It would be one thing if there was a clear policy and adherence to it. In that case, you could discuss and reason in good faith. However there is no such indication that this decision is based on a considered policy.
Trump's supporters would say that this is a result of not wanting the US being involved in foreign conflicts. That is a laudable goal, however that is not what is happening here. From the article
> On Friday, the administration said it was sending Israel nearly $3 billion in new weapons, including more than 35,000 new 2,000 pound bombs, invoking an emergency rule under U.S. arms control laws.
This just makes it look like a petty tantrum at best and a wilful desire to cleave our relationship with Europe at worst.
Yes, we can all argue that Europe needs to be less dependent on the US, however what's on the other side of that is not pretty for the United States. Our ability to have the world's de facto reserve currency and hence our ability to sustain debt loads way in excess of usual is largely dependent on the US being the world's cop and sole superpower.
A truly multipolar world might be good for the world, but it's certainly not going to be good for the United States.
It's one thing to stop all aid to Ukraine. That makes you an asshole in a world full of assholes. But it's another thing to do that while simultaneously working to restore relations with Russia. There is only one word for that: evil.
Back in the late 90s to late 2000s, people in Western Europe generally had pretty negative views of the US. It was the country that refused to fight against climate change, launched an invasion of another country based on obvious lies, and so on. People were genuinely debating whether Bush was a bigger villain than Putin. And it wasn't just about the young and the left. Our elites hated Bush so much that they gave the next guy a Nobel Peace Prize for not being him.
Since then, Putin has worked hard to raise the bar for being a bigger villain. But Trump seems to be genuinely trying to compete.
Why do people think it is so far fetched that Trump is a Russian asset given his behavior in his last term (trying to blackmail Zelenskyy on an official call) and his credit problems in the past (no banks would lend to him given his failure to pay back any loan, with the exception of an obscure channel through a German bank)? Perhaps Trump is just in debt to Putin and this is payback, he was intentionally crass to Zelenskyy because he wanted to provoke him and find an excuse to revoke US aid. If it barks like a dog, often it’s really a dog.
This is, unfortunately about one thing only: The Nobel Peace Prize.
As Trump sees it, Zelenskyy is blocking Trump's peace prize by not agreeing to his (very bad) terms that are designed with one purpose in mind: Quickly freezing the conflict so that he can declare himself peacemaker and get his prize (because Obama got his 9 months into his term).
The Russians have been grooming him since the 80s (along with many others of that era - standard Soviet practice), flattering him and selling him on dreams of being president, and then after Obama got a peace prize, of getting his own Nobel prize.
Watch what his aides are saying about the Nobel prize. He wants it BAD.
This is why he told Zelenskyy: “You’re either going to make a deal or we’re out. And if we’re out, you’ll fight it out. I don’t think that it’s going to be pretty, but you’ll fight it out. But you don’t have the cards.” This is why he said “Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me.” This is why he booted Zenelskyy out of the White House and banned him until he's “ready for peace”
This is why he's going to end the sanctions against Russia, and if Europe continues to support Ukraine, sanction them instead. Anyone who blocks his Nobel Peace Prize is the enemy.
Trump: “They probably will never give it to me, even what I’m doing in Korea, and in Idlib province and all of these places. They probably will never give it to me. You know why? Because they don’t want to.”
Trump: “They will never give me a Nobel Peace Prize. It’s too bad. I deserve it, but they will never give it to me.”
This is quite inconsistent because Trump conditioned the rare earths deal. If he wanted peace that badly, he wouldn’t be imposing that. Also, you don’t win a Peace Nobel by being a system spoiler like he is, creating instability left and right and branding a stick. That’s completely delusional, even for him. He goes around talking about annexing Canada, taking Greenland, and displacing Palestinians -- where’s the peace in that? Obama got his without doing shit, guess why: the Nobel Peace Prize is about who you upset, and I very much doubt the committee is fond of Trump, especially since they gave the prize to Obama.
