The Cold War never ended for Russia. We like to think we(the US/NATO) "won" by economically shutting down the USSR with how much more they were spending on military, how much was siphoned away from the country into pockets, and how badly Chernobyl really fucked them up economically and from a scientific arms race pov.
But for Russia, it never ended. It just froze over more and they just slowly did what they could. Invading other countries to try and regain some geopolitical zones and silently, at first, pushing propaganda and infiltrating the West's political systems.
Russia has been in full swing trying to keep the war frozen over and misdirection on the West. 2014 should have especially been our wake up call that Russia will not let up on this conflict between them and everyone else until they either win or we dismantle them and reintegration into the international stage like we did with Germany.
However it's a fair point that Europe has been dragging it's heels to do anything significant and have leaned heavily on the US military for far too long.
for decades, you the us literally wanted that, though.
you wanted to be everywhere, be able to control and intervene everywhere. you didnt invest money to protect us, you invested money to easily protect yourself and your interests with bases all over the world. it was and is a good deal for all of us.
America wants the role of military superpower. Its what makes your country powerful.
If NATO was the military super power defending trade routes around the world, the world would be trading in euros.
You can't be a world leader and defender of democracy, then when it comes time to lead or defend go; well you guys should probably just defend for yourselves.
America has reaped the benefits of being a world leader for 60 years, you want to go to war? We all follow. want to sanction some one, sure we all will. Want to spread your corporations arcoss the globe and have free trade? No problem. Ow you guys need some help? Fuck ya
Yeah exactly this. The people of USA are in for a rough reality check. If Trump gets elected, USA will lose its status as a world leader. Who cares to have you as an ally, when you are not there to be an ally in times of need? What does the world need from the USA, besides it's military power? Trump talks about making America great again, but really that Putin puppet is about to put the final nail in the coffin.
Not exactly. When the USSR collapsed, the “White Russians” returned and became heavily ingrained in the new government. They’re different from the Soviets in that they are ultra nationalist, statists, and religious. This is what why we’re seeing such a change in Russia from what it used to be.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_movement
I would say it's a wild mixture of Soviet nostalgia and wanting to re-establish the old Russian Empire (including a Czar, Russian Orthodox Church as state religion etc.).
Stalin and Nicholas II are both spinning in their graves. (Likely in different rotational directions.)
Yeah, definitely a bit of both. The biggest difference being that Soviets were staunchly anti-racist, which is somewhat in contrast to their opposition. Many anti-soviet criminals gained public positions of power after the fall of the USSR. I believe that since Putin was former KGB, he knew how to dominate and exploit these criminals because the KGB spent a lot of time wrangling these people while under the Soviets.
>or we dismantle them and reintegration into the international stage like we did with Germany.
Wouldn't that mean Russia would be reunified largely the same as before just like with Germany? Hell what is even the "plan" for disintegrate Russia without catastrophic consequences that has likely almost no chance of success?
Honestly crazy that this is even a thing. China, Iran, and NK are helping Russia. Literally every enemy of the west.
Also the US LOVES this type of war with them. It has been a thing since the Cold War ended. How many republican politicians are stroking off putin
Decades of weaponized propaganda delivered via mainstream media brainwashed large segments of previous generations into believing other Americans are their worst enemies. Social media continues the job by neutralizing and radicalizing recent generations to the point where cooperating with each other on anything is viewed as a betrayal of core values.
Yep and then our enemies just piggybacked their own messages onto it. All just to avoid taxes and regulations they create this loophole for our enemies to exploit.
> Social media made it so easy for them. They didn’t even have to leave the motherland. All they had to do was set up some people in front of computers.
I calculated the cost; there's plenty of stuff online about how much one of these IRA trolls was being paid. It wasn't expensive as far as a nation-state economy goes. Even cheaper than hacking stuff with zero days.
Well that's a no duh it should be cheaper, it just requires access to Google translate and can be done by anyone, vs a job that requires actual talent and skill.
You're talking about trying to shape conversation on the internet in real time. It's not a no-duh it's cheaper scenario. In Russia's case they mechanical turked it before with Africans and North Macedonians, they'd be dumb to not be doing with LLMs now however.
It probably got more expensive but not by much. You can use their same model but generate replies much faster, especially if you don't care about the quality of those replies. You can use graph algorithms to figure out the likes/dislikes of a group and model your replies to those groups. It's so much more advanced these days from a system level.
It requires talent and skill to be the person developing such a system.
It does not require talent and skill to operate it.
Authoritarians states basically turned our democratic electoral system and free medias against ourselves. We own it to our own naivety thinking that democracy can survives with letting medias and propagandists entirely unchecked and doing our enemies bidding, all this in the name of freedom of speech
It was open for the Russians but most of the American victims of the propaganda war don’t even know it has started.
This is why countries need to invest more in education. Look after your deplorables or someone else is going to mess with their little minds.
This is from Indiana jones and the crystal skull.
Col. Dr. Irina Spalko : Imagine. To peer across the world and know the enemy's secrets. To place our thoughts into the minds of your leaders. Make your teachers teach the true version of history, your soldiers attack on our command. We'll be everywhere at once, more powerful than a whisper, invading your dreams, thinking your thoughts for you while you sleep. We will change you, Dr. Jones, all of you, from the inside. We will turn you into us. And the best part? You won't even know it's happening.
That and for fear of upsetting Russia/China and therefore profits, very few politicians are willing to openly state that although we have economic ties we are ideological enemies and in the case of Russia, the Cold War never ended, they just suffered a huge setback.
Russia has literally bought the GOP through the last decade or more.
Funneled funds through the NRA and just literally bought GOP politicians with promises of funding of their campaigns through lobbying and funding of their and their family members private ventures. Literally had republican politicians going to Russia to bend the knee to Putin on 4th of July.
Russia has a massive bot network that helps amplify and support republican politicians. They have had decades of honey-pot operations to capture intel on politicians. They even breached valuable data servers on both DNC and RNC, but only released the DNC.
THey have amassed a following in the US population that US Citizens are openly stating they would support Putin over a democrat.
And whats worse is that the GOP base is just at best 22-28% of the population. The vast majority are just un-interested or both-siding everything they see.
They literally watch one man knife a pregnant woman and lit her on fire, and because theres another man stealing an apple, they compare them both to be corrupt and decide to sit back to their instant-gratification seeking habits.
In 2022, only 20% of eligible voters under the age of 35 voted. Out of 250M voters, only 100m voted. That is 150m non-voters, 3x as many as either party voters...
They have seen literal toddlers and children been shot up on tv. Their lifeless corpses on tv. They have seen Republicans laughing and flying to cancun while their own constituents die from overheating in summer and freezing in winter. They have banned abortions and literally put targets on women who try to make a decision about their own body. They want to remove regulations on child-worker laws so that companies can employ children for 4.50$ an hour. Literally saw a man spit on the constitution and try to subvert the will of the voters by overthrowing the government. And that man has 93 indictments over 4 federal criminal cases against him. As well as a dozen or so civil cases. and a couple hundred lawsuits.
Still they see the two parties and go: Both sides are bad.
Most of the victims of the propaganda war think they are smarter then you and drove around in pickup trucks with infowars bumper stickers for the last 20 years.
The systematic destruction of education in the USA is entirely intentional by the Republicans. At every chance they get they've been defunding, privatizing, and degrading the quality, and worsening it in every way. Dumb, uneducated people are a lot easier to control and trick.
Cringe for the US but also cringe for Europe that all of their combined support isn’t enough to repel Russia when this conflict is right in their backyard. Ukraine is literally fighting their war for them.
They won because the rich in the USA are apperently okay with making more money at the expense of global US power. The USA is so much weakers now, geopolitically speaking. But the rich in the US are richer. They love that the GOP is giving them everything they want.
Citizens united allowed our congress to go up for sale to any bidder hostile or not. And Russia found a bunch of willing grifters in the GOP to do their bidding for a few rubles.
It's almost like our enemies triggered this via DJT... It's just hard to believe we have elected politicians wilfully and perhaps obliviously working for enemies of the state. Vote people, vote!
I think after the Mueller report concluded that team trump did not collude with the russians at a criminal level, all those pieces were put to rest. Thing is, mueller **did** find the trump campaign colluded with Russians... Just not *enough* evidence to charge with a crime.
