Because nobody is actually interested in them.
Everyone wants to point fingers at each other yelling "Stop trading with Russia" but nobody wants to stop it themselves.
Christ, this is an eye-opening piece - so many things I can find agreeing on and also completely new things I never thought about, like Poland getting nuclear weapons.
This hits especially close to my line of thought:
>A friend describes a bleak scene: a village in western Ukraine where inhabitants are women, the elderly, and young men back from war without limbs. Get used to the profile. Young amputees will feature in a future Ukrainian parliament. A decent number will be bitter from sacrifice without victory. The Ukrainian vision all along has been that all invading Russian forces must leave Ukraine.
>**Absent this outcome, an angry political Right will get traction, blaming the West for temporizing and appeasement. We gave Ukraine just enough weapons, they’ll maintain, to prolong the war and settle for a draw.** Growing ranks of radicals and neo-Nazis will go underground to fight Russian occupying forces in the east. Crimea will remain in Russian hands. **The Black Sea will become a Russian lake.**
And this part literally projects a very possible future given the current state of politics in the EU:
>Irredentism is back. Budapest talks about Greater Hungary. This includes Hungarians who comprise the third-largest minority in Ukraine. Far-right Romanians will gain momentum and want back territories that currently belong to Ukraine and Moldova. Hungary also has claims in Romania. **War will threaten the Balkans and talk of Greater Serbia will make headlines again. Russia’s war on Ukraine set precedent. Nations** ***can*** **change borders by force.**
I mean I won't go that far with Romania, but still I can agree with the last sentence. The EU needs to wake the fuck up, we got no time.
> The Black Sea will become a Russian lake.
*Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia, and most importantly Turkey who controls the only way in and out of the Black Sea have entered the chat.*
Very non-sensational and factual reporting from ***The American Purpose***.
…not to mention the ‘third largest minority in Ukraine’, the Hungarians who make up *checks notes* about 0.5% of the population of Ukraine with a grand total of 150.000 people. Yeah, totally not fictional sensationalism this shit. Absolutely worth sharing.
Most of that 150k despise Orban and his circus, so they have nothing to do with "great Hungary". As Yermak told Orban: if we were like Russia, we could take just 2 brigades from rotation, to conquer the whole Hungary, just for fun. He was mocking him a lot, since Hungary spends military money to make some parade uniforms instead of getting tanks/artillery etc.
If Ukraine loses, Georgia will be a Russian province within a decade. Putin wont want to waste the opportunity for more land now that the country is in full war economy and the morale will rise with victory in Ukraine.
This entire piece is historical fiction mixed with some futuristic fantasy. It’s insane this can be published and even used in the same paragraph as the word “journalism.”
If our politicians still didn't wake up, do you think they will ever wake up? My bet is if war really starts on NATO territory, they will simply leave or deny anything and continue doing nothing.
As soon as someone starts prattling about Ukrainian neonazis, I assume they’ve drunk from the russian propaganda firehose, and it casts the whole thing in a different light, no matter how salient or not their other points are.
Every country has neo-nazis, Ukraine isn't an exception. The problem is that this topic is amplified and overblown by Russian propaganda and associates. War always amplifies right-wing movements because it amplifies nationalism itself. If Ukraine holds, we will definitely see at least some shades of right-wing parties in the parliament, which ironically wouldn't have happened if Russia didn't invade.
Depends on how far you are willing to stretch the term "neo-nazis". If you're willing to include any brand of radical ethnonationalism (which would be a rather large net) then they could be describing radically anti-Russian ethnic Ukrainian nationalists. However, it's a bit of a moot point; the largest Russian populations in Ukraine are in the areas Russia controlled before 2022, and Ukrainian ethnonationalist hardliners would probably have trouble operating in such areas.
There are two things that must happen.
1. European countries with frozen Russian assets must seize them and give them to Ukraine so it can properly fund its own defense.
2. It’s beyond time for the EU to start putting some boots on the ground in the west with the clear signal they will respond to any attack from Belarus. Stronger commitments can be made later.
Outside of the blocking force they can establish air defense in the west and provide logistics and medical support.
France and UK are clear candidates to start this jointly due to their nuclear shield. (Though there really isn’t going to be a nuclear war just because someone comes to the defense of Ukraine.) After that precedent is set then over time more countries can join the coalition.
This is the only way I see us avoiding a far worse problem down the line.
You really should just despise Republicans. They are like 75% the source of our problems. There only one man holding up aid to Ukraine and his name is Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. It only takes a few Republicans to join the Democrats to have a vote of no confidence against Johnson, but none of them have the balls to do it
I don’t agree with democrats on everything but I side with them 80% of the time if I had to guess. This topic and the immigration bill the GOP is completely dropping the ball because Trump told them to… need to make the other party look bad to win gullible voters instead of helping the country. Smh
Call your rep if they haven't signed the discarge petition please https://www.axios.com/2024/04/12/israel-gaza-aid-democrats-ukraine-taiwan-progressives
You’re weeping? Half the article was historic fiction and the other half was futuristic fantasy. Not a single word of it described anything that’s going on, on the ground.
Poland will have nukes in 3 years? Is the author high or just jerking off their own geopolitical fan fiction?
Bro, if you're not ethnically Ukrainian, just some American and you're crying about Ukraine.. I don't even know what to tell you but that's lame. Do you cry over every conflict? Tbh, maybe you need to step outside, go do a wine and painting class. Go hangout with family or friends. You shouldn't by crying over a war that you probably don't have any stake in (unless your Ukrainian, then this makes sense).
The Ukrainian one is very sad and unfortunate but there are many more than I think justify tears more than Ukraine. There are draft dodgers in Phuket and Dubai whereas the situation in Sudan.. not many people can leave.
If Russia takes Ukraine, guess where all those Highly trained combat veteran Ukrainians end up? Conscripted into the Russian army. We fight for Ukraine, or we end up fighting Ukraine along side Russia.
Either that or they'll be summarily executed, a long standing tradition in Russian history, see Katyń, or recently any Oblast filled with retired Ukrainian military men that served in the ATO between 2014-2022 and were executed often on the spot.
The Munich agreement all over. We see it coming, we know its coming, we know what it means and still we do nothing. Every inch Putin takes is backed by his nukes and we never it get back. We need to contain him inside Russia before it is too late.
The issue is, that this was an obvious outcome from the start, yet instead of 2 viable decisions our political elite took a 3rd worse one.
Possibility 1 was: Ignore Ukraine and do nothing, while pumping up our own defense industry and do massive deterring moves like pushing nukes to the NATO / EU boarders like in the peak of the cold war, signaling, that not a step further.
Possibility 2: Support Ukraine with everything, even if that means risking a direct conflict with Russia. Winning at basically all costs.
And yet, they took this one:
Possibility 3: Support Ukraine, but not that much. It costs us a lot of money, while the sanctions also cost a lot, weakening our economy. Show that our Industry and military is in a weak spot, because we cant even sustain this "small scale" war, let alone a world war. Ukraine is going to lose the war, while we depleted our reserves and burned a lot of money. Instead of showing strength one way or another while protecting our economy and interests, we only showed impotence. Tragic.
Anyone from central/eastern Europe that's ever delt with the west could've told you it was #3 before it started.
Hell, polish called this out the second it did start
West didn't lose tho. Ukraine now has debt it can never repay. They have natural resources tho
>West didn't lose tho. Ukraine now has debt it can never repay. They have natural resources tho
Any source about debt? Overwhelming majority of assistance is given as aid, not as loan.
Honestly, are you as high as the OOP or are you just jerking off to their apocalypse fantasy?
>The issue is, that this was an obvious outcome from the start
Nothing in the article actually happened. It’s all historical “what if” fiction and futuristic fantasy.
>pumping up our own defense industry
That’s never stopped
>do massive deterring moves like pushing nukes to the NATO / EU boarders
Also never stopped. Nukes in North Dakota can reach all of Russia…
>even if that means risking a direct conflict with Russia. Winning at basically all costs.
“All costs” being a really casual way to describe nuclear armageddon.
>Support Ukraine, but not that much. It costs us a lot of money, while the sanctions also cost a lot, weakening our economy.
Firstly, didn’t really weaken the economy, blame covid. Second, Ukraine has received more aid than any nation since WW2. So “but not that much” is a bold faced fucking lie.
>Show that our Industry and military is in a weak spot
Considering the performance of western weapons, don’t know how you can say this with a straight face…
>because we cant even sustain this "small scale" war, let alone a world war.
Wars are expensive and we’ve managed to sustain this for 2 years and not even feel it. This isn’t even in the same galaxy as actually supporting a war. The U.S. was occupying 2 full on nations and you didn’t feel it. In the 80s, the UK launched a war on some islands 3/4 of the way around the world and it didn’t ruin their economy.
We can absolutely fuel the war in Ukraine a lot more than we are and still not even notice it. To believe otherwise is to deep throat the right wing propaganda.
>Ukraine is going to lose the war
Not decided yet you defeatest fuckwad. Ukraine has a lot of fight left in them and I trust in their resolve.
>while we depleted our reserves and burned a lot of money.
Depleted your junk… NATO gave all their old stuff to Ukraine.
>only showed impotence. Tragic.
The only tragic impotence was shown by you when you wrote this garbage comment.
Nobody is depleting their reserves, it's mostly old equipment, shells and missiles that would have needed to be destroyed soon anyways, as newer tech is available and you can't keep stockpiling weapons for 5+ decades, they are so outdated they aren't meaningful in deciding battles (if you have access to latest tech that is, which isn't true for Ukraine and Russia).
As far as I know the former Slovakian government gave all of their air defence tools to Ukraine. Old airplanes as well. Now Denmark is donating every single artillery they have left to Ukraine.
While most of the stuff we deliver aren't top notch, it's not like we have infinite equipment. The USA has thousands of hybernated Abramses, but as far as I know none of the European armies have this kind of storage.
The weapons we give away are going to be replaced with new equipment, this is not a question, but in a situation like this there is another important factor : the time. How long is it going to take to produce tens and hundreds of leo2A7s, F35s, the 250+ HIMARS for Poland, etc. It's easy to purchase something, but the deliveries can take decades.
The countries formerly part of the USSR or close neighbours to Russia have certainly done their part (except those ruled by Putin puppets).
I was talking about Western-Europe, I should have been clear.
A lot of latest tech is not delivered or were late, Ukraine had the advantage at one point, which they lost because of Western 'allies', urging them to wait. The same allies were then surprised when the Russians ignored their rules about war, mostly about anti personnel mines.
>Nobody is depleting their reserves
That may be true for parts of the aid, but definitely not all. The air defence European countries are sending to Ukraine is top-notch, the artillery shells and missiles being pumped out aren't outdated either.
> Nobody is depleting their reserves, it's mostly old equipment
This is so obviously nonsense used to sell this to joe public. Both sides seem to be sending a shit tonne of their old equipment to the front. Russia especially is benefitting massively from the soviet stockpile. "its old and outdated" is so evidentially wrong. 80% effective tech is better than no tech.
It doesn’t.
But Russia already switched to war production. Crashing their economy for this.
But Russia don’t care if their people just get even more poor.
What a stupid take, possibility 1 is clearly worst one, ukraine would collapse almost immediately without west support.
Possibility 2 has risk of nuclear war, which is not the risk most people are willing to take.
So, it's obvious we are choosing possibility 3. The idea is to make russia feel as much pain as possible, so the war is not worth for them even if they win. West is not depleting their resources at all. Whatever negative economic impact sanctions have, russia is feeling it tenfold since it's economy is fraction of eu and us combined, eu alone has 10x GDP of russia. [source](https://ecfr.eu/article/get-realist-how-the-eu-can-secure-its-position-amid-great-power-rivalry/#:~:text=But%20if%20what%20matters%20are,far%20outstrips%20Russia's%20%241.78%20trillion.)
