[HN Gopher] U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine
___________________________________________________________________
U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine
Author : ZeroCool2u
Score : 414 points
Date : 2025-03-04 01:04 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| bigyabai wrote:
| https://archive.ph/o2BXL
| Trasmatta wrote:
| This was clearly the plan all along. The farce at the White House
| was just the pretense.
| jordanb wrote:
| Yeah I think the whole thing was planned in Riyadh between
| Trump, Putin and MBS.
|
| Which makes one wonder what MBS's role is. My theory is that he
| will organize OPEC production cuts, designed to boost Russia's
| economy and crush Europe's.
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| Putin's stated aims are the expansion of Russia to 100 year
| old borders and the destruction of the EU. So that figures,
| yes.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| OPEC just announced an increase. MBS wants to hurt US shale
| so when trump drills more they push the price down.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Wouldn't that just accelerate Europe's transition to EVs?
| They could even import Chinese EVs to make oil mostly
| irrelevant in a year or so.
| arbitrary_name wrote:
| Europe is far more dependent on oil for industry and
| manufacturing than for simply transport. The high energy
| prices are killing the German manufacturing sector, while
| cheap Chinese imports will crush the domestic auto
| industry.
|
| Terrible double blow that is enabling far right politics
| and populism.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://bsky.app/profile/ronfilipkowski.bsky.social/post/3lj...
| nuccy wrote:
| Thus two messages for every other country:
|
| 1. Make nukes, never give up on those regardless of what
| assurances of safety you get
|
| 2. If you are bigger and stronger - you are right, do whatever
| you want, international laws and rules do not matter any more
|
| Lets see where all this will bring the world to in the next 10
| years or a generation.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > Lets see where all this will bring the world to in the next
| 10 years or a generation.
|
| We've seen this movie before. It doesn't go well.
| EGreg wrote:
| Well, in the 90s Clinton negotiated the Agreed framework with
| North Korea not to get nukes in exchange for lowering
| sanctions. Then Bush admin called it "appeasement" and let it
| die. Then NK got nukes.
|
| Obama's admin negotiated the JCPOA deal with Iran, same thing.
| They put the most inspectors ever in any country to make sure
| Iran doesn't get nukes. Trump's admin then unilaterally ended
| it.
|
| Tom Cotton and Republicans openly warned Iran during Obama's
| admin that the US is fickle and will change its policy as soon
| as administrations change. This has been going on ever since
| treaties with the Native Americans ("white man speaks with
| forked tongue") but the Cotton letter was refreshingly honest:
|
| https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cotton-and...
|
| The messages for every country to get nukes have been loud and
| clear, but no country has done it in the southern hemisphere,
| for instance. Even though USA had been involved in regime
| change or invasions of almost all of them in the last 80 years:
| https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2022/09/13/us-251-military-i...
| cratermoon wrote:
| > no country has done it in the southern hemisphere, for
| instance
|
| South Africa
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| Also Europe will have to increase its nuclear arsenal since it
| is clear that Europe can't no longer rely on US. Europe was too
| trusting for too long.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| They could ally with China. The Chinese are only frenemies
| with Russia anyways, and they make way much more money
| trading with the rest of Europe.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Perhaps surprisingly, Europe has more nuclear weapons than
| China (France: 290 warheads, UK: 225 warheads, China: 500
| warheads). China never really bought into the mutually
| assured destruction doctrine in the same way that the US
| and Soviet Union did.
| gruez wrote:
| Their stockpile is estimated to grow to 1500 by 2035.
|
| https://www.economist.com/cdn-
| cgi/image/width=1424,quality=8...
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I don't think the Chinese have been sitting still for the
| last 10 years, and I doubt they will sit still for the
| next 10 years.
| rsynnott wrote:
| I mean, see Doctor Strangelove. If you have a doomsday
| weapon, that's only helpful if you _tell_ people about
| it! If China had built loads of warheads, they'd hardly
| keep that secret, as most of these point of having loads
| of warheads is for everyone else to know you had them.
|
| Realistically, by the time China and France got on the
| nuclear scene, doctrine had shifted from "nuclear
| torpedos, nuclear guns, nuclear landmines, nuclear
| everything" to "you have some submarines with missiles;
| you can have other stuff if you want, but no-one cares
| about it". There's little point in having thousands of
| warheads, these days.
|
| (The UK did briefly go down the 'nuclear everything'
| road, but pulled back for cost/sanity reasons)
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I meant that your data is out of date, and China has
| moved quickly in the last ten years. They went in the
| last ten years from being able to just hit the west coast
| to hitting all the way up to the Midwest, do you think
| they won't have some amount of increased coverage in the
| next, especially with their space program accelerating
| their ICBM program?
|
| The truth is that China hit MAD awhile ago and doesn't
| really need to play up or even build much more on its
| nuclear arsenal. They are better off investing in
| conventional warfare for the near term, and especially in
| new arms like drones that give them an actual advantage
| in future conflicts.
| bobongo wrote:
| There will be a world war within the next 3 years, not 10.
| moi2388 wrote:
| There already is. It's just done through non-conventional
| means, hybrid warfare and proxies, since all superpowers have
| nukes now.
| DanielVZ wrote:
| Also the cyberspace, where Trump just recently surrendered
| to Moscow as well.
| Terr_ wrote:
| With respect to how Ukraine yielded up nukes while Russia gave
| "assurances" that they would respect Ukrainian borders [0],
| Putin has claimed it doesn't count now because it's a different
| Ukraine.
|
| If that's really how he feels, then it's time to expel the
| imposter "Russia" that's been falsely posing as a member of the
| United Nations Security Council, because it's not _reeealy_ the
| USSR...
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum
| TheSunSet wrote:
| This has been true since 1945
| jesterson wrote:
| > If you are bigger and stronger - you are right, do whatever
| you want, international laws and rules do not matter any more
|
| Rules never mattered in history. it's always up to strongest to
| impose their version of "fairness".
| notarobot123 wrote:
| It's not always the biggest and strongest. Sometimes it's the
| many.
|
| Rules matter as long as they are enforced. It's only when
| enforcement is asymmetrical that problems begin.
| jesterson wrote:
| As a matter of fact, strongest has the capacity to enforce
| rules. My statement still stands
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| And the strongest used to have a better version of fairness
| for so long countries got complacent and didn't realize how
| quickly it could flip on them
| jyscao wrote:
| > If you are bigger and stronger - you are right, do whatever
| you want, international laws and rules do not matter any more
|
| In reality, that was always the case.
| codedokode wrote:
| "International laws" are also a weird thing. There is no
| international parliament, international police and
| international court. I think the only viable agreements are
| of a kind "if you don't do A then we don't do B".
| Nathanba wrote:
| >In reality, that was always the case.
|
| *while everybody made sure that they would band together to
| punish such behavior as the even bigger and stronger combined
| force
| boruto wrote:
| Did the rules matter when hundreds of thousands of iraqi s were
| killed on lies?
| JeremyNT wrote:
| Yes. If Ukraine kept the soviet nukes, they wouldn't be in this
| position.
|
| Non-proliferation - and relying on the benevolence of a few
| mercurial and spiteful superpowers - is, in hindsight, a
| horrible miscalculation.
| arunabha wrote:
| It would be one thing if there was a clear policy and adherence
| to it. In that case, you could discuss and reason in good faith.
| However there is no such indication that this decision is based
| on a considered policy.
|
| Trump's supporters would say that this is a result of not wanting
| the US being involved in foreign conflicts. That is a laudable
| goal, however that is not what is happening here. From the
| article
|
| > On Friday, the administration said it was sending Israel nearly
| $3 billion in new weapons, including more than 35,000 new 2,000
| pound bombs, invoking an emergency rule under U.S. arms control
| laws.
|
| This just makes it look like a petty tantrum at best and a wilful
| desire to cleave our relationship with Europe at worst.
|
| Yes, we can all argue that Europe needs to be less dependent on
| the US, however what's on the other side of that is not pretty
| for the United States. Our ability to have the world's de facto
| reserve currency and hence our ability to sustain debt loads way
| in excess of usual is largely dependent on the US being the
| world's cop and sole superpower.
|
| A truly multipolar world might be good for the world, but it's
| certainly not going to be good for the United States.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Good for Europe in the long run (potentially)
| jltsiren wrote:
| It's one thing to stop all aid to Ukraine. That makes you an
| asshole in a world full of assholes. But it's another thing to
| do that while simultaneously working to restore relations with
| Russia. There is only one word for that: evil.
|
| Back in the late 90s to late 2000s, people in Western Europe
| generally had pretty negative views of the US. It was the
| country that refused to fight against climate change, launched
| an invasion of another country based on obvious lies, and so
| on. People were genuinely debating whether Bush was a bigger
| villain than Putin. And it wasn't just about the young and the
| left. Our elites hated Bush so much that they gave the next guy
| a Nobel Peace Prize for not being him.
|
| Since then, Putin has worked hard to raise the bar for being a
| bigger villain. But Trump seems to be genuinely trying to
| compete.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Why do people think it is so far fetched that Trump is a
| Russian asset given his behavior in his last term (trying to
| blackmail Zelenskyy on an official call) and his credit
| problems in the past (no banks would lend to him given his
| failure to pay back any loan, with the exception of an
| obscure channel through a German bank)? Perhaps Trump is just
| in debt to Putin and this is payback, he was intentionally
| crass to Zelenskyy because he wanted to provoke him and find
| an excuse to revoke US aid. If it barks like a dog, often
| it's really a dog.
| salynchnew wrote:
| I don't go in for most conspiracy theories, but there is
| this:
| https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/17/deutsche-
| ba...
|
| (second half of the article)
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| The MAGA crowd literally is all about conspiracy
| theories, heck, Trump is the head conspiracy theorist-
| and-chief.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| The phone was a domestic politics issue.
|
| Actual Russian assets exist, people like Jackson Hinkle and
| Tim Pool. Trump generally doesn't fit the mold.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| A good method is to make predictions based on an
| assumption. A month ago, a CRAZY prediction of actions if
| Trump was a Russian agent would be:
|
| Active attempts to remove Zelinsky. Stop all aid. Remove
| sanctions on Russia. Stop are cyber activity and planning
| of such against Russia.
|
| Trump has done all of the above (well he's only ordered
| the removing of sanctions as of today).
| card_zero wrote:
| Would Russian oil, which I seem to remember is heavy in
| grade, replace Canadian oil, which I hear is similarly
| heavy, in US refineries, explaining the 25% tariff on
| Canada which is implausibly supposed to be about fentanyl
| controls?
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| It would need to be transported by ship which presents
| some problems. Canadian oil has pipelines which are very
| cheap.
| bradhe wrote:
| People don't want to admit it.
| tim333 wrote:
| I don't know how you define asset but it seems beyond doubt
| that Trump and Russia do each other favours.
| citrin_ru wrote:
| It's plausible that Trump owes some $$$ but what would stop
| Trump from just refusing to pay the debt back?
| ty6853 wrote:
| It would come as no surprise if Russian intelligence has
| some juicy blackmail material.
| gruez wrote:
| Against the man that seemingly suffered no setback from
| "grab her by the pussy" and all the various lawsuits?
| Henchman21 wrote:
| Yes. For example if he were caught in the act with other
| men? That might cause the MAGAs to turn on him.
| jajko wrote:
| Imagine having fun with animals, men, children, bsdm and
| so on. That's not even bottom of the pit.
|
| I mean he was a good friend with epstein and there are
| numerous videos of their friendly encounters (so did
| clinton, gates and so on just to be clear). Go figure.
|
| But I think he is just a small insecure emotional boy at
| the core, and thats enough if you know which buttons in
| which order to push. ruskies somehow figured that out, it
| seems israelis too during his first term.
| csa wrote:
| > Imagine having fun with animals, men, children, bsdm
| and so on. That's not even bottom of the pit.
|
| Other than children/minors, I don't think the others are
| likely. Possible, but not likely.
|
| Whatever kompromat they have was almost certainly came
| during the 2013 miss universe pageant in Russia. It would
| have been trivially easy to get an old enough-looking
| minor in the room with him.
| joquarky wrote:
| Yeah, this is where I'm at. Nothing sticks to him, and
| anything he does seems to get excused, so what kind of
| kompromat could even be severe enough to influence him?
| csa wrote:
| > It would come as no surprise if Russian intelligence
| has some juicy blackmail material.
|
| I'm pretty sure the only blackmail that could be bad
| enough to motivate Trump would be if he had relations
| with a minor. I'm pretty sure that's the only thing that
| could make the core of his base alienate him.
|
| Whatever kinks people speculate about, none of that will
| matter. In fact, I bet whatever kink he is into would
| instantly become more popular amongst his core
| constituents.
| ziml77 wrote:
| I'm not even convinced him doing things witch a minor
| would make his base hate him. More likely is they'll just
| call it a lie or excuse it as something like "well she
| looked old enough. What was he supposed to do, ask for
| her ID card?"
| josefresco wrote:
| Balconies
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| It's almost like he was once investigated for being a
| Russian agent motivated by Kompromat. I'm sure it has
| nothing to do with being a friend of Epstein and showing
| up in the manifests or Russian prostitutes with water
| sports or the 13 year old who sued him for raping her,
| not dissimilar from the civil lawsuit where he was found
| guilty for raping another woman, not dissimilar from him
| bragging he can just sexual assault any woman he wants.
| mandmandam wrote:
| They (the GOP, Democrats, national and intl intelligence
| agencies) all have blackmail on each other. It hasn't made
| sense to think about these issues purely on national lines
| for a long time - try thinking in terms of a large
| international mafia with various families and factions;
| held together by unspeakable secrets.
|
| Sarah Kendzior and Whitney Webb produce great writing about
| this, thoroughly sourced. For example, here's a piece from
| Sarah's latest newsletter Q and A:
|
| > What is the hold that Trump has over the Republicans? It
| has to be more than simply the threat of a primary. Do you
| think it involves threats of violence? It's a mystery to me
| what could be so frightening that this large group of
| people would forsake their country.
|
| > SK: Trump has leverage over the GOP due to 1) lifelong
| connections with organized crime and willingness to deploy
| violence 2) blackmail obtained long before 2016 via his
| mentor, mafia lawyer and GOP advisor Roy Cohn, and Cohn's
| networks 3) blackmail and state secrets Trump obtained
| during his first term 4) court packing that creates the
| potential of legal consequences for anyone who challenges
| him 5) bribery and/or shared evil goals with the GOP,
| though for many this incentive fades over time when they
| realize they will never be more than a disposable hired
| hand. Many Republicans were lured by corrupt ambition, but
| they stay due to fear.
|
| And lest you think this is a one-sided problem:
| https://sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/servants-of-the-
| mafia-s...
| NeutralCrane wrote:
| Lmao, this is the dumbest conspiracy theory I've read in
| a while. National politicians are afraid of being
| murdered by the Mafia on Trump's orders? Good grief.
|
| Even if you put the absurdity of that kind of thing
| aside, look at the actual facts. Trump burns through
| advisors and cabinet members on a nearly weekly basis,
| and many of those have gone on to become scathing critics
| of his. He has tons of vocal enemies from within the
| Republican Party, who are quickly sidelined or ousted but
| never harmed.
|
| The reason Republicans have all fallen in line behind
| Trump is because they ultimately want nothing more than
| power and wealth. Once it became clear that Trump has
| tapped into an indestructible movement of American
| populist stupidity that isn't going anywhere, anyone who
| wanted to have a job in Republican politics quickly
| figured out that there was only one way to do so: join
| the never ending Trump pep-rally.
| mandmandam wrote:
| > National politicians are afraid of being murdered by
| the Mafia on Trump's orders? Good grief.
|
| Not what I said, or what Sarah said. But yes, politicians
| are getting threatened because of Trump. Politicians
| themselves report receiving hundreds of death threats;
| some of them seriously credible [0].
|
| All Trump has to do is tweet, and people have their lives
| "turned upside down". They start getting death threats;
| even their boss gets threatened. And votes get changed
| around real quick. This is _documented_ , on record -
| like Trump's connections... You might ask yourself why
| you never heard about it, and what else you never hear
| about.
|
| > He has tons of vocal enemies from within the Republican
| Party, who are quickly sidelined or ousted but never
| harmed.
|
| Drama which doesn't affect votes, or _anything_ material,
| is best ignored as theater. Threats and theater - they do
| exist pal. They 're very much part of politics,
| especially in the US, and have been for a long long time.
|
| > Even if you put the absurdity of that kind of thing
| aside
|
| It's not absurd at all. If you believe US politicians -
| and international politicians - don't get threatened,
| then you don't understand the stakes, or the amount of
| money involved, or the characters of these people.
|
| > Once it became clear that Trump has tapped into an
| indestructible movement of American populist stupidity
| that isn't going anywhere, anyone who wanted to have a
| job in Republican politics quickly figured out that there
| was only one way to do so: join the never ending Trump
| pep-rally.
|
| And so Trump doesn't need or use blackmail, or threats of
| violence? Buddy. My guy.
|
| 0 - https://www.theguardian.com/us-
| news/2025/feb/27/republicans-...
| nprateem wrote:
| It's the only explanation that makes any sense.
|
| But it wouldn't be a financial debt more likely some
| humiliating kompromat. That's Trump's biggest fear.
|
| And Putin probably has plenty from Trump's visits there.
| narrator wrote:
| We allied with Stalin in world war III, now that's evil.
| Putin will be a good ally against China, who is an actual
| threat to the United States.
| 9dev wrote:
| An ally that has broken pretty much any agreement he has
| ever made, invades neighbouring countries and spins
| alternative facts around to justify it, suppresses and
| fights just about any values that the USA used to hold, and
| played a key role in the KGB, a hostile secret service? An
| ally that is ever more dependent on China economically?
|
| I refuse to believe you can be so dense to actually think
| that!
| wewxjfq wrote:
| It's so heavily being pushed on social media right now, I
| suspect it's coming from the same forces who tried to
| make people believe that Trump would deliver more weapons
| to Ukraine and that Trump would be the better option for
| Palestine.
| wewxjfq wrote:
| Let me quote Harry S. Truman:
|
| > If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia
| and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that
| way let them kill as many as possible.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Putin ally against China? He's the one who signed a "no
| limits" friendship deal with Xi Xinping. China and Russia
| are intimate trading partners and they have shared
| geopolitical interests. Why would he object if China wants
| to take over Taiwan or something?