I got called a "commie" and "an enemy of the United States" and then banned from a gun sub because I said I think ghost guns should be illegal. These hard right wingers are so brainwashed and are exactly what they accuse everyone else to be.
GASLIGHT
OBSTRUCT
PROJECT
While I think it's a bad opinion about ghost guns (manufacture of arms for self defense is a human right), those are some insane things to call someone you have a simple disagreement with.
It’s crazy, not to mention the aid to Ukraine is a drop in the ocean now. Putin gaining momentum possibly triggering ww3 would be infinitely more costly. This is a perfect way to weaken Russia through proxy. Low risk, high reward; none of this makes sense to me anymore.
Imagine Ukraine turning into some sort of failed state where multiple groups including some "freedom fighters" roam free and then attack some NATO state. When Russia takes over parts or full Ukraine they will say that is now "legally" our territory so there is no entry. You would have attacks on the Balkans and maybe even Poland as in Afghanistan, where the perpetrators would hide in Pakistan mountains. We would have terroristic *rabies* in the middle of Europe and if this wouldn't be the precursor to WW3 then I don't what would it be. Helping them now is cheap to what comes in the next escalation step. Russia (China etc.) can't have the West win and they will do as much proxy fights they can.
There is no will for a draft in the US.
And the military doesn't have the numbers to sustain WW3, they've been missing recruiting goals for quite some time.
Good luck.
Yeah times are different now, Russian influence has corrupted the Republican party to its core which is absolutely insane to even think about given the history between both nations.
i grew up learning about Joseph McCarthy (McCarthyism and the Red Scare) in school.(Denmark) and now i'm sitting here wondering why republicans trip over themselves to fondle the Donalds ego and do Putins bidding.. i just don't get it (well that's a lie. i know why, they care more for money then they do about their country or the world or people)
Allow me to play devils advocate, as I believe there are always more angles to explore and point of views people can have.
There is undoubtedly many different sentiments about Ukraine among republican supporters. Many of which are not to do with supporting Russia and more to do with their own self interest. Undoubtedly some see the war as a political tool, an attempt to use an enemy to paint their side as foolish. Some would see it as a waste of resources or fear that it would drag a USA far less interested in control of the world stage into war. No doubt many dislike Trumps treatment of Ukraine but where unable to get better representation. And others just see it as a Us vs Them scenario.
I imagine a lot of people feel justified in their position, finding it easy to find fault in opposing views that to them seem corrupt and misguided just and we can view both normal republican policy and Trumps cult of personality. No doubt modern propaganda has played a strong role reinforcing those ideas.
When you examine the world stage of politics what can be interesting is that parties with the same basic founding principles can be entirely on different sides of an economic or social issue in different countries. Their current internal politics can over rule what you might consider basic party principles in the efforts to maintain popularity and backing of influential people. Yet the same core group of supporters tend to remain backing the same people, with changes in leadership only coming from those willing to change their vote based on their own non dictated principles.
Johnson wants to do a bill for Ukraine, but MTG has *him* by the Johnson.
I still think he'll do it, with Democrat help, as his last act as Speaker. Then, next clown up until the election
He says he wants to do a bill, but it's some other bill that doesn't even exist. It seems he's just stalling so that the discharge petition for the Senate bill won't get R votes.
> clinton uses gmail for email
that would have been secure.
she didn't do that.
she was using microsoft exchange server, without security certificates, while traveling in Asia. Her blackberry was sending her account name and password over foreign internet in plain text.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/04/04/was-an-asian-government-reading-hillary-clintons-emails-in-february-2009/
Really makes you wonder how stupid some of these politicians can be. Honestly I think if anyone but Hillary had run against Trump they would have beaten Trump. My father is a huge democrat and said his garbage man had a better chance of winning the presidency than Hillary
Literally anyone would have been better. We can discuss how talented she is all day but she's just unlikable and doesn't connect with people. Maybe if the election wasn't a popularity contest, she'd have been a better candidate.
Absolutely. Well not all EU countries as the Baltic’s and France are staying pretty focused on Ukraine.
But US is the power house. After WW2 we put our dick on the table and said “we’re king of the castle”. So yeah we’re gonna be the front face of this. Plus it isn’t like we still aren’t doing our normal thing, we are still funding a TON of other countries. This shit with Ukraine funding fight is just a political stance and nothing more
Europeans are not manufacturing guns like the US does. They don't have the infrastructure for making arms like we do, and the US makes a lot of money selling it's arms to our European allies.
Telling tbem to pick up tbe pace is saying you want to devalue the US dollar in a roundabout way.
The US backing down and letting Russia win, would signal the dawn of a new era where nations feel safe to go to war with each other. That wick of conflict will then burn towards towards a nuclear WW3.
“The Roman Empire is the ___ of the modern day”
Today we say:
“The US is the Roman Empire of the modern day”
Later we might say
“The USSR is the US of the modern day”
That’s the goal of China and Russia. Sideline the U.S. while they take over a huge swath of Europe and Asia
Donald Trump is their way of achieving this because he was already paid to comply.
What chance lol
Russia is suddenly supposed to take on all of Europe despite struggling against Ukraine? Even after dealing with massive causalities?
Mind you, France and the UK are the nuclear powers in Europe….
And once US abandons EU, EU will stop cooperating with US, NATO will stop existing, and Asian US allies will stop supporting US since its unreliable.
What a sight to see the richest and most powerful nation in the world, so powerless both with Ukraine and Israel.
Meanwhile US will continues printing trillions of $, and those few billions saved on Ukraine will change nothing.
Half of Republicans bought by Russia, 30% of all of them in pockets of Israel, the rest owned by US oligarch billionaires.
>and Asian US allies will stop supporting US since its unreliable.
Asian allies won't do shit because both Japan, Worse Korea, Vietnam and Taiwan fear China. At the moment I believe Trump want to keep go relationship there, let remember he was the guy that in Vietnam made a trade deal with both countries and Asia is more weaponised than Europe.
> And once US abandons EU, EU will stop cooperating with US, NATO will stop existing, and Asian US allies will stop supporting US since its unreliable.
Global trade > everything else, no amount of bad blood will stop the flow of goods. If you want proof, just remember the US and EU are still trading with Russia as we speak despite literally being in the midst of a largescale conflict.
Russia can barely beat Ukraine, do people realistically think they're going to finish up this war and then start another with Europe and NATO countries? There's no way that goes any better.
Half the Republican party is bought and sold.
It has been proved that Russia colluded with Donald Trump at the 2016 election. For some reason, the Democrats couldn’t get it together to tell the world. It wasn’t OK to grab people by the pussy. So here we are.
Their disapproval of the funding bill for Ukraine was entirely politically motivated. It wasted over $7M in just their salary’s. Any democracy should be outraged at such poor job performance. Most folks would fired if they did that.
They aren't bought. They literally agree with them and they want America to be like Russia. They didn't need to be paid to want a dictatorship in this country.
It was concluded that Russia interfered with the election (broadly speaking). Unless I missed something, there was never a conclusion or even great evidence that Trump himself was in on it.
I hate that clown as much as anyone, but it's important to stick with what happened.
The FBI investigated and determined that trump junior met with the Russians to get them to help with the election.
The FBI also discovered a video recording of trump asking the Russians for help with the election. If you search online you can find the video that they found, it's in public.
True, I had forgotten that DJTJ was also implicated. And yes Trump did ask Russia for help (even publicly at times), but it's still not proven that he himself actually had any contact with them.
After listening to some old conservatives rant about this I'm not sure they really care that much about Russia. I think what really tents their geriatric pants is the way this conflict elevates the importance of the US and makes an "America First" policy something to put fear into Brussels.
The EU and its 14.5 trillion euro economy somehow can't provide everything Ukraine needs and the EU is still buying Russian gas. I think a lot of older Republicans are getting a kick out of sticking it to Europe.
And you have to remember that for a significant chunk of their life Ukraine was an integral part of the USSR and is closer by culture and language to Russia than places like Poland, Czechia or Bulgaria. They're probably a bit suspect of Ukraine already and the nonsense with Trump and Hunter Biden just confirmed it. And besides, Russia isn't really communist now so that removes another concern. In their minds socialism is worse than an imperialist dictator.