Bold of you to assume that the goal of the current administration is to maintain USD hegemony. They've stated explicitly several times that they feel the dollar is too expensive and gone on at length about the trade "deficit". Even going so far with Trump and Musk hinting that they will renig on US foreign debt obligations ("lots of fraud in treasuries"), which would destroy the value of the USD overnight if they followed through.
It seems clear to me one
goal of the current admin is to transform the US into an export economy, and the strong currency is one major roadblock in reaching their objective.
Would love to see more analysis on this, as their trial balloons around tanking USD seem to have gotten lost in the noise.
The weiderst part is that the us is now allied in a self conflicting alliance collection . They are friendly to russia who is hostile towards israel by supporting iran.
The difference is Israel's enemies are easy to defeat. Russia, not so much. Europe made the same mistake as in world war II. Believing their own propaganda and convincing themselves that Russia would be easy to defeat. Trump talks to the military and knows what's reality.
I wasn’t around for WWII, but now don’t think you have this quite right. The US fought against Germany and its allies (and Japan, which had directly attacked the US and continued to fight after Germany surrendered). The war was never against Russia.
Sure, maybe the US could have invaded Russia afterwards, but that would have been a disaster, kind of like how Germany’s invasion of Russia was a disaster and a bit like how Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine has been a real mess for Russia.
If they're so easy to defeat why have we sent $30B+ to a country with a good economy and great quality of life for its own people to help them defeat them? Maybe they should pay for it all themselves since they keep prolonging all their wars?
Israel is using these bombs on Hamas and Hezbollah mostly, both of which it hasn't defeated after 1 1/2 years of complete material superiority. It's actually impossible to defeat an enemy that uses asymmetric warfare. Israel already knows this, but Netanjahu needs the war to continue to stay in power.
> Our ability to have the world's de facto reserve currency and hence our ability to sustain debt loads way in excess of usual is largely dependent on the US being the world's cop and sole superpower.
Dollar status as reserve currency started unravelling quite some time ago. It started with China's started becoming world's factory, more so after they got in to WTO and started using it to their advantage. My belief is that wallstreet believed that they could influence or coerce Chinese leadership into opening up Chinese economy and profit from that, all that G2 talk. China after 2008 crisis with ascension of Xi, belt road, challenges to foreign companies etc. acted completely against wallstreet expectations. Now, America can either try splitting world economy and be sole power in their sphere or start working towards multi polar world.
Yes, but it would have taken a decade or more with sensible US policy.
You were still benefiting from the setup, and were going to continue to benefit for a long time. Look at Boeing's valuation, for example. No profit, still higher market cap than Airbus.
It is not a petty tantrum though it might look like one. You have to consider that the incumbents have won the US elections, that's not a small feat. What many people are missing is that if the US main challenger is China and beating Russia is a far thing, then it makes sense for the US to ally with Russia against China. For that, the US might need to give Russia something (some EU countries?) for this hustle and also refund it for the earlier war (yep). But if the administration believes this is worth it to contain China then it's the right call.
This is why European countries are freaking out. They might be seeing the change as being more fundamental than a two guys liking/hating each other and that a trade might involve their territory in an unfortunate moment (though a part of this is their own negligence).
The US took Ukraine’s nukes in exchange for safety guarantees.
The true extent of US commitment to european security has been clear to everyone for at least ten years.
Hell, the French nuclear programme was premised on the fact that Paris didn’t trust the US to defend France. Do you think the easternmost NATO states have built their military doctrine on blind trust in Uncle Sam?
How would Russia help “contain” China? China’s actual territorial ambitions have never been especially wide ranging, and I really doubt that Russia would make a credible deal to help keep China’s military out of Taiwan.
To the contrary, China’s increasing power is economic. They out-manufacture everyone. They appear to be beating the US at its own recent games (BYD seems to be ahead of Tesla!). They have plenty of software expertise these days. They are approximately caught up in AI. They also happen to lead in non-petroleum-dependent energy, and Russia’s main strength is in its oil and gas resources.
If the US wants to remain a dominant economic power, how is Russia going to help?
It seems more and more that if war between US and China starts it will be US-initiated. You just can’t stand not being the top dog anymore.
