Comment on Zelensky says wants to end war by diplomacy next year
JeffKerman1999@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
I mean without support from the USA and the EU the Russians will steamroll Ukraine. So it’s better to end it now that there is still some room for bargaining than just let putin win.
If the EU has just a bit of spine we’ll take over the burden. Otherwise Ukraine will be a stepping stone for putin to go and invade the rest of the ex-URSS countries.
Valmond@lemmy.world 1 day ago
We must absolutely not give any victory to putin, or he’ll just continue (and others will be encouraged to do the same).
The EU gives more to Ukraine than the USA, but we need to step up the arms deliveries if the muricans back down.
WoahWoah@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
The problem isn’t simply the US not sending arms to Ukraine, which the EU could then compensate for. Do you really want to get into a military technology pissing match with the United States? Because the problem you have is if the Trump begins sending arms to Russia in response to the EU “prolonging the war” by making up for the US no longer among Ukraine.
Oh, but what about NATO obligations, you might say. Well, Trump has long wanted to leave NATO. Trump’s team has already pointed out that there is executive authority over foreign policy, and they will argue Trump therefore has the authority to unilaterally withdraw from NATO. And it’s quite possible he will, especially if NATO countries align to defy his attempt to end the war by stopping arms to Ukraine.
It’s important to note that without the United States, NATO’s collective defense capability would be crippled. The U.S. accounts for 68% of total NATO defense spending, providing the backbone of the alliance’s military power, advanced technology, and rapid response capabilities. This dominance means that European allies, even collectively, cannot match the U.S. in terms of strategic lift, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, or modern weapons systems, all of which are critical to NATO operations.
U.S. withdrawal would leave a power vacuum that Europe is neither financially nor militarily equipped to fill, effectively gutting NATO’s ability to deter or respond to threats. Without the U.S., NATO as a credible military alliance would collapse under its own weight, leaving its members exposed and vulnerable to external aggressors. If the EU is worried about Russia continuing to expand its territory through force, the best way to make that happen would be to piss off the United States. Trump wouldn’t even need to do anything except leave. If he’s also arming Russia, say good night. The EU, even collectively, is wildly outmatched here.
Valmond@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
You seem to answer a question I didn’t ask.
No one thinks Trump will arm Russia lol. Neither that the EU must buy american weapons to arm Ukraine, we have a military industry and the budget to roll over putin if we have the political will to do so all by ourselves.
It seriously feels like this is some chatgpt answer.
WoahWoah@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
No one thinks Trump will arm Russia? Perhaps you forget how fond of Putin he and much of the party in power in the US is.
And no one said the EU will need to buy American arms. What I said is, if Trump decides to stop arming Ukraine and demands they end the war, and the EU decides to compensate Ukraine for what is no longer being provided by the United States, it’s quite possible Trump will withdraw the US from NATO. He’s already looking for an excuse.
If you think you can build a military coalition with 70% of the spend suddenly stopping, by all means. What is more likely, as I said, is the withdrawal of the US from NATO would dramatically hamper its effective strength as a deterrent in the region. You would then need to rely on individual member states to attempt to deter or defend from Russian aggression.
The US is a unified, centralized military with a unified, centralized command structure across all branches that allocates 4x the amount of spending to its military than the entire EU combined. The EU is a somewhat collaborative collection of nations with widely variant defense policies. Because of that, the EU channels the majority of its defense strategy through NATO, within which the US plays an absolutely irrefutable dominant role.
The idea that the EU could unilaterally “roll over” Russia if the US leaves NATO is unlikely, and extremely unlikely if it causes the US to start providing military support to Russia. That goes to my final point, which is, if you think you’re right, go ahead and try and let’s see how it goes. Fortunately, the leaders of the member countries in NATO are generally not as ignorant as you are, so the likely outcome here is if Trump stops helping Ukraine and tells them to end the war, then Ukraine will end up ceding territory and the war will “end.”
To be clear, none of these are things that I think are good. But the idea that the EU will just “go it alone” flies in the face of political and military realities.