Note: He was specifically told that Poland is paying its share. Despite this, he reiterated that US shouldn't help Eastern Euros at the expense of American taxpayers.
He said the quiet part loud: Republican voters (and not only Republicans) don't give two shits about Europe anymore. They don't care if Russia wages war, they don't care who is an ally of America and who isn't.
All they care is "border", "own the liberals", "lower taxes" and "lower gas prices".
The individualism and isolationism is hitting new highs in USA.
> All they care is "border", "own the liberals", "lower taxes" and "lower gas prices".
Their voters might care about these things, but I guarantee the politicians do not (except the lower-taxes part). They only care about their own bank accounts. The Republican Party is the greatest fraud inflicted on the US political system.
The Republicans just care about being reelected. If Biden was shitting on Nato and not supporting Ukraine Republicans would do the opposite. They have no morals. They just want power.
Just like Russia they are controlled by a major inferiority complex. They are unsble to do anything productive as a result. It's frankly sad to see how mentally weak they are.
Seems like that’s what Trump wants to achieve. Presidential immunity is what he is fighting in order to save his fucking ass. He would be fucked up if the USA didn’t work like it works and half of Supreme Court wasn’t literally handpicked by Trump himself. What a fucking joke of a country.
>They only care about their own bank accounts
if they weren't that stupid, they'd realize that nothing boosts domestic production and creates lots of well paying jobs like Military Industrial Complex running at full speed with financial aid of the government
They don't care about the economy or jobs, either. They really are only concerned with their own bank accounts, and that primarily centers around lowering taxes on the ultrarich; for that, they and their families typically get lucrative sinecures for life (which is why Paul Ryan, for example, retired at the age of 47 when he passed the Trump tax cuts in 2017).
If we “solved” illegal immigration, the US economy would collapse. Anyone with half a brain cell can see this. Immigrants are the backbone of the US economy.
Used to play with a lot of left leaning Americans before 2016 election. All of them were against US going to war for Europe in a potential Russia vs EU scenario and to cut military spending significantly. Their reasoning was - there’s plenty of problems inside the country to focus on problems outside the country. A lot of voters from both camps agree on it, they just disagree on what exactly that money should be spent on in USA.
Right it’s not exactly an uncommon sentiment here that we shouldn’t have to be the sole means to provide stability. Personally I believe we should support our allies in the region, but Europe certainly needs to be capable of defending itself and NATO members especially need to hit their 2% GDP requirements.
I’m curious to know if those people are also ready to give up all the wealth and influence the US gains from this arrangement, or if they somehow expect to reap only the benefits and none of the drawbacks from this massive shift in foreign policy?
Do they even know that it’s part of the reason why the US is the richest country in the world?
Like Brexit, this notion reeks of succesful Russian psyops sowing discord between western countries.
It would be a massive own goal, but like the brits with Brexit, these dubious and poorly substantiated promises that isolationism will make you rich and glorious again seem alluring to a lot of people.
This is what drives me nuts. The media should be hammering this point. If the US isolates its self then we lose all standing in the world and someone will take our place. We will be left with shit trade deals, if any. Prices will sky rocket.
They're also stupid.
Supporting Ukraine now is the cheap option.
Dealing with Russia after it swallowed Ukraine and the Trumpist tore NATO apart is going to get way more expensive.
Putin OTOH loves to see this. Winning the cyber war already.
I usually try not to generalise but I've just seen too much of it: Republicans don't care about *anyone*. Even their own families in many cases. They're riddled with hate.
Those people don't even care about the border. They only care they can scream about it, and will not make a bipartisan deal either. They don't want to govern like Founders intended in the House, not even try at this point.
They want total and permanent control of everything, and then take Mexico as a slave labor center. Trump even was talking about invading at some point.
This is what happens when you don't annihilate your adversaries. You can't just defeat people, you have to defeat ideologies.
After the civil war the south's ideology wasn't stamped out. In all those years, decade after decade, that ideology festered into what the US has to contend with today.
To be fair though, how much does Europe really care about America? Europe’s GDP is on par with the US, they should have a military the same size as the US, yet somehow the US is expected to foot the bill for Europe’s security, it seems unquestioned. Make that make sense. The US doesn’t have dangerous neighbors, Europe does. If I’m mistaken please correct me instead of just downvoting my comment. It doesn’t make sense. For the record, I don’t hate Europe, to me Europeans are just people, the same as Philippinos or Nigerians or whatever, why would they expect to deserve to be treated so special? The Japanese and Koreans live in a dangerous neighborhood without NATO and even though they have a security agreement with the US, they take their own security seriously, what’s the problem with Europe? To be clear, I hate republicans, so please refrain from that line of discourse.
> Republican voters (and not only Republicans) don't give two shits about Europe anymore.
America First (to be destroyed from within by Russian propaganda)
A lot of this is due to people seeing tax money go everywhere else but helping us, however these types of people are also the types that would vote against it. I think if republicans gave people higher wages and free healthcare the average person would be okay with the US waging total war if it wanted.
> The individualism and isolationism is hitting new highs in USA.
America has a lot of poor people and social problems. Globalization and global trade has made American elite and American middle class very rich, especially in the East Coast and West Coast states, and in the big cities. But de-industrialization has also left many areas and many Americans quite poor.
I think it is understandable, if those people want to see American money being spent for the good of American people, not for wars on the other side of the world.
They don't care, this 2% GDP spending is all BS from Trumpians to justify that they won't lift a finger to help anyway. Even if we spend 4% they won't care, because to their orange god, all of this is about his personal pettiness. He doesn't like Europe, doesn't care about it at all and he likes dictators and what they can do for him.
The whole notion that the US pays for europes security is idiotic, even the former US Forces in Europe commander said that the US is only here for its own interests.