For context, EU+UK is over 500M people, Russia is 143M.
I think two weeks back many Europeans took for granted (at least I did) we would get involved in the Pacific theatre if needed on US side, but after what is happenning now… I am for not getting involved in any coflict in Pacific if US treats us this way.
Russia would never trust US. Russia would never ally itself with US against China. What makes you think they will suddenly turn on their ally China, to side with US (their always-enemy)?
Economically, allying with Russia is stupid, they're poor. The only way they are making it through this war economy is the fact that Russian people are patient and are used to bad economy. The average anual salary in Russia is below $10K.
This seems quite reasonable on the surface but it neglects the evidence of sheer incompetence from the first Trump term.
There's no 5d chess here. There's no scenario where ceding Poland and Ukraine to Russian authoritarians leads to a more free world and a victory over Chinese aithoritarianism. There's just rampant and opportunitistic corruption.
The US is being carved up from the inside and nothing about this process will help the impending conflict against China.
The sooner we all recognize this like the Europeans seem to be doing is the sooner we can coordinate to destroy authoritarians wherever they may call home.
> it makes sense for the US to ally with Russia against China
Economically and population wise Russia is tiny compared to the West (Canada, EU, etc) It makes no sense to trade our alliance with the West for alliance with much weaker and poorer Russia.
I think Russia has compromising info on Trump. That's the simplest explanation.
a) be willing to join a US-led coalition against China, given that the US foreign policy stopped being consistent and the next administration may well make a sharp turn again;
b) be capable of joining a US-led coalition against China when they now spent 3 years slowly restructuring their infrastructure and industry from Western products to Chinese products and any break in the relations with China would mean a full stop for support, spare parts etc., which US alone, with its depleted industrial platform, is unable to compensate for.
Not to mention that Russian nationalists HATE the idea of Russia being a junior partner to anyone and especially to the Anglo-Saxons. That would be hard sell even from Putin.
So the plan is to burn all of our current allies who joined us under a framework we devised largely for our own benefit so that we could maybe gain the favor of someone who is even less trustworthy and reliable than we are at this point against China? You really think this is smart? Trump is delivering the Russians their number 1 strategic goal since World War 2 by destroying NATO and trading this for seemingly nothing, which at this point again raises serious questions about what his actual motivations are with regard to his otherwise unexplainable deference to Putin and Russia in all things.
Sometimes I wonder if I am the only one who feels like world peace has been unraveling for decades, slowly reaching a breaking point?
I don't know what happens when the U.S. eventually pulls out of NATO, a scenario that seems more possible than ever based on the actions of the current Administration. Will Europe be able to stand its ground against Russia and China?
We now have world leaders armed with nuclear weapons, the most terrifying creations in human history, openly threatening each other and growing hostile.
I honestly, worry about the world we are creating for our children.. or perhaps my thoughts have been overtly influenced by Social Media..
NATO was created to counter the Soviet Union but after the USSR fell apart, NATO did not disband. Instead Europeans hired the USA for their defense. The USA enjoyed the status and power of being the dominant military force in Europe.
Unfortunately "entangling alliances" such as NATO tend to draw us into remote conflicts where we have nothing to gain:
> I honestly, worry about the world we are creating for our children
It's not we, the politicians are creating this unsafe, cruel world. We didn't choose war.
Also, the world has always been like this. Peace was always only momentary. The best scenario would be to just stop procreating so our children don't have to live in this shit but it's obviously not going to happen
No that's a cop out. We are in this situation explicitly because a plurality of the voting population voted for it. Trump isn't and has never been the problem. He's a clown. The people making the clown a king are the problem. When Trump goes away, they will just find another clown.
“We must be ever watchful when dealing with regimes whose actions have often betrayed their promises.”
Ronald Reagan
“I call the Soviet Union an evil empire.”
George H. W. Bush on Russia
“The history of deception and coercion reminds us that trust is never given
lightly—it must be earned and continuously verified.”
