The American government has been compromised by Russia. It no longer represents American interests, but Russian interests.
Whether the senior powers in America are compromised, complicit, or opportunist, it doesn't matter. America is being damaged. Russian interests are being prioritized over American interests.
Our military is too powerful for direct conflict, so alternative conflict against our political structure and economy is more logical. America is experiencing a decapitation strike, and our military is not defending us from these domestic enemies. https://archive.is/1xkxK (Decapitation Strike -- Timothy Snyder)
Russia seems to own the far right mindspace to a large degree, and I’m sure they’ve spent a large amount of resources for many years shaping those perspectives and narratives to suit themselves.
I also suspect that Russia has been causing the very problems that the far right reacts against, most notably immigration. Remember wirecard? Germany’s fintech darling, which was run by Jan Marsalek, who turned out to be a Russian spy? What was one of the things they were doing? Funding people smuggling into Europe. To strengthen the right that Russia owns.
> I also suspect that Russia has been causing the very problems that the far right reacts against, most notably immigration.
They absolutely are.
A large portion of immigrants into Europe originate from countries suffering from conflicts that Russia has a big hand in. The big one, of course, being Syria, but also many African nations where the Wagner group, now effectively re-branded as the Russian Africa Corps are providing military support and protection.
Russia has their base in Syria but the US has been trying to destroy Syria through covert and non covert means since at least 1982. Russia is newcomer to Syria conflict.
I don't understand why the focus on one side? Russia was caught financing extreme-left parties, religious parties (including hamas, isis and hezbollah), conservative parties (moderate and extreme), rebels, terrorists ...
Certainly seems Russia has no ideology they care about beyond "sabotage states", with some priority on western states, but certainly not just western states. They fund political parties in ex-Yugoslavia that are LITERALLY at each other's throats (with knives and guns, not with protests and shouting).
They're sowing chaos wherever they can, however they can. Priority seems to be on the UK, Brussels/EU and the US, but it's not like they're not doing it in places like Rwanda as well. Whether that means supporting extreme-left, extreme right, or just whoever is willing to turn guns on the police or some ethnic group they hate, Russia/Putin just doesn't care.
Hell, daesh/isis got funding from Russia, killed 145 Russians in Moscow ... and Russia funded them again, after blaming Ukraine for the attack. They just don't care.
No one has made more to increase the number of refugees from the middle east than the country who has fought endless wars in the middle east for the last decades. If you're looking for a "culprit" there you have one, but Europe is not ready to accept this.
She was actually mentored and funded by real life Pro Gun Ownership guys in Russia. mass civilian gun ownership is not a thing in Russia, but they were inspired by the NRA's example and were trying.
I sometimes wonder whether the sudden rise of "gender politics"... is all part of some sort of conrolled oppopsition narrative.
"Gender politics" is used heavily within Russia to provide a contrast to "masculine traditional values" which in turn are used to convince 100,000s of men to (quite ironically) be turned into cannon fodder against Russia's real or perceived enemies. And even more ironically is used by security services and the military in the form of rape against (male) political dissidents and soldiers.
Extractive systems quickly ratchet up their time discounting factor, meaning if it's possible to steal something sooner with a bit of aggression than later without, the former will happen usually. (And usually only external forces limit this process.)
Oh I didn't say the US would survive another four years of Trump, i'm saying despite their current state of jubilation, Russia is screwed no matter what.
Even if Trump doesn't run again, Vance will, he'll declare victory no matter what happens, and Trumpism will have another opportunity to coup the government after failing and learning from their mistakes the first time.
Does anyone have any information on the whole "Krasnov" claim, whereby Trump was supposedly recruited by the KGB in the 80's and given the designation "Krasnov"?
It's pointless to ask. Either you believe the story or you don't, but it's not like you can send a FOIA request to the FSB. It's doomed to remain a single-source allegation, even though I find the claim plausible.
It would be beneficial to russia to spread such claims to sabotage US even further even if it's not real. The problem right now -- you can't be 100% sure that it's not. It was believable even before the claim was made.
There have been multiple books written about this, leaks from MI6, etc etc. It's not at all new and doesn't seem to have been debunked, just kind of glossed over.
I find it interesting how the Russian news agency TASS quotes the presidential aide of Russia:
"The election campaign is over," Patrushev noted. "To achieve success in the election, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. As a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them."
I was expecting something like this to happen in 2023 after the catastrophic summer offensive. That was when it became abundantly clear that Ukraine was losing the war. There wasnt even a viable plan for victory after that it was just... keep giving weapons and keep those fingers crossed.
For Trump this is about washing his hands of a war that he understands cannot be won and will become an albatross around his neck if he doesnt disengage.
A makes complete sense if you have a full picture of the military industrial situation, but in the west there is very little cognizance of just how badly Ukraine is losing not how limited western options are.
"Krasov" is an appealing explanation because it means not facing this bitter reality.
Three years on and Ukraine is still holding its own. There's no reason this couldn't become Russia's Afghanistan 2.0.
Moreover, Ukraine's rules of engagement have been severely limited. They've been unable to strike airfields inside Russia even though they have the capacity to do so.
It's really not holding its own. The military situation is dire. Budanov accidentally let slip that they can keep going for another 6 months...1 month ago. That's probably about when a catastrophic line collapse will occur, if not sooner.
It's unlikely to become another Afghanistan because A) it does not have Afghanistan's superlative geography for hit and run attacks on supply chains and B) coz this war burned through Ukraine's best troops such that now mostly all they have left are TCC-kidnapped soldiers who would rather submit to Russia than fight.
It's been proven time and time again that Trump is untouchable. He joked about being able to shoot somebody and not lose voters, and it's too true. People that love Trump love him because of the people he hurts, not the people he helps. If he shot someone, his supporters would be like "haha he murdered someone! That makes you so angry, doesn't it? MAGA!"
So, no, I don't think Russia could blackmail Trump. Any dirt Russia has on Trump could be released and it wouldn't decrease Trump's support. For fuck's sake, we already know he was a regular visitor to Epstein's Kiddie-Diddle Island.
Also the Muslim refugees flooding Europe crisis has largely been a result of the Syrian civil war, with Russia being the main and mostly only ally of Bashar al-Assad. Supposedly, motivation there was Putin not wanting to lose his only ally in the region left after Gaddafi was murdered, not so much an intentional effort to destabilize Europe, but hey, it worked out, I guess.
Before that there was the drawn out conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The amount of refugees was staggering.
Do take the time to check the facts sometime where those refugees ended up. How many did Germany accept? How many did Sweden take? How many did the US accept?
It does put the recent claims that Europe should pay up for its protection into perspective.
Didn't the disintegration of Libya also not play a big part to start the refugee crisis? Someone explained to me once that once Gaddafi was gone and Libya became a fractured state, that it essentially became a refugee gateway into the Mediterranean as previously that "band" of North African countries (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt) where acting as a buffer preventing refugees from African countries to move Northwards.
Russia had both a navy base and an air base in Syria. They used the navy base to project power into the Mediterranean Sea and the air base to protect power into Africa (Wagner Group logistics, and air cargo transport of cash bribes and conflict minerals).
I'm still dumbfounded how this era gave rise to the emergence of stable long-term bs narratives across all society. Russia leverages gullibility a lot but surely there's other factors at play.
Simple. If I'm Russia, I would do everything I could to directly fund every pacifist academic possible, and literally anything that bogs things down, especially if it gives moral fuzzies on paper. Nothing is more useful than something that wastes time, increases complexity, while being tied into morals and worldview, causing it to be impossible to question why or where the push is coming from.
"Put your guard down, there's no credible threat."
"Gender equality in the military? Expensive, complicated - do it!"
"Additional rules for soldiers? Expensive, complicated - do it!"
"Do we really need a military this large? Nah, downsize!"
"The US would never not follow their promises, real or implied."
"The UN is a powerful and effective safeguarding body; trust them."
"International law is a powerful and effective deterrent against invasions."
"Maybe the military should be focused on more civilian improvement activities."
"Can we start researching whether we could be a post-militarized society?"
> Simple. If I'm Russia, I would do everything I could to directly fund every pacifist academic possible, and literally anything that bogs things down, especially if it gives moral fuzzies on paper.
And they tried that, and never really gave up on it, but the real big returns came when they started funding of the international white supremacy and far right movements.
I'm skeptical that it is only the Right. Maybe predominantly, or more explicitly, but anyone wanting power and control on either side would want to sell themselves out, too.
It is not only targeting the Right. I'd suggest that Russia isn't primarily interested in bolstering the right specifically. They are interested in dividing national societies as well international alliances along any possible ideological issue, effectively shattering the entire thing - divide et impera.
You can see some indication of this in the Mueller report on Russia's election interference in the US, and the DOJ indictment against Prigozhin and his Internet Research Agency troll factory.
They kept playing both sides: pushing Facebook groups that were strong pro racial justice & BLM while also pushing pro cop / back the blue Facebook groups. At some point, they scheduled protests for both sides of this particular issue at the same time and place, clearly hoping for altercations.
But I think it's safe to say that, at least in the US, their efforts seem to have mainly focused on the Republican side.
However, here in Germany, both the populist far-right AfD and the populist far-left political Party BSW around former Linke politician Sarah Wagenknecht are very much aligned with Russian interests: https://www.dw.com/en/russias-best-friends-in-germany-afd-an...
Why not compare their actions? We have a previous president who tried to maintain the constitutional political process in the US right up to handing off to the current administration. And then we have a current administration who seems to want to sow a bunch of chaos and a majority in congress who were fine complaining about circumventing legislators in the previous administration but who now do nothing to stop it. So given those actions, do you still believe that both sides would stop at nothing to hold on to power?
"Russia supported the Ba'athist administration of former President Bashar al-Assad of Syria from the onset of the Syrian conflict in 2011: politically, with military aid, and (from September 2015 to December 2024) with direct military involvement."
yes soviet union had diplomatic relations with Syria as well as other arab states, but Russia didn't involve in Syrian civil war instigated by the CIA (so called Arab Spring) and completely fumbled by Barry Soetoro
Supplying weapons to whom? It was bona fide weapons purchases program from one state to another, like all other states procure their weapons.
Syrian war was civil war financed by the NED, USAID and other US entities to topple Assad, like they did in other arab spring states.
It took several years of civil war and unsuccessful bombing of civilians by Barry Soetoro, unsuccessful funding of various jihadi groups by the Pentagon and CIA (separately), the same groups that led to the rise of ISIS. Only then by the request from then president Assad, did Russia help with strikes against ISIS
Seems like they were banking on the Ukrainian president bending the knee, and that didn't happen. The greatest damage done to the US by that meeting might be the public display of POTUS's histrionic decompensation, requiring the VP to jump to his defense. It's a bad look overall, regardless of the eventual outcome for Ukraine or the US.
They wanted an excuse to drop support and they got it. They don't drop support because they are playing for team russia, they are peaceniks and it's Zelenskyy who rejected the shit deal. If they wanted to have those rare metals or whatever they would have just bought it and made a good faith effort to negotiate something instead of this.
In addition to looking like a terrible President, Trump is also very bad at governing, especially in a crisis. Last time he was President, he inherited a great economy that he was focused on looting (giving himself and other billionaires a massive tax cut and trying to kill the Affordable Care Act to steal even more). He left office with unemployment at 15%, the country $8T further in debt, crime skyrocketing to 30 year highs, cities were literally on fire, and everyone's quality of life was horribly harmed by his terrible management of pandemic.
If the majority of voting Americans' lives got better in Trump's first term, then Trump would have won in 2020, but he got blown out losing by 7 million votes.
Cleaning up the mess Trump left was painful. The unavoidable consequences of global disruption of the economy (ie reduced supplies of goods) was a bit of inflation, and while Biden achieved the best recovery of any developed nation with the lowest inflation and very high wage growth among the bottom 40% of income earners, enough voters were turned off by inflation and by rightwing efforts to make voting harder that Donald Trump was able to just barely pull out a victory.
Trump is eliminating guardrails left and right and unsurprisingly is crashing things much faster this time around.
Nah, Trump was never going to offer Ukraine the security guarantee needed to end this conflict. Trump is just extending this "give us $500B in mineral rights in exchange for nothing" deal to manufacture an excuse to cease all aid to Ukraine and exonerate his administration from the holocaust that Putin will execute against Ukrainians after Trump gives Putin all of the intel the US military has accumulated aiding Ukraine to this point.
I'm always cautious about saying something like this for fear of sounding hyperbolic. But good lord, watching this video right after reading about the administration's change in stance on Russian cyber threats [1] really chips away at any remaining room for ambiguity.
You should continue to be cautious, as the Guardian article is pretty weak. It's first point is that Russia wasn't mentioned in a talk about cyber threats, which means very little by itself. It's second and final point comes from an "anonymous source". I'll believe it when the source becomes de-anonymized. Too many deep state "anonymous tips" have turned out to be lies. It should be noted that CISA has a history of strong leftwing activism:
Trump is not far right and never has been. He's actually moderate on most issues. The current far right position is the Tucker Carlson "isolation at all costs" and "Putin maybe isn't a bad guy" garbage. Trump holds neither of those views.
If it turns out that CISA analysts were truly told verbally to no longer focus or report on Russian threats, and if you assume this was done under Trump's direction or to align with his intent, would would your thoughts be?
I'm not (yet) asserting that either of those two conditions are or aren't true, I'm just curious what your thoughts would be IF they were.
It's a good question, and, in the worst case, I would disagree with the Trump administration and lose some trust in them. There is also the possibility that missing context would provide reasonable justification for the order. For instance, I think "Russian election interference" investigations have mostly been a partisan operation with little evidence that such interference has had any meaningful impact on U.S. elections. These investigations are mostly used to make the political right side look bad by tying them to Putin. It would be reasonable for the Trump admin to defund these investigations as we have much greater problems to be worried about.
Correct. My understanding is that there's no individual lobby group in America with more influence on foreign policy than AIPAC.
The book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy is a great read which fairly and methodically outlines how this influence works and what effects it's had on American policy, spanning decades.
This book was incredibly hard for me to read. It was well written, well cited, and nothing it said was wrong. But it was like doomscrolling in book form. It left me feeling hopeless.
How would we know? If they're really successful about it, wouldn't it look something like, say, ~2 years of almost complete inaction while Israel flattens Gaza?
Israel is a solitary, functioning, modern liberal democracy surrounded by repressive, autocratic states. Until about a minute ago, supporting liberal democracy was important to all US administrations.
The people of the US are (until maybe(?) a minute ago) largely supportive of Israel. Partly because of a (relatively) large and visible Jewish population (THANK YOU EUROPE!), and partly because it has been a majority Protestant Christian nation with an affinity God's Chosen People.
You don't need to go all QAnon to figure this out.
> Israel is a solitary, functioning, modern liberal democracy surrounded by repressive, autocratic states. Until about a minute ago, supporting liberal democracy was important to all US administrations.
IDK about functioning or modern or liberal, but the rest seems about right.
I have never been to Israel. But for a small country that has always existed under a threat of the destruction, not just by the county of Gaza, but occupied Lebanon, Iran, and basically some large population of every surrounding Muslim nation, they've done quite well. I'd say very modern. And given the penchant of the polity to protest and a free and rambunctious press, I'd also say very liberal.
You may have different definitions of these words.
I don’t think an open apartheid state that regularly supports the illegal dispossession of homes from civilians for a project of religious conquest can be considered to be liberal or modern or functional. But I suppose if I didn’t think Palestinians existed or were deserving of human rights then I could arrive at your same conclusion.
Personally I’d rather visit Jordan or Lebanon than Israel any day of the week.
Did Lebanon declare war on Israel through the legislature or by Presidential decree? Did the the people demand that Hezbollah, under the control of democratically elected representatives, launch rockets every day across the border?
Jordan: "According to Freedom House, Jordan is ranked as the fifth-freest Arab country, but still regarded as "not free" in the 2021 report. It is also classified as having an authoritarian regime according to a 2020 democracy index."