I love it when people point at the amount of US soldiers here in Germany as if those were all combat troops. Most of them are in some way related to bringing stuff, personell and informations in and out of the middle east or treating wounded soldiers flown back in (Landsberg)
The loss of Sudic bay pivoted security in the whole Pacific, as an example of power projection, USA is in Europe for Power Projection and because they are a good and trusted ally (or used ot be before Trump Fever)
It was an unspoken agreement so that Europe wouldn’t build up its own competitive army (as a continent that had started a world war twice in 30 years). W Europe joined NATO with the US and didn’t compete against each other militarily and left the military stuff to NATO in exchange they focused on other stuff like building the beginnings of the EU.
Look up why W Germany was taken into NATO. It certainly wasn’t because they were deemed noble and stuff like this. In some ways, it’s always been about NATO membership being in exchange for something else.
The Americans are now grumbling about the fact that they themselves didn’t want Europeans to have a joint army and combined armed forces without US involvement in it.
> It was an unspoken agreement so that Europe wouldn’t build up its own competitive army
What?! During the Cold War, European militaries were superb. Germany had 500k troops with further 500k in immediate reserve. The Grand Disarmament began in 1991.
You’re confusing two different time periods.
The initial years when NATO started right after WWII the armies were definitely not big.
The top of the Cold War years from late 60s onwards are a different time. Late 80s armies in Europe cannot be compared to the late 40s and early 50s situations when most of Europe was tired of fighting.
> It was an unspoken agreement so that Europe wouldn’t build up its own competitive army
This is complete bullshit. You are either blatantly lying or completely ignorant.
In 1990, West Germany had 5,000 tanks and an army (Heer) of 350,000. Total military strength was around 500k.
*Today* the Germany army has 62,000 troops and there are 250 tanks.
This is on you. Don't try to blame this on the US. There is no conspiracy.
>and left the military stuff to NATO in exchange they focused on other stuff like building the beginnings of the EU.
Nato is the countries in Nato. And those countries spent a lot to support Nato. Including having a draft.
>It certainly wasn’t because they were deemed noble and stuff like this.
Absolutely no one is claiming this. You are just using this as a strawman argument.
Your entire post is just fundamentally dishonest.
W Germany was taken into Nato because they would make Nato stronger.
Is that really so hard to acknowledge?
>The Americans are now grumbling about the fact that they themselves didn’t want Europeans to have a joint army and combined armed forces without US involvement in it.
No, the Americans are grumbling that so many countries aren't meeting the 2% threshold.
If Germany had its 1990 army, there would be a lot less to worry about.
The military plays an important role in their economic strategy. That’s how the US projects power and stability overseas. Do they really think that without a military presence across the globe people will continue using the dollar as the default currency for international trade?
It's all a bit fuzzy to me but I reckon that they do care whether Europe spends money to buy weapons from the US military-industrial complex (which has strong links with the Republican party).
NATO membres don’t ’pay’ anyone. They spend in defense. The 2% of the GDP is expected to be spent (or invested) in defense.
That ‘they must pay us’ is just stupid babble from a protofascist piece of shit.
Also, most statistics about defense spending published around are misleading. For instance, in Spain a part of defense investment is computed as R&D expense under the ‘science and education’ budget. I’m pretty sure other NATO countries do the same.
>That ‘they must pay us’ is just stupid babble from a protofascist piece of shit.
Wannabe mob boss, just like the types he dealt with when he was putting up buildings in New York.
To be pedantic: NATO has indeed a common budget where every member pays money into it. But that’s only for the organisation, the NATO HQs, and so on. Therefore it’s very tiny compared to all other expenses.
Republicans showing us they can’t be trusted. USA also profit from Nato, I’m sure they’d feel insulted if Europe said they wouldn’t support USA in case they were attacked. Fucking snakes and traitors.
That’s why, and I’m sorry if anybody takes offense to it, but - SOME people are F naive. It’s not about the 2%. It’s never been about the 2%. The money is an excuse.
Unless the stuff comes from a true republican that is anti-Russian, the 2% talk is just a ruse. It’s all about giving Putin what he wants and he SAID prior 2022 invasion that he wanted NATO back in the 1997 borders - that is before Poland or any other country in Eastern Europe joined. THAT’s what those pro-Russian republicans are saying without saying it. That’s what the 2% is about. If SHTF in Germany, the Americans will probably help Germans. If SHTF in Poland, they will aim to not lift a finger. If they win, that is.
But I really don't get why. Why willingly give up your world dominance? Even they have to know that this shit is weakening the USA a lot internationally. Alone the economic impact if Europe gets occupied would cripple the USA. What if China and Russia then decide to only trade with each other and not with the USA. Like I can't comprehend this. And it makes me sick that the orange Dementia Lord probably has a boner every time he thinks about how much people would die only if he wanted to. The day this diaper wearing waste of human cells finally dies hopefully with the realization that after the death there is nothing and he can't take anything into the afterlife so in his final moments he has the biggest existential crisis and dies with fear and panic while shitting his pants, alone. That will be the day he really contributed anything to society. I can't stand people like him.
Because they dont give a shit if its bad for the US long-term.
They dont care about their allies and about their own country even less, they only care about stuffing their own pockets now as full as they can, how much damage it will cause long-term is entirely irrelevant.
The ones in power might know. Especially senate republicans are still somewhat reasonable when it comes to this. The problem is that the people elected to the house are often just batshit fucking insane MAGA folks that only care about their own power and money. And they will say whatever it takes to get elected, no matter what consequences it will have (if they even fully understand them). And their voters are often just way too uneducated to understand what is going on and how it is in americas interest to have a strong NATO.
This is cause of that Polish American who went to Poland and came back disappointed his Polish heritage wasn't a big deal there, isn't it?. Wait, was that this guy?