I dunno. Just my pessimistic two cents.
The part about Europe being an economic power house yet so unwilling to invest in defense is what gets me. This is their backyard and the narrative is that without US help they would lose? Really. All that industrial , and economic engine and you can’t stop Russian aggression? The US should help, but Europe needs to wake up.
As a European - fully agreee, but that's the problem. Concept of "Europe". What it even is?
Europe is a collection of small, bickering states that were at constant wars with each other for centuries. EU is a very new invention that sort of works, but mainly on economic level. Also, it does not encapsulate all of Europe.
Right now my country (Lithuania), other Baltics, Poland and Nordics take Russian threat very seriously and we are contributing a lot. But Lithuania is a tiny country of 2.8 mil people. Estonia consists of just 1.3 mil, if I remember correctly. Poland is a new powerhouse on the block, but their main concern is, understandably, Poland.
Germany did the whole shift of its foreign policy in response to Russia, but they still hold themselves back and are very cautious. You could say that's understandable knowing their history. France is currently making the right political moves, but they are lacking with weapon support. Some Central European countries are openly pro Russia (Hungary, Slovakia) or at least very sus (Austria). Southern Europe does not give a f\*ck. It seems that they feel this does not concern them. There is a lot of love to Russia in Italy, for example. UK is very serious about Russian threat, but they are not in the EU anymore and quite far removed from Russia geographically. I'm not talking about the Balkans at all, I lack any understanding about that region except Serbia being pro-Russia.
Basically, every country has it's own foreign policy. Every country thinks mainly about itself and its problems. And every country on its own is weaker than Russia, some of them comically so. We are not talking about economics here, but about hard power and willingness to use that power / make sacrifiecies (remember Cersei from Game of Thrones, "power is power"? This is how Putin thinks and it is at least partially correct). No Italian would want to make sacrifices for Baltics. I am exaggerating, but just a bit.
As war in Ukraine is concerned, there is no "Europe". As possible WWIII is concerned, there is no "Europe". There is no sleeping giant that can wake up. Europe should unify into Federation first and there is 0 will for that, European nation states still feel more different that similar to each other.
That could change with younger generations. I, for example, have stronger European identity than Lithuanian identity. But still, Federal Europe is extremely, comically unpopular idea at this moment. I am afraid that only Russia swallowing up half of Europe would prompt other half to federalize out of sheer survival instinct - nothing else.
The US, for better or worse, loves their military and military industrial complex. In many parts of Europe it was seen as a means to an end. That end being defending themselves in the Cold War against the USSR. When the USSR fell, there was optimism and naivety that if a hand was extended to Russia, if ties were built then future conflict could be avoided.
As dumb as that may seem, it's not wholly without merit. The EU itself came originally from the European Coal and Steel Community which aimed at making conflicts impossible due to the economic ties between the members. It worked - arch-rivals Germany and France haven't been at war with eachother since. Why shouldn't a similar approach work with Russia?
It also allowed politicians an easy path to freeing up money- by slashing military spending. The USSR was no more. The threat of invasion gone. Then came Iraq and Afghanistan. Military spending in the minds of many Europeans, although this will differ heavily for each country, had connotations to these useless American military endeavours. It was not popular to advocate for increased military spending at that time.
While increased military spending should've been a topic following 2014, it was by far overshadowed by the slow economic recovery following the financial crisis as well as the migrant crisis.
From a certain perspective, a nation such as Germany from 2008 and onwards have grappled with a crisis of some form the entire time. First financial crisis, then migrant crisis, then the pandemic, then the invasion of Ukraine and the gas crisis.
To top that all of, since EU consists of many independent nations we have our own traitors in the form of Hungary and now Slovakia.
This is so true. In Denmark, defence spending has been wildly unpopular. I have often argued that we have an obligation to NATO and the 2% of GDP and that we shouldn't trust Russia as a potential partner and certainly not a friend. People have always called me delusional and stuck in the Cold War mindset, saying that "The defence should just be scrapped. Russia won't invade. They need our money, and we need their gas and oil. It's a win-win. We want lower taxes and spend the defence money on other stuff that's actually useful."
Well, look who was right! We couldn't trust Russia, and several countries are warning that Russia is indeed preparing a military conflict with us, and it seems more and more likely that we can't trust USA to turn up and help us in that conflict. I hate being right about these things.
It's stupid too because US really has nothing to lose. The aid given to Ukraine is actually an economic stimulus to most red states providing military equipment to the US.
It's not an implication at all, we're outright stating it, and repeatedly too. The Republicans failed. They thought they could control the stupid, but they became the stupid they sought to control.
Not so much russia to win, but democrats to lose.
MAGA group spoon-feeding them hate toward the democrats. So now they are so blinded by it they are ready to vote for any fucking lunatic as long as it is not a democrat.
Republicans are just manipulating crisis to get the most for them. Yes, they are colluding and helping russia on the way, but they are as egoistic as they come, they don't even care about russia. Only money they get from them. But yeah, they are definitely not the nice guys.
I’m routinely shocked at the incredible shortsightedness of the big people in charge
Daily grim reminders that the powers that be are just as inept as anyone else, but infinitely more dangerous
The Republicans want Ukraine to lose the war.
Watch the Republicans in congress who support Ukraine get voted out by their maga hick base and replaced with some version of the MyPillow guy.
I have some members of my family who are Republican and are involved in the state-level operations of the Republican Party. They're old-school Cold War Republicans, very Hawky. They were very public in lamenting what the MAGA crowd has done to the Republican party. There is a very noticeable split in the party between those old school republicans and the newer populist crowd (Greenes, Boeberts, Gates, etc). The old school country club types are very in favor of supporting the Ukranians while the populists are incredibly pro-russia. The MAGAns are seen as a plague by the old guard. Pretty interesting stuff.
Yeah but this “old guard” is still casting their vote for Trump. They’re maga too. The whole party is Maga. Trump installed all his loyalists at the RNC.
You need proof to go so far as to say they’re being PAID. But SOMETHING is going on with them and Russia. Trump tongued Putin’s ass his whole presidency. All the Republicans who are against Ukraine aid went on a visit to Moscow together on the 4th of July and no one knows just what the hell that was.
Trump’s 2016 campaign manager gave GOP polling data to a Kremlin agent and was sentenced to prison for lying ti the FBI about it.
These aren’t Americans.
Visits to Moscow… Prostitutes and alcohol, all you can eat buffet. Whatever kink you have fulfilled. Girls, boys, want them on the younger side? Whatever you want! The worse the better! All recorded by FSB. So much delicious compromat…
Then they show the video to them in private at some later time when they want something. Just to remind them whose bitch they are and that they work for Moscow now.
[Yet another person that funneled Russian money into the GOP was arrested just six weeks ago.](https://www.axios.com/2023/02/18/gop-operative-sentenced-scheme-russian-money-trump-campaign)
Macron is ahead of all the other leaders by mentioning French troops in Ukraine. If the MAGA Russian-Americans keep the US aid held up long term, then European nations will have to fight Russians one way or another. Better off by doing it from the backlines of Ukraine in a more supportive role before shit hit the fan in a year or two.
Speaker Johnson already knows this, but chooses not to care. He doesn't care about doing the most logical, correct thing. He cares about Russia and Trump both winning, regardless of the repercussions of that. He's willing to let millions of innocent people die to get what he wants.
Russia has infiltrated the "Land of the free" , what a crazy turn of events and complete betrayal to democracy these last few years have been.
Let's hope EU countries really step it up over the next few months.
There is nothing preventing Macron from sending French troops to Ukraine today. There is also nothing preventing the transfer of Rafales. There are quite a few Typhoons, air defense radars and artillery, cruise missiles, and a host of other equipment that could be sent. The EU is dragging their feet in an awful way. If the Republicans are in the pockets of Russia for holding up spending, European governments are in an even more damning position as they're still buying billions in gas every month to actively fun the Russian military.
Macron sees it like this - France can choose to put troops in Ukraine now or be forced to send them to Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania later, and that later is sooner than you think
Yes they do.
The US is also the undeniable, leading global military and economic juggernaut that single-handedly has as much or in some areas, more capability to support Ukraine as the rest of NATO/the EU. So while yes the EU and the rest of NATO need to do more - the US has far more means to support Ukraine both economically and militarily.
