I wish the EU was more ... united.
Most of the nations were woefully slow to act with Ukraine (hey let's send some token helmets). They've got a totalitarian regime invading democracies in their back yard but don't seem all that united about it ....
Most of the nations were woefully slow to act with Ukraine (hey let's send some token helmets). They've got a totalitarian regime invading democracies in their back yard but don't seem all that united about it ....
Ukranians are dying. We're donating cash and materiel. We're getting the better end of the deal there, and then some.
Of course they are, what did you expect would happen in war? Fighting with pillows? However it's not my responsibility to bear financially. My responsibility is caring for my own.
>We're donating cash
People are dying here as well as politicians are saying the healthcare is underfunded so clearly we need the cash back home.
The Ukrainian GDP is 179 billion USD (https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/gdp?continent=euro...); they're a market smaller than Greece (244 billion USD) or Hungary (212 billion USD). If they succeed in driving the Russians out, they'll have to rebuild their country and will probably be in debt for decades.
Democracy in Russia is a pipe dream; they have nuclear weapons and Putin isn't about to give up power. I guess it's possible that his successor could hold elections, but that's highly unlikely at best.
Loans are the way to do it because of the way most European budgets work. But you can’t call them regular loans in good faith, and no politician in Europe does so. The language towards the public is that Europe is giving money.
[0] https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-ukraine-peace-talks-donal...
At the end this may be good for us, since Germany's stance has been pretty much retarded re defense to keep things polite. 4 superpowers instead of 3, albeit maybe Hungary and Slovakia should be kicked out to not sabotage it from within.
It seems an era is ending. Just like it did with 9/11, even outside US. All due to one orange man being voted by >50% americans to do exactly this. Why I don't get and probably never will but he is a symptom of current times IMHO, not a cause.
> The Democrats allowed 'radical' social change to dictate the party platform and didn't implement enough reforms to please the average citizen.
is false.
Democratic policy has done plenty to benefit average citizens, in a long tradition (at one point bipartisan) going back to WW2.
And it's never been centered around any idea more "radical" than taking seriously the words of the declaration of independence about equality, inalienable rights, and life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, even for people who are doing something others think is weird.
It's even pretty clear that Democratic policies have strong electoral popularity:
https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/50802-harris-vs-t...
https://www.dataforprogress.org/insights/2024/8/22/harris-ca...
But "swing" voters (assuming they really exist in any form as popularly understood) among others are often not really clear on who supports the policies they prefer. My suspicion is that this comes from Democratic underinvestment and poor investments in media and culture while their opposition has been doing this aggressively, which allows others to define them as radical.
A++ gaslighting, great job.
If I can get something inherently valuable for essentially nothing but an empty promise? That's an extremely comfortable position to be in..
Ukraine is not a member of NATO and has no significant mutual defense treaty with America. We intervened nonetheless, to protect Europe. I think we should continue intervening, but I also think it's ludicrous for the EU to threaten to not support America, when they've allowed their military infrastructure to rot away at our expense.
However, that is an "if" statement that has not come to pass.
^which by-the-by is difficult to achieve on a practical level. Notifications of withdrawal have to be handed in to the US government
But they are asking for that; I think you should consider why.
https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2024:_Analysis_of_...
Anyway voting is not about recording a talley for every 18+ year old human with a pulse. It’s citizens selecting a leader and policy from their community. Getting your people out to vote is part of the event.
Nobody in the last election got over 50% of the vote tally.
Still nowhere near 50% of Americans.
But that still does NOT mean anywhere near half of Americans actively chose the current situation. To say so is wholly, maliciously, egregiously disingenuous.
EDIT - Showing my work:
US Census in 2020 - 331,449,281
2024 Trump votes - 77,284,118
Even skipping any possibility for growth since 2020, 77.3mil/331.5mil is not “>50% of Americans” by any possible mathematical definition.
Many voters are voting for the lesser of two evils; they don't like either candidate. Non-voters are simply taking that to the next level: they can't decide between two evils strongly enough to value casting a vote.
Bikeshedding over the difference between active vs passive votes in a single-winner first-past-the-post election is fruitless.
“voted for by >50%” is what I’m refuting. It’s literally, factually untrue.
GP's point was that far less than 50% cared enough to vote against Trump, which was their only real option if they didn't like him.
You're right that my numbers were of the voting eligible population, though, and not the total population. Okay, so let's work that out.
244,666,890 total eligible voters - 156,336,693 total ballots cast = 88,330,197 passive votes for Trump
88,330,197 passive votes for Trump + 77,284,118 active votes for Trump = 165,613,316 total votes for Trump / 331,449,281 total US population = 49.9% of the total population figure
That is, indeed, just shy of 50%. So I'll concede that Trump did not have >50% of Americans supporting him. Just >50% of American voters.
Which means they cancel out and no, “>50% of Americans” still don’t support the current regime.
Not agreeing is one thing, but it is a remarkably easy decision to understand - people go to WWII because every single war since then has been a disaster for US interests and outcomes (I think every single, certainly most). The last time the US had an unambiguous win by fighting was 70 years ago when they got involved in a fight very late. Since then all the warmongering has made America poorer, they don't achieve anything good and generally make the US worse off.
They made a call that they don't trust the military industrial propaganda and they want to see some peace happening for once. Pretty solid decision too; if we can all have normalised relations with the US after Iraq then we can stomach Russia misbehaving in Ukraine. Escalating a land war in Europe is stupid and its been a mistake every other time the Europeans tried it; even in WWII where they claim to be justified. The blood-lust left everyone closely involved broken and it'd have been better if they found a more peaceful route to ending the violence. The fact that they failed to negotiate something doesn't mean it was impossible.
"... Lend-Lease, including 1,911 locomotives and 11,225 railcars. Trucks were also vital; by 1945, nearly a third of the trucks used by the Red Army were US-built. Trucks such as the Dodge 3⁄4-ton and Studebaker 2+1⁄2-ton were easily the best trucks available in their class on either side on the Eastern Front. American shipments of telephone cable, aluminum, canned rations and clothing were also critical."
A well placed network of foreign aid has also generated influence in other parts of the world.