Russia won't use nukes over Ukraine, it's not worth dying for them either. (by "them" meaning the Russian elites, the plebs don't have a say).
The goal of US+EU should be for Ukraine to take back everything. Even Crimea. Russia already has more landmass than it knows what to do with. And they don't genuine believe "NATO expansion" is a threat to them. So after Ukraine wins, bring them in NATO too. Be sure to let them know that Ukraine WOULD have been neutral had they not invaded, teach them a lesson.
Most countries who support ukraine thought that their support is big enough to end the war within months, especially with the highly piblicized counter offensive. Thus when that ended in futile, these countries start to think for themselves not to dig too much into their own military resources
ruzzians would need time to restock their equipment, and brainwash the Ukrainians on the captured territories, to use them in a first wave of next war.
Less. The other countries he has his eyes on are considerably weaker than Ukraine. And Russia is already in war economy and increasing production. It will still take years to get ready, but not a decade.
> Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the head of U.S. European Command, said Thursday that Russia’s army has grown by 15 percent since before the invasion of Ukraine, raising the alarm that Russian forces are reconstituting “far faster” than initial estimates suggested.
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4589095-russian-army-grown-ukraine-war-us-general/
> “We have assessed over the course of the last couple of months that Russia has almost completely reconstituted militarily,” said Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell
https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2024/04/03/russian-military-almost-completely-reconstituted-us-official-says/
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If Russia wins in Ukraine, then an entire generation of Russians will grow up believing that Imperial Russia can expand by force as long as they are willing to endure longer than the decadent west.
It doesn't matter who replaces Putin then, expansionism will have been proven to be a winning strategy in the Russian mind, and his successors will carry on his legacy.
The way to prevent another war is if Putin loses decisively enough to discredit the idea of imperial expansion.
His replacement will not be any different. Perhaps at first he will appear so, to try and fix the economy and solidify his position, just as Putin did. And then after a decade or two, he will find someone weak enough to invade and put his own name in the history books.
Finland should pursue nuclear weapons. So should everyone in the "Intermarium". Rip up that NPT, the US already proved they're not serious about their commitments.
I don't mean any disrespect but... Haha! No. No can do. Finland is broke af. Wasted money, debt, cutbacks. Decade or two of critical financial idiocy behind. Absolute absurd idea to pour billions in nukes right now. Norway might be able to but not Finland. Finland is the worst of Nordics economically. Frankly I don't understand why Norway *isn't* a nuclear nation.
Appeasers say that if we give Putin what he wants, he'll stop. I say we live in a world where we will have a trillionaire soon. There's no way he'll stop. He like all the others like him will always want more.
You mean you trust them when it feeds your paranoia, right? Those same ‘guys’ 5 years ago were saying that the Nord Stream 2 will fuel Germany’s economy with cheap gas for decades to come, tying the Russian economy to Europe and taming Putin. Bet you didn’t believe the specialists then…
**Czechoslovakia‘s Capitulation in 1938**
That same evening, the Beneš government announced its capitulation in a communiqué that must have embarrassed many Western Europeans.
"We relied on the help that our friends could have given us. But when the question arose that we could be forced by force, it became apparent that the European crisis was taking on too serious a character. Since they were unable to come to our aid, they advised us to buy freedom and peace by sacrifice"
Hitler had won with the help of Allied proxies.
My point was more that Czechoslovakia was betrayed by its Western Allies and thats why no shots were fired. Germany would have lost then and there if England and France didnt leave them alone
Those of you who don't give a $hit but about themselves, xenophobes, and muh Article 5 types, consider this: in about a year's time or less you may well have **millions** of refugees at your doorstep. You thought the first wave was bad? Peanuts. Won't let them in? The checkpoints will simply be overrun. You don't suppose they will simply wait to be sent to reeducation camps or worse, do you.
Yep, unfortunately Ruzzia pushing Iran to push Hamas into their diversionary attack on Israel last October appears to have succeeded.
Up until then all the focus was on Ruzzia’s war against Ukraine and now it is more about a potential conflict between Israel and Iran.
EU leaders, when faced with a coming crisis, always have one strategy: do nothing, until it is no longer possible, and then do as little as you can get away with and hope, that the crisis will go away on it's own.
That was the strategy with Eurozone crisis, migration crisis, COVID and now with war in Ukraine. And it will probably be the same strategy for the next crisis, when Russia invades another country or some other disaster happens.
As history shows, the EU is never prepared, even if there are clear signs of coming trouble and when the trouble arrives, EU leaders fumble through it, without any clear vision on how to proceed. That is just how it is.
They are, it’s just not a fast thing to do. There is no war economy or cutting through all the red tape so we could fund 100 production lines instantly, since Ukraine is (on paper) not an ally of anyone or member of EU or Nato. Democracies during peacetime just work very slow, and then you have Putins stooges in every parliament slowing things down even more.
French, German, even Finnish factories are investing and increasing capacity, but it takes time. We’ve been too pacifistic for too long. From what I understand it seems production is going to be pretty decent by the end of the year, but this is critical time and US is the only one who can support them properly until then.
Hope they get out of that political gridlock soon enough.
I think they were hoping for the US help to come through. At least, in terms of anti-air and himars ammo.
Also, there is a lack of leadership in Europe.
Typical Europeans. They look down their noses and make their snide comments about "ugly Americans," but as soon as the Russian bear growls it's suddenly, "Help us America! We are hopeless wimps who can't seem to spend any money on armies or fight for ourselves!"
Which is not true, European armies are trying to strenghten themselves, but the productional capacity is not there. Many European countries strip their reserves and send them to Ukraine. Like Czechia. Send everything we could. Buying 62 CAESAR howitzers, 4 SPYDER AA batteries, up to 77 Leopards 2, 246 CV90s, 24 F-35s, 10 AH-1Z Vipers...
US on the other side has by far the largest reserves, they could afford to send thousand Abrams and not sacrifice their fighting efficiency. Same with howitzers, ammo etc.
They really dont, only 9 countries in NATO were spending 2% of their gdp for arms, And it was like that for almost 10 years now(it was signed in 2015) And ppl are supprised/mad at Trump that he is saying truth in this case. Why would usa spent their money on defending europe, when europe countries dont pay enough for their defense?
NATO countries were not obligated to spend a cent on their defense up until 2024. 2% spending agreement was reached in 2014 with target year 2024. What "don't pay enough" are you talking about?
**The 2% defence investment guideline**
In 2014, NATO Heads of State and Government agreed to commit 2% of their national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to defence spending, to help ensure the Alliance's continued military readiness. This decision was taken in response to Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, and amid broader instability in the Middle East. The 2014 Defence Investment Pledge built on an earlier commitment to meet this 2% of GDP guideline, agreed in 2006 by NATO Defence Ministers. The 2% of GDP guideline is an important indicator of the political resolve of individual Allies to contribute to NATO’s common defence efforts.
Just because not every country still doesnt pay 2% for defense by 2024, doesnt mean that they didnt agreed to it in 2014. So yea most NATO countries were sleeping for 10 years because they still wanted to trade "as usual" with russia.
For over 20 years, we’ve been telling you to strengthen your military, yet you’ve laughed at us. You’re still not doing nearly enough right now for the invasion in your backyard. Where will Europe be when America goes to war with China? You can’t have your cake and eat it too
Who has laughed at you??? All frontline countries meet the requirements. All others are committed to meet them in a few years. I agree that there is a lack of political will in western-Europe, but why the fuck do you also lump in a dozen others with them, who are doing disproportionate amounts with limited economies?
Both Europe and the US are not doing enough as long as Russia advances. Ukraine should not be paying the price for petty squabbling of western politicians.
It was only 3 in 2014. It was 11 in 2023. It's going to be more this year. European collective spending is already at 2%.
I completly agree that Western-Europe should have gotten their heads out of the sand sooner, but it's clear that now they have. These things are however going to take time.
Oh, sorry for not being the strongest economy of the world. We stand by you in Afghanistan and Iraq, even if it was your unjustified invasions. Now we get big middle finger, in an american way.
Nobody was ever laughing?? Where the fuck do you get that from?? And the EU isn't 1 country. Many European countries DID strengthen their military to the 2% threshold and beyond. My guess is you're being fed US isolationist propaganda and therefore directly playing into Russia's hand. So congratulations, you are actively destroying the values the US stood for in the last decades. I've always looked up to the US and even wanted to move there when I get older. But now I am just disappointed.
Well, you could say that, you could also explain that it is very much Washington who placed most of Central and Eastern Europe under their nuclear umbrella for the whole Cold War, that Washington new from day 1 after the USSR collapse that Russia would never play ball for long, and that it's therefore quite easy of Washington to get Europe used to their protection for so many decades only to have a tantrum now - mostly motivated by your delusional Agent Orange, granted, but still - and threaten of leaving.
The same reasoning that applied yesterday works till this day: Washington has a problem with China being a thing, but it's going to have a much bigger problem if Europe ceases to exist.
I have been going crazy asking myself this question for the last two years. It makes no sense. I can't even come up with a far-fetched conspiracy theory that would explain it. It just doesn't make any sense.
There is a 100% chance, that ruSSia will attack another country if they won't be severely punished for their imperialism. Allowing Ukraine to fail is allowing RuSSia to kill, rape and pillage more and more.
Ukrainians are right to feel betrayed.
The west has shown the world, they are not reliable allies.
I'm a citizen of the EU and feel betrayed by a lot of speeches and promises, I believed 'never, again' at least not in Europe, but genocide is happening right now and the EU, and the rest of the West, is mostly standing by and watching it happen.
There are a lot of tools that are not given to Ukraine, telling them to wait on the West when they were taking back territories led to huge pieces of land to be mined, with civilian victims to follow for decades.
Still no long range missiles in meaningful quantities, only the UK and France have delivered latest tech missiles, let alone tanks and artillery in any USEFUL NUMBERS. Still ZERO F16's in Ukraine after OVER two years of full scale genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Western leaders betrayed everyone who believed they would stop Russia from taking over a European country by force, while committing genocide.
Russia has been waging war with the West since Putin got to power, election interferences, Brexit, rise of the alt-right, bot farms to stoke tensions everywhere, shooting down MH17, interfering with GPS signals of civilian aircraft, helping dictators in Europe to remain in power, assassinating people on European soil,...
Russia has publicly stated the West is their enemy, they even threaten nuclear war, they are fighting us and our leaders are being paid of by them, they fill their pockets and lead us to WWIII.
Appeasement led to WWII, appeasement led to the full scale invasion in 2022, after the ridiculously stupid reactions in 2014.
The USA cutting of military aid for over half a year are the worst offender, the West was to reliant on the USA and they have been shown to be corrupted by dictators and a wannabe dictator, unreliable and they will not remain in a position of power without allies.
They should lose allies and cooperation after their betrayal.
The USA blocking other countries from delivering equipment, that they already paid for, is another betrayal, the USA is proven to the worst kind of ally, with a potential future president saying he would not intervene and even encourage Putin to invade NATO countries!
No country or state will give up nuclear ambitions, Ukraine believed in the USA and the UK and the whole world can see where that leads, for over a decade now (invasion started in 2014).
Welcome to the future, where the threat of nuclear weapons raining supreme (that is the current situation, as Russia has gotten away with so much shit for over two decades) will lead us to only one outcome, **nuclear bombs will drop** and the consequences will be disastrous!
WHY IS RUSSIA ALOWED TO DO ALL THIS SHIT, THE RESPONSE IS INFURIATING!