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Oh look, new talking point on why aligning with Putin is
| actual fine has dropped.
| mayama wrote:
| > Our ability to have the world's de facto reserve currency and
| hence our ability to sustain debt loads way in excess of usual
| is largely dependent on the US being the world's cop and sole
| superpower.
|
| Dollar status as reserve currency started unravelling quite
| some time ago. It started with China's started becoming world's
| factory, more so after they got in to WTO and started using it
| to their advantage. My belief is that wallstreet believed that
| they could influence or coerce Chinese leadership into opening
| up Chinese economy and profit from that, all that G2 talk.
| China after 2008 crisis with ascension of Xi, belt road,
| challenges to foreign companies etc. acted completely against
| wallstreet expectations. Now, America can either try splitting
| world economy and be sole power in their sphere or start
| working towards multi polar world.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| Yes, but it would have taken a decade or more with sensible
| US policy.
|
| You were still benefiting from the setup, and were going to
| continue to benefit for a long time. Look at Boeing's
| valuation, for example. No profit, still higher market cap
| than Airbus.
| kstenerud wrote:
| This is, unfortunately about one thing only: The Nobel Peace
| Prize.
|
| As Trump sees it, Zelenskyy is blocking Trump's peace prize by
| not agreeing to his (very bad) terms that are designed with one
| purpose in mind: Quickly freezing the conflict so that he can
| declare himself peacemaker and get his prize (because Obama got
| his 9 months into his term).
|
| The Russians have been grooming him since the 80s (along with
| many others of that era - standard Soviet practice), flattering
| him and selling him on dreams of being president, and then
| after Obama got a peace prize, of getting his own Nobel prize.
|
| Watch what his aides are saying about the Nobel prize. He wants
| it BAD.
|
| This is why he told Zelenskyy: "You're either going to make a
| deal or we're out. And if we're out, you'll fight it out. I
| don't think that it's going to be pretty, but you'll fight it
| out. But you don't have the cards." This is why he said "Let me
| tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me." This is
| why he booted Zenelskyy out of the White House and banned him
| until he's "ready for peace"
|
| This is why he's going to end the sanctions against Russia, and
| if Europe continues to support Ukraine, sanction them instead.
| Anyone who blocks his Nobel Peace Prize is the enemy.
|
| Trump: "They probably will never give it to me, even what I'm
| doing in Korea, and in Idlib province and all of these places.
| They probably will never give it to me. You know why? Because
| they don't want to."
|
| Trump: "They will never give me a Nobel Peace Prize. It's too
| bad. I deserve it, but they will never give it to me."
| BobbyTables2 wrote:
| Was news to me, but crazy enough to seem plausible. I now see
| a lot of news headlines talking about it.
|
| On the bright side, if that happens, Alfred Nobel's grave
| will become a perpetual motion machine...
| Terr_ wrote:
| spin = audience_size * ((renown + defamation) /
| skeleton_mass
|
| https://dresdencodak.com/2010/06/10/dark-science-02/
| kstenerud wrote:
| The thing is, the Nobel Committee for the Peace Prize is
| Norwegian. And Norway has a land border with Russia...
| geysersam wrote:
| The thing what? That has absolutely nothing to do with it
| echoangle wrote:
| You don't think Norwegians will hesitate to give trump
| the peace price if he does what he does?
| Gud wrote:
| They absolutely will not give it to Trump. If anyone will
| get it, it will be the people of Ukraine.
| jajko wrote:
| Dude 'nobel' peace prize has nothing to do with actual
| scientific Nobel prices as they were originally intended,
| its highly political medal for various political stances
| and activism dobe by very different people.
|
| The list of its recipients with properly shameful past
| ain't short neither and I don't recall a single one
| recently which wasn't somehow controversial to put it
| mildly.
| dagss wrote:
| As a Norwegian ... the odds of a committee formed in
| Norway to select Trump for the peace prize is just zero.
| geysersam wrote:
| I didn't say that. I said their border with Russia
| doesn't influence that decision.
| echoangle wrote:
| But why wouldn't it? It seems sensible that Norwegians
| are more concerned with Russian aggression than the
| average westerner, so they would also disapprove more of
| trump, no?
| dmos62 wrote:
| Why?
| dagss wrote:
| The committee selecting the winner is formed of
| Norwegians. Norwegians "average worldview" and sources of
| information therefore affects who gets the prize.
| Rzor wrote:
| This is quite inconsistent because Trump conditioned the rare
| earths deal. If he wanted peace that badly, he wouldn't be
| imposing that. Also, you don't win a Peace Nobel by being a
| system spoiler like he is, creating instability left and
| right and branding a stick. That's completely delusional,
| even for him. He goes around talking about annexing Canada,
| taking Greenland, and displacing Palestinians -- where's the
| peace in that? Obama got his without doing shit, guess why:
| the Nobel Peace Prize is about who you upset, and I very much
| doubt the committee is fond of Trump, especially since they
| gave the prize to Obama.
| darthrupert wrote:
| They gave Obama the peace prize before he had done anything.
| He even mentioned how weird it was in his speech.
|
| I think we can say that the image of that prize is already in
| the mud, but of course giving it to Trump at this point would
| finish it off.
| 7bit wrote:
| This is not about the novel peace price. This is about
| resources that the US wants. And it's about displaying power.
|
| Don't make it anything less by talking about the novel prize.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Someone told trump he could get a peace prize for ending the
| war in Ukraine. They forgot to tell him that it's the
| Europeans who give it.
| nprateem wrote:
| This makes no sense.
|
| Zelenskyy should just have said "If Russia won't break any
| treaty, you shouldn't have a problem providing a backstop"
|
| Trump just wants to rape Ukraine while he can. It's nothing
| to do with peace. If he was serious he could offer a backstop
| and get peace over night.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > It's nothing to do with peace.
|
| OP never said it was about peace but about Trump winning
| the Nobel Peace Prize.
|
| > Trump just wants to rape Ukraine while he can.
|
| He wants to do this and get the Nobel Peace Prize for it.
| Does that really seem an implausible goal with this guy?
| nprateem wrote:
| Well normally they're related (although Obama got one
| before doing much)
| nyargh wrote:
| Bold of you to assume that the goal of the current
| administration is to maintain USD hegemony. They've stated
| explicitly several times that they feel the dollar is too
| expensive and gone on at length about the trade "deficit". Even
| going so far with Trump and Musk hinting that they will renig
| on US foreign debt obligations ("lots of fraud in treasuries"),
| which would destroy the value of the USD overnight if they
| followed through.
|
| It seems clear to me one goal of the current admin is to
| transform the US into an export economy, and the strong
| currency is one major roadblock in reaching their objective.
|
| Would love to see more analysis on this, as their trial
| balloons around tanking USD seem to have gotten lost in the
| noise.
| csomar wrote:
| It is not a petty tantrum though it might look like one. You
| have to consider that the incumbents have won the US elections,
| that's not a small feat. What many people are missing is that
| if the US main challenger is China and beating Russia is a far
| thing, then it makes sense for the US to ally with Russia
| against China. For that, the US might need to give Russia
| something (some EU countries?) for this hustle and also refund
| it for the earlier war (yep). But if the administration
| believes this is worth it to contain China then it's the right
| call.
|
| This is why European countries are freaking out. They might be
| seeing the change as being more fundamental than a two guys
| liking/hating each other and that a trade might involve their
| territory in an unfortunate moment (though a part of this is
| their own negligence).
| klipt wrote:
| > it makes sense for the US to ally with Russia against China
|
| Economically and population wise Russia is tiny compared to
| the West (Canada, EU, etc) It makes no sense to trade our
| alliance with the West for alliance with much weaker and
| poorer Russia.
|
| I think Russia has compromising info on Trump. That's the
| simplest explanation.
| csomar wrote:
| Russia advantage is its large border with China. The US is
| not allying because of their (non) existent economy. But
| they'll be a formidable ally in case of a war against
| China.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Russia has no interest in being an ally against China.
| klipt wrote:
| You're trying to sell this as the USA dividing and
| conquering Russia and China against each other.
|
| But it looks much more like Russia dividing and
| conquering the USA from the rest of the democratic, human
| rights supporting West.
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| > But it looks much more like Russia dividing and
| conquering the USA from the rest of the democratic, human
| rights supporting West.
|
| Yes, the famous human rights where people get visited by
| the cops for a Facebook post or an offensive tweet like
| in the UK.
|
| Also, regarding the UK who just recently forced Apple to
| remove it's EtoE encryption because it wants access to
| all the data of it's citizens violating the fundamental
| right of privacy?
|
| What about the UK terror law where they can detain you at
| the border without telling you why and for as long as
| they want, where you can't have a lawyer present with you
| in the room while they interrogate you and while they go
| through all your electronics + email + phone and you
| don't have the right to refuse giving them your passwords
| otherwise you will be jailed?
|
| Russia is bad, terrible even but let's not pretend that
| some of the western countries haven't been sliding in
| proto-fascism either.
|
| Lets also not forget that the UK took part in the illegal
| invasion of Afghanistan and Irak, which led to the
| disastrous consequences that we know today.
|
| I think it would be best for the West to stop lecturing
| the world about democracy and human rights and the rule
| of law for a while and start by cleaning it's own house
| first because it doesn't have much credibility left on
| these matters.
| gizzlon wrote:
| That's a lot of what-about-ism .. Of course we can and
| should criticize other countries, but here it's just a
| distraction.
|
| Do you _really_ think the UK is as bad or worse then
| Russia? Because if not, what the fuck is your point?
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| > That's a lot of what-about-ism
|
| No those are facts. Simple as that. What is your
| contention exactly with what I said?
|
| > what the fuck is your point?
|
| Why the aggressiveness? We are all here to have a
| peaceful conversation. You may disagree with me and that
| is fine but we don't have to get at each other's throat.
|
| > Do you really think the UK is as bad or worse then
| Russia?
|
| You must have missed part of my comment if you are asking
| this question.
|
| > Russia is bad, terrible even
|
| That's from my comment.
|
| > Of course we can and should criticize other countries
|
| Exactly my point. I am criticizing all the countries that
| infringe on human rights and that includes Russia and the
| UK an whoever else engages in these sorts of things.
|
| My point was that simply asserting that the West respects
| human rights when we know that that is not always the
| case is the like the pot calling the kettle black.
|
| You can go and give lessons of democracy and human rights
| when you stop detaining your own citizens for arbitrary
| reasons and without cause and without having the right to
| be represented by a lawyer.
|
| Now, if you think that this is perfectly acceptable in a
| democracy, then I guess we don't have the same concept of
| human rights then.
| gizzlon wrote:
| I didn't say they weren't facts. I said it's
| whatoboutism:
|
| > Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in "what about ...?")
| is a pejorative for the strategy of responding to an
| accusation with a counter-accusation instead of a defense
| against the original accusation. > > The communication
| intent is often to distract from the content of a topic
| (red herring). The goal may also be to question the
| justification for criticism and the legitimacy,
| integrity, and fairness of the critic, which can take on
| the character of discrediting the criticism, which may or
| may not be justified
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
|
| The topic is Russia dividing and conquering the USA from
| Europe and other nations. Not: are Europe perfectly
| living up to its stated humanist goals.
|
| > Why the aggressiveness?
|
| I guess it comes from this being a very common tactic to
| shut down any criticism and debate. Maybe you didn't mean
| to do that, in that case I'm sorry for assigning
| malignant intentions.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act
| eldgfipo wrote:
| Russian lost hundreds of thousand men, I'm not sure
| they'll be willing to ally themselves with the US to
| contain China anytime soon, they'll pursue what's in
| their best interest and play every side.
|
| Time for Europeans to wake up and do the same.
| chimpontherun wrote:
| That border is either mountain ranges (Altai), or empty
| steppes (Zabaikalsk), or boreal forests (Amur and
| Vladivostok). Either way -- the area lacks infrastructure
| and even roads, for the most part. It doesn't provide any
| military advantage, especially given that the Chinese
| side of the border is much better developed.
|
| If anything, the area is not defensible against even a
| half-ass incursion effort from the south (either
| economical or military-driven), which they're actually in
| the middle of (the economical one for now) without
| realizing that.
| mrighele wrote:
| It could be an advantage for the US, but it looks to me
| like a liability for Russia, since they don't have enough
| manpower to guard it.
|
| In case of war between China and Russia I could easily
| see Chinese invading large swaths of lands without any
| meaningful opposition. Populations in eastern Russia are
| treated more like than colonial subjects than regular
| citizen, so I don't think they will mind too much a new
| overlord.
|
| Assuming they had the troops to get there, they cannot
| move all of them to the border with China and leave the
| western front unguarded
| chgs wrote:
| What info would possibly be compromising to Trump. His cult
| spreads across half the country. They won't believe
| anything, including audio and video.
| Teever wrote:
| This seems quite reasonable on the surface but it neglects
| the evidence of sheer incompetence from the first Trump term.
|
| There's no 5d chess here. There's no scenario where ceding
| Poland and Ukraine to Russian authoritarians leads to a more
| free world and a victory over Chinese aithoritarianism.
| There's just rampant and opportunitistic corruption.
|
| The US is being carved up from the inside and nothing about
| this process will help the impending conflict against China.
|
| The sooner we all recognize this like the Europeans seem to
| be doing is the sooner we can coordinate to destroy
| authoritarians wherever they may call home.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The only country Trump has helped more than Russia is
| China.
|
| Apparently being racist is all you need to do to cover up
| handing geopolitical victory repeatedly to a large and rich
| country.
|
| The right wing is up for sale all over the world.
| citrin_ru wrote:
| Russia is close to becoming a Chinese client state. I don't
| think Trump can stop this.
| Gud wrote:
| This makes no sense.
|
| Russia has the economy on parity with Italy.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I don't see how Russia would
|
| a) be willing to join a US-led coalition against China, given
| that the US foreign policy stopped being consistent and the
| next administration may well make a sharp turn again;
|
| b) be capable of joining a US-led coalition against China
| when they now spent 3 years slowly restructuring their
| infrastructure and industry from Western products to Chinese
| products and any break in the relations with China would mean
| a full stop for support, spare parts etc., which US alone,
| with its depleted industrial platform, is unable to
| compensate for.
|
| Not to mention that Russian nationalists HATE the idea of
| Russia being a junior partner to anyone and especially to the
| Anglo-Saxons. That would be hard sell even from Putin.
| watwut wrote:
| > Not to mention that Russian nationalists HATE the idea of
| Russia being a junior partner to anyone and especially to
| the Anglo-Saxons. That would be hard sell even from Putin.
|
| America would be the junior partner. I do not see Russia
| doing anything for America, it is just America giving
| Russia what they want.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Politically maybe, but as far as raw force goes, Russians
| have been reduced to deploying donkeys in battlefield
| logistics. That is a big capability gap, and won't be
| easily bridged.
|
| The next POTUS may not be as prostrate to Russia as Trump
| is, even if a Republican.
| djhn wrote:
| > their own negligence.
|
| The US took Ukraine's nukes in exchange for safety
| guarantees.
|
| The true extent of US commitment to european security has
| been clear to everyone for at least ten years.
|
| Hell, the French nuclear programme was premised on the fact
| that Paris didn't trust the US to defend France. Do you think
| the easternmost NATO states have built their military
| doctrine on blind trust in Uncle Sam?
| leovingi wrote:
| > The US took Ukraine's nukes in exchange for safety
| guarantees.
|
| Please read the actual text of the memorandum, so you don't
| spread any more baseless accusations. It's only 1 page,
| it'll just take you a minute and the language it is written
| in is very accessible.
|
| https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Ukraine_Memoran
| d...
|
| The only point that even touches on any kind of guarantees
| is essentially a promise to "seek immediate United Nations
| Security Council action" in the case of an attack or a
| threat of attack IN WHICH NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARE USED. That
| last part is always conveniently left out whenever anyone
| tries to throw out the soundbite of "They gave up their
| nukes for security guarantees". And even if you assume that
| the nuclear weapon part only covers the "threat" part of
| the sentence and not the "attack", then you're still left
| with the only solid guarantee being the seeking of United
| Nations Security Council action.
| djhn wrote:
| The Budapest Memorandum on its own is not the only
| document that you should consult. We may debate the
| degree to which 'assurances' differ from 'guarantees',
| but considering the vagueness of international law I
| would leave interpretation of primary sources to scholars
| and statesmen.
|
| In the eyes of the people in Europe, the US response to
| the war has been been lacklustre from the very beginning,
| only marginally improving after Russia's 2/2022
| escalation.
| leovingi wrote:
| There is not a single country in the world that has given
| more money and weapons to Ukraine than the United States.
|
| If the people in Europe find that to be a lackluster
| response, then it is not surprising that Trump sent Vance
| over to humiliate them, because they need a wake-up call
| and they needed it yesterday.
| paradox242 wrote:
| So the plan is to burn all of our current allies who joined
| us under a framework we devised largely for our own benefit
| so that we could maybe gain the favor of someone who is even
| less trustworthy and reliable than we are at this point
| against China? You really think this is smart? Trump is
| delivering the Russians their number 1 strategic goal since
| World War 2 by destroying NATO and trading this for seemingly
| nothing, which at this point again raises serious questions
| about what his actual motivations are with regard to his
| otherwise unexplainable deference to Putin and Russia in all
| things.
| FrozenSynapse wrote:
| Russia would never trust US. Russia would never ally itself
| with US against China. What makes you think they will
| suddenly turn on their ally China, to side with US (their
| always-enemy)?
|
| Economically, allying with Russia is stupid, they're poor.
| The only way they are making it through this war economy is
| the fact that Russian people are patient and are used to bad
| economy. The average anual salary in Russia is below $10K.
| codedokode wrote:
| $10K/year is not that bad, you won't die from hunger and
| can buy all necessary things. Also, it is more than in
| previous years (cannot believe, but it was somewhere around
| $1K/year in 2000 when Putin came into power).