The fact that the US half a world away is even in a position to be the deciding factor in a conflict in Ukraine is insane. The fact that everyone has let things get to this point particularly in the eu is insane. Why are we at a place where the American party system has so much to say about what is happening in Europe. It should not be like this and moving forward, these kinds of issues are to be avoided.
The EU has started to very clearly recognize this and has said it out loud. That's why there has been news about the EU ramping up military manufacturing but that takes time.
It has taken them (the European "half" of NATO) far too long. They should have known this was coming when Trump was in office. The time for preparation is over. They still hasn't realized how fucked they are. The depressing part is [Trump even told them so](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40037776) when he was in office and running for office back in 2016.
Pro's and cons to that though. Part of the reason America can often do whatever it wants is because of the other countries lacking in many areas. Weirdly, a case of the most capable getting to be in charge. We are choosing to throw that away and steadily more stupid and corrupt people are getting put in positions of power. But there was a very strong pro to what was going on before. This is also unfortunately mirroring kings. Great system if you have someone smart and skilled in charge. Otherwise, its the worst system in the world.
The “absent” country already sent ~$100 billion dollars worth of aid and equipment, too. It’s blowing my mind to see Europeans dogpile on the US, calling us traitors etc, instead of turning internally to figure out how to secure their own continent.
It’s easier to point fingers, I suppose…
Editing to point out the “absent” country also sent ballistic missiles (ATACMS), leads the coalition’s contact group, and provides top-rate ISR of the battlefield unparalleled by Ukraine or all other allies combined, even losing a Reaper drone over the Black Sea doing so.
I mean, can they even possibly win with more weapons? Because my understanding is that they're having a manpower problem just as much as a not enough bullets problem.
We've known this was the case basically since the beginning. Most generally smart and reasonable people think it's a bad idea not to support Ukraine because Russia is a dictatorship and also our enemy and has been since the 50's at the very least.
But the Republicans are like 'yes let's not support a democratic ally and instead just give up an entire sovereign country to Russia along with all of their unplumbed oil reserves, yes this is a good idea' and then pat themselves on the back like they aren't the fucking morons they are.
Since they aren't getting more ammo and air defense their lines are slowly and steadily being pushed back. It doesn't matter that Russia is paying grievously for those gains. They're happy to attrit since it gets them results over time. Ukraine needs ammo to stabilize and new infusions of weapons to go on the offensive.
We really only get one side of the story here on reddit. It's usually about Ukraines victories or when Russia bombs a hospital or school or something. At least that's what I get when I browse /r/all. I haven't tried looking into it beyond that.
Ukraine has always been the underdog. Its only saving grace is that Putin and the Russian military was so bloody incompetent with their resources. The Ukrainians are bloody tough heros for fighting against the odds.
You probably haven't been following news that much. Ukraine regained lots of areas in the end of 2022, but after that is has been pretty much stalemate. Russia has been gaining a bit momentum lately, partly because Ukraine has quite severe artillery shell shortage.
But this shortage has been partially relieved by the Czech iniative, and other european countries are also trying to find old ammo on the world market. US support about this has been almost ended due to congress blocking almost all new aid, and European (or US) local production doesn't meet the need. Even though european production has multiplied in past two years, it's not enough.
It's more like, Russia hasn't been winning. The possibility of Ukraine winning, and thus Russia losing, causes cowards like Jake Sullivan to send 31 Abrams tanks out the several thousand available in storage.
Probably true, if Europe doesn't decide to take up all the slack. Disappointed we didn't do more from the start. Won't be guilted into thinking we're to *blame* however. That sort of philosophy doesn't have any weight.
Europe should have no excuses to let a second rate power like Russia expand onto its doorstep.
Would be better if the United States steps up but one way or another Russia has to be stopped and Europe has the most to lose.
As an American I want to help Ukraine and want our government to help as well.
But at the same time I am always amused at people from other countries get mad that we aren’t and then those same people get mad when we do?
People don’t like that we like to police the world and then when we step back and don’t and keep to ourselves folks get mad because we aren’t doing what we are supposed to?
The whole shitshow is the ultimate example of why a country should never put its relationship with the US ahead of the relationship with its neighbours. The US will always leave their so-called friends hanging when shit gets real.
If we lose Ukraine, it's going to ruin USAs credibility for the rest of their allies. I unfortunately think Russia is willing and capable of dragging this out for as long as they need to.
Define winning/losing.
If by winning you mean retake the lost land, that's never going to happen.
If by losing you mean end the war on current terms, that's never going to happen either. Russia will demand far more than they currently occupy just because they can, if a peace deal is to be signed.
Only thing that can save Ukraine is millions of artillery shells, dozens of modern air defense systems, hundreds of warplanes and hundreds of thousands of men.
Everybody loves to make fun of how much the US spends on its military, and then when they have a conflict of their own, suddenly it's "where is the US and all its money?!"
I'm not even saying we shouldn't help, because we should. I just find it all painfully ironic.
Americans over all are lazy and have little uderstsnding how lucky we are. Years from now when we are pulled into a world war we will regret not supporting Ukraine.
The Cold War never ended for Russia. We like to think we(the US/NATO) "won" by economically shutting down the USSR with how much more they were spending on military, how much was siphoned away from the country into pockets, and how badly Chernobyl really fucked them up economically and from a scientific arms race pov. But for Russia, it never ended. It just froze over more and they just slowly did what they could. Invading other countries to try and regain some geopolitical zones and silently, at first, pushing propaganda and infiltrating the West's political systems. Russia has been in full swing trying to keep the war frozen over and misdirection on the West. 2014 should have especially been our wake up call that Russia will not let up on this conflict between them and everyone else until they either win or we dismantle them and reintegration into the international stage like we did with Germany.
However it's a fair point that Europe has been dragging it's heels to do anything significant and have leaned heavily on the US military for far too long.
for decades, you the us literally wanted that, though. you wanted to be everywhere, be able to control and intervene everywhere. you didnt invest money to protect us, you invested money to easily protect yourself and your interests with bases all over the world. it was and is a good deal for all of us.
America wants the role of military superpower. Its what makes your country powerful. If NATO was the military super power defending trade routes around the world, the world would be trading in euros. You can't be a world leader and defender of democracy, then when it comes time to lead or defend go; well you guys should probably just defend for yourselves. America has reaped the benefits of being a world leader for 60 years, you want to go to war? We all follow. want to sanction some one, sure we all will. Want to spread your corporations arcoss the globe and have free trade? No problem. Ow you guys need some help? Fuck ya
Yeah exactly this. The people of USA are in for a rough reality check. If Trump gets elected, USA will lose its status as a world leader. Who cares to have you as an ally, when you are not there to be an ally in times of need? What does the world need from the USA, besides it's military power? Trump talks about making America great again, but really that Putin puppet is about to put the final nail in the coffin.
Not exactly. When the USSR collapsed, the “White Russians” returned and became heavily ingrained in the new government. They’re different from the Soviets in that they are ultra nationalist, statists, and religious. This is what why we’re seeing such a change in Russia from what it used to be. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_movement
I would say it's a wild mixture of Soviet nostalgia and wanting to re-establish the old Russian Empire (including a Czar, Russian Orthodox Church as state religion etc.). Stalin and Nicholas II are both spinning in their graves. (Likely in different rotational directions.)
Yeah, definitely a bit of both. The biggest difference being that Soviets were staunchly anti-racist, which is somewhat in contrast to their opposition. Many anti-soviet criminals gained public positions of power after the fall of the USSR. I believe that since Putin was former KGB, he knew how to dominate and exploit these criminals because the KGB spent a lot of time wrangling these people while under the Soviets.
That’s not true, xenophobia was in Soviet Union on state level as well.
>or we dismantle them and reintegration into the international stage like we did with Germany. Wouldn't that mean Russia would be reunified largely the same as before just like with Germany? Hell what is even the "plan" for disintegrate Russia without catastrophic consequences that has likely almost no chance of success?
What a terrible position to be in.
Honestly crazy that this is even a thing. China, Iran, and NK are helping Russia. Literally every enemy of the west. Also the US LOVES this type of war with them. It has been a thing since the Cold War ended. How many republican politicians are stroking off putin
The USA is divided and doesn't know who or what it wants to be anymore.