George W. Bush
“We call on Moscow to immediately cease its aggressive actions and respect the sovereignty of its neighbors. We cannot afford to trust a regime that repeatedly flouts international norms.”
Donald Trump
“I have great respect for Putin.”
I have a very good relationship with him [Putin].”
Nixon would be seen as a woke elite in today's Republican party. He helped introduce environmental legislation in the US, and met with Mao to open trade links and counterbalance the USSR.
Trump no doubt will say this is a negotiating ploy to get Zelensky to make concessions but you have to wonder why all the concessions have to be made by the victim and not the aggressor. Why not ask Putin to pause killing Ukranians or return some of the kidnapped children or some token of goodwill?
Because West has no means to put more pressure on Russia (they cannot even stop buying natural gas), so it has to talk nicely. US cannot demand, for example, that Russia gives them a share of their minerals and generally cannot demand anything.
Actually in hindsight the best time for negotiations was somewhere in end of 2022, but that chance is long gone.
But while West cannot demand, it still can offer (i.e. removing nuclear weapon and US forces from EU etc).
This is simply false. West can send more arms, more tanks (US sent 31 old Abrams tanks since 2022) more long range missiles. You know how easy it is to defend Ukrainian cities against airborne cruise missiles? Bomb few airbases used by strategic bombers. Bomb few factories used for ballistic missiles production.
If west bite putin's bluff about WWIII then west can transfer technology and give Ukrainians money to make long range ballistic missiles themselves.
And sanctions! West can put a real sanctions. A trade blockade of Baltic and Black sea will destroy their economy pretty soon.
The are so many things west can do.
But US president is a friend of putin and going to bully Ukraine to surrender on Russian terms.
The West absolutely has more means at its disposal, by arming Ukraine to the teeth.
The slow drip of arms has been really effective at degrading Russia (just look at the golf cart brigades and North Korean wave attacks), but an increase in long range capability is what's needed to finish the job.
> Because West has no means to put more pressure on Russia
This is extremely silly. The west has hundreds of billions of dollars of Russian money, the west can supply Ukraine with weapons that are more modern than the nineties era stuff we've been sending, and the west just generally hasn't taken any of the steps it would take if NATO were really at war with Russia, as Russia whinges about. Why is Russia even connected to the internet anymore?
You also have to wonder why Vance was less bothered by Putin not continually saying "please" as he was by Zelenskyy not continually saying "thank you".
With respect to how Ukraine yielded up nukes while Russia gave "assurances" that they would respect Ukrainian borders [0], Putin has claimed it doesn't count now because it's a different Ukraine.
If that's really how he feels, then it's time to expel the imposter "Russia" that's been falsely posing as a member of the United Nations Security Council, because it's not reeealy the USSR...
Well, in the 90s Clinton negotiated the Agreed framework with North Korea not to get nukes in exchange for lowering sanctions. Then Bush admin called it "appeasement" and let it die. Then NK got nukes.
Obama's admin negotiated the JCPOA deal with Iran, same thing. They put the most inspectors ever in any country to make sure Iran doesn't get nukes. Trump's admin then unilaterally ended it.
Tom Cotton and Republicans openly warned Iran during Obama's admin that the US is fickle and will change its policy as soon as administrations change. This has been going on ever since treaties with the Native Americans ("white man speaks with forked tongue") but the Cotton letter was refreshingly honest:
The messages for every country to get nukes have been loud and clear, but no country has done it in the southern hemisphere, for instance. Even though USA had been involved in regime change or invasions of almost all of them in the last 80 years: https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2022/09/13/us-251-military-i...
"International laws" are also a weird thing. There is no international parliament, international police and international court. I think the only viable agreements are of a kind "if you don't do A then we don't do B".
while pausing the “aid” may save the US gov money; the money was mostly coming back to the US anyway in the form of weapons purchases. NYT:
> The order takes effect immediately and affects more than $1 billion in arms and ammunition in the pipeline and on order. Mr. Trump’s directive also halts hundreds of millions of dollars in aid that Kyiv can use only to buy new military hardware directly from U.S. defense companies.