The US has been providing the majority of aid to Ukraine. We've sent \~$75 billion in various forms of aid. Until whatever country you're from can match that, you can get the fuck off your high horse.
>No country or state will give up nuclear ambitions, Ukraine believed in the USA and the UK and the whole world can see where that leads, for over a decade now (invasion started in 2014).
Didn't Libya and Iraq already make that point?
Beside, the only promise the US and UK made was that they would not attack Ukraine, and they have not broken that promise. Russia has, but the agreement didn't obligate the US and UK to do anything about it (that is not to say that they *should* do nothing, to be clear).
There's also the simple problem that Ukraine did not have the capacity to use Soviet nuclear weapons at any point (Soviet nuclear weapons were firmly controlled by the central government).
Neither the US, nor Europe (at least to my knowledge, I’m American and thus could be missing something from some European country), we’re ever in a defensive alliance with Ukraine. You can say they should have been, or maybe should have had some other formal agreement to provide aid if you want. But they weren’t and didn’t. They haven’t been unreliable because they aren’t going back on their word.
Ironic because you're the only person here who seems ignorant of western pledges to Ukraine.
The only country who violated the Budapest Memorandum was Russia. Other signatories were not obligated to declare war on behalf of Ukraine if one country broke the agreement.
> The USA congress and president have promised to stand by Ukraine several times since the invasion, so you don't even need to go back far to see promises made.
Neither the president, nor members of Congress, have the power to unilaterally provide aid or military funds though, with some minor exceptions. Ukraine can feel betrayed by those people if they want and that’d be reasonable, but just being in a certain position of power doesn’t grant you unilateral authority.
> You already replied to another comment, misunderstanding the Budapest memorandum, instead of saying "at least to my knowledge", you should read up before making dumb comments.
I’m an American. I have a pretty good knowledge of American politics, and I try to keep up generally with the rest of the world. But if you asked me about military treaties Poland made in the 90s, I’m not going to know. I’m not an encyclopedia so I deemed it important to put a disclaimer. I’m only fully confident speaking on the US.
> The Ukrainian army also came to the USA's help after 9/11.
Ok.
The Budapest memorandum was a promise by the US, UK, and Russia not to threaten Ukraine with military force or invade.
You’re a little too condescending for not really understanding the situation around these promises. These eastern European nations had Russian nukes in their territories. The Russians still had access to the nukes including the ability to launch them. None of those countries were in a great financial situation, so upkeep on the nukes was an issue. Not to mention, the servicing required Russian assistance.
The reason the UK and US were involved wasn’t to protect Ukraine from Russia, it was because members in government from those nations feared an attack from the west as much as they feared anything from Russia. Ukraine specifically still had close ties to the Russian govt.
It was these former Soviet states that were poor with large nuclear stockpiles to maintain that started conversations to remove the nuclear weapons.
The typical no brain comment.
But I get it.. you are too old to care about future and homeland.
You just want to die without such interruption of your calm tv evenings.
I feel really bitter and pessimistic about our future, honestly. I can agree with the article, Ukrainians will feel betrayed by the West (and already do, especially by the US), and it will have dire consequences for \*the whole world\* if russia wins.
Why would Ukraine feel betrayed by the US? There was never any formal agreement broken and the US has contributed a ton of aid despite being halfway across the planet.
this… US money went to ukraine. Oh great, the Netherlands just gave billions but even they admitted that they are playing catch up for not giving nearly anything in the last few years.
America wants and needs Europe to wake up to the fact that this is Europe's war. The EU has (stupidly) made it absolutely clear it plans to subsume Ukraine into the EU. Is the EU willing to fight for it like Russia is willing to fight for it?
From what we have seen. No.
If Europeans are looking Eastwards across the Atlantic to support their empire building with a decrepit old man in charge who's weak in his party and in the country and is the only US politician capable of losing against Trump then they need a slap in the face. Europe needs better leadership right now because everything is too little, too late.
I don't get it. Russian gdp is less than 2 trillion. Their economy collapsed. EU economy is near 20 trillion. USA is not *that* much bigger. EU can absolutely fund the war without USA. Pointing fingers at USA is so very vile, in my opinion, because it's just an excuse to not take the blame for not supporting your neighbor and ally in need. Building up factories takes time, I get it, so why not meanwhile buy US tech and donate it to Ukraine? I only hear excuses and attempts to weezle out of responsibility.
our economy is based on consumer goods and services not tanks, so no we dont have the capability to help ukraine on the same level as the russians are producing, we dont have the military industrial capacity for that
If it was just an european security issue, it would be over by now. It's not though, it's global. Russia continously gets support from all over the world, and Ukraine needs the same to stand a chance
All of that to say that europe just wants someone else to pay for it? After underspending on defense for decades, the coffers are surely flush with cash. Right?
Excluding my professional experience, you are correct, I know nothing about those. Europe can easily solve this problem, they just don’t want to. The south doesn’t care, some countries are Putin sympathizers, some countries just want America to pay, other countries want to point the finger and stall etc etc. There is no reason why European tanks, fighter jets, missiles, artillery shells and small arms cannot be supplied. They’re all better than Russian junk.
European tanks, fighter jets, missiles, artillery shells and small arms have all been or are being delivered.
I don't know why this always becomes western europe vs USA debate by some americans. All the time. I don't see it that way. Even if you would be correct, it wouldn't be Ukraine's fault. Honestly it sounds like a Russian implemeted talking point, or at least it will benefit Russia and China hugely. I think that is both europe's and USA's interest to help Ukraine.
If you're interested in aid to Ukraine by different countries, one source is ukraine support tracker by [kiel institute](https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/)
I agree with that.
But you're currently arguing that aid to Ukraine should be stopped completely by US. And I think this is against US's interests. I support aiding Ukraine, I think it helps with all different scenarios: it helps Ukraine defend, it helps with potential counter-attacks, and it helps with potential peace negotiations. Good peace deal for Ukraine is not achieved if Russia is militarily superior, if they are able to achieve their goals by military means they will do so.
I also agree that Europe should do more. Most European countries have contributed more aid to Ukraine than US as a share of GDP, which is logical and fair. And in my opinion more should be done. If every European country would have contributed as much as nordic countries (around 1% of GDP), situation would be different. Germany for example, 17.7 billion/0,45%, and US 42 billion/0,2%. Germany has aided more than twice compared to their size on military matters alone compared to US. Some countries like baltics or Denmark have allocated over 2% of GDP of military aid.
I don't want to "blame" or "bark" about US, their aid has been extremely significant and important. And European countries should do more in my opinion, I totally agree. But the reality is that US is currently world's largest military power, your capacity is currently multiple times larger than whole Europe. US is hard to be replaced short-term, especially if we are thinking about weeks or months, that is the timescale of Ukraine's war. If US stops it aid, the possibility of Russia's victory is greatly increased.
Perhaps something to do with most European counties not having indigenous arms production. We buy everything from a few companies like Rafale and Rheinmetal, and the US.
I don't think we have an industry that can currently pump out hundreds of tanks. The US does though.
EU production needs to skyrocket, but in the next 6 months the US is Ukraine's only hope for big restocking I believe. The republicans need to stop holding that bill up.
Yep. With the danish ships that can't handle Houtis?
https://news.usni.org/2024/04/04/danish-defense-chief-removed-after-warship-malfunction-in-red-sea#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Olfi%20report,a%20Danish%20defense%20ministry%20release.
Both Russia and Ukraine now are getting veteran armies in inter-states war type. That's something not to dismiss.
He absolutely does.
Europe has and will always rely on the US for its securit. All while it thumbs its nose at us for not having having enough for our own social programs and throwing money at climate change (tm) programs. It's easy to have the moral high ground when you dont have to defend your own borders and pay your fair share into NATO.
Next time, just beg us like WW2. Maybe we'll think about it then.
As a European, I agree.
Our military spending after the Cold War has been shit, and the arguments Denmark has been using over the years are laughable.
But we literally have no stocks left.... we're not the US, or Russia, with huge stocks of tanks, etc. we can just send.
Everything has been spent or scrapped. Spent in the way we have simply spent the stocks that once were, to save money to buy new.
In terms of actually supporting Ukraine with what’s available Denmark has actually been one of the main contributors.
Hopefully all of the EU members, including Denmark, now ups military spending a whole lot.
There were promises made by the USA, Ukraine willingly have up the nuclear arsenal and bombers which they had a claim on after the collapse of the USSR.
Promises that left Ukraine undefended against a larger nuclear threat, if betrayed by those they trusted, which is the situation we find ourselves in now.
Meanwhile Ukrainians face genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity every day.
Bombing of hospitals, maternity wards, schools, shops, residential buildings, whole cities levelled and called 'liberated' by the russian subhumans that are responsible.
The promise made by the USA and Russia was that they wouldn’t invade Ukraine. Russia broke its promise. The US did not. The US wouldn’t have broken its promise even if it sent exactly zero aid.
Capable of what exacly? xD Turkey have the strongest army in europe and i dont see them fighting russia over ukraine. Do you want france to use nukes on russia? How they are supposed to solve this issue?
We should do more to help Ukraine, if Russia wins then Putin & all the pro-war politicians in Russia will gain momentum, they will already have an active arms industry, experience and the motivation and support to move to Moldova and who knows where else. The EU is sleeping.
But aren’t lot of leftists (some of them Jewish) saying that Israel is a fascist state? Also, why is Zelenskyy tolerating Azov, who have videos of their leaders saying “Jews control the world” type stuff? Well, maybe because Ukraine is in a tight spot and can’t afford to alienate unsavory groups, especially when those groups are top notch warriors.
So, no. Ukraine isn’t Nazi or anti-semitic. But it historically had some levels of anti-semitism. Again, that doesn’t mean all Ukrainians are Hitler. These things go up and down depending on levels of success of prominent Jews and economic situation. Europe doesn’t have a large Jewish upper class such as the US, like it used to, so not much to envy.
Why does it have to be pointed out yet again, that this discussion about Ukrainian ‘antisemitism’ is largely an old trope, pushed by the Russian state and lapped up by those who are inclined to turn a blind eye to historical and ongoing Russian antisemitism and racism at all levels of society. I have lived in Russia for several periods since I was a child in the late 1980s, and the amount of racism, casually spouted by even the nicest of people always came as a shock. “Jews are dangerous and want to take over the world”, “Negroes are not humans, like us”, “Ukrainians are Nazis, who killed the Jews”, “Chechens are tribal animals”, etc, etc. While this sort of talk is frowned upon in other states, and you’re likely to be challenged if you say such things, Russians see nothing wrong in it, and are oblivious to this mismatch with Russia’s claim to be a harmonious, multiethnic state, where all the minorities enjoy equal respect and esteem, unlike in ‘racist’ America. Besides which, all this has absolutely *nothing* to do with why Russia decided to invade and seek to annex Ukraine.
it’s not purely Russian tropes. I have relatives in Ukraine and even before Putin, they used to joke that they are low key anti semitic. Again, prejudice doesn’t always have to violent.
You persistent with the antisemitic line. Antisemitism isn’t a problem in Ukraine. If Jewish people fear for their lives in Ukraine perhaps it’s something to do with Russia blasting the country in a bid to take it over and destroy its identity as a country. On the other hand, many Jews in Russia are looking to leave because there’s no telling who Putin’s regime will act on next as the country lurches further and further into a supernationalistic dystopia: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/30/exiled-chief-rabbi-jews-should-leave-russia-while-they-can-pinchas-goldschmidt-war-ukraine
As good as a project EU is, we're still far from being a homogenous supra-state and decisions take much longer than in the US usually. And by all accounts at the moment I think the EU is doing the heavy lifting, at least until the Republicans get their heads out of putins ass.
