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U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine

wsj.com

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Re: U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine

#581

Post by RealityVoid »

halper wrote: post #514
iammjm wrote: post #325

"Free world" my ass. As a European, the US has always been my favorite country and I've been basically universally pro-US all my life. The Recent US decisions managed to turn it 180 degrees for me, in a matter of basically a couple of months. As I consider myself to be a more or less statistical normie, I assume theres many, many more people like me. So: fuck US & eat shit, go suck Putins dick while the EU & the rest…

With all due respect to your experience and with sincerity, I must ask: did you miss Trump's first presidency? Surely that was the time to become disillusioned with the USA, if not before?

Speaking from my own experience... I was hoping Trump was an anomaly. That the US would have the good sense of NOT voting the guy that directly tried to subvert the electoral process. That somehow the American public still had a moral compass and that the many Americans I admired were representative for their country. I was obviously a fool.

Otherwise, I kept saying to anyone who had ears around me what a grave danger Trump is. I've been doing this for more than 10 years. I saw him as a corrupt asshole since reading his book "The art of the deal" more than 20 years ago. He came highly recommended in the sphere of the then emerging "manosphere"/ PUA culture of the 2000's (I cringe at my own stupidity and shallowness now).

Re: U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine

#582

Post by RealityVoid »

lfmunoz4 wrote: post #443
belter wrote: post #354

Richard Nixon on Soviet Union “We must be ever watchful when dealing with regimes whose actions have often betrayed their promises.” Ronald Reagan “I call the Soviet Union an evil empire.” George H. W. Bush on Russia “The history of deception and coercion reminds us that trust is never given lightly—it must be earned and continuously verified.” George W. Bush “We call on Moscow to immediately cease its aggressive act…

[flagged]

How in god's green earth do you square that with the threat of invading Canada and Greenland? It's a sham, and you've been fooled.

Re: U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine

#583

Post by seanmcdirmid »

rsynnott wrote: post #473
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think the Chinese have been sitting still for the last 10 years, and I doubt they will sit still for the next 10 years.

I mean, see Doctor Strangelove. If you have a doomsday weapon, that’s only helpful if you _tell_ people about it! If China had built loads of warheads, they’d hardly keep that secret, as most of these point of having loads of warheads is for everyone else to know you had them. Realistically, by the time China and France got on the nuclear scene, doctrine had shifted from “nuclear torpedos, nuclear guns, nuclear landm…

I meant that your data is out of date, and China has moved quickly in the last ten years. They went in the last ten years from being able to just hit the west coast to hitting all the way up to the Midwest, do you think they won’t have some amount of increased coverage in the next, especially with their space program accelerating their ICBM program?

The truth is that China hit MAD awhile ago and doesn’t really need to play up or even build much more on its nuclear arsenal. They are better off investing in conventional warfare for the near term, and especially in new arms like drones that give them an actual advantage in future conflicts.

Re: U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine

#584

Post by lern_too_spel »

hnpolicestate wrote: post #407
beretguy wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Ukraine's parliament overwhelmingly supported the EU-UA agreement. It had the support of the populace. Yanukovych was going to be replaced at the next election because of it, and his violent suppression of the protests only sped that up. There was no need for western involvement to make that happen, and your belief that there was is an evidence-free conspiracy theory. https://euvsdisinfo.eu/report/us-launched-euromaidan-to-weak...

Re: U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine

#585

Post by rKarpinski »

amluto wrote: post #381
csomar wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not a petty tantrum though it might look like one. You have to consider that the incumbents have won the US elections, that's not a small feat. What many people are missing is that if the US main challenger is China and beating Russia is a far thing, then it makes sense for the US to ally with Russia against China. For that, the US might need to give Russia something (some EU countries?) for this hustle and als…

How would Russia help “contain” China? China’s actual territorial ambitions have never been especially wide ranging, and I really doubt that Russia would make a credible deal to help keep China’s military out of Taiwan. To the contrary, China’s increasing power is economic . They out-manufacture everyone. They appear to be beating the US at its own recent games (BYD seems to be ahead of Tesla!). They have plenty of s…

> How would Russia help “contain” China?

They have a giant land border. An adversarial Russia-China relationship is expensive for both powers, and is a major reason for the USSR going bankrupt in the cold war (also the USSR propping up Vietnam after China invaded in 79).