I wonder how many Americans know about the night when Kissinger et al activated entire US military, incl nuclear forces, just so some soviet weapons wouldn't reach Egypt during Israel's Yum kippur war- all while Nixon slept. Soviet union was so taken aback, they immediately folded. Of course they would, they treated this thing like a minor regional conflict thousands miles away from home. Their mistake was believing American govt would do the same.
Or about the USS Liberty. A US navy ship that was destroyed by the Israelis. Israel said it was a case of mistaken identity and President Johnson accepted that explanation. Admiral Moorer, the 7th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, accused President Lyndon B. Johnson of having covered up that the attack was a deliberate act.
Well, usually the story told to counter this is that he said that Israel wouldn’t get one bullet until Egypt blockaded Straits of Tiran. Kissinger didn’t exactly have a track record of saying philo-Semitic things.
That's very likely the case, though I don't think either of us have the details to make that assertion confidently. My comment was only in regards to lobby groups which operate freely on US soil staffed mostly by Americans.
Were there an analogous "ARPAC" which lobbied for Russian interests I imagine it would be under an immense amount of scrutiny.
It'd be hilarious if it were a passive listening device like The Thing, but Trump seems so attention-hungry and security-oblivious that you could probably just leave a big microphone on his desk like an old-timey chat show.
Every single poll during the Gaza war has shown majority support from Americans that "israel has a right to defend itself" and "the US should support israel until the hostages are returned".
I don't understand why people think it's a conspiracy theory that Americans are fine with Israel bombing innocent brown people in the desert, since we did that ourselves for 20 years on the back of actual lies and a general hatred of Islam that is still here today, where we have re-elected the guy who made a literal muslim ban, and still insist that islam is a threat through "migrants".
Americans have very little empathy for brown people in the middle east. Israel has a much more "westernized" vibe for Americans, so of course they can empathize with them more. Remember that any American over the age of 20 have seen MULTIPLE TIMES that there was "relative calm" and then Hamas started killing innocent jewish people. If you are older, you remember when all these countries openly called for the extermination of Israel as explicit foreign policy.
You can argue that the AIPAC influences american's opinion, but it is actual american reported opinion that we should support Israel in their extermination of "terrorists".
Biden passed more consequential legislation than almost any president since FDR. The chips act, the inflation reduction act, the infrastructure act. The list goes on and on. He even had a bipartisan immigration bill that was closer to being passed than any other bill. He was an incredibly effective legislative leader while in office.
> Trump's flights on the same plane were pre-Presidency. (As was their friendship, and their being close neighbors.)
Their friendship was over when Trump banned him from mar-a-lago 2007 and then worked with prosecutors and provided information against Epstein in 2008.
If you have any information or evidence of the claim that he did not in fact ban Epstein. I would love to read it. Without evidence I’ll just assume this is your opinion. It’s not hard to see your motive by the way you presented the information in your previous comment. Presenting opinions as fact is not necessary and doesn’t add to the conversation.
Israel is going to need to be a lot more internationally vocal if they disapprove of Bibi. I know the majority of american folks of jewish descent disapprove of Bibi's actions but his polling in Israel is a lot less unfavorable.
There have been many enormous protests against him in Israel, where a large part of the country regards him as corrupt and ineffectual (though not everyone agrees on why, eg left and right would like him to be less and more militaristic). But these protests get little coverage in US news media. Mind you I don't think this is peculiar to Israel, foreign affairs coverage in the US is just generally dreadful, partly because many Americans just do not care about the rest of the world.
Did you notice that you are replying to a top-level post which accuses the twice elected president of the USA of acting against American interests?
"Having a democratic mandate" is either a valid counterargument or it is not. But it is simply not consistent to apply it only to Netanyahu and not to Trump.
Most Israelis are fully aligned on what Bibi has been doing. Sure, they like to say that they hate him to maintain decency, but when it comes to his actual policies on Palestinians, 90% of Israelis are fully on board.
The US siding unconditionally with Israel is nothing new. The US siding with Russia against democratic allies is absolutely new.
And even then, I don't think any US president ever treated any leader in such a disgraceful manner. Not only heads of state, even the Taliban got a ton more respect (probably too much) than this.
Of course we already knew that Trump liked dictators and tyrants, and disrespects any form of decency, but now that the masks are truly coming off, what's underneath them is a lot more ugly than I could possibly imagine.
This is so absolutely right. Trump is undoing all of the intentional institutions that the USA created. He is literally dismantling nearly one hundred years of consistent effort across every administration to serve US interests by structuring a global system based on a reliable and coherent US foreign policy. It just so happens that this is also the same global system that was used to isolate Russia with sanctions and defense agreements. The amount that Russia gains here is hard to fathom. The US just permanently lost world power status. No one will ever trust the US to be the world leader again. This will be a fundamental and permanent shift.
Most Americans do support Israel and are very opposed to Putin and Russia.
Check the polls.
Which is why it's suspicious that JD Vance and Trump seem so afraid to upset Putin.
The idea that Russsia could have compromising information on one or both of them is entirely plausible. It's a way politicians have been controlled for literally thousands of years. J. Edgar Hoover controlled every US president for fifty years with this one simple trick.
61% Americans opposed sending weapons to Israel. They got sent anyway [1]. Similarly at world stage, American govt had to bring out the veto card 49 times in Israel's defense- it was alone against the world, even all of it's strongest European allies [2].
Neither of these points contradict the fact that Americans very broadly support Israel and are opposed to Putin and Russia. Of course there are varying degrees of support on any specific issue.
Yes, the UN has attempted many more resolutions against Israel than against China for its treatment of millions of Uyghurs, North Korea for enslaving its entire population, Russia for murdering tens of thousands, Iran for its direct terrorism, and the list goes on. Which is not exactly the ethical high ground you seem to think it is.
>Yes, the UN has attempted many more resolutions against Israel than against China for its treatment of millions of Uyghurs, North Korea for enslaving its entire population, Russia for murdering tens of thousands, Iran for its direct terrorism, and the list goes on. Which is not exactly the ethical high ground you seem to think it is.
There are several (and a few directly conflicting) polls in that document which I think reflects realty - most people haven't come down hard on stances involving Ukraine and remain flexible. As an example: "Do you favor or oppose Donald Trump announcing direct U.S.-Russia negotiations to end the war in Ukraine?" 60% in favor, but "Do you favor or oppose the Trump administration leaving Ukraine’s leaders out of negotiations with Russia to end the war in Ukraine?" 41% in favor. Additionally 57% oppose territorial concessions (which Trump has forced to be on the table) and 66% favor US security guarantees (which Trump has so far demurred on and tried to foist off onto the EU).
To me, at least, it's pretty clear that the negotiations are not in line with the will of the American populace as territorial concessions, resource concessions, no security guarantees and no multi-lateral opposition force to Russian expansionism have seemed like priorities to the current administration.
It’s a great outcome for americans, who don’t care what happens in europe. If europe could handle its own business Trump and his voters would be thrilled.
And people don't want the government anywhere near their lives, until people with big sticks start poking at them instead.
The US populace can stick its head in the sand & say the rest of the world doesn't need them, but what if a superpower starts snapping up that rest of the world?
It's a typical garbled Trumpism. But what do you know about the history of the end of the Cold War? You knew that the U.S. assured Russia at the time that NATO would not expand to Russia's border, did you not? https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017...
How about saying Ukraine started the war, calling Zelenskiy a dictator (while refusing to call Putin one), saying Ukraine needs to give up land to Russia, calling for elections in Ukraine (again crickets about Russian elections), calling for improved economic relationships with Russia, while at the same time trying to force Ukraine into a ridiculous "deal" where they give up all their natural resources for essentially nothing... Can I stop?
The fact that we have to point this out is so frustrating. My whole family is buy the Russian propaganda entirely. And these basic facts don’t make it through their eco chambers. Worse any evidence is dismissed as fake news. I don’t think America can come back from this. Russia won the Cold War.
Harvard-Harris poll have a well known right wing bias, enough so that Harvard students are calling to disassociate from them. They’re especially flagrant in how they lead on the poll respondents. For example, they use Israel vs Hamas instead of Israel vs Palestinenin their poll questions.
A more neutral and far more informative and useful poll is YouGov-Economist poll. Their methodology is based on app polling instead of phone polling. They subdivide their responses based on demographics, and they poll every week, often repeating the same questions to gauge trends for very detailed analysis.
Agreed - most people would basically like to see an end to the war, which is what is broadly envisioned by a "negotiated end to the war".
But I'd question your assumption that Americans aren't willing to invest what it would take to win the war (depending on what a victory entails) and instead I'd suggest that this assumption needs a bit more research. I for one am very happy to see our tax dollars be used to support Ukraine, primarily because I think it's an investment in preventing a more expensive war in the future. It's unfortunate because we are basically just incurring a cost we didn't want to incur, but at the end of the day this is just the hand we're dealt with.
> The idea that Israel - or AIPAC - is somehow in control of the US government is straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Not sure why you bring this up, but the facts are very clear. Previous US administration broke its own laws that prohibit them to supply weapons to parties engaged in gross violations of human rights and war crimes. Among many things, AIPAC even unsit a Jewish(!) congressman whose only crime was to mention that Palestinians deserve human rights and dignity.
You need to re-frame the US/Israel alliance. Right now, it is more a far right alliance between Trump and Netanyahu. It's no longer about either of the states involved or the interactions they may have had in the past.
And to be extremely clear, because it's very likely someone will reply to claim antisemitism - I have a problem with Netanyahu and what Israel does under his leadership. I do not have a problem with people who identify as Jewish, ethnically or religiously.
There have been many books written on the subject, as in my previous comment, I suggested The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.
It's not antisemitic or even remotely conspiratorial to acknowledge that Israel and Israeli-Americans have been very successful in exerting influence on the federal government. I think it's bad-faith well-poisoning for you to bring up nonsense like the Protocols.
I agree. Although we should not downplay how vulnerable democracy can be to outside influence. And that can have significant negative consequences. Particularly as things like "national interest" are so debatable.
Totally agree with this. It’s also totally irrelevant and a false equivalency. Seeing how quickly a conversation shift to antisemitism is disheartening.
I agree this is unproven conspiracy theory BS, but there are a great many conspiracy theories being espoused in this post. I’m curious why it is only this one you saw fit to call out?
Not said as a joke: It isn’t a conspiracy if they actually are out to get you. I am seeing my country go down in a blaze of corruption in front of my very eyes.
The needs of America, never hand anything to do with it ( except under Democrats who view has us resist oppression ), its Manifest Destiny, Law of Nations all the way.
1. We are not footing the bill, we are providing for part of the cost.
"Europe gave $275 Billion. United states gave $125 Billion"
2. The U.S. has citizens in Ukraine, just as Ukraine has citizens year.
3. It is not about needs... Americans have needs to feel safe from oppression, and a stable economy, both of those are out of the question now, thanks in no small part to this type of information manipulation/Disinformation.
Rather than counter all your claims with facts, who needs facts, and your inflammatory language. I shall leave you to Minos.
Money. US profits immensely from a stable world order. Peace and predictability is good for business.
Security guarantees also prevent nuclear proliferation. If Ukraine is defeated, the lesson many countries will learn is to have a strong nuclear deterrent.
That depends. It was true of WW2, but that had a unique set of circumstances. The US economy performed much better in the 90s, after the end of the Cold War, then it did in the 2000s with the invasions of Iraq/Afghan
There are no “arguments” being raised here. An argument would be something like “America relies on Ukraine as a key source of XYZ so it would be bad if Russia took it over.” Can you even tell me without looking how much U.S.-Ukraine trade there was before the war?
All these platitudes about “interests” and “soft power” seem to be predicated on an assumption that nobody is willing to articulate. Are we all expected to be Francis Fukuyama cultists here who take it as axiomatic that it’s in america’s interest to defend the borders of european countries? If that’s the argument, then I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. Because I happen to think liberals have actually been right on that issue since the 1970s.
That's shockingly first-order. Even if there was zero bilateral US-Ukraine trade as of 2022 there's:
(a) trade with other EU partners that depend on Ukrainian food imports, gas transshipments, etc., and also on those trade partners. y'know, not being embroiled in trench war on their eastern front.
(b) trade with APAC partners that depends on EU partners that depends on (a). Even the most blatantly obvious ASML -> TSMC -> NVDA -> FAANGetc relationship transits that entire chain.
(c) the entire web of mutually beneficial international trade that benefits from (1) a more or less stable system of borders and laws and (2) again, participants in said system burning the minimum amount of blood and treasure trenches.
So what is it you really think? US involvement is unnecessary to maintain both its current position and the rest of the international system? Or that system unnecessary to maintain the state of the world today, and some alternative arrangement would be preferable? And we can smoothly transition to your preferred system with a belligerent Russia?
I'm being a bit unfair in the preceding paragraph, so I'll ask in all sincerity: what's your alternative policy in 2014? 2022? now? what outcomes do you predict under your policy? Who is (dis)advantaged?
The argument is that appeasing Putin in Donbas will work about as well as appeasing him in Crimea, creating successively more damaging conflicts in Europe until Article 5 gets tested and either NATO falls apart or we enter a hot war with Russia, and yeah, that's gonna cost money. You know that this is the point of the WWII comparison, which is why you have so studiously ignored the argument, trying to dodge it harder than neo dodging bullets in the first matrix.
Nobody in America knows what a Donbas or a Crimea is. These all sound like Russian places to me. The names of the places alone sound like they are none of America’s business.
You need studies to show that peace & stability support greater productivity and wealth?
Likely as it is that research can indeed confirm this, given the depth & tone of your inquiry, perhaps the most immediate convincing experiment would be best: find someone you can employ to harass and threaten your property and your person, occasionally to devastating effect, alongside another person who can study your productivity and wealth before and after.
Perhaps with further similar efforts here you can even persuade some people to volunteer for half of that project free of charge.
Your debate tactic reminds me of some variation of the gish gallop. I thought there was a word for it, but I can't find it.
You just ask question after question after question after question, with an extremely disproportionate amount of effort required between you and the person you are asking, and hope that the other side eventually gives up.
Edit: jakelazaroff pinned it down for me, "sealioning"
No. vardump specifically said that the money from stability justifies spending money to support Ukraine. That is only true if the latter is outweighed by the former.
We know the amount spent in support of Ukraine. The only missing piece of the puzzle is the specific dollar valuation of the deterrence value of further assistance to Ukraine to resist the Russian invasion.
If Ukraine regaining its pre-2022 (or pre-2014) borders is not worth a dollar value that exceeds the cost to achieve that outcome, then vardump's assertion of "money" as the reason is insufficient.
If “interests” means something concrete it shouldn’t take a lot of effort to explain what it means. To me it seems like the word is used to avoid acknowledging that “there’s no there, there.”
Enough that it makes Trump very upset whenever another country talks about using a reserve currency other than the dollar. Why would you need studies when you have the leader's own words?
You’re a very smart guy. You can’t seriously be wondering how allowing a major power to wage and win a war of aggression in Europe might be contrary to American interests? He’ll surely be appeased by the Donbas and stop there, right?
I am a smart guy—which is why even as a college student I knew the Iraq War was going to be a monumental cluster fuck.
To me, it seems like the people supporting American involvement in Ukraine are throwing about the same vague platitudes about “dictators” and “interests” without anything concrete to back them up.
At least Iraq and its neighbors had oil—there was a credible narrative that what happened there would directly hit Americans in their pocket books. American interest in Europe seems even more attenuated. It seems to be nothing more than romantic sympathy.
Iraq is not the correct analogy. Iraq put us a bit over our skis attempting to enforce our desired norms while entertaining some acquisitive impulses against an inferior opponent with ultimately limited aims. i.e. Saddam wasn’t interested in taking over the world.