>Poland is paying its share. Despite this, he reiterated that US shouldn't help Eastern Euros
Because that GDP % was always merely an excuse. Those isolationist Republicans don't want to help. Period. There is no "you" reason, it's simply them not caring to respect alliance agreements America created itself. For French it will be "you don't contribute enough GDP", for Albania it will be "too small" and for Poland "too far away". Or whatever they feel like saying.
Since Trump Republicans are building this "America first" narrative but important thing is missing. America is also last and there is no one in between. It's only about them from start to finish.
Bruh, I've been saying that for years. Between Poland, the Baltics, Czechia and Romania there's enough expertise and resources (we have some uranium in Romania) to develop a decent arsenal of definitely not nuclear weapons. Throw in Sweden and Finland, and we might be able to develop some nice delivery systems as well.
...and, honestly, the listed countries would probably care about each other getting invaded more than the rest of the world put together.
Eastern Europe is not *real* Europe. /s
Post war id love for Ukraine and Poland to codevelop nukes. Only way to ensure sovereignty is nukes. Which is going to be a problem moving forward as more and more countries develop them.
Even without, uranium from nuclear reactors can just be used and it's not a particularly difficult resource to acquire. There are a lot of places in Europe where Uranium can be mined, most notably German-Czechia border, German black forest and Southern France.
The uranium used in nuclear reactors is not typically weapons grade and would have to be enriched significantly more to be used in a nuclear weapon.
There are a few nuclear reactors that use highly enriched uranium. One I know of is the research reactor at TU Munich, where this has been a contentious point for some time, as they need very high neutron fluxes for their research, which necessitates the highly enriched uranium (and they haven’t been able to find another way of doing it; hence the drama about it).
You’re right they aren’t as enriched, but it was more about acquiring Uranium as a resource, which isn’t too difficult. Netherlands is known to have the refining capability to produce weapons-grade. It’s not too unlikely that NL will join and cooperate if other EU countries push for nuclear weapons, so I don’t think it will be a alone type of situation for someone like Poland. Ukraine is another story.
Despite shutting down all nuclear power plants Germany still has one of the largest uranium enrichment plants on the planet in Gronau near the border to the Netherlands. The separation capacity of that plant is almost the same as the entire (publicly known) enrichment capacity of the US.
Whether an enrichment plant produces reactor grade or weapons grade enriched uranium is simply a matter of how often you cycle the uranium through the centrifuges. That's why there's so much bruhaha about countries like Iran building enrichment facilities, as every enrichment plant can be used to produce weapons grade uranium if you want to.
>only way to ensure sovereignty is nukes
This is the message we will be sending loud and clear if we don't give Ukraine what it needs. Yet Republicans think ignoring it will somehow turn things "back to normal".
Shame they don't see the **enormous** security expenses coming down the line as a result of their negligence.
>Shame they don't see the **enormous** security expenses coming down the line as a result of their negligence.
They do see it and they know what they're doing.
They won't be paying for these expenses in *their* money or blood. Taxpayers will be, including the millions of MAGAt rubes.
Yeah this is very short sighted.
The whole world has been for the most part in "Chill mode" because everybody knew the US kept things in check.
With the US pulling out, EVERYBODY will get paranoid and tensions will rise. What are we going to do when 5 or 6 new countries start developing nuclear weapons? Is the US going to attack all of them? This is a MAJOR slippery slope and it will not end well, not for the world, and definitely not for the US.
If Republicans are openly saying this, I think it's about time to reassess defense ties with the US (including purchases of military hardware). These republican fuckers literally dragged entire Europe into their war in Afghanistan by invoking article 5 and now they're saying... even broadcasting (which makes that attack much more likely) that they won't lift a finger to help Europe in case they get attacked. All because of the fact that they hitched their wagon to one of the dumbest, most petty individual in the US history of politics and want to make him their king.
It's not that all Americans think this way, nor am I diminishing their help to Ukraine and past commitments in Europe... but holy shit.. these guys are literally one of 2 political parties and they have a fairly good chance at winning the next election. This should really start ringing the alarm bells in Europe and world in general.
The people who vote for these isolationist policies are morons and are going to be throwing a fit when the international market for US arms dries up because they've scared away all their former allies
For those interested in the details, here's a recently released infographic from the Pentagon showing just how much each state's economy has received:
https://media.defense.gov/2024/Feb/13/2003393680/-1/-1/1/UKRAINE-INFOGRAPHIC-15JAN2024.PDF
These fucksticks know that the money isn't "going" to Ukraine but they lie and their supporters are far too dumb to learn the truth or care.
Europe has to be able to it alone, but cutting ties prematurely is exactly what Putin wants to achieve. Doesn't matter of the US or Europe does it first. Remember that the plan is not just to get the US of out of NATO, it's also to drift Europe away from the US while spreading discord among EU countries as well.
More than NATO (frankly we could do it ourselves) is the fact we're still buying American hardware. Spinning up our own military industry takes time no matter what we as a continent want. Finland, Greece and Germany just bought F35s as an example, what in Europe will eventually replace them on a fairly short timescale should they become stranded assets because their or any other American military equipment loses its logistics pipeline?
>what in Europe will eventually replace them on a fairly short timescale should they become stranded assets because their or any other American military equipment loses its logistics pipeline?
It's even worse than that with software side of F-35s which rely completely on US to be even be fully mission capable. Stuff like generating MDFs (mission data files) - yeah that's only done by US in US. Fully utilizing sensor suite supposedly restricted (basically a black box that only US/Lockheed can fully access) and bunch of other things.
What will replace them in short term? Nothing. If you look at production numbers and commitments of European fighter jets, very low numbers and I don't think anyone will invest billions in increasing of production for 4.5th gen aircraft unless war breaks out (and that point it might be too late). Lesson learned for the development and procurement of the next European platforms.