Re: U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine

#586

Post by RealityVoid »

sireat wrote: post #316
rdm_blackhole wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have trouble following the logic here. Putin has not been able to conquer the whole of Ukraine after 3 years, but somehow, suddenly, he will be able to conquer all of the Baltic states without breaking a sweat? So which is it? Is the Russian army fighting with shovels or are they a ferocious horde that is unstoppable? Those two things cannot be true at the same time. I am getting tired of people parroting this narr…

As someone living in the Baltics, most people here are fully aware that when Putin chooses to attack we would have trouble holding the mythical 72 hours for full NATO help to arrive. If NATO help is not coming it is over quite quickly. You have to remember that Ukraine has/had 40 million population, Baltics has about 7 million. We also do not have the miles of mined out defenses that Ukraine has had since 2014. We do…

If it's any consolation, the buildup of the invasion preceding the war in Ukraine was visible well before the actual invasion, so probably EU would have time to act.

And, Russia would give you a breather of 1-2 years after the fall of Ukraine in order to build up their stocks.

Re: U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine

#587

Post by RealityVoid »

TrackerFF wrote: post #171
rdm_blackhole wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have trouble following the logic here. Putin has not been able to conquer the whole of Ukraine after 3 years, but somehow, suddenly, he will be able to conquer all of the Baltic states without breaking a sweat? So which is it? Is the Russian army fighting with shovels or are they a ferocious horde that is unstoppable? Those two things cannot be true at the same time. I am getting tired of people parroting this narr…

Baltics could very well be on the menu, but it will not be this year. Not next year. Not the year after that. Right now, Russia needs to rebuild their military as much as they can, and get their real economy back in shape. My prediction is that IF Ukraine is being forced into a shitty peace agreement, Russia will spend the next 3-4 years rebuilding everything they can, and then when Trump has 6 months left, they'll g…

I agree, I just think the estimation is on the order of 2 years. But, yes, Putin might wait it a bit more in order to see the maximum damage that Trump can do to the US. Same as last time.

Re: U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine

#588

Post by onlypassingthru »

nanotuber wrote: post #571

Comments are disappointing for hacker news standard. This pause was predictable (I predicted it in Nov 2024). It's negotiation leverage to steer toward an immediate resolution of the war. An immediate resolution of the war cuts losses: Ukraine loses territory, but keeps its sovereignty. The challenge is that there aren't many other viable paths. An indefinite forever war, with high risk of a Ukraine state collapse, i…

> The idea that Russia's economy will collapse is highly unlikely.

Yeah, no way it's collapsing when the central bank rate is at 21%.[0]

Totally unrelated, but might I interest you in a lucrative land opportunity in Florida?

[0]https://apnews.com/article/russia-interest-rates-0fa1d7385be...

Re: U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine

#589

Post by pcthrowaway »

rayiner wrote: post #253
beretguy wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Like most Asians and most Muslims, I have been opposed to the “rules based international order” my entire adult life. American proxy wars have caused tremendous damage around the world. And I’m incredibly proud we finally have an American President who realizes they don’t serve American interests either. This is not a new sentiment and it caused by Russian social media propaganda: https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,…

> And I’m incredibly proud we finally have an American President who realizes they don’t serve American interests either

Seriously? The current president is even more on-board than the previous ones with using Israel as a U.S. proxy. Just because he's also in bed with Putin doesn't mean he opposes American imperialism.

Re: U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine

#590

Post by throwaway48476 »

throwaway48476 wrote: post #447
foldr wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve seen that interview, but I’m surprised anyone watching it following the fall of the Berlin Wall and Glasnost would find it remotely credible. Soviet attempts to turn Americans and Western Europeans into Marxist-Leninnists who supported Communism were abject failures. The “brainwashing” went overwhelmingly in the other direction: citizens of Communist countries ended up wanting, by and large, to adopt the Western…

Western countries were full of communists before the liberal-tankie split. After ww2 the communists almost won the elections in Italy. It wasn't until the communists started pasting protesters with tanks that it became no longer socially acceptable to be a communist. After the failure of world revolution only the subversion program remained. This was widely successful and is still ongoing.

A bunch of Americans went to join the communist experiment in the 20s and 30s. They saw what a disaster it was but the newspapers covered it up. The NYT famously declared that there was no famine in ukraine while millions starved. Of course the journalists were friends with Stalin.
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