The conclusion to draw from that is not that all conflict and cruelty outside the New World is irrelevant to Americans and their interests. You’re a bit older than me, but neither of us have experienced a world with a truly aggressive near-peer power. We’ve lived our entire lives on the laurels of our grandfathers’ victories in Europe and Asia. The resulting international system organized around fixed borders, the rule of law, and low barriers has allowed to flourish the multitude of mutually beneficial trade relationships that support literally the entirety of the only way of life either of has ever known.
It’s an unstable equilibrium. To not defend order against might risks knocking the whole thing down - and then who knows? Maybe we carry on with China and the rest of APAC while Russia dominates Europe? Maybe we live a decade or a generation of poorer, meaner, more isolated lives confined to the New World? Maybe the expansionary impulse brings them, eventually, to our shores?
Iraq wasn’t a mistake. Iraq exemplified the type of error you make and will continue to make when you commit the U.S. to enforcing “rule of law” around the world. Heck, the very concept of international “rule of law” is repugnant-that means there must be some country enforcing the law.
The US has among the lowest levels of trade dependency of any country in the world. In 1960, which is remembered as a Golden Age, trade was just 10% of GDP. We would be just fine, probably better, living in a world where regional powers kept their back yards clean and the occasional border skirmish broke out. Even if that meant somewhat reduced trade.
Empire also imposes a demographic cost on america. Every time we destroy a country in a war trying to maintain the “rules based order” we have to accept a massive influx of refugees. In the long run these people will not be able to maintain the american system the founding population created.
Fundamentally different situation. A more appropriate comparison would be the first Gulf War, when the US helped to kick Iraq out of Kuwait. Equating the later Iraq war with the situation in Ukraine is a category error.
On your aside: I'll admit, I said that completely sincerely, they've had pretty informative and well-informed things to say in other discussions around here. Coming back with "Yes I am" has caused me to update my beliefs a bit.
I agree the first gulf war is a better comparison. In our household we thought Bush was wrong about that too, and I recall my dad being quite happy he lost reelection over it. I’d argue it set us up to get roped in for Round 2.
Bush didn't lose re-election over the first Gulf War, which on the whole went swimmingly for the US in a very short timeframe. He lost because he looked out of touch in his electioneering and didn't know the price of milk during a debate with Bill Clinton. There was a recession underway that drained some of the froth out of the irrationally exuberant 1980s. Of course it didn't help him that he was basically a CIA policy wonk whereas Clinton was the most charismatic candidate since Kennedy.
Crimea is the better comparison. The US appeased Russia on Crimea in 2014 (the sanctions were too weak) and it caused the Ukraine invasion in 2022. Why would appeasing on Donbas in 2025 work better?
It should perhaps be of american interest to support its allies. As its allies did to support the so-called war on terrorism with Afghanistan and Iraq.
Those two wars imo changed USA and put the country in debt and misalignment internally. Bush was an absolute catastrophy.
You can't point the fingers at the leaders. Even though the country is not a democracy, but a business club with only two parties, being funded by companies.
USA is no longer, and hasn't been for decades, very far from Russia in its cribbled walk towards war and destruction.
I can't see how the country can uphold its stance with their allies and when China makes their move, it will leave US on its own.
As for Europe, it might be a slow starter, but rather that than having to fight for even then smallest equality rights and options.
Wow, how I really dislike american politics and leadership, and its not just its current government.
The U.S. is strong because of our own power, but also because of our many many friends with a shared worldview. We use the word "interests" to cover how our friends help us in every situation, big or small.
For example, the US needs many raw materials and manufactured goods. Our economy is extremely strong because we get these easily and with little friction. Other countries trust our trade deals so they enter into them willingly. And so whenever the US needs a new import, we get it quickly and cheaply. As a concrete example, NVidia gets prime access to foundries and components. Sure, they spend money on it, but our "interests" ensure that the process is frictionless. Any other country would have a harder time.
We also have near universal military access. No other country even comes close. We nearly have permission in advance to go anywhere. If US shipping is interrupted, no one complains when our navy goes and uninterrupted it. In fact we are welcomed. If a US citizen is taking hostage, governments from the area want to help us.
Also, maybe you've noticed that no one is even close to attacking the US. We are so strong that it would be suicide, and that's partly because of our own strength, but also because of our many allies who would back us up.
Finally, we have moral interests. I believe everyone should live in a system based on laws, should elect their own leaders, and should have basic freedoms. The more we spread liberalism and democracy the better the world is.
Sure, you can nitpick about counterexamples. The Iraq war is a perfect example of messing this up. And not every country loves us.
But if you cannot see that the majority of countries are overwhelmingly friendly towards the US, and that we get enormous military and economic benefits, then you are blind.
> The U.S. is strong because of our own power, but also because of our many many friends with a shared worldview
You’re starting off on the wrong foot. That’s just Reagan-Bush universalism and everyone who bought into that stupid ideology has been wrong about everything my entire lifetime.
The way you say it, the Iraq War was simply poor execution of a basically sound ideology. To the contrary, the Iraq War was a predictable outcome of the notion that democracy promotion is in America’s material interest, or that it’s worth our while to police borders around the world. That’s a bad idea, rooted in a Christian/post-Christian version of the Ummah and the Iraq War should have discredited that ideology. If you continue to buy into those mistaken premises, a repeat of Iraq/Vietnam/Korea is inevitable.
> You’re starting off on the wrong foot. That’s just Reagan-Bush universalism and everyone who bought into that stupid ideology has been wrong about everything my entire lifetime.
This doesn't respond to my comment at all. You're just calling stuff stupid.
You shouldn't let someone bait you into tangent town like rayiner just did. He was posed a sharp question ("Will Putin stop at Donbas?") and he ducked it for a reason.
I didn’t answer the question about Donbas because it’s a non-sequiter. Who cares if he stops at Donbas or somewhat further than that? Domino theory was a stupid idea when Kissinger came up with it and it’s a stupid idea now. Do you think Russia is going to invade Germany? Germany doesn’t seem to think so, otherwise it would be investing heavily in defense.
Because him taking over a house gives him access to resources which he can use to build up strength, unchecked, and before you know it, the state next to you is involved in serious tumroil that affects your job, getting certain products, and so on.
And next thing you know, people who directly work for that drug dealer are all in your states government, and your way of life is slowly starting to get worse, and the only option you have is either go along and be constantly afraid, or revolt and risk of losing your life.
If you dont think it can happen, i envy your ignorance.
Why does it matter to the American people what happens to Poland in WW2?
Do you think we exist in a vacuum? The whole reason we have foreign policy is because there are major dire ramifications to conflicts across the world. Especially, as we've seen the past century, in Europe.
because the world is highly interconnected and it's much more expensive to deal with the results of instability than it is to try to prevent the instability in the first place
Saying we're more interconnected and that it's important to support stability doesn't mean that I support US hegemony, the domino theory and the need for military intervention everywhere. In fact I'm quite against US military action abroad, certainly in places like Iraq and Vietnam where it had no business being. But in this case, if a country like Russia is able to push its way into Ukraine unopposed, it does threaten the stability of Europe (a place where warfare was almost continuous going back millennia) which is a ReallyBadThing for Europe and for the US (and I don't mean for US hegemony, but for the US economy and wellbeing).
We are more interconnected, and Kissinger and the GOP agreed with this, but they are just evil German Socialist Democratic Party. His observation is well taken, but its a false flag to equate it with the entire neocon, unalive and steal at any cost philosophy:
They are not the same: Clearly they are not the same.
Well the US created the global system starting in the 1900s with the League of Nations and continuing with the UN, NATO, free trade agreement and multilateral alliances. So nearly one hundred years of constant policy across administrations felt it was a system that served our interests. It also lead to absolute transformation of people’s lives for the better in America and globally. Who didn’t like that system? Russia. They were isolated and sanctioned. So please explain why trump’s 180 degree turn served the US. The burden of proof is on you given the history of US policy.
Eisenhower thought that system should be temporary, and Jimmy Carter took pride that an american bomb was never dropped anywhere during his term.
Our foreign policy has been stuck in a doom loop of thinking that everything is like World War II for 70 years now. And whatever benefits we might have gained can’t possibly offset what we lost fighting pointless war after pointless war: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, etc. We have spent trillions of dollars to make the world free for trade that has hollowed out the economy and enriched globalists.
That’s not even counting all the millions of people we have killed in the process of our liberal democracy jihad.
I support Atlanticism, but this overestimates the US's need and relations with Europe (EU and non-EU) in the 21st century.
Our trade with APAC dwarfs total European trade, and America has ~150k armed personnel deployed in the Pacific versus ~65k in Europe.
Europe can and should be able to manage Russia and Africa for us - this is what they did well until the 2000s. Both Dem and Republican admins since the Bush admin have been pushing for Europe to regain it's strategic autonomy.
Trump is absolutely mismanaging this relationship, but a broken clock is right twice a day.
> this overestimates the US's need and relations with Europe (EU and non-EU) in the 21st century
If Europe goes to war America is in a higher state of defcon even if we try to pretend we’re uninvolved. Global trade would crash which means a lot of middle class jobs vanishing.
But the perception (even before Trump) was that our European allies can and should be able to hold down the fort in Europe, because it's increasingly looking like we cannot fight a two-continent war, and we at least have strategic depth in Europe, and not at all in the Pacific.
One way to avoid a two-continent war is to lend money to our European ally to buy weapons from us.
Another way is to sacrifice one continent.
I, and many others, can't stomach the second. Particularly when we built their security order, they certainly weren't managing Russia for us until the 2000s.
> One way to avoid a two-continent war is to lend money to our European ally to buy weapons from us.
I agree and prefer this method, but certain European states (looking at you Germany) will also have to drastically increase military spending as well.
The pot of military financial aid also needs to go to Asian allies like Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, and Philippines along with aligned states like Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and India.
> Another way is to sacrifice one continent
Which I dislike but is something the Trump admin has appeared to have chosen.
The idea Europe just needs to invest more is dated.
Yes, there's stuff in the news right now about Germany military spending - secretary of defense said they anticipated yet another increase package of 6.7B euros, and only got 1.2B.
Military spending is up dramatically from even 2 years ago, much less when you'd hear this argument from more dedicated hands, let's say, 2019, 2021.
It's a particularly poor timing to make the argument, because even if we elide every increase until Sunday, we're still left with Germany reacting to this by adding $100B over the next 4 years.
If if it wasn't out of date, I think it's important to state plainly the idea is: Europe needs to spend more in defense because the US decided to pull all support, even from things as simple as continuing to sell Europe defensive supplies as it fights Russia, and also hand chunks of Europe to Russia.
It's somewhat gut-wrenching to hear an out of date argument, in so many separate ways, as justification for rugging them completely. It causes nausea when its coupled to a shrug about broken clocks.
> It's a particularly poor timing to make the argument, because even if we elide every increase until Sunday, we're still left with Germany reacting to this by adding $100B over the next 4 years
And what stopped Germany from doing so in 2022, or 2019, or 2014?
And this is why there is resentment in the US - we've been telling Germany (and other European) states to do this for decades.
I'll reiterate this again - China is the primary threat against the US. Russia is bad as well, but China is the bigger bad.
American soldiers are directly in the line of fire in Taiwan, South Korea, and Okinawa. Yet South Korea and Japan have both worked on maintaining military capacity and spending after brushes in 2011 and 2016.
And it's been Germany that has constantly undermined French and British attempts at a Pan-European force because German leadership does not want expeditionary capabilities that France and the UK needs [0], and France is the only EU state left that has a true world class MIC.
> It's somewhat gut-wrenching to hear an out of date argument, in so many separate ways, as justification for rugging them completely
Because the "spend more" argument from the US has been coming for 15 years now. And it takes 3-4 years just to on-ramp manufacturing capacity.
Devoting funding alone is not enough to ramp up manufacturing overnight. We have been warning about this for decades, and now Germany (and even some of our other allies like France and UK) now have to contend with this on their own.
I worked as a Dem staffer in the early 2010s and even I am in agreement with Trump about this - because this is a policy that even Obama was driving.
We've been warning your leadership that something like this would happen for 15 years now. Yet your leadership did not listen. When even a Dem like me who worked in NatSec Policy is frustrated, you know much of Europe has burnt any goodwill that remains.
> I assume we have a shared understanding that more than just Europe was affected by WWII
Absolutely, but they were 2 different wars with entirely different personas and leadership.
For example, China and Japan treat WW2 as having started in 1936-37 and don't really view or care about WW1 or the European theaters of WW2
And European dependencies in Asia were already autonomous at that point (eg. British India had it's own autonomous military and political leadership after the 1920s era reforms independent of London, Dutch Indonesia and it 1930s era reforms, and French Indochina as well as they largely retained the pre-colonization era leadership).
> What does manage mean
Problems on the European and African continent should be dealt with by our European allies. Ideally, the US provides some amount of support and armament, but strategy within Europe and France should fall onto individual European allies.
You saw this in Ukraine pre-2022 with the UK and Turkiye helping Ukraine rebuild it's armed forces, and in much of the Sahel with French armed forces tamping down on Islamism and Russian/Chinese backed factions.
> Europe certainly has strategic autonomy, no
The issue is, what is "Europe".
There needs to be a much stronger unification of posture and strategy amongst our European allies, but you would often see France and Germany clash because France wants to ensure a unified European force has expeditionary capabilities (because of French dependencies in the Pacific and Africa), but Germany constantly pushes back because they want to remain Central Europe first.
On top of that, individual European MICs directly compete with each other and extremely furiously. For example, Dassault, Eurofighter GmBH, and Saab trying to undercut each other in global fighter jet sales.
And finally, individual European states do not see eye to eye. For example, France+Italy tends to have a very strong co-sell relationship with Israel (a direct competitor to Turkiye) and targets the India (a competitor to Pakistan) and UAE (a competitor to Saudi) market.
But Germany+Spain tends to have a very strong co-sell relationship with Turkiye (a direct competitor to Israel), who tends to sell to Pakistan (a direct competitor to India) and Saudi Arabia (a direct competitor to UAE)
While we would all want the EU to be a truly unified union, in it's present form, individual nation states will continue to zealously guard their soverignity.
And even on the economic front - to continue using the India example due to the plan to finalize the EU-India FTA this year [0] - countries like Germany+Spain directly compete with France+Italy, especially in the Automotive and Pharma sectors (two of Europe's largest and most globally competitive sectors).
For example, German+Spanish+Czech automotive manufacturers like Volkswagen AG (includes Spain's Seat and Czechia's Skoda) largely invested in China during the 2000s but French+Italian+Romanian manufacturers like Renault-Nissan, Citroen/Fiat/Stellantis, and Piaggo (scooters yes but THE scooter in India) invested heavily in India. An EU-India FTA doesn't impact French+Italian+Romanian manufacturers but directly undermines and harms German+Spanish+Czech manufacturers.
And Indian biopharma companies (the only manufacturing industry that India is competitive at globally) are largely partnerships with French (Sanofi), British (GSK, AstraZeneca), Swiss (Novartis), Israeli (Teva), and Japanese (Takeda) players that directly compete with German firms like Bayer and Boehringer Ingelheim that invested in China.
While at a macro-level a EU-India FTA is good for European autonomy from the US or China, it will undercut German+Spanish+Czech companies and benefit French+Italian+Romanian companies, and as such Germany has been lobbying against it (and India has retaliated by fining Volkswagen group $1.4B in back taxes and an additional $1.4B in interest [1] - an amount that will destroy VW Group's business in India [2] and maybe even globally depending on Chinese and NAM sales as it's an amount that's 17% of their net income).
And this is one of dozens of examples where individual European nation states do not have strategic alignment, and why when push comes to shove, they all ignore the EU and prioritize their own domestic needs.
UNPROFOR was primarily lead by French, Swedish, and Canadian military leadership. KFOR and IFOR was largely German and Italian.
Most of the blood, sweat, and tears of the UN and NATO intervention in Yugoslavia was European militaries like the Dutch, British, French, and Swedish.
The Clinton admin primarily provided air support and diplomatic cover, but most boots on the ground were European (and Canadian).
