I don’t see this happening. Five Eyes is the US’s invite only security umbrella. Many in Australia would love to kick the Americans off our land (eg Pinegap) but as the US will “coup who they want” that ain’t happening.
Sadly the US still has a lot of nukes and aircraft carriers ready to project power over its rebelling subjects and partners. I don’t expect the military to start refusing orders just because the president became a corrupt tyrant through legal means.
In these regards, I think the US's unfortunately very hard to dislodge advantage is less the ships missiles & guns, and far more the "secret history of silicon valley" style signals intelligence gathering & processing. Very very specifically our massive massive government aggregators/analysis systems (not the focus of these amazing talks). https://steveblank.com/secret-history/https://hn.algolia.com/?query=secret%20history%20of%20silico...
The NSA built them released Apache Accumulo & Apache Nifi, to offer extremely fine grained control of massive massive data systems. Unknown if this is still the state of the art, but they're still contributing. The platform infrastructure to be Five Eyes feels like it must be absolutely vast, >50% of the job of Five Eyes. Its hard for me to imagine an alliance of nations taking this task seriously enough to build their own, to serve as the hub.
> Sadly the US still has a lot of nukes and aircraft carriers ready to project power over its rebelling subjects and partners.
So does the UK.
Not enough to take back the old colonies and demand interest payments for the tea, but enough to make it a bad idea for anyone to try that.
> I don’t expect the military to start refusing orders just because the president became a corrupt tyrant through legal means.
I expect almost all militaty personel to obey almost all orders, even when they're expressly unlawful… but not all: Vietnam had both the My Lai massacre and the coining of "fragging" due to soldiers throwing fragmentation grenades into the tents of their own officers.
I see US influence being drastically reduced in the coming years. But we need to do something about their disinformation networks.
I see people leaving their government and media positions in protest but I’d like to remind them that they are much more effective if they remain where they are. The CIA has an excellent manual just for situations like these.
Why kick out? Just start a new club (I'm sure they already have, probably years ago, or increased activity in one that already existed) and let this one wither.
I actually think Europe has a lot of levers to pull in terms of manipulating American politics and public opinion that they have thus far refrained from engaging in, and I, as an American, think they should be much bolder about speaking directly to the American people.
I don't think that ordinary diplomacy is going to work here. The US is in the middle of a totalitarian coup, and that should be called out by our friends and allies more forcefully.
Stop trying to ingratiate yourself with Trump. He doesn't deserve it and you won't get anything out of it but humiliation.
The only recent historical comparison I can think of -- and it's a weak one compared to today's meeting -- was when Obama firmly reiterated to Netanyahu his insistence on the 1967 lines as the basis for a two state solution, and Netanyahu in front of the cameras forcefully rejecting that to Obama's face: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l28xJitnP78
On Twitter, it's common to find populist-right commentators say things like:
1. Supporting Ukraine against Russia is risking WW3
2. Zelensky is always asking for more, more more and is SO disrespectful to the generous United States. And he doesn't even show up in a suit when meeting the president. How disgraceful. etc. etc.
These points were both touched upon by the Trump/Vance tag team and that's no coincidence.
My respect for Zelensky, the only decent politician in that room. Ukraine is lucky to have him in a time like this.
Weakness. Trump looked like the weakest negotiator I’ve ever seen in this exchange. He looks so powerless. He’s taking his frustration out on Zelenski since Musk has completely taken over his role in the US.
He wants to defund U.S. support for Ukraine, but isn't can't directly own his decision like an adult, and so has to stage this baloney conflict of a press conference.
You don't have to ask this sort of question. He literally says it in the discussion. He wanted to show the world Zelensky's attitude. And he was successful in doing so
Trump failed to make the deal, they tried to get resources for a minimum of involvement, and the deal didn't go through because Zelensky is adamant in wanting to protect Ukrainian integrity.
From Trump's perspective this puts him in a good light. He is attempting to negotiate rationally and Zelensky is irrationally spending Ukrainian lives to hold on to an ideal.
Of course Europe and many Americans believe in that ideal and would support Ukraine, but that's not Trump's political platform. His motivation is to end the war, and the easiest way to end the war is to yield to Putin's demands. Making Zelensky look unreasonable is a critical part of that.
Maybe, but Trump's base is actually tiny, only about 22% of the US voters. This will strongly alienate the other 78% of Americans, not to mention 100% of America's allies. And America's enemies now see how grossly inept he actually is at negotiation, revealing that only physical threats will register with him. NOT a good development for America.
An insanely counterproductive ploy, but typical of Trump's 'gangsterism rules' philosophy of leadership.
>This will strongly alienate the other 78% of Americans
It will strongly alienate the subsection of the other 78% of Americans who learn of it and care. I suspect that's nowhere near 100% of them, and I'd be shocked if it was over 30%
Probably not. The worst thing America could do is unfreeze Russia's assets and give them back a few billion dollars to fund the war effort. Europe wouldn't permit America to join on the side of a Russian coalition, and America's Navy isn't capable of European operations without Europe's support. We could realistically offer limited air support and strategic nuclear threats, but Russia already has both of those.
The good news is that the Biden administration put most of the frozen Russia assets under European control, anticipating this kind of risk, but of course that doesn't mean Trump can't attempt to pressure Europe here.
It was as if they invited him to the Whitehouse to set him up for a lecture and scolding. They had no intention of anything other than humiliating him in front of the world. It's shameful what our administration has done.
It makes sense from His worldview. Ukraine are the weaker ones, the natural losers. He doesn't help losers. There is no further thought or consideration. That territory was always Russia's to take when they were ready.
I think it’s worse: Trump et al want to install a neofeudal system of society whereas Ukraine is fighting for the Westen Democracy kind of system. It’s clear that Trump wants to establish that as a futile endeavor
Nah, they just care about money is all. They look at Ukraine and they don't see a profit to be made, so they demand payment or the withdrawal of aid. Greed plain and simple.
"Weaker" is a function of not just your own strength, but that of your allies. Russia wants Ukraine as a way to hit at Europe.
Ukraine and its allies are a match for Russia and its. Perhaps more so, since Ukraine's allies have limited its use of force. With the US out, Ukraine may be able to exert much more force.
Which is to say Trump's judgment of who is weak is deeply compromised by his belief in single strongmen. This will not go well for him.
Ukraine is limited in its use of American weapons. It can't strike well in Russian territory. The US wanted to keep the conflict from escalating beyond Ukraine's borders.
Europe has similar concerns, but if Ukraine loses American support, they may not be able to afford that. They might gamble on direct strikes on Moscow, or at least make it clear that they can.
Which might end life as we know it. Or it might force Russia to the bargaining table directly with Ukraine. Who knows? Let's find out!
I wish Zelensky had asked Trump if he wanted his feet kissed there and now because I feel like everyone could see that is what Trump wants at the very least.
I think they did, but they didn’t expect Zelensky to punch back. He’s more of a fighter than either of them will ever be. Trump is the classic bully where all you need to do is push back. Then he folds.
Zelensky has nothing to lose at this point. If he takes the deal Trump proposed Ukraine will be paying the US and Russia for having been invaded in 2014 and again in 2022. And let’s not ignore the fact it was the US was propping up the politicians suggesting joining NATO and not renewing the lease on Sevastopol in 2015.
That is the real disgrace. This was a setup from day 1. A win-win to degrade Russia either way at Ukraine's expense.
I wish Zelensky made those points instead. "The US voted to open a NATO path for us, The US asked not to renew the base, and the US refused to negotiate with Russia when tanks were on our boarder. And now you want to walk away?"
Because after bribing Trump with the ability to brag that he won the USA 500B of minerals, they will be able to march in without any US interference...
Are you asking people to read the mind of Putin? Or speculate? It seems reasonable to believe that at the very least Putin wants the territory he attempted to take when he first invaded, Kyiv et.al.
Because both Ukraine and Russia have changed? Ukraine is war torn, deeply in debt, and no longer provides the strategic benefit to Russia it might’ve in ‘22. Russia’s economy and populace needs to recover from being war-oriented.
They have their land bridge to Crimea now, and if I had to speculate, they’d be happy with a neutered neighbor that can’t join NATO, essentially a populated DMZ. I can’t see what benefit in wanting to take Ukraine on again after the dragged out meat grinder it was this time around.
> Ukraine is war torn, deeply in debt, and no longer provides the strategic benefit to Russia it might’ve in ‘22.
Expanded access to the Black Sea and natural gas/minerals were and still are very important to Russia. Aside from these, a total victory would allow Putin to cement himself as a conqueror in Russian history books.
I think Europe will see this as a clear sign that Trump just attacked one of their own. I would not be surprised if the EU nations soon call a conclave to discuss establishing a new compact for self defense (and economic interest) that EXCLUDES the US. If this does come to pass, then yes, Trump and all of America will have lost.
This bright shining revelation of just how ugly and stupid Trumpism truly is (and America, by proxy) may realign world powers for decades, to our great loss.
That is an entirely different claim than "trump folds" if anyone pushes back, which doesnt seem at all accurate to me. If anything, he digs in his heels.
The only things that seem to sway him is the sentiment of his voters and the economy.
Bully or not, I think the entire schoolyard theory that bullies fold when pushed back is bunk, cartoon logic. Did Russia give up and go home when Ukraine pushed back?
It sure is awesome having a president where whenever they say anything that's obviously false, it's a toss-up whether it's dishonesty, senility, or just plain ignorance.
As sarcastic as this is and scary at the same time, when you’re right you’re right. Accountability is such a vapid concept in American discourse it is snipping the last vestiges of social contract between leaders and, well, those they claim to lead. Fear and loathing for what may come.
IMO it’s not a toss up, it’s just dishonesty. After a certain point we have to call a spade a spade.
Hell, even Trump supporters know it. Half the reason I’ve heard for that vote is that they know, and are relying on, Trump lying about various things.
Why vote for someone you know to be a liar? Not sure, but I did learn that non-Trump supporters generally take him much more at his word than Trump supporters.
Also fun, one reason can become another. Remember the sharpie-modified hurricane map? That could start as ignorance - he didn't have specific information on a threat to Alabama, but inferred it from a misjudgment of the information he did have. It could also be senility - he was given good information but he is unable to accurately or reliably retrieve it.
And then it became dishonesty when in the face of plenty of evidence to his being incorrect, he chooses to go on national TV and show a map modified with a marker, insisting he was right all along and no, it is the meteorologists who are wrong.
IMO, taking personal shots or in this case escorting Zelensky out because he pushed back is folding. That's not strength, it's petulant child energy who didn't get their way. You saw the same thing in the debates over crowd size.
It 100% looks like they were planning to force a confrontation. Notice how all the escalation is them, they start escalating over basically nothing, and they keep trying to crank up the temperature while Zelenskyy's keeping things nice and even. This didn't happen the last couple times world leaders made far more confrontational statements in a similar setting, but also Vance wasn't there to provide emotional support those times and, well, there are some common sayings about the actual nature of a bully.
I think Zelenskyy didn't give them the sound-bites or vibe they were looking for, but they're claiming some kind of victory (WTF) on social media anyway. Meanwhile all they managed to do was look some combination of stupid, childish, and traitorous, while he came out looking incredibly restrained, and overall more-articulate than them despite the handicap of speaking in English rather than his native tongue.
Zelensky used to be a stand-up comedian. He has plenty of experience thinking on his feet in front of a tough audience of drunks and fools.
I'm wondering what all the people in the US military and government who swore to protect the US from "all enemies, foreign and domestic" are thinking now.
Sounds like when Jon Stewart went on Crossfire and destroyed Tucker Carlson who had attempted to escalate and get angry. And Jon was like "this is theater."
First he wanted to hold Stewart to journalistic standards as a comedian that Carlson was not meeting as an actual journalist and got utterly destroyed in response. He then called for an emergency commercial break, and after the break tried to bait Stewart for not being funny in their interview, despite being completely responsible for the topic. Got utterly destroyed again, and their show got cancelled.
If the past 20 years have taught us anything, including Carlson's history since that segment, it's that this kind of "destroyed" (see also: "destroyed" on Twitter) is not a remotely useful kind of "destroyed", no matter how plain and thorough the destruction.
Tucker got so destroyed that he went onto make 10s of millions a year at Fox, for years, and now he gets to interview fascist skull measurers all day on Twitter.
I disagree that it looked like a planned confrontation and that all the escalation is on Trump and Vance
Vance made a comment about the US' goal to be diplomatic.
Zelensky speaks up and says he wants to ask Vance something. He then goes on to talk about how Putin annexed Crimea and that between 2014 - 2022 Putin was murdering Ukrainian citizens and ignoring cease fires. He mentioned that nobody did anything to stop Putin, implying that Trump didn't do anything during his first term in office. Then Zelensky ends with something along the lines of "so what do you mean diplomacy" to Vance.
Even if Zelensky's statements were correct, that was not a wise course of action to attempt to call out the President and VP while you're in the Oval office. The meeting erupts from there.
Regardless of how you feel about the current administration, it is a fact that Ukraine has been dependent on the US' aid. I don't know what Zelensky expected to gain from those statements.
I suppose its arguable that it wasn't the most diplomatic thing to say in the moment. But I can't fault the guy for pointing out the undiplomatic behavior while his country is being squeezed by Russia and US (wrt mineral rights). How frustrating it must be to hear "have you tried diplomacy?" in the context of an invading force.
Oh wow, makes sense that the video was clipped. The first video I clicked had the entire segment so I guess I got lucky.
I can understand his frustration as well. But, he's a leader at war and lives of his men depend on his actions. The moment is much much bigger than him.
What would Ukraine gain from a deal where they give up their natural resources in exchange for a pinky promise between an invading dictator and his 'wanna-be dictator' friend to allow Ukraine to remain an independent country?
What did the USA gain by giving billions of dollars of aid to Ukraine?
My understanding is that the mineral deal is back pay. And if the development is going to be done by American firms, then of course there’s a security alignment for the USA.
The dumb move of the day was on the part of Zelensky thinking he could somehow expand things at the last moment or on live TV.
We destroyed half of Russia’s military without shedding American lives. We defended the principle that people should govern themselves and not be dominated by force.
If other large powers stop being afraid of the US, and if allies can't trust the US, then the US will lose its status and the losses from that are probably a lot more than the billions given to Ukraine.
Remember that Z has to answer to the people of Ukraine. People who have been dying in defense of their borders -- and a volunteer army, not conscripts, mind you.
He wanted/needed American aid, but there was no way he could just go in there and kiss the ring, while being slandered as the aggressor and letting Putin off the hook. There's no way that would fly for his people back home -- remember that they are as much of an audience as the Americans.
His best outcome was peace with security guarantees (not on offer from the White House—who knows what might have happened if anyone else had been invited to these patently absurd two-party talks, to maybe sweeten the deal for Ukraine? Christ, how ridiculous).
Failing that, this is a pretty good outcome, in the scheme of things. He outed Trump as a committed Russian ally, not behind closed doors, but on international television so nobody (who matters in this context, I mean world leaders, not Trump voters) can ignore it. He may have just kicked over the final leg holding up the American-centered security apparatus, in such a shocking and spectacular fashion that others will be compelled to form a new one without us, which is something they absolutely need if they're going to keep fighting and the US is withdrawing support. They need other countries not to follow America's lead.
Yeah it might actually get Europe to take matters into their own hands (which Trump would see as a win for the US but which is long term very much a loss for the US). It also might push the EU more towards China. In fact if I were China right now I’d start making overtures to Europe.
> did the us held elections while world war 2 was happening?
> Elections were held on November 7, 1944, during the final stages of World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was easily re-elected to an unprecedented fourth term, and the Democratic Party retained their majorities in both chambers of Congress.
It was an absolutely fair question. Trump and Vance are saying let’s solve it with diplomacy. Zelenskyy provides facts confirming the impossibility of doing diplomacy in good faith. Agreements don’t have any value when history shows the other party not respecting the agreements. So, “what kind of diplomacy you mean?” is a fair question.
Vance’s answer “I mean the kind of diplomacy that would save your country” is a meaningless bullshit sentence.
He's trying to make the point that they can't talk peace without material guarantees of security from their allies as part of the deal, which guarantees are absent from the White House's agreement, because they just had an agreement without such guarantees shit all over by Putin, so it's, you know, kinda pointless to do that again. It's making concessions on paper for no guarantee of peace, with an adversary that's already broken a similar agreement, leading to this very conflict. Why make concessions with no guarantee of security in return, when there's zero reason to believe Russia will keep their word? He actually manages to get most of that explanation out, in between interruptions and non sequitur digs from the other two.
The difference between this and the more confrontational corrections of Trump's bullshit in similar situations recently, by Macron and Trudeau, is stark. Trump and Vance were primed to pounce.
His point, which he made very clearly, was not criticism of the US; it was distrust that Putin would honor a ceasefire. Zelensky explained that diplomacy is not enough, asking what diplomacy alone will accomplish with someone who doesn't honor their deals.
Vance took it in a really weird direction, first pushing "the kind of diplomacy that is going to save your country", then accusing Zelensky of not saying thank you (despite him having said thank you several times that very meeting?).
The reporters reiterated Zelensky's point, asking what Trump would do if Putin breaks the deal, and Trump just shoots down the possibility, saying he doesn't think it would happen and the possibility isn't worth considering. "What if a bomb drops on your head right now". His only justification being that Trump is president and Putin wouldn't do that to Trump.
Zelensky needs guarantees or the ceasefire isn't worth it to him, so it's fair for him to push back on the lack of guarantees even at the risk of annoying Vance. But they snapped back at him in a very unreasonable way.
I agree that Zelensky's main point was definitely that Putin can't be trusted.
But, he also highlighted a couple of times that that no one did anything to stop Putin which implies that the US didn't do anything. Which could be taken as criticism. Also, ending his statements with "So what do you mean diplomacy" is clearly a snarky response.
The fact is Zelensky has no leverage. He was given aid from the US, apparently as a grant. The US has no obligation to help Ukraine. My understanding is that the aid was given to Ukraine in the hopes that it would weaken Russia. That gamble doesn't appear to be working.
If he didn't like the terms of the deal, it should have been discussed in private, before coming to the US. Instead, he chose to push back in a public forum. So I don't feel the response he got was unwarranted.
An analogy that comes to mind is helping out a friend that just lost their job. You give them money and a place to stay and over time the friend starts to feel entitled to your generosity. Eventually, you get tired of it and give them a deadline to find their own place. Then during dinner with a group of friends, they complain to the table that you only gave them 3 months left to stay instead of 6...
I got carried away with the analogy and of course it doesn't capture the gravity of the situation in Ukraine, but I feel like it captures the core sentiment.
That's not really true. His leverage is that it's also in the interests of the US to maintain norms in which territorial conquest is not rewarded. "Crime doesn't pay". He also attempted to convince the US of this but was brushed off.
Looking at it as a one-off situation in which the US doesn't have any interest results in it not being a one-off situation, because if Ukraine loses then everyone starts itching to take land from their neighbours. And everyone else starts arming themselves with nukes, having seen what Ukraine got for giving them up. That's the path to World War 3. And the US might realize then, with regret, that it was easier to plug the dam when the crack was small.
Trump doesn't understand this. He made it clear that he doesn't see it as an iterated game, just a one-off. Or perhaps he's the one who wants to establish norms of taking over neighbours with force?
As for an analogy, a better example is that your friend's house is being broken into by a notorious gang of criminals threatening the neighborhood, and his children have been picked off one by one, and he's knocking at your door screaming "I'll hold them off if you can pass me some more ammo!", and you're haggling him down for his furniture.
When the USSR invaded Afghanistan, the US was happy to send the Taliban weapons. That wasn't for love or charity. It was American self-interest. So is this.
I disagree. If you watch the entire 50-minute video [1], everything was going very smoothly until the final question. If Trump and Vance had intended to provoke Zelenski, why would they have spent the first ~40 minutes chatting with him amicably and only become heated in response to one specific remark he made at the end?
Humiliating people does appear to be a common theme with the administration, one just has to look at the photo they put out after winning with RFK and the McDonald's takeout on airforce one. Also all the women jockeying for various positions getting plastic surgery, looking like an army of botox'd stepford wives. I'm no armchair psychoanalyst so I can't tell you what it means. Just that it's very.. apparent and intentional.
That felt really gross to watch. I don't know what else to say that's more high-level thinking and adds to the conversation. A straight up "mean girls" moment.
it was 100% the purpose, but it looks like it worked out badly. They keep underestimating Zelenski but he was certainly prepared for this confrontation. I mean, I just can't imagine anybody staying that cool in front of such provocations.
He did one mistake though, when he asked "Can I speak/say something?" to Trump, and Trump said no. This is lesson learnt for the future (for myself too in terms of public speaking).
But overall, he did rather well, considering the shit-show it was.
I still can't believe Trump publicly tries to humiliate an ally like this, and at the same time calls Biden "the stupid President".
Stupid or not, perhaps he is, but not to stay in public like that. It shows Trump doesn't respect the function of the US President and shits on the vote of the citizens.
I don't think I'd consider that a mistake. Not that it matters to everyone but it's one more asshole thing to know Trump did, which was only publicized because Zelenskyy respectfully asked for his turn to speak. Other leaders are likely to have taken note of that: Trump isn't even pretending that you're equals.
To some common folk, it will make Zelenskyy look weak but also consider this exact thread in which people say his calm demeanor makes him look strong. I'd wager Zelenskyy is interested in impressing the latter folk and not interested in impressing the former.
Yup, I’d wager that given how the meeting had gone thus far, he made the strategic decision to specifically do this. He knew that this would be spun in whatever way Trump wanted, so it was better to win another point with the group that is smart enough to look past the talking points that Trump is going to push onto the media.
> Other leaders are likely to have taken note of that: Trump isn't even pretending that you're equals.
They’re not equals and to pretend otherwise is delusional. One is the leader of the most powerful country on earth. The other is broke and soon to be defenseless.
may not have been a mistake - I think Z was trying to maintain the high ground and force Trump to act poorly (by saying no); bad optics for Trump (unless you're MAGA)
> Trump doesn’t respect the function of the US President
Probably why people voted for him.
> shits on the vote of the citizens.
yes 4 years ago. But now… can’t really say we didn’t know what we were voting for. I didn’t vote for him, but most of my fellow Americans did, and we gotta live with that, and hope we learn.
- an American citizen who wasn't able to vote in multiple presidential elections due to nonsense like being unregistered without notification in a state with an early registration deadline
I love Zelensky and I think he's a hero, but I don't think he did well at all. People think he did well because they love him, but objectively I think he made quite a few mistakes besides the one you mention.
The first one is getting emotional in the first place. His team and Ukraine's intelligence services should have spent weeks interrogating and trying to provoke him in order to desensitize him to this kind of shit. Trump, Vance and Musk are primarily trolls and they should be dealt with as such.
He should not have interrupted Vance answering him either. That was fatal.
He needed to stay calm and slow. He did better than any of us could ever have done, but it wasn't quite enough for this situation. He could have looked a lot stronger and I think we need everything we can possibly get in the situation we're all in right now.
Given the situation, he did stay calm and slow. He did an excellent job trying to keep the cadence measured.
But Trump jumped in angry at the implication that one day Putin will come for the US. That is when Trump stated his machine gun speech … millions will die, world war 3.
This was a shameful day for America. Period. Full stop.
When Trump jumps in like that, it's a real fear he has. Trump is really for real scared of the Russians. Why? Well, one can muster a couple of hypotheses.
He’s not scared of the Russians. He’s scared of the voters thinking they should be scared of the Russians. When Zelenskyy said the Russians will come for America, Trump was angry because he knew it was going to scare voters and lose him support.
Based on the livestream of the incident, I personally think the issue was the lack of a Ukrainian-English translator.
Vance was absolutely trying to score domestic political points by undermining Zelenskyy, but Zelenskyy was unable to communicate or respond in the manner he wanted to, and definetly committed some obvious Russian L1 / English L2 mistakes (Zelenskyy's first language is Russian and this can be seen by his "costume" statement, because the direct translation for suit across the CIS is костюм/costume [0][1][2][3] because of French influence), and he inadvertently insinuated that Trump wasn't doing enough even though he was trying to join Vance in dunking on the previous admin.
This is why the Japan and India meetings with Trump had English translators despite Ishiba and Modi having a similar level of English fluency to Zelenskyy.
It is definitely going to become a meme, the way he sat there like a scolded kid while Trump said "No. You've talked a lot today. Look, you're not winning this. You're not gonna win this"
Felt like watching your friend get scolded by his parents when they find a cigarette in his backpack
I don’t think it was some elaborate ruse… he is a trained actor but his frustration seemed very real. And maybe he shouldn’t have shown it but I do think he was simply reacting to what was unfolding in front of him.
IMO he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. Maybe he could have been more professional and statesmanlike but I don’t think it would have earned him a thing. The US strategy seems locked in at this point and it’s a pro-Russia one. He could have really flexed the “deal with a heckler” muscles but the risk is far too great.
European leaders are queuing up to restate their support for Ukraine after this and I think that’s probably the best he could have gotten from it anyway.
> They keep underestimating Zelenski but he was certainly prepared for this confrontation.
The Trump-gang seems to underestimate everyone and everything. I still don't know whether they mean all this excessive behavior for real, or if this is an elusive ploy to divert from something else. Trumps seems to operate by selling big to gain small, but I can't really understand yet what his real long-term goal seems.
But at this point it seems other politicians around the world have got an understanding of him and his behavior and started playing along. I'm curious if Zelenskiy did the same, he certainly gained more from this than if he had been avoided it from the beginning.
The long-term goal is to fix themselves and their family at the top of the social hierarchy just in time before biotech bros discover immortality, thus saving their place permanently in the newly ossified social order. This is the last chance fix it before the true end of history, or some bullshit like that.
> But will the American people see what the rest of the world sees, or will they continue supporting Trump and Vance?
Attributed to (the half-American) Winston Churchill: "The American people can be counted on to do the right thing — after they've exhausted all other possibilities."
It is consistently misattributed to Churchill and misquoted to be about Americans. The quote is actually from Abba Eban, and what he said was, "History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives."
I honestly don't think there's anything Trump could do to lose the support of his MAGA base. There have been so many times when I've said "surely they'll see what he is now" only to be mistaken. It's truly a cult.
Right, short of his actions resulting in them being fired, losing medicare or other direct impact, there is no way they will change course, they are too deep in to the grift.
Trump and MAGA people are really 'till death do us part.....
The people that suffered the most from the first Trump administration are the white republicans: they died because they did not want to be vaccinated against COVID nor wear masks. In 2024 white republicans voted for Trump even though they were personally hurt by Trump's COVID advice.
One of my friends is a Trump supporter who almost died of COVID (he got intubated!!). His wife also got COVID. Never you mind: both of them voted for Trump in 2024.
Some people only care about simple stuff. You know like partying or having fun? US Government being a shit show? War stuff happening halfway across the planet? Some people don't care about that. They don't care if the government they are in is a democracy or a dictatorship. Some people just want to smoke weed everyday, play video games, fish, travel, spend time with family, or get laid... If the current government (whatever shape or form it is) isn't preventing them from doing what it is they want to do, then they don't really care. And reality is, there's a lot of such folks who's pursuits are rather unaffected by the current state of affairs, even if they're large amounts who are. You might think that they should care, and reasonably so, but fact is, some won't until it actually is (too late).
I think it was disgusting what Trump and Vance did, but I don't believe for a second that everyone will view it that way. The 40% that voted for them will view this as an ass whooping Trump/Vance gave Zelensky. They're all in on the grift, there's no reason this will turn them off.
Now, if SS or Medicaid is gutted... that will be the turning point for this admin.
I’m in that 40% and I think today was fantastic. It lets people see what these things are really like.
Zelensky came to the USA to sign an already agreed-to minerals deal that would have (eventually) paid back the billions of dollars they’ve received. There were no additional security guarantees. No further agreements. This was back pay. And it was agreed to before he left Ukraine.
He reneged, got called out for demanding further security guarantees, thought he could bluff them into agreeing to more, and summarily got his ass handed to him on live TV. Trump is not the one that tried to change the deal.
The real moment of the day was when Trump asked him point blank if he even wants a ceasefire. And he couldn’t say yes.
You can’t end a war diplomatically if there’s no will to stop fighting and accept peace. For lack of a better term, Ukraine is in a shit position. Billions more dollars will not change that, it will just cost more blood.
If people think the situation and accepting the current positions is bad now, just wait to see how bad it will be when the USA weapons spigot gets turned off.
Considering America signed the Budapest Memorandum pledging to assure security in Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine to hand over its nuclear weapons to Russia... all this is going to do is spur countries no longer reliably protected by the US to develop their own nuclear weapons.
I think the risk of nuclear war in the future just went up.
Diplomacy has been tried multiple times before, even with security guarantees from the usa. Still Putin invaded. There can not be lasting peace without actual guarantees (for which use is not even a trustworthy party anymore). Because Putin will rebuild and invade again as he did after the last time.
This is what Zelensky tried to explain to Vance before the discussion blew up.
If I steal half your house, kill one of your children, and then ask for a cease fire, while I still get your kitchen and living room - what are your thoughts?
Would you be mad if you gave up your guns and your neighbor promised to protect you and then he said, unless you give me your back yard, I'm not helping, I know we had an agreement, but oh well, good luck on your own?
Why would you want to enter another agreement with this neighbor when he's already opportunistically screwing you over on existing agreement?
The tertiary definition of "diplomatic" is "employing tact and conciliation especially in situations of stress". That means acting calmly and rationally in the types of insane situations that you're describing.
Nobody is saying Zelensky and Ukraine should be happy with where they've ended up. War is terrible and the desire for revenge or retribution will never subside. Diplomacy is putting aside that raw emotion to get the best deal you can, working with the situation that you have.
For them to come to USA to sign an agreement, renege, demand more, and create a spectacle in front of the cameras, is incredibly non-diplomatic. You can see it on the face of the Ukrainian ambassador: https://www.newsweek.com/photo-ukrainian-ambassador-amid-tru...
That minerals deal was going to be the first step toward peace. But Zelensky royally fucked it up. And the only way to fix it is going to be for him to come groveling back or step down so someone else can do the groveling. And that's not a desire of mine, that's the reality of the situation. Their country is broke and will run out of ammo in six months without further assistance. As Trump said during the call, he has no cards to play.
> That minerals deal was going to be the first step toward peace.
No, it was the first step toward conceding everything to Russia, also conceding to an outrageously overzealous US (for reasons unclear to anyone outside the Trump bubble), with a guaranteed future war with zero protections.
If they wanted to give Russia everything they wanted, they could've done that years ago, and not given up minerals to the US.
> Now, if SS or Medicaid is gutted... that will be the turning point for this admin.
They are in the process of being gutted ... but Trump, Musk and the right wing media will spin it as being Biden's fault, and those same people will accept it as gospel truth.
Only American MAGA supporters saw Zelensky being humiliated.
Anybody else saw Vance and Trump humiliating themselves. Showing the intellectual and emotional capacity of a middle schooler to the world while a man whose people are suffering occupation and mass casualties and deals with death every day just looks stunned.
To anybody with critical thinking skills it feels like Trump & Vance are talking about a TV show or video game. Completely disconnected from reality. Horrifying and shocking level of narcissistic immaturity.
The spat started when Vance made a point addressed to the US media (not Zelensky), and Zelensky interjected to confront Vance for his statement.
Up until that point there had been 40 minutes of cordial discussion. I don't think it was intended that the talks would break down and the deal would fall through.
What did Vance say addressed to the media that Zelensky shouldn't have responded to? I've watched the video a few times and I don't really get what you're talking about
In the full video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhquAWlke2o), at 38:15 you can see the press ask a question that Trump (and then Vance) are responding to, directly prior to where your video begins.
Trump and Vance are directing their answers at the reporter. Vance's reply does not criticize Zelensky at all.
Then Zelensky interjects to directly confront Vance about his answer. That was the moment when it became argumentative.
Don't get me wrong, I understand the righteous fury that Zelensky feels. His country was invaded. But I think it was a blunder to pick a fight over Vance's answer.
I didn't say that it was inaccurate or invalid per se, only that he made the decision to pick a fight on live TV in what was previously a cordial conversation, and this (to me) strongly refutes the idea that Trump and Vance intentionally set this up to humiliate Zelensky.
I see that. However, it seems weird to broadcast this whole negotiation/talk/hour itself. Even the parts before that weren't really insightful or well formatted. It seems unprofessional and embarrassing for the US to do it in this way, even without the eventual climax.
We should broadcast everything all branches of government do all the time, across thousands of channels so that the people can watch it all and make their own decisions on everything. Now that's transparency.
I've watched the whole video and Vance was asked a question about diplomacy in the Ukraine war, the idea that Zelensky doesn't get to respond to that while he's sitting in the room seems absurd. Why have him there if he can't give his opinion on diplomacy in Ukraine?
If he was asked a question on American politics I would tend to agree but this is Americans here espousing their views on Ukrainian politics and then expecting to not hear the Ukrainian side to it.
Zelensky is negotiating continued American support for Ukraine. He can respond to whatever he wants, but if he's picking a fight publicly with the administration's position in a delicate multi-party negotiation, that can end up impacting his ability to get the support he needs.
His point that Russia has not abided by previous agreements is well-taken. Clearly any future cease fire will need better enforcement provisions. But this is putting the cart before the horse: the deal that should have been signed today was not a cease fire, it was a mineral rights agreement. If and when a cease fire is on the table that Zelensky feels will be unenforceable, then he can criticize its provisions.
I don't really view Zelensky here as picking a fight. He was not really belligerent, if I was him I would've been livid at the things they were saying for the exact reasons Zelensky pointed out (and that's if ignoring how they were lecturing on diplomacy when they've spent the last couple months undermining his negotiation positions). I will admit it was a mistake for him to talk in this way but not because there's anything inherently wrong about it, just that Trump loves having his ass kissed and does not handle disagreement in a calm manner. It all seems more embarrassing for Trump and Vance than anything else
I am okay letting Ukraine make their own decisions about their people and their land and willing to help them fight for their country. If someone invaded the US I would definitely fight before I gave it up so I don't begrudge someone wanting to keep their country (I'm always a bit surprised at Americans who expect them to want to give up. Where I grew up a lot of people owned guns and fantasized about fighting the good fight, whether against foreign tyranny or domestic. I've even seen people with a "Give me liberty or give me death" signs up in their house).
All that being said though it doesn't change anything about how the meeting went down. I've been lucky enough where I've literally never worked at a place where that would've been acceptable behavior, I've seen people talked to for less. To do that then double down more later was pretty embarrassing. Zelensky pushing back on their view on diplomacy in Ukraine didn't seem like a particular insult to me to make the meltdown make sense.
as sorta an aside: I was especially confused about them getting mad at Zelensky for telling them how to feel but as a native English speaker saying "you're going to feel it" means more you're going to feel the effects not you're going to feel a specific emotion (like after a hard workout at the gym if someone told me "you're going to feel it tomorrow" it would then be really weird for me to interpret that as them telling me how to feel emotionally). Trump responding he was going to feel strong was surreal and confusing to me. Especially with Zelensky as a non-native speaker it was weird to see Trump be the one struggling more with language. I can sorta understand agreeing with Trump politically but I just don't see how that was an acceptable or even normal way to react.
Anyway, that's a long post. I've watched the whole video and watching it just makes me feel like I've been taking crazy pills so I've thought about it a lot today.
Edit: and I forgot the whole thanking thing. Zelensky famously has thanked the US for aid and it seems like something they should know (even I was aware of it and confused while watching the video). But then Vance just pivoted to being mad about something else. Like people are talking about this like it's a policy dispute but I feel like I just watched some someone's villain arc on "The Bachelor", they seemed like reality TV characters.
> I am okay letting Ukraine make their own decisions about their people and their land
Sure. They can do what they want and so can we. We don’t owe them anything. And honestly, in a way we’re just enablers at this point. We’re enabling them to fight on and enabling them to pointless throw away more lives.
I've watched it. I disagree. Zelensky calmly and reasonably asked JD Vance a question regarding his answer to the reporter. It was all fine until Vance started with the "frankly I think it's very disrespectful" line. HE decided to escalate. What Zelensky asked was reasonable and pretty in character for him. They know he's uncompromising with dealing with Putin. The _diplomatic_ position is to understand both sides and mediate, not to try to get one of the sides to bow down to their aggressor.
watched it once, this is what I saw (Vance suddenly antagonizing Zelensky as if to entrap a known hothead), and then followed by the two sly comments from Trump "that’s why I kept this going so long" and "this is going to be great television"
What tripped my spider sense is these two comments from Trump:
TRUMP: "But you see, I think it’s good for the American people to see what’s going on. I think it’s very important. That’s why I kept this going so long."
TRUMP: "All right, I think we’ve seen enough. What do you think? This is going to be great television."
I just watched Trump greet Zelensky entering the Whitehouse with words like "and he even got all dressed up", foreshadowing Tulsi Gabbard's journalist boyfriend asking Z why he doesn't wear a suit.
It was definitely a planned media ambush intended to undermine support for Z and Ukraine.
JD basically said "why don't we try diplomacy?" and Zelensky rightfully pointed out that they have already tried for multiple years, including a full ceasefire agreement in 2019 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_agreements). Then Russia invaded Ukraine and tried to takeover the whole country. Either Vance has no idea what he's talking about or he wanted to provoke Zelensky.
Also, Vance's claim that Trump is the first one to actually engage in diplomacy is pretty wild, considering that Trump called Zelensky a dictator and essentially succumbs to all of Putin's demands, going so far as to side with Russia in the UN.
