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US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

ukrainetoday.org

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Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#401
post #46

Right now every buyer of American kit is feverishly evaluating non-US alternatives. Seriously, America, this is like Brexit but 1000x. A voluntary decision, taken with gusto, to chop off arms and legs and ears and fingers and whatnot, cut off the deadwood, be light and free, a lone vessel on the ocean of prosperity, free of the burden of the stupid foreigners who are the sole reason why everything was going wrong.

While I agree with you, I think the problem goes beyond military equipment. There’s a lot of risk now in doing business with America in every field, because it’s so unpredictable. Why get cloud or SaaS from the US if they’re one executive order away from being forced to break the GDPR — or shut off service completely, like Maxar in Ukraine. Why build supply chains through America if the price of raw materials can arb…

It's not a matter of risk, it's done.

I work in IT. We already have several customers projects (various profiles) that paused all their ongoing projects to _start_ migrating their servers and hosted services away from US-based/owned ones towards EU-based ones.

Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#402

I genuinely wish there was an understandable endgame for the USA. The USA seems to be throwing its weight around but I’m not entirely sure to what end. This headline/article is just one area where the US is behaving perplexingly. I understand that Trump wants Zelenskyy to sign the minerals deal and that implicitly there’s security guarantees. Fine there’s at least a through line. However; by demonstrating that the US…

Where was it requested/required to spend 2% on solely American armaments?

Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best explanation I've heard is that this (almost) half of the US population doesn't care if it hurts a bit, as long as it hurts the other half of the US population more.

My mental model is that it will hurt the S&P500 but benefit the working class.

Since the Trump administration took over, Tesla shares and Musk’s wealth are up by hundreds of billions, tens of thousands of working class are fired, prices are up, tariffs are making imports more expensive, welfare help programs are cut, retaliatory tariffs are reducing exports.

How is your mental model literally backwards from reality?

Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#405

Who would have thought that the POTUS would be the person to kick foreign arms industries into sixth gear?

He has been pretty vocal about exactly that. He said multiple times that European countries must increase defense budgets significantly.

Yes, but he said that in the context of buying American products. He wanted the American economy to benefit from arms sales, not a more independent Europe.

Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#406

The article is written to give the reader the impression only the US can reprogram the jamming system and the comments seem to mostly be taking it at face value. In the very Forbes article the OP's article cites it links to info about this F-16 reprogramming effort[1], showing it was collaboration between the US/Norway/Denmark and that the US electronic warfare team wasn't familiar with the system, yet within two wee…

[flagged]

Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#407
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with you, I think the problem goes beyond military equipment. There’s a lot of risk now in doing business with America in every field, because it’s so unpredictable. Why get cloud or SaaS from the US if they’re one executive order away from being forced to break the GDPR — or shut off service completely, like Maxar in Ukraine. Why build supply chains through America if the price of raw materials can arb…

Yes, I agree. There was a view that Trump is at least transactional - that so long as you pay (NATO defense spending target, US weapons etc) he'll have your back,.in a subscription basis. Likewise outside defense I guess. But that's going up in smoke rather quickly.

Yes, exactly.

I'm beginning to think that being somewhat reined in by the Republican establishment in his first term, a weakness that the MAGA-crowd sought to correct, ultimately worked in his favor in protecting him from his poor instincts.

It's like he doesn't understand that trust and reliability have a real, tangible value. That's simply a misjudgment. Maybe he actually believes that America is so exceptionally strong that any sort of cooperation ultimately works against it?

It's terribly sad and depressing frankly. A small part of me still has hope that this is going to end badly, in that it turns into a useful lesson, but not badly enough to cause lasting damage. I might be naive.

Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#409
post #111

@dang - why flagged?

Politics is explicitly marked as off-topic for HN in the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

From the rules:

> Most stories about politics, [...] unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon

The US killing trust in its export of arms is definitely a new phenomenon. It breaks with +80 years of policy.

All startups in SV will now have to consider if they will have an export market at all.

Which non-US companies would now like to be dependent on whatever export restrictions that Trump might make up in the future?

Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#410
post #228

And the story continues. This means that no country will want to buy F16s. If you don't get support they are useless. They are eroding really fast the US shine and trust in the world. This is going to have a massive effect on the US economy, internal consumption will not save it. This is the end of an empire while its rich kings are golfing every weekend on the taxpayer dime using federal and local resources. I am re…

I always thought that the American Empire would be dismantled when it elected a leftist steeped in anti-imperialist ideology who wanted to better the world. Nope, turns out that the American Empire is being dismantled by something else entirely. A subset of the populace that feels jealous of those with more and scared of social change, reacting to try to hurt their fellow country men? A megalomaniac leader who is som…

I really hope this realization makes you reconsider your distrust of "leftists steeped in anti-imperialist ideology", and whatever ideology you carry.
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