Lots of people forget that the UN was in Yugoslavia before the NATO intervention happened.
The EC monitors were first. UNPROFOR was there for Croatia initially. The Lisbon agreement in Bosnia in 1992 was supposed to have things like European judges on the constitutional court, which is something that people forget when they complain about Dayton. The national militaries famously had partiality to different sides of the conflict - French and Dutch vs Swedish and British.
Yep, yet nonetheless, it was an European initiative that helped solidify "Pan-Europeanism" as a doable initiative (it was also during the early stages of the EC turned EU).
I would argue that we did our bid for European stability, that everybody thought Ukraine would be quickly overrun. We don’t need to defend every inch of Ukrainian soil for us to consider it a success and a deterrent. We did far more here than Obama did to protect crimea.
Yes we raised the stakes considerably. Russia thought the Ukraine operation would be over in weeks.
Fast forward a few more years. Russia is encircling Kiev. Are we supposed to put American boots on the ground? Give them tactical nukes? Wouldn’t giving up then just “teach them” the same thing?
Is having a conflict in Ukraine somehow making Europe more stable? To be entirely honest, from realpolitik point of view what Trump is doing makes cold and calculated sense. He will sacrifice Ukraine so that it will become a rump buffer state between Europe and Russia, and then he can trade with both. That will satisfy Russia as well as their strategic goal (no NATO in Ukraine) was achieved and they can return to business as usual.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine Sweden and Finland have joined NATO, so now Russia has more, not less, border with NATO. How would a buffer on their southwestern border alleviate that?
It won't satisfy Russia, though. It will just give a thumbs up to them and anyone else wanting to make a land grab that they can go ahead and the US will look for appeasement. This is exactly the kind of thinking that lead to Chamberlain letting Hitler take the Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia.
Look, the fact that you guys came here to Europe and liberate us from the nazi Germany, then you defeated Japan, made you a global superpower because you effectively won the war. You have been in this position since the war until 20th of January this year. Trump is actively removing USA from the position of the leader. Talking about leaving NATO, removing soldiers from Europe, … something that took decades to establish takes weeks to destroy.
What’s next? “TSMC give us all trade secrets or we don’t defend Taiwan”?
You have all there benefited from these decades of being in that position.
> TSMC give us all trade secrets or we don’t defend Taiwan
Trump has already threatened to impose 100% tariffs on Taiwan if TSMC refuses to transfer technology to the US (thus effectively undermining Taiwan's own Silicon Shield defence strategy) and revitalise Intel: https://techsoda.substack.com/p/tsmc-faces-tough-choices-ami...
I hope Taiwanese leaders have the balls to say no -- it's not as if Trump has a stellar track record of honouring his word anyway. Besides, tariffs on Taiwanese chips will end up seriously hurting American companies like AMD and NVIDIA, so Trump might walk back the tariffs once Jensen Huang and Lisa Su pay sufficiently large bribes.
Dude. There’s always a bigger bully. National interest my ass. You’re being robbed by a bunch of hot shots and you smile and clap. The king Vladimir Trump is coming.
Exactly this. And that is such an important intellectual tool, the ability to extrapolate second and third order decisions and match them to people’s incentives lets you create accurate mental models of multiparty negotiations and interactions and predict how people will act in future situations. It’s really powerful.
Applying here, I would expect trump moves to lift sanctions and normalize trade with Russia. Europe, if it has a spine will sanction the US.
“It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.”
-- Henry Kissinger
It's too simplistic (and IMHO not accurate) to say the American government has been commpromised by Russia. Go back a few years and you'll see American politicians from all parties saying how great it was that they've crippled the Russian military without a single American soldier being deployed and killed.
It's more accurate to say that foreign policy, which is bipartisan, is to loot the world. Domestic poicy is to divide up the spoils.
The US never took a moral stand for Ukraine. It was always through the lens of American imperial interests. This is no different.
Another Kissinger quote that sort of fits the current situation:
> Before the Freedom of Information Act, I used to say at meetings, “The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.” [laughter] But since the Freedom of Information Act, I’m afraid to say things like that.
As I understand it, the evidence that the US government has been compromised by Russia comes from documented instances of Russian interference and influence attempts, including election meddling and disinformation campaigns.
The "Trump is a Russian asset" conspiracy theory is popular in BlueAnon circles but it really doesn't fit the facts.
A good example is the first Trump administration's opposition to Russian energy expansion in Europe because this would make Europe vulnerable to Russian influence. Trump opposed NordSream 2, for example. In 2018, Trump basically bullied Germany into building an LNG port [1].
Now Trump's energy policy as a whole was generally a disaster, which led up to the 2020 OPEC deal that basically caused Covid iflation but on the security of European energy, the Trump administration was correct and was proven so by the Ukraine invasion and the cutoff of Russian energy.
Trump idolizes strongmen and autocrats. It doesn't matter who. Putin. Kim Jong-Un, Victor Orban. Trump backs fascist political movements like AfD, Reform (UK) and National Front (France).
> The Nord Stream 2 pipeline went from zero to 90 percent completed during Trump’s presidency. The Trump administration rejected years of bipartisan congressional calls for imposition of sanctions to stop the project. Only when Congress, in frustration, passed mandatory sanctions they couldn't stop did the administration finally take concrete action. But by then it was too late.
> Trump’s first secretary of State Rex Tillerson was a 2013 recipient of an “Order of Friendship” from Putin in recognition of Tillerson’s contributions to cooperation with the Russian energy sector while he was CEO of Exxon-Mobil. Tillerson issued the fateful public guidance to energy companies that CAATSA sanctions would only apply to new Russian export pipelines — those contracted after August 2017. Contrary to the will of Congress, Nord Stream 2 was thus grandfathered in and outside the scope of sanctions.
> Under the Tillerson guidance, the five EU companies participating in Nord Stream 2 with Gazprom had no legal grounds to declare force majeure, and the project went forward at a rapid pace.
> But where it counted — actually imposing sanctions against the project at the key stage when it could be stopped — the administration did nothing. Indeed, Trump’s posture amounted to the worst of both words: alienating our German allies while failing to take action to stop the pipeline.
> As the Biden administration took office in 2021, Russian vessels were laying pipe for the final segments of Nord Stream 2. While U.S. sanctions in 2017 would have killed the project, by 2021 it was a fait accompli. The Biden administration denounced Nord Stream 2 as a “bad deal” and a danger to European energy security. But given the unlikelihood of stopping it at this stage and the need to rebuild relations with Germany shredded under Trump, the administration elected to waive sanctions.
When literally everything he does it to the benefit of Russia, "Trump being a Russian asset" isn't a conspiracy theory, it's called "barely paying attention".
During Cold War 1.0, a lot of analysts and operatives were 1st and 2nd gen immigrants from Eastern Europe, and had ties and culture experience to help inform policy against the Warsaw Pact.
After the 2000s, the US began increasingly limiting those with ethnic or potential familial ties from working beats related to those countries. A Chinese American wouldn't pass the security clearance muster for the China role, nor a Jewish American for an Israel role.
There were attempts to potentially remediate this during the Biden admin, but it fell to the wayside [0][1]
Some white dude who went to high school in White Plains and college at Tufts just isn't going to have the domain or cultural experience or knowledge needed to really understand China or Iran, and it legitimately has caused a lot of IR Policy to become divorced from reality.
Interesting. Do US colleges and US TV/movies provide sufficient cultural understanding of US to other countries' governments, without them needing US immigrants as staffers?
> Do US colleges and US TV/movies provide sufficient cultural understanding of US to other countries' governments
Do French/German/Italian/<insert country here>?
They don't, and whatever global media Americans do consume tends to be Asian (overwhelmingly Japanese and Korean) or Latin American.
This isn't the 20th century anymore when a lot of 1st and 2nd gen immigrants had European ties. American in the 21st century is now Asia and Latin America facing.
Russia, got the Propagandists from Germany in World War II. How much have computers gained in power? The Military grade disinformation has gained a lot of power, and yes, they weaponized it, and now own...
It's a cultural problem that we let so much bullshit slide. America has come to love the spectacle, and loud wrong people can make quite a show.
In a just society, there'd be a price to pay for lying. Free speech has consequences. Be loudly and persistently wrong (even when corrected by actual experts with real facts) and you get penalized with turning down the volume. But it's the exact opposite in today's media atmosphere.
I agree… I was responding to GP who said it’s surprising that the IC has been “incompetent” at mitigating it. I believe, like you, it is not a job for the IC.
The amount of incompetence, incomprehensible ideology and red-tape slows everything down. NSA and CIA still look powerful because of huge amount of funds that flow in. Other countries happily hack into our infrastructure. You hardly hear NSA doing such accomplishments anymore (last was the Iranian nuclear hack). I doubt if America has any powerful spy network in places in Russia or China. But hey, I am just a dumb citizen.
Maybe yes. If so, that is great. But then why do we not see any damage to those countries either due to misinformation or any other hacks. On a related note, Snowden incident shows the depth of our ability.
U.S intelligence agencies have never been particularly good at their job. Complaining about the deep state and such is cope from fascist and commies that have continually folded under no pressure.
I'm seriously considering leaving the U.S. I can't justify paying taxes to a government that leaves me feeling disheartened. The EU should have visa programs for skilled professionals looking to leave the U.S.
> The EU should have visa programs for skilled professionals looking to leave the U.S.
We don't have a skilled worker shortage in EU right now, we have a skilled jobs shortage. All white collar skilled job ads are flooded with local applicants, we don't need more immigrants to water down wages and push up rents. My (f500 company) company just laid off 70 SW & HW engineers at one office while I've been part of the layoffs before.
The real shortages are in healthcare, and tough jobs people don't like to do for little money, like construction or elderly care, but there's enough Europeans willing to work cushy office jobs there's no need to import foreign competition other than to appease the corporate pushed propaganda.
Yeah but we could use a whole bunch of tech companies. There should be a visa program for entrepreneurs. That should be always the case but especially now.
Consider there are interests in common between sectors in Russia and the USA that are not at the state level, but private capital.
In particular, both nations are energy exporters. And the political class in Russia is explicitly a petro-regime.
There's no need to go looking for conspiracy theories around Trump being "compromised."
He's behaving just like any wealthy person with ties to the energy sector would, should they seize state power. They are acting in the interests of the oil industry, both of them.
Capitalism doesn't really have borders. Borders are for chumps like you and I.
I might also mention elections being compromised. It is another clear target for Russia with an extremely high payoff.
Feel certain they have not managed to hack the election?
> Is interfering in bangladeshi elections “soft power?”
Don't act like then entire purpose of USAID and the entire definition of soft power is whatever 0.08% of one year's budget you've been told to hate today. Distributing HIV medication is soft power. Sending food aid is soft power (and good farm policy). Supporting democratic elections is soft power. If it's unarmed and promoting American interests and values it's soft power.
> Don't act like then entire purpose of USAID and the entire definition of soft power is whatever 0.08% of one year's budget you've been told to hate today.... Supporting democratic elections is soft power.
Don't talk down to me--I grew up around USAID and almost certainly know more about it than you. Nearly all our family friends are USAID or World Bank people. Virtually all of the people talking about USAID didn't know shit about it until it became another vector to play out their impotent rage at Trump.
Interfering in other countries' politics undermines American soft power and the mission of USAID. All the things you and I both like--vaccinations for kids, maternal health, etc.--require working with governments to executive effectively.
Interfering with domestic political affairs completely negates that. Governments will not trust a putative AID organization that is also bankrolling activist organizations in their countries. And approximately zero people in Asia/Africa/the Middle East have uniformly negative feelings about the U.S. meddling in their internal politics.
Fair, I was a bit ungenerous. So you believe - what? USAID shouldn’t engage in politics, and agree enough with a recent viral tweet to use it as your example, and to insinuate that anyone talking about USAID is just acting out their TDS. But also that USAID _should_ be doing the humanitarian work that comprised the overwhelming majority of its efforts and is quite literally being decimated. And that no benefit should accrue to the US? Or none in the form of a more aligned government or political system than history has allowed to take root?
You didn’t “debunk” anything. You have no understanding of the history of State Department involvement in that region over decades, and are just reflexively assuming Elon is lying.
Show me proof of their claims that entire $29 million grant went to to that agency was spent on work in Bangledashi elections as Musk/DOGE claimed, despite no federal contract indicating that.
Show me the proof that DOGE "saved" that money after the contract was almost done and money was almost entirely granted.
Show me the proof that it went to an agency of two people as Trump claimed.
You can't show me proof of any of those things because they are lying.
You either ignorantly or willfully continue to repeat that lie, likely for partisan reasons.
There is no legitimate reason for the U.S. to be supporting political organizations of any sort in another country, bypassing official government channels.
It’s not a partisan point at all. My family came to America from Bangladesh because of USAID. I have every reason to hope the money was really going for childhood nutrition or vaccines or a legitimate expenditure like that.
Actually it has been compromised by Israel, by AIPAC, acting against American interests, creating negative sentiments against Americans across the Middle East and even globally just to support a messianic far right government in Israel.
How is it not in American interest to stop wasting money on a proxy war? Yes, Russia should not have invaded Ukraine, but they did and they have basically won.
If news reports are at all accurate, our military isn't as great as we think (our of resources to send to Ukraine, poor ability to resupply quickly) it is and the theater of war has changed to be more drone focused than ever before.
Why have there been next to no peace talks since the beginning of the war? How much more money will we spend on another quagmire of intervention? There are plenty of issues here at home that need more attention and money than this proxy war. Like our unsustainable debt.
So I know this is not a popular opinion on this site but the only solution being offered by the other side seems to be the meat grinder approach. Basically continue letting both sides throw their men and (and also US taxpayer) money into the conflict until one side gives up or runs out of men.
I am fundamentally anti-war. We can and should compromise on this. There’s a reason the neocons are aligned with the left on it. The military industrial complex is profiting massively, big banks are securing massive land grants to help “rebuild”, and meanwhile both countries are depopulating themselves.
What happened to the left that used to be anti-war?
What compromise do you suggest? So far what trump has been offering is "give us a bunch of stuff and get nothing in return".
Compromise would be a peace deal that actually guarantees Ukraine's future safety (e.g. NATO membership or nuclear weapons) without further compromising their sovereignty (forcing them to give up more territory or recognize Russian territorial claims).
We don't have the ability to compel Ukraine to take a bad deal, and if we did it would be wrong to.
Any compromise at all which brings the meat grinder to an end. We basically have a WW1 situation where both sides are grinding themselves down and the only thing the left can bring themselves to support is continuing the conflict.
Just think for a sec, you are on the same side as Dick Cheney. This is a good hint that you MIGHT not be on the good guys team as much as you think you are.
The position "any compromise that ends the war is acceptable" is a nonsensical idea that gives agressors the ability to take any territory they want from weaker nations. Invade weaker nation, take some land, then force them to surrender to 'save lives'. Do you not see where this absolutist idea leads?
If the only thing that matters is saving lives, you can have whatever you want by taking lives. The end result is that people who are willing to kill for profit win.
If you don't want the world to be ruled by people willing to kill for profit, you have to take action to make that behavior unprofitable.
My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.
We did appeasement in 2014 with the invasion of Crimea. Totally solved the problem didn't it. Just like Chamberlain prevented the meat grinder of WWII.
> Just think for a sec, you are on the same side as Dick Cheney.
That's a fallacy.
It might be true if Dick Cheney said or did something controversial that everybody disagrees with, like initiate a completely unnecessary war with Iraq. But in this case, everybody across the political spectrum who understands the situation and its context, agrees that it is vital to defend Ukraine.
Answer me this: do you think that in WW2, everybody should just have surrendered to Germany and Japan in order to bring the war to a quick end? Would that have been better than 5 years of destruction?
I don’t think it’s a fallacy at all. Being on the same team as a famous warmonger when it comes to choosing whether or not to continue funding an endless war is a decent HINT. It should make you take a step back and really examine all the evidence about whether you’re actually on the right side of history (you’re probably not).