The United States has now irrevocably destroyed this position.
There will be enough time for the Trump Family and Elon to make out like the bandits they are, but the US position long term is diminished.
Yes, you have a ton of money to buy stuff that is much cheaper for you than for anyone else in the world because of the global reserve currency being in dollars, not to mention smooth trade guaranteed by the existence of the US navy.
Every thing you do is positively benefited by America's ability to project its military might across the globe.
The last time the US had an unambiguous win by fighting was 70 years ago when they got involved in a fight very late.
Ukraine needs the same kind of support, but instead, they got misguided "de-escalation" that only boxed Ukraine in and gave the initiative to Russia. By knowing that the US would force Ukraine to throttle back every time the Russians made a large misstep, Russia was encouraged to keep escalating without the fear of triggering an overwhelming response.
There's nothing preventing Ukraine's allies from setting up air defenses and fighter patrols to shoot down drones and missiles. A number of countries did just that when Iran launched a missile attack on Israel last year.
And Russia would go back to planes if other countries were shooting down their missiles, because they know that other countries would hesitate to declare war by shooting down one of their planes. Other countries taking over this responsibility neutralizes the air defense against planes.
This was one of the factors that guided Putin's thinking when he took Crimea.
Can't argue with NATO forces effectiveness in that operation though.
The campaign was valuable to everyone involved. The US got to assert itself as a global moral authority, also finally getting to build Camp Bondsteel[0] after decades of trying to build a base in the region (the largest US base on foreign soil since Vietnam, and it was built and managed by KBR meaning Dick Cheney and his shareholders also profited considerably; they've since lost interest so nowadays it's just a mini Gitmo). For the allies that backed them and helped justify the war, they received carte blanche permission to do what they like and settle their own scores. Their Dutch friends, for example, got to brazenly violate international law from the start by dumping their out-of-date depleted uranium cluster bombs on my densely populated home town[1], choosing to target the main building of our university, the main building of our city hospital, and the biggest civilian central steam heating plant that kept half the city warm.
The campaign did have some negative effects though. In the east it was interpreted as a deliberate provocation toward Russia at a time of particular weakness (their president getting hammered and falling out of planes etc), and Putin used this extensively as an example of Russian embarrassment at the hands of the US, helping him rise to power as PM in August '99, acting President in December '99, and President in March '00.
I'm not particularly emotional about any of this btw - I just thought you'd appreciate the geopolitical perspective and the ripple effect that war had on Russian politics & subsequent opinion towards the West.
Granted, not every war was a net win but that war machine is uniquely expensive and it may be sacrifice the public is willing to pay. But it probably wouldn't hurt to see how contemporary books on history differs from propaganda.
I was saying that for years, since the war started! People thought it is some kind of joke. But that was the only way to win!
Might be a hard sell.
You know what's not fair? The lady's government invaded a sovereign nation, committed genocide while doing it, and continues to do so. If that lady lost her fortune from it, then she should be vocal about justice for all parties.
But did America ever pay reparations for centuries of enslaving its own people? Where is the accountability?
Most republics are democracies. You seem to think "democracy" is equivalent to "direct democracy," but a direct democracy is only one type of democracy. A republic is another form of democracy.
America is certainly a democracy (for now; who knows what will happen in two years)
Russians are responsible for their government too! They just have way less they're able to do to steer it, but it still their government.
(I do not understand your example with the lady that sold her house when the conflict erupted. Lots of people sold their houses at that time and somehow their money is not being frozen....)
I believe you'll find a lot of Ukrainians found their entire towns suddenly "donated" to the war effort, not just a downpayment on a house.
War's hell, they can get bent.
I'm aware that there have been significant amounts of armed conflict in the mean time, but the last conflict between states that ran similar to historic wars was the Korean war (which technically hasn't ended). Most wars the US was involved in where more similar to colonial expeditions (seizing local resources, defending local bases)
There are two sides in this war: Russia and Ukraine. Neither is holding the money.
(I'm a strong supporter of Ukraine, host refugees in my house, and have donated to Comebackalive.ua, so this is not because I'm neutral in this war.)
At this point who cares about US dollars? I'm sure Europeans care more about Euros.
The bank needs to somehow hold US dollars to back its US dollar deposits, but there are various ways of doing that – e.g. put the money in its own account(s) in a US bank, hold physical US dollars in a vault somewhere, purchase US treasuries, use the deposit to fund lending denominated in US dollars (huge market for US dollar loans outside the US) – likely it is using some combination of those
So probably some of these Russian assets in Europe are euros, some are US dollars, some are other financial assets such precious metals, stocks and bonds, units in managed funds, etc – and they are just all being converted to euros for reporting purposes
[0] https://www.dunham.com/FA/Blog/Posts/triffins-dilemma?utm_ca...
But Americans don’t understand history?
Macron is off his rocker going down that path given the history around it.
Now, how that is related to freezing assets from Russia I do not see. Even if interpreted as some kind of reparations, the lesson of that time was not that all reparations lead to a later war. Rather that humiliation will lead to resentment which can lead to war later. Huge and unjust reparations can be a part of that, but that's hardly the scenario we see today.
Macron is (understandably) deeply unpopular in France right now, seems like that seeps into the judgement of his actions here.
But that's not a valid discussion topic for here.
What's next, making Italy pay reparations for the roman empire? Making Turkey or other arab countries pay reparations for their empires?
At this point, while there's still no consensus as to the degree of German responsibility, most historians would weight it significantly higher than that of the Entente. The notion that reparations (and the Treaty of Versailles in general) was particularly onerous and punitive has also been largely debunked. However, the popular understanding still mostly reflects the inter-war consensus and not the later developments.
If he cross the line ("freezing" foreign assets was already a big blow at property rights) I'm relocating and bankrunning whatever I have because it means property rights don't exist anymore in the country.
It’s called Ukraine. It would be particularly prudent to avoid using the Soviet-era nomenclature given the context of the conversation you’re participating in.
> "The Ukraine" is incorrect both grammatically and politically, says Oksana Kyzyma of the Embassy of Ukraine in London.
