I’m not concern trolling. I don’t want a single U.S. soldier on Ukraine soil. It’s a red line. I’m asking whether a security guarantee increases the risk of that happening.
This site is for curious conversation, so I'd love to see you elucidate a bit further!
What's the nature of the red line?
For instance, Are you worried they'd get hurt? Are you worried about political implications?
Or, does the fact that there are already American volunteers to fighting in Ukraine change your calculus? [1]?
What's your idea on whether this applies to Taiwan too? How about Canada or Greenland?
Is this a red line that is shared by many?
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlgWI0FzjKc "US volunteer soldiers appear in Ukraine frontline footage"
I think the premise of a “rules based international order” and democracy promotion hurts Americans. In Iraq and Syria it led us to overthrow dictators who were brutal to their own people and threatened their neighbors, but who suppressed terrorists that could attack the U.S. It also causes tremendous collateral damage (millions of dead civilians). While I acknowledge that Ukraine presents less risk of those things, to me it’s a test case. If we can’t resist involvement in Ukraine, there is little hope of turning the ship around on American imperialism generally. The next Iraq War will also be billed as a just war.
As of mid 2024, 2/3 of americans opposed sending US troops to Ukraine: https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/ame....
I acknowledge that a security guarantee wouldn’t start with boots on the ground. But there is a historical pattern of deepening involvement where we start out with something like a security guarantee, and that becomes the rope around our ankle that drags us into putting boots on the ground.
Why don't you run for office on a platform that "Pax Americana was a huge mistake!"
(And you think Korea was a mistake? Seriously?)
I can sort of get that. I mean it sucks, I think it's wrong this time, mostly because for me it's a bit closer to home and debatably existential; but at least I get where you're coming from.
Some people are worried that this means that Americans also oppose NATO in general and article 5 in particular. Is that the case, or is that like a known pre-existing alliance and a known quantity?
So how do you marry that up with the lack of culpability the US is now demonstrating? If you accept it, then surely it is also the primary responsibility of the US to resolve the situation peacefully, which pacifies Russia but also leaves Ukraine in a reasonable position. From everything I understand about Trumps "deal" for Ukraine it does nothing of the sort.
<rant> And, good luck getting any real discussion from anyone here. Most of the Redditors are here now and have brought their "hate on America" flag to HN. Regardless of how much our President does or how much the US gives, it will never be enough. And, the ironic thing is, many of these "intellectuals" on HN routinely put down our "uneducated" voter population while at the same time pleading for their tax dollars to fund a never ending war. Oh, the hypocrisy! As if their countries are any better.
At best, this war is at a stalemate unless the EU really steps up to the plate to save their neighbor. Imagine, your neighbor's house is burning down all around you, and the best you can do is give a cup of water while shouting at your distant relative across the ocean to send truck loads of water. If anything, they should be ashamed they let their countries fall so behind they have to rely on someone else to help defend their own property. Crazy!
Here's a hint for our EU friends: Step up and help your neighbor! Send all your money to fight the war (that is what you are asking the US tax payers for, right?). Drain your savings accounts, send them your retirement money, send everything you have - until it hurts. Next, go to your closet, put on your fighting boots, and head out to the front lines. The time for taking real action is now. Don't rely on foreign money, governments, boots, equipment, etc. to defend your own property. Rely on _yourselves_ to solve this problem.
</rant-off>
It is a stalemate because US government wants it to be a stalemate. They never wanted Ukraine to win. Because it can embarrass putin. That's why they send some old equipment, barely enough to slow down Russian troops.
Sending weapons with restrictions to use them against Russians - Ukrainians are fighting with tied hands.
You have done that for quite literally the past 20 years in a places where no win condition could be established, and now that you have an 'easy' war, with an actual nation-state adversary that you can defeat both militarily and politically, without a need for guerilla warfare and millions of civilian casualties, suddenly you have issues?
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43261035
That, and there might be a shift going on in the US back from Maritime power thinking to Continental power thinking.
(An essay on the differences)
https://mwi.westpoint.edu/when-maritime-and-continental-powe...
There were no policy objectives in Afghanistan or Iraq, or they were very hard to achieve without decades of sustained presence. Meanwhile they're fairly clear for Ukraine, and arguably easier to achieve, if the Russian military is degraded enough that they pose no threat to Ukraine then the war is won.
Of course that leaves the pesky issue of those nuclear weapons, but I'd find that a much better argument than 'all our previous special military operations were a disaster'.
The United States' view on strategy has always had a tension between the maritime power view and the continental power view.
For a maritime power (the US approach we've seen most of recently since WWII ), it's practically a no-brainer to invest heavily in the Ukraine conflict. It allows the US to degrade a rival's military abilities at low cost; it maintains the balance of power in Europe without direct US troop involvement; and it upholds the norms against territorial conquest that benefit maritime powers.
If the US is seeing a resurgence of isolationist/continental thinking, then you get different arguments: The conflict is distant from US territorial interests; border security and domestic concerns become more pressing; and regional conflicts elsewhere become mostly just distractions.
The criticism of decades of American foreign policy was finally vindicated. So there is very little appetite to give up that achievement by getting embroiled in yet another war that’s billed as “easy” and “just” this time (they all were—remember, “we will be greeted as liberators?”)
The best time to have stood up to Putin was 2014. The next best time is right [expletive] now.