This conflict is much more analogous to WW1 instead of WW2. In that conflict both sides basically came to standstill, lines were drawn in the dirt and millions on lives were lost for literally no reason. If the leaders of the countries involved had been able to recognize that years of slaughter had bought them nothing and negotiate a peaceful compromise then so many lives could have been saved. PLUS that likely would have prevented WW2 from even happening.
This is also a proxy war between the US and Russia, Ukraine would have been conquered immediately by Russia without US aid. We have the ability to force a peace and we should be trying to do so not only because we’re spending a lot of money on it but because we are perpetuating a horrific slaughter of millions of people.
Sure, taking a step back and examining the evidence is always a good idea, but the evidence is pretty damn clear here.
> This conflict is much more analogous to WW1 instead of WW2.
Only tactically. Both WW2 and this war were initiated by a single aggressor starting multiple wars in a row. WW1 by contrast had lots of countries equally itching for a fight, even countries that had nothing to do with the initial trigger. And assassination in Sarajevo should not logically lead to endless trench warfare in Flanders. But in Russia's invasion, everybody else is really careful to keep the fighting contained to just Ukraine.
I'm not sure ad hominem is as convincing as you think it is. "Any compromise at all" is a very easy thing to say when it isn't your blood in the streets.
Ad hominem: “Attacking a person's character or motivations rather than a position or argument.”
I said aligning yourself with a famous war monger is a good hint that you may not be a good guy and that it is a good reason for reflection. I did not attack OP’s character or motivations.
>very easy thing to say when it isn't your blood in the streets.
Likewise it is even more easy to be cavalier about continuing to fund a war and depopulating entire nations when you’re not the one being conscripted to fight and die.
It’s easy to be a war monger when you’re not the one doing the dying.
This also puts you on the same side as Neville Chamberlain, so.
There are a lot of bad people who espoused war in the past. There are also a lot of bad people who ran from war and appeased the Hitlers of the world, although many of their names did not survive because they weren't around afterward to write the histories.
We tried doing literally nothing when Russia invaded Georgia, and we tried doing basically nothing when Russia invaded Crimea in 2014. How did that work out? He invaded another god damned country. He really thought it was going to be a three-day operation; he thought he was going to be welcomed in Kiev. Should we have done nothing, forever?
“What could be better? An ally and an enemy both telling him the same thing; he'll have no other choice but to agree!”
If both Dick Cheney and Bernie Sanders are allied against someone, they’re probably bad news.
I appreciate I’m oversimplifying and ignoring the realpolitik, but the fastest way to end the war is to mercilessly crush the aggressor state that invaded and annexed a sovereign nation twice. The mistake of both the US and the EU was to be far, far too timid in their responses to an obvious existential threat.
Russia broke the last ceasefire. Another ceasefire without material guarantees of security for Ukraine is pointless for Ukraine to sign, as there's no reason to believe it'll "bring the meat grinder to an end".
Which is exactly what Zelenskyy was trying to say, when they kept shouting over him. And what at least one reporter asked about, which question Trump then dodged.
Although I agree that Trump's desire to end the war without any Russian concessions is foolhardy, Russia will not tolerate NATO membership or nuclear weapons on its borders. Recall that this conflict's roots began when we reneged on our promise to freeze NATO's borders in the late 90s after the Soviet Union's collapse. None other than George Kennan, the Russian-speaking architect of Cold War containment, wrote an op-ed about it then...
>Russia will not tolerate NATO membership or nuclear weapons for Ukraine.
Neither of which was a real concern before Russia invaded Ukraine.
>Recall that this conflict's roots began when we reneged on our promise to freeze NATO's borders in the late 90s after the Soviet Union's collapse.
There was no such promise. There was a quick comment in a meeting, which was quickly retracted seconds later in that same meeting, not turned into any official agreement, and by the way that was before the USSR had collapsed and not after. So the non-promise was made to an entity which also no longer existed.
Also, like, what exactly do you think would have happened to Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, etc. if they were not in NATO.
My point is that Russia taking Crimea and invading Ukraine are a consequence of NATO expansion to Russia's borders. The Baltic republics joined in 2004, while Ukraine and Georgia's "aspirant" status was declared in 2002 and 2004...
You make a good point. The EU/NATO expansion was deliberately intended to hem Russia in, and Russia's actions are at least partly in response to that.
However, there's a big difference between expanding your sphere of influence through "soft power" whereby those countries voluntarily join you, and expanding it through military invasion, as Russia is doing.
"Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."
I don’t agree much with Machiavelli for one, but more importantly he and Sun Tzu lived during a time when war was very common and just happened all the time with little provocation. In the post WW2 world the goal should be to avoid war at all costs and achieve goals by other means.
I'd argue war is as common now as in the times of Machiavelli or Sun Tzu. Even after WW2 and only considering US boots on the ground, how many military conflicts have there been?
There are five major ones:
Korean War (1950-1953)
Vietnam War (1955-1975)
Persian Gulf War (1990-1991)
War in Afghanistan (2001-2021)
Iraq War (2003-2011)
If you count proxy wars, it wouldn't be such a stretch to say we've been fighting almost continuously since we dropped the bomb.
Realists try to wrap Putin's decisionmaking in layers of geopolitical reasoning, when the dude literally compares himself to Peter the Great and uses 17th century maps to claim that Ukraine is an illegitimate nation. This is bog-standard nationalist stuff.
Tucker Carlson literally sat down with Putin and did everything he could to tee up this nonsense about NATO that Westerners want to hear and believe was the real reason, and instead Putin dropped 45 minutes worth of nationalist pseudohistory on him that had nothing to do with NATO. Nobody in Russia pretends the war is about NATO. It's just not really part of their narrative at all.
Please explain how a Russian nationalism that sees the Russian Empire at its height as a golden age is not a legitimate threat to all of Europe but especially Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and Ukraine, such that NATO expansion is fully legitimated.
You can't blame NATO expansion for Russian aggression (and call it "threatening") while at the same time literally admitting that Russia is strongly nationalist and would love to reclaim all of its former territories (which is why all of those countries desperately wanted to join NATO).
Fuck dude, Russia is the largest country on earth (see: expansionism) and has the first or second largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. They have no right to feel "threatened" by their smaller neighbors banding together.
Europe is as much Russia’s historical sphere of influence as the western hemisphere is ours. From the time of the Monroe Doctrine to the Cuban missle crisis and beyond, we have not tolerated any foreign incursion in North or South America—even to the point of removing democratically-elected socialists and installing pro-US dictators such as Chile’s Salvador Allende and Augusto Pinochet. Don’t be fooled by our own propaganda.
Seen in that light, a US strategy of overt and steady NATO encroachment combined with covert action to foment rebellion in multiple ex-Soviet states isn’t far fetched. And even if we didn’t secretly fund the latter, a paranoid Putin certainly wouldn’t doubt it and would react accordingly.
The attempt to rewrite history into "foreign encroachment" is either utterly ignorant of the actual facts, or just bad faith trolling.
The reasons why Eastern Europe was very passionate about joining NATO are clear from their history. And getting accepted into the organization was a major and very widely documented struggle. The Polish government went as far as threatening to sink Bill Clinton's re-election campaign in 1996 by urging Polish-Americans to vote for Republicans unless Clinton agreed to admitting Poland into NATO.
Now, people like you are trying to depict this as some sort of grand anti-Russian masterplan laid out in Washington. Nobody, not even Russians from that era, support this fringe story.
“You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”
― Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Here are the facts of NATO encroachment from the fall of the Berlin wall to the annexation of Crimea:
1. Feb 1990: The US, through West German chancellor Helmut Kohl, hints at freezing NATO’s borders in order to secure German reunification.
"Kohl thus found himself in a complicated position as he prepared to meet with Gorbachev on February 10, 1990. He had received two letters, one on either end of his flight from West Germany to the Soviet Union, the first from Bush and the second from Baker, and the two contained different wording on the same issue. Bush’s letter suggested that NATO’s border would begin moving eastward; Baker’s suggested that it would not.
According to records from Kohl’s office, the chancellor chose to echo Baker, not Bush, since Baker’s softer line was more likely to produce the results that Kohl wanted: permission from Moscow to start reunifying Germany.”
European motivations for joining NATO are obvious and beyond debate: what formerly war-torn nation wouldn't want shelter under our nuclear umbrella?
But while whether or not gradual, but deliberate NATO encroachment was a Neocon stratagem may be debatable to you and me, I doubt Putin, a paranoid autocrat who considers the fall of the USSR one of history's great calamaties, looking at these facts, would have the least question whatsoever.
Perhaps I was mistaken in thinking this was obvious, but... their opinion is utterly irrelevant; only one person's opinion matters here and that's Putin's.
Exactly my point: this is the story that the current dictator is spinning to justify his crimes.
It's also funny how Putin now lies about how invading Ukraine is all about NATO, when in the first few years of the war, Russia denied any involvement and claimed that the tens of thousands of unmarked soldiers with Russian tanks, artillery and anti-air systems capable of shooting down high-altitude airliners were just disgruntled secessionist Ukrainians fighting against nazis in Kyiv with weapons from military surplus stores. According to Putin, it was a civil war in Ukraine, and Russia had nothing to do with it.
Please clarify how NATO encroachment is non-threatening to a Russian nationalism that sees the Russian Empire at its height as a golden age.
That's exactly the point: almost all of Eastern Europe rushed into NATO to prevent becoming unwilling participants in another "golden age of the Russian empire". NATO is a massive pain in the ass for those who dream of enslaving the peoples of Europe, and not a problem at all for those who are free from this sick desire.
One of the pre-Putin foreign ministers of Russia has maintained for decades that NATO offers free security on Russia's western border. Its rules, especially those related to civilian oversight of military affairs, ensure that NATO members remain stable and predictable. The mutual defense guarantee acts as a moderating force that reduces the likelihood of unexpected moves by a single country. What normal country wouldn't want to border a military alliance dominated by overly cautious pacifists?
Sure, the mutual-defense guarantee can be a moderating force, or it can be a ticket to rapid escalation (case in point WW1) and, potentially therefore, nuclear war.
The fact that the Cold War ended peacefully, and with the USSR‘s dissolution to boot, is one of history’s great miracles. With the world’s return to its default multi-polar state, we really shouldn’t press our luck.
Give Russia and China their spheres of influence while we protect our own. The tail risk of nuclear war just isn’t worth whatever gains Neocons promise. After all, how did their Iraqi and Afghan experiments in democracy turn out?
Russia already has its sphere of influence, but it is rapidly shrinking because aligning with Russia offers neither peace nor prosperity nor anything else of value. Politically, economically, scientifically, and culturally, it is a dead end. Russia is not the first country to slip into irrelevance and struggle to accept the loss of its influence, and no amount of temper tantrums has ever changed that for anyone.
The UK, France, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Mongolia, and many others were vast empires at some point in history. They have all had to adopt a self-image that reflects their true political, cultural, and economic weight in the present world. Russian ambitions are too detached from reality, given that they account for only a percentage or two of global GDP and population, and are in a downward trend.
I don't disagree about Russia's prospects. China, too, is facing a demographic collapse it will take generations to mend. But the nuclear arsenal of both countries makes this irrelevant for policy now.
The only reason for them to not accept NATO membership of a neighbor is if they're planning to invade that neighbor.
Russia's desire to not have NATO neighbors rather makes the point of why there can be no peace between Ukraine and Russia - Ukraine understands that without real guarantees of security, any 'peace' with Russia is a farce that only lets them prepare for the next invasion, except this one will start closer to home and be better planned.
What relevance does Ukraine joining NATO, a defensive alliance, have to Russia? (Unless they are planning to attack again, which would mean the "peace deal" isn't actually worth the paper it's signed on, and is just a way for Russia to regroup for their next invasion.)
Whether you call it "defensive" or not, NATO—and the arms race it and the Warsaw Pact fostered—directly led to the Soviet Union's collapse. Recall that JFK almost started WW3 when the Soviets sent nukes to Cuba. NATO on Russia's borders isn't all that different to them.
Except there is no reason for a compromise. Russia invaded Ukraine, they're free to withdraw any time they like. I wonder how anti-war you'd be if another country decided half of yours suddenly belonged to them.
Countries all over the world should want to help stop an aggressor before it expands and becomes powerful enough to attack them. It's a no brainer, and you have plenty of examples throughout history.
As things stand now, 5 years from now USA could become overrun with russian mobs and oligarch running rampant, and EU faces the real possibility of another continental conflict. I don't think many people around the world are going to enjoy that scenario.
There is absolutely a reason for compromise. Ukraine should be opposed to depopulating itself.
The current situation is very similar to the trench warfare of WW1. Despite there being a clear initiator of WW1, BOTH sides absolutely had a huge reason to compromise. Over 8 million lives were lost, the reason to compromise was saving those 8 million lives.
> Ukraine should be opposed to depopulating itself.
And they are. They want the people back that Russia abducted, and the people who still live in the occupied territories. They can't bring back the dead obviously, but they can fight for the living. And for the future.
To understand Ukraine's will to fight, you need to understand that they have lived under Moscow's yoke for generations. Their grandparents lived through the Holodomor, their parents lived under Soviet oppression. The current generation has known 30 years of freedom. And now they're faced with the possibility of their children living under Moscow rule again.
I empathize with your opinion Dig1t. War is horrible and meat grinders are especially so.
But when a victimized population like Ukraine decides it wants to keep fighting. Especially given:
> Ukraine should be opposed to depopulating itself.
Then you gotta ask yourself:
Given they would rather die than suffer the consequences of a compromise.
Then maybe they know something about the consequences of that compromise that you and I can’t? and if so, maybe we should continue trusting the victims to not compromise ?
You cannot compromise with an aggressor, it encourages them to be more aggressive. Being anti-war to the point of allowing allies to be overrun by totalitarians is just foolishness, and a great way to create more war.
My understanding is that Ukraine gave up their nuclear arsenal in exchange for an agreement Wirth Russia to not be invaded? If that is the case and Russia invaded anyway, then what kind of compromise can you have with a country that breaks any agreement they sign?
I doubt many people want war, I know I don't. But once you have a warring nation going rouge, there aren't many options left on the table.
It’s bizarre that anyone would try to spin opposition to war for war’s sake as some kind of obligation to never fight regardless of the provocation or context.
Yes, yes, I am opposed to punching random people on the street. It is bad manners. That does not mean I have to stand by and watch someone else get attacked for no reason.
Left - at least the moderate left in italy, I don't know what kind of American left you're talking about - is anti war in an anti _offensive_ war sense, not against a defensive war or against defending another more or less allied country from being invaded by another country
I am not sure of course, but I guess the same would be true of other similar center left parties in europe
If Russia was allowed to annex Ukraine with no military resistance... would this not certainly encourage more invasions/annexations in the future between various countries? Would this not result in more violence in the long run?
Einstein was famously a pacifist, opposed to the concept of war. Many leftists used to be aligned with this as well.
We are funding a meat grinder that has no sign of victory for either side anywhere in sight. This has been going on for years now. Long enough where we need to consider a diplomatic compromise, we can’t just keep pumping money into another country waiting for enough men to die, it is fundamentally evil.
I know people feel that they are morally justified in funding the conflict forever because Russia is the aggressor. But at a certain point it becomes evil not to seek an end to the killing. Have you watched videos of the horrific things that are happening over there with drone warfare? How can you watch that and say “it’s okay to let this go on forever because technically Russia is the invader”?
Pacifism is good insofar as one should avoid starting wars. What you are arguing for is prostration, reflexive submission to any non-pacifist actor. All your posts in this thread are bemoaning the horrors of war and comparing it to a meatgrinder, but all saying that the solution is for Ukraine to capitulate. What consequences should befall Russia?
Victory for Ukraine is surviving to the next day. Do you really think funding them is "fundamentally evil"? They don't have a choice about fighting. If they lose, Ukraine will be brutally "Russified". Their language and culture will be banned. Their poets and patriots killed. Their children will be brainwashed and turned into loyal soldiers for Putin's next war of conquest.
