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Comment by nickff | Hacker News Reader

Taiwan would be foolish to believe such American promises. The USA made similar promises to Ukraine in the Budapest memorandum (under Clinton), and subsequently did not fulfill its obligations (under Obama).

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The United States doesn't "need" Ukraine in the way the United States "needs" access to the most advanced digital chip creation technology in the world.

If Ukraine disappears tomorrow, we lose the next Milla Jovovich and Mila Kunis. A bummer, yes, but not an end to our way of life.

If Ukraine disappears tomorrow, Western Europe will follow, and with that the only US platz d'arme in Asia against Russia, and the only remaining US nuclear allies.

Following this, don't think you will be able to leisurely spend the remaining of your life. Everybody down to your granny will be forcefully drafted, and mobilised.

As recently as 1989, not only Ukraine, but all of Eastern Europe was aligned with Russia/USSR. Strangely, Western Europe was not drafting grandmothers at that time.

I don't see any reason to think that Putin wants to do more than control his near abroad. He doesn't have an expansionist ideology. He likes being rich and controlling his periphery and sticking a thumb in the eye of the West, but if he e.g. invaded and conquered Paris, where would he exile his oligarchs when he needs them to take a time out for a while? He needs the West as a pressure valve. As long as he can still have you murdered at your hotel in DC (Mikhail Lesin), he can keep you in line without needing to have ships in the Potomac.

And as recently as 1989, NATO had few tank armies on the border with USSR, and thousands of constantly armed nukes pointed at the enemy.

Not anymore?

>If Ukraine disappears tomorrow, Western Europe will follow

Ah yes, the dreaded invasion of Western Europe by Russia, with their 90% outdated tanks and planes that could be held back by a single major European army. A terrifying prospects that haunts every european at night.

> Ah yes, the dreaded invasion of Western Europe by Russia, with their 90% outdated tanks and planes that could be held back by a single major European army.

Tanks - Russia: 10000+

Tanks - Germany: 300 + 1200 US army tanks

Firstly, it's quite disingenious to take Germany as the example when they have never had a large army in the past 50 years and have not been a military power. Let's compare what is comparable: Russia and France use about the same percentage of their budget for military purposes: 9% for France, 11% for Russia.

Tanks - Russia

- T72 - 2000 tanks, 7000 in reserve

- T90 - 350 active, 200 reserve

- T14 Armata (i.e., top of the line) - 100 planned, 20+ active.

Tanks - France

  - Leclerc (top of the line) - 222 active, 200 upgraded to XLR-Standard

  - AMX10/20 - 300

Planes - Russia

  - SU57 - 1.

  - SU35S (refurbished Su27 from 2003) - 97

  - SU34 (from 1990) - 120

  - Mig35 - 4.

  - Planes from before 1980 - 500

Planes - France

  - Rafale B/C/M - 150

  - Mirage 2000 - 120

So, even if Russia intends to throw tanks from 1970 at Europe to have them be utterly crushed by aviation, a single country from Europe stands more or less toe to toe with it.

Germany has the biggest force on its territory given allied forces (US army) on its soil.

Tanks are a completely outdated military technology. Shoulder launched anti-tank missiles, anti-tank aircraft and now drones can all render large quantities of tanks scrap metal, especially the majority of old Russian tanks with WW2 era armor. There's a reason western countries have stopped investing in tanks and spend most of their military R&D budgets on airplanes and drones these days, air-superiority wins the day in modern conventional warfare.

Why the derision? Thousands died when Russia seized Crimea and kicked off skirmishes in Donbass.

It's denial. People are ready to deny the reality if doing so lets them justify their inaction.

Russia does not want and cannot invade (Western) Europe, and there is the slight issue of nuclear arsenals. I think the derision comes from that...

China will never take Taiwan with military force, at least not anytime soon. Any kind of military move against Taiwan would endanger the real value of Taiwan which is companies like TSMC. China will continue to work to increase it's political and economic power while weakening the US's and other western countries influence until such a time that they can take Taiwan with little or no force at all.

Could you be a bit more specific in what agreement the Obama admin did not honor? Which parts and how?

The Wiki article of the memorandum, particularly the Breach section, contains dates and overview of info on this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

There is a Wikipedia page on the Budapest memorandum, which outlines its content, and at least one breach: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Secur...

He's implying Euromaiden in 2014 as a EU and US instigated event to erode Ukraine's political independence, thus, justifying Russia's invasion of the Crimea.

We should know by now whenever region moves away from an authoritarian power's orbit is regarded by these powers' as some kind of foreign influence and subversive operation. They think it's impossible that the people themselves actually don't like authoritarian governments. It's the same in Russia, China, Iran, North Korea etc etc etc.

Nothing special to authoritarian governments. Both the left and right in the USA like to believe it's foreign influence than half the country having (sometimes drastically) different views.

The city/rural biases don't help either as you mostly see people with similar views to you.

This is a new phenomenon in the US, mostly because of party elder denial.

"Euromaiden" is a funny typo.

Russia puppet was the reason of Euromaidan.

Putins rating raised to 86% after Crimea annexation. Ukraine joined West in propaganda. It's just a fuel for informational autocracy.

The difference is that the Ukrainian invasion had far smaller implications to US interests than an invasion of Taiwan would have.

Europe and the US never wanted to be forced to intervene in Ukraine, hence why they were not in a rush to consider Ukraine's push to join NATO.

The Budapest memorandum does not make any promises to help. Regarding Crimea, the breach is Russia's, not the West's.

> The Budapest memorandum does not make any promises to help.

It does, go read the text

I have. So where does it?

I think it refers to this:

    Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine if they "should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".

Obviously, Russia did not use nuclear weapon... but maybe the fact that Russia has nuclear weapon and invaded Crimea means Ukraine is under threat of nuclear weapons...

That's not a promise to send any help or to help militarily.

It just says that if Ukraine is nuked (quite an extreme scenario to start with) they'll ask the Security Council (where Russia has a veto) to do something about it. You can argue that this constitutes a promise to 'help', but frankly sending a "get well soon" card would be more helpful.

Hence my first comment: The US and the West do not want to be forced to intervene and thus they never made any promise, binding or otherwise, to.

The UN did vote a resolution on Ukraine and Crimea in 2014.

As I also wrote, it is Russia that breached the memorandum but not respecting Ukraine's borders as they were but, tough.

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