Hacker News Reader

Comment by unpopularopp | Hacker News Reader

> German economy, among the most exposed to disruptions in Russian gas supply, is "likely" to suffer a recession over the winter if the energy crisis continues to deepen

At this point I feel the EU is pretty much done and the war just showed how weak the EU leadership is along how individual member nations acting sometimes totally against each other (see France doubling down on nuclear while Germany does the opposite). Like I don't see any positive outcome for the Union no matter what happens in the war, unless you see the US having an even greater influence over Europe as a positive thing. Personally I'm extremely pessimistic.

View on HN

> I don't see any positive outcome for the Union no matter what happens in the war

If you put zero value on European unity, and the security and economic benefits that brings, of course you aren’t going to value the EU. If Texans didn’t care when New York was attacked, it would be reasonable to ask why the U.S. is a thing. For what it’s worth, France building nukes while Germany snubs them is analogous to e.g. Kentucky burning coal while California puts down solar.

Let the Russians bomb and invade Washington State and we'll see how the dollar does.

I think if the Russians bombed Washington State, the rest of the US would actually help defend it by attacking Russia. While the military help that the EU is giving Ukraine is great, it is far below the level that the other states would provide Washington. I know that isn't exactly your point, but you can't say that Ukraine is as intrinsic to the EU as Washington State is to the rest of the US.

Ukraine is also not in the EU.

So the whole comparison of Washington getting bombed is nonsense.

Well, Ukraine is not part of the EU, so it can hardly be intrinsic to it.

> While the military help that the EU is giving Ukraine is great

It seems adequate. Europe is helping Ukraine and putting pressure for a quick end to the conflict.

The real question is why is the US helping so much to the point Ukraine is refusing to negotiate. Part of me thinks it’s actually advantageous to them to weaken both Russia and the EU.

The US, through NATO, is committed to defending much of Europe and the EU against Russian invasion if they decide to try anything. This war was an opportunity to demonstrate that the price will be too high to for Russia to pay and that they will not be allowed to get away with annexing other European countries, while destroying a large chunk of their military capacity in the process, all without having to actually commit the US military to fighting on the ground like they would if Russia decided to get grabby elsewhere. It is in their direct interests to seize that opportunity.

For sure it’s directly in the interest of the USA in the same way NATO actually keeps Europe subservient and prevent the EU from actually being a power. It’s just the usual raw deal for European countries which are going to have to deal with huge damage to their economies. But we have only ourselves to blame. We should have sent the US packing a long time ago.

If the US were to face Russia in a conventional war, there is a serious risk of nuclear escalation between the world's largest nuclear powers. The current conflict presents the US with an opportunity to weaken Russia by supporting Ukraine, do so with international support, and without contact between US and Russian troops.

KILLING AND DEATHS OF PEOPLE ARE UNACCEPTABLE. FIGHTING SHOULD BE STOPPED IMMEDIATELY AND PERMANENTLY. ALL OPEN QUESTIONS SHOULD BE SOLVED BY FAIR NEGOTIATIONS. BOTH SIDES HAVE TO BE READY FOR COMPROMISES TO SAVE LIVES. https://scientists-against-war.org/

> BOTH SIDES HAVE TO BE READY FOR COMPROMISES TO SAVE LIVES

I agree with that in principle but I honestly can't see how to achieve that in practice in this situation. Russian leadership currently doesn't seem to care about internation rules. They believe themselves to have a sacrosanct right for greatness and the right to rule and bending to any compromise would be utterly unacceptable in that framing.

I don't think this as an absolutely Russian problem; it's the problem of super-powers that are no more (but still kinda are). I fully expect a similar situation to happen in the future when American will only be a shadow of the power it used to be.

Agreed. I also have a hard time accepting the idea of any concessions to Russia, but I understand the principle of being willing to consider any (morally acceptable) possibility to preserve irreplaceable human lives.

Also agree we’re headed for a multipolar world, with climate change impacting geopolitics in the Northern hemisphere, majority of the global pop. concentrated around SEAsia, and a looming demographic collapse putting pressure on nation states to act now-or-never.

"Russia does not negotiate with terrorists, it destroys them" -- Vladimir Putin, 2004

Ukraine should not negotiate with a terrorist state. The US and the UK are making the correct choices for once. Maybe they finally learned something from WW2?

Ukraine is not in EU and shouldn’t be there.

Looking at certain EU members friendliness towards Russia, several other states shall be kicked out...

You’re confusing the EU with NATO.

Trade with Russia was obviously positive for the EU, as can be noticed from the economic damage and energy availability crisis.

Short term positive, long term destructive. Ergo negative.

Addiction to cheap resources prevented politically sustainable energy sector development. On top of that, it's likely that corruption was involved. Which is cancer that tends to cause more corruption in semi-related parts of the system. Once politicians sell out, it's much easier to bend them again. Be it pure greed or blackmailing.

If by short term you mean about 40 years for natural gas and a few decades for everything else, I guess we can agree that it was short-term positive. Although that would make the idea of long-term superfluous :-)

Put another way, if it weren't for USA's hard stance, many large EU economies would have few misgivings about continuing to do business with Russia. And even hardliners like Poland AFAIK are still buying Russian gas through Germany, as do several others including Ukraine.

The reason they're doing that is because they need it, it's there and it's good for keeping their economies and societies in functioning order.

Was there corruption? You bet, former USSR states were and are drowning in it and the West was certainly not spared either. Doesn't change the fact that they need resources though and there's not a lot of alternative suppliers.

That’s an interesting question. It would realistically escalate to nuclear war. But I’d we set that aside, it’s not immediately obvious to me how the dollar would do. It might actually strengthen.

It's more like the Russians bombing and invading, say, Cuba.

Mexico.

A better analogy is if China invaded Mongolia and the US decided to cut trade.

Ukraine is not part of the EU and the EU decided to take a moral position and live with the financial consequences that go with it.

Not a great analogy, because refugees from Mongolia would not flee to the EU the next day.

Mongolians would flee to the US if the US gave them free access to visas.

Mostly another self imposed problem.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com