That doesn't really make any sense. There is no magical deity that arbitrates rules of English. It is merely a tool invented by humans to use as they please. The only semblance of "incorrectness" that might be found is in failing to communicate with the reader, but in this case you clearly had no trouble understanding what "the Ukraine" meant and I suspect nobody else has either.
> and politically
This makes more sense and is a much stronger point, but political correctness is bound to intent. There is no evidence I can see that suggests "the Ukraine" was previously used with intent to offend or marginalize the people of Ukraine. Even if "the Ukraine" can be used as a politically incorrect device, that does not imply that all usage is politically incorrect.
> It’s called Ukraine.
Officially that is true, but there is typically nothing official about a casual comment made on Hacker News. As before, context is significant, and there is nothing in the context that I can see that suggests that the comment was made in some kind of official capacity.
The politically incorrect usage here is not bound to intent, because unaware readers will subconsciously lower Ukraine's status in their minds regardless of whether the writer intended them to do so.
The official status, or lack thereof, of the comment doesn't matter either. There is no compelling reason to not use the accepted name. If your friend was called James, would you intentionally call him "the James" just because you're not making an official statement? That doesn't make any sense.
It is grammatically atypical, perhaps, but not incorrect. It is fundamentally impossible to use English 'incorrectly'. The closest you can get to any semblance of 'incorrectness' is failing to communicate with the reader. But that is certainly not the case here. Everyone is well aware that in the above comment 'the Ukraine' refers to Ukraine.
> The politically incorrect usage here is not bound to intent, because unaware readers will subconsciously lower Ukraine's status in their minds regardless of whether the writer intended them to do so.
A faulty lowering of Ukraine's status may be politically incorrect, but the words are not to blame. That's your fault for thinking about its status improperly. There is no onus on the writer to worry about a failing mind. If there were, communication would be out of the question.
> If your friend was called James, would you intentionally call him "the James" just because you're not making an official statement?
I personally would not be intentional when writing casually. That defeats the purpose of writing casually. If I happened to put "the" down on paper I certainly wouldn't put in the effort to remove it. Who cares? Assuming the context is otherwise clear, nobody is going to be confused about who "the James" is.
It's "Ukraine," not "the Ukraine." "The Ukraine" is a Russian imperialist term because it's rooted in the idea that Ukraine is a mere territory (akin to "the Great Plains" or "the Midwest") that belongs to a larger political entity.
The fact that it's just the US doing this is indicative of the overall military posture of the EU. It's reasonable to question whether they are prepared to do their part to defend themselves should Russia penetrate further west.
As an example sweden has given Strv-122, CV90, Archer, Saab 340 AEW&C and has offered Gripen fighter jet (but Gripen has been blocked by US/France). All of those are up to date weaponry, and besides that much from older stockpiles has been given.
That's just one example from one small country with less people than one city in the US.
The same scenes must be playing out in various industries across Europe and the rest of the world. Such wheels turn very slowly, but they now turn away from the US defense industry.
The US has burned a lot of capital today.
"but the shiny new weaponry all comes from US contractors" is not true.
It is true that the US has spent far more on it's military and made it far more global than any other country. It is also true that the US acted as a guarantor for west Europes security for most of the last 70 years and that should not be understated. That era seems to have come to an end.
US also blocked awacs, no Saab for Ukraine.
Or is it the thousands of Javelins that annihilated the Russian tank columns so that the Russians are currently mounting assaults in Chinese golf carts?[1]
There were only a few M1s given. MANY more M1s were used against the Iraqi Army!
The stream of weapons has been more of a trickle of weapons. The Javelins have good PR with the nice Saint Javelin but the British-Swedish N-LAWs are wicked and the tens of thousands of the Bofors AT4 did a lot of the initial grunt work.
The Ukrainians seem to prefer the Bushmasters. This kind of makes sense, given it seems a lot of what Ukraine is doing is guerrilla warfare then equipment that is easily serviceable likely is more useful.
It was 31 M1s donated, last time I looked. And they survived a helluva lot longer against the droneless Iraqi Army, which helps explain the low number. A $500 drone can ignite a $5M tank. Drones have changed the calculus of tank warfare.
Maybe the AT4 and NLAW didn't have the same effectiveness of Javelin? The Javelin has had a pretty good PR campaign with it's point and destroy videos.
No. What you see in Ukraine is the 20th century war with some drones. Active defense system can take out RPG and anti-tank missile. It can easily take out a much slower moving drone. Unfortunately, the Western tanks and IFVs came to Ukraine without ADS (and many even without reactive armor). And for whatever reason Ukraine was pretty slow to put passive drone defenses onto the armor - you can see on the videos of the Ukrainian 2023 counter-offensive that the Western tanks and IVF are mostly "naked", just the bare base armor.
There are stories - videos - from recent decade how tanks correctly "dressed up" with passive defenses and reactive armor would survive direct hits from Javelin, RPG, etc., in some cases it would even survive multiple hits from RPG. And active defense system is a huge step up even from that.
If anything, with the next generation of active defense systems being able to shoot down even incoming artillery/tank gun round, the tanks will continue to rule the battlefield, especially in autonomous version.
The Super Tank™ you've described sounds cool, though. Can Ukraine order 1000 of the upgraded version with lasers for Spring delivery?
watch the videos from the war - the tanks are mostly without ADS, and the ADS that Russia has is really a crappy one. You can also watch videos how soldiers shoot down the drones with shotgun or just using some stick/stone. Drones are much easier to shoot down than RPG, and nobody has been able to shoot down RPG with shotgun (a great baseball player probably would be able with some non-zero probability to bat an RPG out though).
>Can Ukraine order 1000 of the upgraded version with lasers for Spring delivery?
No. Even the existing ADS with shrapnel warheads are not sold to Ukraine.
Now compare that to the hundreds of thousands of drones manufactured every month for far less and adapted monthly.
We've already seen mothership drones used in Ukraine.[0] How long do you think it will be until we see fire and forget multiple attack baby drones that overwhelm any whizzbang ADS? 6 months, a year? As the old saying goes: quantity has a quality all it's own.
Sorry tankies, your time is over.
