Macron to open debate on extending French nuclear protection to European allies • Hacker News Board

Re: Macron to open debate on extending French nuclear protection to European allies

#241

Post by yks » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 1:25 AM UTC

clivestaples wrote: post #234

yks wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The realistic answer is to say that Ukraine is going to be supplied with weapons for as long as needed, case closed. The whole Russian strategy after the initial blitz failure was to wait for Trump to get into power, who telegraphed to anyone with the brain, that he doesn't care about Ukraine and loves Putin very much. Russia can't do it forever, but it focused on appearing "strong" until the elections, the bet that…

Realistically, does Ukraine have the manpower to sustain this tempo for years? If not, what countries should put boots on the ground?

Ukraine needs to sustain significantly lower tempo than Russia and there are other options than boots on the ground. Simply flying in and shooting down slow-flying drones inside the Ukrainian airspace would probably give Ukrainian economy years of "runway". And any breathing room in the economy translates into more available manpower in the military and Ukraine still has millions available.

Re: Macron to open debate on extending French nuclear protection to European allies

#242

Post by Aloisius » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 1:25 AM UTC

m4rtink wrote: post #136

rafaelmn wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let the Ukrainians decide. With money and military/economic tensions for EU and US ? EU might have some interest in stabilizing the border and preventing future threats, but US literally has no interest there. And the only EU member that possibly had to worry about Russia is Finland, but they are in NATO now.

Good thing US integritiy has no value anymore and US word is apparently worthless nowadays - otherwise I guess honoring the Budapest memorandum would make sense: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum You know, that one thing that certainly prevented a lot of nuclear proliferation so far.

What part of that has the US not honored?

Did we (1) fail to respect their borders? (2) Threaten to use force, invade them or use those nukes against them? (3) Wage an economic war against them? (4) Fail to seek UN Security Council action in response to Ukraine being nuked? (5) Nuke them? (6) Refuse to talk to them about the agreement?

Because that's basically the entire agreement.

Re: Macron to open debate on extending French nuclear protection to European allies

#243

Post by LAC-Tech » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 1:32 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #216

LAC-Tech wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A slight thawing of relations is a long way away from an alliance. Even then, would Russia take it? They might see more value in their current arrangement with China. Still, long term maybe you're right. It does make geopolitical sense for the US to be more closely aligned with Russia. In a pivot to Asia it's much more useful to sow-discord in the Sino-Russian relationship, than it is to prop up the EU.

> It does make geopolitical sense for the US to be more closely aligned with Russia. In a pivot to Asia it's much more useful to sow-discord in the Sino-Russian relationship, than it is to prop up the EU The EU have been loyal allies. Their defence production is also nothing to be sneezed at. If we found ourselves in a war of attrition with China and either Japan or Korea stood neutral, an America with Europe has a m…

I think if we take the recency bias, emotion and partisanship out of this, we can see that the United States has been trying to pivot away from Europe, under both democratic and republican administrations, for over a decade now.

The fact is Europe can afford to defend itself. This isn't the cold war were the soviet military was 800km from Paris. It's 2025, where the shell of the Russian army is struggling to capture territory 2,400km from Paris.

If the USA in the 70s was willing to thaw relations with China to offset the USSR, it will surely thaw relations was the Russian Federation now to offset China. I do not think European arms production is a significant factor in any US/China conflict; any "Taiwan Emergency" will just by a factor of geography not be a long protracted conflict, and has much more potential to flair up into alarming levels than even this one.

Re: Macron to open debate on extending French nuclear protection to European allies

#244

Post by ssssvd » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 1:40 AM UTC

yks wrote: post #236

ssssvd wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what’s the plan here, exactly? Keep Ukraine on life support for a decade, hoping Russia collapses under sanctions? Cuba’s still standing after 60 years. Iran after 40. The USSR took decades to fall — and none of them had China bankrolling their survival. Russia’s economy bleeds, but it’s not cut off. China sends tech and machines, India buys the oil, and Europe keeps quietly paying top dollar for gas through backd…

The Westerners have been tirelessly making excuses about how it's impossible to defeat Russia for a while now, so forgive me for not being impressed, but the proposition is quite simple really — if you don't want to support Ukrainians fighting for themselves against Russia today, Ukrainians will be sent to fight poles and others for Russia tomorrow. Of course as it's clear now, the US wouldn't defend Poland either, f…

Funnily enough, this is exactly Putin’s own logic — just flipped.

“We had to support those rebel Ukrainian states so Ukrainians fight them, not us.” “We had to preemptively disarm Ukraine, or we’d be fighting Ukrainians inside Russia within five years.”

As for China — surely they’d be nervous if Taiwan was one-third of their population and shared a land border.

Ukraine isn’t just a border state, it’s alt-Russia, as Taiwan is alt-China (and so was Hong-Kong). A competing civilizational project trying to jump off the imperial train and build a Polish-style normal nation-state — and that makes it an existential threat. Not because Ukraine is strong, but because it offers Russians a dangerous glimpse of an alternative path — a Russian identity without the empire.

Re: Macron to open debate on extending French nuclear protection to European allies

#245

Post by Aloisius » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 1:41 AM UTC

dtech wrote: post #10

zzzeek wrote: post #2

yeah, they're going to have to build a new NATO-like alliance and go it alone. Seems like it would be a good thing if the EU had some military teeth of their own to give them more leverage in all the Bad Things going on now.

The EU already also has a mutual defense clause extremely similar to NATO though

We saw the EU's commitment to Article 42(7) when France invoked it in response to the Bataclan attacks.

To say it was underwhelming would be an understatement.