Those F35s are a security risk at this point. Better migrate to Typhoons, Rafales and Gripens etc and have some unified research re radars and missiles to split costs.
I hate this argument. Yeah, billions of dollars flowing to arms manufacturers is a stimulus. But in an inflationary/supply constrained economy, that stimulus is actually not what we need — we need to reduce the demand on the military’s inputs
Readit News
Trump's supporters would say that this is a result of not wanting the US being involved in foreign conflicts. That is a laudable goal, however that is not what is happening here. From the article
> On Friday, the administration said it was sending Israel nearly $3 billion in new weapons, including more than 35,000 new 2,000 pound bombs, invoking an emergency rule under U.S. arms control laws.
This just makes it look like a petty tantrum at best and a wilful desire to cleave our relationship with Europe at worst.
Yes, we can all argue that Europe needs to be less dependent on the US, however what's on the other side of that is not pretty for the United States. Our ability to have the world's de facto reserve currency and hence our ability to sustain debt loads way in excess of usual is largely dependent on the US being the world's cop and sole superpower.
A truly multipolar world might be good for the world, but it's certainly not going to be good for the United States.
Back in the late 90s to late 2000s, people in Western Europe generally had pretty negative views of the US. It was the country that refused to fight against climate change, launched an invasion of another country based on obvious lies, and so on. People were genuinely debating whether Bush was a bigger villain than Putin. And it wasn't just about the young and the left. Our elites hated Bush so much that they gave the next guy a Nobel Peace Prize for not being him.
Since then, Putin has worked hard to raise the bar for being a bigger villain. But Trump seems to be genuinely trying to compete.
There is another: treason.
Dead Comment
As Trump sees it, Zelenskyy is blocking Trump's peace prize by not agreeing to his (very bad) terms that are designed with one purpose in mind: Quickly freezing the conflict so that he can declare himself peacemaker and get his prize (because Obama got his 9 months into his term).
The Russians have been grooming him since the 80s (along with many others of that era - standard Soviet practice), flattering him and selling him on dreams of being president, and then after Obama got a peace prize, of getting his own Nobel prize.
Watch what his aides are saying about the Nobel prize. He wants it BAD.
This is why he told Zelenskyy: “You’re either going to make a deal or we’re out. And if we’re out, you’ll fight it out. I don’t think that it’s going to be pretty, but you’ll fight it out. But you don’t have the cards.” This is why he said “Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me.” This is why he booted Zenelskyy out of the White House and banned him until he's “ready for peace”
This is why he's going to end the sanctions against Russia, and if Europe continues to support Ukraine, sanction them instead. Anyone who blocks his Nobel Peace Prize is the enemy.
Trump: “They probably will never give it to me, even what I’m doing in Korea, and in Idlib province and all of these places. They probably will never give it to me. You know why? Because they don’t want to.”
Trump: “They will never give me a Nobel Peace Prize. It’s too bad. I deserve it, but they will never give it to me.”
On the bright side, if that happens, Alfred Nobel’s grave will become a perpetual motion machine…
I think we can say that the image of that prize is already in the mud, but of course giving it to Trump at this point would finish it off.
Zelenskyy should just have said "If Russia won't break any treaty, you shouldn't have a problem providing a backstop"
Trump just wants to rape Ukraine while he can. It's nothing to do with peace. If he was serious he could offer a backstop and get peace over night.
Don't make it anything less by talking about the novel prize.
It seems clear to me one goal of the current admin is to transform the US into an export economy, and the strong currency is one major roadblock in reaching their objective.
Would love to see more analysis on this, as their trial balloons around tanking USD seem to have gotten lost in the noise.
Strange bedfellow history maketh.
Nope, it's pure chaos, but that's where Trump thrives the most. It's the perfect diversion, nobody knows what he'll destroy next.
- Force a resolution of the conflict
- Get Europe to pay for its own security
- Focus on Iran and the Middle East
- Pivot to competition with China
- Deter Sino-Russia cooperation
- Reduce US spending and deficit
Dead Comment
Sure, maybe the US could have invaded Russia afterwards, but that would have been a disaster, kind of like how Germany’s invasion of Russia was a disaster and a bit like how Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine has been a real mess for Russia.
