Not sure what happened to the USA but I never thought I’d see it side with autocratic war criminals. Quite concerning for all our allies.
If the orange man wins again this year, we’ll god help everyone.
So within these parameters, the USA has actually done a lot, and a lot more than nothing. I'm not sure at what point it has fulfilled its duty.
I'm not defending the US decision though, it seems that bang for buck of helping Ukraine is one of the best spent defence money in this century so far.
The worst thing to do (which USA did) is to make a promise and not deliver. Had Ukraine knew that USA will abandon it, it might have entered negotiations in early 2023 from a much more favorable position.
Seems like the U.S. did not guarantee Ukraine's borders and sovereignty. Or at least not according to my reading of The Budapest Memorandum:
https://policymemos.hks.harvard.edu/files/policymemos/files/...
...right?
Assuming we sever the last "or" such that the clause activates if "Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression," the commitment was to seek UNSC action to provide assistance. America sought that. And it's directly providing assistance. America never guaranteed the security of Ukraine.
[1] https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/P...
More would be better, but I don't think we are in the realms of "reneging on promises".
The original agreement was very vague. Was it to mean that the US would defend Ukraine will all it's military might, up to conscripting Americans and sending out nukes? Surely not.
As it is, the administration has threaded the political needle perfectly (or luckily) and the Ukrainian people have proven that their bravery and resolve has been vastly underrated.
Helping this new found ally is the easiest thing in the world, is such an incredibly important bulwark for the whole world.
But there are nutjobs, absolute crazy shit insane people that rail against Mainstream Media, for whom doing sensible things dangerously allows reality in. They can't support this because to support it would be to support something that the rest of the politicians support, and their attempts to politically "alt" themselves would be in trouble by working with others. These vainglorious fools have invited madness in, and held up support that should never have been delayed.
If the US wants to maintain a favorable status quo and its position as the dominant superpower, it must support Ukraine until Russia admits failure and withdraws its troops. The current world order is based on a simple deal. The US supports friendly countries around the world and provides them security against regional threats. Those countries in turn support US policy goals in faraway issues they wouldn't otherwise care about.
On the other hand, if the US is happy to be just a regional power that doesn't care about what happens on the other side of the Atlantic and the Pacific, it has no duty to support Ukraine.
The consequences of such a mindset need to be understood: this would be catastrophic for US business interests and economy. Not saying you're unaware, but others might be.
Now the US can get onto the business of civil war 2. End slavery again.
The sad counterpart to the great institution that is NATO is that NATO countries won't go out of their way to defend non-NATO countries. NATO already is a stretch of capabilities and goodwill, and I think it's telling that the fractures that show go along cultural boundaries: the "loosest" parts of NATO right now are US and Turkey.
Again, I think NATO and US would be stupid to not continue supporting Ukraine, just not because they are reneging on an alliance.
While we should probably do more, since when are the U.S. and Ukraine allies? Is every country that hasn't engaged in recent hostilities allies?
Has the US abandoned Ukraine, or has the GOP abandoned Ukraine? There's a difference.
Dare to guess what are the risks of nuclear war (even by accident) when that becomes the new normal?
The Russian aren't going to make less nuclear threats if the US keeps folding.
Because if Ukraine falls I can guarantee you that first it will be minor incursions into Poland and/or Baltics airspace. Then false flags attacks. Then more. Each time testing "escalation management" and sewing disagreements into political scenes in the West. Then more.
putin has said many times that he considers collapse of USSR the greatest tragedy ever. He wants revenge for this. And he is getting it.
The American right wanted to score political points on Biden and refused to pass a very popular funding bill.
The consequence has been one of the most pointless, damaging failures of American policy in a very long time.
It's one of the most shameful things I've ever seen.
We were never sending American troops to Ukraine. What has happened is the chances of American troops having to go somewhere else in the world, or being directly attacked overseas, has gone way up.
31 Abrams and 190 Bradleys, zero planes, zero cruise missiles. All while there are 3 million DPICM, thousands of Bradleys and hundreds of ATACMS waiting to be scrapped in US, all decommissioned and on a list to be send to expensive recycling.
On a drip feed. That means when a strategic opening emerges, e.g. Russian warships within Storm Shadow range, they got one or two pot shots off before running out of ammo, letting the Russians retreat and adapt.
Ukraine needs more air-defence batteries and ammunition. It needs F-16s. (For both offense and defense.) And it needs the ability to strike valid military targets in Russia, the way it has been doing with its own weapons, the way Russia has been doing to it.
Russia is ripping Ukraine apart because they don't have air defense missiles left.
And this isn't a patronizing statement - it's literal. The US has allies and friendly nations who are aligned with the US because they want to, not because they are forced to, or compelled by treaties.
In my country, an old dictator used to say: Orgulhosamente sós.
Why do most of the European allies literally next door to Ukraine need to have their hand twisted or given additional American guarantees to provide aid to a mutual ally despite already having the nuclear umbrella and NATO's mutual defense guarantees? Are they not siding with autocratic war criminals? Don't they also believe in the "rules based world order"?
As it stands the US already has its energy focused on helping their other ally slaughter children, and Trump seems just as keen to keep that going. It's clearly a more important task to the ruling class.
We’re Europe’s security guarantor. And the U.S. and U.K. signed the Budapest Memorandum. While we aren’t in breach of that Memo (as Moscow is), we are sort of violating its spirit.
I'd love to see polling on this this question:
"Is the United States Europe's security guarantor?"
...for the U.S., countries in Europe, and other countries around the world.
The US has only been accused of abandoning Ukraine since (approximately; there’s some blurriness because of some trickling out of previously-approved, unused, aid) it stopped providing aid. That’s the point of alleged abandonment.
This makes the abandonment of Ukraine now even more noteworthy considered they're bravely trying to defend all the things we thought the USA was about.
It seems shocking, considering until we now, we considered Russia an adversary to the the west and not someone we'd be helping win.
We have massive naval shipyards that build our ships and boats. We tooled them down in the 90s to extract a peace dividend.