- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Summary
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Ukraine would lose the war if the U.S., its primary military supporter, cuts funding.
Speaking to Fox News, he stressed the importance of unity between the U.S. and Ukraine as Russia accelerates its territorial gains.
Zelensky acknowledged Ukraine’s challenges on the battlefield, despite new U.S. weapon supplies, including long-range missiles and anti-personnel land mines.
He criticized German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for engaging with Putin, calling it a risky move.
Trump has pledged to end the war quickly but offered no specifics.
This issue is a great example of the insane double think that most of Europe has about the US. We are too involved in world affairs until someone needs to take military action and then all of a sudden we’re the only ones who can address it. Ukraine is your neighbor, not ours. You should be the ones funding Ukraine’s defense because if you don’t Russia is on your doorstep. Ukraine should have so much money that it doesn’t matter what the US does but instead all of Europe is looking on like “it’s a shame a country on the other side of the world isn’t doing enough to stop this”.
The US is not a totally random country, but one signatory of the Budapest memorandum (giving Ukraine security guarantees in return for Ukraine giving away nuclear weapons).
As for levels of support - I advise taking a look at this website. You may notice some surprising patterns.
That being said, it’s not crazy to ask the country who has been developing anti-Russian weapons for 50 years to donate those weapons to an anti-Russian cause. That’s what they were built for after all.
More than anything your statement just makes me wonder why the phrase “the country who has been developing anti-Russian weapons for 50 years” does not refer to a European country. They seem to have been content to outsource defense spending for the last half century at least and now are acting surprised that they have to rely on someone else for defense.
I guess then America shouldn’t have gotten involved on the European front during WW2. Not our problem, Hitler can run wild, America was only directly attacked by the Japanese so the Pacific front is the only one that matters.
If the collective West doesn’t stop Putin, what’s to say he can’t follow in Hitler’s footsteps? He’s already shown that he is not above invading sovereign countries.
The collective West hasn’t been stopping Putin, that’s the point. Ukraine has been with primarily American support. It needs to be collective and it isn’t up to this point.
It is though, UK, Germany, Norway, etc are all also giving supplies and other support.
US is just so big that our support our lack thereof is very difficult to compensate for.
They’re not doing nothing but they’re not pulling their weight either. If they were then Zelensky’s statement here would not be necessary.
Yes they are. Check the % of GDP. We’re pulling our weight, pretty much as much as we can. More really considering we mostly don’t prioritise defence as much as the US does.
Yes, you’re putting in what you thought was sufficient while the US was carrying the largest burden. That’s not going to continue much longer so you can either change your perspective and increase your contributions or you can let Ukraine fall.
Trump is going to cut funding to Ukraine, that much is certain. What happens after that depends on Europe’s response.
Bad argument. Japan and Germany were allies. Popular public sentiment to join the war had been growing before Pearl Harbor. Afterwards it would have been political suicide to not join. Moreover, it supercharged factory production and created a patriotic wave that didn’t die down for years.
But yeah, let’s just ignore all that.
What the other commenter is saying is that Europe has relied on U.S. intervention. For better or worse (for worse) we are seeing the results of placing so many eggs into what is amounting to an oversized trash bin. While we should provide support across seas, I hope the larger public sentiment shifts hard towards fixing things here. Gaza and Ukraine are big deals. What about the major issues WITHIN our borders?
Y’know, such as the slow rise of fascism over the years.
The bad faith war on drugs.
Rising costs of housing and medical, and living in general.
The clear and obvious issue with money in politics.
Homelessness.
The slow decline in experts staying or immigrating here, and poorer education.
And possibly the biggest argument for why we should step back military presence and focus inward: The absolute shit show that is support for veterans from a medical and insurance perspective.
I could keep going. Many of these could be called endemic issues. For a Nation so large we sure as hell see the same problems nearly everywhere.
It doesn’t help that the US spends an ‘OBSCENE’ amount of money on their military for their own internal workings.
It’s hard for any NATO member to justify more spending of their GDP.
When everyone decides to build 2/tanks per cycle… and yet one entity is just pissing out 20/tanks per cycle,
There’s so much oversupply in general, why would anyone else increase their output to 3/tanks?
stretch that out over 50 years, and that’s where we are today.
I think the why should be pretty obvious at this point.
It’s not so much about USA helping Ukraine as it is about USA helping Russia.
I’ll give you an angry upvote on this one.
I agree that the EU should do better and be independent from the US. But I still think the US should keep helping out, or at least present a plan for its decreased support over time so that the EU has time to pick up the slack.
Just suddenly pulling funding is more supporting Putin than it is “changing to America first interests”.
The vast majority of the stuff we send to Ukraine is slightly outdated weapons that are sitting in warehouses. The US military isn’t going to use this stuff. Sure they put a dollar amount on it, but that just confuses people to think we’re sending American tax dollars.
We need to send every bit we can in huge shipments before Trump takes office.
Absolutely. If I had my way we would be giving Ukraine everything they ask for and more. Unfortunately that’s not the world we live in. My point is that European apathy is just as much to blame for the situation we find ourselves in as the instability in the US. Europe has allowed, and continues to allow, the situation to become hopeless without US support and that can’t be blamed on the US.