Richard Hanania believes that we should repeal large portions of the Civil Rights Act and has previously posted extreme racial hatred on white supremacist websites.
I am sorry, but this is stupid. You brought an argument on the basis that it comes from a neutral source. Turns out, it was not a neutral source. What do you do: hide the source.
Edit to clarify what I mean: You could have written that you are of the same opinion, independent of who that is. But instead you hide it, as if you had come to that conclusion totally on your own.
I was not leaning on the credibility of this person in any way except to say that it changed his mind on this one specific issue.
When a reply mentioned unrelated past statements from the same person, it was clear that they wanted to tar the statement by association rather than discuss it substantively.
And I think that you should be immensely skeptical of what somebody like Hanania is trying to do to your mind and beliefs.
I believe that mentioning that he is a virulent racist who is actively seeking a much more brutal and unjust world is critical to the substance of his other political writing. These are not unrelated statements.
But frankly in today's world where we've got people making serious decisions in government who are avowed segregationists I think it is rather important to mention when people oppose the Civil Rights Act when considering their opinion on political news.
Hanania's opinions here are not one weird quirk. They are central to the modern GOP's project.
This guy is a probably a Russian bot. He talks like Ukraine was 2 minutes away from a victory and Zelenskyy just needed to stfu for 30 more seconds to get it.
I initially saw just the latter part of the meeting where the conflict happens and it seemed like a premeditated thing, but after finding a video that shows the meeting from the beginning[1], I agree that it comes across differently.
It seems like they were having a pretty good meeting, right up until Vance decides to interject his stupid talking points, and then the exchange between Vance and Zelensky gets Trump to launch into his bizarre grievance tirade. It's like dementia was in full-self-driving mode and had no brakes.
Maybe Vance got what he wanted out of this meeting, but I could plausibly believe that Trump wasn't planning for it to blow up like this -- he just didn't have the level of self-control or self-awareness to stop himself. Which isn't exactly a good look either.
I'm 61. I never in my life thought we could be in this situation. As the old saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." We elected Trump again knowing exactly who he is.
I'm not disappointed in Trump; he remains exactly who I thought he was even before running in 2015. I'm disappointed in how many of my fellow citizens applaud his buffoonery, ignorance, and malice. While Trump himself is not competent, he has surrounded himself with people who can actually do the damage.
To conservatives who are about to say I'm a snowflake liberal, I ask you this: if Biden had invited George Soros to run wild through the government and ignore the laws, demanded a $800B reduction in the military budget and reallocated it to distribute to those in poverty, commanded schools to hire only gay people, fire anyone who didn't declare loyalty to Biden, and had minions collecting all your data for whatever purposes, and threatened to wipe out Israel unless they gave over their country to the Palestinians, what would you have done?
I can't even construct a proper analogy because those goals above are just a parody of what the left wants, whereas Trump/Musk are actually doing that about actual right wing wishes.
How to the ground work was laid leading up to trump getting into office deserves a documentary. He just had to say some memetic/populist words that had been unadressed/supressed/agitated for years leading up
I'm 29 and i voted for trump. I'd like to share my perspective for you to gleam alittle insight into my generation and why we voted for trump.
if Biden had invited George Soros to run wild through the government and ignore the laws, demanded a $800B reduction in the military budget and reallocated it to distribute to those in poverty,
- This sounds awesome. He's got a plan, he executed. If we didn't piss off our allies, we could probably ride on our military spending lorals from decades past. It would probably completely irradicate poverty, if he got the whole 'left' side of silicon valley to start building super cheap sky scrapers for the homeless. it'd be a pretty cool golden age. But here lies the issue... He inacted radical change towards some end, and hired some of the smartest minds in the world to help him enact his policys.
commanded schools to hire only gay people,
-..... Hmmmmm, Sounds like we'd have a complete population collapse in about a single generation. I'm a normal dude, i've had gay friends, trans friends, w/e. But do i disagree with them on that issue? Do i think this should be taught in school at all? no... so yeah, i'd be pretty pissed and i'd homeschool my kid forsure.
fire anyone who didn't declare loyalty to Biden,
Well.... Yeah, i mean, that's how a cabinet works, right? The people voted for the president, so who are you to defy the people? get in line or get out.
and had minions collecting all your data for whatever purposes,
- Well... They hopefully used the data to irradicate the military budget.
and threatened to wipe out Israel unless they gave over their country to the Palestinians, what would you have done?
at 61, i'm suprised in your inability to see the world as... real... with real violence. People seem to forget that a couple generations ago the entire world was imperialistic with a large percentage of the human population as slaves. We are those same people, our evolution didn't change in 250 years. Only with a complete monopoly on violence can you ensure peace between neighbors. This war has been going on for too long and will never end if a complete monopoly of violence is not secured. So honestly, if he came in and ended the war, i don't really care how he'd do it. Pick a side is a side as any. but like... hamas is literally a terrorist organization funded by iran so....
Thank you for your detailed and considered reply. I'm going to push back, but please understand it is my way of understanding your position better. I am not attempting to change your mind.
Having a plan and executing on it is not intrinsically good if the plan itself is corrupt. It is telling that Project 2025 was disavowed by Trump before the election due to its many unpopular goals, but obviously that was a ruse and than plan is being carried out. That doesn't fit your description of it is commendable to carry out that plan.
Many of these plans are just based on pretext. P2025 isn't going to reduce the debt -- the money saved by cutting social services will be rerouted to the military and bankroll tax cuts that are clearly advantageous to the rich. Recall in Trump's first term there was the case of megacorps using accounting tricks (like "the double irish") to avoid paying taxes that were otherwise legally due. Trump gave away an immediate trillion dollars via that amnesty and reduced rates going forward for trillions more. If the real goal was debt reduction, we'd be reverting those tax giveaways and restoring the capital gains tax to a higher level.
"Hmmmmm, Sounds like we'd have a complete population collapse". I agree, as would just about everyone, that such a policy would be bad. But that doesn't address my point: should Biden/Soros be allowed to ignore the laws to do it?
"i mean, that's how a cabinet works" Nobody is upset that Trump is replacing political appointees. The problem is that he is turning apolitical positions into political positions. Should the IRS be staffed with political appointees? The DOJ? The FBI? By claiming for years that he is the victim of a politicalization of the DOJ, it is the pretext for actually politicizing the DOJ.
"hopefully they used the data to irridicate the military budget." First, the military budget is set to increase. Second, why offer him the benefit of the doubt? It is OK he is violating laws just in case he is doing it for good? Half of Trump's former inner circle, lifelong Republicans, refused to endorse him, many expressly saying he is manifestly unfit. The data is that Trump is transactional and is motivated only by self interest.
What would I have done about Gaza? Yes, it is a Gordian knot of conflicting principles. But again, that isn't my point. Biden didn't ask for the cleansing of Israel, unlike Trump who has called for a cleansing of Palestine. Is this playing out like you expected when you voted for Trump? Your response seems to indicate you have bought into the cartoonish version that the right pushes of the conflict: looking only at the violence done to Israel without acknowledging the violence done by Israel. To disclose my position, of course, I don't want bombs falling on the heads of Israelis and Israel has the right to defend itself. Yes, Hamas is a terrorist organization. Is your problem that they should behave more honorably? We can help that by giving them billions of dollars annually and giving them some nukes. Sarcasm aside, it is like people complaining about Iraq using IEDs; of course I don't want to see US soldiers blown up, but to complain about them resorting to primitive tricks while we occupy and bomb the crap out of their country is rich.
Yes this was my first thought. But then I understood that it's most probably the fact that the administration wasn't interested in the outcome of the conversation. My hypotesis is that Trump is living each day as unique, disconnected from the others, in a selfish way. So he didn't care about the consequences of this meeting for Zelenskyy and in general everything else.
They 100% set him up. A new block in the wall of proving that Trump is a Russian asset or dupe. I don't see how any other conclusion can be drawn by anyone paying attention. He consistently kisses up to Putin with little love messages via Fox news and other outlets, while doing his best to alienate the rest of the world. It would be different if he just washed his hands of the whole situation, however he always looks up to Putin and refuses to call him a dictator, I reckon because he was told that he would regret it if he ever did from his Russian contacts.
It was a 40 minute long conversation and everything was fine until the last 5 minutes when Zelensky got mad about Vance talking about using diplomacy with Russia.
What Zelensky got mad about is that all previous diplomatic agreements with Russia have been broken by Russia when convenient. Even the Budapest Memorandum, where the US pledged security to Ukraine in exchange for them giving their nukes to Russia, is no longer honored. How can Ukraine trust that any deal made by Trump is going to be honored once Russia rebuilds its military if the US won't offer any assurances of peace?
You can't have diplomacy with Russia, they don't respect any agreements, EU tried to partner up with them on trade as a "diplomatic" route, hoping that cash flowing both ways would be enough to keep Russia happy, but their ambitions go beyond a peaceful coexistence.
this seems like a misread. we get something out of sending resources to Ukraine. it's a decently-leveraged way to keep Russia, a would-be superpower, down for the next decade or so, to keep bleeding her without bleeding our own young men.
we do not have enough of an interest to go send young Americans to die. to deploy boots-on-the-ground forces for what amounts to a minor territorial war in a country with limited strategic importance beyond being a buffer state. smells too strongly of vietnam and korea.
to those who disagree with this, alright that's a fair position to hold. what number of young Americans is it appropriate for us to sacrifice to hold the donetsk and luhansk oblasts? how many of our children should we send to die? which number is reasonable and which is too great? if you don't believe there's a limit, and we should risk any number of Americans and potential nuclear exchange, why?
the minerals deal was actually a pretty fair offer the way it was worked out. then zelensky decided to, at the eleventh hour, push for a full security deal which isn't tenable from where we stand. this wasn't what had been discussed with Rubio; it was a bait-and-switch pressure tactic. zelensky was trying to either squeeze out that guarantee or humiliate the admin with failure coming from what otherwise would have been successful.
i think the constant lionization of zelensky has gone to his head. he feels confident in disrespecting nations who have invested significant resources in the war by refusing to so much as dress for the occasion, expecting the sort of standing ovation the prior administration and european leaders gave him. i can respect someone who's fighting for causes i generally support, as can most of my countrymen, but zelensky is no holy warrior and we have no moral duty to offer unlimited resources and manpower. we have aligned interests, but if not for that, there are more than enough domestic US issues that we otherwise would not (nor should we) send the sort of resources we have. similar thing with Israel: we have strongly overlapping interests but she needs to mind her place and toe the line if she wants our support.
> we do not have enough of an interest to go send young Americans to die.
This is a straw man: nobody asked you to.
> the minerals deal was actually a pretty fair offer the way it was worked out
There was nothing fair in that mineral deal: the US would get resources and Ukraine was getting... nothing. No security guarantees, no military support, nothing. Trump said it himself: he wanted it to get back what the US spent helping Ukraine so far.
it's not a straw man. the security guarantees zelensky requested and used to hold up the deal extend to that.
US state dep't lawyers have generally understood "security assurance" to mean that we won't violate someone's territorial integrity, while "security guarantee" implies the use of military force to defend the security of a nation and her territorial integrity. unless and until we have a fully-autonomous military, this does, in fact, necessitate putting American servicemen at risk of death. this is why i think your analysis is a misread of the situation; i haven't seen media report this distinction well and it's hard to keep track of which treaty terms are vague sympathies with a general direction of action and which promise specific actions.
it was, in fact, a fair deal. the minerals deal was to ensure we got some sort of repayment for all the aid we've already sent and to make us a bit more comfortable with the additional aid they still want. since we are already well into the twelve figures w.r.t. aid to Ukraine it seems pretty reasonable. but i don't particularly think a minerals deal is worth sending young men to die halfway across the world in a border war over land the size of west virginia.
the saudi king was in his own cultural formalwear. the pope did the same. if zelensky wanted to dress down and call it "cultural formalwear", he should have tried an adidas tracksuit. what he did was simple disrespect. it's not the end of the world but i think he owes us more than this "great value steve jobs" routine. i dress better than that for a normal workplace.
"parroting russian talking points" isn't a good response or critique. i don't read RT or alt-right twitter. i agree we have some interest in keeping russia contained and it's generally a good move to put resources behind that. i do not think there's this odd moral obligation to do whatever it takes and back ukraine to the hilt. this is sort of a "heartbreaking, the worst person you know just made a good point" situation.
Given Ukraine has now been invaded multiple times by Russia it seems entirely right and reasonable for it to ask for guarantees, and not an imposition if the other nation was truly an Ally, in the formal definition of the word, no?
it seems like a huge imposition to ask someone to kick off a great power war that would likely leave millions of her children dead, yes. that's true in any case, but especially when one's entire geopolitical relevance is as a border state. not all alliances are or must be "we will do literally anything possible to protect your territorial integrity". it probably wouldn't make sense for us to make such an alliance since our territorial integrity hasn't been threatened in substance since the war of 1812. and because such an alliance would be a charity program where we give away young American lives to enable one political entity, rather than another, to govern scraps of low-value land an ocean and a continent away.
the whole "sending ukraine materiel is going to cause WWIII" thing is sort of bs russian propaganda. the idea that direct American military intervention isn't risking that is very much not.
again, how many Americans do you think it's appropriate for their own government to sign up to die for this cause? i think the number is zero. if you think it's higher, i'd very much like to understand why and how many you think is a reasonable number. i understand it'd be a ballpark figure, not a bright line, but i'd like at least an order of magnitude grasp of what people think is appropriate and why they think so.
By your own admission a defensive security guarantee will "kick off a great power war..." which is a way of saying Russia can't be trusted to keep the peace, no? Not that I disagree but I'm not sure it's as strong an argument against Ukraine's request as you think it is. It may have even been part of Neville Chamberlain's notes on the subject.
the chamberlain/weimar comparison is inaccurate for this case. germany was an ascendant power; russia is a crippled one. the war was actually a great investment because it's decimated russia's military population and stores of materiel and cut her off from the world enough to severely damage her economy. it will take substantial time for her to rebuild.
you can make a "what about czechoslovakia/poland/nazis" argument about heavy intervention in what would otherwise be any proxy war. you say czechoslovakia, i say vietnam, i say korea, i say the middle east.
the American interest in this war isn't so much "we love the ukraine" as "this is an effective way to cripple russia for the next decade by proxy". by doing so, we avoid that situation in a much smarter way than chamberlain. and because russia wasn't in that great of a spot to start with, a protracted war of attrition is really bad for her.
are you suggesting we should begin a war against russia, historically a massively losing proposition, over a couple oblasts of the ukraine? again, how many americans should we send off to die? how much should we weaken our resources for a much more concerning conflict with china?
> it's not a straw man. the security guarantees zelensky requested and used to hold up the deal extend to that.
It does not. Europe has been willing to send troops on the ground. The guarantee from the US could be in the form of equipment, air interdiction, etc. Note the the US already had guaranteed Ukraine sovereignty when it gave up its nukes. So no new treaty should even be necessary if the US only stuck to its words.
> it was, in fact, a fair deal. the minerals deal was to ensure we got some sort of repayment for all the aid we've already sent
No repayment was expected when the aid was given, otherwise it would have been given as loans.
Do you ask for repayment 2 years after giving people gifts? I would hate to be at your Christmas gathering.
> to make us a bit more comfortable with the additional aid
That's not how treaties work. You put, IN WRITING, something you agree to do and the other sides does too.
If Ukraine commits to give something while the US "feels good" about maybe doing something (or not, who knows?), that's not fair.
> what he did was simple disrespect
Musk holds conferences in the oval office in T-shirt and MAGA cap while his child scolds the president. Nobody stepped in to ask where was his suit, and certainly not the president.
a security guarantee necessitates a response adequate to maintain territorial integrity. i.e. in the current scenario we'd be obligated to send troops to stop the war of attrition and reverse the russian advance (which has continued since last year, if slowly.) that is precisely what zelensky wants. unfortunately for him, i don't value the ukraine enough to condemn my friends to go bleed out in an eastern european border state.
no repayment was demanded when the aid was given, true. however, the US changes leadership, and therefore policy, on a semi-regular basis. the condition of future aid is that past and future aid should be repaid to some extent, in some manner, at some point. rather than demanding cash or structuring a loan, the US proposed to find something else that would benefit both sides. implying that hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer dollars, at a time when boomer welfare is already bleeding the country dry, is equivalent to a Christmas gift is ridiculous. i think it was De Gaulle who said countries don't have friends, they have interests; foreign aid is a strategic tool and that alone, because the U.S. federal government is not a charitable organization.
you say "that's not how treaties work"; I say undeveloped nations have a long, long history of taking and later failing to repay loans from America or proxy organizations such as the IMF. if you're suggesting we restructure this as a loan, that seems like a monumentally poor investment, not to mention draining cash from a nation trying to rebuild is a similarly poor idea.
where did i say i approved of Musk's actions? i believe trump complemented zelensky's outfit today. i don't really care about what trump thinks of zelensky, musk, or anyone else's choice of presentation. i am not donald trump. i am saying i think it is disrespectful, doubly so given that he came calling with his hand out, again.
The point of the security guarantee is to ensure peace after a ceasefire. It doesn't make any sense to suggest US troops will be responsible for stopping the war or reversing territorial gains, because it will have already stopped. Some stasis of of the front lines, and possibly a DMZ would be a prerequisite.
But more likely, US troops won't be directly on the front lines even after a peace. It adds too much risk of either (super)power escalating in the event of casualties.
They invited him to the White House to finally sign the rare earth minerals agreement, which he had said he'd sign and then renegged two times prior[0]. This was the third attempt by the US to get it signed. During the meeting, he indicated that he would sign the agreement but then not agree to a cease fire, which was the whole point of putting it in place. Naturally, this was a deal breaker for the administration and the meeting ended.
I watched the entire press conference with Zelensky. There was 40 minutes of discussion up to the argument. Most people saw at most the last ten minutes. The whole video gives the proper context.
When I first watched the argument without the proper context, I thought it was possible that Trump and Vance ambushed Zelensky or were even trying to humiliate him. That's not what happened.
You had 40 minutes of calm conversation. Vance made a point that didn't attack Zelensky and wasn't even addressed to him, and Zelensky clearly started the argument.
In the first 40 minutes, Zelensky kept trying to go beyond what was negotiated in the deal. When Trump was asked a question, it was always "we'll see." Zelensky made blanket assertions that there would be no negotiating with Putin, and that Russia would pay for the war. When Trump said that it was a tragedy that people on both sides were dying, Zelensky interjected that the Russians were the invaders.
For his part, Trump made clear that the US would continue delivering military aid. All Zelensky had to do was remain calm for a few more minutes and they would've signed a deal.
The argument started when Trump pointed out that it would be hard to make a deal if you talk about Putin the way Zelensky does. Vance interjects to make the reasonable point that Biden called Putin names and that didn't get us anywhere.
The Zelensky/Trump dynamic was calm and stable. It was when Vance spoke that Zelensky started to interrogate him. Throughout the press conference to that point, everyone was making their arguments directly to the audience. Zelensky decided to challenge Vance and ask him hostile questions. He went back to his point that Putin never sticks to ceasefires, once again implying that negotiations are pointless. Why on earth would you do this? Then came the fight we all saw.
Zelensky was minutes away from being home free, and he would have had the deal and new commitments from the Trump administration. The point Vance made was directed against Biden and the media, taking them to task for speaking in moralistic terms. This offended Zelensky, and that began the argument.
I've been a fan of Zelensky up to this point, but this showed so much incompetence, if not emotional instability, that I don't see how he recovers from this. The relationship with the administration is broken. Ukraine should probably go with new leadership at this point.
the way I read what you wrote, it seems like you think Zelensky's argument is bad and purely emotionally motivated, but the fact that Putin/Russia has broken agreements and ceasefires is a very valid concern, isn't it?
if the conference had ended without argument but behind the scenes Trump/Vance were setting up negotiations that go against Ukraine's interest, that would not have been a "win" for Zelensky other than in terms of a contest of popularity - but only the popularity among westerners who have no real personal stake in the conflict. it's Ukrainians and Russians who are dying on the front lines.
Like you, I watched the full hour. I had the same analysis.
There are no winners from an exchange like this. Trump and Vance come across as bullies. Zelenskyy comes across as needlessly argumentative. Trump and Zelenskyy both come across as quick to anger. Not a good look for any of them.
Maybe Zelensky had a very thin path out after Vance's provocations, but even the language accents are partly to blame for miscommunication/crosstalk, so maybe for Zelensky it was a Kobayashi Maru situation.
Yeah, I was wondering at what point Putin decides to roll the dice and put that to the test by rolling into Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia. He must be feeling his chances are pretty good right now.
Even if the US did nothing, rolling into NATO lands would put them up against the UK, Germany, France. Poland et al as well as Ukraine.
The worry is more that a ceasefire is called. Russia rearms and succeeds in taking over Ukraine and then a combined Ukraine and Russia attacks Europe with President Vance supporting Putin.
I don't think that we're this far gone yet, but is there a chance the US sides with Putin in this case? I think it would be risky, and I don't _think_ Trump's base would go for it, but it does feel like the long term goal is to try to sanitize the idea of a shift in the geopolitical order to ally America with Russia instead of with Europe.
IMHO, they are already there. There's no spine in the Republican party to prevent bowing down to Putin, they have always been anti-Europe, and Putin is a big daddy that they actively court when they idolize Hungary's dictator and hold CPAC meetings and try to emulate Orban.
trump and the republicans must really be stupid to trade NATO for russia, while leaving an opening for china to side with europe. If US ditches europe, india/SK/JP and the rest of asia will soon reciprocate.
All this so that US sides with a bankrupt cleptocracy and dictatorship. 1000iq move, I guess.
Unless Trump wants to start WW3 the US won't be able to do anything, and even if he did start WW3, Europe would be able to destroy those bases.
The whole point of them was to give the US influence while improving US security. Given Europe can't trust Trump will come to their aid, they won't give the US as much influence over Europe.
Have you ever wondered why the US is able to spend so much on its military? Ever wondered why the US keeps on printing the dollar that's not backed by any gold reserve and other nations still give you real things such as food, resources, goods in exchange for it?
Here's a hint! It's your military. To put it bluntly, European nations and other US allies pretend the dollar has actual value and the US in turn guarantees security and backs the world order based on the rule of law.
Looks like the US is looking to pull out of its end of the deal. That's fair enough, being the world's policeman is sure a heavy burden to carry. I just don't see many people recognizing the implications for the US economy.
Nah, they'd say it was god's will or some nonsense and pretend it's all right. A minority might even be completely fine with losses as long as their god emperor wins in the end and owns the libs.
Maybe this passes as insightful in some circles but it's completely untrue when you consider how much of his base is currently fuming about weak Epstein annoucement and Israel more generally.
I am trying to express in good faith, I have found the Left to be generally less effective in dealing with grassroots criticism (it's seen as too populist). Trump will flip on an issue due to pressure from the frog guys. The Left are more dogmatic from top intellectuals, don't really listen to the base. Huge issue in the last elxn. Fixable though imo.
I think in this era of misinformation Trump+Elon can convince their falolowers that is the greatest idea to help Putin, and that Putin is the second greatest leader in the world history after Trump... you can still see USAians claiming USA paid more then Europe even if the lie was exposed days ago
Is that dumb? These transport animals basically make themselves. Self-replicating, way cheaper than robots, easy to replace when they break down. Don't need sophisticated software, etc. Just some training and sensory deprivation.
I wish humans would not involve other species in their sadistic ways of killing and maiming each other, though. Donkeys, horses, ... all benefited from war mechanization. Dogs not so much so far. Dutch happily train dogs that are then sold to allies to be used to attack, threaten, maim, shit and piss on, sodomize, and kill defenseless people. Bizarre.
It isn't dumb so much as desperate. Their preference is to supply troops with trucks, but they have lost a huge number of trucks and use many of those remaining as troop transports on the front line which also speaks of desperation.
yeah NATO got irrelevant and Putin certainly now wishes he would not have attacked Ukraine. Rolling into these 3 mini countries with his entire army from 2022 would have been a much easier task
"Glory", so not specifics around hypothetical land Putin aka Hitler 2.0 imagines he wants. There's no evidence for him saying anything besides … what he's literally says. This fantasy conjecture is weakening the international position on Ukraine, especially with such easy access to Russian translation tools where we can just expose this secret conspiracy of yours. He literally only talks about Ukraine, you can look into this yourself.
Or perhaps you mean "glory" in the sense of some kind of national pride and confidence in culture and nationality? I am not sure arguments against any nation seeking a sense of themselves are particularly compelling…
Just because the US changing its mind about Russia changes NATO's dynamic as a whole does not mean that the Baltic states are immediately in danger. Poland and Finland are both nearby NATO countries that have experienced Russia's thumb directly with their own military industrial base or are developing one that would absolutely step in if need be.
Reminder that Finland is really close to St. Petersburg, the 2nd largest city in Russia with some pretty big cultural and military importance. Putin's done some fantastically stupid stuff in regard to the 2022 Ukraine war, namely resuming it, but he's probably not that dumb.
You are right. I do hope Zelenksy noticed the sudden caveats he added a few days ago, too. Same thing - Trump wants many billions in resources, yet "can't" guarantee anything in return.
Russia immediately responded by saying it would happily share those resources. Of course.
What if the trigger was the US annexing a NATO nation's territory? He's already made noises about Canada and Greenland (Denmark). That would be the ultimate farce.
Greenland is about the arctic. It's not some farce or meme. Look at an actual globe and when the ice melts that white stuff is going to be a navigable ocean between Canada Greenland and . . . Russia.
We tend to think of the world on a flat world Google map and Russia seems so far away, but when the pole melts Russia will be closer to north America and they will be wanting that area too.
No ice means it's easier to drill for natural resources. The US is preempting the melt and trying to get ahead in the race for the arctic. It's much more valuable than at first glance.
I laughed first too. I then felt that my laughter was due to not understanding it. "How bizarre, LOL". Then I felt like I was missing something big. Now I try to use these "bizarre jokes" as a sign to look deeper.
In a way (although this info isn't secret at all, just boring) we can use Trump's inability to have a filter to leak the advice that his advisors are giving him more than past statesmen would.
I'm curious if there is any polling data on British willingness to help Canada should they face invasion from the U.S. Canada being a commonwealth country with their King as their head of state.
Heck, less than half of Western Europeans would fight to defend their own country[0]. In the UK, only a third of people surveyed would do so. That's less than those who believe that the US would come to their aid!
Irrelevant. This measures trust towards USA to send their people who are willing to fight implied by them joining the military, not willingness to fight amongst the general public.
We don't care. Approximately 0% of the American public believes the UK would help us if we were invaded, because we have eyes and have seen how absolutely degraded the European militaries have become, outside of a few outliers like Poland and Turkey.
I worked in the Pentagon for 10 years, and went over to the UK about twice a year for work at RAF Mildenhall, which, of course, is primarily filled with USAF planes and airmen.
European nations stopped caring about defending themselves, and turned NATO into a charity of which they are the recipients.
More recently (2016-2021), I would travel to London on a regular basis to work with a team based out of an office in Shoreditch. The sentiment of the average Londoner to the US military was fairly negative, typically accompanied by a face that looked like they had just smelled a fart.
My son is 18. I don't want him being drafted into any war on behalf of a demoralized population that doesn't want to fight for their own country. It's morally reprehensible to expect us to subsidize a society that has imprisons citizens for social media posts and fines our tech companies every chance they can get.
Brits and Europeans died for America's last two wars, on a percentage basis more Dutch and Canadian troops died than Americans. Nearly 500 British troops died for your war.
Next time America asks for assistance, whether it's troops or firefighters I hope the attitude is reflected back and it comes with a costs+ invoice due up front.
Our next war is going to be in the Indo-Pacific, and the Diego Garcia is already a de facto American run base, and now going to be part of Marutius due to French and Indian lobbying [0], and because the UK deal was set to expire in 2036.
I'd trust the French more than the Brits in an Indo-Pac conflict, because they have actual stakes due to French Polynesia and Mayotte.
And if we're honest, it doesn't make sense for the UK to fight a Pacific war anyhow. The UK has constantly stepped up to help Ukraine and remains a very strong buttress against Russia. It's best if the UK remains a lynchpin for European security.
America not honoring another country's article 5 after America itself was the only country to call article 5... this attitude will absolutely spur nuclear weapons programs in countries across the world.
> Approximately 0% of the American public believes the UK would help us if we were invaded
This is just silly nonsense.
In various polls the US and UK poll quite similarly, in that the percentage of people who believe their country should honour article 5 in case of an attack on a NATO ally, polls about 2x greater than the percentage of people who believe their country shouldn't.
So approximately 0% is nonsense.
But besides the fact that the beliefs of the US population isn't 0%, look at the reality: the UK went to Iraq and Afghanistan to fight alongside the US on foreign soil, while most of the world didn't and opposed those wars. What makes you think the UK won't fight alongside the US if it was under attack on its own territory? It makes no sense.
The US being invaded essentially means there is a world war. The idea that the UK would try to stay neutral instead of follow its treaty requirements with its greatest historical ally ever, and bow to its new ruler, is just silly.
As for the UK military's prowess, it is obviously not what it used to be, in relative terms. But to compare it unfavourably to Poland and Turkey? Neither could beat the UK, except on their home soil. And in the context of an invasion of the US, I'd rather have the UK as an ally, it actually has long-distance projectionist military power which is exceedingly rare outside of the US, Turkey or Poland don't have it.
You entered ww1 in 1917, almost at the end of the war after German submarines attacked American ships, if I remember correctly. So the US tried to stay out for quite some time.
It also took the White House being set on fire to understand the sovereignty of the land across its northern border. And now there's all this Trump talk of trying to invade once again.
Can you please inform me how the US bullied UK into mineral rights in WW2? We exported arms and equipment to them even before Lend-lease acts.
It would be true if you were to mention about our special flavor of freedom exportation during the cold war. However, this time Ukraine is a democratic nation being invaded by our biggest political rival, Russia.
The UK paid the US all it's gold reserves. Next it stole of the UK people's gold to use that to buy weapons.
The US was not giving the UK when it exported, it was selling. Lend lease came in once the UK ran out of gold. So the US gave them credit: which the UK tool until 2006 to repay.
The US had about 60% of the world's wealth after ww2. With that, their industrial base and with their "democratic" missions in South America for resources I'm amazed how fast they managed to squander it to make the rich richer.
It's true. Also, the UK has never repaid its WW1 debt to the US.
The US joined WW1 when it became clear that the UK would not be able to repay its debt to JP Morgan and its clients if Germany won. Of course, that was not the only reason, but it was a huge factor. (Source: Adam Tooze, The Deluge)
(London had, bizarrely, decided to bankroll the Russian and French war efforts in addition to its own, so its debts were vast.)
FDR was opposed to imperialism, and so his terms for our meager involvement prior to direct entry into the war were pretty steep, as were his terms for the postwar order. Truman backed off on some of that though.
In a political sense, well, that's much more debatable. The problem there is that because the US itself did not feel threatened, US aid came with a price tag: the impoverishment of Britain and the demolition of the trade barriers around the British Commonwealth. US aid was on a cash-only basis
until Britain had spent all its hard-currency reserves (both gold and negotiable securities). Then came the Lend-Lease agreement -- arguably the point where the US truly entered the war -- and its price tag was explicit, although unadvertised: the agreement itself contains a clause
stipulating the removal of the Commonwealth's trade barriers.
Stealing radar tech (go read how Raytheon got started), and blocking the UK from nuke development tech after British scientists helped thoroughly the Manhattan Project are the ways the US bullied the UK during WW2.
> edit: not sure by which part of the world this is downvoted ;)
It's downvoted because of this:
> Well most of the nations of the world didn't do anything for Ukraine, or supported Russia one way or the other.
Most of the world supports Ukraine or at least is not pro Russia, as you can see in UN votes. In latest vote, USA voted like Russia, North Korea and Israel, China abstained.
Most countries can't afford funding a war on this magnitude even if they wanted to. And this war still squarely concerns solely the West, which the US is a part of, even if Trump overestimates the size of that pond.
Ukraine’s situation is better than many people realize, and the US, in siding with Russia, may be betting on the wrong horse.
The EU has provided more aid to Ukraine than the US, Ukraine drone production is through the roof. Europe needs Ukraine and its army as a bulwark against Russia.
Most informed analysts say Russia has the opposite problem. They don't have any more meat for the grinder without tapping the middle and upper class of Russian citizens, which will have repercussions, potentially serious ones, for Putin.
Well, North Korea benefits from getting experience and field-testing radios and winter underwear. The drone environment is very good advertising for their goal of becoming a major arms dealer.
Yes, North Korea gains immediate benefit (money or material aid) and a theoretical delayed benefit (demonstration of mercenary abilities, and real world experience for their troops if they survive). Russia gains bodies to throw against bullets. If every North Korean soldier died but took several bullets for Russian soldiers, it's a win for Russia. They do not care about the North Korean soldiers or North Korea.
Colonize it while it remains nominally Russian, would be a pretty good move. "Sick Man of Europe"-style. "Oh we British are just, just, like, helping the Ottomans administer Egypt, we're good chaps like that"
Not exactly to get enrolled, but in Moscow websites officially advertize 2300000 rub to sign, which is about $25000. Then monthly payment is 190000 rub so for first year it'll be about $50000 which is 5 to 10 times more than average salary (depending on the region). Initial bonus for enrollment is city-dependent but as far as I understand anyone can just travel to Moscow and sign in there.
I heard that volonteer numbers right now are pretty high so army became more selective - people expect that war will end soon and hope to get sign in bonus without spending much time on the battlefield, if any.
Other regions are comparable, 2-3 million rubles ($20000-$30000) are available in several more regions. Then there's a federal one-time payment of 500000 rubles ($5000) and a monthly salary of $2000.
Credit to Biden who set the tone. He was very fast and forceful in backing Ukraine even when the general assumption was that they had no chance. Europe was willing to step up since then and will have to carry them from now on.
If only that credit had any weight against his equally quick decision to fund a Zionist genocide against Palestine, and engage in administrative subterfuge, Doublespeak and Ministry of Truth type shit about the true nature of the conflict.
It's a weird world that objecting to genocide makes you an antisemite now.
Don't support Netanyahu's weaponization of the word antisemite. It endangers Jews everywhere, and does not help Israel. It only helps Netanyahu silence his critics.
Some people cannot understand that a country, its people, and its government are all completely separate things. Other people pretend not to understand.
Regardless of which, the person you're replying to has decided to be on the wrong side of history. I will not be shamed into silently supporting genocide in the name of a made-believe invisible man in the sky.
The insane AI-generated one he posted to his socials the other day outlining his vague plan to profit off the suffering of Palestinians by building a utopia resort? What a world we are living in.
He was pretty wishy washy and would never say he'd like Ukraine to win and get their land back. The UK generally led at the start sending missiles and tanks and the Biden was embarrassed into matching it.
> Ukraine’s situation is better than many people realize
What makes you say that? I thought it was generally agreed that Ukraine has been on the back foot for a while now. People used to be quite optimistic about Ukraine recovering the occupied territories.
Current (by some of course) long-term analysis is that Ukraine is better commited to a long-term strategy of fiercely defending its rights, and it can grind Russia long term.
If you like Game Theory, is more as if Ukraine is much more prone to Total War than Russia possible will. Russia is spending their own GDP maintaining the war, Ukraining is "spending" its infrastructure but has foreign money being poured in.
That's why USA withdraw by Trump is so important to Russian interests.
There are two truths when it comes to Ukraine. The one quietly stated in dispassionate terms by actual military and geopolitical analysts which is that in the long run Ukraine loses in virtually every scenario, but it’s in everyone except Ukraine’s best interest to drag it out and for the West to weaken Russia via aid without the political fallout of actually putting boots on the ground.
Then there’s the “Ukraine will win as long as we keep sending aid” truth that the pubic needs to believe in order to accomplish that goal of weakening Russia since the alternative is Ukraine still loses but Russia doesn’t suffer for it.
I suspect someone misguidedly told Trump the first one, and his takeaway was that if Ukraine loses anyway, why should the American taxpayer be funding needless deaths.
This does not account for what can happen in Russia itself. There's this widespread belief that Russia is stable, no matter what.
If that were true, why would Putin take such extreme care for the elites in Moscow and St Petersburg? What is he afraid of? We don't need to know exactly what, but we can conclude he probably has a good reason.
Russia is not stable. The economy is creaking. Unsound, favourable loans are being made to corrupt companies who pocket as much cash as they dare while they deliver as little they can, Soviet style. Something is gonna give eventually, probably to the sound of drones over Moscow becoming the new normal.
Russia was supposed to win easily right away. There is a huge size difference.
But if the little guy, even thought has been on back foot since the beginning, has lasted 10 rounds, and still hitting back. They are on the back foot. But now it starts looking like a win could happen. The underdog wins the crowd right? Now looks like US is the bully.
Ukraine isn't likely to recover much territory. But Russia will have a hard time taking more territory. At this point the war favors the defenders in either direction. Both sides are dug in and attackers get hammered by drones.
Europe is happy to let others do the fighting and dying for them. They want Ukraine to fight the Russians so they don't have to. Sounds like a continent of cowards.
Ukraine’s situation is worse than many people realize. Ukraine is losing the war right now with roughly equal support in monetary terms from both US and EU! They have huge manpower problems because of losses and apparent political inability to mobilize enough men. Even if EU suddenly doubled its aid to compensate (which I think is _very_ unlikely), there are gaps in weapons production in Europe, e.g. for SAMs.
How would you categorize Russia's manpower problem, given that they need to rely on North Korea for people, have to send injured soldiers back to the front line, and suffer multiple more deaths and injuries compared to Ukraine?
