The US no longer wanting to fund someone else's war is about as far from 'forcing' as you can get. Plus it doesn't even sound like we're withdrawing all funding, instead we're attaching a few conditions in hopes to end the killing.
That’s what the outcry is about. As of today, the US is no longer the leader of the free world.
The economic impact for the US in the long run will be significant. Trust is hard to build but easy to destroy.
On top of it all, it’s extorting Ukraine into giving up it’s minerals while giving no assurances in return.
And finally, most important for long term, it’s a complete policy reversal to its NATO allies, which will have a long term impact on US transatlantic relations for decades to come. Before, US was the only country to invoke Article 5. Now its recognising a weak moments for its allies and is exploiting that opportunity.
Realpolitik is, first and foremost, about (arguably ruthless) pragmatism. What's going on — the US antagonising all its allies and forging new alliances with unreliable partners —— is not pragmatic in the least.
Without US, EU cannot fulfill Ukrainian needs with their current arsenal.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1312602/ukrainian-refuge...
Like my comment, it's technically true and completely not worth discussing, because it will never happen.
There is a legitimate debate as to what cost is worth paying, if any (as well as what cost comes from not doing anything - ask the Baltics), but to present the situation as fait accompli?
The US was sending old equipment. To replace it they were and spending money on R&D and manufacturing of current and next-gen equipment for the US military, not Ukraine. The US got to observe and study the use of it's older equipment in an actual land war against a geopolitical adversary. The war has demonstrated US equipment superiority over Russian equipment.
The US did not send any troops, only old equipment and some money.
Regarding "hopes to end the killing". The killing can end today if Putin withdraws. He is the aggressor who attacked without any justification or provocation. If somebody invades your neighbour's apartment and starts looting and hurting them, do you just say "give up, it's easier"?
Some might but those are not people we respect.
The history of war is full of unhappy truces and compromise. WW2 type victories are extremely rare and take massive sacrifice.
And keep in mind, we're not doing the sacrificing. It is Ukraine who is doing the fighting and should be calling the shots here, with our material support since we don't want to send troops (until now).
From what I've read I think the only plan put forward is to have Europeans run the DMZ? The US having troops there would probably be a no-go since that's the primary power-conflict (even above NATO). I don't think there's any other option as historically there's always a third party regulating it. Maybe a subset of UN where possibly even China could have troops there.
Not sure what guarantees would exist for breaking the ceasefire though, besides the usual full sanctions/weapons/maybe troops. Who knows what happens now though :/
See the "spring offensive".
The reality is more or less a stalemate at this point. While the Trump administration treatment of Zelensky is a disgrace the reality is that some sort of ceasefire around the current borders is going to be the outcome that ends this war. We can work on forcing Russia to withdraw via economic and other pressure after the hot war is over. Just like we broke up the Soviet Union.
This idea of one more year and Russia will break is just a dream with no connection to reality. Putin is going to send a million man to fight with sticks before Russia breaks. And they will.
> We can work on forcing Russia to withdraw via economic and other pressure after the hot war is over. Just like we broke up the Soviet Union.
You think Trump plans to maintain sanctions? You sweet summer child.
My statement had nothing to do with Trump maintaining sanctions or not. If he doesn't some future administration will. US relations with the Soviets also fluctuated during the cold war.
This simply isn’t true.
> China is pretty much supplying all the goods that went away due to western sanctions
This is not correct. Some countries are being used to bypass sanctions, including China, but this isn’t happening with government support and the extra costs of evading sanctions are putting inflationary pressure on goods in Russia.
> buying all the exports that the west is trying to sanction.
Barring oil and gas, there’s nothing Russia has that China wants. And even then, they don’t have the infrastructure to buy the volumes to replace European purchases, thus the black hole in the Russian budget.
If Xi wanted Russia to stop the war, Russia would stop the war. The war is useful for China because it splinters the west, they get leverage over Russia, and it normalizes the kind of actions that it wants to take in Taiwan.
If China objected to North Korea sending troops to Russia then North Korea would not be sending troops to Russia. Pretty much all of North Korea's trade is with China. For sure North Korea has some degree of independence but sending soldiers to die for Russia is not worth it if it upsets China. This is clearly a nod, nod, wink, wink situation here.
"Most of Russia's exports to China originate from the mining and petrochemicals sectors.[64] More than half of Russia's exports to China come from mineral fuels, oil, and petroleum products (60.7%), followed by wood and wood products (9.4%), non-ferrous metals (9%), fish and seafood (3.5%), and chemical products (3.3%). China is also gradually becoming a major consumer of Russian agricultural products.[24]: 64
The main categories of imports to Russia from China are machinery and equipment (35.9%), clothing (13.7%), chemical products (9.1%), fur and fur products (5.6%), footwear (5.3%), and furniture (3%). Chinese electronics are steadily expanding their presence in Russian.[24]: 64"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Russia_relations...
Financial and economic weaknesses are also working against Putin and his team from _within_ Russia.
> Just like we broke up the Soviet Union.
It was not entirely broken, since we have the living proof of it today in the Kremlin - same operating mode.
> Putin is going to send a million man
Why is he resorting to North Korean soldiers then? (which even then aren't infinite). Obviously, he has a problem at recruiting/training his own. Which puts him at odds with his own population.