Dollar status as reserve currency started unravelling quite some time ago. It started with China's started becoming world's factory, more so after they got in to WTO and started using it to their advantage. My belief is that wallstreet believed that they could influence or coerce Chinese leadership into opening up Chinese economy and profit from that, all that G2 talk. China after 2008 crisis with ascension of Xi, belt road, challenges to foreign companies etc. acted completely against wallstreet expectations. Now, America can either try splitting world economy and be sole power in their sphere or start working towards multi polar world.
You were still benefiting from the setup, and were going to continue to benefit for a long time. Look at Boeing's valuation, for example. No profit, still higher market cap than Airbus.
This is why European countries are freaking out. They might be seeing the change as being more fundamental than a two guys liking/hating each other and that a trade might involve their territory in an unfortunate moment (though a part of this is their own negligence).
The US took Ukraine’s nukes in exchange for safety guarantees.
The true extent of US commitment to european security has been clear to everyone for at least ten years.
Hell, the French nuclear programme was premised on the fact that Paris didn’t trust the US to defend France. Do you think the easternmost NATO states have built their military doctrine on blind trust in Uncle Sam?
To the contrary, China’s increasing power is economic. They out-manufacture everyone. They appear to be beating the US at its own recent games (BYD seems to be ahead of Tesla!). They have plenty of software expertise these days. They are approximately caught up in AI. They also happen to lead in non-petroleum-dependent energy, and Russia’s main strength is in its oil and gas resources.
If the US wants to remain a dominant economic power, how is Russia going to help?
Russia has the economy on parity with Italy.
For context, EU+UK is over 500M people, Russia is 143M.
I think two weeks back many Europeans took for granted (at least I did) we would get involved in the Pacific theatre if needed on US side, but after what is happenning now… I am for not getting involved in any coflict in Pacific if US treats us this way.
Economically, allying with Russia is stupid, they're poor. The only way they are making it through this war economy is the fact that Russian people are patient and are used to bad economy. The average anual salary in Russia is below $10K.
There's no 5d chess here. There's no scenario where ceding Poland and Ukraine to Russian authoritarians leads to a more free world and a victory over Chinese aithoritarianism. There's just rampant and opportunitistic corruption.
The US is being carved up from the inside and nothing about this process will help the impending conflict against China.
The sooner we all recognize this like the Europeans seem to be doing is the sooner we can coordinate to destroy authoritarians wherever they may call home.
Economically and population wise Russia is tiny compared to the West (Canada, EU, etc) It makes no sense to trade our alliance with the West for alliance with much weaker and poorer Russia.
I think Russia has compromising info on Trump. That's the simplest explanation.
a) be willing to join a US-led coalition against China, given that the US foreign policy stopped being consistent and the next administration may well make a sharp turn again;
b) be capable of joining a US-led coalition against China when they now spent 3 years slowly restructuring their infrastructure and industry from Western products to Chinese products and any break in the relations with China would mean a full stop for support, spare parts etc., which US alone, with its depleted industrial platform, is unable to compensate for.
Not to mention that Russian nationalists HATE the idea of Russia being a junior partner to anyone and especially to the Anglo-Saxons. That would be hard sell even from Putin.
Sometimes I wonder if I am the only one who feels like world peace has been unraveling for decades, slowly reaching a breaking point?
I don't know what happens when the U.S. eventually pulls out of NATO, a scenario that seems more possible than ever based on the actions of the current Administration. Will Europe be able to stand its ground against Russia and China?
We now have world leaders armed with nuclear weapons, the most terrifying creations in human history, openly threatening each other and growing hostile.
I honestly, worry about the world we are creating for our children.. or perhaps my thoughts have been overtly influenced by Social Media..
Unfortunately "entangling alliances" such as NATO tend to draw us into remote conflicts where we have nothing to gain:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Doctrine_of_Unstabl...