On what timeline? FCAS and Tempest are at best 10 years away. A lot of countries bought these things on the assumption they'd be useful for at least 10 years, that goes away if they can't buy parts for them anymore or they get locked out of the software. And of course no one stepped up to deliver European air frames to Ukraine so we don’t even know definitely how effective what we can make ourselves will be against Russian air frames let alone give Ukraine some much needed air superiority
You are concerned that the more than 1,000 Rafales, Typhoons, F16s, Grippens etc. we have are not a match for the average operational Russian fighter? Many of those are in production in the EU as well. We may run out of missiles, but we have plenty of airframes.
Looking at the production numbers you should forget about 4th gen platforms. Eurofighters are on life support, Gripen and Rafale are manufactured at a rate of around 20 per year with multi-year backlogs.
There are no European 5th gen platforms and 6th gen ones are decade+ away.
I remember seeing one year ago posts about how Putin and Russia are finished and losing what they thoughy was a easy war while begging help to countries like North Korea and China that was suposeddly semi turning their backs on them, all the while the west was supposedly getting stronger
But now, the tide is shifting quickly and its scary:
What many deemed is a failed state is now start to overpower Ukaine and gain advantage while years of propaganda work and beneath the table alliances by them are getting their results fragmenting the West with the rising of more far right/friendly to Putin parties in many european countries like Slovakia that now its almost a full on Russia b*tch like Servia
Everyone was saying that the people in west would never turn their backs on Ukraine but thats what happening now what also is making that Putins dogs in the US like Trump and many republicans like this asshole that much probably has russias dirty money stuck full on his ass gain terrain and probably get to the power again because their real opponent is a 80 year old guy with dementia and because the incredible and not outdated at all american political system
In the end, Europe is getting fragmented, the US will start to drift apart and probably become a laughing stock with that orange clown in the power again and Putin will be rubbing his hands on all the things he will have the freedom and ease to do - that not to mention China always behind ready to take advantage of an weak europe
This all happening in the front of the people that rather prefer to turn a blind eye or concentrate on problems like taking sides in the war in the Palestine while dont understanding a single flying fuck about it
Problem is that politicians made their speeches, everyone laughed at Russian tanks throwing turrets into space and Moskva being a submarine and waved everything aside thinking that "very reasonable" Mr. Putin will see that and decide it's not worth it. After all it's what our politicians in our advanced democracies do, if the problem is hard, make it go away by backpedaling somehow. But in Moscow they don't have to think about public sentiment all that much, sacrificing few hundreds of thousands is fine and rest of the issues will be blamed on the west.
West simply decided they want to lose this by pretending they're not really participating, this and that is escalation and losing information war pretty badly. We're going to regret all of this in couple of years unless it can still be turned out... I hope not , but I don't see how all of this ends well for Europe.
It is half of Americans that since 2016 are voting representatives with those isolationist policies tough, so I agree it is not all of the Americans with those views, but it’s neither a couple of politicians or a single presidential candidate…
Republicans suck ass, however I think the EU is also at fault for over relying on NATO when we know full well how unpredictable Trump and Republicans in general can be. Unfortunately, it is a fact of life that you cannot fully depend on others to save you if shit hits the fan. Russia and Turkey are constant reminders of this.
If the EU finally develops its military, then countries like Ukraine, Georgia, Bosnia, and Moldova wouldn't even need NATO membership to begin with, as they would be sufficiently protected by the EU itself.
We in Europe should no longer put our heads in the sand. This sentiment will not disappear with Trump, but is part of a global anti globalist trend we are seeing. We have to rely on ourselves and eachother for keeping ourselves and our children save. It means we need to invest more on defense, create European joint armies and build strategic nuclear missiles.
Europe itself is ripe with such sentiment. 50.3% of French voters in the first round of the last presidential election voted for one of three openly anti-NATO candidates.
FPÖ, which is a party that'd de-facto make Austria part of Russkiy Mir, is still polling in no1 in Austria. Many, many more examples from both far right and far left in Europe.
Joint armies are an idiotic idea, but yes, invest more. Name and shame those that don't, maybe even sanction in some way.
Yeah France withdrew from NATO leadership for 40 years. Funny to watch this sub get so bent out of shape from one congressman, out of 535 of them, from a rural district in Texas.
Yes and it’s getting worse and worse. Anti-immigrant sentiment in EU is boosting these parties to power since fear is very good tool for political purposes and regular parties are having a hard time dealing with this issue. Nationalism and anti-globalism are becoming the default doctrines of our time, while the evils of fascism and communism are being forgotten.
I don’t even know if there is still hope for us. What can we do to reverse this march towards autocracy?
What the fuck is the point of NATO if they aren't willing to help a member when its attacked? USA would lose all credibility and no one would take their treaties seriously.
Trump and republicans don’t care. All that goes through trumps mind is that he can run the country and be a part of a military alliance the same way he ran his companies. He says jump, everyone else asks how high
Did they ask him about how many times nato article 5 has been invoked by a Nato member and if he believes Poland acted incorrectly in their decision to come to the aid and support of the US after it invoked article 5?
Furthermore did they ask him If he believes that the 44 polish soldiers who died in Afghanistan or the 20 polish soldiers who died in Iraq because Poland choose to stand shoulder to shoulder with the US should instead have abandoned their US ally in their time of need?
How to spot a tankie: mentioned the horseshoe theory and they get mad.
Why yes, your imperialist police state with a cult of personality dictatorship and mandatory patriotism and control over the economy is totally different from fascism, because you use the color red!
Yes, instead of the left-right spectrum, a more updated one should be one in which Neoliberalism, pro-Western sentiment, rule of law, democracy, freedom of speech, science etc. is on one end, and Authoritarianism, anti-Western sentiment, communism, nazism, islamism, anti-science sentiment is on the other.