| Scea91 wrote:
| It seems more and more that if war between US and China
| starts it will be US-initiated. You just can't stand not
| being the top dog anymore.
|
| For context, EU+UK is over 500M people, Russia is 143M.
|
| I think two weeks back many Europeans took for granted (at
| least I did) we would get involved in the Pacific theatre if
| needed on US side, but after what is happenning now... I am
| for not getting involved in any coflict in Pacific if US
| treats us this way.
| amluto wrote:
| How would Russia help "contain" China? China's actual
| territorial ambitions have never been especially wide
| ranging, and I really doubt that Russia would make a credible
| deal to help keep China's military out of Taiwan.
|
| To the contrary, China's increasing power is _economic_. They
| out-manufacture everyone. They appear to be beating the US at
| its own recent games (BYD seems to be ahead of Tesla!). They
| have plenty of software expertise these days. They are
| approximately caught up in AI. They also happen to lead in
| non-petroleum-dependent energy, and Russia's main strength is
| in its oil and gas resources.
|
| If the US wants to remain a dominant economic power, how is
| Russia going to help?
| rKarpinski wrote:
| > How would Russia help "contain" China?
|
| They have a giant land border. An adversarial Russia-China
| relationship is expensive for both powers, and is a major
| reason for the USSR going bankrupt in the cold war (also
| the USSR propping up Vietnam after China invaded in 79).
| narrator wrote:
| The difference is Israel's enemies are easy to defeat. Russia,
| not so much. Europe made the same mistake as in world war II.
| Believing their own propaganda and convincing themselves that
| Russia would be easy to defeat. Trump talks to the military and
| knows what's reality.
| 9dev wrote:
| So easy that Iran is still going strong, working on their
| nuclear weapons programme, with an outspoken goal of
| destroying Israel?
| amluto wrote:
| I wasn't around for WWII, but now don't think you have this
| quite right. The US fought against Germany and its allies
| (and Japan, which had directly attacked the US and continued
| to fight after Germany surrendered). The war was never
| against Russia.
|
| Sure, maybe the US could have invaded Russia afterwards, but
| that would have been a disaster, kind of like how Germany's
| invasion of Russia was a disaster and a bit like how Russia's
| recent invasion of Ukraine has been a real mess for Russia.
| hnfong wrote:
| Well, GP isn't wrong. Nazi Germany controlled most of
| Europe in WWII, fought against Russia (Soviet Union) and
| lost...
| amluto wrote:
| Somehow I assumed post meant "Allies" by "Europe", but I
| guess it was rather ambiguous.
| Narretz wrote:
| Israel is using these bombs on Hamas and Hezbollah mostly,
| both of which it hasn't defeated after 1 1/2 years of
| complete material superiority. It's actually impossible to
| defeat an enemy that uses asymmetric warfare. Israel already
| knows this, but Netanjahu needs the war to continue to stay
| in power.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| If they're so easy to defeat why have we sent $30B+ to a
| country with a good economy and great quality of life for its
| own people to help them defeat them? Maybe they should pay
| for it all themselves since they keep prolonging all their
| wars?
| arandomusername wrote:
| Actually, the difference is that a high amount of government
| officials are loyal to Israel.
| nanotuber wrote:
| It's a negotiation tactic. It's trying to force Ukraine's hand
| to come to negotiations. That's adherent to many Trump
| policies:
|
| - Force a resolution of the conflict
|
| - Get Europe to pay for its own security
|
| - Focus on Iran and the Middle East
|
| - Pivot to competition with China
|
| - Deter Sino-Russia cooperation
|
| - Reduce US spending and deficit
| tempodox wrote:
| > if there was a clear policy
|
| Nope, it's pure chaos, but that's where Trump thrives the most.
| It's the perfect diversion, nobody knows what he'll destroy
| next.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| while pausing the "aid" may save the US gov money; the money was
| mostly coming back to the US anyway in the form of weapons
| purchases. NYT:
|
| > The order takes effect immediately and affects more than $1
| billion in arms and ammunition in the pipeline and on order. Mr.
| Trump's directive also halts hundreds of millions of dollars in
| aid that Kyiv can use only to buy new military hardware directly
| from U.S. defense companies.
| skeletal88 wrote:
| And everyone in Europe will want our governments and armies to
| stop buying stuff made in the US, especially weapons and ammo.
|
| Why support your country with our money if you don't want to
| support us at all?
|
| Your defence companies will face huge losses because of this.
| jajko wrote:
| Those F35s are a security risk at this point. Better migrate
| to Typhoons, Rafales and Gripens etc and have some unified
| research re radars and missiles to split costs.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Hesgeth is sending an extra $4B to Israel (in case anyone thinks
| this is about saving money).
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| America in unable to sustain such active support for two
| countries simultaneously, so it's picking Israel. Israeli
| lobbying is much more far-reaching than European so American
| attention is shifting there. EU has 3-4 years to ram up but its
| leaders are the same self-absorbed as Trump (only less big
| mouthed), so in 3-4 years Europeans will have to absorb
| whatever Putin will come up with.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Except that one one country is resisting invasion by its
| bigger bully neighbor that is killing its civilian
| population, while the other is the bigger bully neighbor
| killing a civilian population and reducing it to rubble.
|
| A pretty clear indication that America stands on the side of
| the aggressors and doesn't give a fuck about you know
| ordinary people being killed. Shameful.
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| The ethical "who's who" is irrelevant for US, in both cases
| they have "big beautiful ocean" inbetween.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Well, you know, some of us don't like watching people be
| killed for no reason, even if there is an ocean between
| us.
|
| It becomes a question for the US: "Are you who you have
| said you were for the last 80 years? Or are you just
| power with no morals?" I think that's actually a relevant
| question. Who are we going to be?
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the previous author meant that it's
| irrelevant to Trump ("big beautiful ocean" is his quote),
| who clearly believes in "power with no morals".
| Machiavelli would be proud.
|
| It is highly relevant to the American population - but
| the sad fact is, most Americans don't care and haven't
| cared for a long time. The US' foreign policy has been
| built mostly on "power" (hard or soft) with very little
| in the way of morals or concern for the actual people --
| sometimes, a bit here and there, but mostly it's a PR
| move.
|
| But at least having the _pretence_ of the moral
| highground forced the US to do some good amidst all of
| its bad. Now that Trump has cast that aside and "naked
| power" is the mot du jour, there's no need to do keep
| doing any good anymore. Thus: help Russia keep killing
| Ukrainians, and help Israel keep killing Palestinians.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| The ocean doesn't stop anyone. If you don't believe, have
| a look at the southern border.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| It's a huge mistake, imo. Israel is going to continue to
| ostracize itself on the global stage till it's the next South
| Africa and all our money will have been wasted. That's my
| belief anyways
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > Israel is going to continue to ostracize itself on the
| global stage
|
| Israel has been doing this for decades. It will never
| become a pariah like S.Africa was so long as the US
| continues its "unwavering support" for Israel regardless of
| what it does (and this is firmly supported by both
| parties). And then people say that the AIPAC lobby isn't
| real ...
|
| During the Cold War you could sort of claim that US'
| unwavering support for Israel was a counter-balance to the
| USSR's support of the Arabs, and therefore "necessary" in
| the global game between the 2 superpowers. But now that
| USSR is gone (Russia in even out of Syria), there's no more
| excuse.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| MAGA? More like Make Israel Great Again!
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| Imagine if we had spent the money we gave to Israel for so
| long on ourselves and bringing back jobs to the US...
| bigfatkitten wrote:
| To be read in conjunction with:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43228029
| inverted_flag wrote:
| And: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43250070
| ellis0n wrote:
| Hello from Ukraine and I need help.
|
| The war in Ukraine has made it impossible to run my startup. Due
| to unlimited attacks it has become impossible to focus on
| anything other than the war. Of course, the war certainly needs
| to be stopped, but no one really knows how to do it correctly and
| I'm not sure anything good will come of it.
|
| After 3 years of the war, my memory has started to deteriorate
| and I've encountered issues with work and finances. It's hard to
| understand how anyone can work during a war and who thought of
| it, when the planning horizon is just until the next night and
| then hell begins.
|
| I fear that if U.S. military support stops and the war continues,
| I will have to urgently move to a safer place.
|
| I am urgently looking for financial help. I have extensive
| experience in web3 and can work in this field, but only with
| upfront payment and an immediate start, as my current situation
| doesn't allow me to go through tiring technical interviews.
|
| Here, I have created an open letter for companies and individuals
| who may be interested in my project. Thanks for any feedback.
|
| https://www.acpul.org/blog/Open-Letter
|
| mail: web3future + protonmail % com
| csomar wrote:
| You are focusing on the wrong things. You need to leave
| immediately (and take your family if you can). If you can't
| leave the country try going nearby the Polish border.
| ellis0n wrote:
| I agree, it's better to be closer to the Polish border.
| That's why I wrote that I need funds to be able to take any
| action. The last time such a move cost me over $10k and I
| also volunteered to help my family and others.
| csomar wrote:
| No such a move only costs a few hundred dollars at most and
| maybe free if you are willing to rough it up with the truck
| drivers. The situation can only be complicated by immediate
| family members but still it's only a car rental or
| convincing somebody with a car to drive you there.
| ellis0n wrote:
| And what's next? Sleep on the street? Rent is expensive,
| I've already tried and it's impossible without any
| income.
|
| Sure, thanks for the advice, but I'll need to work, not
| just travel. I need the same big monitor for work, a good
| chair, and usually these things aren't available, so I
| end up working in terrible conditions.
| ty6853 wrote:
| Ive been homeless, you will need a sleeping bag and tarp,
| maybe a portable stove if you can afford it. Put them
| into a backpack and stick out your thumb and leave. Sell
| your computer shit for them.
|
| No one wants to invest in a startup that might be blown
| up tomorrow run by someone with active untreated PTSD.
| This is blunt reality, you are now a day laborer --
| construction factories and commercial sea fishing are the
| main ways I've found out and up from homelessness, good
| luck. Once you have some kind of shelter from that go
| back to hustling on the side.
| ellis0n wrote:
| Thank you for sharing and I'm glad you got out of that
| mess and recovered. That's good advice and I've been
| through something similar myself a while ago. Back then,
| I tried working in a taxi, but programming ended up
| saving me. Now, if things keep going this way and AI
| starts taking over IT jobs, it's quite possible I'll have
| to work as a driver for Uber, where there aren't as many
| AGI robots yet.
|
| For now, I still wanted to focus on building startups and
| developing humanity's economy, which is what I'm best at.
| csomar wrote:
| I am not saying it's a solution to your housing but a
| solution not to get hurt or potentially "killed". I don't
| have a solution to any of them. I am just saying if you
| _really_ believe your life /safety is at risk, you should
| move now regardless.
| almosthere wrote:
| i don't understand why people are telling people to leave
| ukraine. if that's the stance, then why not just let russia
| have it. If everyone left, then there's no war to be had?
| Gud wrote:
| Not everyone is fit to be a fighter.
| csomar wrote:
| It's easy to be a hero behind a keyboard.
| StefanBatory wrote:
| It's... not that easy. And if he fails at it, he risks a lot
| - most likely getting thrown into army as a deserter and most
| likely sent to the equivalent of penal units.
|
| (EDIT: Unless they're a woman/nb, in which case yeah - please
| try to do so because it will be way easier for you)
| hnpolicestate wrote:
| Can you imagine being down voted for trying to save his life?
| Wealthy and fat SWE's want him to risk his life for virtue or
| something.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| If you're not willing to fight for your own country, why should
| others die while you run away ?
| xenospn wrote:
| I suggest everyone visit the Baltics while you can. Because
| they're obviously going to be next.
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| I have trouble following the logic here.
|
| Putin has not been able to conquer the whole of Ukraine after 3
| years, but somehow, suddenly, he will be able to conquer all of
| the Baltic states without breaking a sweat?
|
| So which is it? Is the Russian army fighting with shovels or
| are they a ferocious horde that is unstoppable? Those two
| things cannot be true at the same time.
|
| I am getting tired of people parroting this narrative. If Putin
| could conquer Ukraine, he would have done so by now. Yet
| according to you this means is able to conquer more countries
| when his army can't even hold on to a full one.
|
| No offense, but that makes zero sense.
| timeon wrote:
| Either way, if this continues, Americans will not be welcomed
| there. So point about visit still stands.
| GJim wrote:
| > Putin has not been able to conquer the whole of Ukraine
| after 3 years, but somehow, suddenly, he will be able to
| conquer all of the Baltic states without breaking a sweat?
|
| Putin will find it much easier to wage war in Europe if Trump
| pulls out and takes the USA into isolationism (so abandoning
| the western democracies).
|
| And he will find it much easier to do this if he starts
| before Europe has a chance to re-arm.
|
| That is the logic you fail to see.
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| > Putin will find it much easier to wage war in Europe if
| Trump pulls out and takes the USA into isolationism (so
| abandoning the western democracies). And he will find it
| much easier to do this if he starts before Europe has a
| chance to re-arm.
|
| It still does not explain how he is supposed to do that
| while he is bogged down in Ukraine.
|
| You answer doe not provide any shred of evidence that is
| what his plans are. You are just speculating.
|
| Opening multiple fronts in a war when you are not making
| progress does not make any sense. Putin is probably not the
| sharpest tool in the shed but I am pretty sure that even he
| knows that.
|
| Finally, France and the UK both have nukes and are the
| allies of the Baltic states so an attack is highly unlikely
| unless the MAD doctrine is broken.
| GJim wrote:
| Nobody is going to wage a first strike nuclear war!
| Nuclear powers and MAD are irrelevant. It is conventional
| arms in Europe that are lacking, and Europe is re-arming
| as rapidly as possible for such a defence.
|
| One must have their head in the sand to think otherwise.
| citrin_ru wrote:
| The current situation is a stalemate. The US suddently
| flipping sides will shift the balance and it's hard to
| predict how far Trump will go in supporting Putin.
| StefanBatory wrote:
| Russians could invade and while it is most likely that after
| a long war they'd be pushed back, they'd still leave ruins.
|
| Also, we don't have unified army. So as painful as it is, it
| is most likely Baltic states would have to fend of with their
| military (and due to population, well, they can't - even if
| they are bringing conscription back), maybe Poland and
| Finland. Maybe. And then you'd have to coordinate what to do
| next between all national militaries.
|
| And what would stop a Frenchman or Portuguese to say _Why die
| for Vilnius_?
|
| :\
| skeletal88 wrote:
| Your data is wrong
|
| Estonia has had conscription for our whole independence
| from russia, and we don't intend to go back to russia.
| Lithuania also has conscription and Latvia started it again
| last year.
|
| Estonia also has the Defence League, a voluntary
| organisation which offers trainings and will support our
| defence forces.
|
| Finland and Poland also have conscription.
| mrtesthah wrote:
| > _Putin has not been able to conquer the whole of Ukraine
| after 3 years..._
|
| And with whose weapons and support do you think they managed
| to do that? Not to mention the US had been helping to train
| the Ukrainian army since 2014.
|
| Anyone who has paid attention to the Ukraine war this far
| already understands what past, present, and future assurances
| of military support mean for deterrence.
|
| Your comment suggests a level of ignorance or naivety either
| on the part of the author or the reader.
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| Your comment is exactly the kind of high-ended attitude
| that is turning off people from having healthy debates with
| other people who might disagree with them.
|
| I am asking a legitimate question.
|
| Your contention is that even though the war is at best a
| stalemate and has revealed that Russia is at best a paper
| tiger, we should now believe that somehow it has the
| strength to invade all the Baltic states?
|
| I am sorry to say but this is a fantasy that is not
| supported by the facts of the situation that we have seen
| in the last 3 years.
|
| Now, you are free to disagree and that is fine but that
| should not stop us to ask questions about these matters.
| mrtesthah wrote:
| > _I am asking a legitimate question._
|
| At best your question was uninformed to the point that it
| constitutes provocation, at worst it was deliberate
| disinformation.
|
| I'll repeat: Russia appears weak because the Ukrainians
| have received so much military backing from the US and
| the rest of Europe. It's a stalemate because others
| stepped in to stop them.
|
| And furthermore, Russia's rate of ammo production is
| higher than Europe's, their army is larger than
| Ukraine's, and their leaders have no limits on how many
| people they throw into the meat grinder.
|
| Regarding Putin's attempted restoration of the USSR, even
| if they're unable to hold other Balkan countries, that
| process will result in horrific bloodshed. The US
| stepping away from defending NATO countries only
| emboldens Russia to try.
|
| If my attitude puts you off from dialog, then might I
| politely suggest you educate yourself more on these
| topics before engaging? You seem more than eager to jump
| into dialog with others about this topic to push your
| singular viewpoint, so I'm sure you can direct some of
| that energy toward broadening your understanding of
| recent world events.