[0] https://interestingengineering.com/military/ukraine-forces-t...
> A total of 110 PrSMs are expected to be procured in fiscal 2024 and 190 in fiscal 2025, Inside Defense wrote, citing the Department of Defense documents.
https://thedefensepost.com/2024/03/07/lockheed-precision-str...
In November 2023, the Army delivered the first four Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM) as an early operational capability (EOC). The Army shot two PrSM EOC missiles at a maritime target in June 2024. Between November 2023 and August 2024, the Army executed three production qualification test (PQT) events. The Army intends to complete a limited user test (LUT) with the fifth PQT test event in 1QFY25 and the remaining four planned PQT test events by 3QFY25.
https://www.dote.osd.mil/Portals/97/pub/reports/FY2024/army/...
US needs somewhat strong Russia as a scarecrow for Europe and everyone else in the world, so that people would join NATO and pay 4% of GDP to the American military industrial complex: Lockheed Raytheon and friends.
The goal is to scare people and force them to shell out dough for overpriced US weapons.
If Russia becomes too weak, there are two risks:
1. Nuclear/Biowarfare proliferation due to instability inside RU
2. Europe won't spend a dime procuring US weapons because Russia would not be a threat anymore
3. China can increase influence in Russia
The target is 2%, most of NATO doesn't hit it, and there's plenty of European arms manufacturers.
Bradleys waiting for scrapping at Red River Army Depot, Texas
expired ATACMS https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2023/10/05/m39a1-atacms-for-uk...
3 million DPICM waiting for expensive disposal
Sounds like the opposite of what you said.
Are you referring to Government support for Ukraine chart?
That shows the EU institutions made mainly loans but there is also money from countries of the EU.
And for some loans Ukraine isn't expected to pay anything, with repayments coming from revenues from frozen Russian assets.
Also, please do think long-term: A victory for Ukraine and a second try for democracy in Russia will mean that the EU will regain huge markets right at its doorstep that need rebuilding and in the case of Russia some diversification would be sensible.
That's not quite right, either. A large portion if not a majority of the financial aid from the US is--and tacitly required to be--spent on purchase of weapons and services from US defense contractors. That's in addition to direct military aid where the Pentagon directly purchases and transfers weapons, and transfers old weapons--I think the replacement cost is what's calculated as the US "contribution" for that portion.
This is how military aid packages are structured for Israel and Egypt also. I don't mean to insinuate anything negative, but the reality is that the majority of all this aid is effectively a direct subsidy to US defense contractors.
The EU does the same thing, but the structure and pretense is different--loans tacitly required to be used to buy EU weapons and services, the loans forgiven after the public stops paying attention. Though in the case of Ukraine I think a much larger portion (relative to US) of aid is intended for civilian programs, at least early on, on account of the EU's squeamishness.
"War effort" implies military aid, in which case the US has supplied nearly double all other countries combined.
The BBC:s most recent rundown[1] has the strictly military support from the US accounting for a bit more than half of the total of the top-ten contributors (of which it is number one, of course).
When comparing dollar values for military equipment with other types of support, we should keep in mind that they are inflated. A lot of the equipment (ammunition, vehicles etc) are old things that were due to be rotated out of the stockpiles anyway. This is true for many (perhaps all) donor countries.
Example: GMLRS rockets have a shelf-life of 10-15 years and their disposal costs at end-of-life is not zero. Sending them off to Ukraine as they approach their best-before date does not incur much real cost on the donor, but the gift can be labeled as "253 gazillion dollars worth of ammunition." The value description is sort of true, as they will be used in their full capacity by Ukraine, but it might even save money for the donor who is the off the hook for disposal and was going to replace them anyway.
It's very simple to claim "we have given the most in military aid, in $" but much harder to look into it.
Then you find out that everything is priced insanely high, bullets and artillery that is identical to European (due to nato standards) can cost dozens of times more.
Then you find out that billions have been spent in private "consultancies" (I guess US military and navies have no clue how to organize logistical transports, even though we're talking about the biggest naval power on the planet).
Then you find out that Ukraine offered to come pick the weapons itself with their own ships to make it faster and save US taxpayers money and US said nope, we got people to feed with those contracts.
https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-s...
Trump's a bully, but he's a bully that exists because the lowest common denominator keeps getting lower.
Russia wouldn't have thought it had the leverage to invade Ukraine if not for their control over European petroleum supplies, leverage the Europeans gave them of their own free will.
Markets do not solve everything. Trump is the ultimate expression of this so far, but he is not the first.
Psyops doesn’t just work to incite… an equally powerful goal is to normalise. Like normalise how a country that has unlimited sun and wind elected to use oil and gas from Russia.
A different nuclear energy policy would have changed Europe’s fate. It will do so again…
Still is. That Germany continues to leave their nuclear fleet fallow in the face of this is absolute insanity.
I don’t know enough about local politics to categorise the reason why though. But a lot of the damage is now irrevocable, and residual for millennia.
Terrorist attacks on nuclear power stations can be dealt with via the standard security services.
German aversion to a functional army and nuclear energy has had consequences for the country and the EU.
But the rollout was slow, they seemed reluctant, some countries didn't want to be involved at all, and they waited for the US for a long time...
Individual member countries range from having done a lot fairly quickly to active sabotage. We have member countries like Hungary and Slovakia, who are firmly aligned with the Russian side, as if 1956 and 1968 and the entire iron-curtaint-thing never happened.
Many if not most Slovakians want to be like Fico, earn money like him and be like him.
It can be beaten, but it is not an anomaly. Not even historically, slovakia was quick to collaborate with nazi and communists.
It's Europe's backyard. Europe should be contributing 5x what the US contributes. They can afford it. It's the richest (per-capita) continent on earth. They outproduce Russia 5-10x.
I have been a strong supporter of US support to Ukraine and I think this meeting was gross and unbecoming, but Europeans need to wake up and understand that this is a problem they can, and have to, solve, not just as a supporting player to the US.
"We did as much as the US" doesn't matter. Give enough support to solve the problem. You have the economy and can, if you make even minor commitment — 5% of GDP would vastly outproduce Russia, for a small cost to living standards. The alternative is giving up.