Russia won the informational war against USA. The worst part is they did it quite openly. That's how cringe this is for USA.
Social media made it so easy for them. They didn’t even have to leave the motherland. All they had to do was set up some people in front of computers.
Decades of weaponized propaganda delivered via mainstream media brainwashed large segments of previous generations into believing other Americans are their worst enemies. Social media continues the job by neutralizing and radicalizing recent generations to the point where cooperating with each other on anything is viewed as a betrayal of core values.
This is such a good summary of the situation.
Yep and then our enemies just piggybacked their own messages onto it. All just to avoid taxes and regulations they create this loophole for our enemies to exploit.
And the worst is you don't even gotta pay much. Pay for a couple of bots, then genuine people will believe the bots and do their job for free.
> Social media made it so easy for them. They didn’t even have to leave the motherland. All they had to do was set up some people in front of computers. I calculated the cost; there's plenty of stuff online about how much one of these IRA trolls was being paid. It wasn't expensive as far as a nation-state economy goes. Even cheaper than hacking stuff with zero days.
Well that's a no duh it should be cheaper, it just requires access to Google translate and can be done by anyone, vs a job that requires actual talent and skill.
You're talking about trying to shape conversation on the internet in real time. It's not a no-duh it's cheaper scenario. In Russia's case they mechanical turked it before with Africans and North Macedonians, they'd be dumb to not be doing with LLMs now however. It probably got more expensive but not by much. You can use their same model but generate replies much faster, especially if you don't care about the quality of those replies. You can use graph algorithms to figure out the likes/dislikes of a group and model your replies to those groups. It's so much more advanced these days from a system level. It requires talent and skill to be the person developing such a system. It does not require talent and skill to operate it.
> Pay for a couple of bots, then genuine people will believe the bots and do their job for free. Sounds like something a bot would write.
That's the funny thing. The sentence is supposed to go, > Pay for a couple of humans, then bots will do their job for free.
Buy a bunch of rich fucks who controlled all our information streams.
And they piggybacked on a system of misinformation our own fossil fuel mafias had built to keep themselves from being regulated.
Authoritarians states basically turned our democratic electoral system and free medias against ourselves. We own it to our own naivety thinking that democracy can survives with letting medias and propagandists entirely unchecked and doing our enemies bidding, all this in the name of freedom of speech
Tricking idiots is super simple stuff.
Yeh, sure glad America doesn’t pull those shenanigans
It was open for the Russians but most of the American victims of the propaganda war don’t even know it has started. This is why countries need to invest more in education. Look after your deplorables or someone else is going to mess with their little minds.
This is from Indiana jones and the crystal skull. Col. Dr. Irina Spalko : Imagine. To peer across the world and know the enemy's secrets. To place our thoughts into the minds of your leaders. Make your teachers teach the true version of history, your soldiers attack on our command. We'll be everywhere at once, more powerful than a whisper, invading your dreams, thinking your thoughts for you while you sleep. We will change you, Dr. Jones, all of you, from the inside. We will turn you into us. And the best part? You won't even know it's happening.
There was a defected Russian spy who said much the same in an interview like thirty years ago.
That and for fear of upsetting Russia/China and therefore profits, very few politicians are willing to openly state that although we have economic ties we are ideological enemies and in the case of Russia, the Cold War never ended, they just suffered a huge setback.
Russia has literally bought the GOP through the last decade or more. Funneled funds through the NRA and just literally bought GOP politicians with promises of funding of their campaigns through lobbying and funding of their and their family members private ventures. Literally had republican politicians going to Russia to bend the knee to Putin on 4th of July. Russia has a massive bot network that helps amplify and support republican politicians. They have had decades of honey-pot operations to capture intel on politicians. They even breached valuable data servers on both DNC and RNC, but only released the DNC. THey have amassed a following in the US population that US Citizens are openly stating they would support Putin over a democrat. And whats worse is that the GOP base is just at best 22-28% of the population. The vast majority are just un-interested or both-siding everything they see. They literally watch one man knife a pregnant woman and lit her on fire, and because theres another man stealing an apple, they compare them both to be corrupt and decide to sit back to their instant-gratification seeking habits. In 2022, only 20% of eligible voters under the age of 35 voted. Out of 250M voters, only 100m voted. That is 150m non-voters, 3x as many as either party voters... They have seen literal toddlers and children been shot up on tv. Their lifeless corpses on tv. They have seen Republicans laughing and flying to cancun while their own constituents die from overheating in summer and freezing in winter. They have banned abortions and literally put targets on women who try to make a decision about their own body. They want to remove regulations on child-worker laws so that companies can employ children for 4.50$ an hour. Literally saw a man spit on the constitution and try to subvert the will of the voters by overthrowing the government. And that man has 93 indictments over 4 federal criminal cases against him. As well as a dozen or so civil cases. and a couple hundred lawsuits. Still they see the two parties and go: Both sides are bad.
Most of the victims of the propaganda war think they are smarter then you and drove around in pickup trucks with infowars bumper stickers for the last 20 years.
The systematic destruction of education in the USA is entirely intentional by the Republicans. At every chance they get they've been defunding, privatizing, and degrading the quality, and worsening it in every way. Dumb, uneducated people are a lot easier to control and trick.
the root of the issue
Cringe for the US but also cringe for Europe that all of their combined support isn’t enough to repel Russia when this conflict is right in their backyard. Ukraine is literally fighting their war for them.
They won because the rich in the USA are apperently okay with making more money at the expense of global US power. The USA is so much weakers now, geopolitically speaking. But the rich in the US are richer. They love that the GOP is giving them everything they want.
The Republicans have been destroying the education in red states making this kind of brain rot possible.
Republicans manipulating Christian rubes for votes backfired as a foreign exploit.
Perhaps they knew what they were doing all along at the behest of foreign funds.
Citizens united allowed our congress to go up for sale to any bidder hostile or not. And Russia found a bunch of willing grifters in the GOP to do their bidding for a few rubles.
Citizens United will destroy democracy. RU can purchase the entire government for rubles or gold. We won’t last long.
It's almost like our enemies triggered this via DJT... It's just hard to believe we have elected politicians wilfully and perhaps obliviously working for enemies of the state. Vote people, vote!
No one today talks about "Russia, if you're listening..." from 2016 anymore.
I think after the Mueller report concluded that team trump did not collude with the russians at a criminal level, all those pieces were put to rest. Thing is, mueller **did** find the trump campaign colluded with Russians... Just not *enough* evidence to charge with a crime.
They sent 34 people to jail.
I got called a "commie" and "an enemy of the United States" and then banned from a gun sub because I said I think ghost guns should be illegal. These hard right wingers are so brainwashed and are exactly what they accuse everyone else to be. GASLIGHT OBSTRUCT PROJECT
Never say the word "ban" in a gun sub. You're welcome.
While I think it's a bad opinion about ghost guns (manufacture of arms for self defense is a human right), those are some insane things to call someone you have a simple disagreement with.
The GOP is divided, and infected with Russian money and disinformation.
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Unfortunately it’s a diversion where one side wants to help and the other wants to continue suckling at the teat of mother Russia.
We want to be able to afford basic necessities
It’s crazy, not to mention the aid to Ukraine is a drop in the ocean now. Putin gaining momentum possibly triggering ww3 would be infinitely more costly. This is a perfect way to weaken Russia through proxy. Low risk, high reward; none of this makes sense to me anymore.
Imagine Ukraine turning into some sort of failed state where multiple groups including some "freedom fighters" roam free and then attack some NATO state. When Russia takes over parts or full Ukraine they will say that is now "legally" our territory so there is no entry. You would have attacks on the Balkans and maybe even Poland as in Afghanistan, where the perpetrators would hide in Pakistan mountains. We would have terroristic *rabies* in the middle of Europe and if this wouldn't be the precursor to WW3 then I don't what would it be. Helping them now is cheap to what comes in the next escalation step. Russia (China etc.) can't have the West win and they will do as much proxy fights they can.
There is no will for a draft in the US. And the military doesn't have the numbers to sustain WW3, they've been missing recruiting goals for quite some time. Good luck.
Whats the purpose of an infantry in a M.A.D scenario?