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| > If my attitude puts you off from dialog, then might I
| politely suggest you educate yourself more on these
| topics before engaging?
|
| Here we go again with the condescending attitude.
|
| > your singular viewpoint
|
| I don't push a singular viewpoint. I asked a question
| which other people have answered. Some people agreed and
| others disagreed. Each to their own. This is how a
| healthy debate works.
|
| > At best your question was uninformed to the point that
| it constitutes provocation, at worst it was deliberate
| disinformation.
|
| Asking a question about a major event and having a debate
| with other people is now considered a provocation? May I
| suggest you take a step back and rethink how you interact
| with other people if you think truly that this is the
| case.
|
| Questioning things is good. Asking questions when we
| don't know the answer about something should be
| encouraged. That's how we learn and that is how we grow.
|
| You have decided that you are right and that I am wrong.
| That's your right but that shouldn't stop people from
| asking questions that you deem to be provocative.
|
| I have had many debates with plenty of people on this
| forum, some heated debates even, but I can say that you
| are definitely not someone I am interested in engaging
| with anymore.
|
| Goo day to you.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Baltics could very well be on the menu, but it will not be
| this year. Not next year. Not the year after that.
|
| Right now, Russia needs to rebuild their military as much as
| they can, and get their real economy back in shape.
|
| My prediction is that IF Ukraine is being forced into a
| shitty peace agreement, Russia will spend the next 3-4 years
| rebuilding everything they can, and then when Trump has 6
| months left, they'll go all-inn on Ukraine. Trump is
| effectively in his lame duck period, no republicans want to
| campaign on entering a huge war, and while democrats might
| campaign on defending Ukraine - it will not be a popular
| issue among regular voters.
|
| Then, if Russia manages to do that, other countries will be
| on the chopping block years later.
|
| I simply do not believe Russia has the manpower, or political
| backing to do a mobilization required to invade the Baltics.
| Even if this would be the right moment to do it, with a
| completely neutered USA.
| RealityVoid wrote:
| I agree, I just think the estimation is on the order of 2
| years. But, yes, Putin might wait it a bit more in order to
| see the maximum damage that Trump can do to the US. Same as
| last time.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| Ukraine is huge and had a large army. Baltic states are
| small, have in total about the same amount of military as
| russia loses in a month.
| sireat wrote:
| As someone living in the Baltics, most people here are fully
| aware that when Putin chooses to attack we would have trouble
| holding the mythical 72 hours for full NATO help to arrive.
|
| If NATO help is not coming it is over quite quickly.
|
| You have to remember that Ukraine has/had 40 million
| population, Baltics has about 7 million.
|
| We also do not have the miles of mined out defenses that
| Ukraine has had since 2014.
|
| We do have 2000 strong NATO brigades on rotation, a few
| rotating F-35 from western Europe, some Himars I think.
|
| If unthinkable happens and NATO chooses not to defend the
| Baltics it is over.
| RealityVoid wrote:
| If it's any consolation, the buildup of the invasion
| preceding the war in Ukraine was visible well before the
| actual invasion, so probably EU would have time to act.
|
| And, Russia would give you a breather of 1-2 years after
| the fall of Ukraine in order to build up their stocks.
| jajko wrote:
| > We also do not have the miles of mined out defenses that
| Ukraine has had since 2014.
|
| I'd say you guys should have started building yesterday.
| Like what the heck to wait for? This isn't some temporary
| blip but permanent course of direction.
|
| Want to avoid having thousands of sleeper agents with
| double citizenship causing mayhem before invasion? Revoke
| it all for dual citizens that won't revoke their russian
| one, its time to pick side.
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| Ending dual citizenship is a great idea that needs to
| catch on in the US too.
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| Look at your situation from a different perspective: the
| Baltics have ~3 times the population of Gaza, and at the
| very least something resembling air defenses. Gaza was
| bombed into rubble but the governing body still exists. Or
| you have roughly the same population as Lebanon, where
| Hezbollah completely stymied the IDF ground offensive (they
| wanted to force Hezbollah north of the Litani) even after
| paralyzing Hezbollah C2 with the pager attack.
|
| Why are the Baltics not fortified as well as Gaza? Why
| haven't you spent the past 3 years mining the ever-living
| fuck out of your border with Russia? Why can't 7 million
| Baltic citizens hold your territory for 72 hours, when 7
| million Lebanese are able to bog down the heavily-
| mechanized IDF for weeks? Now I will admit that terrain is
| a HUGE factor, but the seeming total unpreparedness of
| Europeans to invest in the defense of their own homeland
| communicates a ton to me....none of it positive.
| regularjack wrote:
| Ukraine has been able to fight back because of the aid it
| got, that's why Russian's invasion wasn't a field trip.
| layer8 wrote:
| Russia hasn't been able to conquer Ukraine in three years
| primarily due to US support. Now that US support is falling
| away, Europe can only compensate for a minor portion of it.
| One important part that Europe can't replace anytime soon is
| military intelligence, including satellite reconnaissance,
| but also advanced air defense systems and fighter jets. It
| would or will take many years for Europe to be able to
| provide anywhere near the previous level of US support.
| ojl wrote:
| So you believe Trump when he said that the US has given
| more support than Europe? He was corrected several times
| but continues saying it, and I see several comments about
| it here as well. I agree about satellite reconnaissance and
| such systems though. Several countries wants to give
| fighter jets, and Sweden wanted to give Gripens but someone
| convinced them to pause those plans.
| layer8 wrote:
| I was talking about technological, military, and
| intelligence capabilities, not about financing. Regarding
| support budgets, it does appear to me that Trump is
| misrepresenting things, see for example this tracker:
| https://www.ifw-kiel.de/publications/news/ukraine-
| support-af... I nevertheless agree that Europe needs to
| invest more both in their capabilities and in Ukraine
| support.
|
| However, I don't know how useful it is to compare it like
| that 1:1. The problem with Trump is that apparently he
| doesn't believe that the US has strong (or even any)
| interests in containing Russia's imperialist drive and
| geopolitical gains, and to the contrary is needlessly
| giving up a lot of bargaining power to Russia.
|
| Russia has zero interest in stopping the war, except to
| their own conditions, which includes installing a Russia-
| friendly government in Kiev (what they call
| "denazification"). They have expressed that many times.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| I hear this a lot, but nobody can explain: why? What good are
| they to Russia? Ukraine is obvious to anyone who's studied
| history: as a buffer. What good are the Baltics to Russia, to
| justify the military expense of capturing them?
| mongol wrote:
| They provide land access to Kaliningrad for once
| amarcheschi wrote:
| I know very well it's a drop in the ocean, you can donate to
| ukraine here
|
| https://u24.gov.ua/
|
| You can decide how to allocate your donation, defense, demining,
| humanitarian aid (...)
| ponector wrote:
| Also you can donate directly for the kamikaze drones here:
| https://www.sternenkofund.org/donate
|
| They are extremely effective in countering russian troops. One
| drone costs as little as 500$
| HPMOR wrote:
| I know this is __so___ off topic, but the $ goes in front of
| the value for USD. It should be $500. Again, again, I know
| read the room, there's a tragic war going on, and the US is
| becoming complicit in the tragedy. But if we don't have time
| to be pedantic about monetary symbols then what good is the
| freedom we still possess.
| Suppafly wrote:
| People are downvoting this, but I'm always suspicious of
| comments online that imply they are from the US but mess up
| simple details that no native US user would mess up.
| dmos62 wrote:
| If you're saying that someone is lying, you should be
| more upfront. Who do you think it is?
| kelnos wrote:
| I dunno, a friend of mine does this, and she's a naive
| born American (and so are her parents). English is her
| only language. She knows it's "wrong", but just likes it
| better.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Frankly, with both percents and dollars, we say "One-
| hundred dollars/percent," so putting the symbol at the
| front is counterintuitive to how we speak.
| ponector wrote:
| Special for you: one drone costs as little as 500EUR. But
| you can donate even few dollars, everything counts. That
| is the power of crowdfunding.
|
| That guy by the link, Sternenko, supplied Ukrainian
| forces with 100 000 drones in 2024.
| gman83 wrote:
| Where did they imply they were from the US? And why would
| that be relevant here?
| hulitu wrote:
| Web server is down Error code 521 Visit cloudflare.com for more
| information.
|
| I just wanted to see if there is a section for peace and
| reconstruction. /s
| amarcheschi wrote:
| At least for me it is working right now. Anyway, the full
| sections are
|
| Defense
|
| Humanitarian aid
|
| Medical aid
|
| Rebuild ukraine
|
| Education and science
| defly wrote:
| US-based fund: https://www.razomforukraine.org/
|
| Top UA funds: https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate-en
| https://prytulafoundation.org/en
|
| UA tech community fund Kolo: https://www.koloua.com/en/
| vonnik wrote:
| I have been helping to send aid to the Ukrainian army for the
| last 2.5 years through Ukraine Defense Fund:
|
| https://ukrainedefensefund.org/
|
| Profile of the founder in WIRED:
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/ukraine-russia-war-military-reta...
| harimau777 wrote:
| Ukraine also still exports a surprising amount of stuff. For
| example, my local liquor store carries Krol vodka which I
| recommend. I also found an Etsy store with some awesome belt
| buckles; particularly if you are into Celtic/Viking or punk
| aesthetics: https://www.etsy.com/shop/Klamra
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| The USA stands in miserable disgrace.
| bradhe wrote:
| Amazing to see Russia win the Cold War--one we didn't even know
| we were in. Their propaganda network is so strong that it took
| 3 weeks to go from "Russia is the enemy" to "eh, we have other
| problems" amongst the folks who...subscribe accordingly.
| Absolute masterclass in projecting power in the digital age.
| orbital-decay wrote:
| Amazing to see posters still managing to blame an external
| enemy for their own humongous trillion-dollar consent machine
| working as designed in a direction they don't like this time.
| tim333 wrote:
| It looks quick but they've been cultivating Trump for 38
| years now.
| nprateem wrote:
| They've probably got video of him being whipped by some
| hookers or something. Or worse...
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| I think they have so much compromat that the entire GOO
| would seize to exist.
| kadoban wrote:
| He had a decades-long, close friendship with Epstein, and
| a documented, admitted history of vile behavior with
| women and girls. You can guess what kompromat would look
| like.
| aemu wrote:
| Yeah, man. I have emigrated from Russia to EU five years ago
| and it is heartbreaking to see the developed US and some
| European countries go through the same bullshit we were going
| since 2011. Like half the country starts living in wild,
| completely imaginary world, and you can always tell what is
| the current agenda of the propaganda machine just by talking
| to some relatives who fell through that rabbit hole
| roxolotl wrote:
| I agree it's a huge disgrace and half of the US is living
| in a fantasy land. However polls show that Americans don't
| like Putin. A poll two weeks ago[0] actually showed 81% of
| Americans do not trust Putin. Finding 81% agreement about
| anything is hard.
|
| This is something that is unique to the administration and
| those who deeply agree with what it's done.
|
| Not that it matters... clearly people don't care enough to
| vote for it. My heart goes out to the people of Ukraine.
|
| 0: https://thehill.com/policy/international/5153611-quinnip
| iac-...
| justin66 wrote:
| That poll in isolation means nothing. A person who "does
| not trust Putin" but nevertheless subscribes to Russian
| propaganda is still doing his work.
|
| I see plenty of people in social media (enough to be
| convinced that they aren't all bots) who appear to
| believe that continuing to support Ukraine with aid would
| bankrupt the US, would be equivalent in effect to
| fighting Iraq or Vietnam again, would lead to WW III, and
| so on and so forth. The conspiracy theories about
| Ukraine's leadership are elaborate as well. I imagine
| almost all these people would tell you they don't like
| Putin.
| ModernMech wrote:
| Right. They don't Trust Putin but they trust Trump. If
| Trump acts on Putin's agenda, they will vote for it and
| call it smart.
| xg15 wrote:
| They might not even trust Trump, but being driven to hate
| Biden and/or Harris so to vote against them was enough.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > However polls show that Americans don't like Putin.
|
| Out of that 81%, how many believe in appeasing Putin to
| "Avoid world war III" despite their animus? Too many,
| IMO, and Putin doesn't care for how the American populace
| feel about him personally, as long as he can achieve his
| foreign policy goals without hindrance from American
| bombs, intelligence or funding, which has become the
| status quo as of yesterday.
| orbital-decay wrote:
| You're talking about domestic propaganda. The parent blames
| _external_ propaganda, instead of doing something or at
| least admitting that the domestic propaganda pipeline
| backfired. It 's usually extremely hard to make people see
| their own issues. It's always someone else, not them.
|
| Yes, in Russia it happened largely in the same way, and it
| started much earlier than in 2011 (in 2012 we already had
| literal Putin cultists marching down the streets). Some
| people blamed an external enemy for their troubles (both
| troubles and the enemy were usually imaginary, with the
| enemy usually being the US), others who rejected the idea
| blamed the other half and generally had their heads in the
| sand, but neither wanted to admit their issues or do
| anything substantial, leaving the Kremlin do what they
| wanted to do.
| aemu wrote:
| I agree mostly, but the mechanisms of domestic and
| external propaganda are basically the same, it's just
| that autocratic regimes have a "home field advantage"
| domestically via repressions. And yes, it started before
| 2011, but this is approximately the year when IMO the
| tide really started to change for worse. Before that
| there were some more or less free press and a semblance
| of political discourse in the country, but since the peak
| of election fraud protests it progressively got weaker,
| and by now it feels like the "opposition" is completely
| destroyed
| xg15 wrote:
| It's definitely been more than three weeks.
|
| As someone who lives in the EU and has the same kind of
| relatives, what I find frustrating is how little actual
| engagement with the Russian narratives there is from
| official sides. There is presented "evidence" for US
| influence in Ukraine long before the war, like the Victoria
| Nuland video, yet there seems to be no attempts at
| debunking those arguments, short of a catch-all labeling of
| all of it as disinformation (which, I can testify from
| personal experience, does absolutely nothing to dissuade
| people who already believe it).
|
| The Selinskyji/Trump spat felt like an extreme version of
| this, where Selinskyji essentially argued with the
| Western/Ukrainian narrative of the war and Trump argued
| with the Russian narrative.
|
| The strategy of "ignore the Russian narrative and hope not
| many people will latch on to it" evidently failed, so I
| think if we want to have a hope of solving this conflict
| and countering Trump (and maybe get back the parts of the
| population that follow the narrative), we at least have to
| engage with it and provide counterarguments.
| generic92034 wrote:
| Countering pushed narratives with facts and arguments is
| a complete failure. It does not reach the emotional core,
| which is "us versus them".
| xg15 wrote:
| OK, but how then?
| jopsen wrote:
| Wasn't that what we the west did during the cold war?
|
| Is it not just that media is more fragmented and we've
| underfunded the fact providing media since?
| JoshuaDavid wrote:
| Twitter community notes are popular and pretty effective
| at calling out misleading information that has gone viral
| (organically or inorganically). I think writing off facts
| and arguments is premature.
| blargey wrote:
| Is that sort of stuff actually effective against
| propaganda though?
|
| I'd assume that by the time a disclaimer is written up,
| submitted, and accepted according to whatever the
| criteria is, the original un-disclaimered message has
| been received and digested by its target audience.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Plus, the propaganda also strongly paints fact checking
| as a mere ploy by other_team to try to cheat and win. So
| even if the community notes get to them, they will chalk
| it up to "liberals trying to hide the real truth."
| JoshuaDavid wrote:
| There are a few things working in favor of community
| notes there
|
| 1. Viral tweets have a longer-than-average time window
| between the time they start to go viral and the time the
| median viewer sees them, so a community note can get
| there before the median viewer. 2. Users who interacted
| with a tweet before it got a community note will get a
| notification when the community note is added. 3.
| Community note writers can leave a note on a piece of
| media. If a tweet with a video gets a community note, and
| that note is about the video rather than about the tweet,
| that note will show on all other tweets that show that
| video.
|
| Source: this excellent interview with the Community Notes
| team (https://asteriskmag.com/issues/08/the-making-of-
| community-no...), in the section that starts with
| "Asterisk: Another thing I wanted to talk about is
| speed". Really that whole interview is great, highlights
| how deliberate and thoughtful the Community Notes team
| was regarding everything about the feature. Which is, I
| think, why community notes have succeeded where a lot of
| previous fact-checking attempts have failed.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| US spends trillion in vietname,iraq,afghan etc while people
| can't afford housing,healthcare and living paycheck to
| paycheck
|
| its hard to care for other people when your basic needs is
| not fullfill
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Thank you. This is what people with privilege don't get.
|
| There are concentric circles of giving a fuck: first in the
| center is yourself, then your family, then your friends,
| then your community, then your city, then your country,
| then other countries on the planet.
|
| It's impossible to get people to care about the outermost
| circle when their inner circles are not satisfied, so they
| won't be happy to see their elected officials being
| generous to foreigners with their own tax money.
| rayiner wrote:
| It's not even about "basic needs." How much support is
| there in fat and happy Europe for putting boots on the
| ground? It sounds like UK and France would go it alone?
| https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/03/04/which-
| european...
|
| And it's not lost on me that both Starmer and Macron
| represent a minority of the electorate in their
| respective countries--having won due to a deeply
| fractured electorate.
| sham1 wrote:
| Well, it seems that at least according to the article,
| Finland, Scandinavia, the Baltics, Poland etc. weren't
| even asked for our opinions.
|
| Unfortunately typical that we just get ignored here in
| the eastern flank. One can only hope that we weren't
| mentioned because it's obvious that we'd back these
| operations, since an ascended Russia is an existential
| threat to everyone here, but alas.
|
| Of course there are ideas like the one from President
| Stubb, wherein any peace treaty could be dive such that a
| future attack on Ukraine by Russia world mean Ukraine's
| automatic ascension to NATO (and/or the EU, depending on
| just how far America is willing to backstab its allies)
| and basically having the organisation(s) guarantee
| Ukraine's independence. Although that would require
| taking northern and eastern Europeans seriously, and I'm
| somehow not convinced of that happening.
|
| But yeah, hopefully they get the peacekeepers at the very
| least.
| dredds wrote:
| It occurred to me that backstabbing is a common tactic of
| war historically, and increasingly of a certain group of
| power-seeking individuals specifically. A trait that The
| Apprentice and it's similar ilk of reality TV shows like
| Survivor invariably promoted.
|
| My comment today on a YT video;
|
| "Trump never apologizes or shows contrition (Roy Cohn's
| 'always deny' doctrine) as it shows weakness, similar to
| Putin perceiving appeasement as weakness. He then sets up
| a scenario (he called it "great television") where he
| expects Zelenskyy to apologize and say thankyou for the
| 100th time. He told Zelenskyy he had no cards, so
| apologizing or showing appreciation-on-demand (for
| nothing in exchange) would be submitting to being a loser
| in Trump's own mindset, which is the point of the whole
| fake deal on offer. No different to the "deal" he made
| with Afghan government for natural resources, before he
| sided with the Taliban to withdraw US troops in betrayal
| of that very agreement. When Zelenskyy pointed out that
| Putin can't be trusted for any ceasefire, Trump then
| raised his voice cos his own betrayals (nearly everyone
| who worked for him that wasn't paid, or went to prison by
| following instructions, or was summarily fired as per his
| catchphrase) are viewed as his favorite playing card."