Many of us no longer feel the juice is worth the squeeze in supporting Europe. We have done enough over the last 100 years. Yes we have benefit some from their troubles, which they caused, but that doesn't mean we have to continue to support them.
You never considered it was just a story to justify shaking "allies" ? I don't know what the truth is, but it smells like it.
And so far there's no announcement about investing in education or health, it seems quite the opposite, isn't it ?
I sincerely don't understand how there can be any trust invested in Trump and his speeches. So far all he's done is creating meme coins and reviving the ruble.
thanks for your answer nonetheless
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/02/21/clint...
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/clinton-trump-federal-work...
Dismantling everything in the hope of finding alleged problems is witch-hunt level of political action.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/02/21/clin...
Not random shotgun immediate firings. Your weather forecasts are about to become less accurate because of some of these firings and planned improvements in them are not going to happen:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/01/weather/noaa-weather-forecast...
Go ask a farmer or pilot how much they depend on weather forecasts.
All the destruction sown by DOGE (outside of USAID) represents (favorably) 0.2% of the US budget. Including USAID it's closer to 1.3% of the US budget.
At the same time Republicans are proposing reducing revenue by 4500 billion dollars.
We need more oversight and less people imho. I am actually hopeful that they will have the ability to push through better software systems to track initiatives and spending. It isn't the number of employees it is where was all the money going, it was/is the lack of insight/transparency which has eroded my confidence in the federal government.
My true wish is they have the guts to pass legislation outlawing campaign contributions. It isn't just parts of the house that need a thorough purging to be honest.
And on the other hand, the immense asymmetry of (non-nuclear) military power between the US and the rest of the world should ring alarm bells across every nation right now. Especially so in the EU, UK and Canada.
Why is this massive military budget and complex supported by sacrificing public services, healthcare, education, and social services, and through higher taxation of the relatively poorest? And why is it not supported through taxation of corporations and the richest of the super-rich?
And for me, the most important reason for why I found today so upsetting:
What is true dishonour if not to betray a friend in need?
There is nothing immoral about getting paid for services or products. If you don't like it go somewhere else. Why is it that everyone expects hand outs from America but never once ask what can they do for America? It is Ukraine who is exploiting the American people for free arms. Finally an America stood up to their ridiculous behavior, the petty dictator was kicked out of the White House.
Great Powers don't have friends. Nor do they have enemies. They only have eternal Interests. (paraphrasing a quote often attributed to Henry Kissinger)
As I was looking for a more exact source for this quote, I stumbled upon this interesting piece in Time Magazine....from 1955:
https://time.com/archive/6798908/no-friends-no-enemies-just-... IT is high time the United States quit throwing money and materials around the world like a drunken sailor and settled on a foreign policy clearly consonant with our national interests first and foremost. We pile deficit on deficit until we threaten ourselves with bankruptcy.
Ukraine is not and has never been an friend or ally to America. We were one of many parties to an assurance that we wouldn't level them if they turned in their nukes. We have given them aide in their time of need. There was a deal in place for more aide and the President of Ukraine came in, in athletic gear mind you, and reneged on the agreement and started grandstanding and threatening the US President in the Oval Office! This was a HUGE mistake, he basically said to America I do not respect you and spit in our faces. I know many people do not see it that way around the world but if a world leader comes to ask for aid from the country they are completely dependent upon for their survival and their plan is threats and leisure attire how is that not disrespect?
I mean fair play for being bold and all. Yet that was unwise in the extreme.
Not that you might care about the moral aspect of it, but we also finished Nazi Germany and prevented that horror from taking over the world.
What we got out of expanding the alliance to Eastern Europe was a further bulwark against Russia, which has always been an expansionist totalitarian empire that enslaves or kills anyone who disagrees with the dictator. It's no different now than it was under the czars.
Europe is basically America's backyard now, and Russia wants it. Giving up your backyard because your violent neighbor threatens you for it, doesn't make you strong, it makes you weak.
No matter what happens America will be blamed and shamed, we didn't spend enough, we didn't xxxx enough, if only America had done yyyy zzzz wouldn't have happened, and on and on. So I am all for putting Americas interests first.
Also I find your last sentence to be the antithesis of what I am talking about. Why does America look weak? Wouldn't Europe look much weaker??? It feels like gaslighting, like someone will call you names so you need to come and die for us! It gets old.
I understand the parent last sentence differently. Considering America's might, giving in to a mediocre aggressor seems weak. It's not that you have to do it, but it was the previous foreign policy / aura of the USA. Leader of the free world IIRC. Now you're free to change course. But it would be wise to operate smoothly.
Some of the countries in Europe to take a cue from Finland and not outsource its defense.
Finland always seemed to be very sensible when it came to its country’s security. I realize “Finlandization” may have had a negative context but during that time Finland made sure it was prepared as militarily as possible if its political “non-alignment” approach failed. It didn’t assume anything.
My point was their approach to their security vs outsourcing defense was a more pragmatic approach considering where we have ended up in 2025 and one that other countries in Europe should have probably followed. If and when your “strong” partner moves away from your interests, you still need internal strength. To a degree Europe (save for a few countries) never expected their strong partner to get wishy-washy on their interests.
Territory lost by the USSR/Russia since the Cold War began: The entire Soviet Union dissolved—Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan are all gone. The entire Warsaw Pact flipped to NATO—Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, etc. Germany, the biggest Cold War prize, reunited under the West.
Territory lost by the U.S. and its allies? Zero.
Russia isn’t a rising empire—it’s a wounded animal lashing out, terrified of its own irrelevance. They’re afraid, backed into a corner, and desperately trying to hold onto power. They don’t dictate world affairs.
And as for negotiating with Russia? The U.S. has been doing that for 80 years—and it never made us weak before. Why should it now?
America dictates terms not Russia, and certainly not Europe. If Europe wants to keep playing games, let them but America chooses when, where, and how we engage.
From their point of view, USA being unable to handle both internal and foreign policies like it used must surely be a signal.
ps: and btw, I don't believe that the border thing is not inflated by this camp to distract the american people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9CJmvBXNTc
apparently they're expert at this
Prioritizing America isn’t weakness it’s a strength. No empire in history lasted long by neglecting its homeland while overextending abroad.