It's bad, but not as dire. Russian losses are very likely higher, but if I have to guess - multiples of 2 and above are just propaganda mixed with wishful thinking. They still didn't need to resort to further rounds of mobilization since 2022 or large scale usage of conscripts. And I don't understand what "North Korea" argument even is - Ukrainians would love to rely on someone else! But no one is willing to help in this department.
I mean, are Zelensky or Syrskyi willing to share truthful information with you in private? If so - good for you, otherwise I'm not sure what "first hand" reports you can use. I'm relying mostly on data about obituaries collected on both sides as proxy for true figures.
first hand reports from friends who are fighting the war every day.
I'm sure the very lacking obituaries that Russia is actively fighting to suppress will give you a better picture.
If you use Russian recruitment and army size numbers, you get much more realistic figures https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja6-espHVSE. Russia is up to ~700k to 800k casualties Russia has lost ~3-4x more people than Ukraine so far.
I think that's probably a good estimate for the Russian side, while 200k casualties total for Ukraine is a joke. Aren't even their official figures for wounded in the 400k range?
sometimes yes, sometimes no. In both US iraq wars, the US had way fewer casualties than Iraq. Invading is harder than defending, but a country won't invade unless they think they are likely to succeed with acceptable losses.
This is the most recorded war in history and I know someone(History Legends)offering a good amount if you can show him videos of these Russian meat wave attacks .
Ukraine didn't release casualty figures for a long time (though to be fair, Russia government doesn't exactly post daily casualty figures either, the Russian casualty figure is divined by infering what we can from Russian media), the Western press released a figure for the Ukrainian forces, which is probably quite low, and the figure hasn't increased in almost a year.
It's sort of like how Western press has been claiming for over a year that 20,000 people have perished in Gaza, and the figure never goes up.
They're trying to avoid extensive drafts in their power-base cities for fear of unrest. Plus that's their reserve if they need to supply a second front for any reason.
> How would you categorize Russia's manpower problem
As strained, but not as bad as Ukraine's.
Russia's population is over 140 million. That's 100 million more than Ukraine's pre-war population. Russia's territory isn't meaningfully compromised, their cities aren't in ruin, their industry is mostly intact. They haven't sustained something like 15-25% population loss from people fleeing the way Ukraine has.
North Koreans aren't in Russia because Russia is out of guys. Putin just wants to avoid wider scale conscription/mobilization if he can help it and will take other options first
That's why earlier stages of this war involved ex-convict Wagnerite units, mercenaries from the third world, local militias raised from the "people's republics" in Donetsk and Luhansk, and conscription when necessary from poorer ethnic minority regions far away from Moscow and St. Petersburg.
> North Koreans aren't in Russia because Russia is out of guys. Putin just wants to avoid wider scale conscription/mobilization if he can help it and will take other options first
This is correct and shockingly obvious given the initial invasion used mercenaries. It's a straightforward exchange with an ally that benefits Russia the most and is great PR for NK, internally and locally.
At this point in time would anyone bet against US troops going in and "peacekeeping" for Putin against Ukraine? It seems pretty clear that the US is aligned against the West now.
Almost everything pouring out of his mouth today is replaying what is in Russian state media sadly.
The US is not "aligned against the West". The US is simply breaking from the ideology it's had since WW2 that it's in the US' best interest to get involved in every international conflict in the world.
You'd think that the left would be ecstatic about that considering how much it's criticized US involvement in other countries conflicts, but here we are - it's the left that is trashing the US for not wanting to get involved.
I mean that ideology is, practically speaking, what "the West" is.
But certainly in the UK it was a party of "the left" that invaded Iraq with the US. It was a party of "the left" that invaded Afghanistan with the US. And it was a party of "the left" that is now bolstering the military after a decade of decline by a party of "the right".
"The left" were fighting fascism across Europe in the last century, from the International Brigade in Spain to the Soviets against Hitler.
The actual problem The West has now is that the guarantor of military power has gone. Trump and Vance were literally shouting propaganda from Russian state media to Zelensky (look up starting WW3, or VIP tours) and making false equivalency between being invaded and defending your country.
Trump has carried out the biggest rug-pull in history and aligned the USA with Russia. Against The West.
> I mean that ideology is, practically speaking, what "the West" is.
This makes no sense. The current ideology is only 70 years old. The "West" has existed for centuries before that.
Maybe you're young and you think there are no options but the current path, but I can assure you there is.
The truth is that the US (or Europe) is not willing to go head to head with Russia. They have neither the public support or the willingness to take the economic hit.
So if they aren't willing to defeat Russia, what is the only possible outcome? A negotiated peace.
So rather than grinding up another few hundred thousand human lives in the war and end up in the same place a few years from now, why not just finish it now?
Because appeasing aggressors never works? I mean, we literally took the appeasement route when he annexed Crimea. A few years later and here we are. Guess what happens when we appease him now?
The term The West applies to those countries born out of European heritage which _assumed_ semi-direct lineage from the Graeco-Roman empires of Antiquity (notably the Late Antique split in the early church across Eastern/Western lines). Like all political terms it's in constant flux, but yes, today it largely means the superset of NATO + Five Eyes countries.
Vance's Munich speech and the Whitehoust confrontation yesterday confirms that the USA has turned its back on the west - you only have to see the reaction of world leaders to see that - outside of Orban, the only people congratulating Trump were Putin and Lavrov. Who could singlehandedly stop the war - right now - by pulling their troops out of a sovereign, democratic state.
Not sure what my age has to do with anything but I was bought up during the Cold War if that helps.
Who said anything about appeasing? Fighting for the best peace deal you can is not "appeasing".
NATO is never going to escalate with Russia to the point Ukraine gets all it's territory back - and Putin knows that. NATO isn't stupid - Ukraine isn't worth expanding the war beyond Ukraine into Eastern Europe. They have neither the financial resources nor the support back home. They are willing to sacrifice Ukrainian lives, but not their own grip on power.
So if we know how this all ends - Ukraine giving up territory in exchange for peace, then why not pursue that instead of throwing another million lives and hundred billion dollars into the chipper and getting the same deal in 3 years instead?
> Vance's Munich speech and the Whitehoust confrontation yesterday confirms that the USA has turned its back on the west
No, it means the US is turning it's back on the neoliberal geopolitical position that grinding down competing powers through proxy wars is always worth it in the end. George Kennan died long ago, and it's time to let his geopolitical strategy die too.
It's a position that only existed since WW2, and one that has gotten the US involved in dozens of wars since then, often at a greater cost than the benefit in the end (e.g. Vietnam, Iraq).
Read again what Putin's stated aims are. Hoping for a peace deal with a totalitarian, expansive state does not work. It didn't work when it was "just Crimea", it won't work when it's "just some towns they took by force".
It's utterly naive, given all his history, to think Putin will just acquiesce.
Even if your geopolitical assumptions are correct, Trump and Vance's behaviour yesterday - humiliating a war leader in front of the worlds media, using the rhetoric and tropes of the invaders he is facing was unbelievably disgusting.
How is it not appeasing when "finding the best peace deal" equals "letting an agressor state keep a chip of neighboring state", even more so when this repeats every few years?
Also, please don't forget what Putin's stated aims are - reconquest of Russian border back to pre 1930 limits (maybe you understand why Polish defence spending is at 5% GDP) and the breakup of the EU. These are his aims - he doesn't just want that little bit of Ukraine he has - parts of Poland, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia all are at stake.
> The US is simply breaking from the ideology it's had since WW2 that it's in the US' best interest to get involved in every international conflict in the world.
The publicized ideology, is not always the reality. The US has always been involved with every international conflict. The CIA was the formalization of the interest.
Manpower was always going to be their hardest-to-overcome problem in a protracted war. The relative population sizes when the war started meant they needed an extremely positive kill/death ratio (if you will) just to stay at parity.
Being on the defense and retreating gives exactly that parity. Soviet doctrine even has a number for that which is somewhat close to the ratio of Ukrainian to russian populations.
Yes, they have serious advantages from being on the defense, and a lot of other things working in their favor. I just mean that it was clear from the beginning that that was the thing that couldn't really be adjusted by aid (short of direct involvement of other militaries) and where the numbers were extremely not in their favor, so it'd be the thing to watch out for, as far as what might eventually force them to cede territory for peace or even to outright lose, even if foreign aid remained steady.
We have powerful weapons now. Manpower is not the (most) limiting factor. If the Ukraine had 10 times its current long range drone production, the Russians would start whining about peace deals.
Yes, and from the videos all over the Internet, a lot of what those weapons do is kill people. If just blowing up machines won the war, Ukraine would have declared victory in the first year.
There are lots of potential limiting factors, population's just one where Ukraine started at a big disadvantage and that can't really be made up for by foreign aid, unlike munitions or food or what have you (short of other countries outright sending troops). Weapons can be sent, but if they run short of people to use the weapons, to the point that they can't maneuver, can't credibly threaten counter-offensives, eventually can't cover the entire front... then things start to fall apart.
Like once they survived and repulsed the initial attempt at blitzkrieg, and things settled in to a stable-ish front, population is the particular figure that would tend to give you a knot in your stomach, looking at the on-paper situation from their perspective, and the prospect of a long war.
Oh, sure, mess up their logistics network enough and they'll have trouble keeping their front resupplied. I don't see evidence that it's happening yet, but sure, saturate important targets with enough bombs and it will eventually, hopefully Ukraine finds a way to do just that. I'm sure it's at least helping, even what they've managed to do so far. It might be a big part of why Russia's having trouble putting together major offensives.
I'm not disputing that there are ways to win a war other than killing all the other dudes, I'm just pointing out that if Ukraine got backed into a corner, the smart money very early on was it'd happen either because "allies all pack their bags and go home" or "they run short of manpower".
Ukraine is _stalling_ the war right now. Russia is able to capture more moonscaped villages by forcing expendable (their words, not mine) manpower to assault Ukrainian positions.
Ukraine is slowly retreating, but at the rate that will require Russia _years_ to gain a meaningful amount of territory.
And that will cost Russia a great deal. This has turned into a war that heavily favors defenders. Both sides are dug in, with a wide no-mans-land between the front lines, where anyone who enters is likely to get killed by a drone.
The military experts I listen to all more or less agree that the focus on territory is just wrong. It's a war of attrition unsustainable in the long run for both sides, the question is who runs out of resources first (or if there is some sort of ceasefire before that). Germany famously lost such a war a century ago without losing any territory!
Ukraine is sending troops over 26 or so years old now. They will need to dip into their prime-aged young population eventually, the 18-to-26-year-olds. That will be a hard moral choice they apparently want to avoid, but perhaps necessary.
All these 18 year old cohort - they dont exist in Ukraine anymore, a lot of them escaped Ukraine while they were minors before reaching 18, because this issue of conscripting 18+ has been discussed for quite a while.
If you look at the reports from Ukraine high schools - its all girls class, no boys
There are almost no boys left in senior classes of Ukrainian schools. This was reported by the publication "Strana.ua" on the Telegram channel with reference to blogger Alena Yakhno.
As the blogger said, the 17-year-old son of her friend studies in Kiev , but all his classmates have left. "Only girls are left in the class. There will be no moral. It's just a fact," she wrote.
The publication recalled that upon reaching the age of 18, young people from Ukraine are no longer allowed to go abroad. In addition, the report notes, information about Ukrainian schoolchildren aged 16-17 leaving Ukraine en masse has appeared before.
Earlier, the Verkhovna Rada reported on hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren who left the country before the start of the school year. According to MP Nina Yuzhina, about 300 thousand students, mostly high school students, left Ukraine in July and August. In addition, due to the departure of young people, 2,114 schools have been closed in Ukraine over the past four years.
I don't know if original claim is true or not in general, but lenta.ru in particular is a poor source of information, it's heavily skewed into Russian-government side.
The media operation Strana is mentioned as the source for the lenta.ru story.
Strana is sanctioned and banned by the Ukrainian government, though Ukraine government hands out a lot of media bans.
It's a bummer that just about every media outlet in Ukraine is either tightly linked to Russian propaganda, or on the other side its mostly super pro Ukrainian (formerly funded by USAID) outlets with ties to weird libertarian billionaires who want to turn Ukraine into free market paradise. Hardly any middle ground.
Just think about it logically, if you are a mother of 16 y.o kid, and USA says you must conscript 18+ y.o to receive any further aid - would you just sit and wait for your child to get drafted on his next birthday?
oh totally, I would leave immediately. I financially helped a family with teenage kids smuggle themselves out of Ukraine to a different country a few months into the recent invasion.
You can count how many high school children there are in Ukraine. There is something like 4 millions now, so the loss of a couple hundred of students of both sexes does not make classes girls only.
People, families with kids, leave Ukraine, because living in a country during war is not nice, to say the least. The fear of mobilization is only one aspect of it.
There are pros and cons. I live in Canada now, and one major downside is that, because technically I would be an international student, I cannot afford a university. The tuition fee for international students is through the roof. But, ultimately, leaving Ukraine was a correct decision, because otherwise I would have ended up fighting Russia. In summary, it sucks but could have been worse.
You are correct. But, ironically, unlike in Ukraine, in Canada and probably in the US, entry-level jobs (also known as internships) are reserved for undergraduate students. You could call this is another downside of leaving Ukraine.
At least in the US, you can just make something complicated enough to show some skill and get a real job. That's what I did, anyway. I used to work in a factory.
Yeah, that's what I think too. I have been working on a project[0] to do just that, would you mind commenting if my project is something that can be considered complicated enough? In your experience, were you not blocked by the fact that companies are looking for "years of professional experience"?
As a graybeard with teenage kids, this is terribly disheartening... I would rather be cannon fodder than my sons. After all, I have already reproduced and I have taught hundreds of youngsters all what I knew. I would gladly accept that my contribution to mankind is already done and gone, before seeing one of my children go to war. Is youth so important for soldiers? Wouldn't it be better to send forty and fifty year olds to the front? Anything before 18-26 youngs? It makes no sense. Are they so much more competent than any random middle-age?
Ukraine has churned all their greybeards and middle age folks, and 18+ are the only ones not conscripted yet. (Hence Trump's comment that Ukraine is having manpower issues and has no strong cards left for negotiations)
It hasn't any strong cards only because the west (which is now Europe - the US is almost at Russias side now) is trickling the weapons supply. Open the taps!
What's the point of more recruits when the existing ones don't get enough training and adequate equipment? Ukraine needs weapons far more than it needs manpower.
For China, a balkanized nuclear Russia may be a greater threat than supplying them manpower (due to surplus men and civil unrest) and materiel. I would not expect Russia to run into the WW1 germany problem.
There's no evidence of a substantial number of Chinese nationals serving in the Russian military, rather then just a few notable examples. The largest foreign troop commitment by state-sanction was the North Koreans, which were about ~10,000 strong and have since been withdrawn (after heavy losses).
Yes, and the point I'm making is that (1) Chinese nationals have served, indicating that Beijing at least tacitly approves mercenary actions and (2) China can increase deployment if needed by either economic or prisoner release coercion.
This is a meatgrinder conflict. If China can reduce its dissident or potentially rebellious population while avoiding a collapse of Russia mirroring WW1 Germany, they may very well (and I would argue are likely) do so.
That doesn't follow: Ukraine has the international legion (probably about 3,500 people in country last I checked) and a number of Russian groups fighting on behalf of Ukraine.
The only thing Chinese nationals fighting for Russia tells us is that China is not expressly limiting freedom of movement to do so...but there has also been at least 1 American who tried to join Russia to fight Ukraine (and was tortured to death by the Russians on suspicion of being a spy for his trouble).
First, 3,500 is a drop in the bucket. Second, just because China hasn't yet mobilized doesn't mean they won't if they feel a line is crossed like they did in Korea.
With a country like China, everything is on the table
> (1) Chinese nationals have served, indicating that Beijing at least tacitly approves mercenary actions
I wouldn't assume a small number of Chinese nationals volunteering to fight for Russia means China approves of their actions. Several Australians ended up fighting for ISIS in Syria and Iraq, that doesn't mean the Australian government approves of Australians fighting for ISIS, it just means it failed in those cases to stop them – it didn't realise they planned to do that before they left the country, or they didn't decide to do it until after they were already living overseas.
And one difference, is obviously Australia and ISIS are sworn enemies, so when Australians volunteered to fight for ISIS, the Australian government could openly condemn their action. Whereas, China and Russia are allies, so even if China disapproves of its citizens volunteering to fight for Russia, it can't condemn them publicly because it would harm the alliance.
China isn't sending a "small number"; casualties alone have supposedly reached into the hundreds (see this account: https://x.com/whyyoutouzhele/ you will need to go back awhile) and recruiting is heavily concentrated among former PLA.
Make no mistake: if China wanted to shut this down it could.
> China isn't sending a "small number"; casualties alone have supposedly reached into the hundreds
I think the word "supposedly" is important here – I don't think we have any hard data on how many Chinese volunteers there are serving with Russia.
And I'd question how big a military contribution these Chinese volunteers are making. Russia has hundreds of thousands of troops fighting in this war, even a thousand Chinese volunteers would be less than 1%.
> Make no mistake: if China wanted to shut this down it could.
Even if the Chinese government is willing to "turn a blind eye" to this going on at a low volume, that doesn't mean they'd let it grow to a significantly higher volume.
It also isn't clear whether this is a deliberate initiative from the very top, or something that has grown organically bottom-up and the people at the top have decided to let it be for now rather than crack down on it.
Which military experts? If you listen to actually knowledgeable people like Kofman it's been known forever that 2024 would be (and as we now are seeing from Russia being pushed back) Russia's peak. Russia is out of equipment and is starting to get similar problems with manpower. In the meantime Europe's investments are starting to pay off and allow Ukraine to pull ahead in 2025.
Ukraine has been loosing a three-day-special operation for three years.
Russia's refinery's are getting hit and all that crude oil is worthless with a refinery. In the case of the campaign again Nazi Germany's refineries funny enough it's the allies who didn't think it as critical as the Nazis did https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_campaign_of_World_War_II#O...
There's a difference between "siding with Russia" and siding with negotiated peace.
Many people seem to think that the US, and to a lesser extent the EU, should fund this war indefinitely. However, the US clearly does not benefit from a direct war with Russia, and while we may gain from a proxy war, choosing not to fund it does not equate to “siding with Russia.”
The US has sided with Russia against European and Western civilisation. Don’t understate what we are witnessing. The betrayal of civilisation is almost complete.
When the “negotiated peace” is “Russia gets everything they want, you give us every dime and your treasury, and we don’t promise to actually help you when Russia attacks again after we let them re-arm for as long as they like”…. That isn’t a peace deal, it’s virtually unconditional surrender.
Under what circumtances is the US allowed to pull out of a war they didn't start, which does not directly involve any US interests, in which we have already invested $110bn? Never? Not until we spend another $500bn we don't have?
This isn’t pulling out. It’s embarassing an ally on the world stage while acting like the spoiled toddler and Putin asset that he is. This is not normal. This isn’t even bad. This is outside politics and just flat out treasonous.
No one is arguing that the US isn't allowed to pull out.
But "negotiating" a treaty with the other side and then claiming that that treaty is the final word on the war is atrocious. That's what's crazy. Not ending US involvement, but trying to say that Ukraine must stop fighting.
Now, I also think the US should keep supporting Ukraine, but that's a totally different topic.
> There's a difference between "siding with Russia" and siding with negotiated peace.
There is absolutely no difference, when the US is negotiating that peace only with Russia, without Ukraine in the room.
With Trump administration officials not able to name a single compromise they’ve asked from Russia.
If the “negotiated peace” is “I asked the country that invaded you what they want, and you must do everything they asked for”, that’s not negotiation.
I will never understand how people can be so quick to abandon independence nations, and are so willing to bow to dictators. You would cheer Chamberlain submitting to Hitler as he launches an invasion as a momentous day for peace. You would be wrong then, and you are wrong now.
Exactly... so what's the purpose of continuing the fight and killing Russian and Ukrainian men for no reason? This forum used to be a strong supporter of men's rights, but apparently these disappear once we dehumanize them via international relations. There's literally no reason for any individual Russian or Ukrainian man to die right now, since we all agree that no territory is being gained or lost.
Negotiated peace was what Russia and Ukraine had before, and Russia unilaterally broke it.
That is why the focus now is on security guarantees, which the U.S. is refusing so far. Without those, anything negotiated is a gift to Russia, specifically the gift of time to regroup and re-arm for another attack later on.
Lasting peace is not created by concessions, it is created when instigators believe they have more to lose than to gain from further violence.
It is an absurd position that the US should be on the hook to indefinitely pay for any war anywhere in the world forever, and if they attempt to negotiate peace while pulling out of that war that they are siding with the opposition.
The problem is not that the U.S. is trying to negotiate for peace, the problem is that the administration is doing a hilariously bad job of it by giving up all leverage right off the bat.
We don't have any leverage against Russia. America has no appetite to fight them directly. If Ukraine were more effective at hurting Russia where it counts, then we might have leverage but the last few years have shown that they are not capable of that.
US should be on the hook to indefinitely pay for a particular war that resulted out of a diplomatic agreement (Budapest memorandum) that effectively prevented Ukraine from defending itself by making it surrender its nukes in exchange for nebulous security guarantees that weren't honored by US.
I think it's a fine rule of thumb but what does Putin have to gain from negotiating with Zelenskyy who he is seen as a Western puppet orchestrated as legacy of US intel agency involvement? (Which we admitted is true…)
People in this thread are completely incapable of seeing any legitimacy in any Russian concerns about Ukraine.
Whether someone's concerns are legitimate is in the eye of the beholder, but actions can be directly observed. Unilateral violent invasion must not become a legitimate tactic again. It was the norm for centuries, and excluding it resulted in the fastest rise in global living standards in history--including in the U.S. and Russia.
Putin could have kicked back and enjoyed his dacha like other less powerful dictators do all over the world, but no, he had to write a "scientific" treatise about Ruski Mir and how the Ukraine isn't actually a thing. He wants a legacy.
Well, he got it and whatever happens in the war, Russia is cooked. It's never coming back from this.
It will either fracture from the war going badly, or it will become a vassal state of China, and ironically, perhaps the US, the way things are going with the White House these days.
The other powerful “dictators” get dragged through the streets or hanged for daring to enjoy an economic system outside the US dollar. Putin knows this and so should you.
> That is why the focus now is on security guarantees, which the U.S. is refusing so far.
This seems obvious to me, but is apparently not obvious to many here.... America (no country really) can guarantee Ukrainian security without risking WWIII, and frankly there's no reason to. At the end of the day, from a non-Ukrainian standpoint, it doesn't really matter who administers the land that today is Ukraine.
Yes, there's a difference, and what Trump is doing is clearly siding with Russia. His "negotiated peace" is neither negotiated nor peace. It's a surrender.
You don't have to support Ukraine indefinitely; only until Russia stops. Your options are to support Ukraine until Russia stops, or to surrender until Russia stops.
No. Not at all. There will come a point when Russia will stop the war because either Russia is completely exhausted and on the verge of collapse, or Putin is dead or removed from power. And chances are those two will go together.
It's mind blowing to me to see the left being the war mongers now. That used to be the mantle of the right, but hey, here we are.
The arguments I see for the US staying involved are the same hand wavy ones used in Vietnam - "better to fight them over in Asia then in America". It was a weak argument then, and it's a weak argument now.
The people that helped fan the flames of this war don't give one crap about Ukraine. What they care about is the neocon policy of "do anything to keep America's rival weak". So funding a war that Ukraine pays the price for works just fine.
The truth is that the war is going to end eventually and it's not going to be Russia capitulating. So rather than a hundred thousand more dead might as well find a solution.
I do not think you can compare this conflict with Vietnam. US army went into Vietnam, while Ukraine is fighting a US rival with their own military, but they do use US provided equipment.
General public in Europe didn't see US as actively involved, or at least didn't see it until the new administration said it would end the conflict. This is when Trump administration started getting into "talks with Russia" and offering Ukraine "mineral deals". While US might have tried to do that even before, it was not discussed openly by presidents.
This war is going to flame out eventually. Lessons learned in this one will be used for the next one, which is going to hurt even more.
This is not a popular analysis. Russia has ramped up their war machine significantly over the last 2 years and have been successfully grinding Ukraine down. They can and will continue to do this. They’ve reoriented their economy around sustained military production, and the tariffs issued against Russia by the US and EU have proven to be ineffective.
The regions Russia is taking from Ukraine have some value in terms of GDP. It's interesting that the Freudian slip US offering involved an additional minerals deal (as in, this is the main interest of the taking parties). Russia is not going to give back GDP, and that's probably behind the break in negotiations. Russia is not relinquishing any gains, and the US wants more resources, and there is no guarantee given to Ukraine regarding its remaining territorial integrity. They are trying to make Ukraine eat shit.
Ukraine knows the future of warfare and will prosper if they survive this. They will be the ones with the technology and experience in future warfare, and the USA is throwing away a chance to partner with Ukraine and guarantee such a victory.
In 20, 15, or 7 years from now when terrorists are sending drones into medium-sized cities in Alabama to kill indiscriminately, it would have been better for the USA to have been on Ukraine's side.
The value of having a front-row seat to this, from a doctrine and R&D point of view, is staggeringly high. Anyone who's getting copied on the reports is going to be a full generation ahead of countries that aren't.
... that goes for Russia's partners, too. Meaning it's even more important for us.
Trump is the commander in chief. Top military leadership who disagree with him will be forced to retire, and replaced with loyalists, if they haven't been already.
I agree, no coup. On the other hand, if we the US keep changing alliances at the whim of what are essentially twitterheads, we could end up having ZERO allies.
Beau of the Fifth Column (Youtube channel for Justin King) would always emphasize (before he relinquished it all for his wife "Belle of the Ranch" to take over) that international relations are usually well-orchestrated, even between enemies, with speeches and releases using heavily coded language, to minimize the possibilities of conflict. Friends and enemies both would telegraph to some degree their intentions, their protestations, their agreements, and shifting policies ... very very carefully.
Trump, Vance, Musk ... have upended this all with their amateur hour antics. They are not serious people. They think they can rewrite the rules but they've bought us at least a decade of hurt and isolation on the international stage, and likely worse economic prospects for a while. Nobody will trust us, even if saner leadership comes round in a few years.
>In 20, 15, or 7 years from now when terrorists are sending drones into medium-sized cities in Alabama to kill indiscriminately, it would have been better for the USA to have been on Ukraine's side.
Spot on. This is what Zelenskyy implied when he said "now you have an ocean but one day you'll know how it feels". But the dumb kakistocrat commander-in-chief took it personally.
By the way remember the New Jersey drone sightings that spooked the East Coast for a week? That was likely the government secretly testing defense deployement against a hypothetical drone swarms attack.
Betting on the wrong horse while Xi just has to stand aside to see the crown of superpower being handed to him with no effort, Russia on the road to implode in a fire sale, while China looks to sign lucrative trade agreements with the EU.
Brexit was shooting yourself in the foot, today was a gruesome display of diplomatic suicide on live television.
The EU could end up taking that crown if they handle this well.
Firstly of course, they need to be united, steadfast and decisive in their support for Ukraine until Russia collapses. They should be building new alliances, with India, South America, and any free countries in Africa and Asia. And maybe some unfree ones. Possibly even China, because let's face it, despite its many flaws, China is not the threat to Europe that Russia is. A wedge between China and Russia would weaken Russia and help the EU.
Then, after Russia collapses and the US has withdrawn from the world stage, it will be the EU that saved Ukraine, just like after WW2, the new super powers where the US and USSR that defeated Germany. And Ukraine has a lot to offer that the EU lacks.
The EU is incredibly powerful. Biggest common market in the world, half a billion people, 2nd largest military in the world if they put it all together. The EU just needs to learn to flex its muscles, to unite and assert itself, instead of hiding behind the US.
The ascent of Europe is the sort of outcome I might hope for — speaking as an American who believes in American values that my country no longer represents.
Speaking of religion and Europe ... while not in Latin America I spent a few years growing up here and there in Arizona, my parents being ministers in a pentecostal church. All the pentecostal and charismatic churches were in thrall of the Hal Lindsey book "Late Great Planet Earth" [0] and other prophetic books trying to map nations/geographies from the Book of Revelation / Apocalypse to the then-day international power structure. "Sister Drew", our local in-congregation prophecy expert, would relay the latest findings. From what I remember, the idea was that Russia and Europe were to fight it out, Europe being the seat of the Antichrist's power, and somehow the Vatican was embroiled in it too.
Europe was supposed to be the "late stage" of human civilization, from Daniel's Old Testament dream of the human-form statue. The head of gold was the pinnacle of civilization, Babylon. The silver chest and arms were Persia. The belly and thighs were the Greek Empire. The legs of iron were the Roman Empire, resurrected as the fractious European Common Market (now European Union) in the feet of "iron mixed with clay".
The USA was variously portrayed as the Great Wh*re of Babylon, or else had some heroic role of some kind in these End Times.
At some point, all nations would stop fighting each other and join together to turn on Israel. Israel would be doomed but for God's intervention. From Daniel's dream, a pebble would form from nothing, grow to be a mighty boulder, and smash the feet of iron and clay (Europe, and by proxy godless humanity) and the rest of human civilization in form of the statue would crumble. The mighty boulder being ... Jesus. Israel would be mostly destroyed but a rescued "remnant", faithful Christians would be raptured / taken to heaven, the World would End ... and eventually all humanity would be judged for eternal salvation or punishment.
Wacky, fringe stuff ... EXCEPT THAT THESE BELIEFS ARE SO RELEVANT TO OUR PRESENT POLITICAL SITUATION IN THE USA. Check out the book "The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy" by Matthew D Taylor [1]. In this book and various podcasts Taylor describes the origins, religious and political philosophy, and current political power of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). No NAR church / congregation will claim the moniker today, but it remains a perfect description of the structure, leadership, and influence of this movement. The Bebbington Quadrilaterial splits "evangelicals" in the USA (and internationally) into four groups based on measures along two axes ... the "denominational vs non-denominational", and "charistmatic vs non-charistmatic". I grew up in in the denominational charismatic square, where churches believe in and expect the miraculous, but also belong to a centralized denomination with standards and accountability. The NAR congregations fit in the non-denominational charistmatic square, have a very authoritarian leadership structure with "apostles and prophets" at the top of each organization, and with a forest of MLM trees of such organizations, with no accountability at all for the "apostles" (c.f. the Mike Bickle scandal, and so many others, where people got away with abuse for years). In any case, in 2015 Trump's "spiritual advisor" Paula White (in early 2025 now is head of the White House Faith Council) gathered many apostles in this NAR movement around Trump, to throw their weight behind his candidacy and make him an acceptable candidate for their brand of evangelicals, and to pull in low-information evangelicals of other stripes behind his candidacy. And hence ... a conversation today between Trump and Zelensky, and many other knock-on effects.
Note that the NAR proposes to take over the world through their Seven Mountains Mandate, to "Bring Heaven to Earth", and usher in the End of Time. Of course, Trump does not believe any of...
>China is not the threat to Europe that Russia is. A wedge between China and Russia would weaken Russia and help the EU
It gets interesting when you realize that Russia is also a rival to China in Northeast Asia. A balkanized Russia, like the one the EU could have manifested had it took Russia warnings seriously and brought about decisive action after troops were invading Crimea. But no they lived in their "End of History" fantasy and that virtuous liberties will magically be spread if we just trade goods and ideas between spheres of influence.
Of course this reality will be bad for our allies in Asia (ie. Japan, SK, Taiwan). But maybe this time it'll wake up some in America from becoming isolationist again.
I see SK and Japan also as necessary allies for the EU. But if China decides to take Taiwan, I don't think there's anything the EU could possibly hope to do about it; Taiwan remains independent because the US guarantees their independence. If Trump were to withdraw that guarantee too, I don't think there's anything that can save Taiwan.
It sucks, but the EU has more urgent problems closer to home. All I can hope for is that Trump hates China enough that he'll continue to guarantee Taiwan's freedom. But I'm sure at some point he's going to ask them for some more material "thanks" too.
But yeah, the EU's relationship with China should not be the same as that with other allies. But I think there's room for some cooperation, and the EU might not object too loudly if China were to take outer Manchuria back, for example.
Honestly I don't think I can see China taking Taiwan militarily. They witnessed how the world isolated Russia economically after the aggression on Ukraine and especially since their economy relies on exports. They don't have much to win other than some geopolitical credit at the expense of their manufacturing and technology sector.
China is conducting a policy where they'll cripple Taiwan's will to seek independence from just sheer soft and economic power. They offer fantastic perks to Taiwanese from the oppurtinity to work visa free, access to credit/mortgage with no social credit screening and ability to invest with no usual red tape.
The Taiwanese are being told China is an aggressor but nowadays they see the opposite. Also if China invades it'll destroy every goodwill they had built to win over Taiwanese hearts and won't get control over TSMC supply chain market since the latter promised to torpefy their fabs before China gets its hand on them.
In an ideal world I'd agree with you, but the world is unfortunately very far removed from that. You don't have to agree with everything to look for common ground in other areas. Support the good, criticize the bad.
Why are you acting as if China is a benign bystander in this? They literally sided with Russia in the very beginning of the war, including notifying Putin of intelligence the US shared with them in the months leading up to the war.
You also seem to be yet another person predicting Russia's "collapse", which is a prediction I've been hearing since a few years after Putin took control.
> 2nd largest military in the world if they put it all together
Military industrial capacity is Europe's main problem right now. I believe they're ramping up production, but it's going to take years. They may end up having to buy the arms from the US in the meantime if they want to aid Ukraine. If it gets to that, the question is whether they give China some business.
Seriously, I'm wondering who is going to be a more dangerous geopolitical foe for Europe going forward, the US or China. The ascendant forces in the in the US are pro-Russia, and that's not likely to change in the near term. Unlike China, though, we haven't sold military hardware to Russia. Yet.
I'm not so sure that's a realistic option when there's US officials saying to allies they should buy less US equipment.[1] It doesn't inspire confidence.
> A British defence figure, who is not part of the government, was told privately by US officials that it should “recalibrate” its reliance on US equipment.
And then there's this.
> They said that a US administration could put restrictions on kit from the US and that if countries are “deemed not to be doing what you are told you will suddenly find out missiles won’t fire and planes won’t fly. You have got to be careful.”
When allies buy less US equipment, what happens to the US citizens employed in the defence industry?
EU is a lot looser union of sovereign nations than USA, where the states are federal. California or Texas do not have their separate foreign policies; France and Germany do.
I don't see "EU taking that crown" happening any time soon, sadly. With the ascent of (often Russia sponsored) far-right nationalist parties, this is even less likely.
Trump's approach is probably going to work partially in the short term. - The US is very powerful, a lot of countries are reliant on them, so bullying can be used to extract benefits. They got their plane thingy with Colombia, Mexico didn't react much to the preludes of military action against the cartels. The US could annex the Panama Canal and Greenland.
There's a reason why hawks like Bolton and Cheney are against it. It harms US interests in the mid-to-long-term. To me it seems like the Trump adminstration is a) trying to distract from their domestic agenda and b) isolate the US internationally and create new external foes to justify domestic changes.
Oh is China going to guarantee Ukraine's security now?
At the end of the day, Zelensky had the most obvious proposition in the world -- allow American companies access to Ukrainian minerals. He kept asking for a security guarantee as if he needed anything more.
If he expected Trump or Vance to publicly announce they would go to war with nuclear-armed Russia over these mineral deals, then he's not fit to be president of any country.
The security implication was obvious... if Russia threatened American mining operations, the United States would obviously respond.
But the demand that Trump say he would go to war with Russia.. what purpose would that possibly serve? Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows the implication.
So maybe he can now turn to China, but I'll tell you that China's propositions for Ukraine's rare earth minerals will likely have Ukraine losing a lot more sovereignty than the scenarios where America took them over instead of the one where Russia wins.
China sided with Russia from the very beginning of the war, including notifying Putin as soon as the US revealed their intelligence in a meeting with Xi before the invasion. Interesting how quickly you forget this inconvenient detail in the narrative you've constructed in your head.
Yes, plus Ukraine learnt a lesson when the GOP stalled aid and they ran low on supplies, so they have stockpiled and domestic production has increased. It's a war of attrition and so both sides are hoping to keep going until the other collapses. The US withdrawing support is a victory for Russian, but it won't end the war. What happens with sanctions might, but also without the US telling them what to do the gloves will be off Ukraine.
So much for stopping the war in 24hrs. Trump's plans were never going to work there, and both Russian and Ukraine were going to try and make it look like the failure was not their fault - guess Russian won that particular battle, maybe it was never even a contest.
I follow a lot of Ukrainian commentary, it's hard for me to conclude Ukraine is doing well.
They're having to conscript younger and younger people every day.
No business is insane enough to invest in Ukraine at the moment.
Some companies are crazy enough to try to ship goods in and out of Odesa, but its significantly less than pre-war.
Every time the Ukrainian army tries to take back territory in the Donbas, the Russian army repels their forward strikes, and usually takes a few more feet of the Donbas in the process.
It's really hard to win a war of attrition against the largest country in the world.
The Russian army occupies some of the largest energy sources of Ukraine. I haven't investigated recently but I suspect Russia is still Ukraine's largest LNG provider.
Ukraine doesn't consume Russian LNG. As of January 2025, the LNG transitting Ukraine for Russia has stopped because Ukraine refused to renew the deal.
No, Ukraine is not in a position to reclaim significant ground. The state of the war is such that any offensive action is ruinously expensive, and while Russia is willing to pay that price, the fact that they're shipping North Koreans in to pay that cost rather than generally mobilize speaks volumes about the state they're in. Interest rates are at 21%; food inflation at 30%; unemployment at 2%, which indicates a severe labour shortage. They're destroying their own economy to grab just a few more feet before it unravels at home.