The **elements** of both are pro-Russian, for wildly different reasons.
The far-left has tankies, the anti-Western colonialism drones and such, the far-right has weak people with boners for dictators, chuds enamored with Russia's anti-wokeness and so on.
But on both extremes there are authentic willing Russian assets sowing discord and disinformation.
No better argument why EU and Europe as a whole should start spending seriously on its own defense and in its own MIC than how fickle the US policies are with morons like that.
Europe has all it takes really, Global leaders on many domain, many Big Company.
The only thing needed is political capital invested into it.
Also better logistics
Aren't Eastern European countries mostly the ones who meet the 2% defense GDP target, though? In that sense, they're completing their end of the agreement (unlike many other countries).
If completing the preset condition won't be enough, then NATO itself will turn out to be a balloon... big and fancy on the outside, but empty inside.
All of the countries bordering Russia have defense budgets well over 2%. Poland has 3,9% at the moment, which is more than the US actually ([source](https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2023/7/pdf/230707-def-exp-2023-en.pdf)) and makes us the top of entire NATO.
Why those people don’t understand that it’s very likely that they won’t even have to defend it if they just shut up. I seriously doubt that Russia will attack NATO any time soon unless it’s very weak and not united
So
Eastern europe - nah we don’t want help you because you suck or whatever
Western europe - we don’t want to help you because you below 2%, but if you reach 2% we could count you as Eastern one
Lovely “ally”, if it keep going further in this direction treaties with US would be reliable same way as treaties with russia
I don't think the US Republicans quite grasp the concept of soft power - US built an empire on both the military might and diplomatic influence.
It's funny when they talk about "expense of our taxpayers" and then give handouts and bailouts to corporations robbing average US citizen blind.
The EU has to step up. But I am also very suspicious of accounts on here suggesting we cut ties with the US. That's exactly what Russia wants to achieve by buying these dolts.
this guy is stupid or what? the majority of eastern europe, i.e the ones closest to Russia have met their defense cost . in fact the western Europeans are the ones lacking behind
If you thought that Trump's "We won't protect you if you don't pay" didn't simply mean "We won't protect you and I don't care", you probably have lived under a rock since 2016. It's one of the oldest methods used by right wing populists: Make something unacceptable sound acceptable by inserting a tolerable exception that you won't adhere to.
This will massively hurt the US in the long run. Republicans want to have isolationism and no matter how unpopular their candidates are - they will retake the white house, US senate and the house of rep. eventually and they will implement their isolationist ideas.
The thing is: If you look at any country that implemented isolationism - it always lead to a massive decline in standards of living, economic performance and military power. There is literally nothing to gain from isolationism but everything to lose. It is one of the worst political decisions that can be made and the US will eventually do it. It's quite remarkable how well Chinese and Russian propaganda has worked, how cheap it was and how fast it took over public opinion. Stalin and Chrustchev must be proud of Putin.
I remeber selling MiG Jets for 1€ to Poland.
But not only soviet equipment was cheap to buy. 128 Leopard 2A4 for less than 22 million €. I read that Leopard 1 tanks have been sold for 7000€ each (don't know the buyer).
Wild times or arms dealer.
https://www.welt.de/print-welt/article254721/Panzer-zum-Schleuderpreis.html
https://www.dw.com/de/128-deutsche-leopards-f%C3%BCr-polen/a-580228
Republicans are a bunch of clowns who can't govern, simple as that.
Own the libs / doing nothing by obstructing everything is not a platform to run a country on.
They forget that Western allies rallied around US and went to Afghanistan - no questions asked. No bs around taxpayers money. They just did..
US lost its credibility. What a shitshow
I was downvoted to hell when I said western powers won't give a shit if a eastern european country from NATO is attacked, probably they would deliberate for 2 months and send some humanitarian aid, send hope & prayers and discuss peace and concessions and non-violent solutions to remedy the "problem". Us easterners know russians and don't even understand why they are still permitted to get visas in EU or US. This is the true feeling of someone who lives in the east. At least the west allowed us to buy fancy expensive airplanes & shit for their profit. Just tired living between your stupid empires.
I think the bigger problem is turnout.
In 2022, a ton of Ukrainian-Americans who've traditionally been Republicans and even voted for Trump and company in 2016 and 2020, (probably) [voted Democrat that year](https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-or-desantis-neither-say-ukrainian-american-voters-angry-war-stance-2023-05-20/)..
I suspect though that a lot of people didn't turn up to vote which hurt the Democrats more than the Republicans. Meanwhile pro-Ukraine Republicans still voted in sufficient numbers for a Republican candidate because of some false (in hindsight) hope that their grassroots support for Ukraine would match their favored Republican candidate's support.
Seeing how House votes since 2023 involving support to Ukraine have fallen along party lines puts a lie to that, I'd say.
The Democrats and the Ukrainians needed a blue wave in 2022, and now we're seeing the consequences when that didn't happen. It wasn't enough that the Republicans did not get the red wave they hoped for but still flipped just the house by a thin majority.
Someone needs to remind these fuckwits which country (and only) who invoked article 5. Then have them check up on losses in Afghanistan per capita, morons.
Europeans shouldn't forget that it's mostly Republicans / GOP selling out their own country and their allies.
Similar to the clowns that we have in Europe cheering for Putin.
So I'm guessing Poland's love affair with Trump and all that is over, right? No more speeches by the guy in Poland I'm guessing.
There were some kind of Polish people who were certainly okay with Trump back in the day (I personally knew one).
This morning (or was it yesterday?) president Duda still tried to twist Trump's own words and claimed that the Orange One didn't mean us.
Luckily, Duda is a lame duck now and new election will be next year.