Ukraine isn’t America’s priority or ally, our borders, economy, and strategic position in the Pacific are. Europe is more than capable of handling its own security, and if they aren’t willing to, that’s on them not us.
America is powerful because it operates as a global empire. Not by holding land, but by maintaining alliances. Everything you think is wrong at home right now would be infinitely worse if we didn't control global trade, force the rest of the world to buy our debt, and use soft/hard power to shut down every other actor from the Chinese Communist Party to ISIS - over there, not over here.
A lot of people in America, on both left and right, loathe the fact that we are this gargantuan empire. But the reality is, once you're at the top of the food chain, there is no easy exit. If America stopped being the world's only superpower, it would become a third world country immediately. You point out that America will get blamed for X,Y and Z. Of course. It already does. The only reason you don't experience the immediate consequences of that is that America (until today) held a lot of global sway. You can't just opt out of your alliances and still expect to have the preferential treatment you have, or the power you had.
We live in a republic that functions as a global empire. If we weren't that global empire, we would be Argentina or Brazil. You want to give up generations of investment in American supremacy for... what, exactly? Problems at home will not get better if America withdraws from the world. They will get much worse, because the only thing keeping this country from being a disaster is the fact that it is central to the world order.
And the only people who want it to not be central to the world order, who want to destroy the functions of government and weaken us on the world stage, are the autocrats who find America to be a beacon that they wish their populations didn't have to look at.
America is not perfect and you can be Bernie or Tucker or Trump and argue that we have no business doing it, but it's a lot better for you, me, and the rest of the free world that America is in charge of maintaining order than to have no one in charge of that.
So my statement was not that Europe looks weak, but that Europe is already America's plaything. Only a traitor would hand it over to the enemy.
Not really sure I care if the neighbors across the water think we look weak just because we don’t want to defend them because they don’t want to be strong.
And bear in mind that doesn’t mean that we are weak…
Claiming to be strong without any displays of actual strength, both in soft and hard power, is a very typically weak behavior.
There's a lot of research on how the Allies helped move many Nazi war criminals to safe havens in other countries, help the remaining Nazis into positions in government and business in West Germany, used the remaining Nazis as intelligence networks, helped them organize into wild-eyed anti-Communist cells all over the world, and of course absorbed several Nazi scientists into research institutions in the US.
In a moment of madness Churchill put out a plan to hire the Wehrmacht after their defeat to go invade the real enemy, the Soviet Union.
Not helping Ukraine won’t solve any of that, though. Regardless of the US policy regarding Europe, I am willing to bet that military spending will keep ballooning now that the broligarchs are in power and fighting to redirect public spending to their pockets. Ultimately, I understand your sentiment, but this course of action will not lead to what you hope. If anything, everything will get worse because the people in power have no interest in fixing the issues you mentioned.
Why would you think that military spending would go up, given the tasks the executive has currently issued, and diplomatic direction indicated vis-a-vis other world military powers:
https://apnews.com/article/trump-pentagon-cuts-8-troops-budg...
https://www.axios.com/2025/02/13/trump-china-russia-military...
Representatives and senators get a lot of political credit for the military-industrial complex, as well.
I agree now things really matter but why should America be on the hook for wartime sacrifices when Europe couldn't be bothered to do the easy part in peace time? No one ever answers this simple question. They all just down vote me which is fine but if there is a rebuttal to this let me know.
I watched the Trump Zelensky show today. I dunno about you, but I detected a possible calculated confrontation. I don't think Vance is a good actor. He took it to 11 too quickly.
These days the media demands wartime strategy be played out in real time detail. How is that beneficial for actual strategy? To counter this, Trump may be leaning into the media circus by playing some sort of ambiguous good cop bad cop card. Smacking Zalensky while buttering Putin's muffins and arguing against world leaders, might be what's needed to penetrate Putin's emotional bubble. A kind of Trumpian trojan horse. Fascinating stuff. I know many here wouldn't give Trump such tactical credit, but if he were short on tactics he wouldn't have won two presidential elections.
It really looks like a carefully crafted narrative was planned and carried out to intentionally smear the current US administration.
I don't think there's any smearing attempt on Zalesky's part though. Contrary to Vance and Trump's assertion, Zalensky has thanked the US a lot of times. He wouldn't be wanting to smear the US. Trump did begin the meeting diplomatically, it was going fine, he even complemented Zalensky's outfit. Then JD opened his mouth!
It's hard to know for sure what's going on, which may be the point. The theatrics of argy-bargy is like a smokescreen.
I get that people got into this narrative.
What I don't get is that you're now supporting a new groups of tech billionaires influencing policy to get access to rare earth, to the point of threatening to annex USA allies like Canada, and Greenland, and doing deals with Russia to capitulate Ukraine.
Yet Americans seem to be cozy with this idea, and support it, when in reality it's the same. In fact, it's worse because it's not even a conspiracy theory, it's out in the open.
Imagine if Biden or Obama had the Black Rock folks behind them when they took the presidency, it would drive some folks up the wall. The same folks don't mind having the Twitter Guy, Bezos, Zuckerberg... Can you help me understand why?
He writes prolifically about Russia at https://www.intellinews.com/eastern-europe/
(and other places, at a lower URL path)
He believes that Russia's economy is not doing wonderfully, but not nearly as bad as the Western press says it is, and that whoever runs Russia is probably willing to put up with some pain a lot longer than Ukrainians can put up with no power no water no food, etc.
https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3A%40bneeditor%20russia%20...
Hard to tell, and I am not convinced if even the Kremlin has a good overview. In the end it does not matter that much. If Russia is really that robust then they wont stop attacking and if they are bluffing then Ukraine should not stop defending itself.
What fraction of foreign owned land is Chinese?
With Trump now in office, the US seems to be willingly breaking, or at the very least withdrawing from, the NATO alliance. With that they give up their position as hegemon, and sacrifice their influence on Europe.
To me, it seems like Russia is now winning the cold war, 35 years after it "ended".