|
| Treachery has been his default modus operandi throughout
| his personal life (cheating and divorce) as well as in
| business and politics ("hang Mike Pence"). Reality TV
| then normalized it to the level of mass-entertainment as
| he suggested.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Yet somehow the US is continuing to send tons of
| expensive military aid to Israel.
|
| Which shows this isn't actually about the cost.
|
| If this had anything to do with money and caring about
| domestic spending first, then you'd see aid to Israel cut
| off as well. Funny how that's not happening.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> Yet somehow the US is continuing to send tons of
| expensive military aid to Israel. _
|
| Yeah, why is that?
| nervousvarun wrote:
| https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?ind=Q05
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Caveat: in the Republican US those concentric circles
| _begin_ if you make $360k or more.
| kgwxd wrote:
| Then why did they vote against themselves, family,
| friends, community, city, country, and other countries?
| Uneducated people make uneducated votes. Privileged
| people get it, they just want you to be more educated,
| but you keep voting against that too.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Regular blue collar working class people from less
| developed areas don't want to be lectured by privileged
| big-city people that they're uneducated and only they
| know better than them what the correct candidate to vote
| for is.
|
| That patronizing attitude you showed is exactly the one
| the Democrats had and is exactly what got Trump elected.
| Until their attitude changes they will keep losing votes
| out of sheer spite.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| >why did they vote against themselves
|
| >they will keep losing votes out of sheer spite
|
| Well, I guess that is the answer. You may not look good
| without a nose, but you sure taught your face a lesson.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Who's the face in this context? The only ones I see
| constantly screeching about Trump are Democrat voters,
| not Trump voters.
| kelnos wrote:
| Only time will tell if those Trump voters end up being ok
| with the inevitable cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and
| Social Security. If that comes to pass, I expect some
| bipartisan screeching.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Poor people and working class were gonna be fucked either
| way no matter the candidate that won, because while
| America has 2 political parties, it only has one economic
| party which caters to the wealthy established elite. Do
| you think Kamala would have done anything more for the
| poor in practice?
|
| The only savior of the poor and vulnerable would have
| been Bernie Sanders, that's why the democrats have
| avoided nominating him, because he's a man of the people,
| not the man of established corporate interests.
|
| So given two bad options, the poor and working class have
| picked the candidate not insulting and patronizing them
| based on gender, race and identity politics, while also
| being able to form a coherent sentence[1]. Democrats are
| so high on their own self-righteous elitist farts, they
| still don't realize why the majority of people hate them.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS0yBgZrVas
| therealpygon wrote:
| Only those who are incapable of reasoning would think that
| will change by electing the people who defend corporations
| abilities to underpay, overcharge for healthcare, and to
| not pay taxes.
| dashtiarian wrote:
| The reason people are living paycheck to paycheck is not
| because of military aids, the system is not going to spend
| saved money on people, and people will be the ones fighting
| the incoming wars.
|
| You need unions and Universal Healthcare like the rest of
| the developed world to fix those problems.
| Aunche wrote:
| The reason Americans can't afford healthcare or housing
| isn't because we spend 3.4% of our GDP on military
| spending, but decades of terrible policy. Americans have
| the second highest disposal income in the world, only
| behind a tiny tax haven. And before anyone mentions it, it
| measures the median, is PPP adjusted, and takes into
| account social services.
| walls wrote:
| Yet we're still sending truck loads of money and gear to
| Israel.
|
| This is purely about Trump helping Putin.
| programmarchy wrote:
| One explanation would be an agreement with Putin
| softening support for Iran in exchange for US softening
| support for Ukraine.
| jopsen wrote:
| Lol, Russia has long sold Iran whatever it wants in
| exchange for drones.
| yubblegum wrote:
| "lol" is not evidence. There is no evidence IRI is
| getting anything from RF.
|
| Khamenei studied as a student in USSR prior to the
| revolution. He is likely a Russian asset. Nothing else
| can explain the decisions of that "ayatollah". The other
| day an Isreali news site reported Iran is not on the list
| of invitees to the May 9 goose stepping show in Moscow.
| (Israel is invited). IRI got sanctioned for giving drones
| to RF and now Russia will get off the list while IRI
| sanctions remain. Russia supports UAE regarding their bs
| claims on 3 strategic micro-islands in the Persian Gulf.
| The fabled S-400 have never ever been offered to IRI, and
| IRI previously had to sue (yes) Russia to finally get the
| S-300s that they had long ago paid for, which then
| promptly got bombed by Israel. The list goes on and on ..
|
| "Back to school now" for Ali Khamenei - I bet you didn't
| know this. In fact curious as to where you even get
| actual news about IRI if you don't speak Persian ...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN_oEJEp9Ro [1:38 ..]
| programmarchy wrote:
| Right, and if US made a deal with Russia to cease their
| support for Iran, then they become much more vulnerable
| to an attack by Israel and US.
| rapind wrote:
| Good news! If you make more than $320,000 / year you'll
| benefit from a couple trillion dollars in tax cuts! That'll
| fix everything once it "trickles down"! Thank god we live
| in an era when we get to witness this genius in action.
|
| Nevermind that the reason Ukraine can't defend itself is
| because the US guaranteed their security in exchange for
| them giving up their nukes. I mean, that was so 30 years
| ago.
| exe34 wrote:
| sounds like you need more tax cuts for the rich and wait
| for it to trickle down.
| _trampeltier wrote:
| You know the UK paid money since WW2 until 2006 to the US.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-American_loan
| ModernMech wrote:
| Some of us knew we were in this information war, and we've
| been fighting it for 10 years. Remember in 2016 when Trump
| colluded with Russia to with that election? And everyone who
| knew what was going on at the time said Trump and Putin were
| allies? Those people were mocked incessantly for a decade.
| Authors like Seth Abramson predicted what's happening now
| years ago, just by treating the facts seriously, and for that
| he was treated like a crazy person.
|
| I mean, they were caught meeting with a Russian spy in their
| campaign HQ, told us they got most of their money from
| Russia, and then told us for 10 years _we_ were being crazy
| conspiracy theorists by claiming they were aligned with
| Russia. It 's not a hard puzzle if you have the pieces.
|
| So hearing today that "this is such a surprise" is especially
| frustrating, because this has been the topic of congressional
| reports written by Republican , impeachment trials, DOJ
| reports, reports from federal agencies, warnings from the
| FBI, CIA, and also international intelligence agencies.
| People like Christopher Steele correctly called this a decade
| ago and he was demonized. Australia brought it to the
| attention of the FBI.
|
| Like... people knew this was happening, and warned, and not
| just nobodies like people on the Internet. What happened over
| the last 10 years is that Russia won the information war, and
| the general public decided to trust Russian state media over
| Democrats when it came to Trump's support of Russia. Which, I
| think at long last we can all admit this is the case without
| calling anyone a conspiracy theorist yeah?
| bamboozled wrote:
| I'm not going to be surprised to read he plans on sending
| weapons to Russia in the near future. I'm also not going to
| be surprised when the cult cheers it on as well. Russia has
| done a great job, good for them I guess?
| ryandrake wrote:
| His cult justifies and allows him to do anything he wants.
| He could go on TV tomorrow and announce that the US and
| Russia are merging into one country, and his followers will
| get right to work spinning how this is actually good, and
| it's really a 5D chess move, and a genius tactic, and how
| smart this is for the USA. They (and he) are all incapable
| of admitting anything he does is wrong.
| belter wrote:
| "We will take America without firing a shot. We do not have
| to invade the U.S. We will destroy you from within"
| - Nikita Khrushchev
| jisnsm wrote:
| I can imagine the very same thing being said if the USA had
| pulled out of the War on Terror. B-but they have WMD! The NYT
| said so!
| herculity275 wrote:
| It really sucks that "Saddam has WMDs" broke an entire
| generation of Americans into knee-jerk contrarianism
| regarding any global conflict US is involved in. What's the
| "WMD" equivalent here - what do you think the media is lying
| to you about? That there's an ongoing Russian invasion of
| Ukraine is something all involved parties acknowledge.
| kamaal wrote:
| _once bitten, twice shy_
|
| https://www.merriam-
| webster.com/dictionary/once%20bitten%2C%...
| kelipso wrote:
| There is absolutely no requirement that the US has to get
| involved in every regional conflict in the world. Let the
| Ukrainians and Russians deal with their mess. There are
| plenty of other regional conflicts we ignore.
| smac__ wrote:
| The USA was part of the Budapest Memorandum. This is a
| pretty strong reason for the USA to provide support for
| Ukraine.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum
| kelipso wrote:
| It's a reason but it's not a strong reason. Back then
| Ukraine was indistinguishable from Russia, basically a
| small breakaway country from the USSR. So the intent was
| more likely that the US wouldn't attack Ukraine. Besides
| which, the nukes in Ukraine were never under Ukraine's
| control or possession, so the agreement looks to be more
| for optics than anything.
| libertine wrote:
| It's just the US word signed in an agreement. Meaning the
| US word is now of the same value of Russia.
|
| Saying Ukraine is a "small breakaway country from the
| USSR", while being the largest country in Europe is one
| of the most detached takes I've seen on this subject lmao
|
| You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The Budapest Memorandum says the US wont invade Ukraine.
| It is easy to do that from home.
| sethammons wrote:
| from the wiki, 4th point in the agreement:
|
| > Seek immediate Security Council action to provide
| assistance to the signatory if they "should become a
| victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat
| of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".
|
| Ukraine was the victim of an act of aggression from
| Russia. Pretty obvious that the US gave its word it would
| protect them.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| How do you get that. The US sought security council
| action within days of the war starting.
|
| Nowhere does it say us has to guarantee safety or go to
| war. Nevermind the fact that threats of nuclear
| aggression came much later.
| foldr wrote:
| You really think that this conflict has no repercussions
| or implications for US interests?
| kelipso wrote:
| No, if the US considers it be a regional conflict, then
| that's all it will be in terms of repercussions or
| interests. Maybe in terms of vague geopolitical concerns
| that might be relevant decades from now, though even that
| is unclear, but the US is too powerful to have
| repercussions from not being involved in this conflict.
| foldr wrote:
| China and other countries don't see it that way. They are
| looking for signals as to what they might be able to get
| away with, now that the US has decided that it chose the
| wrong team during the Cold War.
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| If China seizes Taiwan, we're going to do exactly squat
| about it. The best thing the USA can do in regard to that
| situation is stay quiet, and let the status remain
| unchanged without goading China into doing something to
| save face.
|
| And that means no more moronic field trips by
| grandstanding senators.
| hulitu wrote:
| > There is absolutely no requirement that the US has to
| get involved in every regional conflict in the world
|
| It is not a requirement, it's the implementation. There
| is a good reason why the USA was called "world
| policeman".
| anonfordays wrote:
| >There is a good reason why the USA was called "world
| policeman".
|
| And Europeans and leftist shit talked the US for it for
| decades. They called for the US to close military bases
| around the world, shit talked the amount the US spends on
| defense, etc.
|
| Now that the US is packing up and going home, the same
| people are screaming for the US to stay and continue
| being the exact thing they shit talked the US for. What a
| spectacle.
| justin66 wrote:
| > Now that the US is packing up and going home, the same
| people are screaming for the US to stay and continue
| being the exact thing they shit talked the US for. What a
| spectacle.
|
| On the contrary, Russian tanks rolling into Eastern
| Europe is something many people on the left and right in
| the United States have always taken seriously, and judged
| to be worthy of the US's intervention, even if they
| judged some of our other interventions to be bullshit.
| The strange part - the real change - is that there are
| people now who do not.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Right, the leftists are idiots. Now everyone is going to
| start a nuclear program and the world will become much
| less safe.
| throw919232156 wrote:
| The US provoked the war, the US can finish the war. It is
| that simple.
|
| Don't dump your wars and middle eastern refugees on the
| EU. What if the EU started a war in Mexico, drove 40
| million refugees to the US, then left and let the US
| clean up the mess?
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Heck yeah bro, we're owning the Europeans! What a win for
| the USA! Love basing our geopolitical policy, and
| breaking our honor in keeping commitments on that. So
| much winning.
| anonfordays wrote:
| >Heck yeah bro, we're owning the Europeans!
|
| Not at all, we're just giving them what they've asked for
| for decades.
|
| >What a win for the USA!
|
| What a win for the EU! The militaristic "world police"
| oppressors are leaving!
|
| >Love basing our geopolitical policy, and breaking our
| honor in keeping commitments on that.
|
| We're being honorable by finally giving Europeans what
| they've asked for.
|
| So much losing!
| arandomusername wrote:
| USA has not made commitments to defend Ukraine. They have
| not broken their comittments in defending countries they
| promised to, e.g NATO
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| The US didn't end up in this position by fluke. It was a
| deliberate policy reaction to the nuclear weapons age. If
| you don't want everyone from Croatia to Canada equipping
| themselves with nuclear weapons and starting border
| skirmishes over water rights, the states that maintain a
| nuclear arsenal and international network of military
| bases have to step up and enforce the rules.
|
| And yes, the invasion of Iraq on a paper thin pretext
| arguably was the beginning of the collapse of this
| equilibrium, and it's no surprise that North Korea
| reacted by doubling down on their nuclear program.
|
| With great power comes great responsibility. For
| generations, Americans preferred having a monopoly on
| geopolitical power. The USA can certainly give up its
| great responsibility, but beware the consequences,
| because the global calculus changes accordingly.
| honkycat wrote:
| The Russians are stealing their rare and valuable
| resources so they can gouge our long term allies.
|
| Trillions of dollars in essential rare earth materials
| and natural gas isn't worth fighting for? Then why EVER
| go to war?
| jopsen wrote:
| True, but rarely do you get an opportunity to wear down a
| principal enemy by donating equipment to a democratic
| nation defending itself.
|
| Without any requirements that the US puts boots on the
| ground.
|
| It's in the interest of most countries that borders are
| immutable and that aggressors are made to pay.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think the "wmd equivalent" is the idea that Russia will
| move on Berlin if they're not contained in Ukraine.
|
| I think the idea that the Budapest memorandum is a US
| security guarantee here's another comparable lie.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Unlike the wmd lie which was generated completely by the
| USA, all of Europe seems pretty concerned to the point
| they just approved another 650 billion in debt TODAY,
| something Europe REFUSED to do for what 40 years?
|
| Because X happened in the past does not mean that Y is X.
| Only people reaching hard to push an agenda would claim
| any similarity.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think both are similar in that they obfuscate real
| discussion on the purpose of war and tradeoffs.
|
| If the goal is to be global police, that is a
| conversation worth having. Same if the goal is to show
| solidarity with our EU allies for its own sake. I think
| these other topics are manufactured consent.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| This you?
|
| "I think the "wmd equivalent" is the idea that Russia
| will move on Berlin if they're not contained in Ukraine."
|
| Because now all of the sudden you are saying something
| totally different and nebulous 'world police' BS.
|
| Why are your trying to equate Europe dramatically and
| instantly shifting their spending and EU policy to some
| nebulous 'global police' comment instead of addressing
| your original point, that you state no one actually
| believes 'Russia moving on Europe' is a real thing, and
| trying to equate it to the WMD lie?
|
| You original point is BS, Europe believes to the tune of
| 650 billion just committed and breaking all of their long
| standing norms when it comes to defense that it is a real
| issue. Hense you having to move to some nebulous 'world
| police' nonsense.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I am asking what the core purpose and rationale for USA
| involvement is, and saying that this should be the center
| of discussion, whatever it is. It seems like nobody can
| agree or articulate what this is in a coherent way.
|
| Everything else is a sideshow and distraction.
|
| I don't see how Europe spending 650 billion answers this
| question either. The US spending money because Europe is
| with no deeper logic elementary school thought.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| You really can't back your original statement can you?
| You made a specific claim:
|
| "I think the "wmd equivalent" is the idea that Russia
| will move on Berlin if they're not contained in Ukraine."
|
| Ie, that Russia being a threat to Europe is a convenient
| lie used to manipulate actions, and Russia isn't a
| threat.
|
| Europe spending 650 billion and upsetting their long
| standing defense posture (especially Germany's post WW2
| one) shows they didn't/don't view/weren't using the
| threat Russia poses as a lie to manipulate the USA into
| being 'World Police' and they are up ending their entire
| order to defend against Russia (actions with ZERO 'world
| policing' upside for them).
|
| You tried to downplay Russia as a threat using a
| comparison to the WMD lie to lend false strength to your
| position that Russia is not a threat and you failed so
| miserably you completely pivoted from it.
|
| Edit: News is now reporting that Germany is literally
| changing their constitution because they don't believe
| your position that Russia's threat to Europe is a lie.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| All the WMDs did was disgrace the media
|
| It was the half dozen other adventures in the sandbox with
| nothing to show for it that made people put down their foot
| and say no more and stick to it even when it's a cause they
| may support (Ukraine for some, Israel for others). That's
| how fed up with it the American public is.
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| But wait... you don't dare suggest that we stop propping
| up Israel's apartheid regime and occupation of other
| people's land!