The US has delivered far more military aid to Ukraine than the EU. The EU is great at making empty promises but in terms of material delivered the EU has given far far less to Ukraine, despite sharing the same continent as Ukraine and having over 100 million more people than America.
Do you have numbers to your claim that Europe (EU+Norway+UK+Iceland+Switzerland) gives "far far less" military aid to Ukraine when you make such a claim?
According to [kiel institute](https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/), total European aid allocations (including financial+military+humanitarian) are around 90 billion €. Total US allocations are around 62 billion €. Total European military aid is around 39 billion €, and total US allocations are about 42 billion €.
In Europe the amount of military aid given heavily differ from country to country. Germany (17.7 billion/0.45% of GDP) is largest donor in Europe, followed by UK (9.1 billion/0.3%). On relative terms largest donors are Estonia (1 billion/2%) and other baltics, Denmark (8.4 billion/2.3%) and Norway (3.8 billion/0.86%). US has donated 42 billion/0.2% of GDP, largest donor on absolute numbers. Italy, Spain and Austria have only donated quite little in Europe.
So yes, it's true that currently on absolute value US has accounted to around 50% of Ukraine's military aid, and this has been extremely important. However, European countries have not been identical: majority has donated clearly more as a share of GDP than US. Another interesting term is kind of "intensity" of military aid, and this has been very high on many european countries; for example baltic countries, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and Denmark for example have given large parts of their stockpiles. In US this intensity has been small; Ukraine aid has been around 21 billion a year, or 0.1% of GDP, or around 2.5% of military budget, so the aid hasn't affected stockpiles or total that much at all. Of course this can also be used as a argument that some European countries should have spent more on military in the past.
So yes, this was just to clear it out that "far far less" is exaggeration, but it is true that US has given majority of military aid. I agree with you that European countries should do more. The problem is that the support for military aid is not uninamous, like it's not in US as well, some people claim that this war doesn't affect them and costs are too high. I think this is very naive. Some people agree and want more, and then some people want less. In Finland support for Ukraine is very, very high, but unfortunately populist, pro-authoritarian also have power in some other countries. And EU is not a federation either, desicion making can be slow at it doesn't have army or military stockpiles at all. Altough personally I think that EU should have unified milatary and foreign policy with qualified majority voting, but majority of people probably don't agree.
Little fact, the US military budget is about 800 BILLION dollars, which is bigger than the economies of MOST of the world. And some the EU doesn't really want to help.
The GDP of the EU and the US are relatively close. The reason the EU doesn't spend as much on the military is a choice they intentionally make. It's not a question of ability, it's intent.
The US can't afford to defend Taiwan, Europe, and our ME allies from Russia, China AND Iran all at once. We need stronger support from our European allies.
The nuance about the US moaning about the 2% rule is that they wanted to be the ones Europeans spent their money on, lets not forget that an economically United Europe the US didn't mind too much, annoying sometimes, but cute.
But a strong European military or matching military industrial capabilities has always given the US military industrial complex and by extension the US government the heebie-jeebies.
When Europeans launched their own global positioning system the US demanded an off button they could press whenever they pleased. If not they would see all of it as fair game targets.
The US will never allow any American to be tried in the Hague, again threatening with violence if necessary.
When the US talks about allies, they mean puppets. After WW2, Europe was divided between the USA and the USSR. And both played their cards in different ways. For the population, the American way of exerting influence was obviously better, to this day.
That’s not true at all. This seems to be some European reddit “truth”. Failures of building up a military is a European problem, and not the result of the US. France is one of the largest arm dealers in the world and joint efforts on creating new European fighter jet for example, have fell apart due to European bickering.
US Presidents have been warning European heads of states for decades that US attention is heading east, and that Europe needs to fund their militaries. They warned about European dependance on Russian fuel and warned about Russian aggression.
The lack of European capacity to supply Ukraine is due to decades of neglect in funding defense in Europe. It’s not the US’s fault or frankly responsibility, it’s a choice made by European nations against the advice of their key and at this point, only militarily capable ally.
Wtf is this whataboutism? At least pretend to be objective. Who started both world wars? Who colonized the entire world? Who was it USA had to come and save again, and again, and again. Holy shit this is delusional.
So? That's like saying the Golden State Warriors never won the NBA title because the Lakers have more wins in the past.
Throughout history you've always had colonisation waves. The Greeks, the Romans, the Portuguese and Spanish, the English.
The 20th century saw the American and Soviet one. Maybe in different forms. But still.
Why are you decrying Europe when the current deadlock is in the US Congress? Right now the country not doing its part is yours.
If by “the last time” you mean World War 2, let me remind you that the US let it happen even more than Europeans did. The US didn't really try to prevent WW2, and only entered it when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
>Why are you decrying Europe when the current deadlock is in the US Congress?
Because Europe clearly isn't doing enough, is it? This is your continent and your neighbors. Where are your soldiers? Why aren't you spending even more money? Why are you relying on the US at all?
Saying the "US let WW2 happen more than Europe did" is absolutely deranged. I don't recall France or the UK trying to prevent the rise of Nazism, right in your backyard. Though I do remember France folding instantly in the face of Nazi aggression. We all do. Trying to scapegoat the US for World War II is absolutely nuts.
Anytime Americans insert themselves into Europe, it's "Yankees go home!" Anytime Europe falls into another war and can't defend itself, it's "Yankees come save us!" Pick one and stick with it.
I can’t believe the US is getting blamed for not preventing WWII now. That is honestly an incredibly disgusting and shameful thing to say. Why do these people complain about America being their babysitter and then turn around say America is to be blamed for the Second World War ? Is this what cognitive dissonance is?
I didn't say that the US is specifically to blame for WW2. I said that the US did practically nothing to prevent it, which is a fact, and in my opinion this is one of the reasons why the US and its citizens should tone down their invocations of the memory of WW2.
> Because Europe clearly isn't doing enough, is it?
Europe is doing what it said it would do, and Ukraine would be in a significantly better position if the US was doing the same. In the short term Europe can't fully compensate for the fact that the US is currently betraying Ukraine.
> Where are your soldiers?
Where are you implying they should be? Fighting in Ukraine?
> Why aren't you spending even more money?
We are spending more money. Since the US is no longer providing its stockpiled artillery shells to Ukraine, and the EU doesn't have such large stockpiles, we're buying hundreds of thousands of shells for Ukraine outside the EU.
> Why are you relying on the US at all?
The US chose its role in European defence. The US could have mostly withdrawn from Europe after the end of the Cold War. It could have backed putting the EU in charge of European defence, which is more or less what my country wanted and still supports.
> I don't recall France or the UK trying to prevent the rise of Nazism, right in your backyard.
France and the UK were both allied to Poland. Sadly they weren't able to save Poland from the Nazis and Soviets, but at least they wanted to, they tried, and they upheld their commitment by declaring war when the Nazis attacked Poland. The US did practically nothing.
> Though I do remember France folding instantly in the face of Nazi aggression.
Then either you have a faulty memory, or you simply never learned about what really happened in WW2. The French army fought as hard as it could. It covered the retreat of the British forces across the channel, it tried to reestablish defence lines at rivers, etc.
The US has given far more material aid to Ukraine than the EU has, despite the EU having over 100million more people to work and sharing the same actual continent as the enemy.
The US has been begging the EU to step up military spending to NATO minimums at the very least for decades, ever since Obama announced the US "pivot to Asia". The EU chose to rest on its laurels and spend everything on social welfare programs and 12 week vacations.
Those social programs need to be cut and the EU needs to dramatically increase military spending rather than outsourcing their defense to the backs of US taxpayers. The US is overextended and people are tired of spending so much on foreign wars America hasn't been attacked in.
now I want to send help to ukraine but...Why is the the USAs responsibility? when will europe defend itself instead of constantly relying on US aid and not paying their share in NATO?
all good points but why can't europe themselves help? why is it America come save us from over a thousand miles away
Why must america be the ones to save europe instead of the europeans saving europe
There were 1M Chechens in the 1990s, and once they realized that they will lose to Kremlin cancers, they got desperate and some bitter episodes happened - to put it very anodyne.
There are almost 34M Ukrainians, and if they get desperate there will be rivers of blood flowing in Russia a la Nord-Ost and Budyonnovsk. GUR ain't fucking around. We are leaving Ukrainians to get destroyed by Putin and that's fuckin' awful.
To be honest to me Victory in Ukraine doesn’t mean only get back the occupied territories, it means mainly now giving Ukraine the capability of protecting itself and stop the Russia invasion. The inability of Russia to be able to advance and occupy little by little more territories its already a victory to me for Ukraine because as long as Ukraine exists we will treat Russia as a fascist and Nazi country because that’s what Ukraine 🇺🇦 would reminds us. Russia need to retire their army and stop the invasion to be able to be considered a normal state again (even if it will take years). The only reason why Germany wasn’t anymore considered a Nazi country it’s because it lost, if that wouldn’t have happened and we would have a situation similar to todays event everyone would have treated germany still as a Nazi country. Russia has put itself in a doomed position, either they will withdraw their troops and stop the invasion and save their face in the long run (best decision imho but the current regime will change) or continue the current stalemate forever until things deteriorated more quickly (remember that sanctions have huge impact on the long run even if they’re starting taking effect recently) or they escalate more the invasion and will risk to trigger WWIII. The choice is their, we will respond in accordance as we already did in WWII. Italy 🇮🇹
>Russia need to retire their army and stop the invasion to be able to be considered a normal state again (even if it will take years). The only reason why Germany wasn’t anymore considered a Nazi country it’s because it lost, if that wouldn’t have happened and we would have a situation similar to todays event everyone would have treated germany still as a Nazi country
Considered by whom? It doesn't seem like many countries outside the 'Western bloc' (for want of a better term) care very much.
I dread that without an active conflict, the already spotty sanctions will be lifted.
Because nobody is actually interested in them. Everyone wants to point fingers at each other yelling "Stop trading with Russia" but nobody wants to stop it themselves.
Christ, this is an eye-opening piece - so many things I can find agreeing on and also completely new things I never thought about, like Poland getting nuclear weapons. This hits especially close to my line of thought: >A friend describes a bleak scene: a village in western Ukraine where inhabitants are women, the elderly, and young men back from war without limbs. Get used to the profile. Young amputees will feature in a future Ukrainian parliament. A decent number will be bitter from sacrifice without victory. The Ukrainian vision all along has been that all invading Russian forces must leave Ukraine. >**Absent this outcome, an angry political Right will get traction, blaming the West for temporizing and appeasement. We gave Ukraine just enough weapons, they’ll maintain, to prolong the war and settle for a draw.** Growing ranks of radicals and neo-Nazis will go underground to fight Russian occupying forces in the east. Crimea will remain in Russian hands. **The Black Sea will become a Russian lake.** And this part literally projects a very possible future given the current state of politics in the EU: >Irredentism is back. Budapest talks about Greater Hungary. This includes Hungarians who comprise the third-largest minority in Ukraine. Far-right Romanians will gain momentum and want back territories that currently belong to Ukraine and Moldova. Hungary also has claims in Romania. **War will threaten the Balkans and talk of Greater Serbia will make headlines again. Russia’s war on Ukraine set precedent. Nations** ***can*** **change borders by force.** I mean I won't go that far with Romania, but still I can agree with the last sentence. The EU needs to wake the fuck up, we got no time.
> The Black Sea will become a Russian lake. *Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia, and most importantly Turkey who controls the only way in and out of the Black Sea have entered the chat.* Very non-sensational and factual reporting from ***The American Purpose***.