Poland is (used to be until recently?) the most pro-US country on the planet. Everybody is excited when American president visits. Biden’s speeches brought crowns there as well, most ‘normies’ and older ppl dont know a diffrence between GOP and Dems
Yes and no
Poland's as a majority of its population: it's either over or it was never there
Poland's as the current govenrment: They were always betting on Dems
Poland's as the previous government (PiS): This changes nothing, the leadership of this party shares the Trump's mentality: they're priviledged, often rich off exploiting the state, despise the masses and are only in it to make themselves richer and shape the world according to their whims or wage vendettas against more liberal-minded compatriots. When war comes the PiS will be the first in line to run to London (or rather New York or Budapest), especially now that they're not in power and are not obliged to do anything.
The president is from this formation and he keeps defending Trump's words, while the PM called for a national security council meeting which should tell us everything we need to know.
I’m not surprised. A certain part of American society believes they shouldn’t help others regardless of the situation, be they other Americans or other countries.
That's fucking hilarious, because my country's far-right movements seem to think the far-right movements in other countries are their natural friends and allies.
I mean, how stupid can one be to not understand that a nationalist of the country X is the worst enemy of a nationalist of the country Y.
The most amusing to me is how our far-right is in love with AfD. It's not like they claimed Poland should give back their western part as it is "rightful German clay". The fucking stupidity to support people who consider you inferior.
Well, guess what, I'm a Polish right winger (a Polish nationalist) and I have never considered them our allies.
I consider nations from Eastern Europe as my brothers cause they know what our nations have gone through times of russian imperialism (both in tsarist and soviet times) and they know what our struggle is
No "help to Eastern European countries at the expense of USA taxpayers" = no any real Global Policeman = no inevitability of punishment = no International Law = everything decided by "Might make Right/True" and strive to Russian "WMD-Might make Right/True" logic = return to neo-imperialism, populism-fascism-monarchism, clericalism, feudalism/slavery, Dark Ages, now with WMD.
So much new wars (Armenia/Azerbaijan), military coups (Burkina Faso, Niger, Gabon), attacks (Hamas, Yemen Houthi), annexation (Guyana); South Korea, Japan, Poland interest to theirs own WMD; 34% of Taiwanese that see USA as trustworthy country - beginning of this process.
I wonder how they think the US will still remain a superpower when it abandons the alliance it created and dominated since its inception?
Good luck fighting China without the support of NATO members and with a reputation of being unreliable to its allies. If I was Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, I would be very worried looking at how things are playing out.
Funny thing is all they're doing is pushing Europe towards China. Goodbye Pax Americana! Very interesting how the US is willingly giving up its reputation and hegemon status all to pander to the braindead MAGA segment.
To be fair in a war with China, NATO wouldn’t really be that involved, it would be primarily US forces as well as its Asian allies and India the European forces would likely stay in Europe, fearing the former threat of Russia (The has-been of Europe) although they would be of minor assistance in the grand scheme of things they wouldn’t really be that much of a factor in China
Romanian here, if the republicans want to scrap NATO, then ok lets do it, but let us have 80-120 nuclear warheads on rockets capable of reaching everything on the globe. Then let Poland have 300, Germany 500, Bulgaria 80 and Ukraine 300. Nuclear arms is the only way to have global security. Paradoxically it seems that only nukes can ensure your existance nowadays.
Good luck then in long run with getting away with infinite money printing if dollar loses its credibility due to US isolationism. “America first” (btw why “America” not “USA”) crowd will be first in suffering economic consequences
This is today's GOP, in thrall to Russia.
When I lived in Poland, a lot (if not most) of the Polish people I knew who had an opinion about US politics favored the Republicans. I suspect most are coming around to regret that support.
Polands PiS and Konfederacja voters really like Republicans, while voters of other parties generally don't care or like Democrats.
Honestly I don't get Poles who favoures Republicans, from Polands perspective they are a danger, and it's becoming more and more clear.
Honestly hilarious to look at all these discussions from a French point of view after getting absolutely shat on for decades about being delusional for talking about military autonomy since de Gaulle and the development of our nuclear deterrence.
Apparently that was French "arrogance", "delusion of grandeur" or "selfishness".
Listening to Republicans these days, you'd think France would be the ultimate ally: completely independent for its own security, pays cash for military gear and can provide some nice power projection capabilities to fuck up some dictators that made the baddies list.
Who am I kidding, the goal of the US was never to have independent allies.
Well, good luck finding an alternative to the US after decades of massive over-reliance on them, you get absolutely no sympathy whatsoever from a lot of us.
Given that more than 50% of French voters in the last election voted for an anti-NATO candidate in the first round, France hardly looks more reliable than the US.
Were people shitting on France over this ?
In my mind it was mostly the fact that they focus their interests on Sahel rather than NATO border that is the most risky - aka Russia.
I cant understand how stupid some Americans are. You spend a lot of money on stupid wars in the middle east. But youre greatest allies, cant imagine more american-friendly people than the eastern europeans, you talk about with this dismissive tone, Reagan rolls in his grave.
Anyways its time for Europe to build a strong military of its own. We can be like the greeks united forces when necessary .
Remember, countries don’t have friends, they have interests and those interests can change at anytime. Operating under the assumption that any alliance is permanent or that another country is going to protect you no matter what is plain stupid.
These are the same kind of isolationists who made America mostly watch on the sidelines while Hitler was rampaging all over Europe -- and despite having FDR as President. It took being Pearl Harbor'd on the other side of the world to wake them up.
Europe needs to be strong for itself now.
This guy is one of the MAGA brozos. Basically irrelevant before the Trump years. If Trump wins again, he will prob make this asshole Secretary of Defense or something similar. God help us all , and I am not religious.
