Australia’s Mothballed F/A-18 Hornets Should Be Given to Ukraine | Hacker News Reader

Australia’s Mothballed F/A-18 Hornets Should Be Given to Ukraine

thedrive.com

12 pointstomohawk17 comments

Its not just F18s. Western militaries have hilariously large stockpile of old hardware (usually missiles/guns/weapons or logistics vehicles, not weapons platforms like the F18) that are just sitting there, rotting in storage.

It makes no sense to me. Its not like theres a taboo against arming Ukraine anymore, or that the US is going to ever need 10,000 old air-to-air missiles.

Are you saying it is a shame weapons are going to waste?

They're going to be decommissioned eventually, giving them to Ukraine just speeds up the decommissioning process and saves taxpayers money. A Win-Win for everyone save some Wagner mercenaries and unfortunate mobiks.

Are you at peace promoting more violence?

The sooner the war ends, the sooner the violence stops. If Russia wants to promote peace, they can leave anytime.

Helping a people defend themselves against violence is basically the polar opposite of promoting violence.

Are you at peace letting Putin rape and pillage his way across Ukraine and any other country he decides to go after?

Using force to stop someone from using violence against you is not the same as using violence to get your way.

"He needed killing" is a valid defense in limited circumstances.

Yes!

The West pretty much decided that Russia invading Ukraine is "bad," and if they want to be pacifist or anti interventionalist then they need to commit to that instead.

Otherwise, there's no point in holding back low cost support because of the 0.1% chance these countries will need their massive land war surplus. That is incredibly selfish, and for Europeans in particular, it cleary isn't necessary for any opponent they would border (like Russia) in a defensive war.

If someone's life is on the line, right now, yes.

I remember in the 70s, early 80s, we had Pacifist Political parties here in Western Europe.

And while they disappeared, endless war emerged.

Presumably they were offering themselves to walk into the Rashist execution chambers (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucha_massacre)?

Or was that fate only considered for other people?

I think they would have preferred to negotiate.

Have you ever tried negotiating with someone stealing your wallet at gunpoint?

The article says that the US needs to provide re-export permission. It’s likely this won’t be granted.

Given Australia is an extremely close US ally, it’s likely these particular F/A-18’s contain top secret components that are not authorised for export to Ukraine.

They also may be stored in an airworthy condition, as a tactical solution for any major escalation in the APAC region.

How about we encourage deescalation and negotiations instead

Hasn't that been tried for the past many years, many times already?

Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014 and took a big chunk. There was lots of talking encouraging of deescalation and what happened?

Putin went for the head shot, attempting to take over the whole country.

As far as he's concerned, the only deescalation is when he controls all of Ukraine, and also any other countries or parts of countries where he's issued people Russian passports.

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