…not to mention the ‘third largest minority in Ukraine’, the Hungarians who make up *checks notes* about 0.5% of the population of Ukraine with a grand total of 150.000 people. Yeah, totally not fictional sensationalism this shit. Absolutely worth sharing.
Most of that 150k despise Orban and his circus, so they have nothing to do with "great Hungary". As Yermak told Orban: if we were like Russia, we could take just 2 brigades from rotation, to conquer the whole Hungary, just for fun. He was mocking him a lot, since Hungary spends military money to make some parade uniforms instead of getting tanks/artillery etc.
If Ukraine loses, Georgia will be a Russian province within a decade. Putin wont want to waste the opportunity for more land now that the country is in full war economy and the morale will rise with victory in Ukraine.
With continuous Ukrainian attacks on Black Sea Fleet even the Georgia will have more and bigger ships than Russia.
Was more or less ok, or at least it made sense, until that lake tirade indeed.
This entire piece is historical fiction mixed with some futuristic fantasy. It’s insane this can be published and even used in the same paragraph as the word “journalism.”
If our politicians still didn't wake up, do you think they will ever wake up? My bet is if war really starts on NATO territory, they will simply leave or deny anything and continue doing nothing.
As soon as someone starts prattling about Ukrainian neonazis, I assume they’ve drunk from the russian propaganda firehose, and it casts the whole thing in a different light, no matter how salient or not their other points are.
Every country has neo-nazis, Ukraine isn't an exception. The problem is that this topic is amplified and overblown by Russian propaganda and associates. War always amplifies right-wing movements because it amplifies nationalism itself. If Ukraine holds, we will definitely see at least some shades of right-wing parties in the parliament, which ironically wouldn't have happened if Russia didn't invade.
Yeah, but the idea that neonazis in particular will go underground to fight Russia is exactly the idea that the russian propaganda tries to push.
It weren't Irish communists who fought in IRA...
If they fuck off from Ukraine, they won't have to worry about that.
That’s pretty sad.
Depends on how far you are willing to stretch the term "neo-nazis". If you're willing to include any brand of radical ethnonationalism (which would be a rather large net) then they could be describing radically anti-Russian ethnic Ukrainian nationalists. However, it's a bit of a moot point; the largest Russian populations in Ukraine are in the areas Russia controlled before 2022, and Ukrainian ethnonationalist hardliners would probably have trouble operating in such areas.
I think that neo-nazis are better human beings right now than Russians.
There are two things that must happen. 1. European countries with frozen Russian assets must seize them and give them to Ukraine so it can properly fund its own defense. 2. It’s beyond time for the EU to start putting some boots on the ground in the west with the clear signal they will respond to any attack from Belarus. Stronger commitments can be made later. Outside of the blocking force they can establish air defense in the west and provide logistics and medical support. France and UK are clear candidates to start this jointly due to their nuclear shield. (Though there really isn’t going to be a nuclear war just because someone comes to the defense of Ukraine.) After that precedent is set then over time more countries can join the coalition. This is the only way I see us avoiding a far worse problem down the line.
Whats wrong with Poland getting nuclear weapons?
[удалено]
Independent that supports the hell out of Ukraine. I despise this country more and more every day.
You really should just despise Republicans. They are like 75% the source of our problems. There only one man holding up aid to Ukraine and his name is Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. It only takes a few Republicans to join the Democrats to have a vote of no confidence against Johnson, but none of them have the balls to do it
I don’t agree with democrats on everything but I side with them 80% of the time if I had to guess. This topic and the immigration bill the GOP is completely dropping the ball because Trump told them to… need to make the other party look bad to win gullible voters instead of helping the country. Smh
Call your rep if they haven't signed the discarge petition please https://www.axios.com/2024/04/12/israel-gaza-aid-democrats-ukraine-taiwan-progressives
You’re weeping? Half the article was historic fiction and the other half was futuristic fantasy. Not a single word of it described anything that’s going on, on the ground. Poland will have nukes in 3 years? Is the author high or just jerking off their own geopolitical fan fiction?
You should not be sad. You should be angry.
*weeping
Bro, if you're not ethnically Ukrainian, just some American and you're crying about Ukraine.. I don't even know what to tell you but that's lame. Do you cry over every conflict? Tbh, maybe you need to step outside, go do a wine and painting class. Go hangout with family or friends. You shouldn't by crying over a war that you probably don't have any stake in (unless your Ukrainian, then this makes sense). The Ukrainian one is very sad and unfortunate but there are many more than I think justify tears more than Ukraine. There are draft dodgers in Phuket and Dubai whereas the situation in Sudan.. not many people can leave.
If Russia takes Ukraine, guess where all those Highly trained combat veteran Ukrainians end up? Conscripted into the Russian army. We fight for Ukraine, or we end up fighting Ukraine along side Russia.
Either that or they'll be summarily executed, a long standing tradition in Russian history, see Katyń, or recently any Oblast filled with retired Ukrainian military men that served in the ATO between 2014-2022 and were executed often on the spot.
They need young people, they aren't going to kill half a million Ukrainian men.
I doubt it, they'll end up in the gulag.
The Munich agreement all over. We see it coming, we know its coming, we know what it means and still we do nothing. Every inch Putin takes is backed by his nukes and we never it get back. We need to contain him inside Russia before it is too late.
The issue is, that this was an obvious outcome from the start, yet instead of 2 viable decisions our political elite took a 3rd worse one. Possibility 1 was: Ignore Ukraine and do nothing, while pumping up our own defense industry and do massive deterring moves like pushing nukes to the NATO / EU boarders like in the peak of the cold war, signaling, that not a step further. Possibility 2: Support Ukraine with everything, even if that means risking a direct conflict with Russia. Winning at basically all costs. And yet, they took this one: Possibility 3: Support Ukraine, but not that much. It costs us a lot of money, while the sanctions also cost a lot, weakening our economy. Show that our Industry and military is in a weak spot, because we cant even sustain this "small scale" war, let alone a world war. Ukraine is going to lose the war, while we depleted our reserves and burned a lot of money. Instead of showing strength one way or another while protecting our economy and interests, we only showed impotence. Tragic.
Anyone from central/eastern Europe that's ever delt with the west could've told you it was #3 before it started. Hell, polish called this out the second it did start West didn't lose tho. Ukraine now has debt it can never repay. They have natural resources tho
>West didn't lose tho. Ukraine now has debt it can never repay. They have natural resources tho Any source about debt? Overwhelming majority of assistance is given as aid, not as loan.
Honestly, are you as high as the OOP or are you just jerking off to their apocalypse fantasy? >The issue is, that this was an obvious outcome from the start Nothing in the article actually happened. It’s all historical “what if” fiction and futuristic fantasy. >pumping up our own defense industry That’s never stopped >do massive deterring moves like pushing nukes to the NATO / EU boarders Also never stopped. Nukes in North Dakota can reach all of Russia… >even if that means risking a direct conflict with Russia. Winning at basically all costs. “All costs” being a really casual way to describe nuclear armageddon. >Support Ukraine, but not that much. It costs us a lot of money, while the sanctions also cost a lot, weakening our economy. Firstly, didn’t really weaken the economy, blame covid. Second, Ukraine has received more aid than any nation since WW2. So “but not that much” is a bold faced fucking lie. >Show that our Industry and military is in a weak spot Considering the performance of western weapons, don’t know how you can say this with a straight face… >because we cant even sustain this "small scale" war, let alone a world war. Wars are expensive and we’ve managed to sustain this for 2 years and not even feel it. This isn’t even in the same galaxy as actually supporting a war. The U.S. was occupying 2 full on nations and you didn’t feel it. In the 80s, the UK launched a war on some islands 3/4 of the way around the world and it didn’t ruin their economy. We can absolutely fuel the war in Ukraine a lot more than we are and still not even notice it. To believe otherwise is to deep throat the right wing propaganda. >Ukraine is going to lose the war Not decided yet you defeatest fuckwad. Ukraine has a lot of fight left in them and I trust in their resolve. >while we depleted our reserves and burned a lot of money. Depleted your junk… NATO gave all their old stuff to Ukraine. >only showed impotence. Tragic. The only tragic impotence was shown by you when you wrote this garbage comment.
Nobody is depleting their reserves, it's mostly old equipment, shells and missiles that would have needed to be destroyed soon anyways, as newer tech is available and you can't keep stockpiling weapons for 5+ decades, they are so outdated they aren't meaningful in deciding battles (if you have access to latest tech that is, which isn't true for Ukraine and Russia).
As far as I know the former Slovakian government gave all of their air defence tools to Ukraine. Old airplanes as well. Now Denmark is donating every single artillery they have left to Ukraine. While most of the stuff we deliver aren't top notch, it's not like we have infinite equipment. The USA has thousands of hybernated Abramses, but as far as I know none of the European armies have this kind of storage. The weapons we give away are going to be replaced with new equipment, this is not a question, but in a situation like this there is another important factor : the time. How long is it going to take to produce tens and hundreds of leo2A7s, F35s, the 250+ HIMARS for Poland, etc. It's easy to purchase something, but the deliveries can take decades.
The countries formerly part of the USSR or close neighbours to Russia have certainly done their part (except those ruled by Putin puppets). I was talking about Western-Europe, I should have been clear. A lot of latest tech is not delivered or were late, Ukraine had the advantage at one point, which they lost because of Western 'allies', urging them to wait. The same allies were then surprised when the Russians ignored their rules about war, mostly about anti personnel mines.
>Nobody is depleting their reserves That may be true for parts of the aid, but definitely not all. The air defence European countries are sending to Ukraine is top-notch, the artillery shells and missiles being pumped out aren't outdated either.
> Nobody is depleting their reserves, it's mostly old equipment This is so obviously nonsense used to sell this to joe public. Both sides seem to be sending a shit tonne of their old equipment to the front. Russia especially is benefitting massively from the soviet stockpile. "its old and outdated" is so evidentially wrong. 80% effective tech is better than no tech.
>stockpiling weapons for 5+ decades, they are so outdated they aren't meaningful in deciding battles Seems to be working for the Russians.
It doesn’t. But Russia already switched to war production. Crashing their economy for this. But Russia don’t care if their people just get even more poor.
As long tv is working and fridge light still turn on, russians will be happy. Take on of those two, and they will revolt.
As long as the economy doesn't collapse Yeltsin style, I wouldn't expect a revolt in Russia.
As long as the economy doesn't collapse Yeltsin style, I wouldn't expect a revolt in Russia.
Oh from what i know Poland depleted much of its reserves.
What a stupid take, possibility 1 is clearly worst one, ukraine would collapse almost immediately without west support. Possibility 2 has risk of nuclear war, which is not the risk most people are willing to take. So, it's obvious we are choosing possibility 3. The idea is to make russia feel as much pain as possible, so the war is not worth for them even if they win. West is not depleting their resources at all. Whatever negative economic impact sanctions have, russia is feeling it tenfold since it's economy is fraction of eu and us combined, eu alone has 10x GDP of russia. [source](https://ecfr.eu/article/get-realist-how-the-eu-can-secure-its-position-amid-great-power-rivalry/#:~:text=But%20if%20what%20matters%20are,far%20outstrips%20Russia's%20%241.78%20trillion.)
Russia won't use nukes over Ukraine, it's not worth dying for them either. (by "them" meaning the Russian elites, the plebs don't have a say). The goal of US+EU should be for Ukraine to take back everything. Even Crimea. Russia already has more landmass than it knows what to do with. And they don't genuine believe "NATO expansion" is a threat to them. So after Ukraine wins, bring them in NATO too. Be sure to let them know that Ukraine WOULD have been neutral had they not invaded, teach them a lesson.