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| The best explanation for people who obsess over 'Saddam has
| WMDs' is that they were gullible enough, at the time, to
| believe it.
|
| On a related note, a lot of the morons who gave GWB a
| second term seem to be populists now. They would be more
| helpful to America if they stopped trying to understand the
| world around them, and instead just voluntarily stopped
| voting.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Rarely do I see a commenter who blames Ukraine for the war,
| explain their position or elaborate on what the next 5-10
| years of geopolitics will look like.
| yubblegum wrote:
| The PTB in US have decided to divy up the world into zones.
| This was likely already set in motion when the Brexit thing
| started in UK. "We want Canada, American Gulf, Panama Canal" is
| Monroe Doctrine 2.0 on steroids. UK is likely going to be in
| the 'Oceania' camp (as will be the rest of the Common Wealth)
| and we can all look forward to a 1984 future living under
| authoritarian regimes using "AI" and pervasive surveillance.
| The rest is smoke for plebes.
| gershy wrote:
| I'm not sure what to think. Ukraine can't militarily defeat
| russia or reclaim its lost territory, and as long as it
| continues to try to do so, there will be war and the world will
| be less stable. But if a line is not drawn against russia, I
| think we have every reason to believe putin will continue to
| conquer more land over time.
|
| Russia is the source of instability, but it can't be defeated
| or reasoned with. What to do?
| KittenInABox wrote:
| I guarantee you that Russia could've been reasoned with if it
| was forced to face Ukraine with the full might of US support
| for another 4 years. Maybe there would need to be some
| concessions so Putin can look like he came out with a win to
| the Russian media, but Putin wouldn't have kept going as he
| was.
| gedy wrote:
| > with the full might of US support
|
| Wasn't the time for that 3 years ago (or 11)? I'm not pro
| Russia, but a war of attrition has always seemed a bad play
| and half-assed. Especially when Europe is still buying gas
| from Russia...
| michpoch wrote:
| > Ukraine can't militarily defeat russia or reclaim its lost
| territory,
|
| Allow for long-distance strikes, allow for usage of Starlink
| without gps limits, send modern equipment. Russian army is
| barely moving forward even though UA has one of its arm tied
| on the back.
| codedokode wrote:
| In theory West could offer something in exchange for peace,
| so that Russia will not want to break it, for example:
| withdrawing NATO forces from Eastern Europe, withdrawing
| nuclear weapon from Europe, lifting sanctions, paying a
| compensation for losses due to sanctions etc. There is
| actually a whole spectrum of options for negotiations.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| All these suggestions seem comically unsound.
|
| Eastern Europe contains many NATO countries, and many
| European countries feel an increased rather than decreased
| need for nuclear weapons. Compensation for losses due to
| sanctions would also effectively legitimize the war, as if
| though Russia were in the right.
|
| Lifting sanctions could maybe be done, if Russia actually
| left Ukraine entirely, including Crimea.
|
| I think what's really interesting at the moment, at least
| to me as a European, is a proper war where we simply go in
| and pound the Russian positions in Ukraine with bombers,
| strike all sorts of factories, plants, gas conduits,
| electrical infrastructure etc., in Russia so as to ensure a
| reasonable outcome.
|
| This is a very large and difficult to defend country,
| relative to its population. The Russians are incredibly
| vulnerable and increasing the violence level to something
| more appropriate is the going to be the only alternative.
|
| We're planning to borrow money to get weapons. This will be
| interesting, considering today's interest rates. I think it
| might be we who must be given something that we can agree
| is some kind of 'win', rather than the Russians, if the
| world is to be orderly.
| KiwiJohnno wrote:
| The problem is any of those things are effectively a reward
| for Russia for starting the war and invading Ukraine in the
| first place. Why should Russia get any advantage out of the
| war that they 100% started?? And pay them compensation!
| What a suggestion!
|
| Russia is a bully. What do you think will happen if we have
| to pay the bully off each time they start smashing up their
| neighbors stuff up or just making threats?
|
| And as for withdrawing NATO forces - NATO is a purely
| defensive organization. Its purpose is to defend against
| just the sort of shit Russia has pulled with Ukraine. If
| Ukraine was part of NATO the war would not have happened.
|
| NATO is not a threat to Russia. Never has been, never will
| be. This is equivalent to a local crime lord complaining
| about being threatened by the police station down the road
| and demanding that the police station shuts down.
| codedokode wrote:
| > NATO is a purely defensive organization
|
| Are nuclear missiles located in Europe and pointed to the
| East also "purely defensive" weapon? It doesn't help good
| relations when you have a gun pointed at your face.
| thiht wrote:
| Sounds like your strategy is giving Russia all they want so
| that they can prepare for the next attack in a few years.
| If you're on Russia's side I guess it makes sense
| motorest wrote:
| > I'm not sure what to think. Ukraine can't militarily defeat
| russia or reclaim its lost territory, (...)
|
| Are you sure about that? I mean, didn't Afghanistan forced
| Russia to retreat in defeat and leave the country?
|
| > and as long as it continues to try to do so, there will be
| war and the world will be less stable.
|
| All the more reason to help Ukraine finish the job and force
| Russia to leave.
|
| Ultimately, worst case scenario Ukraine can simply keep
| Russian in a war of attrition while eating away at it's
| economic base.
|
| Russia is already sending it's soldiers with crutches riding
| donkeys into battle. They are scraping the bottom of the
| barrel for resources.
|
| > But if a line is not drawn against russia, I think we have
| every reason to believe putin will continue to conquer more
| land over time.
| arandomusername wrote:
| > Are you sure about that? I mean, didn't Afghanistan
| forced Russia to retreat in defeat and leave the country?
|
| Logistics (Ukraine shares a large border with Russia) and
| people - the people in currently occupied Ukraine aren't as
| against Russia as those in Afghanistan may be. Even now, we
| don't really see much of sabotage.
|
| > All the more reason to help Ukraine finish the job and
| force Russia to leave.
|
| And how are you going to do that? Russia has been gaining
| land. Currently, Russia is winning.
|
| > Ultimately, worst case scenario Ukraine can simply keep
| Russian in a war of attrition while eating away at it's
| economic base.
|
| While losing hundred of thousands of young men and
| decimating their population. Russia has more men. They can
| stand a war of attrition a lot longer - and they value
| soldier's lives less than we do in the west.
|
| > Russia is already sending it's soldiers with crutches
| riding donkeys into battle. They are scraping the bottom of
| the barrel for resources.
|
| Similarly, Ukraine is kidnapping people on the streets to
| send them to the front lines.
| codedokode wrote:
| > sending it's soldiers with crutches riding donkeys
|
| What would you use to transport items through the forest
| for example?
| audunw wrote:
| Of course they can defeat Russia, if they're tenacious
| enough. Just look at Afghanistan (against both Russia and
| USA). If the costs ends up being too high, eventually the
| attacker loses the will to continue the fight.
|
| Russia is running out of equipment. What they have left is in
| an increasingly bad state. Ukraine's recent strategy of
| targeting refineries is working fairly well.
|
| Ukraine now has domestic laser weapons for taking down
| Russian drones.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| > Ukraine now has domestic laser weapons for taking down
| Russian drones
|
| Source?
| codedokode wrote:
| Afghanistan is an awful example because there was a large
| number of civilians dead as a result (many times more that
| foreign soldiers), country having to live through several
| devastating wars, poverty, and a terrorist group became the
| government in the end. This was much worse thing than what
| is happening in Ukraine.
| kranke155 wrote:
| It can be (locally) defeated. You can defeat it in wars of
| choosing, not in a war of annihilation (as Napoleon and
| others have learnt).
|
| But in Crimea? Or the Russo-Japanese War? Or WW1? Whenever
| the stakes are less than existential, superpowers lose.
|
| Saying Russia can't lose is just defeatism. With a few dozen
| F35s and better capabilities and ammunition, Ukraine would
| likely have won this war already.
| belter wrote:
| Red Runway: Chaos - https://youtu.be/xJ2Zg8JqfAk
| protocolture wrote:
| Yeah thats their favourite place to stand, I have never seen
| them anywhere else.
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| Zelensky's Ukraine stood and fought against Russia for 3 years.
|
| Trump's USA surrendered in 6 weeks.
| chgs wrote:
| Reagan is spinning in his grave.
| skinnymuch wrote:
| Good. Innocent Ukrainian men can stop being kidnapped and put
| on front lines against their will. Barbarism.
| MiscCompFacts wrote:
| Presumably innocent Russian men are being kidnapped and
| forced to fight for a dictator just as much. So let's stop
| blaming the victim when Russia is clearly the aggressor and
| started this whole ordeal.
| lazypenguin wrote:
| Surprisingly the Russian army is mostly volunteer since the
| average pay right now is quite high by Russian standards.
| There are also standard conscripted soldiers as part of the
| country's required service. Allegedly the conscripts are
| kept away from front lines since the death of conscripted
| young men in Afghanistan was part of the political death
| knell that led to the fall of the Soviet Union.
|
| Unfortunately Ukraine is having to rely more on involuntary
| conscription to fill the ranks as volunteer numbers have
| dwindled. There are many documented cases of TASS
| "kidnapping" military age men.
|
| I don't see the parent poster blaming anybody. Maybe you
| can say they provided a one-sided view but what they wrote
| was factual.
| lm28469 wrote:
| It doesn't seem to bother Trump when it comes to arming
| Israel, there no competition but more civilians died there
| than in Ukraine so far in absolute number, and the ratio of
| civilian to military deaths isn't even close.
|
| If you want to play that card you have to be somewhat
| consistent. I don't think Trump can play the human rights
| card, and it's been a looong time
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Ukraine is just the beginning. The peace deal being negotiated
| includes NATO withdrawing to 1990 borders.
| sterlind wrote:
| "Withdrawing" to 1990 borders? You mean expelling the states
| that joined after 1990? I'm not sure that would go over well
| with the Baltics, Romania, Sweden and Finland. Withdrawal from
| NATO is voluntary and cannot be compelled.
| euroderf wrote:
| Yes, the Baltic states in particular were fanatical (um,
| "single-minded") about getting NATO security guarantees. Wild
| horses couldn't drag them away.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| USA leaving NATO was floated. I don't know how realistic any
| of it is, just that these are the terms being negotiated.
| danieldk wrote:
| At this point, is NATO still alive [1]? I don't think any
| other NATO country still trusts the US to help when a
| country has to invoke Article 5.
|
| NATO in its former shape has pretty much been dismantled
| over the course of last month.
|
| [1] NATO minus the US is still alive, of course.
| jopsen wrote:
| There are a lot of regional frameworks within NATO. The
| US doesn't lead all of them. But some of them are
| probably just paper (not all).
|
| I'd also find it hard to imagine the US not providing
| enablers like satellite targeting, etc. Or the US being
| unwilling to sell ammo.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| That might have been true last week.
| jwilk wrote:
| You forgot Poland. :-P
| ZeroTalent wrote:
| They will never let Poland go because it's a buffer for
| Germany.
| spbaar wrote:
| It will be a withdrawal of US troops and bases with a wink
| wink. And nothing but impeachment can compel the president to
| actually respond to an article V call.
| lovich wrote:
| lol, those agreements are just pieces of paper.
|
| Deals don't matter when the counterparty wont adhere to them
| and there is no third party forcing them to
| amai wrote:
| When will the US start to go all in an deliver military aid to
| Russia? Like North Korea, Iran and China...
| dgellow wrote:
| My guess is 2-3 weeks, given how fast things are shifting
| bwb wrote:
| They are already drafting an end to sanctions, which is
| unbelievable.
| ratg13 wrote:
| Tarriff other countries and then establish a free trade
| agreement with Russia to boost their economy.
|
| One wonders if they will make American packaging for their
| products, or just sell the Russian labeled products
| straight on US shelves.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| What products? Caviar and crude?
| prennert wrote:
| minerals
| rchaud wrote:
| Why not weapons? Why bother with expensive, unionized US
| labour building rifles and missiles and jets when Russia
| has cheaper alternatives?
| gpsx wrote:
| Trump said he wanted peace, but I think he really wanted an
| end for the sanctions, probably to help with his goal of
| lowering the price of oil. I don't think he cares at all
| about how things turn out in Ukraine.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Trump met with the Russia in Saudi for 'peace talks'. I
| doubt lowering oil prices was the concern there.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| Its only unbelievable if your head has been stuck firmly in
| the sand.
| preisschild wrote:
| He also personally threatened Zelenskyy, so maybe they will
| help Russia in the form of intelligence on Zelenskyy's position
| when he is visiting troops near the front...
| Havoc wrote:
| Someone's ego got hurt
| ponector wrote:
| Now it is clear that USA takes Putin's side in the war.
|
| The only peace plan Trump has is to humiliate Ukraine ans push it
| to accept surrender to Russia with reparations payments to USA.
| 3oil3 wrote:
| During the cuban missile crisis back in 1960ish, Russian Soviets
| actually had reached the point where they had launch-ready, on-
| ramp nuclear missiles. We learned some 20 years later that the US
| had deployed nuclear missiles of their own in Turkey, and the
| agreement was to remove those missiles in return. Back in those
| days, we had no "nuclear suitcase" for approving a nuclear
| launch, and we had US warships surrounding Cuba ("quarantine",
| brilliant Pres. Kennedy!), themselves encircled by Soviet
| nuclear-equipped submarines. I'm glad these men knew what is war
| like, and didn't get humanity dragged into a MAD, like all of
| these civilians today are trying to do. Let's just do a cease-
| fire, whatever the reason, let's just stop firing, and let's
| talk. The enemy is the enemy, this is what it is, but let's not
| forget, quoting Hemingway, that they are the enemy just because
| we were born on this side of the mountain, and them on the other
| side. If we dehumanize the enemy, what are we then?
| beretguy wrote:
| There is absolutely no talking to russia because russia will
| not respect any talks or agreements. Talking to russia will
| only buy time for russia to rearm and attack again. Here is the
| proof:
|
| "Zelensky sent Trump list of all 'ceasefires' violated by
| Russia"
|
| https://kyivindependent.com/zelensky-gave-trump-list-of-all-...
|
| russia respects nothing except getting punched back. They will
| break every single agreement. No amount of talking will make a
| situation any better, only worse, because it will give time to
| russia to rearm. The center cannot hold, it's too late, he
| comes.
|
| Anybody who suggests "talking to russia" have absolutely no
| clue what they are talking about. Anybody who suggests "talking
| to russia" is either slow or works for russia.
| walleeee wrote:
| Well-respected American leaders thought it wise and
| worthwhile to maintain backchannels with the USSR throughout
| the cold war. Presumably, then, the Soviets were a lesser
| threat, materially and ideologically, to the American project
| than Russia is today? Is that correct?
| bigodbiel wrote:
| Amazingly the USSR was more reliable than Putin's russia,
| whatever that is today.
| rayiner wrote:
| It seems like Ukraine is insisting on a "security guarantee." Can
| someone explain how the U.S. providing a security guarantee
| wouldn't increase the risk of american boots on the ground in
| Ukraine?
| acjacobson wrote:
| Of course it increases the risk - it's the whole point of the
| ask.
| rayiner wrote:
| Why is nobody being open about that? Because I suspect the
| appetite for that is low. Germany is about closer to Russia
| than we are--how many Germans are willing to go die in
| Ukraine?
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| A recent poll suggests Germans are currently marginally in
| favor of sending peacekeepers.
|
| The point of a peacekeeping mission is -of course- to
| prevent further war by means of deterrence (though there's
| always still a small risk, of course), so hopefully no one
| goes to die there.
|
| Currently Germany just had elections, so a clear unified
| statement from the new-government-in-formation is not yet
| available.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/thin-majority-
| germans-b...
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Nobody being open about how deterrence works? Probably
| because no one thought it needed to be explained.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| How this works is pretty common knowledge. The world has
| been using peacekeepers for quite a while. But you know
| that and you know you are just concern trolling.
| mehphp wrote:
| He's insisting on something that the U.S. already agreed to...
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum
| rayiner wrote:
| From my reading, that says we agreed not to invade Ukraine,
| not that we agreed to put american boots on the ground to
| defend Ukraine.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Does "nuclear weapons" attach to the first half of the or
| in section 4? Seems they wrote it poorly...
|
| "victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of
| aggression in which nuclear weapons are used"
|
| You are also engaged in some sophistry, where you are
| acting as if the hypothetical obligation you are discussing
| is the only possible obligation. Selling aging weapons
| stock is pretty clearly assistance, and it isn't exactly
| boots on the ground.
| rayiner wrote:
| Don't randomly accuse people of "sophistry." Zelensky is
| publicly demanding a security guarantee, and sprung that
| on Trump at the meeting. I didn't say there couldn't be
| other support, but the security guarantee is what I'm
| talking about because that seems to be critical.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Why are you saying it's random?
|
| Trump isn't meeting the existing obligations and you are
| talking about how problematic Ukraine's condition for new
| agreements would be.
| rayiner wrote:
| We have no obligation to support Ukraine under that
| memorandum.
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| If I have my dates right,
|
| Macron (president of France) visited the White House on
| Feb 24 and pointed out that security guarantees would be
| important and that the US could play an important role
| providing those guarantees. This discussion ended
| amicably. [1]
|
| Starmer (Prime Minister of the UK) visited Trump on Feb
| 27 , and besides handing over an invitation from King
| Charles, also discussed the fact that there would need to
| be security guarantees in any particular Ukraine deal.
| This discussion also ended amicably. [2]
|
| Zelensky (President of Ukraine) then visited on Feb 28
| and reiterated the points his colleagues had made. This
| time something went wrong. [3]
|
| [1] https://apnews.com/article/trump-macron-ukraine-
| russia-starm...
|
| [2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-
| news/2025/feb/27/trump-starme...
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Trump%E2%80%93Zele
| nskyy_m...
| libertine wrote:
| What went wrong is assuming there were good faith talks
| in the first two instances with Macron and Starmer.
|
| It isn't by chance that even after the talks with Macron,
| Trump tried to lie in front of him only to be corrected
| by Macron in the oval office.
|
| Even after being correct, and continues to spin the same
| lie during the Zelensky talks and after.
|
| The only thing that went wrong was assuming that Trump
| ever had Ukraine interest in sight, and not Russia
| interests.
|
| What we witnessed isn't anything new or shocking to
| anyone who has been following this event.
|
| This had been a recurring behavior from this
| administration, where there's a theatrical display to
| show that there might be some understanding, with leaders
| putting their credibility in the to say there's some
| alignment, only to have Trump the next day stating the
| opposite or something completely unaligned with previous
| statements.
|
| Let's hope this was the the final straw, and just accept
| that Russia managed to capture the US. Now it's about
| protecting this from happening elsewhere - Twitter, and
| other platforms, including alternative media should start
| to be banned in Europe ASAP.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Yes, Nuclear weapons attaches to the first clause.
| sethammons wrote:
| and if Russia threatens Ukraine with nukes if it joins
| NATO, is that a nuclear threat?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Yes. And when Russia did that the US was treaty bound to
| raise the issue of assistance with the security council.
|
| The US met this obligation and exceeded it. The US called
| an emergency session under resolution 2623.
|
| Exceeded the obligations by acting outside of the UN and
| security council to provide independent aid in funding.
|
| The memorandum requires that the US do nothing on its
| own, let alone provide unlimited assistance.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| They just want the US to keep their word on promises already
| made. Is that so unreasonable? They gave up their nukes for it.
| rayiner wrote:
| You're saying we already gave them the equivalent of NATO
| Article 5?