Meanwhile, Rheinmetall is launching joint ventures and building factories in Ukraine because they have the most warfighting experience of anyone right now and are leading the world in drone combat. Ukraine is still not conscripting anyone under 25, which is a large pool of recruits they've held in reserve. And after today, Europe is making a conspicuous show up increasing spending and standing behind Ukraine.
They can't kick Russia out, but they can certainly hold on longer than Russia with the ongoing support of Europe, and the way Zelensky was treated today has been a huge morale boost for standing firm.
“the US, in siding with Russia, may be betting on the wrong horse”
This is delusional. Russia would’ve bulldozed Ukraine without US support. What county is under US sanctions? What country is receiving US weapons? Which, to be sure, is the correct choice. And having public spars with Ukraine is not.
But the fact that someone just typed this out and posted it is just so delusional. The fact that people upvoted this is delusional.
On March 16, 2014, the President issued Executive Order
13661, which expanded the scope of the national emergency
declared in Executive Order 13660, and found that the actions
and policies of the Government of the Russian Federation with
respect to Ukraine undermine democratic processes and
institutions in Ukraine; threaten its peace, security,
stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity; and
contribute to the misappropriation of its assets.
…Therefore… I [Trump]… am continuing… Execute Order 13660.
I don’t know why this pisses me off so much. Ostensibly we agree broadly. It’s just, HN really used to have such good nuanced and factual discussions, even outside tech. Now it’s all just raw anger.
The US military was concerned about this scenario long before and raised concerns back in 2011. They predicted why someone like Trump would would come in power and question the purpose of NATO. But it was not taken seriously by NATO allies at that time. Obama even wanted European allies to be able to launch their own military missions with just US as a support role. The Libya interventions was supposed to be a test of that.
Yep. The warnings have existed for a long time, but most European states have continued to ignore the hallmarks.
Even Poland only started rearming after Kazynski's plane was shot down in Smolensk in 2010 (edit; not shot down), Romania only (started after Crimea and it's implications of a similar incident in neighboring Moldova in 2014, Turkiye began due interventions in Syria and Libya that lead to Turkish and Russian soldiers fighting against each other in 2012-15, and Netherlands after over a hundred of their citizens were shot down in an Air Malaysia Flight in 2015-16 (forgetting the exact date)
Trump is absolutely wrong in publicly abandoning our European allies, but this is something every administration since 2008 has been saying would eventually happen.
The failed UK-France intervention in Libya should have been the warning call (France and UK's air forces couldn't disable Libya's A2AD and ran out of precision muntions, forcing the Obama admin to intervene and spark the Benghazi crisis which helped bring Trump into the Oval Office in 2016). In fact, that incident probably further emboldened Russia as Libya's military apparatus was heavily Russian/Soviet in armament and strategy.
Uhm, that Polish plane wasn’t shot down. Don’t spread silly conspiracy theories.
Polish military spendings were rising steadily since long before the accident, but a significant increase happened after Russian full scale invasion on Ukraine.
Fair point about the Smolensk Incident - confused it with the Netherlands incident - but it was that incident that sparked Poland's fears about Russia again [0], and most of Poland's military buildup and modernization only began in the 2012-13 period after the partnership with South Korea kicked in [1][2]
World needs to help out Ukraine because if Ukraine falls it shows that you should never give up your nuclear weapons for any agreement or treaty. They are just pieces of paper that guarantee nothing. This will just lead to more countries getting nukes which means higher likelihood of a nuclear war.
> World needs to help out Ukraine because if Ukraine falls it shows that you should never give up your nuclear weapons for any agreement or treaty.
This is, unfortunately, already the case. No country will ever fully trust such treaties again, and we are closer than ever to a new era of nuclear proliferation.
True. Non-proliferation is dead, killed three years ago. Only when Ukraine gets Russia to the point of a Compiègne Forest railroad car end (remember how much of Germany had been occupied at that point?) there is hope for a future without widespread nuke availability.
The railroad car was used in 1918 and in 1940. In both cases Germany was unoccupied, in WW1 because the war was fought on French and on Flandern fields, in 1940 because it was the beginning of the war.
You're possibly thinking of the German surrender, first in Reims, then a day later again in Berlin.
> it shows that you should never give up your nuclear weapons for any agreement or treaty
This is something every related country already knows, think of Pakistan and North Korea. Are you expecting China and India to drop their nukes because of some nice treaty?
> World needs to help out Ukraine...
... to achieve peace ASAP, because thousands of lives are being lost.
I'm gonna get flak for this, but both Trump and Biden are heavily to blame for nuclear proliferation. Trump due to his actions against Iran in ripping up the nuclear deal just because he didn't like the person who negotiated it in combination with his decision to assassinate Soleimani. But Biden is just as much to blame due to his refusal to do anything of consequence when Russia broke the agreements of the Budapest Memorandum. We should have had boots on the ground when they invaded, but we waffled back and forth on selling them 50 year old weapons technology for months and now years. Unacceptable, and now the whole world knows that the major nuclear powers can't be trusted to come to anybody's aid.
I had to Wikipedia the memorandum to even know what it was, but wasn't Obama president in 2014 when Russia first breached it? Asking honestly, was that not a crucial failure but Biden's response (or lack of one) in 2022 was crucial?
Yes, Obama also bears a lot of the blame for this. If US reacted properly back in 2014 (or at any later point before 2022), the 2022 invasion wouldn't have happened.
Frankly, the EU is only able to "think long and hard" but never to actually do anything. They have no warfighters anymore and it will take years for the member states of the EU to rebuild anything resembling military capability, if the EU even allows it. Brussels is the equivalent to the Deep State in the US but with official status, instead of being a shadow government. The only leverage EU member states have vis a vis the US is as trading partners and as vassal states for Pax Americana. If the EU wants to move away from the US, good luck. The member states of the EU are soon going to realize they are "a peninsula at the tip of Eurasia" and their best interests lie in close ties to the US.
Ukraine is in a bind, and it is sad when a buffer state is put through the meat grinder in a proxy war between two great powers. But here we are. The upside is that the Ukrainians who weren't killed in the conflict will be, along with Poland and Lithuania, the only "European" states with anything resembling a capable military. I doubt the EU members want Ukraine as a full member of NATO. Too risky. There are some proposals on the table for a more complicated peace without conceding full neutrality of Ukraine to Russia.
I don't think many people understand the nature of this conflict. They merely see "Russian aggression" but have little comprehension of great power competition and the events leading up to the hot part of this war. I feel for the Ukrainians but I wonder if any of the Ukraine boosters would shed a drop of their own blood for Ukraine. If the US demands that the Europeans take a larger role in the security of Europe, we will see if the European NATO members are up to the task. The US needs to pivot its resources to China in the coming decade. The war with Russia has been very costly and strengthened the bonds between Russia and China (and Iran and North Korea). The Europeans should take a great role in policing their own neighborhood, but I don't believe the EU, as currently constructed, is the governance vehicle capable of leading a unified Europe. The member states are, quite understandably, not happy to give up their sovereignty and culture. Participation in a common market has been a disaster for the working class of Western Europe (unless you think cheaper products is the only measure of a country's vitality). The EU experiment might be at an inflection point. They can remain in this bureaucratic quagmire, or reassert the spirit of Wesphalian sovereignty, or await the arrival of a new Charlemagne to unite a strong Europe under sovereign leadership capable of meeting the challenges of the 21st century. My money is on the decline of the EU into irrelevance and a return to the Westphalian spirit. There is no political will centered in Brussels capable of leading this ragtag assemblage of diverse states and peoples. The border problems persist. The result will be more populist revolts and ascendant "right wing" parties advocating "blood and soil" nationalism. If that's the future, then the western european states will only be supported militarily via bilateral treaties with the US or under the umbrella of a NATO dominated by the US. The latter is just the norm for the post-WWII "New World Order" so it will feel familiar. With luck, the collapse of the EU will allow EU member states to reassert control over their own borders and laws. If that happens, they should abandon this resentment of the US and be grateful they were saved from the managed decline of their central government in Brussels.
1. The US has shed blood for far less serious reasons. Less than 5 years ago we were "shedding blood" for opium farms in the middle east.
2. As it stands today, the US comes out on top. They paid a measly sum to throw Russia in the meat grinder and it will take decades until Russia is threat to the US again.
3. Our military hawks now get to focus on China. EU still has to worry about Russia
The US just fought a 20 year war and shed quite a bit of blood and treasure. It also appears the US military has been "in country" in Ukraine under special non-uniformed deployments (read "on loan officially as mercenaries"). When was the last war fought by a Western European "power"? Europe fights, if at all, wearing blue helmets, or sometimes fighting "from the rear" behind US military might.
I don't think America would/should shed blood for Ukraine nor Europe for that matter. We have bigger issues at the moment, like illegal immigrants, drug cartels, corruption, and China's stated ambitions in the Pacific.
Ukraine is a buffer state to constrain Russia's westward ambitions. Think of it as an unfortunate flat road connecting Asia and Europe, ideal for military movement (especially Russian tank warfare). It is seen as a linchpin or "heartland" of Eurasia. Unfortunately, there is no strategic option to let Russia dominate it while maintaining US global hegemony. Whether that's "right" or not, it's the consensus opinion in the American foreign policy apparatus. The hope is that it can be Europe's responsibility and the US can "pivot to China."
I am well aware of Ukraine's geography and its consequences for Europe. You all have been fighting over that area quite viciously for the last 1000 years.
Question and I ask this honestly. What if Americans no longer care about global hegemony or the fate of Europe? As an American I am tired of the continual idea that we have to care about what happens in Europe and if anything bad happens there it is egg on our face. What about egg on Europe's face? They choose not to spend money on their defense and keep their end of the NATO agreement. I have no appetite to keep up our end of the NATO treaty in wartime if the other parties couldn't keep up their end in peacetime.
This was a book written by a British about continental Europe. I don't think it holds much value to America. It definitely would impact Europe, Britain, the ME, and North Africa. But honestly it will not have much of an impact on America in terms of our security. There will be impacts to global markets but none that would destroy or really hammer ours. This was written from the view point of European power, which hasn't existed since the end of WW2.
It is the consensus view of the foreign establishment. You can argue for an isolationist foreign policy. We do have a "big beautiful ocean" separating us from the problems of the world. But global powers have a way of competing with each other on a global scale. I'm partial to arguments against global empire because the metropole tends to become just another territory to administer (a kind of home colony). You can see this especially in Britain today. The problems of immigration and border controls at home are hard to separate from foreign policy. Look at a country with extreme border controls like North Korea and see they still need allies to survive. Hence North Korean soldiers dying on the battlefields of Ukraine.
If you want to argue for a renewed commitment to the Monroe Doctrine, I'm with you. Heck, I'm even there for Manifest Destiny (Canada as the 51st state, as Benjamin Franklin would have had it). But the downsides of a multipolar world are legitimate. Ideally we can maintain our global dominance without oppressing/degrading our own and allied populations.
> Frankly, the EU is only able to "think long and hard" but never to actually do anything. They have no warfighters anymore and it will take years for the member states of the EU to rebuild anything resembling military capability, if the EU even allows it.
What are you on about? EU countries + UK have over a million professional military personnel.
> Brussels is the equivalent to the Deep State in the US but with official status, instead of being a shadow government.
The EU parliament has members elected from each country in the EU, there's no deep state conspiracy there.
> The member states of the EU are soon going to realize they are "a peninsula at the tip of Eurasia" and their best interests lie in close ties to the US.
This is the complete opposite of what's actually going on, EU countries are realizing we need a stronger EU and we need to fend for ourselves and will be moving away from US ties.
Russia has 1.5 million active military personnel. So you're basically saying that the entire EU+UK is militarily smaller than a country (Russia) that has a GDP less than Texas.
EU+UK aren't conscripting at this time and also have much better training and equipment than Russia, so the comparison isn't apples to apples, I was just saying that we do in fact have "warfighters".
EU+UK don't/can't/won't "conscript". They will have a volunteer military (or possibly deals with mercenary armies, or foreign recruits in exchange for citizenship) unless and until something catastrophic happens. If it comes conscription, it will have been a unconscionable failure of leadership.
"Professional military personnel" are not warfighters. How many of those "personnel" (did you mean "troops") have been deployed in a non UN peacekeeping capacity or as troop liasons? Very few. Meanwhile, the US just concluded a 20 year adventure in Afghanistan and Iraq. And has been waving a "big stick" standing behind little brothers in other conflicts. Ukraine's military (what's left of it) is actually battle-hardened and could probably turn around and beat Europe if Russia let up and they were so inclined (I jest, but maybe not).
The "deep state" is not a "conspiracy". It's a form of parallel government. Nothing unique about that in history. (The Roman Catholic Church should be familiar to all Europeans.) The comparison is to point out that there are two "sovereignties" in play (member states and EU) making laws. And when you have two, you have none.
You weren’t alone in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also, fighting against talibans and Iraqi rebels is a bit different compared to the war in Ukraine so I’m not so sure your US troops are more “warfighters” than the European troops.
How many non-US combat troops do you think were involved in Iraq and Afghanistan? How many troops do you think European NATO members will commit to a hot war in Ukraine? I agree that the Ukrainians are battle-hardened in a way few other countries are now (besides Russia of course). Ukrainian soldiers also have valuable experience in drone warfare and will have much to teach the US and its allies about 21st century conflict. US military is going to have to modernize some of its personnel and capabilities for new technology, but at this moment, I'd pit the US military against any other in the world. And it's not close.
But for how long will you be able to have the strongest and most modern military in the world if you start losing money because of trade wars and/or other countries stop buying US weapons and so on? I believe it won’t be good for your economy, or ours, if we stop being friends and allies.
This is why Europe must remilitarize and police its own neighborhood on behalf of western security. Probably not going to happen under the EU, which has no ability to assert muscular sovereign leadership. There is no unified Europe at the moment. Better for Europeans to ditch the EU and double down on NATO as a military alliance of sovereign states.
Must we endlessly fund a war that is in stalemate and will continue to savagely end the lives of military and civilian alike? Otherwise, we are a bully? Is it in our interest to continue to run up debt, send overseas ammunition and hardware? To what end? And for how long? I remember wondering the same during Iraq and Afghanistan. Is this really America's permanent responsibility, for any country in the world?
It's quite remarkable the change in America over a couple decades. In the 90s, the left was solidly pro-free-speech and anti-war. Anti-war sometimes to a fault, even. Maybe aside from some censorship effort of rap and Mortal Kombat, you could count on the left to defend free speech at nearly any cost.
Now, it is the left that seems interested in doubling down on wars, without any plan for escape, and of "reigning in" speech deemed by some as harmful.
I'm not here to say correct or incorrect. Pick your own ice cream flavor. My point is that it's striking how much the parties have flipped 180 degrees (on some issues).
And they way they are trying to bully Ukraine into a minerals agreement and rebuilding agreement to strip Ukraine of everything it has. Trump doesn't care about peace, he wants to make money
If the war ends, that is peace. Do you believe Ukraine will be better off financially by continuing the war, even if it is on America’s credit card? They will not flourish in the present state, however noble they believe the effort is. War is not fair.
Ukraine has lost massive amounts of lives, territory, and foreign funding under his leadership; Zelensky effectively has zero negotiating power.
Where are the voices that simply want the war to end so people stop dying? It’s easy to say bully this and ally that from the comfort of your office while hundreds of thousands of people die in a strip of land most “supporters” couldn’t point out on a map. At this point there’s a collective ego tied to the outcome more than there is any care for the actual people involved.
What a dogshit poll. There were three options given:
1. Ukraine should continue fighting until it wins the war.
2. Ukraine should seek to negotiate an ending to the war as soon as possible.
3. Don't know/Refused.
"Ukraine should surrender unconditionally" and "Ukraine should negotiate permanent security guarantees" and "Ukraine should fight its way into a better negotiating position" are all in the same bucket. This is maliciously bad poll design.
I am not a country. Nor are countries sentient beings with intentions; they are abstract entities. “We” didn’t bully anyone — one or two specific people did.
> Must we endlessly fund a war that is in stalemate and will continue to savagely end the lives of military and civilian alike? Otherwise, we are a bully?
This is a defensive war. This is the lesson we learned when the world did nothing to stop Hitler's initial aggression. This is the moment of truth. Doing nothing is easy, it's the default. We now know the possible consequences and we've made our mind to not let that happen again. Have we learned nothing?
They’re not though… it’s just that endless billions being sent for a war that Europe won’t proportionally help support has to end. How much more money and lives will be wasted in Ukraine?
The killing won't stop until Russia is firmly stopped. There is no peace without completely and permanently pacifying Russia. They will attack again and again until we render them unable to continue. The best time to do this is thirty years ago, the second best time is now.
Who is "we"? Are you a soldier in Ukraine? More death is not going to help and neither side will stop. The only chance to stop killing is an agreement.
I know lots of Ukrainians. They all know that life under this sort of "agreement," which is actually Ukraine paying reparations for a war it didn't start, for zero security guarantees, was beyond moronic. It wasn't an agreement it was mere capitulation to Russia to continue genocide.
Actual real Ukrainians are fighting, and signing back up even after being injured.
Ukraine is on "death ground" and has nowhere to go except to fight to survive. Ukrainians know that. Russia knows that. I'm not sure that those that spout Russian propaganda know that, and for example I doubt you know any Ukrainians with questions like yours, but you sure do sound like the Russian propaganda lines that get trotted out to Americans.
More death wouldn't, but a solid established and supported promise of retaliation in case of aggression from either side would.
And "we" here means the democratic world - solidarity is the only way to deter bullies - if Russia knew that EU/US would retaliate in case of an attack on Ukraine, they wouldn't invade.
But of course if you yourself is a bully, you will do everything in your power to cause feuds. And here we are, oh well.
I believe the clip of the interview disproves that point. If money was the problem (or, more generally, a protracted investment in a conflict perceived as senseless) then a sobering talk would be the way - think of the speech that Biden gave when he announced that the US was withdrawing from Afghanistan for similar reasons, fully aware of what the likely consequences would be.
This interview, on the other hand, has the US VP talking on top of a head of state while chastising him for not being grateful enough while pressuring him to take a deal that would effectively surrender Ukraine to US and Russian interests. Whatever the objective of this meeting was, "a fair result for Ukraine and its dead" did not seem to be it.
I'm assuming that was sarcasm :) Since Trump and his followers seem to save that type of posturing for Canada. But I guess he's just trolling to own the libs, like a president does...
Listen to JD Vance speak about Europe, and listen to the way he bullied Trump into increasing bullying in this meeting, and you'll never think that.
If Ukraine signed this deal they would lose so many more lives than with what Zelensky did. I can't imagine how cowardly and easily fooled you'd have to be to think that giving into Russia will make the genocide stop.
Literally not the definition of a dictatorship. Elections alone do not guarantee a government not run by a dictator. Not having elections during wartime doesn't mean a dictator is in charge. There is still a parliament.
> The EU is going to be thinking long and hard about the future of NATO now.
European defense spending has, for decades now, suggested that they don't particularly care about NATO. Well, the Western European members at least. Those who used to live in the Warsaw Pact take it more seriously - see Poland, for example.
They also should have been thinking about the implications of buying so much gas from the Russians for the last 15 years. The invasion of Georgia should have been a trigger to move off of Russian exports permanently. Instead it just brought further dependence and a major pipeline project.
I despise Trump as much as anyone but strategic security shouldn't rest on one country never being in a position to elect an isolationist demagogue.
> European defense spending has, for decades now, suggested that they don't particularly care about NATO.
I'd argue the opposite: Western European countries' low defense spending was exactly because they they believed NATO (in particular the US) would intervene if needed. They don't believe this anymore now, hence will increase defense spending, hence making NATO less relevant. They will now be able to rely on the EU alone.
> I'd argue the opposite: Western European countries' low defense spending was exactly because they they believed NATO (in particular the US) would intervene if needed. They don't believe this anymore now, hence will increase defense spending, hence making NATO less relevant. They will now be able to rely on the EU alone.
They're increasing spending, but that takes years to translate to real results.
It's not particularly hard to pump out a few hundred thousand rifles, small arms ammo, and hand them to cannon fod... I mean... the fighting-age men of a country.
What is hard is developing a weapons industry that can act upon intelligence provided by spies planted in places like Russia, develop systems with indigenous technologies, and produce them at scale, all with the logistics to make them mean something on the battlefield. This was on full display during WWII, when some more advanced weapons came out of Germany too late and in too small of numbers to give the Nazis a chance to avoid the ass kicking they so richly deserved.
That takes decades to develop. Europeans, with the exception of the UK and maybe France, have let that fruit rot on the vine since 1991. Putin wouldn't have made this gamble if he didn't think this.
I bet this is all a part of Trump's strategy into pushing Europe into geopolitical irrelevance. And if it counts for anything, the Europeans did this to themselves by relying on the goodwill of America for their own security.
Seems to me that the country Trump is pushing into geopolitical irrelevance is the United States of America. Thanks to him, we're making enemies of friends and allies, throwing away our influence on the world, throwing away any claim we had to being a model, and turning in on ourselves. Trump is MALA: Make America Little Again.
Russia started this war. The US abandoning their closest allies against their historical main antagonist results in losing the status of hegemon, and the economic and geostrategic benefits that entailed.
Russia is winning the cold war, 35 years after it "ended".
You don't get to pick and choose between benefits and costs. Like, over the long term you can, but blowing up your alliances at a press conference is not a strategy for long term geopolitical success.
Europe can defend itself against Russia just fine. Maybe it will be a bit poorer, as it has to spend more money on defense, but it can do that. The bigger threat is that European countries start fighting each other again. That could happen in a few decades, if Eurosceptic parties become too popular.
On the other hand, Europe does not care about China. It has no interests in the Pacific. In the absence of mutually beneficial alliances with powers that oppose China, Europe would rather see China as a (somewhat unpleasant) trading partner than an adversary. If China is not a threat and the US is not an ally, it doesn't matter much which of them is the dominant power in the Pacific.
> On the other hand, Europe does not care about China. It has no interests in the Pacific. In the absence of mutually beneficial alliances with powers that oppose China, Europe would rather see China as a (somewhat unpleasant) trading partner than an adversary. If China is not a threat and the US is not an ally, it doesn't matter much which of them is the dominant power in the Pacific.
China keeps getting blockaded left and right when trying to establish shorter routes with the EU, and there's a reason for this. The EU and China both want to just live in peace and are natural trading partners — the main obstacle being distance, blockades, and unfriendly territories in between.
Europe hasn't been geopolitical relevant beyond it's own borders for a while now.
I mean think about it - it had to rely on US transportation just to participate in the Iraq War. How much of a threat can a country be if it can't even project force into that theatre?
This is exactly right. Current US allies should not trust the United States to stand with them at least for the next four years or so.
I would go further than that and say you can't trust the US for anything, ever. The United States will not keep long term commitments for more than four years at a time. If you're lucky, or unlucky depending on which side you're on, that cycle will last 8 years.
Not one person ever expected American blood to be spilled in Ukraine. Framing the opposing side with having these thoughts is arguing in bad faith. And what peace is there in letting a bully get away with the spoils? What's going to stop them from doing it again?
And yea the US didn't technically start the war, but if Ukraine didn't give up their nukes because of assurances by the US, then they wouldn't have been in this situation.
Because all the allies signed a treaty promising exactly that: we'll come and die for you. It's the whole point of an alliance! You don't consider someone an ally if you can't count on them to show up!
Part of that treaty was they had spending requirements to meet as well. Yet that gets frequently forgotten by the parties who didn't meet those obligations. It is like Europe wants all the benefits of the treaty but don't feel compelled to keep up their end of the agreement.
Because they didn't keep their end of the agreement this means a greater burden would fall on America if we actually got lassoed into another European war. It seems the height of hypocrisy for Europe to demand America do the hard part in wartime when Europe couldn't even be bothered to do the easy part in peacetime.
First, 2% is a guideline, not a requirement. No one is required to spend 2% of GDP, which is an inherently fluctuating target anyway.
Second, European underspending has been by American design. Europe spent decades being told to rebuild their economies and states and not worry because the US nuclear umbrella protected them. This redounded to the US in terms of leading the world economy; it also gave the US tremendous influence in the EU.
In the 90s, Europeans talked about standing up an EU armed force. A small one, around 50,000 people, mainly to serve as an umbrella organization should EU forces come together for some mission, or to go to war as part of NATO. Clinton leaned on France and Germany to scuttle the idea. If Europeans became less dependent on the US, it meant less soft power for the US; less say in European affairs.
The secondary benefit of keeping everyone individually weak and collectively strong is that no European war was possible. The 80 years of peace in Europe following WW2 are the longest period of peace they've had in almost 400 years. Europe upping its defence spending directly threatened that and was actively discouraged until about a decade ago.
Europeans haven't been freeloading. They've wilfully subordinated themselves to the US security establishment for the collective benefit. To pretend otherwise is to be deeply ignorant of modern history.
This is a tough one as I agree with many of your points but not fully.
So here is my follow up. I don't believe it was Americas intention to keep Europe weak. That treaty was signed after WW2. Russian was at western Europe's door step and they were depleted from the war so they needed protection. They signed NATO treaty with America for that purpose. It was not a treaty of equals, it was America flexing its global power and Europe having to acquiesce. Over the years it has been retconned into an alliance of "allies" but really most of the "allies" were protectorates and not contributors.
I would counter that they have been freeloading. Europe absolutely willfully subordinated themselves for THEIR benefit. They have been getting national security for free for nearly 80 years. I am not ignorant of that. Yet I am no longer of the opinion that there is as much benefit to us as there once was. We have our own issues to attend to at home that we haven't had in the past. 100,000 Americans die every year from the drugs brought over by the cartels. We have 100,000's of illegals coming across our borders. We should prioritize our own defense for now and let Europe stand on its own. If Europe cant keep from having wars with each other than maybe the security the US was providing would be worth paying for.
Europe in total equals the US by numbers: population, GDP, military availability (though obviously not cohesiveness). It's not that the US wanted a weak Europe; they wanted weak individual states depending on each other and the US for collective security. No, it was never an alliance of equals; that's not the point. Collectively, NATO was incredibly strong, and what Europe offered was the battlefield. In the Cold War, the plans were that the Warsaw Pact forces would come streaming through the Fulda Gap and burst through NATO defences, crossing plains to the Rhine River and surging westwards across Europe. The NATO plan to handle this was to detonate nuclear land mines in the mountain passes, blocking them.
The NATO plan was to detonate nukes on German soil to take out the initial advance and block the second echelon of Soviet tank divisions (without Soviet nuclear weapons, tactical or otherwise, having been used). Germany OK'ed this plan. Upon detection of an imminent Soviet attack, special forces would, 12-24 hours in advance, emplace the nuclear mines (about the size of half a minivan) and prepare to detonate. NATO's warplans always anticipated first use of tactical nukes (because NATO numbers were always dwarfed by Warsaw Pact numbers) and the battlefield was always Europe. Every warplan always involved European allies taking the first blow and America responding.
Calling European states protectorates that begged for American protection really undersells the value of a relatively independent (western) Europe, both economically and militarily. Without Europe as the front line in a future war against the Warsaw Pact, America would either have to watch Europe be subjugated by the Soviet Union, or fight a war across the Atlantic without local cooperation (and the Pacific, where Japan/South Korea stood in for Europe). Europe offered intelligence co-operation and direct contact. Economically, Europe (and Japan) rebuilding quickly and participating in first world market economics was unbelievably beneficial to the US. If nothing else, the fact that the US dollar is the world's reserve currency is justification enough for US expenditures in the Cold War.
To go back to my original point, it was always mutually beneficial, and everyone knew it and was in agreement. Everyone was stronger together, and no one is in debt to anyone else.
If the cost/benefit calculus has changed, then that's just life: shit changes. All of the problems you mention are exclusive of America's (previous) commitment to NATO--American has more than enough money to attend to both. But the idea that Europe/the rest of NATO should suddenly be a defense subscriber to the US is just... America didn't bootstrap itself to the position it's in now. Its prior close workings with the free world have made all the difference, and for a while (and no longer) it seemed like everyone understood how it all worked.
I appreciate the thoughtful response it’s refreshing to have a real discussion rather than the usual knee-jerk reactions.
That said, I think you’ve actually made my point for me. You laid out how Europe is equal to the U.S. in GDP, population, and military availability, all of which just reinforces why it no longer makes sense for the U.S. to keep shouldering the majority of European defense.
If Europe is fully capable, then it should be fully responsible for its own security. That doesn’t mean alliances disappear, but it does mean the dynamic needs to shift. The U.S. has carried this burden for 80 years, and at some point, grown-up nations take full responsibility for their own defense.
I agree that NATO served its purpose mutually during the Cold War. But now that the geopolitical landscape has changed, so should the arrangement. The U.S. has pressing priorities at home, and if Europe is as strong and independent as you say, then it should have no problem stepping up.
If Europe wants full American protection, then maybe it’s time they start paying for it.
No the allies signed the treaty because they desperately needed Americas protection. They were looking for us to protect them, not for them to do anything for us. NATO was never a treaty of equals. It was America flexing its might and Europe having to concede. Europe has tried to play it off like they are "allies" but that is too strong a word as that implies the would actually be able to do something, which at the time they couldn't.
Also please note that Article 5 of the NATO treaty doesn't obligate the US to actually do anything. We can take any "Action It Deems Necessary". We are not obligated to send troops, money or material. There is no timeline for when we must take action, nor is there an automatic declaration of war. The whole thing is we can do what we want when we want.
I think our news cycles are very different. All I heard about from our allies in the wars was how they didn't want to be there and America should ramp them down. Also their contributions weren't exactly "overwhelming" aside from Canada and British they were more token then anything.
Line of "The US does nothing for free or out of goodwill" comes up all the time. Please tell me what country does? Then the next thing they do is go right into some form of name calling or denigration, just like you did.
Nothing in your response was about the main points of my comment. Which were firstly that America doesn't have to negotiate peace for/with Ukraine in a way that Ukraine really wants. Secondly because of how Americans feel they have been treated by Europeans over the last century a large portion of the population no longer views them as worthy allies, they feel more like fair weather supporters than allies tbh. So they feel it would be unwise to send our children to die for Europe's safety.
The last point is Europe has been neglecting its own commitments to NATO via its annual spending. So it feels like they are expecting free protection from the Americans which feels like a form of entitlement which leads back to the second point.
I get that these are contentious issues and controversial topics at times but trying to insult or insulate things about someone based on perceived political alignment is not what this site is about.
I don't know if I'd phrase it as the "power" to do whatever it wants.
Anyone can always do whatever they want. And the only way there aren't repercussions on some level are if you're some kind of god-like being sealed in the equivalent of closed terrarium.
Does the US have power? Sure. But the US could act disgracefully even if it didn't have power.
The framing I'd give this is that the US is trying to extort Ukraine without actually bringing anything to the table, and all it's going to accomplish is making the US itself less powerful, less reputable, the rest of the world more convinced that nuclear weapons need proliferate because otherwise invasions are on the table, and a litany of other things that will basically make the US weaker over time.
I would go further: this is the end of the US. The pieces haven't hit the ground yet, but they are falling. NATO cannot last when Europe doesn't trust the US. Nations cannot trust that trade agreements will last beyond the whims of the moment. Federal workers are being sacked indiscriminately. The executive branch has openly stated that they will not obey the rule of law if it is against them, even after packing the courts. What is left?
There is something left: the land, the people. But not the country, that is something new.
Make no mistake, this display was a disgrace, but... after the annexation of Crimea the EU (Germany) moved ahead with Nord Stream 2, we are culpable too, massively. Ironically there's a famous video of none other than Trump lambasting the Germans about it.
I saw a lot of people justifying Trump's moves because "the US shouldn't be spending so much money helping Ukraine in the war."
I understand that argument, but what about security guarantees? Zelensky has been simply asking for security guarantees so that Putin doesn't start another war in a few years (like he did in 2014 and 2022). Why can't Trump provide that? Why should we just trust Putin's word? Or is there something I'm missing here?
Trump can't provide that because any "security guarantee" from the US would essentially translate into "send armed troops", which is something that would run counter to his campaign stance.
Isn't there a middle ground possible? For example, a guarantee, in law, that the US and Europe send military equipment to Ukraine if there is another war in the future?
USA could guarantee a deployment to European NATO countries large enough for them to be able to move much of their forced into Ukraine.
And just guarantees on being able to buy armament would be useful.
If there had been any ounce of political will something would have been possible.
No one is going to believe any guarantees now anyway, so it's a moot point. The US no longer has the goodwill capital for agreements, only transactions.
A few years ago we kept making comparisons to Chamberlain appeasing to Hitler, inviting Hitler to keep expanding its territory at the expense of other sovereign nations in Europe, but at the same time made it very clear that Putin is no hitler and the comparison is too extreme.
Now it seems quite clear that the US under Trump is not willing to intervene in military fashion. For Russia, getting east-Ukraine in a year and waiting 3 years while ramping up its war economy to take the rest of Ukraine is a great outcome. For China, Taiwan is now a no-brainer as Trump declined to say whether he would intervene like Biden did. This is appeasement. Trump seems to want peace at any expense, he doesn't seem to recognize at all what the people of Ukraine have been willing to give their lives for, their country.
It's easy to have peace if you just surrender everything to a bully. Peace without justice is more like slavery. MLK said it right, there can't be peace without justice.
With Trump's fragile ego, there's a chance he will designate all humanitarian charitable organizations, and military-aid organizations, to whom USA citizens might want to donate, that have any ties to or otherwise benefit Ukraine, as terrorist organizations. I will be evaluating these ... if you have plans to assist, it may be better to do so sooner rather than later.
US was always a bully Trump is doing overtly what US has been doing covertly using CIA etc for decades. Actually Trump is more honest than previous US administrations as those would have killed Zelensky and then blamed it on China or Russia if he was not willing to do what they want.
The US has been a bully since at least WW2. The US has been betraying "allies" for just as long.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been a godsend for US influence. Finland and Sweden joined NATO. The Russian military was exposed as a paper tiger. A huge portion of the Russian military's capability was destroyed without a single US military serviceman or asset being deployed. Russian energy exports to Europe (and the influence that gives them) have dropped to a mere fraction of what they were in 2020. Europe is now dependant on US LNG exports.
The second largest military in NATO is Turkey and Turkey is America's puppet. Turkey has been in direct military conflict with other NATO members (ie Greece) with the blessing of the US.
Ceding territory to Russia, which seems all but inevitable now, doesn't change the the security picture for Europe. Russia still can't occupy Ukraine. That was true before the invasion. It's still true now. They certainly can't roll into Poland let alone Germany and Western Europe.
The EU really has no interest in paying for their own security. Politically it's a nonstarter too with the right of far-right parties like National Front in France and AfD, AfD in Germany and Reform in the UK.
Lots of this is correct however Turkey isn't anyone's puppet, they're a wildcard if there ever was one. Lately they've been quite insistent that Crimea should not be ceded to Russia, for example. They're also certainly not going to tolerate a Russia/Iran axis in their neighborhood and they've been quite aggressive vs Russian forces that encroached their interests.
There's a world of difference between what Erdogan says and what he does. And you should only look at what he does.
For example, since October 7, Erdogan made lots of statements about how he was upset with the Israeli treatment of Palestinians. That was all for show. Something like 40% of Israel's energy comes from Azerbijan and transits through Turkey. Turkey could've cut that off. But they never would.
Likeise, Erdogan's family continued to trade with and make money from Israel.
Turkey buys a Russian anti-missile defense system [1] while selling Bayraktar drones to Ukraine and hosting US (technically NATO) nuclear weapons.
Turkey is consistently aligned with US foreign polciy with some minor exceptions that are really deviations tolerated because of Turkey's strategic importance and recognizing the need for Erdogan to maintain power.
Yes. Like sell a ton of drones to Ukraine, partner with Ukraine on producing drones, shooting down a Russian plane in Syria, conflict with Russian troops in Syria, etc...
They have been aligned with the US most of the time but they very clearly also have a mind of their own and that includes a lot of actions against Russia.
The future of NATO is secure. It just won't include the US. Whether that exclusion is done implicitly or explicitly remains to be seen. The US has put itself in the position where it has no allies and no peaceful trading partners. That's not going to work out well for them, regardless of how much military might they believe they have.
NATO is an alliance of 32 democracies and from time to time some of those will vote in unfortunate leaders. I guess the remainder will have to carry on. I doubt the US will remain this way after the next election.
European Democracies should start a, new, NATO-like military Alliance on their own, but without Trump's America.
(and without the notorious US-made military equipment kill-switches)
And while we're at it, this time will be different:
Instead of the membership criteria being anti-soviet communism, as in NATO, it should be effective Liberal Democracy - and - Freedom from Exceptionalist Exemptions, namely from the International Rule of Law. So, to be part,
1. Compulsory International Criminal Court membership and compliance - hence no exceptionalistic US, and no exceptionalistic Israel.
2. No "Illiberal Democracies": say, for example, composite of a minimum 0.67 score on the WJP Rule of Law Index and others: therefore no Orbanic Hungary, and no illiberal others like it. Poland, Slovakia, Italy: time to make some hard choices if you want in.
3. Democratic backsliding removes you rights in the Alliance, and, can proportionally lead to outright expulsion.
Not one more new military equipment purchase from the US, (and dispreference for other non-qualifying nations procurement). Member nations should use their - substantial - industrial capacity to equip themselves with indigenous military materiel.
Hey, it would be actually great for the economy!