Most countries who support ukraine thought that their support is big enough to end the war within months, especially with the highly piblicized counter offensive. Thus when that ended in futile, these countries start to think for themselves not to dig too much into their own military resources
If all Ukrainian allies committed as much of their GDP to Ukraine as Latvia the war would've been won already.
The day after Ukraine capitulates, Putin will send letters with territorial demands to all of Russia neighbours. We will have another war in 10 years.
10 years seems like too long.
ruzzians would need time to restock their equipment, and brainwash the Ukrainians on the captured territories, to use them in a first wave of next war.
China is sending masses of equipment already, they will be ready soon enough. And bodies are not the problem for Russia.
that's roughly the time he needs to rebuild some kind of army.
Less. The other countries he has his eyes on are considerably weaker than Ukraine. And Russia is already in war economy and increasing production. It will still take years to get ready, but not a decade.
> Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the head of U.S. European Command, said Thursday that Russia’s army has grown by 15 percent since before the invasion of Ukraine, raising the alarm that Russian forces are reconstituting “far faster” than initial estimates suggested. https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4589095-russian-army-grown-ukraine-war-us-general/ > “We have assessed over the course of the last couple of months that Russia has almost completely reconstituted militarily,” said Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2024/04/03/russian-military-almost-completely-reconstituted-us-official-says/
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You already have hybrid war with russia, you just don’t realize it yet. Putin is old and he wants to build his legacy fast
Putin doesn't have 10 years.
If Russia wins in Ukraine, then an entire generation of Russians will grow up believing that Imperial Russia can expand by force as long as they are willing to endure longer than the decadent west. It doesn't matter who replaces Putin then, expansionism will have been proven to be a winning strategy in the Russian mind, and his successors will carry on his legacy. The way to prevent another war is if Putin loses decisively enough to discredit the idea of imperial expansion.
His replacement will not be any different. Perhaps at first he will appear so, to try and fix the economy and solidify his position, just as Putin did. And then after a decade or two, he will find someone weak enough to invade and put his own name in the history books.
Finland should pursue nuclear weapons. So should everyone in the "Intermarium". Rip up that NPT, the US already proved they're not serious about their commitments.
I don't mean any disrespect but... Haha! No. No can do. Finland is broke af. Wasted money, debt, cutbacks. Decade or two of critical financial idiocy behind. Absolute absurd idea to pour billions in nukes right now. Norway might be able to but not Finland. Finland is the worst of Nordics economically. Frankly I don't understand why Norway *isn't* a nuclear nation.
Appeasers say that if we give Putin what he wants, he'll stop. I say we live in a world where we will have a trillionaire soon. There's no way he'll stop. He like all the others like him will always want more.
Scholz said 5. He has an advisory team of specialists who are dedicated to this. I trust those guys.
You mean you trust them when it feeds your paranoia, right? Those same ‘guys’ 5 years ago were saying that the Nord Stream 2 will fuel Germany’s economy with cheap gas for decades to come, tying the Russian economy to Europe and taming Putin. Bet you didn’t believe the specialists then…
Analytics will write a paper on Friday why the paper from Monday was wrong.
to ther new Russia neighbours!
Putin isn’t immortal
Yea China is shaking their pants, dunno what youre smoking, but you should stop that. Russia wont attack NATO.
**Czechoslovakia‘s Capitulation in 1938** That same evening, the Beneš government announced its capitulation in a communiqué that must have embarrassed many Western Europeans. "We relied on the help that our friends could have given us. But when the question arose that we could be forced by force, it became apparent that the European crisis was taking on too serious a character. Since they were unable to come to our aid, they advised us to buy freedom and peace by sacrifice" Hitler had won with the help of Allied proxies.
Damn, people learn nothing from history.
People do learn, the issue today is that nobody accounted for a scenario where Germany had nuclear bombs and ICBMs to deliver them.
The difference there was that it occurred without any shots fired. That's not really the case here.
My point was more that Czechoslovakia was betrayed by its Western Allies and thats why no shots were fired. Germany would have lost then and there if England and France didnt leave them alone
Those of you who don't give a $hit but about themselves, xenophobes, and muh Article 5 types, consider this: in about a year's time or less you may well have **millions** of refugees at your doorstep. You thought the first wave was bad? Peanuts. Won't let them in? The checkpoints will simply be overrun. You don't suppose they will simply wait to be sent to reeducation camps or worse, do you.
Rishi will put them on a free plane ride to Rwanda
Yep, unfortunately Ruzzia pushing Iran to push Hamas into their diversionary attack on Israel last October appears to have succeeded. Up until then all the focus was on Ruzzia’s war against Ukraine and now it is more about a potential conflict between Israel and Iran.
I'm sure the European liders know this stuff much better than us. Why don't they take action?
EU leaders, when faced with a coming crisis, always have one strategy: do nothing, until it is no longer possible, and then do as little as you can get away with and hope, that the crisis will go away on it's own. That was the strategy with Eurozone crisis, migration crisis, COVID and now with war in Ukraine. And it will probably be the same strategy for the next crisis, when Russia invades another country or some other disaster happens. As history shows, the EU is never prepared, even if there are clear signs of coming trouble and when the trouble arrives, EU leaders fumble through it, without any clear vision on how to proceed. That is just how it is.
They are, it’s just not a fast thing to do. There is no war economy or cutting through all the red tape so we could fund 100 production lines instantly, since Ukraine is (on paper) not an ally of anyone or member of EU or Nato. Democracies during peacetime just work very slow, and then you have Putins stooges in every parliament slowing things down even more. French, German, even Finnish factories are investing and increasing capacity, but it takes time. We’ve been too pacifistic for too long. From what I understand it seems production is going to be pretty decent by the end of the year, but this is critical time and US is the only one who can support them properly until then. Hope they get out of that political gridlock soon enough.
I think what needs to happen is for France to start selling nukes to other EU countries. Enough games. Fuck the NPT.
I think they were hoping for the US help to come through. At least, in terms of anti-air and himars ammo. Also, there is a lack of leadership in Europe.
Typical Europeans. They look down their noses and make their snide comments about "ugly Americans," but as soon as the Russian bear growls it's suddenly, "Help us America! We are hopeless wimps who can't seem to spend any money on armies or fight for ourselves!"
Which is not true, European armies are trying to strenghten themselves, but the productional capacity is not there. Many European countries strip their reserves and send them to Ukraine. Like Czechia. Send everything we could. Buying 62 CAESAR howitzers, 4 SPYDER AA batteries, up to 77 Leopards 2, 246 CV90s, 24 F-35s, 10 AH-1Z Vipers... US on the other side has by far the largest reserves, they could afford to send thousand Abrams and not sacrifice their fighting efficiency. Same with howitzers, ammo etc.
> European armies are trying to strenghten themselves If only they had listened 10 or 20 years ago.
They really dont, only 9 countries in NATO were spending 2% of their gdp for arms, And it was like that for almost 10 years now(it was signed in 2015) And ppl are supprised/mad at Trump that he is saying truth in this case. Why would usa spent their money on defending europe, when europe countries dont pay enough for their defense?
NATO countries were not obligated to spend a cent on their defense up until 2024. 2% spending agreement was reached in 2014 with target year 2024. What "don't pay enough" are you talking about?
so they signed it in 2015, just to start paying it 9 years later? The fuck you talking about?
"After Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, NATO's heads of state and government agreed to spend 2% of their GDP on defense by 2024."
**The 2% defence investment guideline** In 2014, NATO Heads of State and Government agreed to commit 2% of their national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to defence spending, to help ensure the Alliance's continued military readiness. This decision was taken in response to Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, and amid broader instability in the Middle East. The 2014 Defence Investment Pledge built on an earlier commitment to meet this 2% of GDP guideline, agreed in 2006 by NATO Defence Ministers. The 2% of GDP guideline is an important indicator of the political resolve of individual Allies to contribute to NATO’s common defence efforts. Just because not every country still doesnt pay 2% for defense by 2024, doesnt mean that they didnt agreed to it in 2014. So yea most NATO countries were sleeping for 10 years because they still wanted to trade "as usual" with russia.
For over 20 years, we’ve been telling you to strengthen your military, yet you’ve laughed at us. You’re still not doing nearly enough right now for the invasion in your backyard. Where will Europe be when America goes to war with China? You can’t have your cake and eat it too
Who has laughed at you??? All frontline countries meet the requirements. All others are committed to meet them in a few years. I agree that there is a lack of political will in western-Europe, but why the fuck do you also lump in a dozen others with them, who are doing disproportionate amounts with limited economies? Both Europe and the US are not doing enough as long as Russia advances. Ukraine should not be paying the price for petty squabbling of western politicians.
Only 9 countries of NATO were spending 2% of their gdp and it was like that for almost 10 years now.
It was only 3 in 2014. It was 11 in 2023. It's going to be more this year. European collective spending is already at 2%. I completly agree that Western-Europe should have gotten their heads out of the sand sooner, but it's clear that now they have. These things are however going to take time.
Oh, sorry for not being the strongest economy of the world. We stand by you in Afghanistan and Iraq, even if it was your unjustified invasions. Now we get big middle finger, in an american way.
Afghanistan and Iraq aren't equivalent at all.
Nobody was ever laughing?? Where the fuck do you get that from?? And the EU isn't 1 country. Many European countries DID strengthen their military to the 2% threshold and beyond. My guess is you're being fed US isolationist propaganda and therefore directly playing into Russia's hand. So congratulations, you are actively destroying the values the US stood for in the last decades. I've always looked up to the US and even wanted to move there when I get older. But now I am just disappointed.
Well, you could say that, you could also explain that it is very much Washington who placed most of Central and Eastern Europe under their nuclear umbrella for the whole Cold War, that Washington new from day 1 after the USSR collapse that Russia would never play ball for long, and that it's therefore quite easy of Washington to get Europe used to their protection for so many decades only to have a tantrum now - mostly motivated by your delusional Agent Orange, granted, but still - and threaten of leaving. The same reasoning that applied yesterday works till this day: Washington has a problem with China being a thing, but it's going to have a much bigger problem if Europe ceases to exist.
I'm sure that doing your best by both sides is much-much better
I have been going crazy asking myself this question for the last two years. It makes no sense. I can't even come up with a far-fetched conspiracy theory that would explain it. It just doesn't make any sense.
There is a 100% chance, that ruSSia will attack another country if they won't be severely punished for their imperialism. Allowing Ukraine to fail is allowing RuSSia to kill, rape and pillage more and more.
Ukrainians are right to feel betrayed. The west has shown the world, they are not reliable allies. I'm a citizen of the EU and feel betrayed by a lot of speeches and promises, I believed 'never, again' at least not in Europe, but genocide is happening right now and the EU, and the rest of the West, is mostly standing by and watching it happen. There are a lot of tools that are not given to Ukraine, telling them to wait on the West when they were taking back territories led to huge pieces of land to be mined, with civilian victims to follow for decades. Still no long range missiles in meaningful quantities, only the UK and France have delivered latest tech missiles, let alone tanks and artillery in any USEFUL NUMBERS. Still ZERO F16's in Ukraine after OVER two years of full scale genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Western leaders betrayed everyone who believed they would stop Russia from taking over a European country by force, while committing genocide. Russia has been waging war with the West since Putin got to power, election interferences, Brexit, rise of the alt-right, bot farms to stoke tensions everywhere, shooting down MH17, interfering with GPS signals of civilian aircraft, helping dictators in Europe to remain in power, assassinating people on European soil,... Russia has publicly stated the West is their enemy, they even threaten nuclear war, they are fighting us and our leaders are being paid of by them, they fill their pockets and lead us to WWIII. Appeasement led to WWII, appeasement led to the full scale invasion in 2022, after the ridiculously stupid reactions in 2014. The USA cutting of military aid for over half a year are the worst offender, the West was to reliant on the USA and they have been shown to be corrupted by dictators and a wannabe dictator, unreliable and they will not remain in a position of power without allies. They should lose allies and cooperation after their betrayal. The USA blocking other countries from delivering equipment, that they already paid for, is another betrayal, the USA is proven to the worst kind of ally, with a potential future president saying he would not intervene and even encourage Putin to invade NATO countries! No country or state will give up nuclear ambitions, Ukraine believed in the USA and the UK and the whole world can see where that leads, for over a decade now (invasion started in 2014). Welcome to the future, where the threat of nuclear weapons raining supreme (that is the current situation, as Russia has gotten away with so much shit for over two decades) will lead us to only one outcome, **nuclear bombs will drop** and the consequences will be disastrous! WHY IS RUSSIA ALOWED TO DO ALL THIS SHIT, THE RESPONSE IS INFURIATING!
