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Comment by mcv | Hacker News Reader

Yes, there's a difference, and what Trump is doing is clearly siding with Russia. His "negotiated peace" is neither negotiated nor peace. It's a surrender.

You don't have to support Ukraine indefinitely; only until Russia stops. Your options are to support Ukraine until Russia stops, or to surrender until Russia stops.

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Are you under the impression that at some point Russia will simply say “well it was worth a try”, and retreat home?

No. Not at all. There will come a point when Russia will stop the war because either Russia is completely exhausted and on the verge of collapse, or Putin is dead or removed from power. And chances are those two will go together.

And you don't think Russia will escalate to tactical nukes in Ukraine before that point?

Why not?

If Putin is removed from power, it won't be with somebody more friendly to the west.

Depends on who does the removing. It could go a lot of different ways, but even if it's someone from his own government who is hostile to the west, they're still likely to use it as an excuse to end the war.

Not impossible since something similar has already happened in Vietnam (at least once) and in Afghanistan (at least twice)

It's mind blowing to me to see the left being the war mongers now. That used to be the mantle of the right, but hey, here we are.

The arguments I see for the US staying involved are the same hand wavy ones used in Vietnam - "better to fight them over in Asia then in America". It was a weak argument then, and it's a weak argument now.

The people that helped fan the flames of this war don't give one crap about Ukraine. What they care about is the neocon policy of "do anything to keep America's rival weak". So funding a war that Ukraine pays the price for works just fine.

The truth is that the war is going to end eventually and it's not going to be Russia capitulating. So rather than a hundred thousand more dead might as well find a solution.

Seems like a pretty rationale decision to me.

I do not think you can compare this conflict with Vietnam. US army went into Vietnam, while Ukraine is fighting a US rival with their own military, but they do use US provided equipment.

General public in Europe didn't see US as actively involved, or at least didn't see it until the new administration said it would end the conflict. This is when Trump administration started getting into "talks with Russia" and offering Ukraine "mineral deals". While US might have tried to do that even before, it was not discussed openly by presidents.

This war is going to flame out eventually. Lessons learned in this one will be used for the next one, which is going to hurt even more.

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