So whose soldiers will it be next? China? not likely willing to deal with that. Iran? same. African countries? Not their war, they tell it themselves.
The issue is that Putin has cornered himself and his country, willingly, knowingly, into a no-way-out road. He had other options of both perspective and action.
You're applying western thinking here. The same sort of western thinking that thought Putin wouldn't invade Ukraine because what's in it for him or imagine some red lines or whatever. Russians aren't western. They don't think like us. The west always does this.
There isn't such a thing of at odds with his own population in Russia. Again you're applying western thinking to Russians. Check out some Russian jokes.
Not sure if this is what you meant by logistics.
If you're thinking about supplying and maintaining their physical presence in Ukraine it doesn't look like that's a problem either.
"As of 2024, Russia produces about 3 million artillery shells a year, nearly three times the quantity from the US and Europe." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry_of_Russia
They're also still exporting weapons though significantly less than they used to export.
Maybe they can't sustain 10 years of war with the west continuing or increasing their level of support, assuming Ukraine can, but they are nowhere near being forced to stop [the] war.
Alledged population. Or are we also to believe their election results?
The failure of the initial 3-days invasion was a demonstration that the « great Russian army », even with the support of Wagner and Tchetchenia, was unable to plan, execute and sustain a flash attack.
Yes, they may improve in the meantime. But that takes years of discipline and continuous training. So while that’s an option for them, that’s also a weakness that can be decisive.
The problem with a ceasefire is that Russia has an endless history of accepting negotiations only to use them to get a tactical advantage. It is standard practice for them. So of course Ukraine is very wary unless that can be prevented.
No, it won't. With sufficient outside political pressure on Ukraine, it might happen, but (like many ceasefires) it would only be a brief pause, not an end to the war.
> We can work on forcing Russia to withdraw via economic and other pressure after the hot war is over.
Sanctions almost never work without someone actually fighting on the ground. If they are not tipping the balance of an active internal or external conflict, they can be endured basically indefinitely.
(Not that Trump seems inclined to either try to force Putin to withdraw or to maintain sanctions, in any case.)
> Just like we broke up the Soviet Union.
We didn't break up the Soviet Union, the republics of the Soviet Union broke it up, largely because of a crisis of legitimacy resulting from a hardline coup against a mildly reformist leadership. The main immediate US contribution, though, was bogging the USSR down in the long war it fought in Afghanistan by aiding the forces opposing the USSR there, the outgrowth of which was both the disatisfaction that provoked the reform efforts and the strong negative reaction to the subsequent hardline coup, not sanctions imposed without an ongoing armed conflict.
Some discourses are just propaganda. Specially at war time.
This it the end of an 80 year era. The US will never have as much influence and prosperity again.
Why did suddenly "end the killing" become a talking point for the people supporting this/Trump? "End the Killing of *american soldiers*(outside US)" seems like an consistent message but when this group didn't give 2 shits about Iraqi, Afgani, Vietnam, Libya, Syria, and even essentially justify warcrimes and killings, how can the movement stay morally consistent to "Oh we are doing this to save Ukrainean life" as a slogan?
"We don't want to spend our money on other nationals, but we are ok in having colonies or natural resource exploitation at your expense" is the only sensible interpretation of current presidents behavior.
A stance that seems pretty aligned with every war since 9/11, just more explicit and any pretense such as "spreading democracy" or "WMD", and less willing to commit (american lives) for profit. Wasn't support for Trump against deepstate and all this "benefiting deepstate at the expense of the common people" wars? Why can't the movement just own up to it all.
There also was no forced conscription in those. The military members knew what they were getting into and made a choice to sign up anyway. That's no longer the case in Ukraine, the border is closed, citizens cannot leave, they are being rounded up and forced into a few weeks of bootcamp then to the front-lines to die. That's the antithesis of freedom.
> it doesn't even sound like we're withdrawing all funding, instead we're attaching a few conditions in hopes to end the killing.
There is currently no funding for Ukraine from the US. Trump has dangled offers of assistance “with conditions” but nothing concrete. Even this minerals deal didn’t actually include any security assistance or funding for weapons.
It _was_ also their war, because it's Europe that's attacked through Ukraine, and... Europe (and Ukraine, actually) used to be allies.
Well, here we are: the USA is _not_ anymore an ally to Europe, and is objectively becoming, as a state, an adversary, so here is the most likely survival plan available to Europe now:
1/ find new partners (Canada/Australia of course; as for the big one, will be India and/or China);
2/ increase its own defence and technologies to be more independent from US ones (will hurt, for sure);
3/ close its market to USA (will hurt heavily on both sides);
4/ not even talking about the cultural reframing that will happen.
It's not a matter of "if the USA doesn't fix its course within 4 years", it's happening now.
And no one wins at this. Certainly not the USA. Trump will be gone and forgotten in a few years. USA will take, at the very best, 40/50 years to fix the damaged trust towards Europe, but also towards any future partner: how do you expect to sincerely partner with a country that behaves so erratically every 4 years, and now even ambushes guest state representatives in front of the media?
2. Learn how we are funding the war. It is helping us instead of costing a bunch of money.