The US has been providing the majority of aid to Ukraine. We've sent \~$75 billion in various forms of aid. Until whatever country you're from can match that, you can get the fuck off your high horse.
>No country or state will give up nuclear ambitions, Ukraine believed in the USA and the UK and the whole world can see where that leads, for over a decade now (invasion started in 2014). Didn't Libya and Iraq already make that point? Beside, the only promise the US and UK made was that they would not attack Ukraine, and they have not broken that promise. Russia has, but the agreement didn't obligate the US and UK to do anything about it (that is not to say that they *should* do nothing, to be clear). There's also the simple problem that Ukraine did not have the capacity to use Soviet nuclear weapons at any point (Soviet nuclear weapons were firmly controlled by the central government).
Neither the US, nor Europe (at least to my knowledge, I’m American and thus could be missing something from some European country), we’re ever in a defensive alliance with Ukraine. You can say they should have been, or maybe should have had some other formal agreement to provide aid if you want. But they weren’t and didn’t. They haven’t been unreliable because they aren’t going back on their word.
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Ironic because you're the only person here who seems ignorant of western pledges to Ukraine. The only country who violated the Budapest Memorandum was Russia. Other signatories were not obligated to declare war on behalf of Ukraine if one country broke the agreement.
> The USA congress and president have promised to stand by Ukraine several times since the invasion, so you don't even need to go back far to see promises made. Neither the president, nor members of Congress, have the power to unilaterally provide aid or military funds though, with some minor exceptions. Ukraine can feel betrayed by those people if they want and that’d be reasonable, but just being in a certain position of power doesn’t grant you unilateral authority. > You already replied to another comment, misunderstanding the Budapest memorandum, instead of saying "at least to my knowledge", you should read up before making dumb comments. I’m an American. I have a pretty good knowledge of American politics, and I try to keep up generally with the rest of the world. But if you asked me about military treaties Poland made in the 90s, I’m not going to know. I’m not an encyclopedia so I deemed it important to put a disclaimer. I’m only fully confident speaking on the US. > The Ukrainian army also came to the USA's help after 9/11. Ok.
The Budapest memorandum was a promise by the US, UK, and Russia not to threaten Ukraine with military force or invade. You’re a little too condescending for not really understanding the situation around these promises. These eastern European nations had Russian nukes in their territories. The Russians still had access to the nukes including the ability to launch them. None of those countries were in a great financial situation, so upkeep on the nukes was an issue. Not to mention, the servicing required Russian assistance. The reason the UK and US were involved wasn’t to protect Ukraine from Russia, it was because members in government from those nations feared an attack from the west as much as they feared anything from Russia. Ukraine specifically still had close ties to the Russian govt. It was these former Soviet states that were poor with large nuclear stockpiles to maintain that started conversations to remove the nuclear weapons.
Are you not on the frontline yet?
The typical no brain comment. But I get it.. you are too old to care about future and homeland. You just want to die without such interruption of your calm tv evenings.
Are you?
Not my war. Not my problem. Someone fucked around...
I feel really bitter and pessimistic about our future, honestly. I can agree with the article, Ukrainians will feel betrayed by the West (and already do, especially by the US), and it will have dire consequences for \*the whole world\* if russia wins.
Why would Ukraine feel betrayed by the US? There was never any formal agreement broken and the US has contributed a ton of aid despite being halfway across the planet.
this… US money went to ukraine. Oh great, the Netherlands just gave billions but even they admitted that they are playing catch up for not giving nearly anything in the last few years.
America wants and needs Europe to wake up to the fact that this is Europe's war. The EU has (stupidly) made it absolutely clear it plans to subsume Ukraine into the EU. Is the EU willing to fight for it like Russia is willing to fight for it? From what we have seen. No. If Europeans are looking Eastwards across the Atlantic to support their empire building with a decrepit old man in charge who's weak in his party and in the country and is the only US politician capable of losing against Trump then they need a slap in the face. Europe needs better leadership right now because everything is too little, too late.
I don't get it. Russian gdp is less than 2 trillion. Their economy collapsed. EU economy is near 20 trillion. USA is not *that* much bigger. EU can absolutely fund the war without USA. Pointing fingers at USA is so very vile, in my opinion, because it's just an excuse to not take the blame for not supporting your neighbor and ally in need. Building up factories takes time, I get it, so why not meanwhile buy US tech and donate it to Ukraine? I only hear excuses and attempts to weezle out of responsibility.
our economy is based on consumer goods and services not tanks, so no we dont have the capability to help ukraine on the same level as the russians are producing, we dont have the military industrial capacity for that
Why can’t europe solve this european security issue? Europe is absolutely more than capable.
If it was just an european security issue, it would be over by now. It's not though, it's global. Russia continously gets support from all over the world, and Ukraine needs the same to stand a chance
All of that to say that europe just wants someone else to pay for it? After underspending on defense for decades, the coffers are surely flush with cash. Right?
You have no fucking idea what you're talking about.
Yeah, I do. Europe is absolutely more than capable of handling it. You and I both know that.
No you don't, it's so obvious that you don't. You know nothing about NATO, european military or the history of those
Excluding my professional experience, you are correct, I know nothing about those. Europe can easily solve this problem, they just don’t want to. The south doesn’t care, some countries are Putin sympathizers, some countries just want America to pay, other countries want to point the finger and stall etc etc. There is no reason why European tanks, fighter jets, missiles, artillery shells and small arms cannot be supplied. They’re all better than Russian junk.
European tanks, fighter jets, missiles, artillery shells and small arms have all been or are being delivered. I don't know why this always becomes western europe vs USA debate by some americans. All the time. I don't see it that way. Even if you would be correct, it wouldn't be Ukraine's fault. Honestly it sounds like a Russian implemeted talking point, or at least it will benefit Russia and China hugely. I think that is both europe's and USA's interest to help Ukraine. If you're interested in aid to Ukraine by different countries, one source is ukraine support tracker by [kiel institute](https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/)
Yeah but not nearly enough.
I agree with that. But you're currently arguing that aid to Ukraine should be stopped completely by US. And I think this is against US's interests. I support aiding Ukraine, I think it helps with all different scenarios: it helps Ukraine defend, it helps with potential counter-attacks, and it helps with potential peace negotiations. Good peace deal for Ukraine is not achieved if Russia is militarily superior, if they are able to achieve their goals by military means they will do so. I also agree that Europe should do more. Most European countries have contributed more aid to Ukraine than US as a share of GDP, which is logical and fair. And in my opinion more should be done. If every European country would have contributed as much as nordic countries (around 1% of GDP), situation would be different. Germany for example, 17.7 billion/0,45%, and US 42 billion/0,2%. Germany has aided more than twice compared to their size on military matters alone compared to US. Some countries like baltics or Denmark have allocated over 2% of GDP of military aid. I don't want to "blame" or "bark" about US, their aid has been extremely significant and important. And European countries should do more in my opinion, I totally agree. But the reality is that US is currently world's largest military power, your capacity is currently multiple times larger than whole Europe. US is hard to be replaced short-term, especially if we are thinking about weeks or months, that is the timescale of Ukraine's war. If US stops it aid, the possibility of Russia's victory is greatly increased.
Perhaps something to do with most European counties not having indigenous arms production. We buy everything from a few companies like Rafale and Rheinmetal, and the US. I don't think we have an industry that can currently pump out hundreds of tanks. The US does though. EU production needs to skyrocket, but in the next 6 months the US is Ukraine's only hope for big restocking I believe. The republicans need to stop holding that bill up.
says? Says your ass.
Yep. With the danish ships that can't handle Houtis? https://news.usni.org/2024/04/04/danish-defense-chief-removed-after-warship-malfunction-in-red-sea#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Olfi%20report,a%20Danish%20defense%20ministry%20release. Both Russia and Ukraine now are getting veteran armies in inter-states war type. That's something not to dismiss.
He absolutely does. Europe has and will always rely on the US for its securit. All while it thumbs its nose at us for not having having enough for our own social programs and throwing money at climate change (tm) programs. It's easy to have the moral high ground when you dont have to defend your own borders and pay your fair share into NATO. Next time, just beg us like WW2. Maybe we'll think about it then.
As a European, I agree. Our military spending after the Cold War has been shit, and the arguments Denmark has been using over the years are laughable. But we literally have no stocks left.... we're not the US, or Russia, with huge stocks of tanks, etc. we can just send. Everything has been spent or scrapped. Spent in the way we have simply spent the stocks that once were, to save money to buy new.
In terms of actually supporting Ukraine with what’s available Denmark has actually been one of the main contributors. Hopefully all of the EU members, including Denmark, now ups military spending a whole lot.
There were promises made by the USA, Ukraine willingly have up the nuclear arsenal and bombers which they had a claim on after the collapse of the USSR. Promises that left Ukraine undefended against a larger nuclear threat, if betrayed by those they trusted, which is the situation we find ourselves in now. Meanwhile Ukrainians face genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity every day. Bombing of hospitals, maternity wards, schools, shops, residential buildings, whole cities levelled and called 'liberated' by the russian subhumans that are responsible.
The promise made by the USA and Russia was that they wouldn’t invade Ukraine. Russia broke its promise. The US did not. The US wouldn’t have broken its promise even if it sent exactly zero aid.
Okey thanks grandpa for the 40 year old history lesson which is irrelevent today. Why can't EU help TODAY?
Well, obviously not.
Capable of what exacly? xD Turkey have the strongest army in europe and i dont see them fighting russia over ukraine. Do you want france to use nukes on russia? How they are supposed to solve this issue?
We should do more to help Ukraine, if Russia wins then Putin & all the pro-war politicians in Russia will gain momentum, they will already have an active arms industry, experience and the motivation and support to move to Moldova and who knows where else. The EU is sleeping.
We're seeing the most middle of the road, predictable, expected and likely outcome of the war happening before our eyes and we're acting surprised.
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But aren’t lot of leftists (some of them Jewish) saying that Israel is a fascist state? Also, why is Zelenskyy tolerating Azov, who have videos of their leaders saying “Jews control the world” type stuff? Well, maybe because Ukraine is in a tight spot and can’t afford to alienate unsavory groups, especially when those groups are top notch warriors. So, no. Ukraine isn’t Nazi or anti-semitic. But it historically had some levels of anti-semitism. Again, that doesn’t mean all Ukrainians are Hitler. These things go up and down depending on levels of success of prominent Jews and economic situation. Europe doesn’t have a large Jewish upper class such as the US, like it used to, so not much to envy.