Initially European scope, but bridges to a broader global scope (or even a secondary sister-Alliance) with open-ended partnerships with Canada, Australia, New Zeland, Japan, South Korea, and yes: Taiwan.
US and/or Israel want to join, if a more Democratic future selves? Simple: fully join the ICC, and meet the Alliance's full criteria as every other member.
Same applies for prospective new members.
Sweden shows how principled positions can be maintained while building serious defense capabilities. Now multiply that model by Europe's combined industrial and technological base.
We just need the political will to execute - instead of just rolling over and wagging our tail to bullies.
Why a separate alliance? In 2015, only 5 nations meet the 2% funding requirement for NATO, with all previous US administrations asking for increases. That's concrete evidence of disinterest in the concept or intentional reliance on the US. Only recently, with threats of the US pulling out of NATO, have the numbers improved.
If the US scaled back the 2%, and was less involved, I would think Europe would be in a better position than a brand new alliance.
I understand your point about NATO's historical funding issues, but this isn't just about money - it's about aligning with shared democratic values and international accountability.
The 2% GDP threshold has indeed been a persistent issue, but European nations have substantially increased defense spending since 2022. The proposed alliance would be fundamentally different from NATO in two key ways:
1. It would prioritize democratic values and rule of law accountability (ICC membership) over simply being anti-Russia
2. It would develop true strategic autonomy through indigenous defense production
NATO remains structurally dominated by US interests and equipment with their potential "kill switches." Recent events demonstrate why European security can't be outsourced to powers with potentially divergent interests.
The existing industrial and technological capabilities across Europe are more than sufficient to create a credible deterrent force when properly coordinated. This isn't about creating something from scratch, but realigning existing resources toward greater sovereignty.
Democracy and rule of law aren't just ideals - they're strategic assets worth defending with our own means.
In 2025, Trump dumped Ukraine, sided with Putin and made a number of bully threats (including invasion) to its formal National Security partners. Security which - at least still today - is bound by literal treaty.
Should Europe just roll over and wag its tail?
What kind of partnership is this that one side wants to boss around its only-good-if-wimp partner?
I understand. I'm saying that that alliance is in real danger of shrinking before it even gets started, and at any point thereafter.
Seven countries now have far right parties in government, including Italy, France, and Germany. If they go the way of the U.S., any liberal alliance will be greatly diminished.
Democracy isn't binary and doesn't start and end with elections. It is not democratic, for instance, for a president to subvert the powers of Congress (whose members also won their elections).
Interesting how you overlook Japan's strong judicial independence, press freedom, and regular peaceful transitions of power to focus on ethno-nationalism.
Meanwhile, Hungary systematically dismantles judicial independence, crushes media freedom, and rewrites electoral rules to entrench single-party rule - but sure, they're the real liberals here.
The proposed alliance isn't claiming perfect members - it's establishing clear, measurable standards through indices *like* WJP Rule of Law. If Japan doesn't meet the 0.67 threshold, they're out too. That's the whole point: consistent standards applied equally, not convenient exceptions.
But please, continue defending Orbán's "illiberal democracy" while nitpicking flaws in actual functioning democracies. That's definitely a coherent position.
In the same league as the UK and Germany. This is why I don't support unfettered American alignment with these countries. There is no major country as liberal as the United States.
This has been par for the course for decades. They used to be on good terms with Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Iran after they couped Mossadegh. Heck, they even armed and trained Osama Bin Laden to fight the soviets in Afghanistan. It has always been a deadly gambit to ally yourself with the United States.
I'm not saying it's universally the case of course. For every Saddam there's a Pinochet, for every Gaddafi there's a Suharto. But the fact that the US can drop an ally just like that should not be a surprise to anyone.
Traditionally the US turned from ally to bully in a predictable manner though. Ally with the Soviet Union, expect hostility, even if your previous right-leaning government had been their best buddies. Invade another country the US also regarded as a regional ally and oil supplier and you might not last long.
The switch to verbally attacking Ukraine and the rest of Europe whilst fellating Putin is an altogether different one, and one much more damaging to US soft power than its past belligerence.
I'm curious where you see Libya fitting in this pattern.
Personally I'm more inclined to believe that the ally-turned-foe's invasion serves as a convenient excuse for the US to attack, rather than the root cause. One thing that at least Gadaffi and Saddam have in common is nationalizing their oil industry. This to me seems like a much more believable reason for US aggression.
Gadaffi was a nominal socialist who kicked the US military out, aligned himself with the Soviet Union, proposed pan-Arabist and pan-African alliances to exclude the west and was implicated in bombings of US targets, undermining US-allied causes overseas etc. And yes, he nationalized the oil industry early in his rule. Even if he briefly achieved some sort of rapprochement (mostly with the EU) when he'd run out of allies, he's pretty much the exemplar of how to piss off the US, and so them helping finish his regime off fits the pattern perfectly.
They increased their defense spending because of Russia invading Ukraine in 2014 and 2022. It didn't have anything to do with US bullying. The biden administration certainly wasn't going around bullying Europe between 2021 and 2024.
Trumps talks of NATO problems go back to his last term. Foreign leaders showed fear of reduced US cooperation then [1], some directly attributing increased spending to that [2]. It was very widely reported back then, with similar fervor.
The EU needs to get armed to the teeth and to pile up on nukes. The US cannot be trusted, half of the country is compromised and that's not something that will change any time soon, even after Trump goes to meet his creator.
Half the country isn't "compromised." We simply woke up to the fact that a continent of people that do nothing but mock and sneer at us refused to pay for their own defense, and we get nothing from it in return, other than having our exports tariffed at higher levels than EU exports to the US.
For the US, NATO is an obligation, of which the EU nations (with their lavish social spending and anemic defense spending) benefited from.
In 2014, the EU did NOTHING to help when Crimea was invaded. You continued to buy gas, and even bult new pipelines like Nordstream to continue to hand Putin money. I'm all for the EU to take on it's own protection and investing in militaries. World War II ended 80 years ago. Move on and grow up and pay for your own defense.
There’s probably going to be a decade long build up for that to happen. European military industrial production could barely surge to the promised 1 million shells to Ukraine
France has nukes. But for nukes it doesn’t matter in practice if you have 10 or 1000. If you use one, it is one too many. It only matters that you have them.
I suspect The Trump camp realise a peace deal acceptable to Ukraine isn’t viable. Trump having promised one would be easy means he needs an excuse.
Manufacturing a split with Zelensky gives them that excuse. Now they can turn off the tap of support to Ukraine, forcing them to capitulate, and blame Zelensky.
Meanwhile they can make a deal with Putin to split Ukraine between them. Putin gets East Ukraine, the USA gets the mineral wealth of West Ukraine. It’s win-win.
Most of the mineral wealth stuff is all in the Donbas, or a couple of kilometers from the front lines. I am unaware of much of anything like that in western Ukraine.
Historically most of the heavy industry, near the mineral deposits, has always been in eastern Ukraine. Agricultural stuff in western and central Ukraine. Putin would be perfectly happy w/ a Ukrainian only rump state centered around Lviv.
I saw on russian TV how they pretty much said "yea, trump may be an ally of ours now and do what we want but we must remember how they turned on ukraine and that they might turn on us"
Why are people acting as if there's nothing "different" going on here? Like this is all just driven by standard foreign policy choices, and the current US regime doesn't have some unique allegiance to Russia and its leader?
Do yourself a favour and look up the origins of the stories Trump has been saying
- Zelensky a dictator
- Messing with WW3
- Not wearing a suit
- VIP tours of the front line
They're all Kremlin lines/tropes commonly found in state media.
And then TASS was allowed in to the Whitehouse and PA News aren't?
> The EU is going to be thinking long and hard about the future of NATO now.
Thinking long and hard apparently is all the EU is capable of.
Trump's first term should have been more than enough to make the EU come to their senses. Now, we have tethered caps and the AI Act, but the EU still has no coherent vision or just even the slightest idea of how to move the continent forward instead of keeping it in the past.
It is interesting how the US's influence in the rest of the world is declining every day, and that it appears the main entity trying to tear it down as fast as possible is the US.
I think the Trump family has been bought a lot harder by very wealthy Israel supporting Americans and the UAE. The Kushner stuff is well documented. There's checks moving around. Both parties on each end publicly announce huge real estate deals.
I can't point to anything concrete about Russia funding Trump.
Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but I was under the impression this is what most of the world wanted? And if not the world, then most elites in the US?
I speak both from public and personal history: when American leadership signed its various trade treaties with China back in the 90s and earlier, opening itself up to the swift transfer of manufacturing to its one-time enemy, was American leadership not signaling its strong desire to diminish American power for the sake of peace?
And on a personal level: my hippie parents had often railed against American imperialism and voted for candidates they thought could stop it. What did they (and other similarly-minded folks) think would happen once America withdrew from the world stage? Do people who think the same way today believe America will grow stronger by pulling back?
Having been around since the late 60s, I can only say this attitude has been in the making for a long time. I can't point to college sit-ins or Nixon going to China or Carter turning over the Panama Canal or the US-China Relations Act (2000) or anything specific stating 'this is the definitive moment', but this desire for a weaker, more isolationist America is neither surprising nor accidental for those of us who've been watching it grow. It's ultimately what my parents and their contemporaries wanted. It's... dream fulfillment.
My thoughts on this is it appears the 2nd Trump administration is obviously better for everyone _outside_ of the US (with the exception of Ukraine, Syria, Palestinians), and is lowering outcomes for groups _inside_ the US.
I think the current administration's actions are backed by the desire to kick out all immigrants, build a fortress wall around the US, and I guess wait out the end times.
Us lefties often say the best way to lower immigration rates is make other countries a more desirable place to live. I'm not sure if this has ever been put into practice though.
Regarding China, the European and American financial relationship is the largest in the world. Chinese trade with Europe is tiny. Sounds like that is all about to change.
I'm assuming you're on platforms dominated by Americans and Westerners so you're not seeing it much, but I can assure large portions of the world are quite happy to see America's downfall in real-time.
Personally, I hope to see China fill the void America will leave behind; the world will be better for it.
I think a more likely outcome is nobody filling the hole America leaves behind, and the incentives of a multipolar world are much more brutal then that of a unipolar world, as a result I expect a rise of new nuclear armed states.
No not at all. The vast majority of Americans are uninterested in being world policemen when it means it's mainly American boys (and girls, but mostly boys, let's be real) dying in foreign wars.
The Chinese are not stupid enough to send their kids to die in war, and even if they were, they at least have an excess of young males.
I'm sorry, I don't care who you are or what the history between your country and the US is, you don't come and be disrespectful like that and get away with it.
All he had to do was was smile and wave, but Zelensky made it into a dick measuring contest which he was always going to lose.
He is a terrible leader and this is just more proof of it.
Trump doesn't understand soft power, nor how much he has destroyed in such a short span. I have hope that a some future point we can repair these relationships, but they will never be like they were. So stupid. Such a waste.
It is not bullying to say that American monetary support means basically doing what the United States want you to do. This is basic human social interaction.
This is not at all consistent with U.S. foreign policy. It is one regime, that clearly has different thoughts about our alliances. It's an anomaly or, more accurately, an aberration. And it's similar to what's happening here domestically as well.
Ukraine is in this war partially (largely? primarily?) due to United States foreign policy in the years since the "end" of the Cold War. No surprise Trump screws them over and doesn't honor our geopolitical debts tho.
History will record than once...An unsuspecting stand up comedian, who once recorded the voice of Paddington Bear in the Ukrainian dubbing of Paddington and Paddington 2...
Left his family, took on a uniform...And had to fight, at the same time, Putin and the President of the USA: https://youtu.be/4zwfukYhq-k?t=6
I wish more people would remember that Ukraine was once 3rd nuclear power in the world but agreed to give it all away in return for promise that US will defend it instead.
This is why Zelensky keep saying he doesn't want another paper.
The original clips I saw made it look more like Zelensky was behaving unreasonably. Watching more of the context, it seemed more like things escalated.
Watching Trump and Vance and others posture and try to score political points while you could just see the depth of exhaustion and horrors witnessed in Zelensky's face… I don't even know how to feel about it all.
I found it deeply uncomfortable to watch, to be honest. Both Trump and Vance acted like playground bullies.
Maybe that's what a bunch of citizens want? Pretty depressing, if so. I will say that I'm reevaluating my countries alliances and (lack of) security capability.
I mean all you need to do is look at South Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, many South American countries, the list goes on and on.
America is like a fickle woman. When she pays attentions to you it feels wonderful, but when she changes her mind it's like you never existed in the first place.
Zelensky had to know that going in. The writing was on the wall.
Its time for EUrope to step up. If the US doesn't want to be the "arsenal of democracy" and the "leader of the free world" any more then only the EU (together with other countries like UK+AU+NZ+SK+JP & more) can do it.
Wouldn't be a bad time for the EU to announce that it's considering closing X number of US military bases in Europe, including the 6th Fleet HQ in Naples. That might get Trump back to the table.
If he's serious about Gaza, those bases are needed. At least the naval bases on the Mediterranean. Though it's very hard to tell what's serious and what's not, he has been talking about it for a while now.
He might at first, because he doesn't understand the implications of not having a base for the 6th Fleet in Italy. But the US military would be up in arms about it.
> But the US military would be up in arms about it.
The risk is why they'd be up in arms. Personally I think it would get spun as Europe acting against the US for no reason and Europe would become the scapegoat for any economic issues the US cause themselves.
The only real option is to wait for the US to do something undeniable while saying you don't want it, like tariffs, and then to retaliate as hard as possible when it happens. The difficulty with that approach is that it makes it easier for the aggressor to pick off one target at a time.
I'd be absolutely stunned if the Trump admin actually puts tariffs on the EU. I think it's a distraction so they can claim the EU capitulated in some way and Canada didn't, which somehow makes the tariffs on Canada justified.
The tariffs should help us understand if they're crazy or orchestrating something more strategic. If the goal is to weaken Canada economically so the US can pilfer Canada's resources, the US will "make up" with Europe and punish Canada as much as possible.
Canada, the EU, the UK, NZ, AUS, Mexico, etc. should have (loudly) created an agreement for unified retaliatory tariffs against the US over a month ago. Now we're open to being picked off one-by-one and it sucks.
Looks like it started with JD saying that Zelensky wasn't "thankful" and was instead trying to plead (JD said "litigate" IIRC) his case to the American public (which of course he was, that's what these meetings are for otherwise you have them in a private room).
It was already under tension because it looked like they couldn't come to terms. When Zelenskyy accuses Trump of being aligned with Putin, things started getting heated.
> When Zelenskyy accuses Trump of being aligned with Putin
When was that, I haven't seen the whole thing except where it got heated, but at no point did I catch Zelenskyy saying anything that could possibly be interpreted like that.
But mostly I couldn't hear what Zelenskyy was saying because he couldn't get a word in edgewise.
This is a bit flippant, but maybe hacker/startup culture just moved from being applied to tech to being applied to politics? It seems like the technofeudalism promoted by some could apply a similar ethos.
Hacker culture and startup culture are two entirely different things, with entirely different worldviews. The overlap in the Venn diagram isn't as large as many think.
Hacker culture is still around, not so sure about startups though.
We still have TCP. We still have Linux. We still have gcc, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo and more. Now, that last mile connection is still looking dicey; if a lockdown is applied, it will be applied there.
Aannd… it’s flagged. Yeah I agree, the discussion here has been pretty clean and reasonable so I don’t understand why this gets shot down. I do understand that politics doesn’t really belong here but changes like this absolutely have follow on effects on business and technology and deserve room for discussion.
Yes, please show me more political drama, especially of the US-based comedy show you guys call "politics." Can't get enough of it. Only 60% of my HN feed has "Trump", "DOGE" or "Musk" in the title, that's not nearly enough for my taste, I'm gagging to see more of it. There must be some conspiracy going on, I'm sure of it.
That video was hard to watch. Zelensky was being very dignified and they absolutely jumped down his throat. This public meeting was a complete setup, and it's ironic that JD Vance is accusing Zelensky of grandstanding.
Vance didn't believe for a second that Zelensky was grandstanding. He was trying to manipulate his video audience into believing that Vance wasn't grandstanding by accusing Zelensky of misbehaving as he was obviously doing himself.
It's an old propaganda trick that Vance probably learned from the Russians (who used it heavily for 70+ years). But it works only on an easily intimidatable audience that doesn't know any better. Nor care.
That could have gone worse; president trump put his hand on Zelinski to quiet him, this particular action has precipitated physical violence probably since the dawn of language.
> In a fireworks-filled public confrontation unlike any seen between an American president and foreign leader in modern times, Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance castigated Mr. Zelensky for not being grateful enough for U.S. support in its war with Russia and sought to strong-arm him into making a peace deal on whatever terms the Americans dictate.
Jebus, how do you screw up a photo op?
Buch of children in the US executive branch.
I suppose they think they look “strong” but it looks more insecure and incompetent to me.
Yeah, I watched as much of the video as I could, and I can totally see this playing well with all the conservatives I know. JD Vance and Trump come off as strong, and Zelensky comes off as weak.
It's funny, I mean I don't know the exact divide between MAGA and trad Republicans, but the trad Republicans I know have been the ones to turn pro-Russia. There definitely seems to be a split in /r/conservative.
The intended audience is eating this up. If you go to conservative spaces, NATO now is considered a rip off, the EU was apparently designed to hurt the US, Zelensky is a dictator, etc.
/r/conservative is truly interesting. Not American, but i guess that most past us president would cream at the vague thought of making Russia loose soldiers and equipment with just helping a third country, without loosing soldiers
"In his blog Unqualified Reservations, which he wrote from 2007 to 2014, and in his later newsletter Gray Mirror, which he started in 2020, he argues that American democracy is a failed experiment[5] that should be replaced by an accountable monarchy, similar to the governance structure of corporations.[6] In 2002, Yarvin began work on a personal software project that eventually became the Urbit networked computing platform. In 2013, he co-founded the company Tlon to oversee the Urbit project and helped lead it until 2019.[7]
Yarvin has been described as a "neo-reactionary", "neo-monarchist" and "neo-feudalist" who "sees liberalism as creating a Matrix-like totalitarian system, and who wants to replace American democracy with a sort of techno-monarchy".[8][9][10][11] He has defended the institution of slavery, and has suggested that certain races may be more naturally inclined toward servitude than others.[12][13] He has claimed that whites have higher IQs than black people, but does not consider himself a white nationalist. He is a critic of US civil rights programs, and has called the civil rights movement a "black-rage industry".[14]
Yarvin has influenced some prominent Silicon Valley investors and Republican politicians, with venture capitalist Peter Thiel described as his "most important connection".[15] Political strategist Steve Bannon has read and admired his work.[16] U.S. Vice President JD Vance "has cited Yarvin as an influence himself."[17][18][19] Michael Anton, the State Department Director of Policy Planning during Trump's second presidency, has also discussed Yarvin's ideas.[20] In January 2025, Yarvin attended a Trump inaugural gala in Washington; Politico reported he was "an informal guest of honor" due to his "outsize influence over the Trumpian right."[21]"
Yarvin has stated he absolutely is not the person on top. That he’s not cut out to be that person. His role is the philosopher; more a priest than prince.
Those tend to get killed pretty quickly, unless they are completely willing to subjugate themselves to the person on the top.
Either Yarvin is so ignorant of history that he’s barely worth listening to, or he is actively malevolent, and intentionally deceptive, OR he has absolutely no qualms about bending his “philosophy” to the whims of whoever happens to control the executioner.
It’s a great quote and true if Sam Altman is any example. I don’t know Yarvin but he has pretty much explicitly said and taken actions which suggest he’s not interested in ruling. He’s written many thousands of words why he wouldn’t be a good ruler.
Yarvin doesn't want all the bother of trying to become a monarch (a lifetime quest), but I'm sure you can think of historical advisers to royalty that have made themselves indispensable to several generations of rulers.
The best case against this are people formerly from Trump's inner circle who say he really has no ideal or political agenda except for himself.
You are right though. There is nothing "conservative" about the current "conservative" party. It is 100% pure reactionary. The only principles are opposition to what "the opposition" wants.
That sub is heavily moderated to remove all dissension from whatever Trump's view is at the moment. It's not a representative sample of the conservative side of America.
If /r/conservative is not representative of conservative side of America, and the conservatives control the US Congress , I am puzzled that not one of the conservatives has pushed back on annexation of Canada or Greenland . Not One.
The voting public is not the extremely online, totally batshit, completely cognitively owned by the GRU, republican activist and acolytes as well as Republican elected and leadership.
I agree, but it's the conservative voting public that reliably returns these people to office even though many of them have a long track record of frothy rhetoric and legislative hyperconformity. This kind of aggressively loudmouthed conservatism has been a fixture in Congress since the Tea Party and arguably back to when Newt Gingrich was speaker. IT's not at all a new phenomenon.
Now, voters may not like this and feel trapped by the way the primary system works and so on, but the reality is taht they keep giving in to the partisans.
The other side is made up of and cares about the wellbeing of people they don’t like (people of color, lgbtqia, traditionally oppressed people, disabled people, etc.)
That’s it: extinction burst because winning because of attributes you inherited wasn’t working.
Also, real easy to say “shit sucks”. Really hard to actually make things that don’t suck.
That, plus a healthy dose of anti-intellectualism, is a ratchet to hell.
Do you think any trump voters are changing their mind about him though? Are their conservatives that would vote against Trump right now if they could? I don't think so personally
r/conservative members are banned after disagreeing with trump more than a few times. To stay members, they LITERALLY must excuse anything Trump does. Thus no matter what, they will find a way to support him out of fear of being banned and thus not being real conservatives.
/r/conservative party no longer exists. It's maga now. And maga is aligned with and promoted by russia. With the goal of diminishing US world influence, dismantle NATO etc etc the opposite of Reagan era conservatives.
It's moronic, I am truly flabbergasted. They are both adults acting worse than children running a country. But of course you have the uneducated folk who will lap this up.
Have you seen the summer AI school advertisement at the bottom of the home page?
It mentions that Elon will be there. The conflict of interest is pretty clear. Not to mention the recent post about YC boss-ware that du-humanizes laborers. Capitalists/industrialists are generally pro-nazi at an ideology level.
They’re surprised because they don’t understand the history of tech and fascism. IBM was responsible for ensuring the Holocaust went off efficiently as hell. Now Elon Musk has access to American’s most closely held data, I wonder how that’s going to go. At this point, I’m just waiting for them to round folks up, and preparing.
It's understandable that some personal biases may creep in to the moderation processes, and I believe that this is a much preferable situation than allowing it to devolve into an unmoderated forum.
I assume that Elon the Nazi is too inflammatory for an HN discussion subject, where the emphasis should be on polite discussion of nerdy subjects, as per the guidelines.
As an aside: I posted a link about accelerationism (a worthy HN topic methinks) but it had the word 'capitalism' in the title and got flagged - it is a well produced and thought provoking video by the way [1], and not partisan-political at all.
I submitted it as a post this week. It survived for about 3 minutes before being flagged as a dupe and then deleted without any link to the conversation it was supposedly a dupe of. I did some cursory searching and could not find another conversation.
It’s amazing to me how fast the VC tech world fell to their knees in front of king musk and his orange jester trump. I’m almost ready to invest in knee replacement surgery supply companies.
I've noticed that most submissions involving anything that might invite the slightest criticism of Musk routinely get flagged. My conclusion has been that there's an army(or just a handful of people with too much time on their hands) of Elon fanboys patrolling the site, flagging stuff that causes them cognitive dissonance.
Doesn't even have to be political. I've seen it over and over with submissions about cybertruck recalls, twitter related stuff, etc.
I believe they're bots. Easy enough to do a negative sentiment analysis with an llm. Positive sentiment Tesla astroturfing is also everywhere on facebook and instagram.
Makes sense if you’re worth billions and billions yet still need to cheat at video games so you can pretend on a livestream that you are one of the best at some random video game.
I read /new more often than the main page nowadays (not just due to flags on political stories, but it does give a better picture of what's relevant rather than the survivorship bias of the front page)
I have long loved https://hckrnews.com for the chronological timeline, but the trail of [dead] across the timeline has been jaw dropping & horrifying to see & so so visible here.
A top tier concern of our age is disinformation & propoganda. The lies are absurd & out of control. But denial of information is also a huge issue, and the ability of a couple few to suppress & deny here is remarkable.
I'm so glad there's this timeline based site, showing what's really happening & the many many things denied.
To state the obvious, the Trump administration is more interested in profiting from a minerals deal than supplying any actual security guarantees. The Russian Federation has proved time and time again that they will breach any peace agreements (as occurred with the current invasion which breached agreements bartered after the annexation of Crimea) made with Ukraine for piecewise annexation of their neighbors, at any price to their own soldiers and people.
True lasting peace, is avoiding further steps to another world war. It takes hardly a high school education in history to recognize those preliminary warning signs in Russia's behavior. A common talking point that the Trump administration seems to use, is that they are doing precisely that- preventing a world war- by refusing to further arm and protect Ukraine with weapons and security guarantees- however this refusal does just the opposite, and this minerals deal really has nothing to do with Ukraine's security or interests. The devil is in the details, and the Trump admin refuses to detail how the minerals deal would protect Ukraine or how they would respond to further territorial incursions if the deal were to be signed.
Aside from all this, of course there's a lot of topical nonsense in how Trump and Vance conducted themselves, with shouting and lecturing at Zelensky, but these are all distractions, and they have almost no substance or details to back their broad claims about how or why this conflict started and what would end it. Scapegoating and bullshitting seems to be their game, but luckily Zelensky both asserted himself where possible and kept a relatively calm, but brutally honest, demeanor.
Because the security threats to America would come a bit later, likely in the form of Russia marching into a NATO country, Americans will believe what they want about the conflict. Trump makes this especially easy with his false and misleading oversimplifications. It is sad to think that a proportionally small sacrifice by the American taxpayer to help a country like Ukraine has been sized up as unworthy collateral for saving lives and fighting fascism.
It depends how well European countries are able to defend themselves (and their political systems) from attack and corruption by Russia. So far, IMO, results have been mixed. I am hopeful for Europe though.
It will be tough. America is now trying to export American-style fascism to Europe as well. So we have a new enemy, a former friend who has betrayed us. As I say, it'll be tough.
If it comes to that, the current global society is done and gone, and quite possibly humanity with it. No way the UK doesn't have control over their own devices though.
"Although the UK’s nuclear deterrent is assigned to the defence of NATO, we retain full operational control over its use. Only the UK Prime Minister can authorise the use of our nuclear weapons, even if used as part of a wider NATO response."
It's also just not at all believable that they would not be able to push their own buttons. Why would it be set up that way? And what would prevent fixing it even if it were?
Interesting choice of words, only the UK Prime Minister can authorise the use of our nuclear weapons does not preclude "someone else" having a veto. When these Oxford & Cambridge educated civil servants write slightly convoluted text, it pays to inspect it carefully.
Do you think maybe calling their citizens Orcs and insane rhetoric against Putin aka Hitler 2.0 might cause a great deal of tension for a country with nuclear weapons? What is your cool and calm strategy for this world dilemma?
Underestimating your enemies is a common mistake. Not only are Trump, Putin, and Dugin all intelligent people, they all have access to much more and much better intelligence than you or I.
Trump especially irks me, because he's calculated his entire persona to appear somewhat dumb, and it works. He's not an idiot at all, and people espousing that view are falling for propaganda.
Alex Krainer, a tinfoil hat geopolitical analyst, has speculated that the pre-election meetings between Zelensky and Trump included talks of a mineral rights deal, but that the recent UK/Ukraine "100 Year Partnership" deal signed on 16 Jan includes secret mineral rights concessions to the UK in return for military assistance — exactly the rights Trump wanted and now can't get.
It would explain why Britain has recently (15 Feb and after) been so public with plans to send troops to Ukraine.
It also explains why Trump is so eager to undermine Zelensky's democratic legitimacy, as it would invalidate Zelensky's deal with the UK and allow the US a chance at the mineral rights again.
Krainer also speculates that Trump's political theater over mineral rights is raking Zelensky over the coals as retribution for doing a deal without the US, and trying to get Zelensky to spill the beans on the secret terms of the deal already done with the UK.
If you watch the video of the exchange, it was a complete setup. Zelensky was being very diplomatic when they started attacking him. Vance literally said he didn't need to visit Ukraine to see for himself because he "had seen videos".
Zelensky was brought here specifically to be publicly humiliated on live TV.
In 80 years, if we still have history books, this moment will be in them.
That, and Trump is incoherent. He has been for a couple of years now, unable to put even two sentences together that make any sense. He speaks entirely in applause one-liners. I think his dementia is significant now. If he were left alone with any world leader they'd realize almost immediately he's incompetent.
This is especially evident when you compare interviews today with those he gave 30 years ago. He was bright then. He's nothing like that today. That's also why he now refuses to be interviewed by unfriendlies.
Utterly shameful. Do conservatives even remember when Russia was the enemy and Europe was our ally? Do you know what kind of leader Putin is? Is that what you want Trump to become? Do you no longer believe in NATO? What has become of the party of Reagan and Bush? Will you betray everything you used to claim you believed in?
>Do conservatives even remember when Russia was the enemy and Europe was our ally?
America and Europe used to have shared values, now the average American conservative is so disgusted by the T in LGBT that they consider Russia more aligned with their values.
Why is Europe our ally? Why is Russia our enemy? Can the entire world be divvied up between allies/enemies of America? Perhaps so, but does it need to be that way? Can countries just be, other countries? This is what I don't understand, ever since the Soviet Union fell, there hasn't really been a big bad. Capitalism won. America won. How did Russia end up being our enemies again, and will they be our enemies forever? Europe isn't our enemy today, could they be America's "enemy" tomorrow? I don't think the world is as simplistic as "friends" and "enemies".
Sorry about the podcast link, the gist is that Ukraine now can build drones from cardboard, controlled from Kiev, London etc. that can destroy Russian tanks.
More of the Ukraine conversation needs to be focused on this topic. The future of warfare is digital, automated, and utterly terrifying, and it's currently being shaped on the Ukrainian frontlines. Western militaries are going to be able to leapfrog their force structure based on the learnings in this war.
Ukraine is paying with their citizens lives for NATO to receive this education, while simultaneously weakening one of the western world's most dangerous geopolitical rivals. The fact that Americans can't see through the Fox News propaganda to understand this is unbelievable, embarrassing, and will set them back on the world stage for a generation or more.
>The fact that Americans can't see through the Fox News propaganda to understand this is unbelievable, embarrassing, and will set them back on the world stage for a generation or more.
Just a friendly reminder to not paint "Americans" with a broad brush. We may not have got our way this past election, but there are plenty of us who see through the fucking bullshit.
All the opposition had to say was "I'll end wokeism and immigration and will also [popular policy Trump is against]" and they could have easily won themselves
The Democrats not being capable of winning and not taking the Trump threat seriously is another story. They are the third culprit after the naive voters and the scrupleless Republicans.
Let’s be honest though: there has been an immense amount of propaganda on both sides. How many times has Ukraine reportedly embarrassed Russia, knocked them back on their heels, been within weeks of winning? All with young beautiful people on the front lines singing patriotic songs?
Russia is certainly the aggressor, let’s make no mistake. But I honestly can’t make heads or tails of what is actually happening in Ukraine because of all the universal propaganda
And what will happen? Will the GOP do anything? Will the rest of NATO deal a devastating enough blow to Russia that it is forced to retreat? Will Russia not retaliate with a limited nuclear escalation?
Don’t forget that the whole “Iron Dome” thing Trump has been talking about, if viable, would necessarily prompt immediate attacks before it becomes operational.
Yes but Russians are attacking which makes them more vulnerable, i.e. their armored vehicles. Also, sanctions prevent Russians from using high tech components. Drones are a panacea but a great tool in defence.
Nope, the brigading of every topic which only scrapes at doge/elon/trump is too obvious at that point. I would really like an anti brigading mode with a higher karma threshold. 31 karma is not enough in times were both parties want to silence the other.
It would be wonderful if we lived in time where we could put on blinders to what is happening around us. The times are getting a little too "interesting" though.
I don't. Not because this isn't an important topic - it is, but because:
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, [...] unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. [...] If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
This is about politics. It is already being covered on TV news. Is it evidence of an interesting new phenomenon? It's unusual to see that sort of behaviour, sure, but in the Trump era? How surprised are we exactly?
All the comments are the very predictable trench digging. I'd rather see it flagged into oblivion.
Sure, I can just ignore those articles, so lets open it up and just have /new as the front page. No harm, right, it definitely won't caause a change in the character of the site or attract a different audience.
Sheesh, think about the other point of view for more than 10 seconds please instead of just reacting.
If I were American, I’d be sick with shame. As a European, I’m disgusted—not just by your leadership, but by your silence.
Your country is spiraling into disgrace, yet you sit there, watching, complaining online, doing nothing. Where is your outrage? Where are the millions in the streets forcing change? By staying silent, you are complicit. Just like the Russians who let Putin tighten his grip for decades, you are letting a clown dismantle your democracy in real time.
History won’t just judge you—it will condemn you. Stand up, or accept your place among the cowards who let their nations rot.
I know this is exactly what Trump wants, but I don't know that I have the energy to continue to try and convince my fellow Americans that their demigod will destroy this country. They voted for this, they got it, now let's see how far they're willing to let this country fall before they change their tune.
We don't have a good sense as a nation of the consequences of our actions. People don't believe things can get very bad here in the US. Zelensky said it himself, we feel safe because we have a big ocean separating us from the war. I'm afraid we won't learn without getting our ass kicked.
> Where are the millions in the streets forcing change?
Rioting in the US is viewed extremely unfavorably in the US. The country is so geographically dispersed that it's hard to significantly interrupt commerce. Also, because of the large rural/urban political divide in the US, the places these protests take place would largely be attacking their own voter bases.
There is lots of political mobilization in the US. Marches, protests, and most importantly there is a lot of citizen funded legal challenges. But at the end of the day, democracy does not have a lot of natural protections if the people of the country democratically choose to end democracy.
It was viewed overwhelming negatively by most of the country, and was a big part of the following campaigning that resulted in a lot of Republicans losing seats in the house.
that's pretty simple.. nobody wants to provoke them into using their nukes. It's also still likely a hard sell to the populations of various countries.
I get what you’re saying, but Europe has its disgraces as well and I don’t see anyone rioting in the streets en masse. Don’t get me started on the UK, where core rights like freedom of speech/expression are a joke, yet I don’t see anyone rioting. I mean, maybe they ARE rioting, but any news about it being censored.
The "whataboutism" game doesn't work here, because none of the pro-Ukraine Western countries is currently even remotely as chaotic, clownish, cruel, capricious, and conspicuously corrupt as the Trump administration and their broligarchs.
And other comments have already pointed out that Europeans are protesting.
As a European, I’m disgusted—not just by your leadership, but by your silence.
I'm quite pleased with everything that's going on. The lesson from Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan (Soviets), Afghanistan (US), and Iraq is that there is never going to be a good time to leave but you need to leave as soon as possible before things get worse.
There's the counterargument that Hitler could have been stopped early during/after Czechoslovakia but you can't waltz into every conflict just because it might turn into WW2 later.
the US was just enjoying its favorite hobby of funneling US and EU tax monies into arms production. idk what Putin promised that was more satisfying than that, but no one was being sent across the Atlantic to fight. you'd think the US would be happy enough watching Russia waste lives and money just like the they did in the Middle East.
The problem is both US political parties would strongly oppose any attempt to "get people in the streets", making it very challenging for any such protesters.
We have too much to lose to do anything. It's not until we've lost a great deal of our freedom, our wealth, the basic guarantee of order in our land, that the formerly comfortable will finally act up.
5,000 comments of 5,520
[ 44.8 ms ] story [ 1211 ms ] thread[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43200375
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43166670
The NSA built them released Apache Accumulo & Apache Nifi, to offer extremely fine grained control of massive massive data systems. Unknown if this is still the state of the art, but they're still contributing. The platform infrastructure to be Five Eyes feels like it must be absolutely vast, >50% of the job of Five Eyes. Its hard for me to imagine an alliance of nations taking this task seriously enough to build their own, to serve as the hub.
So does the UK.
Not enough to take back the old colonies and demand interest payments for the tea, but enough to make it a bad idea for anyone to try that.
> I don’t expect the military to start refusing orders just because the president became a corrupt tyrant through legal means.
I expect almost all militaty personel to obey almost all orders, even when they're expressly unlawful… but not all: Vietnam had both the My Lai massacre and the coining of "fragging" due to soldiers throwing fragmentation grenades into the tents of their own officers.
I see people leaving their government and media positions in protest but I’d like to remind them that they are much more effective if they remain where they are. The CIA has an excellent manual just for situations like these.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleged_CIA_involvement_in_the...
I don't think that ordinary diplomacy is going to work here. The US is in the middle of a totalitarian coup, and that should be called out by our friends and allies more forcefully.
Stop trying to ingratiate yourself with Trump. He doesn't deserve it and you won't get anything out of it but humiliation.
People often attribute 5D chess strategies to Trump when base instincts are a far clearer explanation.
On Twitter, it's common to find populist-right commentators say things like:
1. Supporting Ukraine against Russia is risking WW3
2. Zelensky is always asking for more, more more and is SO disrespectful to the generous United States. And he doesn't even show up in a suit when meeting the president. How disgraceful. etc. etc.
These points were both touched upon by the Trump/Vance tag team and that's no coincidence.
My respect for Zelensky, the only decent politician in that room. Ukraine is lucky to have him in a time like this.
I'm not sure what anybody could really expect other than this.