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| Not equivalent, but the USA is in violation as of today.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The USA is not in violation of that. All of points 1-6
| have been complied with.
|
| Russia is in clear violation of it, but it never promised
| US military intervention. All it promises is we'd go to
| the Security Council about it.
|
| The memorandum didn't really anticipate one of the
| signatories with a UN veto being the aggressor.
| spectra72 wrote:
| The UK, France and China also signed that same agreement.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| France and China signed separate, individual agreements.
|
| The UK and France have clearly followed (and exceeded,
| via direct military aid it does not require) the
| requirements of the memorandum.
|
| I can't find the text of China's agreement.
| spectra72 wrote:
| As has the US with all of their aid.
|
| Yet, the US is the one that is forever chided for being
| negligent to the terms of the agreement.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > As has the US with all of their aid.
|
| As I've noted upthread.
|
| > Yet, the US is the one that is forever chided for being
| negligent to the terms of the agreement.
|
| The US has absolutely complied with the Budapest
| Memorandum's requirements.
|
| Military aid isn't required, it's just a good idea. The
| recent withdrawal of aid is a betrayal of an ally, but
| not a violation of the Memorandum.
| kelipso wrote:
| The nukes were never under Ukraine control or possession.
| It's like saying Turkey has nukes, they don't, they are US
| nukes.
| libertine wrote:
| Here comes the Russian propaganda... The nukes belonged to
| Ukraine. Just like Belarus nukes belonged to them.
|
| What is said by Russian propagandists is that Ukraine
| didn't have the launch codes - like it was some magical
| barrier that would prevent Ukraine from deploying the nukes
| if they wanted to.
|
| Like Ukrainian scientists didn't play a major a role in
| USSR nuclear development, and didn't have the know how to
| just use other system to deploy the nukes.
|
| It's part of the Russian propaganda to make Ukrainians into
| incompetent inferior ethnic group - why do you think they
| address them by derogatory ethnic slurs like "little
| Russians"?
| kelipso wrote:
| > that Ukraine didn't have the launch codes - like it was
| some magical barrier that would prevent Ukraine from
| deploying the nukes if they wanted to
|
| Yeah, that's what launch codes are. Stop with the Ukraine
| propaganda..
| libertine wrote:
| You're in the wrong place to spread Russia propaganda,
| here we go:
|
| > After its dissolution in 1991, Ukraine became the third
| largest nuclear power in the world and held about one
| third of the former Soviet nuclear weapons, delivery
| system, and significant knowledge of its design and
| production. Ukraine inherited about 130 UR-100N
| intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) with six
| warheads each, 46 RT-23 Molodets ICBMs with ten warheads
| apiece, as well as 33 heavy bombers, totaling
| approximately 1,700 nuclear warheads that remained on
| Ukrainian territory.[0]
|
| [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_weapons_of
| _mass_...
|
| And the magical Russian propaganda launch codes that
| required Russia and USA to request Ukraine to
| decommission nukes, because Ukraine couldn't use any of
| those nukes.
|
| By the way, what are the launch codes for nukes deployed
| by bombers lmao the bombers won't take off if Russia
| didn't insert the launch codes?
| kelipso wrote:
| Lol using wikipedia as a source. Either way, the fact
| remains that there was no set of events in which Ukraine
| would have been allowed to have nukes. If Ukraine has
| said no, either the new government would be replaced or
| Ukraine would have gotten invaded by US and Russia
| simultaneously.
|
| It's nice that people say Ukraine and the other countries
| owned the nukes or whatever and have them sign an
| agreement to "hand over" something they didn't own, but
| that's just optics. Reality is Ukraine never could use
| those nukes and didn't have a military force or access to
| the nukes to keep them.
| lovich wrote:
| If they couldn't have kept them, why were they asked?
| libertine wrote:
| Of course Wikipedia, or any other source, wouldn't be
| enough. By the way, what is your source?
|
| Here's the man himself, Bill Clinton, stating it was not
| only a possibility for Ukraine to keep their nukes, but
| also that it was a mistake he regrets making:
| https://youtu.be/nKoba5GvNsc?si=3T1W6BvrqEqvkpNE
|
| So not only you're spreading propaganda, and lies,
| without sources to support your claims, you're even
| doubling down on more fantasy.
|
| The fact is that Ukraine could use those nukes, both the
| ICBM ones that would require the "magical codes", also
| the ones deployed by the bombers, they also had the
| technical know how to further develop their nuclear
| arsenal, as well as having the fuel to produce more.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| It was considered enough of a big deal that there was a
| Treaty about it.
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| An actual lasting peace deal requires some sort of security
| guarantee, else it's not really a "peace deal", but rather
| something more like a capitulation. If US political leadership
| didn't have at least _some_ solution for security in mind to
| begin with, then they wouldn 't have been negotiating in good
| faith.
|
| That said, Security Guarantees don't necessarily directly mean
| boots on the ground, certainly not straight away.
|
| It could mean a deterrence framework where there a clear
| commitments that certain actions would mean certain responses,
| which itself reduces the chance those responses are necessary.
| Security guarantees can specify escalating measures before
| reaching an actual troop deployment. And European nations have
| already promised to provide the initial boots on the ground,
| though they really would like an American backstop.
|
| The deterrence aspect is crucial - formal security frameworks
| often prevent conflict precisely because they make aggression
| too costly, reducing the likelihood they'd ever need to be
| activated.
| rayiner wrote:
| That makes it seem like a security guarantee would risk
| deeper US involvement, as eventually happened with Korea,
| Vietnam, and Iraq I.
|
| It seems to me that your logic would make the Iraq War quite
| defensible. Iraq had already invaded Kuwait. We had already
| guaranteed Kuwait's security, so we would've had to send
| troops if Saddam invaded again. So if the CIA was correct
| that Saddam was rearming, there was a logic to deposing him
| now and resolving the situation on terms favorable to us,
| instead of reactively getting involved at a future date.
| Without the benefit of hindsight--knowing Saddam didn't have
| WMDs--it seems like the only basis for opposing the Iraq War
| under your logic would have been to quibble about how much of
| an affirmative step Saddam had to take before our obligation
| to put boots on the ground kicked in.
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| You're right, it really depends on what the security
| guarantees are, how they're stated, and whether they're
| credible.
|
| As an example of a case that _has_ worked, the mutual
| security guarantees within NATO have prevented WWIII so
| far. (knock on wood)
|
| Obviously, we should be trying to go for something more
| like the latter.
|
| Alternately, of course, no security guarantees, and both
| sides continue to fight.
|
| China is already closely watching how the west responds to
| Ukraine, with potential implications for Taiwan. This
| increases the likelihood that American security
| commitments/requirements will eventually be tested more
| directly.
| kelipso wrote:
| > though they really would like an American backstop.
|
| It's not a really would like. In all of their speeches by key
| politicians, European boots on the ground is conditional on
| US backstop. So it's not happening without US support.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Stop. Dude isn't interested in a real answer, he's concern
| trolling. He propogandizes his position over and over on this
| site.
| rayiner wrote:
| I'm not concern trolling. I don't want a single U.S.
| soldier on Ukraine soil. It's a red line. I'm asking
| whether a security guarantee increases the risk of that
| happening.
| openasocket wrote:
| In the near term, Ukraine wants continued delivery of military
| equipment. In the end game, they want any sort of peace treaty
| ending this war to include NATO/EU/US support. Ideally, in the
| form of NATO membership. This is crucial to ensure that any
| peace deal would be lasting. Putin has repeatedly stated that
| he does not believe a Ukrainian state has a right to exist, and
| has engaged in military operations against them for over a
| decade at this point. There is no chance a peace deal will
| endure without some sort of security guarantee from another
| power.
| josephstalinOk wrote:
| Now pause all military aid to Israel. No? Are you Israel's bitch?
| rozap wrote:
| Yes, yes we are.
| iammjm wrote:
| "Free world" my ass. As a European, the US has always been my
| favorite country and I've been basically universally pro-US all
| my life. The Recent US decisions managed to turn it 180 degrees
| for me, in a matter of basically a couple of months. As I
| consider myself to be a more or less statistical normie, I assume
| theres many, many more people like me. So: fuck US & eat shit, go
| suck Putins dick while the EU & the rest of the true free world
| should focus our efforts on getting nukes, investing in military
| and intelligence, and leveraging new drone & radar technologies.
| Theres honestly never been a better time, geopolitically and
| technologically, to wane off of US-dependence.
| JaggerJo wrote:
| Yeah, kind of agree.
|
| I don't think this thought would have crossed my mind a few
| years ago, but I think more European countries need Nukes. Sad,
| but seems like the US can't be trusted anymore.
| halper wrote:
| With all due respect to your experience and with sincerity, I
| must ask: did you miss Trump's first presidency? Surely that
| was the time to become disillusioned with the USA, if not
| before?
| RealityVoid wrote:
| Speaking from my own experience... I was hoping Trump was an
| anomaly. That the US would have the good sense of NOT voting
| the guy that directly tried to subvert the electoral process.
| That somehow the American public still had a moral compass
| and that the many Americans I admired were representative for
| their country. I was obviously a fool.
|
| Otherwise, I kept saying to anyone who had ears around me
| what a grave danger Trump is. I've been doing this for more
| than 10 years. I saw him as a corrupt asshole since reading
| his book "The art of the deal" more than 20 years ago. He
| came highly recommended in the sphere of the then emerging
| "manosphere"/ PUA culture of the 2000's (I cringe at my own
| stupidity and shallowness now).
| mythrwy wrote:
| Could be the development of this attitude is part of the point.
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| >while the EU & the rest of the true free world should focus
| our efforts on getting nukes, investing in military and
| intelligence, and leveraging new drone & radar technologies.
|
| You do realize all of that requires massive investment? Where
| is the EU going to get that money? Raise taxes on a population
| that is already struggling in a stagnant economy? An economy
| that is stagnant partly due to the loss of the dirt-cheap
| energy that European heavy industry was importing from Russia.
|
| As an American (and not one of European decent, so I don't hold
| the romantic attachment to Europe that many have), I'm
| perfectly happy with the salty, delusional Europeans agreeing
| with severing trans-Atlantic relations. Europe has spawned two
| World Wars and seems intent on flirting with a third. The
| sooner we disconnect from you guys, and pivot back to a mix of
| the Pacific Rim + the Americas, the better.
|
| Now if only we could disband AIPAC...
| grouchomarx wrote:
| >pro-US all my life >So: fuck US & eat shit
|
| too bad it only took you a few moments to take on this
| mentality after a lifetime of goodwill. America's been hijacked
| you should continue to stand with it
| JaggerJo wrote:
| Crazy how you can ruin a nations reputation in weeks..
| rapind wrote:
| Everyone's about to get nukes now. What could go wrong.
| ozmodiar wrote:
| You're not joking, a lot of people I talk to have gone from
| anti nuke to hard pro nuke. I can see the future having a lot
| more nukes in it now that there's no reliable world order to
| believe in.
| jopsen wrote:
| I doubt Denmark will get nukes, nor am I sure I'd be in
| favor of nukes.
|
| But I can see the argument that having the ability to nuke
| 50m Russians might deter them from attacking 5m Danes.
|
| And I'd personally hate to sit in a trench. Which is a real
| risk if Russia attacks the Baltics and only half of NATO
| shows up.
|
| So maybe we should get nukes and preposition them in the
| Baltics.
|
| I'm sure our politicians wouldn't want to :)
| preisschild wrote:
| > I doubt Denmark will get nukes, nor am I sure I'd be in
| favor of nukes.
|
| Ideally, we'd have an EU military that takes control of
| nuclear weapons for example and automatically use them to
| retaliate when enemy nuclear weapons are launched against
| EU territory.
| jajko wrote:
| Yeah not with Orban or Fico involved, those are both
| hardened criminals involved in murders too. Subverting EU
| is their morning activity.
|
| I'd say no EU country should rely on full defense from
| the rest, each big one should start on their own in
| hardcore mode: drones, more heavy drones, optic cable
| drones, drone swarms and then artillery, ammunition for
| it and air defense (probably the hardest), then the rest.
| Himars is cool tech but thats a very expensive tech to
| develop and certainly in current numbers doesn't affect
| outcome of war. License/buy tech from ukrainians since
| they have best hands one warfare experience from whole
| europe, setup manufacturing with them, helping them and
| ourselves. What should be shared ie nuclear stuff thats
| too much for a single country.
|
| Silos with main manufacturing, copied elsewhere in
| smaller numbers. Defense can be good business, just look
| at US after WWII, not happy that we are heading in that
| direction but there is no other way if we want to keep
| freedom. I've grown up behind uron curtain oppressed by
| soviets cough cough russians, and let me tell you, many
| people died trying to escape to that freedom. Its
| invaluable once you don't have it, not to everybody but
| to many.
| nanotuber wrote:
| Disagree with the implication here and expect the opposite.
|
| Ukraine peace (even an imperfect one) allows the US and
| Russia to work together to prevent Iran from getting a nuke.
| Ukraine won't get nukes in either scenario.
|
| An ongoing war forces Russia to rely on Iran, limiting its
| ability to work with US (and China), on isolating its nuclear
| program.
|
| DPRK nukes already exist and ROK is pressuring the US for
| permission for them (neither Biden or Trump want to give
| them).
|
| I don't know of any other latent nuclear states.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| DPRK redoubled its nuclear program and shut down
| disarmament talks when Kim saw Saddam Hussein get regime-
| changed after he willingly cooperated with UN inspectors to
| show that there were no WMDs. They realized that
| cooperating doesn't get you anywhere and the only insurance
| is through nukes.
|
| Now Ukraine, which gave up its warheads, is seeing the same
| thing.
|
| And even _Canadians_ are starting to discuss a nuclear
| guarantee.
|
| Yes, we are going to see more nuclear states. It may not
| happen overnight but the status quo won't hold either.
| nanotuber wrote:
| The implication is that nuclear proliferation is linked
| to the US pausing Ukraine aid.
|
| That's a gross mischaracterization.
|
| I'll bet you 10 to 1 that Ukraine won't end up with
| nukes.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Ukraine might not, at this point, because it may be too
| late for them under whatever heavy-handed peace deal gets
| imposed. It's all the other would-be Ukraines who are
| going to make nukes.
|
| Finland, Poland, South Korea, Taiwan...
|
| Better safe than sorry.
| lovich wrote:
| How did you move the goalposts in three sentences?
|
| Nuclear proliferation occurring does not require Ukraine
| in particular to be a country with nukes
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > I don't know of any other latent nuclear states.
|
| Japan is sometimes described as a "screwdriver turn away
| from a bomb". They've got the materials, the know-how, the
| civilian nuclear program, and the rockets... and the
| geopolitics to be interested.
| nanotuber wrote:
| That's a good point.
|
| Both the ROK and Japan though are cases where the US
| "pivoting to Asia" from Europe would make them less, not
| more, likely to pursue such a breakout. And in both
| cases, their incentives has existed prior to Ukraine.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The ROK and Japan must both factor in the possibility of
| America not coming to their aid in a similar fashion.
|
| That wasn't a super realistic consideration until a few
| weeks ago.
| david-gpu wrote:
| Arguably, most developed nations are in the same boat in
| terms of being able to build a bomb in relatively short
| notice. The main challenge is probably that refining
| uranium is intrinsically a slow process.
|
| I do wonder how many supposedly non-nuclear developed
| countries have secret small-scale refinement plants and
| the ability to assemble nuclear warheads in short notice.
| It is the sort of stuff that they wouldn't want their own
| populous to know, as it is controversial.
| lovich wrote:
| Biden also negotiated a deal which put refined nuclear
| material in Australia's hands
|
| http://npr.org/2023/03/13/1163153801/biden-is-selling-u-
| s-nu...
| egberts1 wrote:
| People would say Budapest Memorandum give Ukraine the rights to
| its 2,000 Soviet nuclear weapons. That's not what it said.
|
| People would say that the same memorandum says Ukraine security
| is absolute. Not that either.
|
| People would say in 2014, US installed new Ukraine government via
| propaganda. Looks dubious too.
|
| People would say Ukraine shut down 11+ political parties who
| opposed current Ukraine government; some parties were funded by
| Russia. That part remains true.
|
| Newspaper and TV in Ukraine were nationalized partially with
| money by USAID, that was uncovered by US DOGE.
|
| Elections were "suspended" in Ukraine. Last May 2024 was supposed
| to have a nationwide election. Definitely true.
|
| Seems like Ukraine is following US foreign policy that led to
| demise of dictators like Mossadegh, Arbenz, Diem, Noriega,
| Qadaffi, Saddam.
|
| Is Zelensky a dictator now?
| Justsignedup wrote:
| Just so you know.
|
| The Ukranian constitution states no elections during war.
|
| All political opponents have come out and said we will hold
| elections after victory. Nobody is against postponement.
|
| Ukraine has had healthy consistent elections since the Russian
| backed government was booted out.
| egberts1 wrote:
| Good to know.
|
| Now we wait for the end results.
|
| But curious, is Zelensky using the pretense of war to stay in
| power?
| skeletal88 wrote:
| What, no. I guess he would rather do something else than be
| a wartime president.
|
| trump should call putin a dictator, because.. he obviously
| is, but for some reason he chose to attack Zelensky
| instead.
|
| How can there be elections when there are millions of
| people displaced, there are large parts of the country
| occupied and huge part of the population is on the front
| defending the country.
|
| This "dictator" stuff is just straight russian propaganda,
| that americans have been swallowing up because someone told
| trump it was true.
| openasocket wrote:
| How do you intend to conduct an election during an active
| war when 20% of the country, over 3 million Ukrainians, are
| under Russian occupation? Do they just not get to vote?
| ImJamal wrote:
| Plenty of countries have held elections during war,
| including war in their country. The US (civil war), Iraq
| and Afghanistan during the US occupation, Japan (WW2),
| etc.