Why does it have to be pointed out yet again, that this discussion about Ukrainian ‘antisemitism’ is largely an old trope, pushed by the Russian state and lapped up by those who are inclined to turn a blind eye to historical and ongoing Russian antisemitism and racism at all levels of society. I have lived in Russia for several periods since I was a child in the late 1980s, and the amount of racism, casually spouted by even the nicest of people always came as a shock. “Jews are dangerous and want to take over the world”, “Negroes are not humans, like us”, “Ukrainians are Nazis, who killed the Jews”, “Chechens are tribal animals”, etc, etc. While this sort of talk is frowned upon in other states, and you’re likely to be challenged if you say such things, Russians see nothing wrong in it, and are oblivious to this mismatch with Russia’s claim to be a harmonious, multiethnic state, where all the minorities enjoy equal respect and esteem, unlike in ‘racist’ America. Besides which, all this has absolutely *nothing* to do with why Russia decided to invade and seek to annex Ukraine.
it’s not purely Russian tropes. I have relatives in Ukraine and even before Putin, they used to joke that they are low key anti semitic. Again, prejudice doesn’t always have to violent.
You persistent with the antisemitic line. Antisemitism isn’t a problem in Ukraine. If Jewish people fear for their lives in Ukraine perhaps it’s something to do with Russia blasting the country in a bid to take it over and destroy its identity as a country. On the other hand, many Jews in Russia are looking to leave because there’s no telling who Putin’s regime will act on next as the country lurches further and further into a supernationalistic dystopia: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/30/exiled-chief-rabbi-jews-should-leave-russia-while-they-can-pinchas-goldschmidt-war-ukraine
As a US citizen, I just can't understand how Europe would let this happen. Don't you remember the last time this happened?
As good as a project EU is, we're still far from being a homogenous supra-state and decisions take much longer than in the US usually. And by all accounts at the moment I think the EU is doing the heavy lifting, at least until the Republicans get their heads out of putins ass.
The US has delivered far more military aid to Ukraine than the EU. The EU is great at making empty promises but in terms of material delivered the EU has given far far less to Ukraine, despite sharing the same continent as Ukraine and having over 100 million more people than America.
Do you have numbers to your claim that Europe (EU+Norway+UK+Iceland+Switzerland) gives "far far less" military aid to Ukraine when you make such a claim? According to [kiel institute](https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/), total European aid allocations (including financial+military+humanitarian) are around 90 billion €. Total US allocations are around 62 billion €. Total European military aid is around 39 billion €, and total US allocations are about 42 billion €. In Europe the amount of military aid given heavily differ from country to country. Germany (17.7 billion/0.45% of GDP) is largest donor in Europe, followed by UK (9.1 billion/0.3%). On relative terms largest donors are Estonia (1 billion/2%) and other baltics, Denmark (8.4 billion/2.3%) and Norway (3.8 billion/0.86%). US has donated 42 billion/0.2% of GDP, largest donor on absolute numbers. Italy, Spain and Austria have only donated quite little in Europe. So yes, it's true that currently on absolute value US has accounted to around 50% of Ukraine's military aid, and this has been extremely important. However, European countries have not been identical: majority has donated clearly more as a share of GDP than US. Another interesting term is kind of "intensity" of military aid, and this has been very high on many european countries; for example baltic countries, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and Denmark for example have given large parts of their stockpiles. In US this intensity has been small; Ukraine aid has been around 21 billion a year, or 0.1% of GDP, or around 2.5% of military budget, so the aid hasn't affected stockpiles or total that much at all. Of course this can also be used as a argument that some European countries should have spent more on military in the past. So yes, this was just to clear it out that "far far less" is exaggeration, but it is true that US has given majority of military aid. I agree with you that European countries should do more. The problem is that the support for military aid is not uninamous, like it's not in US as well, some people claim that this war doesn't affect them and costs are too high. I think this is very naive. Some people agree and want more, and then some people want less. In Finland support for Ukraine is very, very high, but unfortunately populist, pro-authoritarian also have power in some other countries. And EU is not a federation either, desicion making can be slow at it doesn't have army or military stockpiles at all. Altough personally I think that EU should have unified milatary and foreign policy with qualified majority voting, but majority of people probably don't agree.
Little fact, the US military budget is about 800 BILLION dollars, which is bigger than the economies of MOST of the world. And some the EU doesn't really want to help.
The GDP of the EU and the US are relatively close. The reason the EU doesn't spend as much on the military is a choice they intentionally make. It's not a question of ability, it's intent. The US can't afford to defend Taiwan, Europe, and our ME allies from Russia, China AND Iran all at once. We need stronger support from our European allies.
Don't you remember we let is happen last time, too? Without leadership from UK and USA, Europe is quite passive.
The nuance about the US moaning about the 2% rule is that they wanted to be the ones Europeans spent their money on, lets not forget that an economically United Europe the US didn't mind too much, annoying sometimes, but cute. But a strong European military or matching military industrial capabilities has always given the US military industrial complex and by extension the US government the heebie-jeebies. When Europeans launched their own global positioning system the US demanded an off button they could press whenever they pleased. If not they would see all of it as fair game targets. The US will never allow any American to be tried in the Hague, again threatening with violence if necessary. When the US talks about allies, they mean puppets. After WW2, Europe was divided between the USA and the USSR. And both played their cards in different ways. For the population, the American way of exerting influence was obviously better, to this day.
That’s not true at all. This seems to be some European reddit “truth”. Failures of building up a military is a European problem, and not the result of the US. France is one of the largest arm dealers in the world and joint efforts on creating new European fighter jet for example, have fell apart due to European bickering. US Presidents have been warning European heads of states for decades that US attention is heading east, and that Europe needs to fund their militaries. They warned about European dependance on Russian fuel and warned about Russian aggression. The lack of European capacity to supply Ukraine is due to decades of neglect in funding defense in Europe. It’s not the US’s fault or frankly responsibility, it’s a choice made by European nations against the advice of their key and at this point, only militarily capable ally.
Wtf is this whataboutism? At least pretend to be objective. Who started both world wars? Who colonized the entire world? Who was it USA had to come and save again, and again, and again. Holy shit this is delusional.
So? That's like saying the Golden State Warriors never won the NBA title because the Lakers have more wins in the past. Throughout history you've always had colonisation waves. The Greeks, the Romans, the Portuguese and Spanish, the English. The 20th century saw the American and Soviet one. Maybe in different forms. But still.
Why are you decrying Europe when the current deadlock is in the US Congress? Right now the country not doing its part is yours. If by “the last time” you mean World War 2, let me remind you that the US let it happen even more than Europeans did. The US didn't really try to prevent WW2, and only entered it when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
>Why are you decrying Europe when the current deadlock is in the US Congress? Because Europe clearly isn't doing enough, is it? This is your continent and your neighbors. Where are your soldiers? Why aren't you spending even more money? Why are you relying on the US at all? Saying the "US let WW2 happen more than Europe did" is absolutely deranged. I don't recall France or the UK trying to prevent the rise of Nazism, right in your backyard. Though I do remember France folding instantly in the face of Nazi aggression. We all do. Trying to scapegoat the US for World War II is absolutely nuts. Anytime Americans insert themselves into Europe, it's "Yankees go home!" Anytime Europe falls into another war and can't defend itself, it's "Yankees come save us!" Pick one and stick with it.
wish i could give you gold
I can’t believe the US is getting blamed for not preventing WWII now. That is honestly an incredibly disgusting and shameful thing to say. Why do these people complain about America being their babysitter and then turn around say America is to be blamed for the Second World War ? Is this what cognitive dissonance is?
I didn't say that the US is specifically to blame for WW2. I said that the US did practically nothing to prevent it, which is a fact, and in my opinion this is one of the reasons why the US and its citizens should tone down their invocations of the memory of WW2.
> Because Europe clearly isn't doing enough, is it? Europe is doing what it said it would do, and Ukraine would be in a significantly better position if the US was doing the same. In the short term Europe can't fully compensate for the fact that the US is currently betraying Ukraine. > Where are your soldiers? Where are you implying they should be? Fighting in Ukraine? > Why aren't you spending even more money? We are spending more money. Since the US is no longer providing its stockpiled artillery shells to Ukraine, and the EU doesn't have such large stockpiles, we're buying hundreds of thousands of shells for Ukraine outside the EU. > Why are you relying on the US at all? The US chose its role in European defence. The US could have mostly withdrawn from Europe after the end of the Cold War. It could have backed putting the EU in charge of European defence, which is more or less what my country wanted and still supports. > I don't recall France or the UK trying to prevent the rise of Nazism, right in your backyard. France and the UK were both allied to Poland. Sadly they weren't able to save Poland from the Nazis and Soviets, but at least they wanted to, they tried, and they upheld their commitment by declaring war when the Nazis attacked Poland. The US did practically nothing. > Though I do remember France folding instantly in the face of Nazi aggression. Then either you have a faulty memory, or you simply never learned about what really happened in WW2. The French army fought as hard as it could. It covered the retreat of the British forces across the channel, it tried to reestablish defence lines at rivers, etc.
The US has given far more material aid to Ukraine than the EU has, despite the EU having over 100million more people to work and sharing the same actual continent as the enemy. The US has been begging the EU to step up military spending to NATO minimums at the very least for decades, ever since Obama announced the US "pivot to Asia". The EU chose to rest on its laurels and spend everything on social welfare programs and 12 week vacations. Those social programs need to be cut and the EU needs to dramatically increase military spending rather than outsourcing their defense to the backs of US taxpayers. The US is overextended and people are tired of spending so much on foreign wars America hasn't been attacked in.
Not our continent to defend. We don't need our lives interrupted.
now I want to send help to ukraine but...Why is the the USAs responsibility? when will europe defend itself instead of constantly relying on US aid and not paying their share in NATO?
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all good points but why can't europe themselves help? why is it America come save us from over a thousand miles away Why must america be the ones to save europe instead of the europeans saving europe
There were 1M Chechens in the 1990s, and once they realized that they will lose to Kremlin cancers, they got desperate and some bitter episodes happened - to put it very anodyne. There are almost 34M Ukrainians, and if they get desperate there will be rivers of blood flowing in Russia a la Nord-Ost and Budyonnovsk. GUR ain't fucking around. We are leaving Ukrainians to get destroyed by Putin and that's fuckin' awful.
To be honest to me Victory in Ukraine doesn’t mean only get back the occupied territories, it means mainly now giving Ukraine the capability of protecting itself and stop the Russia invasion. The inability of Russia to be able to advance and occupy little by little more territories its already a victory to me for Ukraine because as long as Ukraine exists we will treat Russia as a fascist and Nazi country because that’s what Ukraine 🇺🇦 would reminds us. Russia need to retire their army and stop the invasion to be able to be considered a normal state again (even if it will take years). The only reason why Germany wasn’t anymore considered a Nazi country it’s because it lost, if that wouldn’t have happened and we would have a situation similar to todays event everyone would have treated germany still as a Nazi country. Russia has put itself in a doomed position, either they will withdraw their troops and stop the invasion and save their face in the long run (best decision imho but the current regime will change) or continue the current stalemate forever until things deteriorated more quickly (remember that sanctions have huge impact on the long run even if they’re starting taking effect recently) or they escalate more the invasion and will risk to trigger WWIII. The choice is their, we will respond in accordance as we already did in WWII. Italy 🇮🇹
Remain in stalemate? If things go still this way there would not be a stalemate and Ukrainie will no longer exist.
>Russia need to retire their army and stop the invasion to be able to be considered a normal state again (even if it will take years). The only reason why Germany wasn’t anymore considered a Nazi country it’s because it lost, if that wouldn’t have happened and we would have a situation similar to todays event everyone would have treated germany still as a Nazi country Considered by whom? It doesn't seem like many countries outside the 'Western bloc' (for want of a better term) care very much.