SU lost, here we feel some ripple or aftershock. US enjoyed years of prosperity, its people lived in much higher living standards for a long time.
What’s a shame for the US is the innovators dilemma that it was not able to improve its system after the pressure of competition was gone, and now inequality brought you Trump II.
Britain, Germany, and France alone have the military production and economy to win the war. Doesn't matter if Hungary or Ireland or whoever back out of the consortium.
These three countries have been a bit unstable politically during the last couple of years. This did not help. At least they are going in the same direction and not shooting each other’s foot.
Other American administrations have been spending decades begging NATO allies to keep their militaries up to a higher standard. Their refusal to do so is now coming back to haunt the world order.
Can you list the in service equipment that is a generation ahead of M777 and ATACMs? I sure wish we could get some of these wiz-bang fires assets out here in the First Island Chain.
> November 2024 BAE announced the opening of a new artillery factory in Sheffield during 2025 to resume production of complete M777 artillery pieces for Ukraine and to help fulfil orders for fresh titanium cast spare parts from the US supplementing its US parts factory which also resumed production during 2024.
Similarly, ATACMs production was also halted.
Really, your question, tone and phrasing really indicates that you are not really looking for an actual conversation but rather a gotcha moment.
It’s worth noting that variants of weapons and exist, and sending older ones to Ukraine does not imply that it is getting access to newest and greatest.
The weapons were either sold to Ukraine or other countries, and it was only after Ukraine requested more of them that production started again, which implies the US had no need to produce them because they were superseded in US’ arsenal.
Furthermore, just because Ukraine received X weapon, doesn’t mean they received the latest and greatest variant that’s in use — they might have very well received a previous generation of said weapon.
Asking which weapon or system replaced them as is in service does not look like discussing in good faith simply because the systems might change or newer variants may be used.
Do better.
No, it does not imply that they were superseded. It means that the stockpile of weapons and spare parts was considered large enough to support the US's expected burn rate of material. Supplying Ukraine in a peer conflict changed that calculus, requiring new production to keep parts supplies above a certain desired threshold. The M777 is proving to be....not that reliable in the harsh conditions of the Eastern Front.[1][2]
>Furthermore, just because Ukraine received X weapon, doesn’t mean they received the latest and greatest variant that’s in use — they might have very well received a previous generation of said weapon.
This is supposition on your part....and it's WRONG. That's my point. You're simply stating things that are factually incorrect. Ukraine received M777A2s[3], the most modern variant of the M777 in service with US forces.[4]
>Asking which weapon or system replaced them as is in service does not look like discussing in good faith simply because the systems might change or newer variants may be used.
>Do better.
It's not a question of "variants", it's not a question of whether systems "might change", and it's not an issue of grammar errors. You made a false statement, perhaps unknowingly. I asked you to clarify with specifics, perhaps you know some weapon system I'm not aware of (despite having a rough idea of the IOC fielding plan for Marine fires assets in my AO over the next several years), and you've now made 2 posts bereft of details or references to obfuscate the fact that your original post was completely wrong and baseless. All this does is lower HN's already-low signal-to-noise ratio on military subjects.
US Army and USMC towed Field Artillery batteries are equipped with M777A2, the same weapons platform and variant we sent to Ukraine. We are not "a generation ahead" of the equipment sent to Ukraine. Period.
[1] https://www.twz.com/land/ukraine-is-burning-through-155mm-m7...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/25/us/ukraine-artillery-brea...
[3] https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/m777a2-howitzer-proves-to-be...
One reason for this mix is that the Russo-Ukrainian war has defied some US expectations of what future wars it might need to deal with might look like, making previously-retired equipment relevant again (the drone war has made a lot of retired anti-aircraft tech more relevant, because relative cheap short-range missiles and short range anti-aircraft guns are a lot more useful against drones than they are against modern fighters, for instance) and, in other cases driving new weapons development.
It's proven to be perfectly adequate for the job.
I would think, the US going against the International Court of Justice, threatening allies over land and making deals with a official emperor is doing worse.
And the share of NATO members meeting a 2% of GDP target is now a majority, after recent marked increases. https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2024/6/pd...
It's not like one side just lies and the other side just tells the truth. This isn't a movie.
That is partially true, but the world order would be in tatters because of Trump, regardless of the military spending of the rest of NATO.
The Western acceptance of authoritarianism in exchange for a good deal is what got us here. It's not just the US; it's Europe too. Putin did what he did because he knew that Europe was willing to exchange the end of Russian subordination to the post-Cold War world order for cheap gas. Middle Eastern countries have seen their awful human rights records punished by the granting of a World Cup by FIFA and European tourism to Dubai. Both China and Russia were made Olympic hosts in the last 20 years. Russia hosted a World Cup in 2018, four years after the invasion of Crimea and ten years after its invasion of Georgia.
The message? Authoritarianism pays.
Russia's economy is on such a war footing regardless of if it wins or losses in Ukraine, the economic shock of the end of the war will bankrupt the country. See Dutch disease.
And no one wants to host the Olympics, it's a huge money sink.
So it doesn't really pay, it's just bankrupts you. Even Trump's America is having massive stock sell offs and other countries dumping the dollar.
And let's face it, the EU can easily afford it. Sure it hurts a bit. But more war with Russia hurts a lot more. The cheapest way out is to stop Russia in Ukraine, and not give him the opportunity to try again in a few years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Peace_Treaty
Finland fought exceptionally well, which shocked the world, but they still lost the winter war.
This is magical thinking. Russia is near bankrupt.
First, I've been hearing it all my life. More often after 2014, and very often since 2022. In 2022, it was "russia has days left of reserves".
Second, nationalism was always (since 1300s?) strong in there. It always united russians against the enemy even if they hated the goverment. That's why every incrusion attempt always failed.
We need to keep applying pressure until something breaks. There's a constant refrain of "Sanctions don't work. Please stop the sanctions." from the Kremlin.
Examples? All I can see is majority of russians living their life as usual. Sure some transplants in Moscow are sad that their consumarism routine got distracted, but that is it.
As for money frozen in EU, IIRC most of it aren't realted to the goverment and just happened to be in trasit when sanctions started.