Nobody likes war, but letting your country be subjugated by an evil dictator is worse.
Russia is not acting in good faith, so a compromise doesn't help. If both parties had legitimate grievances and acted in good faith, they could come to a peaceful lasting compromise. But instead, one nation aggressively invaded another with constantly shifting narratives for the reason why.
Those of us truly anti-war realize that allowing Ukraine to be punished/Ukrainians to be kidnapped for giving up their nuclear weapons will only lead to future wars and future nuclear proliferation, not less war..
Unfortunately, if we do not want to have a direct conflict with Russia, the next best thing is giving Ukraine massive amounts of weapons, arms, etc., and enabling them to retake their country.
Any alternative that allows Russian gains will only further cement the idea that wars of aggression can be worthwhile in the modern world, and this is the most horrendous conclusion possible for anyone actually anti-war.
The West has provided hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons and money, yet the Ukranians have made near-zero progress. They are incapable of retaking their country without direct intervention from NATO, which is not an option.
Everyone here needs to make an extra effort to assume good faith, as the site guidelines ask: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Otherwise we're just going to get in a downward spiral.
Trump offered a mineral deal that secure Ukrainian minerals for the US while offering absolutely nothing in return. He did so from a position of power since Ukrainian lives depend on continuing military aid to defend against an illegal war of aggression with the goal of exterminating his country. Unless he's identical to Putin Trump isn't even in a position to offer peace.
You cannot possibly imagine how disgusted people are by Trump and by statements like yours. It's just disgusting.
It absolutely offers something in return. It gives the US interests in Ukraine and in maintaining the status quo so we can access those minerals. Putin wants them for himself. This is a clever way to push back at Putin while also compromising on having NATO at Russia's doorstep. It also compensates the US for its generous spending on Ukraine's plight. NATO is over anyway because European countries cannot or will not contribute their share and frankly the US isn't threatened by Russia in the same way it was during the Cold War. I much prefer a bi or tri polar world to the Cold War.
You've just confirmed with a meandering, misleading paraphrase the same as what I've stated in the first place, that the US has offered nothing in return.
The ones wishing for peace most are the Ukrainians.
However the Ukrainians also want a country where they can live in peace. Not under Russian occupation, not in fear of Russia breaking the agreement, again. (After agreeing to Ukrainian souveranity while Ukraine gave up their Nukes, after agreeing to the Minsk Memorandum after occupying Crimea)
I'm with you. And we seem to be in the minority here. Setting Ukraine aside for the moment, what have the many US military conflicts—they were not "wars" because the last one Congress declared was during WW2—since WW2 achieved?
Excluding proxy wars for simplicity's sake and only counting those where we had boots on the ground, from our engagements in Korea to Afghanistan, how has the world become a better place?
Besides (arguably) Korea, it seems our blood and treasure could've been better spent.
You want a peace by Ukraine's capitulation, which would involve Ukraine handing over millions of Ukrainian citizens to Russia. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that haven't really thought this through but it's nevertheless disgusting, particularly the bullying of a foreign dignitary in the White House was disgusting and unprecedented in diplomacy.
Sorry I don't have any other word for it. It's disgusting behavior.
The only people who should be in charge of deciding when it's time to stop fighting are the Ukrainian people and their elected leaders. That's how democracy works. You should continue to support Ukraine with weapons together with the numerous allies you have, seek further alliance continue to pressure Russia with sanctions and isolation. Russian embassies should be closed, by the way.
Why? Because it's the morally right thing to do. It's as simple as that.
The Ukrainian leadership has suspended all elections. Polling indicates that Zelensky would almost certainly lose an election if one were held.
If you really care about the principles of democracy wouldn't you be in support of giving the people of Ukraine the chance to vote for leaders that would seek to end the war?
Also speaking of democracy, Trump campaigned on ending the Ukraine war and he solidly won the election, including the house, senate, and popular vote. Using diplomatic means to bring an end to the killing and an end to sending our taxpayer dollars to fund foreign wars is absolutely what the American people voted for.
The Ukrainian constitution prescribes that elections cannot be held during a war. One obvious reason is also that 20% of Ukraine are occupied and it's not possible to hold elections there. Similar decisions to postpone elections were made by other countries in distress, such as the United Kingdom during World War 2.
Zelensky has even offered to step down as a president in exchange for tangible security guarantees for his country, yet you people continue to parrot Russian propaganda. It's absolute insanity how brainwashed people are by this cheap Russian propaganda. Think before you write!
The primary thing which the US has given Ukraine is weapons designed and built during the Cold War for the explicit purpose of defending Europe against a Russian invasion.
When the President of the most powerful nation on Earth, repeatedly says:
* Canada should be annexed
* I'll use my powers to crush Canada's economy so they are forced to join the US
* I'll use my powers to disrupt trade, and influence others to not trade with Canada
* I want to conquer and take over other "things" as well (Panama Canal, Greenland)
And:
* Makes up stories about there being issues with immigrants and fentanyl from Canada, to put aside trade agreements using powers assigned for emergency use, by Congress, in 1977
* Executes orders about tariffs, inline with the above threats
* Makes up wild, unfounded numbers about trade deficits
* Other members of the the US government says "He's going to make you the 51st state" and "he's entirely serious"
* General discussion among many members of his party saying "We should annex Canada"
And when:
* That same president spreads false information, at one point claiming the Ukraine "started the war"
* Decides to give up the Ukraine to a country run by a dictator
* Tries to undermine other countries from helping the Ukraine
* Thinks Russia is an ally, and everything will be just fine via appeasement
Then I don't care what other Americans think, or say. I care that someone with immense power, and the capability to do these things, says he will. I care what the ruling party has said the goal is.
You speak of "serious people". Only a very unserious person would ignore all of the above. With respect, when you threaten a people with loss of their entire country, telling them they shouldn't take it serious is absolutely absurd.
Nothing else but what has been said is important. No excuses for "he won't do it". No "don't worry about it" is reasonable.
In the last couple of months, the US has entirely destroyed its relationship with Canada. It will literally take half a century to recover it, if ever.
You don't play with another nations security and autonomy. You don't joke about taking someone's country over.
And like it or not?
Your president is your face to the world, and he's doing these things, and there are sadly repercussions of all of us.
Yes, Trump is a gift to any cynical person trying to "both sides" Russia's war against Ukraine or China's extensive plans to invade Taiwan by saying "look, the U.S. threatens their neighbors too!"
The fact is, none of this talk has resulted in real steps towards action. And if you take seriously everything Trump says, you can draw any number of conclusions that aren't based in reality.
You're ignoring what I said, it's not just Trump talking.
And I reiterate, when it comes to the loss of nationhood, the requirement to go to war if that happens, Canadians cannot simply ignore direct threats.
Frankly, your words seem quite offensive to me. You're simply telling all 40 million of us to just ignore a threat to our very existence, because, oh well, who cares, it's obviously just noise.
Meanwhile as I said, it's not just Trump, but his party, cabinet, and others saying the goal is real.
How can I take you seriously, when you ignore that it's not just Trump?
That it's at least millions of Americans repeating and agreeing with these things?
You don't underestimate words with such dire consequences. Ever.
Yes it is. Where is the U.S. military mobilization to the northern border? Or against Panama or Greenland for that matter. You can't just invade a country, you need years of expensive logistical operations to move your troops and supply lines into place (the way Russia did before Ukraine and increasingly what China is doing against Taiwan).
So if we are to take Trump seriously, where is any evidence he is doing anything besides issuing wild threats for leverage in later trade talks?
> You don't underestimate words with such dire consequences.
Trump is dismantling the post world war 2 American led global order. I am taking this very seriously, I just don't tolerate people using Trump's statements as confirmation bias of their "The U.S. is just as bad" both side-isms. Or just downright celebrating the fall of the U.S. because they think a world where China and Russia do whatever they want is somehow better.
Global conflicts and wars of conquest by authoritarian states used to be normal, if we are returning to that era, we are all worse off.
Is this just a game of copycat? You are asserting the US is actually planning a war against Canada, now is the time to cite your sources and proof of that claim.
The two of you both broke the site guidelines super badly in this thread. Not cool.
Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN, and please avoid tit-for-tat spats in the future. I know how hard it is to extricate oneself, but the only worthwhile thing to do is just stop.
The two of you both broke the site guidelines super badly in this thread. Not cool.
Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN, and please avoid tit-for-tat spats in the future. I know how hard it is to extricate oneself, but the only worthwhile thing to do is just stop.
No one wants peace, they want justice. But putting aside all that nonsense, this is a relatively cheap way to fuck with Russia, one of our main geopolitical adversaries. If Ukraine is willing to jump into the meat grinder, let's give Russia the push it needs to join them. Don't give up a winning position for no reason.
Ukraine offered an alternative approach. They are willing to compromise on territory - i.e. stop fighting over it, not give up the claim to it. What they want, and they've said it again and again, is a security guarantee for the future to prevent Russia invading again. Either membership of NATO or a specific treaty. This is their one goal beyond coming under the control of Russia during this specific war, not having to worry about being invaded again. If they don't get it then they're likely to start developing a nuclear deterrent (they've already indicated this and they probably have the capability).
Ok. Let's pretend this is what is done. Russia gets to keep all the land it took from Ukraine, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides.
Who's going to stop Russia from re-arming and building up its army only to launch another attack in 2-3 years? Who's going to prevent them from destabilizing Ukraine until it falls?
Russia won't stop until it has destroyed Ukraine, that much is certain. Russia only understands strength, and they won't stop until stopped by force.
But hey, peace is more important right? Maybe they should just take Ukraine, capture, torture, rape and murder all the people they deem as undesirables and convert it to another Russian oblast as it was once before. Then there will be peace.
I would imagine you would also lay down at your own home if someone breaks in and tries to rape and murder your family just for the sake of peace?
> What happened to the left that used to be anti-war?
The left is still anti-war. But most people on the left have paid enough attention to Putin to know that surrendering to him is not going to bring peace.
This war didn't just start in 2022; Putin invaded Ukraine twice in 2014. He invaded Georgia in 2008. And very early on in his career, he completely demolished Chechnya. He's not a peace guy. And all those wars by Putin were rewarded, and so he continues. Now finally, people understand that giving Putin everything he wants is just going to make him want more and attack more.
In Russia, they're already talking about Moldova, Estonia, Lithuania and even Poland. The only way this will end is by stopping Putin.
The left didn't compromise with Hitler either. Surrendering to Hitler didn't bring anyone peace. Peace came only after defeating Hitler. And unfortunately, it's exactly the same with Putin. Except nobody is going to march on Moscow, because Putin has nukes. So the only way to stop him becomes letting him exhaust his country until it collapses. That sounds terrible, but Ukraine is actually willing and eager to be the anvil on which Russia destroys itself. All we need to do is continue to support Ukraine with everything they need and more.
I know it's terrible. You can blame Putin for that. But this may be the only way to put an end to Putin's bottomless aggression.
The (moderate) left was anti-oppression and anti-dictatorship. Sometimes you need to fight for that, but the goal remains a stable, egalitarian and peaceful society.
If your anti-war stance means I can punch you in the face and your reaction is to compromise on "ok but no more punching", your face is going to look very bad very soon.
I don't think you should be down voted for opinions.
The question is how to organize incentives to make anti-war ideal a reality.
As the last 70 odd years have demonstrated, Economic development as a carrot alone seems to have not worked. The stick of MAD unfortunately seems to required.
I mean Russia could leave, pull their troops back in Russia. It's not like the Ukrainians invaded Russia, or have annexed any Russian territory that they want to keep. The Russians were not in fact forced to invade.
It's nice to see a speck of sanity in this thread.
Oh but didn't you know that all that aid money is actually going to America(n weapons manufacturers, who will then lobby us into the next forever war after this one).
If you were wondering how american politicians managed to piss away trillions of dollars in the middle east instead of fixing healthcare or education, building trains, doing anything the least bit useful, this is how. You gin the people up into believing that there's a bad guy somewhere and its our job to make things right, and you're off to the races.
> It no longer represents American interests, but Russian interests
Disagree. Trump is in this for himself. If he appears to represent Russian interests that's likely because he has made some kind of deal with Putin that benefits him personally. It has been reported that he has been talking to Putin before he was elected for the second term [1].
Donald Trump - whose business "got all the funding we need out of Russia"[1] stood up in front of the press and requested the Russian government target his opponent's email... and the Russian government immediately did so.[2] There has been a great deal of circumstantial evidence since, with little to anything to rebut it. This may very well be a quid pro quo rather than naked pro-Russian partisanship, but the practical difference for the United States is negligible.
If there's any remaining doubt that Trump has an under-the-table deal with Putin consider this: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week ordered U.S. Cyber Command to stand down from all planning against Russia, including offensive digital actions [1].
There is something going in for sure, but the man knows in his heart that he will be dead soon. Surviving his term at his great age will be impressive.
Old men often don't care about personal help, so look to his kin/family for benefits.
He’s trolling dude, just like he said he was better than George Washington. There’s some kind of duality in US politics where people either take Trump seriously but not literally, or they take him literally and not seriously (the latter leading to all sorts of confusion, though often it’s intentional confusion).
Today Trump and his sidekick verbally attacked a man on TV, who has spent the last 3 years watching his country viciously and maliciously attacked by Russia. He's watched his people die. His friends killed. His country leveled.
And then Trump spews "give up" and "screw you", and the best part is he gets agitated and upset when the Ukraine didn't bend a knee.
This isn't trolling. This is the President causing real world events to happen. This is the President derailing a 3+ year effort by the entire West to stop Russia's aggression. This is a President appeasing a dictator, an expansionist, but apparently when he says and does things he's... trolling?
During election when Trump said outrageous things, a lot of people had the same attitude as you, and downplayed Trump's comments: he's trolling... he is bluffing... it is just a distraction tactic... it is a negotiation tactic... and so on.
Then after he got elected and actually started doing the things he said he would the same people are like... "Trump is delivering exactly what he promised what he would deliver when he started this campaign. This is what the American people voted for!"
> Trump is in this for himself. If he appears to represent Russian interests that's likely because he has made some kind of deal with Putin that benefits him personally.
That's usually how one state usually acheives a compromise of another state’s government, by finding the right weak links and making deals with them (the chief of state and/or head of government, and especially the person holding an office which serves simultaneously as both, is pretty much the ideal case for this, though in practice it is often only people a few steps down.)
So, while that description is true, it supports and explains rather than contradicts the claim that Russia has compromised the US government.
Everything he does is related to grift. A Ukraine-American minerals deal will probably have many layers of agencies and private contractors involved. All kinds of side dealings and under the table contracts will be exchanged where the Trump enterprise can skim off everything, like hedge fund fees.
Such a deal has no place in a peace deal where thousands of people have died. Stop the war first.
Trump is probably in it for himself and also helping himself by representing Russian interests. He's no doubt had a lot of money and support from Russia and probably wouldn't even have become president without them.
I think he's hoping for some deal where he / the US / the minerals corporation control half of Ukraine and Putin controls the other half and Zelensky and Ukrainian democracy just get in the way of that.
A somewhat adjacent interpretation is that he doesn't care about democracy. And so why would he care if Ukraine got invaded. He wants to be a king or emperor or whatever. If Putin takes Ukraine the idea of kings being back gets more normalized.
I don’t think Trump has the sophistication to be a Russian agent. The sad truth is just that he’s wannabe dictator who admires Putin as a role model. Russia is as surprised at their luck as anyone else.
"Russian agent" != trusted collaborator. It means they can use you. He's perfectly predictable/controllable using just flattery and greed, which petro terrorist states like Russia can utilize quite generously.
Trump is an open book, he says he wants the killing to stop and to save money, but saving lives is more important. Many people also believe this, and that failed negotiations and bad relations between NATO and Russia lead to this.