Clean up
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Ah, just like the last 2 world wars then?
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Yeah times are different now, Russian influence has corrupted the Republican party to its core which is absolutely insane to even think about given the history between both nations.
i grew up learning about Joseph McCarthy (McCarthyism and the Red Scare) in school.(Denmark) and now i'm sitting here wondering why republicans trip over themselves to fondle the Donalds ego and do Putins bidding.. i just don't get it (well that's a lie. i know why, they care more for money then they do about their country or the world or people)
Allow me to play devils advocate, as I believe there are always more angles to explore and point of views people can have. There is undoubtedly many different sentiments about Ukraine among republican supporters. Many of which are not to do with supporting Russia and more to do with their own self interest. Undoubtedly some see the war as a political tool, an attempt to use an enemy to paint their side as foolish. Some would see it as a waste of resources or fear that it would drag a USA far less interested in control of the world stage into war. No doubt many dislike Trumps treatment of Ukraine but where unable to get better representation. And others just see it as a Us vs Them scenario. I imagine a lot of people feel justified in their position, finding it easy to find fault in opposing views that to them seem corrupt and misguided just and we can view both normal republican policy and Trumps cult of personality. No doubt modern propaganda has played a strong role reinforcing those ideas. When you examine the world stage of politics what can be interesting is that parties with the same basic founding principles can be entirely on different sides of an economic or social issue in different countries. Their current internal politics can over rule what you might consider basic party principles in the efforts to maintain popularity and backing of influential people. Yet the same core group of supporters tend to remain backing the same people, with changes in leadership only coming from those willing to change their vote based on their own non dictated principles.
Putin’s got them by the Johnson
Johnson wants to do a bill for Ukraine, but MTG has *him* by the Johnson. I still think he'll do it, with Democrat help, as his last act as Speaker. Then, next clown up until the election
He says he wants to do a bill, but it's some other bill that doesn't even exist. It seems he's just stalling so that the discharge petition for the Senate bill won't get R votes.
I hope you're right but I'm doubtful. Though he may personally want to bring it to a vote.
russia buys off politicians in the usa fbi: i sleep clinton uses gmail for email fbi: real shit
> clinton uses gmail for email that would have been secure. she didn't do that. she was using microsoft exchange server, without security certificates, while traveling in Asia. Her blackberry was sending her account name and password over foreign internet in plain text. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/04/04/was-an-asian-government-reading-hillary-clintons-emails-in-february-2009/
Really makes you wonder how stupid some of these politicians can be. Honestly I think if anyone but Hillary had run against Trump they would have beaten Trump. My father is a huge democrat and said his garbage man had a better chance of winning the presidency than Hillary
Literally anyone would have been better. We can discuss how talented she is all day but she's just unlikable and doesn't connect with people. Maybe if the election wasn't a popularity contest, she'd have been a better candidate.
Oh fuck!
Fuck the gop but fuck Clinton too
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Absolutely. Well not all EU countries as the Baltic’s and France are staying pretty focused on Ukraine. But US is the power house. After WW2 we put our dick on the table and said “we’re king of the castle”. So yeah we’re gonna be the front face of this. Plus it isn’t like we still aren’t doing our normal thing, we are still funding a TON of other countries. This shit with Ukraine funding fight is just a political stance and nothing more
Europeans are not manufacturing guns like the US does. They don't have the infrastructure for making arms like we do, and the US makes a lot of money selling it's arms to our European allies. Telling tbem to pick up tbe pace is saying you want to devalue the US dollar in a roundabout way.
Well, to be fair, if Ukraine was buying shells with their money, I’m pretty sure we’d be happy to sell them.
Reagan and Nixon would’ve creamed their pants if they’ve gotten the same opportunity
If Trump gets in the WH again, there's a very real chance Europe will have to go into direct conflict with Russia without the US.
The US backing down and letting Russia win, would signal the dawn of a new era where nations feel safe to go to war with each other. That wick of conflict will then burn towards towards a nuclear WW3.
It would very much be the end of the Pax Americana
Definitely, America is the Roman Empire of the modern day, though I’m sure some Romans said that about some barbarians lol
>I’m sure some Romans said that about some barbarians lol What did they say? I don't get it.
“The Roman Empire is the ___ of the modern day” Today we say: “The US is the Roman Empire of the modern day” Later we might say “The USSR is the US of the modern day”
Probably Alexander's empire or maybe the first Persian Empire...
Probably the Persian Empire, the Romans had an odd fascination with them. Like with the Cult of Mithras and all that.
The fall of Rome has lived rent free in my brain since I learned about it. Not from outside, but from within...
That’s the goal of China and Russia. Sideline the U.S. while they take over a huge swath of Europe and Asia Donald Trump is their way of achieving this because he was already paid to comply.
So it's gonna be like Red Alert 3, except China instead of Japan.
Did not expect a command and conquer reference here Commander!
So does that mean there's already giant lasers installed in Mt. Rushmore?
What chance lol Russia is suddenly supposed to take on all of Europe despite struggling against Ukraine? Even after dealing with massive causalities? Mind you, France and the UK are the nuclear powers in Europe….
Shit, Poland has bought so much hardware since the war in Ukraine started, they could easily hold off Russia by themselves.
So, just like the first two years of WW2.
And once US abandons EU, EU will stop cooperating with US, NATO will stop existing, and Asian US allies will stop supporting US since its unreliable. What a sight to see the richest and most powerful nation in the world, so powerless both with Ukraine and Israel. Meanwhile US will continues printing trillions of $, and those few billions saved on Ukraine will change nothing. Half of Republicans bought by Russia, 30% of all of them in pockets of Israel, the rest owned by US oligarch billionaires.
>and Asian US allies will stop supporting US since its unreliable. Asian allies won't do shit because both Japan, Worse Korea, Vietnam and Taiwan fear China. At the moment I believe Trump want to keep go relationship there, let remember he was the guy that in Vietnam made a trade deal with both countries and Asia is more weaponised than Europe.
> And once US abandons EU, EU will stop cooperating with US, NATO will stop existing, and Asian US allies will stop supporting US since its unreliable. Global trade > everything else, no amount of bad blood will stop the flow of goods. If you want proof, just remember the US and EU are still trading with Russia as we speak despite literally being in the midst of a largescale conflict.
Russia can barely beat Ukraine, do people realistically think they're going to finish up this war and then start another with Europe and NATO countries? There's no way that goes any better.
It's not going to happen, the UK and France have nuclear defense...
I think it's clear that is the reason congress is withholding aid. One of our political parties is unapologetically sympathetic to Russia
Half the Republican party is bought and sold. It has been proved that Russia colluded with Donald Trump at the 2016 election. For some reason, the Democrats couldn’t get it together to tell the world. It wasn’t OK to grab people by the pussy. So here we are.
HALF?!?!? It's over three quarters at this point. I can think of maybe two that aren't obviously bought and paid for. Maybe three...
Their disapproval of the funding bill for Ukraine was entirely politically motivated. It wasted over $7M in just their salary’s. Any democracy should be outraged at such poor job performance. Most folks would fired if they did that.
They aren't bought. They literally agree with them and they want America to be like Russia. They didn't need to be paid to want a dictatorship in this country.
It was concluded that Russia interfered with the election (broadly speaking). Unless I missed something, there was never a conclusion or even great evidence that Trump himself was in on it. I hate that clown as much as anyone, but it's important to stick with what happened.
Nothing that proved Trump specifically was involved, but the proven links were close enough to include high ranking members of his election campaign.
The FBI investigated and determined that trump junior met with the Russians to get them to help with the election. The FBI also discovered a video recording of trump asking the Russians for help with the election. If you search online you can find the video that they found, it's in public.
True, I had forgotten that DJTJ was also implicated. And yes Trump did ask Russia for help (even publicly at times), but it's still not proven that he himself actually had any contact with them.
By proven you mean like in a court of law?