Every oligarch knows that Putin is the hand that feeds and biting it at best gets you in prison at worst an express descend to the ground.
but sanctions clearly destroyed Syria.
That's not saying anything about their offensive capabilities, which as whole world sees are a fraction of what was thought about them. They really are supremely ineffective, corrupt and lazy in numbers and levels that cripple whole war for them. They can't produce enough new armed vehicles and their stockpiles from cold war are running very thin as per independent satellite analyses, they use stolen motorbikes, donkeys and golf karts for troopers now (with corresponding death rate). Their nuclear weapons are just a guarantee they won't be attacked on Moscow conventionally or nuclear in any way, nothing more. As we see all other 'doctrines' and 'red lines' fell apart with long lasting incursion in Kursk so that was just an empty bullshit.
They know all this, their country is falling into inflation spiral which can easily end up with people's revolt and I believe puttin' realizes how fragile his relatively soft power grip on russia is. Plus he has positioned himself as an arbiter between various power clans within his hierarchy, not as a single supreme single ruler whom everybody fears for life like in North Korea for example. He desperately needs to finish this war within a year or two since he is an extremely paranoid person. But he has some sort of effective reach or control over orange man and we saw what we saw, who knows why.
So did the UK, so what’s your point?
During WW2, for example, the Soviets lost a total of 20-27 million dead. Only China, a country almost three times as populous, came close at 15-20 million.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#Total_...
The British Empire lost less than 500,000.
The situation isn't quite that bad in either Russia or Ukraine which was also one of the constituent parts of the Soviet Union. But it's certainly closer in Ukraine, even if most Russians hold an irrational level of enthusiasm for the war
That's the important bit. Russia needs to source soldiers from prisoners and North Koreans.
In Russia. In fact it was Russia's winter the one who did most of the work. The Russian army was always very bad.
Now Putin is Napoleon or Hitler invading other countries.
Yes the winters did help, but they were still outnumbered, and outproduced.
The only reason they could make all those tanks in the first place was because of American trucks.
Russia has the economy of a medium-sized EU nation. The EU is vastly more powerful. If the EU wants to, they can give Ukraine everything they need to win. Only they're divided and unwilling to believe in their strength after 80 years of dependency on the US.
> EU’s top diplomat: ‘The free world needs a new leader’
They were going to use them if Ukraine entered Russian soil!
Then they declared that parts of Ukraine was Russia. Ukraine took back some cities on supposedly "holy Russian soil" and nothing happened.
Then Ukraine took a chunk out of (actually) Russian Kursk. Suddenly no talk of nukes for a while.
What would they do with the nukes? Suicide?
This is why GDP is a useless metric. Last year it was reported Russia was manufacturing 3x more artillery shells than the US and whole EU combined.[1] Billion-dollar cosmetics and luxury goods industries don't translate well into battlefield success.
>If the EU wants to, they can give Ukraine everything they need to win.
Except manpower, which Ukraine needs and doesn't have.
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery...
And perhaps a tiny bit cautious about escalating a conflict with a neighbouring country that happens to have the world's second largest nuclear arsenal?
With (almost) fully autonomous weapons and systems it comes down to simply who has the better economy and production lines.
They don't even have enough 155 shells, long range drones, body armour, training facilities, fighter jets, bombers, cruise missiles, tanks, howitsers. The list goes on and on. It's exactly the opposite of what you are claiming.
They had to develop their own long range drones instead of getting off-the-shelf stuff. Germany blocked Taurus, Tomahawks were a no-go.
(The US gave 31 M1 tanks! That's pitiful...)
Says Ukrainian soldiers, reported by Western and Ukrainian media outlets.
https://archive.is/Pzxl2 (Economist, Feb2025)
https://english.nv.ua/nation/generalsyrskyi-says-he-banned-t... (NV Ukraine, Jan 2025) However, certain categories of Air Force personnel, after preliminary training in training centers, are reinforcing the Ground Forces and Air Assault Forces due to a shortage of personnel on the front.
https://archive.is/YGR00 (WSJ, Oct2024)
https://archive.is/WKqxz (Financial Times, Oct2024 but updated) The commanders estimated that 50 to 70 per cent of new infantry troops were killed or wounded within days of starting their first rotation.
So if they don't have manpower OR enough weapons, maybe when their head of state comes to ask for support from their biggest benefactor, he should, I dunno....not piss off his host? Wouldn't that help him get what he wants?
It's really grim.
I don't think the EU thinks it can afford it at this time.
If you consider what EU countries pay besides arms and aid, for example on housing the millions of refugees from Ulraine or buying stockpiles of arms to be used on behalf of Ukraine in the future the numbers are much higher, between twice and triple the US budget. Even the sanctions against Russia and their weapon suppliers China, India, North Korea and Iran add to the costs of this Russian conflict. Also consider the EU pledges to rebuild Ukraine should be counted.
Today I estimate 1,234 trillion Euro's, part of which was spent as dollars, some as loans with the estimated 300 million of confiscated Russian bank accounts and assests from Russian oligarchs as collateral.
I think, nations with bad historic experience with Russia support Ukraine significantly more.
(Edit, this is from late 90s and the NATO action in Yugoslavia)
I thought this was an interesting take. And it's sad that the US has a man giving away our leadership. The world is in a dangerous place.
I'm not saying this means we shouldn't defend Ukraine. We should. But I am saying the outrage from the international community is a little hypocritical considering what Putin has been doing for decades. It's either because it's a little closer to our borders (and thus Europe is more worried about itself) or because they have valuable resources that our politicians suddenly care. I find that very sad. We should have cared before. Then we'd have saved many lives and this wouldn't have happened.
It's really got a very strong smell of "let's bring freedom to the middle east! Of course only where they've got lots of oil for us".
The US should keep its commitments, but there is no reason Germany cannot step up to the plate - especially given that France has a similar defense budget as Germany yet has an outsized impact on global security.
German political leadership needs to either stop blocking France+UK and defer to their security policy or build it's own domestic capacity.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_aid_to_Ukra...
it's not Europe United, it's Europe Unionized.
Where is that now?