It's not we, the politicians are creating this unsafe, cruel world. We didn't choose war.
Also, the world has always been like this. Peace was always only momentary. The best scenario would be to just stop procreating so our children don't have to live in this shit but it's obviously not going to happen
“We must be ever watchful when dealing with regimes whose actions have often betrayed their promises.”
Ronald Reagan
“I call the Soviet Union an evil empire.”
George H. W. Bush on Russia
“The history of deception and coercion reminds us that trust is never given
lightly—it must be earned and continuously verified.”
George W. Bush
“We call on Moscow to immediately cease its aggressive actions and respect the sovereignty of its neighbors. We cannot afford to trust a regime that repeatedly flouts international norms.”
Donald Trump
“I have great respect for Putin.”
I have a very good relationship with him [Putin].”
Dead Comment
Actually in hindsight the best time for negotiations was somewhere in end of 2022, but that chance is long gone.
But while West cannot demand, it still can offer (i.e. removing nuclear weapon and US forces from EU etc).
This is simply false. West can send more arms, more tanks (US sent 31 old Abrams tanks since 2022) more long range missiles. You know how easy it is to defend Ukrainian cities against airborne cruise missiles? Bomb few airbases used by strategic bombers. Bomb few factories used for ballistic missiles production.
If west bite putin's bluff about WWIII then west can transfer technology and give Ukrainians money to make long range ballistic missiles themselves.
And sanctions! West can put a real sanctions. A trade blockade of Baltic and Black sea will destroy their economy pretty soon.
The are so many things west can do.
But US president is a friend of putin and going to bully Ukraine to surrender on Russian terms.
The slow drip of arms has been really effective at degrading Russia (just look at the golf cart brigades and North Korean wave attacks), but an increase in long range capability is what's needed to finish the job.
This is extremely silly. The west has hundreds of billions of dollars of Russian money, the west can supply Ukraine with weapons that are more modern than the nineties era stuff we've been sending, and the west just generally hasn't taken any of the steps it would take if NATO were really at war with Russia, as Russia whinges about. Why is Russia even connected to the internet anymore?
1. Make nukes, never give up on those regardless of what assurances of safety you get
2. If you are bigger and stronger - you are right, do whatever you want, international laws and rules do not matter any more
Lets see where all this will bring the world to in the next 10 years or a generation.
We've seen this movie before. It doesn't go well.
If that's really how he feels, then it's time to expel the imposter "Russia" that's been falsely posing as a member of the United Nations Security Council, because it's not reeealy the USSR...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum
Obama's admin negotiated the JCPOA deal with Iran, same thing. They put the most inspectors ever in any country to make sure Iran doesn't get nukes. Trump's admin then unilaterally ended it.
Tom Cotton and Republicans openly warned Iran during Obama's admin that the US is fickle and will change its policy as soon as administrations change. This has been going on ever since treaties with the Native Americans ("white man speaks with forked tongue") but the Cotton letter was refreshingly honest:
https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cotton-and...
The messages for every country to get nukes have been loud and clear, but no country has done it in the southern hemisphere, for instance. Even though USA had been involved in regime change or invasions of almost all of them in the last 80 years: https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2022/09/13/us-251-military-i...
South Africa
In reality, that was always the case.
*while everybody made sure that they would band together to punish such behavior as the even bigger and stronger combined force
Non-proliferation - and relying on the benevolence of a few mercurial and spiteful superpowers - is, in hindsight, a horrible miscalculation.
Dead Comment
Dead Comment
Dead Comment
Rules never mattered in history. it's always up to strongest to impose their version of "fairness".
Rules matter as long as they are enforced. It's only when enforcement is asymmetrical that problems begin.
> The order takes effect immediately and affects more than $1 billion in arms and ammunition in the pipeline and on order. Mr. Trump’s directive also halts hundreds of millions of dollars in aid that Kyiv can use only to buy new military hardware directly from U.S. defense companies.
Why support your country with our money if you don't want to support us at all?
Your defence companies will face huge losses because of this.
Deleted Comment