It’s not pro-Russian to want a conflict to end, it’s terrible to think that not wanting people to continue to die is considered bad if it happens to include people of a specific nation who have little control over their leadership currently.
Zelensky would really like this war to end (he said so in the meeting), but he also realizes that Putin can't be trusted - give him an inch and he'll take a mile. The kind of "peace" that Trump wants is the "peace in our times" of Chamberlain or the "peace" of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact - the kind of "peace" that ultimately leads to more war.
He's obsessed with the idea that Russia is vulnerable to invasion via Ukraine and eastern Europe, which is why imperial conquest of those areas is a non-negotiable. The question he can't answer is why the hell anyone would want to invade Russia in 2025 the way Napoleon or the Nazis did.
Lots of words spilled in this thread about how the American government is now all of a sudden compromised but almost nothing as the US subserviently sent billions in weapons and aid to Israel to commit genocide for more than a year now. Most Americans are extreme hypocrites with blinders on. This country has been compromised by Israel for far longer, and in a much worse way.
Your government is certainly compromised but is it Russia? A lobby group for a certain settler colony in the Middle East spent money on 80% of the seats up for election last year, and boasts of its ability to interfere with US elections. Jeffrey Epstein was linked with the intelligence services of that colony and who knows what he had on Trump and other top US politicians.
What happened was incredibly bad diplomacy, but this take is frankly hysterical.
The Trump administration believes cozying up to Russia will draw them away from China. The Trump administration also believes relieving sanctions will cause commodity prices to drop.
And they are willing to throw Ukraine under the bus for those privileges along with some minerals.
This is undeniably good for the American economy, but at a moral price.
As an American I've never been more ashamed of the leadership of my country. And really just ashamed of my country. Ashamed to be an American at this point in history.
Zelensky has shown more bravery than Trump or Vance are even capable of and they decided to ambush and lecture him like that. Absolutely disgusting.
> You're more embarrassed by Trump tactlessly trying to end the war in Ukraine
The fastest way to end a war is to lose it. A conditional surrender of Ukraine based on all Russian demands is not peace deal, to state the obvious. It is in fact a guarantee this war will continue, which is what Ukraine is seeking to avoid.
That seemed plausible at one time. But what could Russia have on Trump at this point that would be more than mildly embarrassing? Certainly nothing sexual. Trump had an affair with a stripper while his wife was pregnant, and that didn't bother his base. It now comes out that Trump flew on Epstein's "Lollypop Express", and nobody cares. No leverage there.
On the financial conflict of interest side, Trump and his base treat that as a non-problem.
Somebody shot at Trump and hit his ear, and that didn't change Trump's behavior.
What could Putin do to apply pressure to Trump personally?
Maybe it has something to do with those mishandled classified documents about Russian interference in US elections that turned up at Mar a Lago in 2021.
If I wanted to control Trump I'd silence key members of his domestic opposition, let him get drunk on power, and then threaten to stop doing so. His ego, now inflated, probably can't handle a return trip to the real world.
If all people here would study Trump, then nobody would have hired him for any job. He fails, and he does that spectacularly. His businesses have floundered time after time, and his ass has been saved many a times (with Russian money too, yeah, years back). Trump's image is completely fake, he is not a great deal maker. He is born rich, at best a con man. But he is valuable.
That begs the question:
*a) what powers do select the likes of Trump, Greene, Kennedy?*
*b) For what?*
I have no horse in this race, but anybody with a clear mind can see those people are mentally impaired.
Re a. There is a small but powerful contingent in the USA elites that do NOT believe in democracy. The movements behind MAGA are part driven by extreme white-nationalist christians, notable Dominions, part driven by old-Nazi elites from the Interbellum and part driven by extreme crypto-/tech-dystopia crazies, that have access to enormous amounts of wealth, intelligence about people (Big tech) and "social" media. America falling into the hands of radical but powerful elites with extreme beliefs and tools was just a matter of time.
Articles shared here on Hacker News have been flagged over the years.
Re b. Trump, Kennedy, Greene etc are able to suck up tons of media attention. They will generate a crisis every hour without needing instructions. They are not too smart and powerful, so they will have a room in which they can operate, but they will not be able to control the tools like media themselves. But what they will do is making sure the people will get distracted by the drama of these people, whereas people should be concerned with what is happening with the democratic state. Te state is being replaced according to Plan 2025, from which you have not seen everything.
Do not focus too much on Trump and Elon. They are there pursuing their own interests, they are tolerated for now, but they will be pushed from the board once their work is finished.
America siding with Putin is just a tip of the ice berg of what is to come for America and the world.
And yet he comes back. The head of intelligence for the Ukrainian military, Kyrylo Budanov, was asked about Trump last year. He commented that Trump has failed and come back nine times. That was a good insight.
Budanov's comment about the current situation is here.[1] He says a cease-fire is possible in the near term, but not peace. That's realistic.
> anybody with a clear mind can see those people are mentally impaired.
One tiny newspaper, the Durango Herald, just came out and said that Trump should be removed via the 25th amendment
procedure for a sick president. Bing/MSN captured the beginning of the story, but if you try to follow the link [2], the message is "There has been a critical error on this website."
The story is not visible on their site, which is up. I sent them a note asking if they were pressured to pull the story.
Update: I contacted the Durango Herald, which is a tiny weekly in Colorado. They said that item would appear in the next print issue, and went up on the web site too soon.
Well, Russia has been interfering a lot recently. And don't you find it quaint how what Trump does aligns with Russian interests? He has already weakened diplomatic ties to all western countries, killed USAID (who is going to move in to get all that goodwill? China of course). Put doubts in people about the meaning and guarantees of NATO.
And he calls Zelensky a dictator and refuses to call Putin one. Laughable. If there is no russian interference trump is even more clueless than I thought.
So why did Trump invite a so-called dictator to the Oval Office? You are going to have a very long 4 years of Trump if you choose to remain willfully ignorant about what his administration is about or if you place more importance on his negotiation tactics over the results.
Zelensky lost big yesterday. The minerals deal was supposed to solidify a security guarantee from Uncle Sam. He bet on the wrong horse i.e Europe. Ukraine is facing assured destruction now if Zelensky continues on the foolish path of drumming up support for more war against the insurmountable Bear.
I respect Trump a lot more for having the fortitude to push for a peace negotiation, maybe we'll even be talking about a Nobel prize sometime next year.
First of all, Trump has been very reluctant about any security guarantees. I don't think he will give any, regardless of mineral deal or not.
And I agree Zelenskys lost yesterday. I was expecting him to do what Starmer did, just "more". Go there with a smile and eat whatever poop sandwich Trump and Vance served him.
I can understand people that think "good on him for standing up for himself", but he wasn't there to stand up for himself. He was there to security guarantees.
On the other hand I doubt trump and couch-guy had anything else planned. If they had been serious about the intentions this would have been negotiated and done long before any kind of public appearance.
You can ask CharGPT what "interests" mean in this context, it can give you a comprehensive explanation connecting these interests to GDP and quality of life of US citizens in the long term. You no longer can play stupid.
FWIW US spent less than 100B in 3 years of war, it's nothing compared to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. And it serves an important function, "every cent counts!" makes no sense here as the goal is to prevent bigger confrontation in the future
>Zelensky implied Russia would invade the U.S. Do you think that’s likely?
He did not. What he did say is, that should Russia start to expand the war to other countries (as is very likely if Ukraine falls), these effects will be felt by the people in the US.
That statement is obviously true. The effects of the Ukraine war could also be felt, as it affected the economy across the globe.
Be concrete. Which countries and what effects? Berlin is less than 1,000 miles from Moscow. Why aren’t they spending 5% of GDP on defense if this is a real threat?
> We cannot continue spending trillions of dollars and risking American lives based on weasel words like “interests” and “allies.” Say what you really mean.
What he means is whatever Russia is interested in doing, Trump is motivated to agree to given his open, well-documented idolization of Putin and other dictators, making us effective allies. Your attempts to devalue OP's argument like pretending he is being too vague are quite trasparent and do not hold up to scrutiny. Instead, you need to prove why Trump's recent behavior and remarks toward Putin don't establish us as allies with shared interests.
> He said that it could come to American shores - the bite, the cyberwar, the nukes - not necessarily only the army.
> You think Russia is going to nuke America if Ukraine loses the war?
jump right to the most extreme possible claim to pull from the above and _strrrretch_ it -- impeccable form! It's not even a logical fallacy, it's just lying about what the person before you said, presented as though they look foolish for saying it. Smooth, hollow, soulless stuff.
It's hilarious how some people actually believe Trump's lies that Ukraines support is actually freely given/a donation.
In reality, the support is literally the US selling the old garbage military equipment to the Ukraine for debt. You know, the stuff that the actual US military considers too old to actually use anymore.
Especially ironic in the context of Ukraines treaty with the US, which is why they dont have any nukes anymore. Which was most likely the reason why Russia finally felt comfortable invading them in 2014 and now.
Despite that being a lie... If it weren't, I'm not sure how that's relevant?
The EU isn't demanding that the Ukraine becomes an effective colony to be exploited at will by thenn for dubious claims of a solution. Neither did it have the treaty. Both of which were the things that made it ironic.
The majority of the "funds" pay for products like shells and missiles made by American labor (which encompasses quite a few Trump voters!) in America with American parts and American steel and American know-how. We're donating no-longer-used Bradleys, F-16s, Javelins that are reaching (sometimes past!) their expiration date, etc.
> The notion of “aid to Ukraine” is a misnomer. Despite images of “pallets of cash” being sent to Ukraine, about 72 percent of this money overall and 86 percent of the military aid will be spent in the United States. The reason for this high percentage is that weapons going to Ukraine are produced in U.S. factories, payments to U.S. service members are mostly spent in the United States, and even some piece of the humanitarian aid is spent in the United States.
(As a bonus, we're getting to try out all our stuff against Russia's best, in a way we've never really gotten to. It's an incredible ad for American defense contractors.)
If you'd told the old Cold Warriors that a small fraction of a single year's military budget could turn the Russian military into a shadow of its original, they would not have believed you.
There's much that is potentially shady about that deal, such as the Clintons receiving donations through the Clinton Foundation that were allegedly bribes for the Uranium One situation. Certainly Russian foreign investment in America, especially something sensitive like uranium, should raise eyebrows.
But it's not clear there are direct or indirect ramifications for national security. Russia already has access to plenty of uranium.
This was also at a time when Russia was looking like it wanted to become a peaceful member of the world community. They were not the adversary to a peaceful world that they are today.
But then again, most Americans seem to have no issue with AIPAC having near full control over congress. Because if they did, we'd have seen more outrage and action.
I think this take only makes sense if there is no such thing as morally or justice. If we were just discussing a business deal, fine, but Ukrainians are being killed and told to be nicer to the killer’s leader. It’s an insane position.
> America is experiencing a decapitation strike, and our military is not defending us from these domestic enemies.
There we go, democracy is fine until it goes against the "liberal" zeitgeist. It's not really liberalism just like "far right" now seems to be regularly slapped onto viewpoints which were considered normal or even centrist a decade or two ago. It dilutes any chance of actual conversation between right and left.
Though yes the US military, rather state department, does openly fund political manipulation abroad via USAID. It's not humanitarian aid, or rather, the humanitarian aid is a side effect at best, as even liberal publications recognize [2, 3]. However like the OP here, there's increasing trends toward using USAID programs to "protect" America from stupid Americans who begin to "wrong-think" about things. The UK has a similar problem where public funding is used to influence politics where it's easy to see the absurdity [1].
I'm sorry but a few bots on X don't compromise Americans and make them some sort of far right extremists any more than me reading Lord of the Rings or 1984 does. We do need to protect ourselves from actual sabotage, bribery, etc but not use it as an excuse for blanket manipulation.
Yeah, that should be an absolute no on even considering it. The US military and state department apparatus does not have a role in deciding what Americans should believe.
> Though yes the US military, rather state department, does openly fund political manipulation abroad via USAID. It's not humanitarian aid, or rather, the humanitarian aid is a side effect at best.
You betray how much you hate democracy when you refer to efforts to strengthen the ability to conduct free and fair elections at home and aboard as "liberal activism".
Honestly I think this is a bad take and I'm not exactly what one would call a "supporter" of the current administration.
Americans get too wrapped up in the propaganda around Ukraine to even start to understand it. If your understanding of what's going on starts in 2022 and not, at least, back to 2014, then you're not really understanding what's going on.
The conflict in Ukraine has, since the 2010s, has been about fossil fuels and other mineral rights. Around that time oil and natural gas sources were found in all the regions currently being fought over.
Ukraine, sadly, will always just be a pawn for the other major players. What we're seeing here is not "Russian interests being prioritized over American interests". This war has never been about what's good for the American people nor the Ukrainian people, but the companies that stand to benefit from extraction rights (Democrats as well as Republicans get their directions from billionaires, despite the song and dance to convince you otherwise).
The prior administration had fairly strong support from and for European parties that wanted to partake of these resources. The change is really away from support for Europe in favor of two things: better relations with Russia, and more importantly, ending this thing. The "ending this thing" is not because of desires for peace, but because as long as there are bombs being dropped in this region nobody can extract anything from anywhere.
People upset about this situation are living in a world that doesn't exist anymore. We're in the end game of industrial civilization and the rules have changed. The future is no longer infinitely bright and very soon the global economy will start to contract. Additionally we'll be seeing climate catastrophe ramp up dramatically in coming years. As the Arctic melts, Canada and Russia will effectively share a border (making Trump's other "crazy" idea, less "crazy"). Europe, once our obvious ally, will have increasingly less to offer the US in the coming decades.
Europe, largely lacking in fossil resources, is going to increasingly find itself a minor player in global politics. The realpolitik of today is major oil producing nations realizing that conflict with each other will, at this phase of the game, do more harm then forming alliances.
This concept is so disingenuous. The earth is is big enough for Russian, China, and the US to coexist in peace. My country's spending should be spent in my country. Not liberating a land that has nothing to do with us.
A plane can take you or your cargo to the other side of the world in a day, missiles can go much faster than that, and communications are instantaneous. The world is still a big place but it's naive to ignore the facts of technological interconnectedness.
That's incredibly sanguine. Russia has been annexing territory and this was a gambit to take a huge chunk by force. If they had rolled over Ukraine in weeks as many predicted they'd have pointed their guns at Belarus and Georgia and all the former satellites. Acquiescing is what we did to Hitler when he wanted the Sudetenland and he was not appeased by it.
I'd also cite John Donne and say "no man is an island". Our "country" exists as an arbitrary artifact of history. If you are capable of caring about people you don't know then it shouldn't matter if they're from another state or another country.
Some countries conduct the exactly amount of war they are capable of doing, kill as many people as they have the capacity to do, until they are stopped. Russia is one of those countries.
Honestly I'm glad, for a bit there it seemed like there were some idiots that thought they could win in a direct conflict against Russia and China including going nuclear. Trump was the wost possible candidate in every aspect I can think of except one, he will put his self interest above everything else and is very flexible without any ideological beliefs that supercede his self interest.
Appeasing nuclear bullies gets you more nuclear bullying, not less.
Because of Trump's betrayal of Ukraine, the whole world knows that US security guarantees don't mean anything. These security guarantees have prevented the spread of nuclear weapons. The US has treaties with dozens of countries promising a US nuclear response if the country is nuked. Therefore, those countries have not had to develop nuclear weapons.
They do now. Their trust has been completely shattered. I guarantee you that formerly non-nuclear countries like South Korea, Japan, and half of Europe are now full speed ahead on secret nuclear weapons programs. Trump has destroyed the US-led world order and we're now on a much scarier timeline. Nuclear war is more likely, not less.
I think we have completely different views of things, how did Russia become the nuclear bully?. Are you aware of several nuclear pre-emptive strike plans that have been floating around lately in the U.S against Russia, how can the whole Ukraine 'organic' uprising be a thing when Russia is next door. Imagine if Canada suddenly went through an 'organic' uprising and decided it wanted to join the Chinese NATO equivalent, would anyone believe that possible without prior assurances?, how would the U.S respond?.
