads each, 46 RT-23 Molodets ICBMs with ten warheads apiece, as well as 33 heavy bombers, totaling approximately 1,700 nuclear warheads that remained on Ukrainian territory.[0]
[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_weapons_of_mass_...
And the magical Russian propaganda launch codes that required Russia and USA to request Ukraine to decommission nukes, because Ukraine couldn't use any of those nukes.
By the way, what are the launch codes for nukes deployed by bombers lmao the bombers won't take off if Russia didn't insert the launch codes?
It's nice that people say Ukraine and the other countries owned the nukes or whatever and have them sign an agreement to "hand over" something they didn't own, but that's just optics. Reality is Ukraine never could use those nukes and didn't have a military force or access to the nukes to keep them.
Here's the man himself, Bill Clinton, stating it was not only a possibility for Ukraine to keep their nukes, but also that it was a mistake he regrets making: https://youtu.be/nKoba5GvNsc?si=3T1W6BvrqEqvkpNE
So not only you're spreading propaganda, and lies, without sources to support your claims, you're even doubling down on more fantasy.
The fact is that Ukraine could use those nukes, both the ICBM ones that would require the "magical codes", also the ones deployed by the bombers, they also had the technical know how to further develop their nuclear arsenal, as well as having the fuel to produce more.
Ukraine simply did not have the infrastructure, supporting military, or supporting scientists for what you are saying. If they did, they would be a much more developed country right now.
We're done here.
The issue was in budget to do that. Economics was ruined with the collapse of USSR.
The only way in which the Russians could have stopped this would have been to nuke Ukraine before they would have been able to modify the captured nukes, but it is unlikely that this would have been permitted by the other nuclear powers.
They were literally in their possession. hint: that's why negotiations were required for their transfer to Russia.
Russia is in clear violation of it, but it never promised US military intervention. All it promises is we'd go to the Security Council about it.
The memorandum didn't really anticipate one of the signatories with a UN veto being the aggressor.
The UK and France have clearly followed (and exceeded, via direct military aid it does not require) the requirements of the memorandum.
I can't find the text of China's agreement.
Yet, the US is the one that is forever chided for being negligent to the terms of the agreement.
As I've noted upthread.
> Yet, the US is the one that is forever chided for being negligent to the terms of the agreement.
The US has absolutely complied with the Budapest Memorandum's requirements.
Military aid isn't required, it's just a good idea. The recent withdrawal of aid is a betrayal of an ally, but not a violation of the Memorandum.
The point of a peacekeeping mission is -of course- to prevent further war by means of deterrence (though there's always still a small risk, of course), so hopefully no one goes to die there.
Currently Germany just had elections, so a clear unified statement from the new-government-in-formation is not yet available.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/thin-majority-germans-b...
Then the Ukraine changed their minds and said, well actually you can have the mineral rights for free - because we desperately want this war to end. So you can have them if you give us a security guarantee that prevents Russia from overrunning the place. Otherwise we must continue to fight for our homeland.
Trump has responded "no", because he's only interested in peace.
I guess it makes about as much sense as anything else he's done.
People would say that the same memorandum says Ukraine security is absolute. Not that either.
People would say in 2014, US installed new Ukraine government via propaganda. Looks dubious too.
People would say Ukraine shut down 11+ political parties who opposed current Ukraine government; some parties were funded by Russia. That part remains true.
Newspaper and TV in Ukraine were nationalized partially with money by USAID, that was uncovered by US DOGE.
Elections were "suspended" in Ukraine. Last May 2024 was supposed to have a nationwide election. Definitely true.
Seems like Ukraine is following US foreign policy that led to demise of dictators like Mossadegh, Árbenz, Diệm, Noriega, Qadaffi, Saddam.
Is Zelensky a dictator now?
The Ukranian constitution states no elections during war.
All political opponents have come out and said we will hold elections after victory. Nobody is against postponement.
Ukraine has had healthy consistent elections since the Russian backed government was booted out.
He’s in year 6 of his 5 year term.
American journalist Gonzalo Lira killed while imprisoned by Zelensky. He made the mistake of being critical of Zelensky.
Declared martial law Feb 2022 and has banned elections since then, suspending Ukraine's constitution.
Starting in 2022, he's banned 12 political parties so far and used his "Department of Justice" to seize many of their assets.
He's also banned TV channels associated with his political opponents.
Banned a Christian Church.
Passed a law in 2022 to censor journalists and combined all news into 1 gov’t station.
Journalists investigating his corruption get conscripted and thrown on the front lines to die.
Who knew that the old WWII adage of being threaten to being "sent to the Eastern Front" to die is still a thing to this very day. If that doesn't speaks volumes of the Soviet^H^H^H^H^HHRussian, I don't know what else is.
Sadly, US Rep. Chuck Schumer (D-CA) calls Zelensky "the leader of the free world".
I know it can be a challenge, but it has been done.
My point is that, ironically, insisting on elections now, DEPENDING ON HOW IT IS IMPLEMENTED, may actually not be the most democratic thing to do. So before I take can take a position on the matter, I would need to know the implementation details.
trump should call putin a dictator, because.. he obviously is, but for some reason he chose to attack Zelensky instead.
How can there be elections when there are millions of people displaced, there are large parts of the country occupied and huge part of the population is on the front defending the country.
This "dictator" stuff is just straight russian propaganda, that americans have been swallowing up because someone told trump it was true.
See this from just a week ago: "Zelenskyy offers to resign in exchange for peace, NATO entry"
https://www.politico.eu/article/volodymyr-zelenskyy-offer-re...
Never forget:
1) Zelensky sat quietly while Democrats tried to impeach Trump the first time. Zelensky alone could have put an end to that sham impeachment.
2) Zelensky actively campaign against Donald Trump for the Democrats.
3) One of Zelinsky’s radicalized zealots tried to kill Donald Trump.
Then Zelensky reneges on the mineral deal because it doesn’t continue the money laundering proxy war the Democrats and RINO war whores started.
At some point, people might wake up and realize Zelensky is not a good guy.
Maybe.
Trump didn't deny the conduct, and it was proven during impeachment. His defense wasn't that he didn't do it, it was that he had the right to do it. Zelensky couldn't have cleared anything up because the facts were not under dispute.
Either it was a sham or it was a sham lawfare.
Now that the US is packing up and going home, the same people are screaming for the US to stay and continue being the exact thing they shit talked the US for.
"Zelensky sent Trump list of all 'ceasefires' violated by Russia"
https://kyivindependent.com/zelensky-gave-trump-list-of-all-...
russia respects nothing except getting punched back. They will break every single agreement. No amount of talking will make a situation any better, only worse, because it will give time to russia to rearm. The center cannot hold, it's too late, he comes.
Anybody who suggests "talking to russia" have absolutely no clue what they are talking about. Anybody who suggests "talking to russia" is either slow or works for russia.
ua(that 3rd country), us and ru had that.
how many days would ua stand with all weapons provided by ru agains us?
in reverse, with limited weapon support, ua still here after 3 years.
may it indicate that ru is weaker of ussr and what applied to ussr does not apply to ru.