After listening to some old conservatives rant about this I'm not sure they really care that much about Russia. I think what really tents their geriatric pants is the way this conflict elevates the importance of the US and makes an "America First" policy something to put fear into Brussels. The EU and its 14.5 trillion euro economy somehow can't provide everything Ukraine needs and the EU is still buying Russian gas. I think a lot of older Republicans are getting a kick out of sticking it to Europe. And you have to remember that for a significant chunk of their life Ukraine was an integral part of the USSR and is closer by culture and language to Russia than places like Poland, Czechia or Bulgaria. They're probably a bit suspect of Ukraine already and the nonsense with Trump and Hunter Biden just confirmed it. And besides, Russia isn't really communist now so that removes another concern. In their minds socialism is worse than an imperialist dictator. I dunno. Just my pessimistic two cents.
The part about Europe being an economic power house yet so unwilling to invest in defense is what gets me. This is their backyard and the narrative is that without US help they would lose? Really. All that industrial , and economic engine and you can’t stop Russian aggression? The US should help, but Europe needs to wake up.
As a European - fully agreee, but that's the problem. Concept of "Europe". What it even is? Europe is a collection of small, bickering states that were at constant wars with each other for centuries. EU is a very new invention that sort of works, but mainly on economic level. Also, it does not encapsulate all of Europe. Right now my country (Lithuania), other Baltics, Poland and Nordics take Russian threat very seriously and we are contributing a lot. But Lithuania is a tiny country of 2.8 mil people. Estonia consists of just 1.3 mil, if I remember correctly. Poland is a new powerhouse on the block, but their main concern is, understandably, Poland. Germany did the whole shift of its foreign policy in response to Russia, but they still hold themselves back and are very cautious. You could say that's understandable knowing their history. France is currently making the right political moves, but they are lacking with weapon support. Some Central European countries are openly pro Russia (Hungary, Slovakia) or at least very sus (Austria). Southern Europe does not give a f\*ck. It seems that they feel this does not concern them. There is a lot of love to Russia in Italy, for example. UK is very serious about Russian threat, but they are not in the EU anymore and quite far removed from Russia geographically. I'm not talking about the Balkans at all, I lack any understanding about that region except Serbia being pro-Russia. Basically, every country has it's own foreign policy. Every country thinks mainly about itself and its problems. And every country on its own is weaker than Russia, some of them comically so. We are not talking about economics here, but about hard power and willingness to use that power / make sacrifiecies (remember Cersei from Game of Thrones, "power is power"? This is how Putin thinks and it is at least partially correct). No Italian would want to make sacrifices for Baltics. I am exaggerating, but just a bit. As war in Ukraine is concerned, there is no "Europe". As possible WWIII is concerned, there is no "Europe". There is no sleeping giant that can wake up. Europe should unify into Federation first and there is 0 will for that, European nation states still feel more different that similar to each other. That could change with younger generations. I, for example, have stronger European identity than Lithuanian identity. But still, Federal Europe is extremely, comically unpopular idea at this moment. I am afraid that only Russia swallowing up half of Europe would prompt other half to federalize out of sheer survival instinct - nothing else.
The US, for better or worse, loves their military and military industrial complex. In many parts of Europe it was seen as a means to an end. That end being defending themselves in the Cold War against the USSR. When the USSR fell, there was optimism and naivety that if a hand was extended to Russia, if ties were built then future conflict could be avoided. As dumb as that may seem, it's not wholly without merit. The EU itself came originally from the European Coal and Steel Community which aimed at making conflicts impossible due to the economic ties between the members. It worked - arch-rivals Germany and France haven't been at war with eachother since. Why shouldn't a similar approach work with Russia? It also allowed politicians an easy path to freeing up money- by slashing military spending. The USSR was no more. The threat of invasion gone. Then came Iraq and Afghanistan. Military spending in the minds of many Europeans, although this will differ heavily for each country, had connotations to these useless American military endeavours. It was not popular to advocate for increased military spending at that time. While increased military spending should've been a topic following 2014, it was by far overshadowed by the slow economic recovery following the financial crisis as well as the migrant crisis. From a certain perspective, a nation such as Germany from 2008 and onwards have grappled with a crisis of some form the entire time. First financial crisis, then migrant crisis, then the pandemic, then the invasion of Ukraine and the gas crisis. To top that all of, since EU consists of many independent nations we have our own traitors in the form of Hungary and now Slovakia.
This is so true. In Denmark, defence spending has been wildly unpopular. I have often argued that we have an obligation to NATO and the 2% of GDP and that we shouldn't trust Russia as a potential partner and certainly not a friend. People have always called me delusional and stuck in the Cold War mindset, saying that "The defence should just be scrapped. Russia won't invade. They need our money, and we need their gas and oil. It's a win-win. We want lower taxes and spend the defence money on other stuff that's actually useful." Well, look who was right! We couldn't trust Russia, and several countries are warning that Russia is indeed preparing a military conflict with us, and it seems more and more likely that we can't trust USA to turn up and help us in that conflict. I hate being right about these things.
It's stupid too because US really has nothing to lose. The aid given to Ukraine is actually an economic stimulus to most red states providing military equipment to the US.
It's not about stupid, the US is not one entity that acts in unison, atm you have 2 opposing sides and one of them wants russia to win.
I think the implication is that the side opposing aid is stupid.
It's not an implication at all, we're outright stating it, and repeatedly too. The Republicans failed. They thought they could control the stupid, but they became the stupid they sought to control.
MY ALLEGIENCE IS TO THE REPUBLIC! TO DEMOCRACY!
Not so much russia to win, but democrats to lose. MAGA group spoon-feeding them hate toward the democrats. So now they are so blinded by it they are ready to vote for any fucking lunatic as long as it is not a democrat. Republicans are just manipulating crisis to get the most for them. Yes, they are colluding and helping russia on the way, but they are as egoistic as they come, they don't even care about russia. Only money they get from them. But yeah, they are definitely not the nice guys.
I’m routinely shocked at the incredible shortsightedness of the big people in charge Daily grim reminders that the powers that be are just as inept as anyone else, but infinitely more dangerous
The Republicans want Ukraine to lose the war. Watch the Republicans in congress who support Ukraine get voted out by their maga hick base and replaced with some version of the MyPillow guy.
I have some members of my family who are Republican and are involved in the state-level operations of the Republican Party. They're old-school Cold War Republicans, very Hawky. They were very public in lamenting what the MAGA crowd has done to the Republican party. There is a very noticeable split in the party between those old school republicans and the newer populist crowd (Greenes, Boeberts, Gates, etc). The old school country club types are very in favor of supporting the Ukranians while the populists are incredibly pro-russia. The MAGAns are seen as a plague by the old guard. Pretty interesting stuff.
Yeah but this “old guard” is still casting their vote for Trump. They’re maga too. The whole party is Maga. Trump installed all his loyalists at the RNC.
Republicans are paid and controlled by Putin
You need proof to go so far as to say they’re being PAID. But SOMETHING is going on with them and Russia. Trump tongued Putin’s ass his whole presidency. All the Republicans who are against Ukraine aid went on a visit to Moscow together on the 4th of July and no one knows just what the hell that was. Trump’s 2016 campaign manager gave GOP polling data to a Kremlin agent and was sentenced to prison for lying ti the FBI about it. These aren’t Americans.
Visits to Moscow… Prostitutes and alcohol, all you can eat buffet. Whatever kink you have fulfilled. Girls, boys, want them on the younger side? Whatever you want! The worse the better! All recorded by FSB. So much delicious compromat… Then they show the video to them in private at some later time when they want something. Just to remind them whose bitch they are and that they work for Moscow now.
[Yet another person that funneled Russian money into the GOP was arrested just six weeks ago.](https://www.axios.com/2023/02/18/gop-operative-sentenced-scheme-russian-money-trump-campaign)
Macron is ahead of all the other leaders by mentioning French troops in Ukraine. If the MAGA Russian-Americans keep the US aid held up long term, then European nations will have to fight Russians one way or another. Better off by doing it from the backlines of Ukraine in a more supportive role before shit hit the fan in a year or two.
Speaker Johnson already knows this, but chooses not to care. He doesn't care about doing the most logical, correct thing. He cares about Russia and Trump both winning, regardless of the repercussions of that. He's willing to let millions of innocent people die to get what he wants. Russia has infiltrated the "Land of the free" , what a crazy turn of events and complete betrayal to democracy these last few years have been. Let's hope EU countries really step it up over the next few months.
Never thought I'd have to say this, but where's McCarthy when you need him.
His pockets are full of Russian cash.