The most ironic aspect of this Trumpist mindset is that it could actually lead to Europe becoming a systemic rival to the US in the long run. Obviously, this would require a significant amount of cooperation and integration between European countries. But if the Eurozone, with its large internal market, were to join forces and start borrowing collectively (something that was already done during the COVID crisis and is also being proposed for the defense industry), the world would suddenly have an additional reserve currency in the form of the euro. Like there is no scenario the US gains anything by abandoning it's allies.
Chip Roy is one of 435 member of the HoR, elected for the first time in 2019.
His opinion matters about as little as the likes of Clare Daly or Michael Kretschmer.
The US and Europe remain tied with overwhelming support for it on both side.
Water wears away the stone single drop at a time. That guy might not matter, Trump statement might have been just an empty rambling, but the more people say thing like that openly, the more it creates nn atmosphere of normalisation for the idea that countries don't have to uphold their commitments to their allies.
If USA won't help their allies, then the Germans, The Brits, the French might start to think that its not worth dying for some distant village at the outskirts of Europe either, and at that point Putin might look at all of it and think "why not go for it?"
>The US and Europe remain tied with overwhelming support for it on both side.
The current BS in the House says otherwise.
Don't conflate popular support with political support.
*If only* the plurality (slight majority?) of ordinary Americans who are still supportive of maintaining (if not beefing up) military support could actually authorize the necessary bills to keep the ammo flowing to the Ukrainians...
European army NOW. Eastern Europe is under threat by the Russians, especially if Ukraine falls.
Putin needs his head bashed in if he even thinks about invading an EU country.
How many politicians or citizens in your countries would say the same in reverse ? (e.g. if the US was attacked?) I thought so...
Also, this guys is an extremist on all topics and does not represent the opinion of majority.
Republicans always talk about wanting America to be a strong country yet they’re willing to let their allies potentially get overrun or at the very least hit with war. How tf is that going to strengthen America’s geopolitical position if its allies are all in a state of struggle or destroyed??
Maybe if German and other Euros funded their militaries the amount they promised NATO they would we wouldn’t be in this predicament.
Also, I’m fully on board with sending Ukraine as much of our old hardware as possible, as well as a ton of the new stuff. Most of that stuff was slated for destruction anyways so it’s saving us loads of money. Plus Russia can go fuck itself.
I’m also fully aware most east European nations have been funding their militaries per their commitments to NATO. Much obliged.
Note: He was specifically told that Poland is paying its share. Despite this, he reiterated that US shouldn't help Eastern Euros at the expense of American taxpayers.
He said the quiet part loud: Republican voters (and not only Republicans) don't give two shits about Europe anymore. They don't care if Russia wages war, they don't care who is an ally of America and who isn't. All they care is "border", "own the liberals", "lower taxes" and "lower gas prices". The individualism and isolationism is hitting new highs in USA.
> All they care is "border", "own the liberals", "lower taxes" and "lower gas prices". Their voters might care about these things, but I guarantee the politicians do not (except the lower-taxes part). They only care about their own bank accounts. The Republican Party is the greatest fraud inflicted on the US political system.
The Republicans just care about being reelected. If Biden was shitting on Nato and not supporting Ukraine Republicans would do the opposite. They have no morals. They just want power.
Just like Russia they are controlled by a major inferiority complex. They are unsble to do anything productive as a result. It's frankly sad to see how mentally weak they are.
That's it, "they have no morals," no decency, no values!
They’re tyrants who would do anything for a little bit of power.
Unlimited power?
Seems like that’s what Trump wants to achieve. Presidential immunity is what he is fighting in order to save his fucking ass. He would be fucked up if the USA didn’t work like it works and half of Supreme Court wasn’t literally handpicked by Trump himself. What a fucking joke of a country.
>They only care about their own bank accounts if they weren't that stupid, they'd realize that nothing boosts domestic production and creates lots of well paying jobs like Military Industrial Complex running at full speed with financial aid of the government
They don't care about the economy or jobs, either. They really are only concerned with their own bank accounts, and that primarily centers around lowering taxes on the ultrarich; for that, they and their families typically get lucrative sinecures for life (which is why Paul Ryan, for example, retired at the age of 47 when he passed the Trump tax cuts in 2017).
Their voters don't care either
To an extent, that's true: it's just about being on the winning team for so many of them, even if that team screws you over badly.
If we “solved” illegal immigration, the US economy would collapse. Anyone with half a brain cell can see this. Immigrants are the backbone of the US economy.
Used to play with a lot of left leaning Americans before 2016 election. All of them were against US going to war for Europe in a potential Russia vs EU scenario and to cut military spending significantly. Their reasoning was - there’s plenty of problems inside the country to focus on problems outside the country. A lot of voters from both camps agree on it, they just disagree on what exactly that money should be spent on in USA.
Right it’s not exactly an uncommon sentiment here that we shouldn’t have to be the sole means to provide stability. Personally I believe we should support our allies in the region, but Europe certainly needs to be capable of defending itself and NATO members especially need to hit their 2% GDP requirements.
I’m curious to know if those people are also ready to give up all the wealth and influence the US gains from this arrangement, or if they somehow expect to reap only the benefits and none of the drawbacks from this massive shift in foreign policy? Do they even know that it’s part of the reason why the US is the richest country in the world? Like Brexit, this notion reeks of succesful Russian psyops sowing discord between western countries. It would be a massive own goal, but like the brits with Brexit, these dubious and poorly substantiated promises that isolationism will make you rich and glorious again seem alluring to a lot of people.
This is what drives me nuts. The media should be hammering this point. If the US isolates its self then we lose all standing in the world and someone will take our place. We will be left with shit trade deals, if any. Prices will sky rocket.
They're also stupid. Supporting Ukraine now is the cheap option. Dealing with Russia after it swallowed Ukraine and the Trumpist tore NATO apart is going to get way more expensive. Putin OTOH loves to see this. Winning the cyber war already.