Trump failed to make the deal, they tried to get resources for a minimum of involvement, and the deal didn't go through because Zelensky is adamant in wanting to protect Ukrainian integrity.
From Trump's perspective this puts him in a good light. He is attempting to negotiate rationally and Zelensky is irrationally spending Ukrainian lives to hold on to an ideal.
Of course Europe and many Americans believe in that ideal and would support Ukraine, but that's not Trump's political platform. His motivation is to end the war, and the easiest way to end the war is to yield to Putin's demands. Making Zelensky look unreasonable is a critical part of that.
An insanely counterproductive ploy, but typical of Trump's 'gangsterism rules' philosophy of leadership.
It will strongly alienate the subsection of the other 78% of Americans who learn of it and care. I suspect that's nowhere near 100% of them, and I'd be shocked if it was over 30%
Wow! You think pretty highly of us!
Too angry to type more.
Ukraine and its allies are a match for Russia and its. Perhaps more so, since Ukraine's allies have limited its use of force. With the US out, Ukraine may be able to exert much more force.
Which is to say Trump's judgment of who is weak is deeply compromised by his belief in single strongmen. This will not go well for him.
I am curious about this. Why you say it?
Europe has similar concerns, but if Ukraine loses American support, they may not be able to afford that. They might gamble on direct strikes on Moscow, or at least make it clear that they can.
Which might end life as we know it. Or it might force Russia to the bargaining table directly with Ukraine. Who knows? Let's find out!
I wish Zelensky made those points instead. "The US voted to open a NATO path for us, The US asked not to renew the base, and the US refused to negotiate with Russia when tanks were on our boarder. And now you want to walk away?"
Why would that change if he hasn't?
They have their land bridge to Crimea now, and if I had to speculate, they’d be happy with a neutered neighbor that can’t join NATO, essentially a populated DMZ. I can’t see what benefit in wanting to take Ukraine on again after the dragged out meat grinder it was this time around.
Expanded access to the Black Sea and natural gas/minerals were and still are very important to Russia. Aside from these, a total victory would allow Putin to cement himself as a conqueror in Russian history books.
This bright shining revelation of just how ugly and stupid Trumpism truly is (and America, by proxy) may realign world powers for decades, to our great loss.
The only things that seem to sway him is the sentiment of his voters and the economy.
Bully or not, I think the entire schoolyard theory that bullies fold when pushed back is bunk, cartoon logic. Did Russia give up and go home when Ukraine pushed back?
Hell, even Trump supporters know it. Half the reason I’ve heard for that vote is that they know, and are relying on, Trump lying about various things.
Why vote for someone you know to be a liar? Not sure, but I did learn that non-Trump supporters generally take him much more at his word than Trump supporters.
And then it became dishonesty when in the face of plenty of evidence to his being incorrect, he chooses to go on national TV and show a map modified with a marker, insisting he was right all along and no, it is the meteorologists who are wrong.
I would consider "folding" to be backing down and giving in to whatever Zelensky requests.
Throwing a tantrum, embarrassing oneself, or even harming your own interests is distinct from folding.
If you tell a mugger, "what are you going to do, shoot me" and they do, the mugger is stupid but didn't fold.
I think Zelenskyy didn't give them the sound-bites or vibe they were looking for, but they're claiming some kind of victory (WTF) on social media anyway. Meanwhile all they managed to do was look some combination of stupid, childish, and traitorous, while he came out looking incredibly restrained, and overall more-articulate than them despite the handicap of speaking in English rather than his native tongue.
I'm wondering what all the people in the US military and government who swore to protect the US from "all enemies, foreign and domestic" are thinking now.
https://youtu.be/Ujh_h0TsI7E
Vance made a comment about the US' goal to be diplomatic.
Zelensky speaks up and says he wants to ask Vance something. He then goes on to talk about how Putin annexed Crimea and that between 2014 - 2022 Putin was murdering Ukrainian citizens and ignoring cease fires. He mentioned that nobody did anything to stop Putin, implying that Trump didn't do anything during his first term in office. Then Zelensky ends with something along the lines of "so what do you mean diplomacy" to Vance.
Even if Zelensky's statements were correct, that was not a wise course of action to attempt to call out the President and VP while you're in the Oval office. The meeting erupts from there.
Regardless of how you feel about the current administration, it is a fact that Ukraine has been dependent on the US' aid. I don't know what Zelensky expected to gain from those statements.
This news press is his only chance to potentially flip the script with his public opinion advantage. We will see how that goes.
JD's statement about "diplomacy" which precedes Zelensky's comments about how Russia diplomacy plays out starts here: https://youtu.be/CIEZEvx1HfU?si=IdGw2g74643yEQrE&t=45
I suppose its arguable that it wasn't the most diplomatic thing to say in the moment. But I can't fault the guy for pointing out the undiplomatic behavior while his country is being squeezed by Russia and US (wrt mineral rights). How frustrating it must be to hear "have you tried diplomacy?" in the context of an invading force.
I can understand his frustration as well. But, he's a leader at war and lives of his men depend on his actions. The moment is much much bigger than him.
My understanding is that the mineral deal is back pay. And if the development is going to be done by American firms, then of course there’s a security alignment for the USA.
The dumb move of the day was on the part of Zelensky thinking he could somehow expand things at the last moment or on live TV.
To me the implication was that "diplomacy and deals didn't work" and they ended up with the current war, anyway. It's a common talking point.
He wanted/needed American aid, but there was no way he could just go in there and kiss the ring, while being slandered as the aggressor and letting Putin off the hook. There's no way that would fly for his people back home -- remember that they are as much of an audience as the Americans.
Failing that, this is a pretty good outcome, in the scheme of things. He outed Trump as a committed Russian ally, not behind closed doors, but on international television so nobody (who matters in this context, I mean world leaders, not Trump voters) can ignore it. He may have just kicked over the final leg holding up the American-centered security apparatus, in such a shocking and spectacular fashion that others will be compelled to form a new one without us, which is something they absolutely need if they're going to keep fighting and the US is withdrawing support. They need other countries not to follow America's lead.
> did the us held elections while world war 2 was happening?
> Elections were held on November 7, 1944, during the final stages of World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was easily re-elected to an unprecedented fourth term, and the Democratic Party retained their majorities in both chambers of Congress.
Vance’s answer “I mean the kind of diplomacy that would save your country” is a meaningless bullshit sentence.
The difference between this and the more confrontational corrections of Trump's bullshit in similar situations recently, by Macron and Trudeau, is stark. Trump and Vance were primed to pounce.
Vance took it in a really weird direction, first pushing "the kind of diplomacy that is going to save your country", then accusing Zelensky of not saying thank you (despite him having said thank you several times that very meeting?).
The reporters reiterated Zelensky's point, asking what Trump would do if Putin breaks the deal, and Trump just shoots down the possibility, saying he doesn't think it would happen and the possibility isn't worth considering. "What if a bomb drops on your head right now". His only justification being that Trump is president and Putin wouldn't do that to Trump.
Zelensky needs guarantees or the ceasefire isn't worth it to him, so it's fair for him to push back on the lack of guarantees even at the risk of annoying Vance. But they snapped back at him in a very unreasonable way.
But, he also highlighted a couple of times that that no one did anything to stop Putin which implies that the US didn't do anything. Which could be taken as criticism. Also, ending his statements with "So what do you mean diplomacy" is clearly a snarky response.
The fact is Zelensky has no leverage. He was given aid from the US, apparently as a grant. The US has no obligation to help Ukraine. My understanding is that the aid was given to Ukraine in the hopes that it would weaken Russia. That gamble doesn't appear to be working.
If he didn't like the terms of the deal, it should have been discussed in private, before coming to the US. Instead, he chose to push back in a public forum. So I don't feel the response he got was unwarranted.
An analogy that comes to mind is helping out a friend that just lost their job. You give them money and a place to stay and over time the friend starts to feel entitled to your generosity. Eventually, you get tired of it and give them a deadline to find their own place. Then during dinner with a group of friends, they complain to the table that you only gave them 3 months left to stay instead of 6...
I got carried away with the analogy and of course it doesn't capture the gravity of the situation in Ukraine, but I feel like it captures the core sentiment.
That's not really true. His leverage is that it's also in the interests of the US to maintain norms in which territorial conquest is not rewarded. "Crime doesn't pay". He also attempted to convince the US of this but was brushed off.
Looking at it as a one-off situation in which the US doesn't have any interest results in it not being a one-off situation, because if Ukraine loses then everyone starts itching to take land from their neighbours. And everyone else starts arming themselves with nukes, having seen what Ukraine got for giving them up. That's the path to World War 3. And the US might realize then, with regret, that it was easier to plug the dam when the crack was small.
Trump doesn't understand this. He made it clear that he doesn't see it as an iterated game, just a one-off. Or perhaps he's the one who wants to establish norms of taking over neighbours with force?
As for an analogy, a better example is that your friend's house is being broken into by a notorious gang of criminals threatening the neighborhood, and his children have been picked off one by one, and he's knocking at your door screaming "I'll hold them off if you can pass me some more ammo!", and you're haggling him down for his furniture.
When the USSR invaded Afghanistan, the US was happy to send the Taliban weapons. That wasn't for love or charity. It was American self-interest. So is this.
[1] https://thehill.com/video-clips/5168859-watch-live-donald-tr...
But overall, he did rather well, considering the shit-show it was.
I still can't believe Trump publicly tries to humiliate an ally like this, and at the same time calls Biden "the stupid President".
Stupid or not, perhaps he is, but not to stay in public like that. It shows Trump doesn't respect the function of the US President and shits on the vote of the citizens.
I don't think I'd consider that a mistake. Not that it matters to everyone but it's one more asshole thing to know Trump did, which was only publicized because Zelenskyy respectfully asked for his turn to speak. Other leaders are likely to have taken note of that: Trump isn't even pretending that you're equals.
To some common folk, it will make Zelenskyy look weak but also consider this exact thread in which people say his calm demeanor makes him look strong. I'd wager Zelenskyy is interested in impressing the latter folk and not interested in impressing the former.
They’re not equals and to pretend otherwise is delusional. One is the leader of the most powerful country on earth. The other is broke and soon to be defenseless.
Probably why people voted for him.
> shits on the vote of the citizens.
yes 4 years ago. But now… can’t really say we didn’t know what we were voting for. I didn’t vote for him, but most of my fellow Americans did, and we gotta live with that, and hope we learn.
Not true.
Harris - 75 million votes
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/05/us/elections/...
- an American citizen who wasn't able to vote in multiple presidential elections due to nonsense like being unregistered without notification in a state with an early registration deadline
"First past the post" means "first to get above 50%". He didn't win enough of the vote to be elected.
First past the post is plurality wins.
Anyways, that's not how US presidential elections work. The aggregate of votes doesn't matter, only the electoral votes divvied up by state.
Stuff like this https://www.gregpalast.com/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won/
The first one is getting emotional in the first place. His team and Ukraine's intelligence services should have spent weeks interrogating and trying to provoke him in order to desensitize him to this kind of shit. Trump, Vance and Musk are primarily trolls and they should be dealt with as such.
He should not have interrupted Vance answering him either. That was fatal.
He needed to stay calm and slow. He did better than any of us could ever have done, but it wasn't quite enough for this situation. He could have looked a lot stronger and I think we need everything we can possibly get in the situation we're all in right now.
I want to highlight this comment too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43211604
But Trump jumped in angry at the implication that one day Putin will come for the US. That is when Trump stated his machine gun speech … millions will die, world war 3.
This was a shameful day for America. Period. Full stop.
Vance was absolutely trying to score domestic political points by undermining Zelenskyy, but Zelenskyy was unable to communicate or respond in the manner he wanted to, and definetly committed some obvious Russian L1 / English L2 mistakes (Zelenskyy's first language is Russian and this can be seen by his "costume" statement, because the direct translation for suit across the CIS is костюм/costume [0][1][2][3] because of French influence), and he inadvertently insinuated that Trump wasn't doing enough even though he was trying to join Vance in dunking on the previous admin.
This is why the Japan and India meetings with Trump had English translators despite Ishiba and Modi having a similar level of English fluency to Zelenskyy.
[0] - https://stager.ua/ru/category/kostyumi/
[1] - https://arber.ua/ru/catalog/kostiumi
[2] - https://online.voronin.ua/ru/katalog/kostumy/
[3] - https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/костюм
Felt like watching your friend get scolded by his parents when they find a cigarette in his backpack
I personally think everyone looked rather unprofessional in this meeting..
IMO he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. Maybe he could have been more professional and statesmanlike but I don’t think it would have earned him a thing. The US strategy seems locked in at this point and it’s a pro-Russia one. He could have really flexed the “deal with a heckler” muscles but the risk is far too great.
European leaders are queuing up to restate their support for Ukraine after this and I think that’s probably the best he could have gotten from it anyway.
The Trump-gang seems to underestimate everyone and everything. I still don't know whether they mean all this excessive behavior for real, or if this is an elusive ploy to divert from something else. Trumps seems to operate by selling big to gain small, but I can't really understand yet what his real long-term goal seems.
But at this point it seems other politicians around the world have got an understanding of him and his behavior and started playing along. I'm curious if Zelenskiy did the same, he certainly gained more from this than if he had been avoided it from the beginning.
https://www.dw.com/en/how-trumps-foreign-policy-is-impacting...
The one's humiliated on the global scale are the ones who are lying through their teeth with less than zero class.
Attributed to (the half-American) Winston Churchill: "The American people can be counted on to do the right thing — after they've exhausted all other possibilities."
We have ample precedent: Germany in 1945.
The people that suffered the most from the first Trump administration are the white republicans: they died because they did not want to be vaccinated against COVID nor wear masks. In 2024 white republicans voted for Trump even though they were personally hurt by Trump's COVID advice.
One of my friends is a Trump supporter who almost died of COVID (he got intubated!!). His wife also got COVID. Never you mind: both of them voted for Trump in 2024.
Now, if SS or Medicaid is gutted... that will be the turning point for this admin.
Zelensky came to the USA to sign an already agreed-to minerals deal that would have (eventually) paid back the billions of dollars they’ve received. There were no additional security guarantees. No further agreements. This was back pay. And it was agreed to before he left Ukraine.
He reneged, got called out for demanding further security guarantees, thought he could bluff them into agreeing to more, and summarily got his ass handed to him on live TV. Trump is not the one that tried to change the deal.
The real moment of the day was when Trump asked him point blank if he even wants a ceasefire. And he couldn’t say yes.
You can’t end a war diplomatically if there’s no will to stop fighting and accept peace. For lack of a better term, Ukraine is in a shit position. Billions more dollars will not change that, it will just cost more blood.
If people think the situation and accepting the current positions is bad now, just wait to see how bad it will be when the USA weapons spigot gets turned off.
I think the risk of nuclear war in the future just went up.
This is what Zelensky tried to explain to Vance before the discussion blew up.
Would you be mad if you gave up your guns and your neighbor promised to protect you and then he said, unless you give me your back yard, I'm not helping, I know we had an agreement, but oh well, good luck on your own?
Why would you want to enter another agreement with this neighbor when he's already opportunistically screwing you over on existing agreement?
Nobody is saying Zelensky and Ukraine should be happy with where they've ended up. War is terrible and the desire for revenge or retribution will never subside. Diplomacy is putting aside that raw emotion to get the best deal you can, working with the situation that you have.
For them to come to USA to sign an agreement, renege, demand more, and create a spectacle in front of the cameras, is incredibly non-diplomatic. You can see it on the face of the Ukrainian ambassador: https://www.newsweek.com/photo-ukrainian-ambassador-amid-tru...
That minerals deal was going to be the first step toward peace. But Zelensky royally fucked it up. And the only way to fix it is going to be for him to come groveling back or step down so someone else can do the groveling. And that's not a desire of mine, that's the reality of the situation. Their country is broke and will run out of ammo in six months without further assistance. As Trump said during the call, he has no cards to play.
No, it was the first step toward conceding everything to Russia, also conceding to an outrageously overzealous US (for reasons unclear to anyone outside the Trump bubble), with a guaranteed future war with zero protections.
If they wanted to give Russia everything they wanted, they could've done that years ago, and not given up minerals to the US.
This would be an impressively terrible deal.
They are in the process of being gutted ... but Trump, Musk and the right wing media will spin it as being Biden's fault, and those same people will accept it as gospel truth.
The shameful part was ten years ago.
Anybody else saw Vance and Trump humiliating themselves. Showing the intellectual and emotional capacity of a middle schooler to the world while a man whose people are suffering occupation and mass casualties and deals with death every day just looks stunned.
To anybody with critical thinking skills it feels like Trump & Vance are talking about a TV show or video game. Completely disconnected from reality. Horrifying and shocking level of narcissistic immaturity.
Up until that point there had been 40 minutes of cordial discussion. I don't think it was intended that the talks would break down and the deal would fall through.
https://youtu.be/O_BhxA1WDQY?si=7Ovl4-RpTCdi5ewZ
Trump and Vance are directing their answers at the reporter. Vance's reply does not criticize Zelensky at all.
Then Zelensky interjects to directly confront Vance about his answer. That was the moment when it became argumentative.
Don't get me wrong, I understand the righteous fury that Zelensky feels. His country was invaded. But I think it was a blunder to pick a fight over Vance's answer.
If he was asked a question on American politics I would tend to agree but this is Americans here espousing their views on Ukrainian politics and then expecting to not hear the Ukrainian side to it.
His point that Russia has not abided by previous agreements is well-taken. Clearly any future cease fire will need better enforcement provisions. But this is putting the cart before the horse: the deal that should have been signed today was not a cease fire, it was a mineral rights agreement. If and when a cease fire is on the table that Zelensky feels will be unenforceable, then he can criticize its provisions.
I, for one, don’t want to keep dumping money on him throwing his citizens into the meat grinder.
All that being said though it doesn't change anything about how the meeting went down. I've been lucky enough where I've literally never worked at a place where that would've been acceptable behavior, I've seen people talked to for less. To do that then double down more later was pretty embarrassing. Zelensky pushing back on their view on diplomacy in Ukraine didn't seem like a particular insult to me to make the meltdown make sense.
as sorta an aside: I was especially confused about them getting mad at Zelensky for telling them how to feel but as a native English speaker saying "you're going to feel it" means more you're going to feel the effects not you're going to feel a specific emotion (like after a hard workout at the gym if someone told me "you're going to feel it tomorrow" it would then be really weird for me to interpret that as them telling me how to feel emotionally). Trump responding he was going to feel strong was surreal and confusing to me. Especially with Zelensky as a non-native speaker it was weird to see Trump be the one struggling more with language. I can sorta understand agreeing with Trump politically but I just don't see how that was an acceptable or even normal way to react.
Anyway, that's a long post. I've watched the whole video and watching it just makes me feel like I've been taking crazy pills so I've thought about it a lot today.
Edit: and I forgot the whole thanking thing. Zelensky famously has thanked the US for aid and it seems like something they should know (even I was aware of it and confused while watching the video). But then Vance just pivoted to being mad about something else. Like people are talking about this like it's a policy dispute but I feel like I just watched some someone's villain arc on "The Bachelor", they seemed like reality TV characters.
Sure. They can do what they want and so can we. We don’t owe them anything. And honestly, in a way we’re just enablers at this point. We’re enabling them to fight on and enabling them to pointless throw away more lives.
Neither does he, Ukraine just wants real security guarantees.
TRUMP: "But you see, I think it’s good for the American people to see what’s going on. I think it’s very important. That’s why I kept this going so long."
TRUMP: "All right, I think we’ve seen enough. What do you think? This is going to be great television."
I just watched Trump greet Zelensky entering the Whitehouse with words like "and he even got all dressed up", foreshadowing Tulsi Gabbard's journalist boyfriend asking Z why he doesn't wear a suit.
It was definitely a planned media ambush intended to undermine support for Z and Ukraine.
Also, Vance's claim that Trump is the first one to actually engage in diplomacy is pretty wild, considering that Trump called Zelensky a dictator and essentially succumbs to all of Putin's demands, going so far as to side with Russia in the UN.
But congratulations, you win. I will delete that link rather than be drawn into an unrelated conversation about the history of one man's views.
Edit to clarify what I mean: You could have written that you are of the same opinion, independent of who that is. But instead you hide it, as if you had come to that conclusion totally on your own.
When a reply mentioned unrelated past statements from the same person, it was clear that they wanted to tar the statement by association rather than discuss it substantively.
I believe that mentioning that he is a virulent racist who is actively seeking a much more brutal and unjust world is critical to the substance of his other political writing. These are not unrelated statements.
But frankly in today's world where we've got people making serious decisions in government who are avowed segregationists I think it is rather important to mention when people oppose the Civil Rights Act when considering their opinion on political news.
Hanania's opinions here are not one weird quirk. They are central to the modern GOP's project.
It seems like they were having a pretty good meeting, right up until Vance decides to interject his stupid talking points, and then the exchange between Vance and Zelensky gets Trump to launch into his bizarre grievance tirade. It's like dementia was in full-self-driving mode and had no brakes.
Maybe Vance got what he wanted out of this meeting, but I could plausibly believe that Trump wasn't planning for it to blow up like this -- he just didn't have the level of self-control or self-awareness to stop himself. Which isn't exactly a good look either.
[1] https://youtu.be/Y7QxUHdvpk8?t=8693
I'm not disappointed in Trump; he remains exactly who I thought he was even before running in 2015. I'm disappointed in how many of my fellow citizens applaud his buffoonery, ignorance, and malice. While Trump himself is not competent, he has surrounded himself with people who can actually do the damage.
To conservatives who are about to say I'm a snowflake liberal, I ask you this: if Biden had invited George Soros to run wild through the government and ignore the laws, demanded a $800B reduction in the military budget and reallocated it to distribute to those in poverty, commanded schools to hire only gay people, fire anyone who didn't declare loyalty to Biden, and had minions collecting all your data for whatever purposes, and threatened to wipe out Israel unless they gave over their country to the Palestinians, what would you have done?
I can't even construct a proper analogy because those goals above are just a parody of what the left wants, whereas Trump/Musk are actually doing that about actual right wing wishes.
if Biden had invited George Soros to run wild through the government and ignore the laws, demanded a $800B reduction in the military budget and reallocated it to distribute to those in poverty,
- This sounds awesome. He's got a plan, he executed. If we didn't piss off our allies, we could probably ride on our military spending lorals from decades past. It would probably completely irradicate poverty, if he got the whole 'left' side of silicon valley to start building super cheap sky scrapers for the homeless. it'd be a pretty cool golden age. But here lies the issue... He inacted radical change towards some end, and hired some of the smartest minds in the world to help him enact his policys.
commanded schools to hire only gay people, -..... Hmmmmm, Sounds like we'd have a complete population collapse in about a single generation. I'm a normal dude, i've had gay friends, trans friends, w/e. But do i disagree with them on that issue? Do i think this should be taught in school at all? no... so yeah, i'd be pretty pissed and i'd homeschool my kid forsure.
fire anyone who didn't declare loyalty to Biden, Well.... Yeah, i mean, that's how a cabinet works, right? The people voted for the president, so who are you to defy the people? get in line or get out.
and had minions collecting all your data for whatever purposes, - Well... They hopefully used the data to irradicate the military budget.
and threatened to wipe out Israel unless they gave over their country to the Palestinians, what would you have done?
at 61, i'm suprised in your inability to see the world as... real... with real violence. People seem to forget that a couple generations ago the entire world was imperialistic with a large percentage of the human population as slaves. We are those same people, our evolution didn't change in 250 years. Only with a complete monopoly on violence can you ensure peace between neighbors. This war has been going on for too long and will never end if a complete monopoly of violence is not secured. So honestly, if he came in and ended the war, i don't really care how he'd do it. Pick a side is a side as any. but like... hamas is literally a terrorist organization funded by iran so....
Having a plan and executing on it is not intrinsically good if the plan itself is corrupt. It is telling that Project 2025 was disavowed by Trump before the election due to its many unpopular goals, but obviously that was a ruse and than plan is being carried out. That doesn't fit your description of it is commendable to carry out that plan.
Many of these plans are just based on pretext. P2025 isn't going to reduce the debt -- the money saved by cutting social services will be rerouted to the military and bankroll tax cuts that are clearly advantageous to the rich. Recall in Trump's first term there was the case of megacorps using accounting tricks (like "the double irish") to avoid paying taxes that were otherwise legally due. Trump gave away an immediate trillion dollars via that amnesty and reduced rates going forward for trillions more. If the real goal was debt reduction, we'd be reverting those tax giveaways and restoring the capital gains tax to a higher level.
"Hmmmmm, Sounds like we'd have a complete population collapse". I agree, as would just about everyone, that such a policy would be bad. But that doesn't address my point: should Biden/Soros be allowed to ignore the laws to do it?
"i mean, that's how a cabinet works" Nobody is upset that Trump is replacing political appointees. The problem is that he is turning apolitical positions into political positions. Should the IRS be staffed with political appointees? The DOJ? The FBI? By claiming for years that he is the victim of a politicalization of the DOJ, it is the pretext for actually politicizing the DOJ.
"hopefully they used the data to irridicate the military budget." First, the military budget is set to increase. Second, why offer him the benefit of the doubt? It is OK he is violating laws just in case he is doing it for good? Half of Trump's former inner circle, lifelong Republicans, refused to endorse him, many expressly saying he is manifestly unfit. The data is that Trump is transactional and is motivated only by self interest.
What would I have done about Gaza? Yes, it is a Gordian knot of conflicting principles. But again, that isn't my point. Biden didn't ask for the cleansing of Israel, unlike Trump who has called for a cleansing of Palestine. Is this playing out like you expected when you voted for Trump? Your response seems to indicate you have bought into the cartoonish version that the right pushes of the conflict: looking only at the violence done to Israel without acknowledging the violence done by Israel. To disclose my position, of course, I don't want bombs falling on the heads of Israelis and Israel has the right to defend itself. Yes, Hamas is a terrorist organization. Is your problem that they should behave more honorably? We can help that by giving them billions of dollars annually and giving them some nukes. Sarcasm aside, it is like people complaining about Iraq using IEDs; of course I don't want to see US soldiers blown up, but to complain about them resorting to primitive tricks while we occupy and bomb the crap out of their country is rich.
we do not have enough of an interest to go send young Americans to die. to deploy boots-on-the-ground forces for what amounts to a minor territorial war in a country with limited strategic importance beyond being a buffer state. smells too strongly of vietnam and korea.
to those who disagree with this, alright that's a fair position to hold. what number of young Americans is it appropriate for us to sacrifice to hold the donetsk and luhansk oblasts? how many of our children should we send to die? which number is reasonable and which is too great? if you don't believe there's a limit, and we should risk any number of Americans and potential nuclear exchange, why?
the minerals deal was actually a pretty fair offer the way it was worked out. then zelensky decided to, at the eleventh hour, push for a full security deal which isn't tenable from where we stand. this wasn't what had been discussed with Rubio; it was a bait-and-switch pressure tactic. zelensky was trying to either squeeze out that guarantee or humiliate the admin with failure coming from what otherwise would have been successful.
i think the constant lionization of zelensky has gone to his head. he feels confident in disrespecting nations who have invested significant resources in the war by refusing to so much as dress for the occasion, expecting the sort of standing ovation the prior administration and european leaders gave him. i can respect someone who's fighting for causes i generally support, as can most of my countrymen, but zelensky is no holy warrior and we have no moral duty to offer unlimited resources and manpower. we have aligned interests, but if not for that, there are more than enough domestic US issues that we otherwise would not (nor should we) send the sort of resources we have. similar thing with Israel: we have strongly overlapping interests but she needs to mind her place and toe the line if she wants our support.
This is a straw man: nobody asked you to.
> the minerals deal was actually a pretty fair offer the way it was worked out
There was nothing fair in that mineral deal: the US would get resources and Ukraine was getting... nothing. No security guarantees, no military support, nothing. Trump said it himself: he wanted it to get back what the US spent helping Ukraine so far.
Getting something for nothing is fair to you?
> as dress for the occasion
The is the King of Saudi Arabia at the white house: https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/president-obama-meets-wit...
This is the pope at the white house: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2015/09/25/photos-...
This is Elon Musk giving an interview in the oval office: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/12/tech/elon-musk-x-oval-off...
Did they all disrespect the US?
Ukraine is sending its youngs to die to keep Russia (the west common enemy) at bay and your concern is... Zelinsky wearing a tie?
US state dep't lawyers have generally understood "security assurance" to mean that we won't violate someone's territorial integrity, while "security guarantee" implies the use of military force to defend the security of a nation and her territorial integrity. unless and until we have a fully-autonomous military, this does, in fact, necessitate putting American servicemen at risk of death. this is why i think your analysis is a misread of the situation; i haven't seen media report this distinction well and it's hard to keep track of which treaty terms are vague sympathies with a general direction of action and which promise specific actions.
it was, in fact, a fair deal. the minerals deal was to ensure we got some sort of repayment for all the aid we've already sent and to make us a bit more comfortable with the additional aid they still want. since we are already well into the twelve figures w.r.t. aid to Ukraine it seems pretty reasonable. but i don't particularly think a minerals deal is worth sending young men to die halfway across the world in a border war over land the size of west virginia.
the saudi king was in his own cultural formalwear. the pope did the same. if zelensky wanted to dress down and call it "cultural formalwear", he should have tried an adidas tracksuit. what he did was simple disrespect. it's not the end of the world but i think he owes us more than this "great value steve jobs" routine. i dress better than that for a normal workplace.
"parroting russian talking points" isn't a good response or critique. i don't read RT or alt-right twitter. i agree we have some interest in keeping russia contained and it's generally a good move to put resources behind that. i do not think there's this odd moral obligation to do whatever it takes and back ukraine to the hilt. this is sort of a "heartbreaking, the worst person you know just made a good point" situation.
the whole "sending ukraine materiel is going to cause WWIII" thing is sort of bs russian propaganda. the idea that direct American military intervention isn't risking that is very much not.
again, how many Americans do you think it's appropriate for their own government to sign up to die for this cause? i think the number is zero. if you think it's higher, i'd very much like to understand why and how many you think is a reasonable number. i understand it'd be a ballpark figure, not a bright line, but i'd like at least an order of magnitude grasp of what people think is appropriate and why they think so.
you can make a "what about czechoslovakia/poland/nazis" argument about heavy intervention in what would otherwise be any proxy war. you say czechoslovakia, i say vietnam, i say korea, i say the middle east.
the American interest in this war isn't so much "we love the ukraine" as "this is an effective way to cripple russia for the next decade by proxy". by doing so, we avoid that situation in a much smarter way than chamberlain. and because russia wasn't in that great of a spot to start with, a protracted war of attrition is really bad for her.
are you suggesting we should begin a war against russia, historically a massively losing proposition, over a couple oblasts of the ukraine? again, how many americans should we send off to die? how much should we weaken our resources for a much more concerning conflict with china?
It does not. Europe has been willing to send troops on the ground. The guarantee from the US could be in the form of equipment, air interdiction, etc. Note the the US already had guaranteed Ukraine sovereignty when it gave up its nukes. So no new treaty should even be necessary if the US only stuck to its words.
> it was, in fact, a fair deal. the minerals deal was to ensure we got some sort of repayment for all the aid we've already sent
No repayment was expected when the aid was given, otherwise it would have been given as loans.
Do you ask for repayment 2 years after giving people gifts? I would hate to be at your Christmas gathering.
> to make us a bit more comfortable with the additional aid
That's not how treaties work. You put, IN WRITING, something you agree to do and the other sides does too.
If Ukraine commits to give something while the US "feels good" about maybe doing something (or not, who knows?), that's not fair.
> what he did was simple disrespect
Musk holds conferences in the oval office in T-shirt and MAGA cap while his child scolds the president. Nobody stepped in to ask where was his suit, and certainly not the president.
a security guarantee necessitates a response adequate to maintain territorial integrity. i.e. in the current scenario we'd be obligated to send troops to stop the war of attrition and reverse the russian advance (which has continued since last year, if slowly.) that is precisely what zelensky wants. unfortunately for him, i don't value the ukraine enough to condemn my friends to go bleed out in an eastern european border state.
no repayment was demanded when the aid was given, true. however, the US changes leadership, and therefore policy, on a semi-regular basis. the condition of future aid is that past and future aid should be repaid to some extent, in some manner, at some point. rather than demanding cash or structuring a loan, the US proposed to find something else that would benefit both sides. implying that hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer dollars, at a time when boomer welfare is already bleeding the country dry, is equivalent to a Christmas gift is ridiculous. i think it was De Gaulle who said countries don't have friends, they have interests; foreign aid is a strategic tool and that alone, because the U.S. federal government is not a charitable organization.
you say "that's not how treaties work"; I say undeveloped nations have a long, long history of taking and later failing to repay loans from America or proxy organizations such as the IMF. if you're suggesting we restructure this as a loan, that seems like a monumentally poor investment, not to mention draining cash from a nation trying to rebuild is a similarly poor idea.
where did i say i approved of Musk's actions? i believe trump complemented zelensky's outfit today. i don't really care about what trump thinks of zelensky, musk, or anyone else's choice of presentation. i am not donald trump. i am saying i think it is disrespectful, doubly so given that he came calling with his hand out, again.
But more likely, US troops won't be directly on the front lines even after a peace. It adds too much risk of either (super)power escalating in the event of casualties.
[0] https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1895633109649134013
When I first watched the argument without the proper context, I thought it was possible that Trump and Vance ambushed Zelensky or were even trying to humiliate him. That's not what happened.
You had 40 minutes of calm conversation. Vance made a point that didn't attack Zelensky and wasn't even addressed to him, and Zelensky clearly started the argument.
In the first 40 minutes, Zelensky kept trying to go beyond what was negotiated in the deal. When Trump was asked a question, it was always "we'll see." Zelensky made blanket assertions that there would be no negotiating with Putin, and that Russia would pay for the war. When Trump said that it was a tragedy that people on both sides were dying, Zelensky interjected that the Russians were the invaders.
For his part, Trump made clear that the US would continue delivering military aid. All Zelensky had to do was remain calm for a few more minutes and they would've signed a deal.
The argument started when Trump pointed out that it would be hard to make a deal if you talk about Putin the way Zelensky does. Vance interjects to make the reasonable point that Biden called Putin names and that didn't get us anywhere.
The Zelensky/Trump dynamic was calm and stable. It was when Vance spoke that Zelensky started to interrogate him. Throughout the press conference to that point, everyone was making their arguments directly to the audience. Zelensky decided to challenge Vance and ask him hostile questions. He went back to his point that Putin never sticks to ceasefires, once again implying that negotiations are pointless. Why on earth would you do this? Then came the fight we all saw.
Zelensky was minutes away from being home free, and he would have had the deal and new commitments from the Trump administration. The point Vance made was directed against Biden and the media, taking them to task for speaking in moralistic terms. This offended Zelensky, and that began the argument.
I've been a fan of Zelensky up to this point, but this showed so much incompetence, if not emotional instability, that I don't see how he recovers from this. The relationship with the administration is broken. Ukraine should probably go with new leadership at this point.
if the conference had ended without argument but behind the scenes Trump/Vance were setting up negotiations that go against Ukraine's interest, that would not have been a "win" for Zelensky other than in terms of a contest of popularity - but only the popularity among westerners who have no real personal stake in the conflict. it's Ukrainians and Russians who are dying on the front lines.
There are no winners from an exchange like this. Trump and Vance come across as bullies. Zelenskyy comes across as needlessly argumentative. Trump and Zelenskyy both come across as quick to anger. Not a good look for any of them.
But boy, will the nations of the world remember this -- how quickly the US can turn from ally to bully. A really bad day for US foreign policy.
The EU is going to be thinking long and hard about the future of NATO now.
Even if the US did nothing, rolling into NATO lands would put them up against the UK, Germany, France. Poland et al as well as Ukraine.
The worry is more that a ceasefire is called. Russia rearms and succeeds in taking over Ukraine and then a combined Ukraine and Russia attacks Europe with President Vance supporting Putin.
But in a few months, when Trump’s base and the Republican Party have turned completely pro-Putin and anti-Europe…
All this so that US sides with a bankrupt cleptocracy and dictatorship. 1000iq move, I guess.
The whole point of them was to give the US influence while improving US security. Given Europe can't trust Trump will come to their aid, they won't give the US as much influence over Europe.
Here's a hint! It's your military. To put it bluntly, European nations and other US allies pretend the dollar has actual value and the US in turn guarantees security and backs the world order based on the rule of law.
Looks like the US is looking to pull out of its end of the deal. That's fair enough, being the world's policeman is sure a heavy burden to carry. I just don't see many people recognizing the implications for the US economy.
Yeah, but they're not going to do anything about it.
Especially if the US lifts their sanctions against Russia.
I wish humans would not involve other species in their sadistic ways of killing and maiming each other, though. Donkeys, horses, ... all benefited from war mechanization. Dogs not so much so far. Dutch happily train dogs that are then sold to allies to be used to attack, threaten, maim, shit and piss on, sodomize, and kill defenseless people. Bizarre.
https://www.marines.mil/News/News-Display/Article/500002/mar...
https://youtu.be/hULOZDqxv1Q?si=SAwB5ORJm5LM7vNk
Or perhaps you mean "glory" in the sense of some kind of national pride and confidence in culture and nationality? I am not sure arguments against any nation seeking a sense of themselves are particularly compelling…
Reminder that Finland is really close to St. Petersburg, the 2nd largest city in Russia with some pretty big cultural and military importance. Putin's done some fantastically stupid stuff in regard to the 2022 Ukraine war, namely resuming it, but he's probably not that dumb.
Such a brilliant negotiator!
Russia immediately responded by saying it would happily share those resources. Of course.