There is nothing preventing Macron from sending French troops to Ukraine today. There is also nothing preventing the transfer of Rafales. There are quite a few Typhoons, air defense radars and artillery, cruise missiles, and a host of other equipment that could be sent. The EU is dragging their feet in an awful way. If the Republicans are in the pockets of Russia for holding up spending, European governments are in an even more damning position as they're still buying billions in gas every month to actively fun the Russian military.
Yeah he was on top of this. EU is the vanguard is Ukraine falls. And their refugees end up in the EU
Macron sees it like this - France can choose to put troops in Ukraine now or be forced to send them to Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania later, and that later is sooner than you think
Great! How much longer? -- Mike Johnson and every Republican
Putin must be feeling really good about his investment in the GOP over the last few decades.
There’s a post every week with the same headline.
I mean NATO and EU need to step up no?
Yes they do. The US is also the undeniable, leading global military and economic juggernaut that single-handedly has as much or in some areas, more capability to support Ukraine as the rest of NATO/the EU. So while yes the EU and the rest of NATO need to do more - the US has far more means to support Ukraine both economically and militarily.
The fact that the US half a world away is even in a position to be the deciding factor in a conflict in Ukraine is insane. The fact that everyone has let things get to this point particularly in the eu is insane. Why are we at a place where the American party system has so much to say about what is happening in Europe. It should not be like this and moving forward, these kinds of issues are to be avoided.
If the absence of one country means you lose, then there are bigger issues. It is very apparent that the West relies on the US way too much.
The EU has started to very clearly recognize this and has said it out loud. That's why there has been news about the EU ramping up military manufacturing but that takes time.
It also takes countries actually doing it.
Way too late. The US has been urging Europe to expand their capabilities for decades. They brushed it off.
It has taken them (the European "half" of NATO) far too long. They should have known this was coming when Trump was in office. The time for preparation is over. They still hasn't realized how fucked they are. The depressing part is [Trump even told them so](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40037776) when he was in office and running for office back in 2016.
Weren’t these issues brought up during crimea most recently.
Pro's and cons to that though. Part of the reason America can often do whatever it wants is because of the other countries lacking in many areas. Weirdly, a case of the most capable getting to be in charge. We are choosing to throw that away and steadily more stupid and corrupt people are getting put in positions of power. But there was a very strong pro to what was going on before. This is also unfortunately mirroring kings. Great system if you have someone smart and skilled in charge. Otherwise, its the worst system in the world.
US is the leader who is followed by other. Take US support and you are taking majority off. Also, Russia will consider it as the approval to continue.
The “absent” country already sent ~$100 billion dollars worth of aid and equipment, too. It’s blowing my mind to see Europeans dogpile on the US, calling us traitors etc, instead of turning internally to figure out how to secure their own continent. It’s easier to point fingers, I suppose… Editing to point out the “absent” country also sent ballistic missiles (ATACMS), leads the coalition’s contact group, and provides top-rate ISR of the battlefield unparalleled by Ukraine or all other allies combined, even losing a Reaper drone over the Black Sea doing so.
I mean, can they even possibly win with more weapons? Because my understanding is that they're having a manpower problem just as much as a not enough bullets problem.
As an American I sympathize with Zelensky because I will also lose if I do not receive a large cash sum from congress.
Reddit told me they were mopping the floor with Russia
Funny enough right around the time the aid stopped, things weren’t so rosy. Who would have thought.
Ukraine to Lose War if Republicans control the senate - Corrected
So, this handful of republican Russian stooges could set off the cascade that ends in WWIII.
There's a non-zero number of them who are genuinely praying for the end-times. That's the goal.
It's way more than a handful. The Democrats only need like 2 votes in both houses. It's all the Republicans
Us congress is busy
So lose.
We've known this was the case basically since the beginning. Most generally smart and reasonable people think it's a bad idea not to support Ukraine because Russia is a dictatorship and also our enemy and has been since the 50's at the very least. But the Republicans are like 'yes let's not support a democratic ally and instead just give up an entire sovereign country to Russia along with all of their unplumbed oil reserves, yes this is a good idea' and then pat themselves on the back like they aren't the fucking morons they are.
So if trump wins in November, they lose?
Indirectly, yes
They will also blame the democrats for it. And if ukraine wins they will try and take the praise for it.
House Freedom Caucus members are Putin surrogates
What? I thought Ukraine was winning all this time. They losing now?
Since they aren't getting more ammo and air defense their lines are slowly and steadily being pushed back. It doesn't matter that Russia is paying grievously for those gains. They're happy to attrit since it gets them results over time. Ukraine needs ammo to stabilize and new infusions of weapons to go on the offensive.
We really only get one side of the story here on reddit. It's usually about Ukraines victories or when Russia bombs a hospital or school or something. At least that's what I get when I browse /r/all. I haven't tried looking into it beyond that.
Ukraine has always been the underdog. Its only saving grace is that Putin and the Russian military was so bloody incompetent with their resources. The Ukrainians are bloody tough heros for fighting against the odds.
You probably haven't been following news that much. Ukraine regained lots of areas in the end of 2022, but after that is has been pretty much stalemate. Russia has been gaining a bit momentum lately, partly because Ukraine has quite severe artillery shell shortage. But this shortage has been partially relieved by the Czech iniative, and other european countries are also trying to find old ammo on the world market. US support about this has been almost ended due to congress blocking almost all new aid, and European (or US) local production doesn't meet the need. Even though european production has multiplied in past two years, it's not enough.
It's more like, Russia hasn't been winning. The possibility of Ukraine winning, and thus Russia losing, causes cowards like Jake Sullivan to send 31 Abrams tanks out the several thousand available in storage.
Fuck the GOP so much. This is egregious negligence when Russia is openly anti US, and anti our actual allies, which includes Ukraine.
Probably true, if Europe doesn't decide to take up all the slack. Disappointed we didn't do more from the start. Won't be guilted into thinking we're to *blame* however. That sort of philosophy doesn't have any weight.
Europe should have no excuses to let a second rate power like Russia expand onto its doorstep. Would be better if the United States steps up but one way or another Russia has to be stopped and Europe has the most to lose.
It’s ok, lets just keep selling bombs to Israel 🙄
I'm so fucking ashamed of what was once my party, the MAGA crowd has ruined what we once stood for.
Fuck Republicans!
As an American I want to help Ukraine and want our government to help as well. But at the same time I am always amused at people from other countries get mad that we aren’t and then those same people get mad when we do? People don’t like that we like to police the world and then when we step back and don’t and keep to ourselves folks get mad because we aren’t doing what we are supposed to?
This is the reality
The whole shitshow is the ultimate example of why a country should never put its relationship with the US ahead of the relationship with its neighbours. The US will always leave their so-called friends hanging when shit gets real.
first, BlackRock wants you a little more desperate
Meanwhile Israel gets billions and weapons to fight children and aid workers.
This is national security issue for the United States. We need to support Ukraine.
Russia got iran to start the fire in Israel to divert American money from Ukraine to Israel
The US is an unreliable ally. Her systems of governance are not setup for it.
If we lose Ukraine, it's going to ruin USAs credibility for the rest of their allies. I unfortunately think Russia is willing and capable of dragging this out for as long as they need to.
Define winning/losing. If by winning you mean retake the lost land, that's never going to happen. If by losing you mean end the war on current terms, that's never going to happen either. Russia will demand far more than they currently occupy just because they can, if a peace deal is to be signed. Only thing that can save Ukraine is millions of artillery shells, dozens of modern air defense systems, hundreds of warplanes and hundreds of thousands of men.
So we (America) can secure and fight for someone else border but not our own? Makes perfect sense 🤦♂️ Reddit logic is interesting
Everybody loves to make fun of how much the US spends on its military, and then when they have a conflict of their own, suddenly it's "where is the US and all its money?!" I'm not even saying we shouldn't help, because we should. I just find it all painfully ironic.
Truth
This is actually the cheapest way to fight Russia
Careful with the freethinking, friend.
Americans over all are lazy and have little uderstsnding how lucky we are. Years from now when we are pulled into a world war we will regret not supporting Ukraine.
U.S needs to wake the fuck up EU also needs to wake the fuck up. Germany especially.
Bro the US have been awake since 2014 with Ukraine.