The whole 51st state cannot be a Trump only thing, he is too stupid for that, more than likely its some plan that someone told him about it and he couldn't keep quiet about it. Take into account that the whole Ukraine owing the U.S half of its mineral wealth wasn't just a Trump thing, Biden was promoting it too but he was quiet about it.
From my pov China and Russia have been the rational actors, the U.S is acting irrationally as it sees their influence crumble. They are unwilling to compete with China and want to go back to the good ol days when 'organic' coups would just happen whenever a government decided not to take whatever deal they offered.
If anything, it is the U.S that is the nuclear bully.
Politics is sometimes extremely simple, and the people seeking to complicate matters are the ones with ulterior motivates to do so.
> Are you aware of several nuclear pre-emptive strike plans that have been floating around lately in the U.S against Russia
Not true. Please provide a citation if I am wrong.
> Imagine if Canada suddenly went through an 'organic' uprising and decided it wanted to join the Chinese NATO equivalent, would anyone believe that possible without prior assurances?, how would the U.S respond?
Yes, good point. Trump's idiot empty threats aside, if Canada actually felt the need to get external security guarantees against a planned US invasion, they would have every right to do so. They don't, so they don't. Ukraine does, so they do.
> The whole 51st state cannot be a Trump only thing
It is. It was not spoken of before his victory, and won't be again after he is gone. Trump is a gift to anyone seeking to "both sides" Russia's aggression, but serious people see through that.
> Ukraine owing the U.S half of its mineral wealth wasn't just a Trump thing
Again, yes it was.
> If anything, it is the U.S that is the nuclear bully.
You have yet to offer any supporting evidence of this.
1. Will guarantee it will do it again, guaranteeing more war.
2. Will motivate more countries to get nuclear weapons, raising the chances of a nuclear war.
Is this serious?. I think you got things mixed up a bit here I think you meant to say the opposite.
The better comparison would be, would I rather have me, my kids and everyone I love die in a ball of fire or disease/hunger as society crumbles around us or risk the end of democracy and inviting authoritarianism?. I personally would always risk dictatorship, you can fight against dictators but not against death.
this is not a Trump problem, with instant global communication no leaders can be trusted by your logic, it’s not unreasonable to think that Biden took power and allowed Putin and Blackrock to each carve a piece of Ukraine off for themselves and Zelensky is a puppet of these corrupt grifters, that looks far more likely than Putin giving orders to Trump, especially with all the Burisma/Hunter emails and money trail, and considering Biden not only allowed it to happen but funded much of the destruction too, follow the money
None of your claims are sourced and appear on the surface to be conspiracy theory / both sideism designed to distract from what Trump is doing.
> Burisma/Hunter emails
For example, you appear to be hinting towards the Russian disinfo that Biden was involved in a corrupt deal in Ukraine. That is false. The main source of this claim was arrested for lying about it.
Israel's maybe, but not of Netanyahu and his government. He was cozying up to Putin already during the first Trump term [1] and is currently right at work doing the same again [2] to the point where they push the US to keep Russia in Syria rather than Turkey. [3] This despite Russia being closely allied with Iran.
An Israel-Russia alliance makes even less sense than an US-Russia one, yet both are currently happening.
No, it is for once representing American interests. Not Ukrainian interests. Not Lockheed Martin’s interest.
Americans don’t want to be embroiled in endless wars.
What is your alternative? Keep sending billions to Ukraine? Send American soldiers to die? What is it you would like to happen? Are you going to die for Ukraine? Are you going to send your kids to die there?
You don't seem to understand. All Ukraine wants is a security promise.
They could surrender to Putin at any time without giving up to the US all of their resources for generations.
They need some help to say, if I sign peace now, what's gonna stop Putin from invading again in 2-3 years with a bigger army? Currently, nothing - so there's no point in surrendering.
For background, the US promised to defend Ukraine against any invasion when Ukraine was pushed to get rid of its nukes. Turns out it's not willing to even send American made military equipment.
This is probably disinformation. A majority of the Ukraine aid resources from US get spent inside the US so any lost funds or misaccounting would happen there.
Yes, absolutely. Ukraine falling to Russia represents a huge threat to the security of Europe. After Ukraine, Putin would likely take Belarus, possibly invade Poland or Finland. A weak Europe, one that is dominated by Russia, would be disastrous to the US, both abroad and at home. It is sad to me that so many Trump supporters are too short-sighted to see this.
What we've spent (and could spend going forward) in Ukraine is a teeny tiny price to pay to help ensure this doesn't come to pass.
America isn't about freedom anymore, it seems. It's about cozying up to dictators and appeasing them. I was disappointed in my fellow citizens after the 2016 election, but I could kinda understand what was going on. Now I'm just disgusted.
> Send American soldiers to die?
No, of course not, and this is such a bad-faith argument, as no one is seriously suggesting that.
We are $36 trillion in debt and it is growing by a trillion dollars every 100 days. Continuing to send hundreds of billions to a losing war is a bigger threat to the US.
The war will end. Russia will offer concessions that benefit the US. They are not going to steamroll Europe. Europe can step up and contribute to Europe’s defense.
American debt is lucrative as long as you don't alienate the whole world by behaving completely irrationally. The USD being the world's transfer currency means that you can finance debt at the lowest interest rate on the planet and use that debt on more productive investments, which is what the USA's government is doing. There's a reason why the US still has a stellar credit rating.
American debt is lucrative and you morons are fucking up your cash cow because you don't understand banking and are willing to let a handful of crypto bros try to accelerate the international monetary system's downfall so that they can try to replace it by some bullshit rug pull coin that doesn't even have the technology to function as global currency.
The Republicans in charge now are responsible for a good chunk of that debt. $8 trillion in PPP helicopter money + tax cuts for the wealthy during Trump's term, plus trillions more for Bush's tax cuts and Afghanistan/Iraq warcrimes.
And they're looking to double down by giving billionaries trillions more in tax cut while driving up the debt. Trump/Musk/GOP do not actually care about debt or spending, it's a distraction.
"We should not push back against Russia's annexation of Crimea. It will allow the war to end. They are not going to invade Ukraine to take other territory."
You’re being downvoted, but sadly your opinion is representative of a huge percentage of the population. The part that has a… simple, transactional view of each and every international incident.
That’s the most polite way I could express that.
The more nuanced view is this:
America made a deal with Ukraine: Give up your nuclear weapons in exchange for our protection.
They made similar deals with Taiwan, South Korea, and others. Sometimes with signatures on paper, sometimes with threats of “don’t even think about it”.
Now they are “all thinking about it”. All of them: the countries with small populations, small armies, inconveniently located next to a larger bully like Russia or China.
Here in Australia, the right wing government is prepping us to build nuclear weapons. We’re acquiring nuclear-powered submarines that can launch nuclear tipped cruise missiles and the only thing they’re proposing in the next election is building dozens of nuclear power plants… that they admit will only fulfill maybe 4% of our energy needs… but 100% of our weapons-grade plutonium breeding needs.
South Korea and Japan already have the nuclear plants.
What do you think they’re planning, now that they all see how worthless American promises are?
Especially since yesterday’s(!) events, when Trump was asked about AUKUS, the most important and closest military alliance the US is a part of and he had no idea what it was!
This is why even close allies are tooling up for imminent global nuclear conflict.
Because America elected a president that famously violates the terms of every contract he’s ever signed.
Japan is absolutely thinking about its own nuclear deterrent. The conventional diplomatic wisdom is that they can spin one up rapidly. Like most countries, they're deeply taken aback by the US trashing existing alliances and showing far more rhetorical aggression toward its neighbors than its supposed antagonists.
In what way is it in my interest to give hundreds of billions of my nation's money toward fighting an unwinnable conflict on the other side of the world over which corrupt sex trafficking organization will control a small plot of land? The Cold War propaganda derangement that still exists in the minds of certain people is insane.
The USSR never acted even half as hostile as Russia is acting towards the whole world, including the US and UK right now. Maybe you're not aware of that but Russian state TV routinely discusses the nuclear annihilation of the UK and the US, not just that of Europe. Current rhetoric from the Kremlin is way more hostile than it ever was during Cold War.
You better put a stop to that by showing strength. Unless you want ignore history, that is.
The claim you're making is ludicrous. We don't show strength by giving away all of our resources on pointless conflicts that don't involve us. Even if the USSR was as nice as you pretend, Ukraine was also part of the USSR, and is being just as hostile to American interests.
That's literally what we're doing. Zelensky came to beg for more money, and we're shutting up. I don't really care if Europeans want to go die pointlessly on the frontlines for some reason.
oh, that’s nice. tell me what country was the only one who invoked article 5 of the nato treaty? and which countries helped them? and now the the situation has reversed what does that country do?
"Ukraine was also part of the USSR, and is being just as hostile to American interests."
What does that even mean ... ?
The former Soviet Bloc was under the yoke of the central committee in Moscow. The people involved had no say in the politics of the central committee, they were coerced. But once its power failed, the newly free countries mostly turned their backs on Russia in a hurry. Only Belarus stayed in the orbit.
Contemporary Ukraine (or Lithuania, or Georgia) is not hostile to the US in any meaningful sense.
Reliable estimates put our total spend (over 3+ years) as $120-$180bn.
The annual US military budget, $820bn (13% of the total government budget) or more like $2.4 trillion during that timespan.
But even that purported $100-$200bn spend perhaps overstates the cost. Some was cash, some was equipment. The equipment sent their way was already bought and paid for. Much of it was later in its lifespan. And the US military obviously buys American whenever feasible, so money spent replacing that equipment stays in America. So the amount of money "spent" by America on this venture is highly debatable, with the real number being lower than those $100-$200bn totals.
We don't show strength by blah blah blah
Really? Because Russia looked weak as hell there, unable to conquer a small country that is using a fraction of our old stuff (and a hell of a lot of heart and ingenuity) that was gathering dust in warehouses. It certainly made it clear that in conventional warfare the distance between our two countries is rather vast.
pointless conflicts that don't involve us
I mean, people definitely said that when Germany invaded Poland. We shouldn't get involved in every conflict but we also should not ignore every conflict.
I don't think Russia is trying to conquer Europe, but they are the single largest power and they have proven to be a highly destabilizing force.
We're not giving away all our resources lmao. Support for Ukraine is a relatively small part of our budget and gdp. In return for this we get to significantly weaken and discourage our enemies. For every dollar that we pour in, Russia is losing many more. Iran and China's imperialist ambitions are crushed. And none of our people even needed to die for it. You're either a fool or an enemy if you don't see why we should support Ukraine.
For every dollar that we pour in, Russia is losing many more
It also can't be stated enough when dollar amounts are talked about...
Much of the value sent to Ukraine was equipment that was already purchased and was warehoused. In a sense, that cost us nothing. Some of that equipment was already slated for replacement. The equipment that will need to be repurchased is primarily purchased from American companies.
So it burns me up when people talk about how we sent $XYZ billion dollars of aid to Ukraine without understanding that the real cost to America was far far far less.
30% of the US aid goes to ukraine for immediate local purposes, think humanitarian and and economic relief, the other 70% goes to us defense manufacturers, directly supporting american companies who then send their stock of weapons to ukraine. This 70% that goes directly to US companies is counted in the total aid provided
I can think of a hundred things we could have US defense contractors make instead. And it's surprising how quickly Democrats have begun worshiping the Military Industrial Complex. As recently as Bush, it was the boogeyman. Now I'm supposed to support shoveling money into it to burn? Why don't we spend $100B on having American workers build high-speed rail instead, or anything else more useful than drawing out an unwinnable conflict? All that would be purchased with this money is a lot more dead Ukrainians before it's over.
There is currently an air raid siren in Kyiv. Because of US Kyiv has better air defense, so in case of rocket strike some would be intercepted. There are benefits to US aid.
It's clearly not unwinnable. Russia is doing serious structural damage to its economy and can't get enough Russians to fight, so they're pulling North Koreans in (who think they're going to fight South Korea). At worst (for Ukraine), Russia is piling up dead bodies at a 2:1 ratio, and in the process Ukraine is now the world's leading drone combatant. And all the whining that Trump has done about Europe not pulling its weight, is going to be answered with Europe now understanding that US aid is over and they're all publicly pledging to step in.
And the US has more than enough money to build high speed rail and continue or double its support for Ukraine. Available money isn't the problem.
The US has cleared out vast reserves of older armaments that they no longer have to pay to warehouse or retire safely. Besides most of that aid money going into American pockets, the inventory has been cycled for America's benefit.
If the US had chosen to be a steadfast ally and actually help Ukraine win, it could have reaped the same rewards it received after WW2 once Ukraine won: rebuild it as a bastion of capitalism and democracy and let the rising tide lift all boats, especially the leader's. Instead, you're walking away, destroying NATO and transatlantic co-operation in the process. And by doing so, you're making Europe independent of the US, when dependency on the US was the cornerstone of 80 years of peace in Europe as well as a strong world economy. Congratulations on kissing goodbye the very thing that's made America so wealthy and strong for the last 80 years.
This is severe whataboutism. I'm not a fan of the MIC, and much money given to it could be better spent on other things.
But the reality is that money poured into the MIC to replace equipment we sent to Ukraine is not money that leaves the US economy, and it is absolutely essential to understand that when discussing the "cost" of this war to America.
Besides all the good responses you already got demolishing this point of view, there's the direct benefit of testing all sorts of military equipment and strategies in an actual armed conflict. Even if you somehow ignore the massive human losses and the morality of the war with Russia invading a peaceful ally, the telemetry the US obtains is insane and well worth the money invested.
Because you want the world to trust that the US won't turn their backs on agreements especially when it involves a country giving up their nukes. Which would have helped protect them.
Nobody in the US voted for that agreement. I want the world to notice that they need to stop treating my people like daddy's credit card. It's a shame that the previous occupying regime hated its constituents enough to make these insane agreements to try and loot us, but we definitely don't need to stick to them now just because of that.
Yes, in the USA we vote for representatives who then make agreements on our behalf. That we don't have direct democracy on every level does not make our process undemocratic, and does not make all of our agreements null and void.
I want my people to keep their basic agreements and promises so that the rest of the world continues to trust our dollar as a reserve currency and our stock market as a safe place to invest.
> I want my people to keep their basic agreements and promises
I didn't agree to send anything to Ukraine; there is no agreement to keep. Maybe we should just raise taxes on you people who voted for it and send your money if you're so insistent. Go to the front lines, even, if you'd like. I don't support either of the two corrupt oligarchies in this fight and you have no right to bring the other half of the country in it, especially now that you were voted out.
So you don't believe in society? Or only a society with direct democracy has legitimacy? That's the philosophy of a spoiled selfish child.
You believe every agreement out country makes should reset every 4 years? That the recipe for zero legitimacy in the world and especially isn't going to keep our position in the world.
I have EVERY RIGHT to argue that the USA should honors it's obligations, I have morals and honor unlike people who don't believe obligations they don't like should be honored if they can justify weaseling out of them.
So now just loot Ukraine, a country weakened by war. And blame their president in stead of the agressor. Oh and 'he said bad but unfortunately true things over the phone' so let's humiliate him in my only language while he's asking for help in his third language.
"In what way is it in my interest to give millions of my nation's money away to this filthy and corrupt justice system in an unwinnable fight against crime? I mean whether some mostly harmless serial killer offs two or three more people in southern Nebraska is none of my business--I can't possibly see how anything of this is connected or how it could ever affect me."
Whether the senior powers in America are compromised, complicit, or opportunist, it doesn't matter. America is being damaged. Russian interests are being prioritized over American interests.
Our military is too powerful for direct conflict, so alternative conflict against our political structure and economy is more logical. America is experiencing a decapitation strike, and our military is not defending us from these domestic enemies. https://archive.is/1xkxK (Decapitation Strike -- Timothy Snyder)