Re: Macron to open debate on extending French nuclear protection to European allies

#246

Post by chronid » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 1:55 AM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #217

chronid wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NATO treaty doesn't imply in his wording any obligation for a military reaction to an invasion of a member of NATO. There's no penalty to just respond with a strongly worded letter, but there's an expectation an ally will react militarly. Will your allies trust you any longer if you just follow the letter of the treaty? I don't think they will. More critically, nor will anyone else. The US have historically posit…

One of the US's most recent foreign deployments is the Iraq War, which was based on a lie and extraordinarily unpopular among NATO members. I think abandoning Ukraine is very bad, and I agree it's unreasonable to expect Europe to be OK with it, but the US's current position in NATO was never based on a foundation of good behavior or uniform foreign policy alignment.

There was effectively uniform foreign policy between the US and its allies for the last thirty years, even under the first Trump presidency, and this included at least a certain degree of interventionism (first Iraq war, Yugoslavia...) which solidified international institutions (differently from the second Iraq war and Afghanistan, which weakened them).

Even if they didn't agree, EU nations and Canada at least sent their soldiers to die in Iraq and Afghanistan anyway.

Why are you surprised people expect such policy alignment after thirty years of it?

Why are you surprised people consider this a betrayal of what NATO stood for in the past, as a proxy of the democracies of the west? Just because there is no violation of the letter of the treaty?

Re: Macron to open debate on extending French nuclear protection to European allies

#247

Post by arandomusername » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 2:05 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #235

arandomusername wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, it doesn't because America is not deciding for Ukraine. America negotiates a deal with Russia, then sends the deal to Ukraine and it's up to them to take it or leave it. Just because you don't like how the negotiating is done does not mean that US is disrespecting Ukraine's sovereignty.

> America negotiates a deal with Russia, then sends the deal to Ukraine and it's up to them to take it or leave it Come on. > because you don't like how the negotiating is done does not mean that US is disrespecting Ukraine's sovereignty We're treating their borders as violable in the negotations. That violates the deal. The fact that many Americans have jumped the shark when it comes to honest dealing sort of underw…

US does not force any of the deal onto Ukraine, thus not violating the deal. US has negotiated a deal and offered it to Ukraine, who, in their full right, have not signed on.

US is still a reliable partner - which is why many countries continue to be in partnership with it. Fact is, US had made no promise to protect Ukraine.

Re: Macron to open debate on extending French nuclear protection to European allies

#248

Post by yks » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 2:38 AM UTC

ssssvd wrote: post #244

yks wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Westerners have been tirelessly making excuses about how it's impossible to defeat Russia for a while now, so forgive me for not being impressed, but the proposition is quite simple really — if you don't want to support Ukrainians fighting for themselves against Russia today, Ukrainians will be sent to fight poles and others for Russia tomorrow. Of course as it's clear now, the US wouldn't defend Poland either, f…

Funnily enough, this is exactly Putin’s own logic — just flipped. “We had to support those rebel Ukrainian states so Ukrainians fight them, not us.” “We had to preemptively disarm Ukraine, or we’d be fighting Ukrainians inside Russia within five years.” As for China — surely they’d be nervous if Taiwan was one-third of their population and shared a land border. Ukraine isn’t just a border state, it’s alt-Russia, as T…

> Funnily enough, this is exactly Putin’s own logic — just flipped

Except Ukrainians ask the West for support to fight for themselves, so the West is given a rarest opportunity to do a morally right thing while furthering its own interests.

Re: Macron to open debate on extending French nuclear protection to European allies

#249

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 2:46 AM UTC

chronid wrote: post #246

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the US's most recent foreign deployments is the Iraq War, which was based on a lie and extraordinarily unpopular among NATO members. I think abandoning Ukraine is very bad, and I agree it's unreasonable to expect Europe to be OK with it, but the US's current position in NATO was never based on a foundation of good behavior or uniform foreign policy alignment.

There was effectively uniform foreign policy between the US and its allies for the last thirty years, even under the first Trump presidency, and this included at least a certain degree of interventionism (first Iraq war, Yugoslavia...) which solidified international institutions (differently from the second Iraq war and Afghanistan, which weakened them). Even if they didn't agree, EU nations and Canada at least sent…

I'm not sure why you keep saying "surprised". I'm not surprised. But it's not the case that EU nations and Canada sent their soldiers to die in Iraq; France in particular sided with Russia to block the Security Council from authorizing military action, leading to substantial tensions with the US and widespread disapproval from the public on both sides. European demonstrations against the war remain one of the largest mass movements in history.

I don't think it was surprising that the Iraq War led to anti-American sentiment, I don't think it's surprising that the current about-face on Ukraine is leading to anti-American sentiment, and I won't be surprised when it happens again in the 2040s.

Re: Macron to open debate on extending French nuclear protection to European allies

#250

Post by watwut » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 3:27 AM UTC

clivestaples wrote: post #110

watwut wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thoughts are to NOT allow them to have time to rearm, get ready for another invasion, get another territory. And then again and again. That is all the peace right now would be - strategic pause so that Russia can get stronger for the next attack. Also, Trump is supporting Russia while attacking Europe, Canada, Mexico, Greenland ... . Trump talks about annexing parts of Europe (Greenland) and annexing Canada.

So by continuing to send more cash and weapons, it will eventually force Russia to retreat? I'm trying to understand what would secure victory.

Prevent further expansion and besides, yes, they are attritioning. Or were before they found new supporter and ally in the form of America.

Like common, Trump is not just stoping to send arms. He is doing everything he can to weaken west and empowers Russia.