We tend to think of the world on a flat world Google map and Russia seems so far away, but when the pole melts Russia will be closer to north America and they will be wanting that area too.
No ice means it's easier to drill for natural resources. The US is preempting the melt and trying to get ahead in the race for the arctic. It's much more valuable than at first glance.
I laughed first too. I then felt that my laughter was due to not understanding it. "How bizarre, LOL". Then I felt like I was missing something big. Now I try to use these "bizarre jokes" as a sign to look deeper.
In a way (although this info isn't secret at all, just boring) we can use Trump's inability to have a filter to leak the advice that his advisors are giving him more than past statesmen would.
Some geologists think there might be tons of other deposits under the ice.
The US has been trying to add Greenland since 1867.
Only %44 believe that US will come to their help if Russia attacks UK.
Yougov: https://x.com/yougov/status/1893967204846063823?s=46
(which is significant because, "after all they went through the last few times", their "find out" policy is a little punchier than most)
and i don't think that anyone really wants that course of events...
I don't think the blame is on America here.
[0]: https://www.gallup-international.com/survey-results-and-news...
We don't care. Approximately 0% of the American public believes the UK would help us if we were invaded, because we have eyes and have seen how absolutely degraded the European militaries have become, outside of a few outliers like Poland and Turkey.
I worked in the Pentagon for 10 years, and went over to the UK about twice a year for work at RAF Mildenhall, which, of course, is primarily filled with USAF planes and airmen.
European nations stopped caring about defending themselves, and turned NATO into a charity of which they are the recipients.
More recently (2016-2021), I would travel to London on a regular basis to work with a team based out of an office in Shoreditch. The sentiment of the average Londoner to the US military was fairly negative, typically accompanied by a face that looked like they had just smelled a fart.
My son is 18. I don't want him being drafted into any war on behalf of a demoralized population that doesn't want to fight for their own country. It's morally reprehensible to expect us to subsidize a society that has imprisons citizens for social media posts and fines our tech companies every chance they can get.
Next time America asks for assistance, whether it's troops or firefighters I hope the attitude is reflected back and it comes with a costs+ invoice due up front.
I'd trust the French more than the Brits in an Indo-Pac conflict, because they have actual stakes due to French Polynesia and Mayotte.
And if we're honest, it doesn't make sense for the UK to fight a Pacific war anyhow. The UK has constantly stepped up to help Ukraine and remains a very strong buttress against Russia. It's best if the UK remains a lynchpin for European security.
[0] - https://www.iris-france.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/ObsIn...
This is just silly nonsense.
In various polls the US and UK poll quite similarly, in that the percentage of people who believe their country should honour article 5 in case of an attack on a NATO ally, polls about 2x greater than the percentage of people who believe their country shouldn't.
So approximately 0% is nonsense.
But besides the fact that the beliefs of the US population isn't 0%, look at the reality: the UK went to Iraq and Afghanistan to fight alongside the US on foreign soil, while most of the world didn't and opposed those wars. What makes you think the UK won't fight alongside the US if it was under attack on its own territory? It makes no sense.
The US being invaded essentially means there is a world war. The idea that the UK would try to stay neutral instead of follow its treaty requirements with its greatest historical ally ever, and bow to its new ruler, is just silly.
As for the UK military's prowess, it is obviously not what it used to be, in relative terms. But to compare it unfavourably to Poland and Turkey? Neither could beat the UK, except on their home soil. And in the context of an invasion of the US, I'd rather have the UK as an ally, it actually has long-distance projectionist military power which is exceedingly rare outside of the US, Turkey or Poland don't have it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Nothing new, smart people knew that for a long, looong time. May I remind you it took Pearl Harbor to get the US into WW2.
It would be true if you were to mention about our special flavor of freedom exportation during the cold war. However, this time Ukraine is a democratic nation being invaded by our biggest political rival, Russia.
The UK paid the US all it's gold reserves. Next it stole of the UK people's gold to use that to buy weapons.
The US was not giving the UK when it exported, it was selling. Lend lease came in once the UK ran out of gold. So the US gave them credit: which the UK tool until 2006 to repay.
The US joined WW1 when it became clear that the UK would not be able to repay its debt to JP Morgan and its clients if Germany won. Of course, that was not the only reason, but it was a huge factor. (Source: Adam Tooze, The Deluge)
(London had, bizarrely, decided to bankroll the Russian and French war efforts in addition to its own, so its debts were vast.)
In a political sense, well, that's much more debatable. The problem there is that because the US itself did not feel threatened, US aid came with a price tag: the impoverishment of Britain and the demolition of the trade barriers around the British Commonwealth. US aid was on a cash-only basis until Britain had spent all its hard-currency reserves (both gold and negotiable securities). Then came the Lend-Lease agreement -- arguably the point where the US truly entered the war -- and its price tag was explicit, although unadvertised: the agreement itself contains a clause stipulating the removal of the Commonwealth's trade barriers.
Maybe a lot of them see the US and/or the Western countries as bullies anyway.
edit: not sure by which part of the world this is downvoted ;)
It's downvoted because of this:
> Well most of the nations of the world didn't do anything for Ukraine, or supported Russia one way or the other.
Most of the world supports Ukraine or at least is not pro Russia, as you can see in UN votes. In latest vote, USA voted like Russia, North Korea and Israel, China abstained.
And after all Ukraine is far away for a lot of the world (but Russia maybe not so much).
The EU has provided more aid to Ukraine than the US, Ukraine drone production is through the roof. Europe needs Ukraine and its army as a bulwark against Russia.
And fighting Ukraine has made Russia vulnerable in all other proxy wars and fronts, such as Syria recently.
I heard that volonteer numbers right now are pretty high so army became more selective - people expect that war will end soon and hope to get sign in bonus without spending much time on the battlefield, if any.
Other regions are comparable, 2-3 million rubles ($20000-$30000) are available in several more regions. Then there's a federal one-time payment of 500000 rubles ($5000) and a monthly salary of $2000.
Don't support Netanyahu's weaponization of the word antisemite. It endangers Jews everywhere, and does not help Israel. It only helps Netanyahu silence his critics.
Regardless of which, the person you're replying to has decided to be on the wrong side of history. I will not be shamed into silently supporting genocide in the name of a made-believe invisible man in the sky.
What makes you say that? I thought it was generally agreed that Ukraine has been on the back foot for a while now. People used to be quite optimistic about Ukraine recovering the occupied territories.
If you like Game Theory, is more as if Ukraine is much more prone to Total War than Russia possible will. Russia is spending their own GDP maintaining the war, Ukraining is "spending" its infrastructure but has foreign money being poured in.
That's why USA withdraw by Trump is so important to Russian interests.
Then there’s the “Ukraine will win as long as we keep sending aid” truth that the pubic needs to believe in order to accomplish that goal of weakening Russia since the alternative is Ukraine still loses but Russia doesn’t suffer for it.
I suspect someone misguidedly told Trump the first one, and his takeaway was that if Ukraine loses anyway, why should the American taxpayer be funding needless deaths.
If that were true, why would Putin take such extreme care for the elites in Moscow and St Petersburg? What is he afraid of? We don't need to know exactly what, but we can conclude he probably has a good reason.
Russia is not stable. The economy is creaking. Unsound, favourable loans are being made to corrupt companies who pocket as much cash as they dare while they deliver as little they can, Soviet style. Something is gonna give eventually, probably to the sound of drones over Moscow becoming the new normal.
Russia was supposed to win easily right away. There is a huge size difference.
But if the little guy, even thought has been on back foot since the beginning, has lasted 10 rounds, and still hitting back. They are on the back foot. But now it starts looking like a win could happen. The underdog wins the crowd right? Now looks like US is the bully.
What you are posting is not factual.
In this particular case Russia doesn't seem to care care about lives and uses WW1 style of waves of meat, which of course drastically increases losses
It's sort of like how Western press has been claiming for over a year that 20,000 people have perished in Gaza, and the figure never goes up.
As strained, but not as bad as Ukraine's.
Russia's population is over 140 million. That's 100 million more than Ukraine's pre-war population. Russia's territory isn't meaningfully compromised, their cities aren't in ruin, their industry is mostly intact. They haven't sustained something like 15-25% population loss from people fleeing the way Ukraine has.
North Koreans aren't in Russia because Russia is out of guys. Putin just wants to avoid wider scale conscription/mobilization if he can help it and will take other options first
That's why earlier stages of this war involved ex-convict Wagnerite units, mercenaries from the third world, local militias raised from the "people's republics" in Donetsk and Luhansk, and conscription when necessary from poorer ethnic minority regions far away from Moscow and St. Petersburg.
This is correct and shockingly obvious given the initial invasion used mercenaries. It's a straightforward exchange with an ally that benefits Russia the most and is great PR for NK, internally and locally.
Almost everything pouring out of his mouth today is replaying what is in Russian state media sadly.
The US is not "aligned against the West". The US is simply breaking from the ideology it's had since WW2 that it's in the US' best interest to get involved in every international conflict in the world.
You'd think that the left would be ecstatic about that considering how much it's criticized US involvement in other countries conflicts, but here we are - it's the left that is trashing the US for not wanting to get involved.
But certainly in the UK it was a party of "the left" that invaded Iraq with the US. It was a party of "the left" that invaded Afghanistan with the US. And it was a party of "the left" that is now bolstering the military after a decade of decline by a party of "the right".
"The left" were fighting fascism across Europe in the last century, from the International Brigade in Spain to the Soviets against Hitler.
The actual problem The West has now is that the guarantor of military power has gone. Trump and Vance were literally shouting propaganda from Russian state media to Zelensky (look up starting WW3, or VIP tours) and making false equivalency between being invaded and defending your country.
Trump has carried out the biggest rug-pull in history and aligned the USA with Russia. Against The West.
This makes no sense. The current ideology is only 70 years old. The "West" has existed for centuries before that.
Maybe you're young and you think there are no options but the current path, but I can assure you there is.
The truth is that the US (or Europe) is not willing to go head to head with Russia. They have neither the public support or the willingness to take the economic hit.
So if they aren't willing to defeat Russia, what is the only possible outcome? A negotiated peace.
So rather than grinding up another few hundred thousand human lives in the war and end up in the same place a few years from now, why not just finish it now?
The term The West applies to those countries born out of European heritage which _assumed_ semi-direct lineage from the Graeco-Roman empires of Antiquity (notably the Late Antique split in the early church across Eastern/Western lines). Like all political terms it's in constant flux, but yes, today it largely means the superset of NATO + Five Eyes countries.
Vance's Munich speech and the Whitehoust confrontation yesterday confirms that the USA has turned its back on the west - you only have to see the reaction of world leaders to see that - outside of Orban, the only people congratulating Trump were Putin and Lavrov. Who could singlehandedly stop the war - right now - by pulling their troops out of a sovereign, democratic state.
Not sure what my age has to do with anything but I was bought up during the Cold War if that helps.
Who said anything about appeasing? Fighting for the best peace deal you can is not "appeasing".
NATO is never going to escalate with Russia to the point Ukraine gets all it's territory back - and Putin knows that. NATO isn't stupid - Ukraine isn't worth expanding the war beyond Ukraine into Eastern Europe. They have neither the financial resources nor the support back home. They are willing to sacrifice Ukrainian lives, but not their own grip on power.
So if we know how this all ends - Ukraine giving up territory in exchange for peace, then why not pursue that instead of throwing another million lives and hundred billion dollars into the chipper and getting the same deal in 3 years instead?
> Vance's Munich speech and the Whitehoust confrontation yesterday confirms that the USA has turned its back on the west
No, it means the US is turning it's back on the neoliberal geopolitical position that grinding down competing powers through proxy wars is always worth it in the end. George Kennan died long ago, and it's time to let his geopolitical strategy die too.
It's a position that only existed since WW2, and one that has gotten the US involved in dozens of wars since then, often at a greater cost than the benefit in the end (e.g. Vietnam, Iraq).
It's utterly naive, given all his history, to think Putin will just acquiesce.
Even if your geopolitical assumptions are correct, Trump and Vance's behaviour yesterday - humiliating a war leader in front of the worlds media, using the rhetoric and tropes of the invaders he is facing was unbelievably disgusting.
The publicized ideology, is not always the reality. The US has always been involved with every international conflict. The CIA was the formalization of the interest.
That's because a good chunk of untapped population would simply refuse.
Yes, and from the videos all over the Internet, a lot of what those weapons do is kill people. If just blowing up machines won the war, Ukraine would have declared victory in the first year.
There are lots of potential limiting factors, population's just one where Ukraine started at a big disadvantage and that can't really be made up for by foreign aid, unlike munitions or food or what have you (short of other countries outright sending troops). Weapons can be sent, but if they run short of people to use the weapons, to the point that they can't maneuver, can't credibly threaten counter-offensives, eventually can't cover the entire front... then things start to fall apart.
Like once they survived and repulsed the initial attempt at blitzkrieg, and things settled in to a stable-ish front, population is the particular figure that would tend to give you a knot in your stomach, looking at the on-paper situation from their perspective, and the prospect of a long war.
I'm not disputing that there are ways to win a war other than killing all the other dudes, I'm just pointing out that if Ukraine got backed into a corner, the smart money very early on was it'd happen either because "allies all pack their bags and go home" or "they run short of manpower".
Ukraine is _stalling_ the war right now. Russia is able to capture more moonscaped villages by forcing expendable (their words, not mine) manpower to assault Ukrainian positions.
Ukraine is slowly retreating, but at the rate that will require Russia _years_ to gain a meaningful amount of territory.
How much is Russia spending on the war compared to Ukraine?
- spending all of its foreign reserves and weakening its currency
- killing tens of thousands of working age men
- permanently removing hundreds of thousands of working age men from the workforce
- increasing the demands on social benefits for disabled veterans by hundreds of thousands of men
- suppressing the birth rate by staying in a protracted 'special military operation'
Ukraine is suffering 3-5 times fewer casualties than Russia, but it's also 3 times smaller than Russia.
…by focusing on controlling sectors in mainly the East?
Russia is not gaining any strategic advances from the push. It's not a fight to get some magical prize.
If you look at the reports from Ukraine high schools - its all girls class, no boys
I live in Ukraine, this is not true.
https://lenta.ru/news/2025/02/16/ukrainskie-klassy-ostalis-b...
translated: https://lenta-ru.translate.goog/news/2025/02/16/ukrainskie-k...
It's a bummer that just about every media outlet in Ukraine is either tightly linked to Russian propaganda, or on the other side its mostly super pro Ukrainian (formerly funded by USAID) outlets with ties to weird libertarian billionaires who want to turn Ukraine into free market paradise. Hardly any middle ground.
Sometimes, reported news are actually true, this is from Ukraine's Education Minister:
https://www-unian-net.translate.goog/society/osoblivo-hlopci...
Just think about it logically, if you are a mother of 16 y.o kid, and USA says you must conscript 18+ y.o to receive any further aid - would you just sit and wait for your child to get drafted on his next birthday?
You can count how many high school children there are in Ukraine. There is something like 4 millions now, so the loss of a couple hundred of students of both sexes does not make classes girls only.
People, families with kids, leave Ukraine, because living in a country during war is not nice, to say the least. The fear of mobilization is only one aspect of it.
https://rubryka.com/2024/06/25/v-ukrayini-kilkist-uchniv-u-s...
Do you want to share a bit of your story? 3 years ago would mean you left right at the start of the war. How do you feel about that now?
I don't mean to minimize your loss, but I cheer for you to succeed despite it.
[0]: https://github.com/mayo-dayo/app
Tomorrow there will be the two monthly threads for who's hiring & who wants to be hired on HN. Use those.
For China, a balkanized nuclear Russia may be a greater threat than supplying them manpower (due to surplus men and civil unrest) and materiel. I would not expect Russia to run into the WW1 germany problem.
This is a meatgrinder conflict. If China can reduce its dissident or potentially rebellious population while avoiding a collapse of Russia mirroring WW1 Germany, they may very well (and I would argue are likely) do so.
The only thing Chinese nationals fighting for Russia tells us is that China is not expressly limiting freedom of movement to do so...but there has also been at least 1 American who tried to join Russia to fight Ukraine (and was tortured to death by the Russians on suspicion of being a spy for his trouble).
With a country like China, everything is on the table
I wouldn't assume a small number of Chinese nationals volunteering to fight for Russia means China approves of their actions. Several Australians ended up fighting for ISIS in Syria and Iraq, that doesn't mean the Australian government approves of Australians fighting for ISIS, it just means it failed in those cases to stop them – it didn't realise they planned to do that before they left the country, or they didn't decide to do it until after they were already living overseas.
And one difference, is obviously Australia and ISIS are sworn enemies, so when Australians volunteered to fight for ISIS, the Australian government could openly condemn their action. Whereas, China and Russia are allies, so even if China disapproves of its citizens volunteering to fight for Russia, it can't condemn them publicly because it would harm the alliance.
Make no mistake: if China wanted to shut this down it could.
I think the word "supposedly" is important here – I don't think we have any hard data on how many Chinese volunteers there are serving with Russia.
And I'd question how big a military contribution these Chinese volunteers are making. Russia has hundreds of thousands of troops fighting in this war, even a thousand Chinese volunteers would be less than 1%.
> Make no mistake: if China wanted to shut this down it could.
Even if the Chinese government is willing to "turn a blind eye" to this going on at a low volume, that doesn't mean they'd let it grow to a significantly higher volume.
It also isn't clear whether this is a deliberate initiative from the very top, or something that has grown organically bottom-up and the people at the top have decided to let it be for now rather than crack down on it.
It helped that the ww1 western front wasn't inside Germany http://www.greatwar.co.uk/places/ww1-western-front.htm
Russia's refinery's are getting hit and all that crude oil is worthless with a refinery. In the case of the campaign again Nazi Germany's refineries funny enough it's the allies who didn't think it as critical as the Nazis did https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_campaign_of_World_War_II#O...
Many people seem to think that the US, and to a lesser extent the EU, should fund this war indefinitely. However, the US clearly does not benefit from a direct war with Russia, and while we may gain from a proxy war, choosing not to fund it does not equate to “siding with Russia.”
But "negotiating" a treaty with the other side and then claiming that that treaty is the final word on the war is atrocious. That's what's crazy. Not ending US involvement, but trying to say that Ukraine must stop fighting.
Now, I also think the US should keep supporting Ukraine, but that's a totally different topic.
Like, it's totally fine that the US wants to return to isolation, but don't expect to keep all the benefits of the post 45 world order if you do so.
If I were a US citizen I'd probably be more concerned about the upcoming oil tariffs from Canada, but whatevs.
There is absolutely no difference, when the US is negotiating that peace only with Russia, without Ukraine in the room.
With Trump administration officials not able to name a single compromise they’ve asked from Russia.
If the “negotiated peace” is “I asked the country that invaded you what they want, and you must do everything they asked for”, that’s not negotiation.
I will never understand how people can be so quick to abandon independence nations, and are so willing to bow to dictators. You would cheer Chamberlain submitting to Hitler as he launches an invasion as a momentous day for peace. You would be wrong then, and you are wrong now.
The reason for Ukrainian men to die, is to protect their families from being tortured by Russians when the Russians take another city.
The reason for Russian men to die, is to not be murdered by their own officer.
That is why the focus now is on security guarantees, which the U.S. is refusing so far. Without those, anything negotiated is a gift to Russia, specifically the gift of time to regroup and re-arm for another attack later on.
Lasting peace is not created by concessions, it is created when instigators believe they have more to lose than to gain from further violence.
People in this thread are completely incapable of seeing any legitimacy in any Russian concerns about Ukraine.
Decades of NATO enlargement. What do you expect? Poke bear enough and it will bite you! But don’t be shocked…
Well, he got it and whatever happens in the war, Russia is cooked. It's never coming back from this.
It will either fracture from the war going badly, or it will become a vassal state of China, and ironically, perhaps the US, the way things are going with the White House these days.
Putins actions now actually exposed himself to the dragged-in-the-streets treatment, by his own people. But it's all worth it, because of Ruski Mir.
This seems obvious to me, but is apparently not obvious to many here.... America (no country really) can guarantee Ukrainian security without risking WWIII, and frankly there's no reason to. At the end of the day, from a non-Ukrainian standpoint, it doesn't really matter who administers the land that today is Ukraine.
You don't have to support Ukraine indefinitely; only until Russia stops. Your options are to support Ukraine until Russia stops, or to surrender until Russia stops.
The arguments I see for the US staying involved are the same hand wavy ones used in Vietnam - "better to fight them over in Asia then in America". It was a weak argument then, and it's a weak argument now.
The people that helped fan the flames of this war don't give one crap about Ukraine. What they care about is the neocon policy of "do anything to keep America's rival weak". So funding a war that Ukraine pays the price for works just fine.
The truth is that the war is going to end eventually and it's not going to be Russia capitulating. So rather than a hundred thousand more dead might as well find a solution.
Seems like a pretty rationale decision to me.
General public in Europe didn't see US as actively involved, or at least didn't see it until the new administration said it would end the conflict. This is when Trump administration started getting into "talks with Russia" and offering Ukraine "mineral deals". While US might have tried to do that even before, it was not discussed openly by presidents.
This war is going to flame out eventually. Lessons learned in this one will be used for the next one, which is going to hurt even more.
In 20, 15, or 7 years from now when terrorists are sending drones into medium-sized cities in Alabama to kill indiscriminately, it would have been better for the USA to have been on Ukraine's side.
EDIT: better grammar, maybe
... that goes for Russia's partners, too. Meaning it's even more important for us.
There's not going to be a coup against a President who is keeping us OUT of a foreign war.
Touch grass.
Trump, Vance, Musk ... have upended this all with their amateur hour antics. They are not serious people. They think they can rewrite the rules but they've bought us at least a decade of hurt and isolation on the international stage, and likely worse economic prospects for a while. Nobody will trust us, even if saner leadership comes round in a few years.
Spot on. This is what Zelenskyy implied when he said "now you have an ocean but one day you'll know how it feels". But the dumb kakistocrat commander-in-chief took it personally.
By the way remember the New Jersey drone sightings that spooked the East Coast for a week? That was likely the government secretly testing defense deployement against a hypothetical drone swarms attack.
Brexit was shooting yourself in the foot, today was a gruesome display of diplomatic suicide on live television.
Firstly of course, they need to be united, steadfast and decisive in their support for Ukraine until Russia collapses. They should be building new alliances, with India, South America, and any free countries in Africa and Asia. And maybe some unfree ones. Possibly even China, because let's face it, despite its many flaws, China is not the threat to Europe that Russia is. A wedge between China and Russia would weaken Russia and help the EU.
Then, after Russia collapses and the US has withdrawn from the world stage, it will be the EU that saved Ukraine, just like after WW2, the new super powers where the US and USSR that defeated Germany. And Ukraine has a lot to offer that the EU lacks.
The EU is incredibly powerful. Biggest common market in the world, half a billion people, 2nd largest military in the world if they put it all together. The EU just needs to learn to flex its muscles, to unite and assert itself, instead of hiding behind the US.
Europe was supposed to be the "late stage" of human civilization, from Daniel's Old Testament dream of the human-form statue. The head of gold was the pinnacle of civilization, Babylon. The silver chest and arms were Persia. The belly and thighs were the Greek Empire. The legs of iron were the Roman Empire, resurrected as the fractious European Common Market (now European Union) in the feet of "iron mixed with clay".
The USA was variously portrayed as the Great Wh*re of Babylon, or else had some heroic role of some kind in these End Times.
At some point, all nations would stop fighting each other and join together to turn on Israel. Israel would be doomed but for God's intervention. From Daniel's dream, a pebble would form from nothing, grow to be a mighty boulder, and smash the feet of iron and clay (Europe, and by proxy godless humanity) and the rest of human civilization in form of the statue would crumble. The mighty boulder being ... Jesus. Israel would be mostly destroyed but a rescued "remnant", faithful Christians would be raptured / taken to heaven, the World would End ... and eventually all humanity would be judged for eternal salvation or punishment.
Wacky, fringe stuff ... EXCEPT THAT THESE BELIEFS ARE SO RELEVANT TO OUR PRESENT POLITICAL SITUATION IN THE USA. Check out the book "The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy" by Matthew D Taylor [1]. In this book and various podcasts Taylor describes the origins, religious and political philosophy, and current political power of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). No NAR church / congregation will claim the moniker today, but it remains a perfect description of the structure, leadership, and influence of this movement. The Bebbington Quadrilaterial splits "evangelicals" in the USA (and internationally) into four groups based on measures along two axes ... the "denominational vs non-denominational", and "charistmatic vs non-charistmatic". I grew up in in the denominational charismatic square, where churches believe in and expect the miraculous, but also belong to a centralized denomination with standards and accountability. The NAR congregations fit in the non-denominational charistmatic square, have a very authoritarian leadership structure with "apostles and prophets" at the top of each organization, and with a forest of MLM trees of such organizations, with no accountability at all for the "apostles" (c.f. the Mike Bickle scandal, and so many others, where people got away with abuse for years). In any case, in 2015 Trump's "spiritual advisor" Paula White (in early 2025 now is head of the White House Faith Council) gathered many apostles in this NAR movement around Trump, to throw their weight behind his candidacy and make him an acceptable candidate for their brand of evangelicals, and to pull in low-information evangelicals of other stripes behind his candidacy. And hence ... a conversation today between Trump and Zelensky, and many other knock-on effects.
Note that the NAR proposes to take over the world through their Seven Mountains Mandate, to "Bring Heaven to Earth", and usher in the End of Time. Of course, Trump does not believe any of...
It gets interesting when you realize that Russia is also a rival to China in Northeast Asia. A balkanized Russia, like the one the EU could have manifested had it took Russia warnings seriously and brought about decisive action after troops were invading Crimea. But no they lived in their "End of History" fantasy and that virtuous liberties will magically be spread if we just trade goods and ideas between spheres of influence.
Of course this reality will be bad for our allies in Asia (ie. Japan, SK, Taiwan). But maybe this time it'll wake up some in America from becoming isolationist again.
It sucks, but the EU has more urgent problems closer to home. All I can hope for is that Trump hates China enough that he'll continue to guarantee Taiwan's freedom. But I'm sure at some point he's going to ask them for some more material "thanks" too.
But yeah, the EU's relationship with China should not be the same as that with other allies. But I think there's room for some cooperation, and the EU might not object too loudly if China were to take outer Manchuria back, for example.
The Taiwanese are being told China is an aggressor but nowadays they see the opposite. Also if China invades it'll destroy every goodwill they had built to win over Taiwanese hearts and won't get control over TSMC supply chain market since the latter promised to torpefy their fabs before China gets its hand on them.
Trump is old, fat and infirm. Hopefully he will be gone soon and we return to some sort of sanity.
That's exactly the approach Europe took when dealing with Russia and we now see where it got us.
You also seem to be yet another person predicting Russia's "collapse", which is a prediction I've been hearing since a few years after Putin took control.
Military industrial capacity is Europe's main problem right now. I believe they're ramping up production, but it's going to take years. They may end up having to buy the arms from the US in the meantime if they want to aid Ukraine. If it gets to that, the question is whether they give China some business.
Seriously, I'm wondering who is going to be a more dangerous geopolitical foe for Europe going forward, the US or China. The ascendant forces in the in the US are pro-Russia, and that's not likely to change in the near term. Unlike China, though, we haven't sold military hardware to Russia. Yet.
I'm not so sure that's a realistic option when there's US officials saying to allies they should buy less US equipment.[1] It doesn't inspire confidence.
> A British defence figure, who is not part of the government, was told privately by US officials that it should “recalibrate” its reliance on US equipment.
And then there's this.
> They said that a US administration could put restrictions on kit from the US and that if countries are “deemed not to be doing what you are told you will suddenly find out missiles won’t fire and planes won’t fly. You have got to be careful.”
When allies buy less US equipment, what happens to the US citizens employed in the defence industry?
[1]: https://archive.ph/q2hgi
I don't see "EU taking that crown" happening any time soon, sadly. With the ascent of (often Russia sponsored) far-right nationalist parties, this is even less likely.
There's a reason why hawks like Bolton and Cheney are against it. It harms US interests in the mid-to-long-term. To me it seems like the Trump adminstration is a) trying to distract from their domestic agenda and b) isolate the US internationally and create new external foes to justify domestic changes.
At the end of the day, Zelensky had the most obvious proposition in the world -- allow American companies access to Ukrainian minerals. He kept asking for a security guarantee as if he needed anything more.
If he expected Trump or Vance to publicly announce they would go to war with nuclear-armed Russia over these mineral deals, then he's not fit to be president of any country.
The security implication was obvious... if Russia threatened American mining operations, the United States would obviously respond.
But the demand that Trump say he would go to war with Russia.. what purpose would that possibly serve? Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows the implication.
So maybe he can now turn to China, but I'll tell you that China's propositions for Ukraine's rare earth minerals will likely have Ukraine losing a lot more sovereignty than the scenarios where America took them over instead of the one where Russia wins.
So much for stopping the war in 24hrs. Trump's plans were never going to work there, and both Russian and Ukraine were going to try and make it look like the failure was not their fault - guess Russian won that particular battle, maybe it was never even a contest.
No, Ukraine is not in a position to reclaim significant ground. The state of the war is such that any offensive action is ruinously expensive, and while Russia is willing to pay that price, the fact that they're shipping North Koreans in to pay that cost rather than generally mobilize speaks volumes about the state they're in. Interest rates are at 21%; food inflation at 30%; unemployment at 2%, which indicates a severe labour shortage. They're destroying their own economy to grab just a few more feet before it unravels at home.
Meanwhile, Rheinmetall is launching joint ventures and building factories in Ukraine because they have the most warfighting experience of anyone right now and are leading the world in drone combat. Ukraine is still not conscripting anyone under 25, which is a large pool of recruits they've held in reserve. And after today, Europe is making a conspicuous show up increasing spending and standing behind Ukraine.
They can't kick Russia out, but they can certainly hold on longer than Russia with the ongoing support of Europe, and the way Zelensky was treated today has been a huge morale boost for standing firm.
This is delusional. Russia would’ve bulldozed Ukraine without US support. What county is under US sanctions? What country is receiving US weapons? Which, to be sure, is the correct choice. And having public spars with Ukraine is not.
But the fact that someone just typed this out and posted it is just so delusional. The fact that people upvoted this is delusional.
On March 16, 2014, the President issued Executive Order 13661, which expanded the scope of the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13660, and found that the actions and policies of the Government of the Russian Federation with respect to Ukraine undermine democratic processes and institutions in Ukraine; threaten its peace, security, stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity; and contribute to the misappropriation of its assets.
…Therefore… I [Trump]… am continuing… Execute Order 13660.
https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-03462.pdf
https://www.ukrainianworldcongress.org/trump-prolongs-sancti...
I don’t know why this pisses me off so much. Ostensibly we agree broadly. It’s just, HN really used to have such good nuanced and factual discussions, even outside tech. Now it’s all just raw anger.
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/text-of-spe...
Even Poland only started rearming after Kazynski's plane was shot down in Smolensk in 2010 (edit; not shot down), Romania only (started after Crimea and it's implications of a similar incident in neighboring Moldova in 2014, Turkiye began due interventions in Syria and Libya that lead to Turkish and Russian soldiers fighting against each other in 2012-15, and Netherlands after over a hundred of their citizens were shot down in an Air Malaysia Flight in 2015-16 (forgetting the exact date)
Trump is absolutely wrong in publicly abandoning our European allies, but this is something every administration since 2008 has been saying would eventually happen.
The failed UK-France intervention in Libya should have been the warning call (France and UK's air forces couldn't disable Libya's A2AD and ran out of precision muntions, forcing the Obama admin to intervene and spark the Benghazi crisis which helped bring Trump into the Oval Office in 2016). In fact, that incident probably further emboldened Russia as Libya's military apparatus was heavily Russian/Soviet in armament and strategy.
[0] - https://carnegieendowment.org/europe/strategic-europe/2015/0...
[1] - https://www.president.pl/president-komorowski/news/poland-so...
[2] - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10736700.2020.1...
https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/all-the-presidents-men-t...
This is, unfortunately, already the case. No country will ever fully trust such treaties again, and we are closer than ever to a new era of nuclear proliferation.
The railroad car was used in 1918 and in 1940. In both cases Germany was unoccupied, in WW1 because the war was fought on French and on Flandern fields, in 1940 because it was the beginning of the war.
You're possibly thinking of the German surrender, first in Reims, then a day later again in Berlin.
Charles de Gaulle is somewhere under a tombstone grinning ear to ear saying "I told you so."
Very strange times.
https://kyivindependent.com/france-could-send-nuclear-armed-...
You just noticed? Rules/treaties are useless unless you have the power to enforce them.
This is something every related country already knows, think of Pakistan and North Korea. Are you expecting China and India to drop their nukes because of some nice treaty?
> World needs to help out Ukraine...
... to achieve peace ASAP, because thousands of lives are being lost.
Ukraine is in a bind, and it is sad when a buffer state is put through the meat grinder in a proxy war between two great powers. But here we are. The upside is that the Ukrainians who weren't killed in the conflict will be, along with Poland and Lithuania, the only "European" states with anything resembling a capable military. I doubt the EU members want Ukraine as a full member of NATO. Too risky. There are some proposals on the table for a more complicated peace without conceding full neutrality of Ukraine to Russia.
I don't think many people understand the nature of this conflict. They merely see "Russian aggression" but have little comprehension of great power competition and the events leading up to the hot part of this war. I feel for the Ukrainians but I wonder if any of the Ukraine boosters would shed a drop of their own blood for Ukraine. If the US demands that the Europeans take a larger role in the security of Europe, we will see if the European NATO members are up to the task. The US needs to pivot its resources to China in the coming decade. The war with Russia has been very costly and strengthened the bonds between Russia and China (and Iran and North Korea). The Europeans should take a great role in policing their own neighborhood, but I don't believe the EU, as currently constructed, is the governance vehicle capable of leading a unified Europe. The member states are, quite understandably, not happy to give up their sovereignty and culture. Participation in a common market has been a disaster for the working class of Western Europe (unless you think cheaper products is the only measure of a country's vitality). The EU experiment might be at an inflection point. They can remain in this bureaucratic quagmire, or reassert the spirit of Wesphalian sovereignty, or await the arrival of a new Charlemagne to unite a strong Europe under sovereign leadership capable of meeting the challenges of the 21st century. My money is on the decline of the EU into irrelevance and a return to the Westphalian spirit. There is no political will centered in Brussels capable of leading this ragtag assemblage of diverse states and peoples. The border problems persist. The result will be more populist revolts and ascendant "right wing" parties advocating "blood and soil" nationalism. If that's the future, then the western european states will only be supported militarily via bilateral treaties with the US or under the umbrella of a NATO dominated by the US. The latter is just the norm for the post-WWII "New World Order" so it will feel familiar. With luck, the collapse of the EU will allow EU member states to reassert control over their own borders and laws. If that happens, they should abandon this resentment of the US and be grateful they were saved from the managed decline of their central government in Brussels.
2. As it stands today, the US comes out on top. They paid a measly sum to throw Russia in the meat grinder and it will take decades until Russia is threat to the US again.
3. Our military hawks now get to focus on China. EU still has to worry about Russia
Question and I ask this honestly. What if Americans no longer care about global hegemony or the fate of Europe? As an American I am tired of the continual idea that we have to care about what happens in Europe and if anything bad happens there it is egg on our face. What about egg on Europe's face? They choose not to spend money on their defense and keep their end of the NATO agreement. I have no appetite to keep up our end of the NATO treaty in wartime if the other parties couldn't keep up their end in peacetime.
who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island;
who rules the World-Island commands the world.
— Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, p. 150
If you want to argue for a renewed commitment to the Monroe Doctrine, I'm with you. Heck, I'm even there for Manifest Destiny (Canada as the 51st state, as Benjamin Franklin would have had it). But the downsides of a multipolar world are legitimate. Ideally we can maintain our global dominance without oppressing/degrading our own and allied populations.
What are you on about? EU countries + UK have over a million professional military personnel.
> Brussels is the equivalent to the Deep State in the US but with official status, instead of being a shadow government.
The EU parliament has members elected from each country in the EU, there's no deep state conspiracy there.
> The member states of the EU are soon going to realize they are "a peninsula at the tip of Eurasia" and their best interests lie in close ties to the US.
This is the complete opposite of what's actually going on, EU countries are realizing we need a stronger EU and we need to fend for ourselves and will be moving away from US ties.
The "deep state" is not a "conspiracy". It's a form of parallel government. Nothing unique about that in history. (The Roman Catholic Church should be familiar to all Europeans.) The comparison is to point out that there are two "sovereignties" in play (member states and EU) making laws. And when you have two, you have none.
It's quite remarkable the change in America over a couple decades. In the 90s, the left was solidly pro-free-speech and anti-war. Anti-war sometimes to a fault, even. Maybe aside from some censorship effort of rap and Mortal Kombat, you could count on the left to defend free speech at nearly any cost.
Now, it is the left that seems interested in doubling down on wars, without any plan for escape, and of "reigning in" speech deemed by some as harmful.
I'm not here to say correct or incorrect. Pick your own ice cream flavor. My point is that it's striking how much the parties have flipped 180 degrees (on some issues).
Where are the voices that simply want the war to end so people stop dying? It’s easy to say bully this and ally that from the comfort of your office while hundreds of thousands of people die in a strip of land most “supporters” couldn’t point out on a map. At this point there’s a collective ego tied to the outcome more than there is any care for the actual people involved.
[1]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/653495/half-ukrainians-quick-ne...
That doesn't mean I'll accept your proposal to rob a bank.