|
| I know it can be a challenge, but it has been done.
| myvoiceismypass wrote:
| > But curious, is Zelensky using the pretense of war to
| stay in power?
|
| See this from just a week ago: "Zelenskyy offers to resign
| in exchange for peace, NATO entry"
|
| https://www.politico.eu/article/volodymyr-zelenskyy-offer-
| re...
| egberts1 wrote:
| It is a challenge to conduct an election during war.
|
| Never forget:
|
| 1) Zelensky sat quietly while Democrats tried to impeach
| Trump the first time. Zelensky alone could have put an
| end to that sham impeachment.
|
| 2) Zelensky actively campaign against Donald Trump for
| the Democrats.
|
| 3) One of Zelinsky's radicalized zealots tried to kill
| Donald Trump.
|
| Then Zelensky reneges on the mineral deal because it
| doesn't continue the money laundering proxy war the
| Democrats and RINO war whores started.
|
| At some point, people might wake up and realize Zelensky
| is not a good guy.
|
| Maybe.
| belter wrote:
| Richard Nixon on Soviet Union
|
| "We must be ever watchful when dealing with regimes whose actions
| have often betrayed their promises."
|
| Ronald Reagan
|
| "I call the Soviet Union an evil empire."
|
| George H. W. Bush on Russia
|
| "The history of deception and coercion reminds us that trust is
| never given
|
| lightly--it must be earned and continuously verified."
|
| George W. Bush
|
| "We call on Moscow to immediately cease its aggressive actions
| and respect the sovereignty of its neighbors. We cannot afford to
| trust a regime that repeatedly flouts international norms."
|
| Donald Trump
|
| "I have great respect for Putin."
|
| I have a very good relationship with him [Putin]."
| rchaud wrote:
| Nixon would be seen as a woke elite in today's Republican
| party. He helped introduce environmental legislation in the US,
| and met with Mao to open trade links and counterbalance the
| USSR.
| wtcactus wrote:
| It's appalling to see so many comments here defending what's
| going on.
|
| I'm trying to take it in good faith and accept these people
| actually think this instead of being paid to spread Russian
| disinformation. So, for those that are in good faith, as an
| European, I'll explain mine (and my close circle) position:
|
| It's true that the USA doesn't have any obligation of helping
| Ukraine and should be up to us, Europeans, to step up. But, Trump
| didn't need to be a Russian disinformation asset about it and go
| through that, despicable , petty, childish display in the White
| House, where, preying together with his VP, they tried to frame
| Zelenskyy and Ukraine for starting a war.
|
| They could just politely, and diplomatic reduce US aid, while
| still abiding by the most basic, absolute truth: Putin started
| this war and all fault for it lies in Russian hands and Ukraine
| is just a victim in all this.
|
| This would be the upright, sensible and intelligent position to
| hold if they really just didn't want to continue contributing to
| Ukraine's defense with US' money.
| lfmunoz4 wrote:
| Do you remember what happened when Russia tried to install
| missiles in Cuba? The USA put its foot down and was willing to
| have a nuclear war. Same thing is happening in Russia, making
| Ukraine part of NATO is just too close. Why is it so hard for
| people to understand this?
| wtcactus wrote:
| Do you remember that started because Russia already invaded
| part of Ukraine in 2014?
|
| Do you remember Russia's promises when Ukraine voluntarily
| ceded their nuclear arsenal to Russia?
| lfmunoz4 wrote:
| Not sure what the point you are making is? Should we just
| keep going back in history and try to cherry pick events to
| blame and justify current conflicts? That can go on
| indefinitely and is why we keep having wars.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| The current war _started with the 2014 invasion by
| Russia_.
|
| Claiming that the invasion of Ukraine by Russia is caused
| and justified by a thing which happened _after and in
| response to_ that invasion is arguing for retrocausality.
| It is not "going back in history and cherry picking
| events" to point out when and how _the current war
| started_ in a discussion of the _causes of the current
| war_ , especially when an event that happened _after and
| in response to_ the start of the current war is argued to
| justify _the aggressor in the current war_.
| skinnymuch wrote:
| It started because of the western coup in Ukraine.
| Reminds me of people who say Oct 7 started the "war" in
| Palestine.
| wtcactus wrote:
| > Should we just keep going back in history and try to
| cherry pick events to blame and justify current conflicts
|
| But, it is you that did just that. You picked up an event
| from the 1960's in a totally different continent, to
| justify Russian continued agressions against Ukraine.
|
| I answered by actually pointing out an event from 10
| years ago that's directly related to this war.
| skinnymuch wrote:
| Russia responded to a western coup on one of the 3 East
| Slavic nations (Russia Ukraine Belarus).
| GJim wrote:
| Except NATO is a defence organisation.
|
| Ask yourself why countries bordering Russia want to join.
| skinnymuch wrote:
| No it's not. Bullies always lying.
| layer8 wrote:
| How is that related to the comment you're replying to?
| jsnider3 wrote:
| Making Ukraine part of NATO is just something Putin made up,
| not an actual thing.
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| I recommend reading some of the diplomatic cables on
| Wikileaks
| https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW3127_a.html
| <--this one from 2008 has Russian diplomats warning about
| NATO expansion and Ukraine
|
| https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08KYIV1144_a.html <--
| this one is about Ukrainian spending on a pro-NATO
| information campaign
|
| The Ukrainian president who was anti-NATO is the one that
| the Euromaidan deposed. https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-
| scraps-nato-accession-plans/a-...
|
| Here's France24's take in 2014 when Ukraine voted to
| abandon "non-aligned" status:
| https://www.france24.com/en/20141223-ukraine-parliament-
| vote... _Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and
| its support for the separatist insurgency appear partly
| rooted in fears that the Western military alliance could
| expand its presence on the Russian border._
|
| Then in 2019 we have this: Ukraine President Signs
| Constitutional Amendment On NATO, EU Membership (Radio Free
| Europe, 2019) https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-president-
| signs-constitution...
|
| Followed up by Zelensky doubling down on NATO later that
| same year: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-president-
| promises-nato-refe...
|
| And then Trump sending additional lethal aid to Ukraine at
| the end of the year:
| https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2019/12/04/trump-to-
| see...
|
| My personal opinion is that these events in 2019 were the
| last straw for Putin. He probably made the decision to
| invade early in 2020....but had to pause those plans while
| the whole world grappled with COVID. It then took them into
| mid-2021 to get the ball rolling on staging their forces
| for invasion, and then they were delayed again due to Xi
| Jinping telling Putin to not fuck up his Beijing Olympics
| or he wouldn't get tacit support from the PRC. All of which
| meant that the early-2022 invasion was likely caused by
| NATO-related issues that were looking increasingly
| concerning 3 years earlier.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > making Ukraine part of NATO is just too close.
|
| Ukraine (after abandoning efforts after the MAP rejection --
| done at Russia's insistence -- in 2008) only started looking
| at NATO membership again _after_ Russia invaded, so it is
| ludicrously disconnected from reality (but exactly
| representative of Russian propaganda!) to try to use that to
| justify the invasion.
| fhat151ag wrote:
| That is another pressure tactic so the EU can sell increased arms
| spending to its citizens.
|
| The EU leaders, who are naive to the extreme, comply. They make
| peace plans that Russia is known not to accept. Once that is
| done, they'll keep the conflict on a low flame until the US feels
| getting involved again.
|
| Which can happen at any moment, including under Trump within the
| next two months.
|
| Trump has been deliberately provoking the EU's nationalistic
| feelings, starting with Greenland and ending with the Zelensky
| fallout theater.
|
| If the EU had any pride, it would negotiate with Russia directly,
| skipping the US. Reopen Nordstream and see if the purportedly
| Russia-friendly Trump agrees.
|
| Regarding Trump being a Russian asset: It has happened before,
| with Hillary Clinton and Sergey Lavrov initiating a "reset" in
| US/Russia relations:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_reset
|
| Why is Hilary Clinton not called a Russian asset?
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Every time I ask rhetorically what a known, paid Russian asset
| would do differently as President of the US than Trump is doing,
| I get crickets from Trump supporters.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| >what a known, paid Russian asset would do differently as
| President of the US than Trump
|
| Well the obvious one is dropping Russian sanctions. Has Trump
| done this?
| Encounter wrote:
| It seems to be in the works:
| https://www.reuters.com/world/white-house-seeks-plan-
| possibl...
| j_timberlake wrote:
| What would it take for the Republican congress to consider
| impeaching him and Vance? Trump sending military aid to Russia?
| Crashing the economy? Defying the courts?
|
| We might actually find out at this rate.
| nanotuber wrote:
| Comments are disappointing for hacker news standard.
|
| This pause was predictable (I predicted it in Nov 2024). It's
| negotiation leverage to steer toward an immediate resolution of
| the war.
|
| An immediate resolution of the war cuts losses: Ukraine loses
| territory, but keeps its sovereignty.
|
| The challenge is that there aren't many other viable paths. An
| indefinite forever war, with high risk of a Ukraine state
| collapse, is a most likely alternative. A direct confrontation
| between NATO and Russia is another, much less likely alternative.
| The idea that Russia's economy will collapse is highly unlikely.
|
| The Trump Administration will resume military aid after Ukraine
| is forced to ceasefire talks. Ukraine will not likely (nor with
| EU) recognize loss territory. However Russia is likely to hold it
| de facto.
|
| Although I doubt any peace negotiated will last decades. The
| reasons for the war are deep.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| What are the deeper reasons for the war? All I hear from
| talking heads is this is aggression from Russia to grab
| resources and potentially continue to expand their territories
| through conquest.
| helge9210 wrote:
| Statehood of Russia (only since 1721; originally Principality
| of Moscow established in 1263) is coming from Mongols.
|
| With Kyiv under control, they can claim history and culture
| of Rus (also known as Kyivan Rus').
|
| This is the fundamental ideological reason for the war going
| on since 1657.
| nanotuber wrote:
| The deeper reason is that the Baltics are in a security
| conundrum. Russia is inherently insecure, and Europe doesn't
| know where Europe ends. For security - let's compare the
| Russian Federation and the US.
|
| Russia is the largest country on earth (twice size of US) yet
| it has half the US population.
|
| The US has two neighboring states and two oceans that border
| it (with strongest navy in the world). Russia has 14
| neighboring states and several neighbor areas in frozen
| conflict. Russia has no oceans separating its adversaries.
|
| In terms of history, Ukraine (and Belarus) have been the
| routes of choice for military invasions into Moscow.
|
| As a result of this security situation, Russia (and the
| Soviet Union before it, and the Tsarists before them, ...)
| relies on having a neutral periphery as a buffer zone.
| Ukraine declared itself neutral in its constitution at the
| formation of the country as it split from the Soviet Union.
| In 2019 Ukraine stripped neutrality from its constitution and
| wrote in pursuit of NATO membership.
|
| For Europe not knowing where it ends, just look at EU
| membership, potential membership, and statements evolving
| over the past several decades from officials about where
| Europe ends.
|
| The proximal cause of the war, literally the day-by-day
| timeline leading up to the conflict, was the Biden
| Administration threatening to pull Ukraine in NATO, Russia
| stated this was a red line and that it would invade and
| destroy Ukraine rather than let that happen, and then Russia
| and NATO diplomacy failed to resolve the issue.
|
| This is clearly what the war is about: it is what led day by
| day up to the conflict, Ukraine's president offered to
| withdraw NATO ambitions as the invasion began to passify it,
| the Istanbul Peace Agreements early in the war centered on
| resolving the topic, and the peace discussions now have
| centered on it.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Funny Trumps advisor stated one of the options was BOOSTING
| support for Ukraine to the point Russia was forced to the
| table. Funny how that option which would be much more aligned
| with American's past actions, commitments, policy stance, and
| allies wasn't chosen but this 'predictable' one was, especially
| by a President that likes to claim he takes action via strength
| (but chooses this weakening of his sides negotiating position).
| onlypassingthru wrote:
| > The idea that Russia's economy will collapse is highly
| unlikely.
|
| Yeah, no way it's collapsing when the central bank rate is at
| 21%.[0]
|
| Totally unrelated, but might I interest you in a lucrative land
| opportunity in Florida?
|
| [0]https://apnews.com/article/russia-interest-
| rates-0fa1d7385be...
| nanotuber wrote:
| Certainly Russia's economy has difficulties. It has inflation
| roughly 9-10% and (dangerously low) unemployment around 1%.
| Russia's Central Bank key rate needs to be extremely high to
| fight its inflation because it is not as primary a lender as
| the US Fed for example - there's way more private lending.
| The inflation is caused by raising labor costs (due to
| unemployment), supply chain disruptions from sanctions, and
| weakening of the ruble due to printing of money to fund the
| war.
|
| Thus far Russia's economy has grown substantially due to the
| war - expansion of its industrial base. This is factoring
| inflation in. What's happening right now is that Russian
| economic growth due to military industry is slowing down, and
| Russia is not likely to continue growing its economy at near
| the same rate.
|
| Russia is most likely heading into an era of stagflation
| (high inflation and low growth). This isn't a collapse of the
| economy. It's not great, but its not a way to end the war.
|
| One option could be to tank oil prices (into the $40/barrel
| range, currently $70/barrel range) and keep that for years.
| Due to Russia's reliance on energy income this would disrupt
| the Russian budget and it would either need to cut social
| spending or go into debt (e.g. to China) to continue without
| shelving social programs.
|
| The point is that the Russian economy isn't on the brink of
| collapse. Due to the national security nature of a hostile
| military alliance at its doorstep, it's likely to make hard
| choices if put into such a situation (e.g. go into debt).
| onlypassingthru wrote:
| > Due to the national security nature of a hostile military
| alliance at its doorstep
|
| Finland shares a massive border with Russia and joined NATO
| almost 2 years ago and what 'hard choices' have been made
| since? Please, do tell!
| lovich wrote:
| >The Trump Administration will resume military aid after
| Ukraine is forced to ceasefire talks.
|
| Bold claim with little evidence
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > An immediate resolution of the war cuts losses: Ukraine loses
| territory, but keeps its sovereignty.
|
| Only for a year or so. Without the USA in its corner, Ukraine
| loses sovereignty before Trump is out of office.
| codedokode wrote:
| Now it is difficult time for negotiations due to Russia being
| in a favourable position and being able to demand more. While
| Trump needs to fulfill his promise to "end the war in the first
| day", Russia doesn't have to hurry although it wants to end the
| war too (after all, it was supposed to last just several
| weeks).
|
| A good time for negotiations was in 2022, but it is lost.
|
| > I doubt any peace negotiated will last decades
|
| I think Russia doesn't want the second war like this because it
| was supposed to last several weeks but ended up lasting several
| years.
| prewett wrote:
| While I find the Russian invasion of Ukraine appalling, as a
| counterpoint to all the "Trump is destroying the US' reputation"
| mono-point that I've read so far (although I agree with that,
| too): John Maersheimer [1] gave a great explanation and
| prediction (~10 years prior) of why the whole thing happened. The
| US saw Russian weakness, decided to expand NATO to Ukraine, and
| the Russians said "no way will we let NATO be on our border,
| we'll destroy Ukraine first". We ignored them because they were
| weak, and they did what they said they would do. So I'm a little
| torn, because the situation is unwinnable without a major
| commitment, which nobody wants to do, and is not even in our
| interests, since we have a peer-competitor conflict shaping up
| with China. But our hubris caused the whole situation.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
| genter wrote:
| Ukraine is an independent country, it was their choice to join
| NATO.
| tim333 wrote:
| Just one problem with that amongst many:
|
| Russia has bordered NATO for years. Estonia and Latvia both do
| and if you count Kaliningrad as Russia then Poland and
| Lithuania do too.
|
| In common with much stuff Russia comes up with it's just lies
| to justify their bad behaviour.
| relistan wrote:
| No. Countries with their own free choice asked to be part of
| NATO. The US did not push this on them. NATO expansion happened
| exactly because none of those countries trusted their neighbor
| Russia, who had previously invaded them and kept them under its
| thumb for 50 years. Russia is both to blame for the expansion
| of NATO and Russia's subsequent invasions of Georgia and
| Ukraine.
| tim333 wrote:
| Trump no doubt will say this is a negotiating ploy to get
| Zelensky to make concessions but you have to wonder why all the
| concessions have to be made by the victim and not the aggressor.
| Why not ask Putin to pause killing Ukranians or return some of
| the kidnapped children or some token of goodwill?
| n4r9 wrote:
| You also have to wonder why Vance was less bothered by Putin
| not continually saying "please" as he was by Zelenskyy not
| continually saying "thank you".
| codedokode wrote:
| Because West has no means to put more pressure on Russia (they
| cannot even stop buying natural gas), so it has to talk nicely.
| US cannot demand, for example, that Russia gives them a share
| of their minerals and generally cannot demand anything.
|
| Actually in hindsight the best time for negotiations was
| somewhere in end of 2022, but that chance is long gone.
|
| But while West cannot demand, it still can offer (i.e. removing
| nuclear weapon and US forces from EU etc).
| onlypassingthru wrote:
| The West absolutely has more means at its disposal, by arming
| Ukraine to the teeth.
|
| The slow drip of arms has been really effective at degrading
| Russia (just look at the golf cart brigades and North Korean
| wave attacks), but an increase in long range capability is
| what's needed to finish the job.
| codedokode wrote:
| "arming Ukraine to the teeth" does not guarantee the
| victory but guarantees more casualties and suffering. To
| win you also need to have 3x more soldiers which is not the
| case. West cannot even pay a salary comparable to what
| Russia pays to its volunteer soldiers.
| onlypassingthru wrote:
| We can both agree that arming Ukraine with more missiles
| will guarantee more casualties and suffering... for the
| Russians.
|
| And in response, Russia will do what exactly? Send more
| golf cart brigades or more North Koreans? It's not like
| Russia has enormous military resources they've been
| keeping as a surprise. No, if Russia could do _anything_
| differently they would already be doing it to win the
| 'Special Military Operation'.
| codedokode wrote:
| Draft more soldiers, for example. Missiles falling on
| Russian cities will increase motivation to go defend the
| country.
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