1. Ukraine should continue fighting until it wins the war.
2. Ukraine should seek to negotiate an ending to the war as soon as possible.
3. Don't know/Refused.
"Ukraine should surrender unconditionally" and "Ukraine should negotiate permanent security guarantees" and "Ukraine should fight its way into a better negotiating position" are all in the same bucket. This is maliciously bad poll design.
> Must we endlessly fund a war that is in stalemate and will continue to savagely end the lives of military and civilian alike? Otherwise, we are a bully?
Can you cite any legislative efforts anywhere in the USA by any elected Democrat that limits, coerces or in anyway "reigns in" speech of any sort?
https://democraticleader.house.gov/media/press-releases/lett...
Whose economy gets the money spent? If it's ours—and it is—then yes, it's obviously in our interest to continue to run up debt.
Actual real Ukrainians are fighting, and signing back up even after being injured.
Ukraine is on "death ground" and has nowhere to go except to fight to survive. Ukrainians know that. Russia knows that. I'm not sure that those that spout Russian propaganda know that, and for example I doubt you know any Ukrainians with questions like yours, but you sure do sound like the Russian propaganda lines that get trotted out to Americans.
And "we" here means the democratic world - solidarity is the only way to deter bullies - if Russia knew that EU/US would retaliate in case of an attack on Ukraine, they wouldn't invade.
But of course if you yourself is a bully, you will do everything in your power to cause feuds. And here we are, oh well.
This interview, on the other hand, has the US VP talking on top of a head of state while chastising him for not being grateful enough while pressuring him to take a deal that would effectively surrender Ukraine to US and Russian interests. Whatever the objective of this meeting was, "a fair result for Ukraine and its dead" did not seem to be it.
If Ukraine signed this deal they would lose so many more lives than with what Zelensky did. I can't imagine how cowardly and easily fooled you'd have to be to think that giving into Russia will make the genocide stop.
European defense spending has, for decades now, suggested that they don't particularly care about NATO. Well, the Western European members at least. Those who used to live in the Warsaw Pact take it more seriously - see Poland, for example.
They also should have been thinking about the implications of buying so much gas from the Russians for the last 15 years. The invasion of Georgia should have been a trigger to move off of Russian exports permanently. Instead it just brought further dependence and a major pipeline project.
I despise Trump as much as anyone but strategic security shouldn't rest on one country never being in a position to elect an isolationist demagogue.
I'd argue the opposite: Western European countries' low defense spending was exactly because they they believed NATO (in particular the US) would intervene if needed. They don't believe this anymore now, hence will increase defense spending, hence making NATO less relevant. They will now be able to rely on the EU alone.
They're increasing spending, but that takes years to translate to real results.
It's not particularly hard to pump out a few hundred thousand rifles, small arms ammo, and hand them to cannon fod... I mean... the fighting-age men of a country.
What is hard is developing a weapons industry that can act upon intelligence provided by spies planted in places like Russia, develop systems with indigenous technologies, and produce them at scale, all with the logistics to make them mean something on the battlefield. This was on full display during WWII, when some more advanced weapons came out of Germany too late and in too small of numbers to give the Nazis a chance to avoid the ass kicking they so richly deserved.
That takes decades to develop. Europeans, with the exception of the UK and maybe France, have let that fruit rot on the vine since 1991. Putin wouldn't have made this gamble if he didn't think this.
Russia is winning the cold war, 35 years after it "ended".
Great TV, though.
Europe can defend itself against Russia just fine. Maybe it will be a bit poorer, as it has to spend more money on defense, but it can do that. The bigger threat is that European countries start fighting each other again. That could happen in a few decades, if Eurosceptic parties become too popular.
On the other hand, Europe does not care about China. It has no interests in the Pacific. In the absence of mutually beneficial alliances with powers that oppose China, Europe would rather see China as a (somewhat unpleasant) trading partner than an adversary. If China is not a threat and the US is not an ally, it doesn't matter much which of them is the dominant power in the Pacific.
China keeps getting blockaded left and right when trying to establish shorter routes with the EU, and there's a reason for this. The EU and China both want to just live in peace and are natural trading partners — the main obstacle being distance, blockades, and unfriendly territories in between.
What does this mean? I honestly cannot imagine.
If you mean naval blockade, which country's navy is doing the blockading?
I mean think about it - it had to rely on US transportation just to participate in the Iraq War. How much of a threat can a country be if it can't even project force into that theatre?
I would go further than that and say you can't trust the US for anything, ever. The United States will not keep long term commitments for more than four years at a time. If you're lucky, or unlucky depending on which side you're on, that cycle will last 8 years.
Not one person ever expected American blood to be spilled in Ukraine. Framing the opposing side with having these thoughts is arguing in bad faith. And what peace is there in letting a bully get away with the spoils? What's going to stop them from doing it again?
And yea the US didn't technically start the war, but if Ukraine didn't give up their nukes because of assurances by the US, then they wouldn't have been in this situation.
Because they didn't keep their end of the agreement this means a greater burden would fall on America if we actually got lassoed into another European war. It seems the height of hypocrisy for Europe to demand America do the hard part in wartime when Europe couldn't even be bothered to do the easy part in peacetime.
Second, European underspending has been by American design. Europe spent decades being told to rebuild their economies and states and not worry because the US nuclear umbrella protected them. This redounded to the US in terms of leading the world economy; it also gave the US tremendous influence in the EU.
In the 90s, Europeans talked about standing up an EU armed force. A small one, around 50,000 people, mainly to serve as an umbrella organization should EU forces come together for some mission, or to go to war as part of NATO. Clinton leaned on France and Germany to scuttle the idea. If Europeans became less dependent on the US, it meant less soft power for the US; less say in European affairs.
The secondary benefit of keeping everyone individually weak and collectively strong is that no European war was possible. The 80 years of peace in Europe following WW2 are the longest period of peace they've had in almost 400 years. Europe upping its defence spending directly threatened that and was actively discouraged until about a decade ago.
Europeans haven't been freeloading. They've wilfully subordinated themselves to the US security establishment for the collective benefit. To pretend otherwise is to be deeply ignorant of modern history.
So here is my follow up. I don't believe it was Americas intention to keep Europe weak. That treaty was signed after WW2. Russian was at western Europe's door step and they were depleted from the war so they needed protection. They signed NATO treaty with America for that purpose. It was not a treaty of equals, it was America flexing its global power and Europe having to acquiesce. Over the years it has been retconned into an alliance of "allies" but really most of the "allies" were protectorates and not contributors.
I would counter that they have been freeloading. Europe absolutely willfully subordinated themselves for THEIR benefit. They have been getting national security for free for nearly 80 years. I am not ignorant of that. Yet I am no longer of the opinion that there is as much benefit to us as there once was. We have our own issues to attend to at home that we haven't had in the past. 100,000 Americans die every year from the drugs brought over by the cartels. We have 100,000's of illegals coming across our borders. We should prioritize our own defense for now and let Europe stand on its own. If Europe cant keep from having wars with each other than maybe the security the US was providing would be worth paying for.
Europe in total equals the US by numbers: population, GDP, military availability (though obviously not cohesiveness). It's not that the US wanted a weak Europe; they wanted weak individual states depending on each other and the US for collective security. No, it was never an alliance of equals; that's not the point. Collectively, NATO was incredibly strong, and what Europe offered was the battlefield. In the Cold War, the plans were that the Warsaw Pact forces would come streaming through the Fulda Gap and burst through NATO defences, crossing plains to the Rhine River and surging westwards across Europe. The NATO plan to handle this was to detonate nuclear land mines in the mountain passes, blocking them.
The NATO plan was to detonate nukes on German soil to take out the initial advance and block the second echelon of Soviet tank divisions (without Soviet nuclear weapons, tactical or otherwise, having been used). Germany OK'ed this plan. Upon detection of an imminent Soviet attack, special forces would, 12-24 hours in advance, emplace the nuclear mines (about the size of half a minivan) and prepare to detonate. NATO's warplans always anticipated first use of tactical nukes (because NATO numbers were always dwarfed by Warsaw Pact numbers) and the battlefield was always Europe. Every warplan always involved European allies taking the first blow and America responding.
Calling European states protectorates that begged for American protection really undersells the value of a relatively independent (western) Europe, both economically and militarily. Without Europe as the front line in a future war against the Warsaw Pact, America would either have to watch Europe be subjugated by the Soviet Union, or fight a war across the Atlantic without local cooperation (and the Pacific, where Japan/South Korea stood in for Europe). Europe offered intelligence co-operation and direct contact. Economically, Europe (and Japan) rebuilding quickly and participating in first world market economics was unbelievably beneficial to the US. If nothing else, the fact that the US dollar is the world's reserve currency is justification enough for US expenditures in the Cold War.
To go back to my original point, it was always mutually beneficial, and everyone knew it and was in agreement. Everyone was stronger together, and no one is in debt to anyone else.
If the cost/benefit calculus has changed, then that's just life: shit changes. All of the problems you mention are exclusive of America's (previous) commitment to NATO--American has more than enough money to attend to both. But the idea that Europe/the rest of NATO should suddenly be a defense subscriber to the US is just... America didn't bootstrap itself to the position it's in now. Its prior close workings with the free world have made all the difference, and for a while (and no longer) it seemed like everyone understood how it all worked.
That said, I think you’ve actually made my point for me. You laid out how Europe is equal to the U.S. in GDP, population, and military availability, all of which just reinforces why it no longer makes sense for the U.S. to keep shouldering the majority of European defense.
If Europe is fully capable, then it should be fully responsible for its own security. That doesn’t mean alliances disappear, but it does mean the dynamic needs to shift. The U.S. has carried this burden for 80 years, and at some point, grown-up nations take full responsibility for their own defense.
I agree that NATO served its purpose mutually during the Cold War. But now that the geopolitical landscape has changed, so should the arrangement. The U.S. has pressing priorities at home, and if Europe is as strong and independent as you say, then it should have no problem stepping up.
If Europe wants full American protection, then maybe it’s time they start paying for it.
Also please note that Article 5 of the NATO treaty doesn't obligate the US to actually do anything. We can take any "Action It Deems Necessary". We are not obligated to send troops, money or material. There is no timeline for when we must take action, nor is there an automatic declaration of war. The whole thing is we can do what we want when we want.
Line of "The US does nothing for free or out of goodwill" comes up all the time. Please tell me what country does? Then the next thing they do is go right into some form of name calling or denigration, just like you did.
Nothing in your response was about the main points of my comment. Which were firstly that America doesn't have to negotiate peace for/with Ukraine in a way that Ukraine really wants. Secondly because of how Americans feel they have been treated by Europeans over the last century a large portion of the population no longer views them as worthy allies, they feel more like fair weather supporters than allies tbh. So they feel it would be unwise to send our children to die for Europe's safety.
The last point is Europe has been neglecting its own commitments to NATO via its annual spending. So it feels like they are expecting free protection from the Americans which feels like a form of entitlement which leads back to the second point.
I get that these are contentious issues and controversial topics at times but trying to insult or insulate things about someone based on perceived political alignment is not what this site is about.
Anyone can always do whatever they want. And the only way there aren't repercussions on some level are if you're some kind of god-like being sealed in the equivalent of closed terrarium.
Does the US have power? Sure. But the US could act disgracefully even if it didn't have power.
The framing I'd give this is that the US is trying to extort Ukraine without actually bringing anything to the table, and all it's going to accomplish is making the US itself less powerful, less reputable, the rest of the world more convinced that nuclear weapons need proliferate because otherwise invasions are on the table, and a litany of other things that will basically make the US weaker over time.
There is something left: the land, the people. But not the country, that is something new.
As if this lesson hasn't been conveyed for the past 30 years.
How anyone can sit here after the Iraq war and say any of this with a straight face is beyond me.
I understand that argument, but what about security guarantees? Zelensky has been simply asking for security guarantees so that Putin doesn't start another war in a few years (like he did in 2014 and 2022). Why can't Trump provide that? Why should we just trust Putin's word? Or is there something I'm missing here?
That is, if the US wasn't currently in the business of eroding trust in any and all agreements they may have entered.
A few years ago we kept making comparisons to Chamberlain appeasing to Hitler, inviting Hitler to keep expanding its territory at the expense of other sovereign nations in Europe, but at the same time made it very clear that Putin is no hitler and the comparison is too extreme.
Now it seems quite clear that the US under Trump is not willing to intervene in military fashion. For Russia, getting east-Ukraine in a year and waiting 3 years while ramping up its war economy to take the rest of Ukraine is a great outcome. For China, Taiwan is now a no-brainer as Trump declined to say whether he would intervene like Biden did. This is appeasement. Trump seems to want peace at any expense, he doesn't seem to recognize at all what the people of Ukraine have been willing to give their lives for, their country.
It's easy to have peace if you just surrender everything to a bully. Peace without justice is more like slavery. MLK said it right, there can't be peace without justice.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been a godsend for US influence. Finland and Sweden joined NATO. The Russian military was exposed as a paper tiger. A huge portion of the Russian military's capability was destroyed without a single US military serviceman or asset being deployed. Russian energy exports to Europe (and the influence that gives them) have dropped to a mere fraction of what they were in 2020. Europe is now dependant on US LNG exports.
The second largest military in NATO is Turkey and Turkey is America's puppet. Turkey has been in direct military conflict with other NATO members (ie Greece) with the blessing of the US.
Ceding territory to Russia, which seems all but inevitable now, doesn't change the the security picture for Europe. Russia still can't occupy Ukraine. That was true before the invasion. It's still true now. They certainly can't roll into Poland let alone Germany and Western Europe.
The EU really has no interest in paying for their own security. Politically it's a nonstarter too with the right of far-right parties like National Front in France and AfD, AfD in Germany and Reform in the UK.
For example, since October 7, Erdogan made lots of statements about how he was upset with the Israeli treatment of Palestinians. That was all for show. Something like 40% of Israel's energy comes from Azerbijan and transits through Turkey. Turkey could've cut that off. But they never would.
Likeise, Erdogan's family continued to trade with and make money from Israel.
Turkey buys a Russian anti-missile defense system [1] while selling Bayraktar drones to Ukraine and hosting US (technically NATO) nuclear weapons.
Turkey is consistently aligned with US foreign polciy with some minor exceptions that are really deviations tolerated because of Turkey's strategic importance and recognizing the need for Erdogan to maintain power.
[1]L https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/26/erdogan-turkey-coul...
Yes. Like sell a ton of drones to Ukraine, partner with Ukraine on producing drones, shooting down a Russian plane in Syria, conflict with Russian troops in Syria, etc...
They have been aligned with the US most of the time but they very clearly also have a mind of their own and that includes a lot of actions against Russia.
Expect insane nukes proliferation.
And while we're at it, this time will be different: Instead of the membership criteria being anti-soviet communism, as in NATO, it should be effective Liberal Democracy - and - Freedom from Exceptionalist Exemptions, namely from the International Rule of Law. So, to be part,
1. Compulsory International Criminal Court membership and compliance - hence no exceptionalistic US, and no exceptionalistic Israel.
2. No "Illiberal Democracies": say, for example, composite of a minimum 0.67 score on the WJP Rule of Law Index and others: therefore no Orbanic Hungary, and no illiberal others like it. Poland, Slovakia, Italy: time to make some hard choices if you want in.
3. Democratic backsliding removes you rights in the Alliance, and, can proportionally lead to outright expulsion.
Not one more new military equipment purchase from the US, (and dispreference for other non-qualifying nations procurement). Member nations should use their - substantial - industrial capacity to equip themselves with indigenous military materiel.
Hey, it would be actually great for the economy!
Initially European scope, but bridges to a broader global scope (or even a secondary sister-Alliance) with open-ended partnerships with Canada, Australia, New Zeland, Japan, South Korea, and yes: Taiwan.
US and/or Israel want to join, if a more Democratic future selves? Simple: fully join the ICC, and meet the Alliance's full criteria as every other member.
Same applies for prospective new members.
Sweden shows how principled positions can be maintained while building serious defense capabilities. Now multiply that model by Europe's combined industrial and technological base.
We just need the political will to execute - instead of just rolling over and wagging our tail to bullies.
If the US scaled back the 2%, and was less involved, I would think Europe would be in a better position than a brand new alliance.
Because Trump is clearly compromised by Putin.
Which also means we cannot fully rely on NATO secret keys / protocols.
A new Alliance has to be made from scratch.
The 2% GDP threshold has indeed been a persistent issue, but European nations have substantially increased defense spending since 2022. The proposed alliance would be fundamentally different from NATO in two key ways:
1. It would prioritize democratic values and rule of law accountability (ICC membership) over simply being anti-Russia
2. It would develop true strategic autonomy through indigenous defense production
NATO remains structurally dominated by US interests and equipment with their potential "kill switches." Recent events demonstrate why European security can't be outsourced to powers with potentially divergent interests.
The existing industrial and technological capabilities across Europe are more than sufficient to create a credible deterrent force when properly coordinated. This isn't about creating something from scratch, but realigning existing resources toward greater sovereignty.
Democracy and rule of law aren't just ideals - they're strategic assets worth defending with our own means.
Why the downvotes?
In 2025, Trump dumped Ukraine, sided with Putin and made a number of bully threats (including invasion) to its formal National Security partners. Security which - at least still today - is bound by literal treaty.
Should Europe just roll over and wag its tail?
What kind of partnership is this that one side wants to boss around its only-good-if-wimp partner?
We're in the verge of those countries being Trumped as well.
It is an Alliance of the Willing.
Seven countries now have far right parties in government, including Italy, France, and Germany. If they go the way of the U.S., any liberal alliance will be greatly diminished.
I’m not saying they’re not democracies, just that they would be *more democratic* if they would fully comply with the ICC.
This Alliance has standards and actually would stand for concrete values, rather than just strategic convenience.
Meanwhile, Hungary systematically dismantles judicial independence, crushes media freedom, and rewrites electoral rules to entrench single-party rule - but sure, they're the real liberals here.
The proposed alliance isn't claiming perfect members - it's establishing clear, measurable standards through indices *like* WJP Rule of Law. If Japan doesn't meet the 0.67 threshold, they're out too. That's the whole point: consistent standards applied equally, not convenient exceptions.
But please, continue defending Orbán's "illiberal democracy" while nitpicking flaws in actual functioning democracies. That's definitely a coherent position.
The right way for you is only if they are bullied without complaint?
Perhaps you'd prefer an alliance where authoritarian tendencies are celebrated rather than scrutinized?
Or maybe you just find democracies protecting themselves too... inconvenient?
This has been par for the course for decades. They used to be on good terms with Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Iran after they couped Mossadegh. Heck, they even armed and trained Osama Bin Laden to fight the soviets in Afghanistan. It has always been a deadly gambit to ally yourself with the United States.
I'm not saying it's universally the case of course. For every Saddam there's a Pinochet, for every Gaddafi there's a Suharto. But the fact that the US can drop an ally just like that should not be a surprise to anyone.
The switch to verbally attacking Ukraine and the rest of Europe whilst fellating Putin is an altogether different one, and one much more damaging to US soft power than its past belligerence.
Personally I'm more inclined to believe that the ally-turned-foe's invasion serves as a convenient excuse for the US to attack, rather than the root cause. One thing that at least Gadaffi and Saddam have in common is nationalizing their oil industry. This to me seems like a much more believable reason for US aggression.
Help Ukraine: https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/wiki/charities/?share_id=xG...
Dont buy from Companies doing business with Russia: https://leave-russia.org/
2015: 5 countries
2021: 9 countries
2024: 23 countries
I don't think these levels would have improved so quickly without the US being a bully.
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/world/europe/donald-trump...
For the US, NATO is an obligation, of which the EU nations (with their lavish social spending and anemic defense spending) benefited from.
In 2014, the EU did NOTHING to help when Crimea was invaded. You continued to buy gas, and even bult new pipelines like Nordstream to continue to hand Putin money. I'm all for the EU to take on it's own protection and investing in militaries. World War II ended 80 years ago. Move on and grow up and pay for your own defense.
Isn't most US NATO spending just hand-outs to the US defense industry?
But I agree that the EU should never have relied on the US for its own defense, I really hope that will change now.
Manufacturing a split with Zelensky gives them that excuse. Now they can turn off the tap of support to Ukraine, forcing them to capitulate, and blame Zelensky.
Meanwhile they can make a deal with Putin to split Ukraine between them. Putin gets East Ukraine, the USA gets the mineral wealth of West Ukraine. It’s win-win.
Historically most of the heavy industry, near the mineral deposits, has always been in eastern Ukraine. Agricultural stuff in western and central Ukraine. Putin would be perfectly happy w/ a Ukrainian only rump state centered around Lviv.
These conversations are a train wreck, I don't understand how people expect to stop war if you can't be bothered to even try to speak truthfully.
They're all Kremlin lines/tropes commonly found in state media.
And then TASS was allowed in to the Whitehouse and PA News aren't?
Thinking long and hard apparently is all the EU is capable of.
Trump's first term should have been more than enough to make the EU come to their senses. Now, we have tethered caps and the AI Act, but the EU still has no coherent vision or just even the slightest idea of how to move the continent forward instead of keeping it in the past.
I don't get it.
Make no mistake that the Republican party is bought out, through and through, by foreign powers.
I can't point to anything concrete about Russia funding Trump.
I speak both from public and personal history: when American leadership signed its various trade treaties with China back in the 90s and earlier, opening itself up to the swift transfer of manufacturing to its one-time enemy, was American leadership not signaling its strong desire to diminish American power for the sake of peace?
And on a personal level: my hippie parents had often railed against American imperialism and voted for candidates they thought could stop it. What did they (and other similarly-minded folks) think would happen once America withdrew from the world stage? Do people who think the same way today believe America will grow stronger by pulling back?
Having been around since the late 60s, I can only say this attitude has been in the making for a long time. I can't point to college sit-ins or Nixon going to China or Carter turning over the Panama Canal or the US-China Relations Act (2000) or anything specific stating 'this is the definitive moment', but this desire for a weaker, more isolationist America is neither surprising nor accidental for those of us who've been watching it grow. It's ultimately what my parents and their contemporaries wanted. It's... dream fulfillment.
I think the current administration's actions are backed by the desire to kick out all immigrants, build a fortress wall around the US, and I guess wait out the end times.
Us lefties often say the best way to lower immigration rates is make other countries a more desirable place to live. I'm not sure if this has ever been put into practice though.
Regarding China, the European and American financial relationship is the largest in the world. Chinese trade with Europe is tiny. Sounds like that is all about to change.
Personally, I hope to see China fill the void America will leave behind; the world will be better for it.
But I do believe that is why Americans are so frightened of a multipolar world (or really, any world where the US isn't the singular superpower).
The Chinese are not stupid enough to send their kids to die in war, and even if they were, they at least have an excess of young males.
> The Chinese are not stupid enough to send their kids to die in war
I see you already understand why China would be a better world leader than America!
All he had to do was was smile and wave, but Zelensky made it into a dick measuring contest which he was always going to lose.
He is a terrible leader and this is just more proof of it.
This is not at all consistent with U.S. foreign policy. It is one regime, that clearly has different thoughts about our alliances. It's an anomaly or, more accurately, an aberration. And it's similar to what's happening here domestically as well.
what kind of entitled mindset is that? he should be down on his knees BEGGING for money if he wants it.
Left his family, took on a uniform...And had to fight, at the same time, Putin and the President of the USA: https://youtu.be/4zwfukYhq-k?t=6
This is why Zelensky keep saying he doesn't want another paper.
I encourage everyone to do so:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7pxbGjvcdyY&pp=ygUbZnVsbCB6ZWx...
Watching Trump and Vance and others posture and try to score political points while you could just see the depth of exhaustion and horrors witnessed in Zelensky's face… I don't even know how to feel about it all.
Maybe that's what a bunch of citizens want? Pretty depressing, if so. I will say that I'm reevaluating my countries alliances and (lack of) security capability.
Every country in the world knows this already.
I mean all you need to do is look at South Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, many South American countries, the list goes on and on.
America is like a fickle woman. When she pays attentions to you it feels wonderful, but when she changes her mind it's like you never existed in the first place.
Zelensky had to know that going in. The writing was on the wall.
I think Trump would welcome that, though.
The risk is why they'd be up in arms. Personally I think it would get spun as Europe acting against the US for no reason and Europe would become the scapegoat for any economic issues the US cause themselves.
The only real option is to wait for the US to do something undeniable while saying you don't want it, like tariffs, and then to retaliate as hard as possible when it happens. The difficulty with that approach is that it makes it easier for the aggressor to pick off one target at a time.
I'd be absolutely stunned if the Trump admin actually puts tariffs on the EU. I think it's a distraction so they can claim the EU capitulated in some way and Canada didn't, which somehow makes the tariffs on Canada justified.
The tariffs should help us understand if they're crazy or orchestrating something more strategic. If the goal is to weaken Canada economically so the US can pilfer Canada's resources, the US will "make up" with Europe and punish Canada as much as possible.
Canada, the EU, the UK, NZ, AUS, Mexico, etc. should have (loudly) created an agreement for unified retaliatory tariffs against the US over a month ago. Now we're open to being picked off one-by-one and it sucks.
My Dutch news website right now: "EU foreign policy chief: Free world needs new leader"
When was that, I haven't seen the whole thing except where it got heated, but at no point did I catch Zelenskyy saying anything that could possibly be interpreted like that.
But mostly I couldn't hear what Zelenskyy was saying because he couldn't get a word in edgewise.
Happy to be proven wrong.
The world is changing pretty quickly, and stuff like this does have implications on war, business, technology that's I think is worth discussing here.
Sometimes I wonder what is actually left of hacker/startup culture?
We still have TCP. We still have Linux. We still have gcc, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo and more. Now, that last mile connection is still looking dicey; if a lockdown is applied, it will be applied there.
How many CEOs of prominent tech companies right now even use technology? Like REALLY use it.
It's an old propaganda trick that Vance probably learned from the Russians (who used it heavily for 70+ years). But it works only on an easily intimidatable audience that doesn't know any better. Nor care.
Jebus, how do you screw up a photo op?
Buch of children in the US executive branch.
I suppose they think they look “strong” but it looks more insecure and incompetent to me.
> Shortly before the meeting ended, Trump offered, “This is going to be great television.”
https://apnews.com/article/zelenskyy-security-guarantees-tru...
The intended audience is eating this up. If you go to conservative spaces, NATO now is considered a rip off, the EU was apparently designed to hurt the US, Zelensky is a dictator, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin
"In his blog Unqualified Reservations, which he wrote from 2007 to 2014, and in his later newsletter Gray Mirror, which he started in 2020, he argues that American democracy is a failed experiment[5] that should be replaced by an accountable monarchy, similar to the governance structure of corporations.[6] In 2002, Yarvin began work on a personal software project that eventually became the Urbit networked computing platform. In 2013, he co-founded the company Tlon to oversee the Urbit project and helped lead it until 2019.[7]
Yarvin has been described as a "neo-reactionary", "neo-monarchist" and "neo-feudalist" who "sees liberalism as creating a Matrix-like totalitarian system, and who wants to replace American democracy with a sort of techno-monarchy".[8][9][10][11] He has defended the institution of slavery, and has suggested that certain races may be more naturally inclined toward servitude than others.[12][13] He has claimed that whites have higher IQs than black people, but does not consider himself a white nationalist. He is a critic of US civil rights programs, and has called the civil rights movement a "black-rage industry".[14]
Yarvin has influenced some prominent Silicon Valley investors and Republican politicians, with venture capitalist Peter Thiel described as his "most important connection".[15] Political strategist Steve Bannon has read and admired his work.[16] U.S. Vice President JD Vance "has cited Yarvin as an influence himself."[17][18][19] Michael Anton, the State Department Director of Policy Planning during Trump's second presidency, has also discussed Yarvin's ideas.[20] In January 2025, Yarvin attended a Trump inaugural gala in Washington; Politico reported he was "an informal guest of honor" due to his "outsize influence over the Trumpian right."[21]"
Either Yarvin is so ignorant of history that he’s barely worth listening to, or he is actively malevolent, and intentionally deceptive, OR he has absolutely no qualms about bending his “philosophy” to the whims of whoever happens to control the executioner.
Take your pick.
But he is explicit in his desire for a ruler.
You are right though. There is nothing "conservative" about the current "conservative" party. It is 100% pure reactionary. The only principles are opposition to what "the opposition" wants.
If /r/conservative is not representative of conservative side of America, and the conservatives control the US Congress , I am puzzled that not one of the conservatives has pushed back on annexation of Canada or Greenland . Not One.
Political scientists have visualized legislative partisanship in Congress, and this feels like the 10th time I've posted this in the last decade :https://www.vox.com/2015/4/23/8485443/polarization-congress-...
Now, voters may not like this and feel trapped by the way the primary system works and so on, but the reality is taht they keep giving in to the partisans.
That’s it: extinction burst because winning because of attributes you inherited wasn’t working.
Also, real easy to say “shit sucks”. Really hard to actually make things that don’t suck.
That, plus a healthy dose of anti-intellectualism, is a ratchet to hell.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jqLtIrRqDg
https://apnews.com/live/donald-trump-latest-news-2-28-2025
Is it just me, or does it seem like the conversation swerves suddenly to "you're disrespecting..." It just seemed like a complete change of subject.
It's moronic, I am truly flabbergasted. They are both adults acting worse than children running a country. But of course you have the uneducated folk who will lap this up.
"I know you are but what am I"
Wait till he finds out what the Nazis did to autistic people.
Why is it so hard to just say “Nazis suck, I hate Nazis”…
https://www.marca.com/en/lifestyle/movies/2025/01/25/6794ca2...
It mentions that Elon will be there. The conflict of interest is pretty clear. Not to mention the recent post about YC boss-ware that du-humanizes laborers. Capitalists/industrialists are generally pro-nazi at an ideology level.
It's understandable that some personal biases may creep in to the moderation processes, and I believe that this is a much preferable situation than allowing it to devolve into an unmoderated forum.
I assume that Elon the Nazi is too inflammatory for an HN discussion subject, where the emphasis should be on polite discussion of nerdy subjects, as per the guidelines.
As an aside: I posted a link about accelerationism (a worthy HN topic methinks) but it had the word 'capitalism' in the title and got flagged - it is a well produced and thought provoking video by the way [1], and not partisan-political at all.
[1] https://youtu.be/wlrjdCVAuG0?feature=shared
Doesn't even have to be political. I've seen it over and over with submissions about cybertruck recalls, twitter related stuff, etc.
A top tier concern of our age is disinformation & propoganda. The lies are absurd & out of control. But denial of information is also a huge issue, and the ability of a couple few to suppress & deny here is remarkable.
I'm so glad there's this timeline based site, showing what's really happening & the many many things denied.
set for top stories for the last 24 hours
it's the best homepage for HN, shows all stories, flagged and flamed stories too
To state the obvious, the Trump administration is more interested in profiting from a minerals deal than supplying any actual security guarantees. The Russian Federation has proved time and time again that they will breach any peace agreements (as occurred with the current invasion which breached agreements bartered after the annexation of Crimea) made with Ukraine for piecewise annexation of their neighbors, at any price to their own soldiers and people.
True lasting peace, is avoiding further steps to another world war. It takes hardly a high school education in history to recognize those preliminary warning signs in Russia's behavior. A common talking point that the Trump administration seems to use, is that they are doing precisely that- preventing a world war- by refusing to further arm and protect Ukraine with weapons and security guarantees- however this refusal does just the opposite, and this minerals deal really has nothing to do with Ukraine's security or interests. The devil is in the details, and the Trump admin refuses to detail how the minerals deal would protect Ukraine or how they would respond to further territorial incursions if the deal were to be signed.
Aside from all this, of course there's a lot of topical nonsense in how Trump and Vance conducted themselves, with shouting and lecturing at Zelensky, but these are all distractions, and they have almost no substance or details to back their broad claims about how or why this conflict started and what would end it. Scapegoating and bullshitting seems to be their game, but luckily Zelensky both asserted himself where possible and kept a relatively calm, but brutally honest, demeanor.
Because the security threats to America would come a bit later, likely in the form of Russia marching into a NATO country, Americans will believe what they want about the conflict. Trump makes this especially easy with his false and misleading oversimplifications. It is sad to think that a proportionally small sacrifice by the American taxpayer to help a country like Ukraine has been sized up as unworthy collateral for saving lives and fighting fascism.
France built an independent system, the UK did not.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-nuclear-deterr...
"Although the UK’s nuclear deterrent is assigned to the defence of NATO, we retain full operational control over its use. Only the UK Prime Minister can authorise the use of our nuclear weapons, even if used as part of a wider NATO response."
It's also just not at all believable that they would not be able to push their own buttons. Why would it be set up that way? And what would prevent fixing it even if it were?
The reason Russia has succeeded so far is because most parties have _minimized_ their engagement with the conflict _and Russia is still loosing_.
The only reason Ukraine’s flag is not in Kremlin is because Russia has nukes.
And anyone can get nukes.
Smart people are often beaten into submission by bullies. Being smart is not everything there is.
Trump especially irks me, because he's calculated his entire persona to appear somewhat dumb, and it works. He's not an idiot at all, and people espousing that view are falling for propaganda.
It would explain why Britain has recently (15 Feb and after) been so public with plans to send troops to Ukraine.
It also explains why Trump is so eager to undermine Zelensky's democratic legitimacy, as it would invalidate Zelensky's deal with the UK and allow the US a chance at the mineral rights again.
Krainer also speculates that Trump's political theater over mineral rights is raking Zelensky over the coals as retribution for doing a deal without the US, and trying to get Zelensky to spill the beans on the secret terms of the deal already done with the UK.
Zelensky was brought here specifically to be publicly humiliated on live TV.
In 80 years, if we still have history books, this moment will be in them.
sit and do nothing in an ill fitting suit
Honorable?
This is especially evident when you compare interviews today with those he gave 30 years ago. He was bright then. He's nothing like that today. That's also why he now refuses to be interviewed by unfriendlies.
America and Europe used to have shared values, now the average American conservative is so disgusted by the T in LGBT that they consider Russia more aligned with their values.
By attacking us.
Ideals alignment, or lack thereof - lack of values and presence of countervalues.
https://www.ft.com/content/8793e218-9dc4-43a8-8183-e2a092bbb...
I would not bet against Ukraine.
Ukraine is paying with their citizens lives for NATO to receive this education, while simultaneously weakening one of the western world's most dangerous geopolitical rivals. The fact that Americans can't see through the Fox News propaganda to understand this is unbelievable, embarrassing, and will set them back on the world stage for a generation or more.
Just a friendly reminder to not paint "Americans" with a broad brush. We may not have got our way this past election, but there are plenty of us who see through the fucking bullshit.
Whoa, you don't say.
Russia is certainly the aggressor, let’s make no mistake. But I honestly can’t make heads or tails of what is actually happening in Ukraine because of all the universal propaganda
Don’t forget that the whole “Iron Dome” thing Trump has been talking about, if viable, would necessarily prompt immediate attacks before it becomes operational.
Well, fortunately there's no way it could be viable, but that's relying on China and Russia to not fall for it.
EDIT: Looks like dang turned off flags.
It would be wonderful if we lived in time where we could put on blinders to what is happening around us. The times are getting a little too "interesting" though.
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, [...] unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. [...] If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
This is about politics. It is already being covered on TV news. Is it evidence of an interesting new phenomenon? It's unusual to see that sort of behaviour, sure, but in the Trump era? How surprised are we exactly?
All the comments are the very predictable trench digging. I'd rather see it flagged into oblivion.
Sheesh, think about the other point of view for more than 10 seconds please instead of just reacting.
Your country is spiraling into disgrace, yet you sit there, watching, complaining online, doing nothing. Where is your outrage? Where are the millions in the streets forcing change? By staying silent, you are complicit. Just like the Russians who let Putin tighten his grip for decades, you are letting a clown dismantle your democracy in real time.
History won’t just judge you—it will condemn you. Stand up, or accept your place among the cowards who let their nations rot.
What qualifies as not that? I've said my peace, my ability to deploy millions is limited.
The reality here is that a plurality of American voters chose Trump, and they still approve of the job he's doing (though that's dropping fast): https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/approval/donald-t...
I know this is exactly what Trump wants, but I don't know that I have the energy to continue to try and convince my fellow Americans that their demigod will destroy this country. They voted for this, they got it, now let's see how far they're willing to let this country fall before they change their tune.
Thats like truism. I don't see any country is learning before that.
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." -- H.L. Mencken
Rioting in the US is viewed extremely unfavorably in the US. The country is so geographically dispersed that it's hard to significantly interrupt commerce. Also, because of the large rural/urban political divide in the US, the places these protests take place would largely be attacking their own voter bases.
There is lots of political mobilization in the US. Marches, protests, and most importantly there is a lot of citizen funded legal challenges. But at the end of the day, democracy does not have a lot of natural protections if the people of the country democratically choose to end democracy.
Unless storming the Capitol to disrupt a democratic election.
See the police response to BLM vs the January 6th rioters.
What have they been doing? Why are our soldiers not defending Ukraine already? Why do you assume that we are any better?
The "whataboutism" game doesn't work here, because none of the pro-Ukraine Western countries is currently even remotely as chaotic, clownish, cruel, capricious, and conspicuously corrupt as the Trump administration and their broligarchs.
And other comments have already pointed out that Europeans are protesting.
I'm quite pleased with everything that's going on. The lesson from Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan (Soviets), Afghanistan (US), and Iraq is that there is never going to be a good time to leave but you need to leave as soon as possible before things get worse.
There's the counterargument that Hitler could have been stopped early during/after Czechoslovakia but you can't waltz into every conflict just because it might turn into WW2 later.
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