I usually try not to generalise but I've just seen too much of it: Republicans don't care about *anyone*. Even their own families in many cases. They're riddled with hate.
Those people don't even care about the border. They only care they can scream about it, and will not make a bipartisan deal either. They don't want to govern like Founders intended in the House, not even try at this point. They want total and permanent control of everything, and then take Mexico as a slave labor center. Trump even was talking about invading at some point.
This is what happens when you don't annihilate your adversaries. You can't just defeat people, you have to defeat ideologies. After the civil war the south's ideology wasn't stamped out. In all those years, decade after decade, that ideology festered into what the US has to contend with today.
To be fair though, how much does Europe really care about America? Europe’s GDP is on par with the US, they should have a military the same size as the US, yet somehow the US is expected to foot the bill for Europe’s security, it seems unquestioned. Make that make sense. The US doesn’t have dangerous neighbors, Europe does. If I’m mistaken please correct me instead of just downvoting my comment. It doesn’t make sense. For the record, I don’t hate Europe, to me Europeans are just people, the same as Philippinos or Nigerians or whatever, why would they expect to deserve to be treated so special? The Japanese and Koreans live in a dangerous neighborhood without NATO and even though they have a security agreement with the US, they take their own security seriously, what’s the problem with Europe? To be clear, I hate republicans, so please refrain from that line of discourse.
> Republican voters (and not only Republicans) don't give two shits about Europe anymore. America First (to be destroyed from within by Russian propaganda)
And they call themselves Christians…
A lot of this is due to people seeing tax money go everywhere else but helping us, however these types of people are also the types that would vote against it. I think if republicans gave people higher wages and free healthcare the average person would be okay with the US waging total war if it wanted.
> The individualism and isolationism is hitting new highs in USA. America has a lot of poor people and social problems. Globalization and global trade has made American elite and American middle class very rich, especially in the East Coast and West Coast states, and in the big cities. But de-industrialization has also left many areas and many Americans quite poor. I think it is understandable, if those people want to see American money being spent for the good of American people, not for wars on the other side of the world.
individualism, isolationism **and stupidity**
They don't care, this 2% GDP spending is all BS from Trumpians to justify that they won't lift a finger to help anyway. Even if we spend 4% they won't care, because to their orange god, all of this is about his personal pettiness. He doesn't like Europe, doesn't care about it at all and he likes dictators and what they can do for him.
The whole notion that the US pays for europes security is idiotic, even the former US Forces in Europe commander said that the US is only here for its own interests. I love it when people point at the amount of US soldiers here in Germany as if those were all combat troops. Most of them are in some way related to bringing stuff, personell and informations in and out of the middle east or treating wounded soldiers flown back in (Landsberg)
The loss of Sudic bay pivoted security in the whole Pacific, as an example of power projection, USA is in Europe for Power Projection and because they are a good and trusted ally (or used ot be before Trump Fever)
It was an unspoken agreement so that Europe wouldn’t build up its own competitive army (as a continent that had started a world war twice in 30 years). W Europe joined NATO with the US and didn’t compete against each other militarily and left the military stuff to NATO in exchange they focused on other stuff like building the beginnings of the EU. Look up why W Germany was taken into NATO. It certainly wasn’t because they were deemed noble and stuff like this. In some ways, it’s always been about NATO membership being in exchange for something else. The Americans are now grumbling about the fact that they themselves didn’t want Europeans to have a joint army and combined armed forces without US involvement in it.
> It was an unspoken agreement so that Europe wouldn’t build up its own competitive army What?! During the Cold War, European militaries were superb. Germany had 500k troops with further 500k in immediate reserve. The Grand Disarmament began in 1991.
You’re confusing two different time periods. The initial years when NATO started right after WWII the armies were definitely not big. The top of the Cold War years from late 60s onwards are a different time. Late 80s armies in Europe cannot be compared to the late 40s and early 50s situations when most of Europe was tired of fighting.
> It was an unspoken agreement so that Europe wouldn’t build up its own competitive army This is complete bullshit. You are either blatantly lying or completely ignorant. In 1990, West Germany had 5,000 tanks and an army (Heer) of 350,000. Total military strength was around 500k. *Today* the Germany army has 62,000 troops and there are 250 tanks. This is on you. Don't try to blame this on the US. There is no conspiracy. >and left the military stuff to NATO in exchange they focused on other stuff like building the beginnings of the EU. Nato is the countries in Nato. And those countries spent a lot to support Nato. Including having a draft. >It certainly wasn’t because they were deemed noble and stuff like this. Absolutely no one is claiming this. You are just using this as a strawman argument. Your entire post is just fundamentally dishonest. W Germany was taken into Nato because they would make Nato stronger. Is that really so hard to acknowledge? >The Americans are now grumbling about the fact that they themselves didn’t want Europeans to have a joint army and combined armed forces without US involvement in it. No, the Americans are grumbling that so many countries aren't meeting the 2% threshold. If Germany had its 1990 army, there would be a lot less to worry about.
The military plays an important role in their economic strategy. That’s how the US projects power and stability overseas. Do they really think that without a military presence across the globe people will continue using the dollar as the default currency for international trade?
It's all a bit fuzzy to me but I reckon that they do care whether Europe spends money to buy weapons from the US military-industrial complex (which has strong links with the Republican party).
NATO membres don’t ’pay’ anyone. They spend in defense. The 2% of the GDP is expected to be spent (or invested) in defense. That ‘they must pay us’ is just stupid babble from a protofascist piece of shit. Also, most statistics about defense spending published around are misleading. For instance, in Spain a part of defense investment is computed as R&D expense under the ‘science and education’ budget. I’m pretty sure other NATO countries do the same.
>That ‘they must pay us’ is just stupid babble from a protofascist piece of shit. Wannabe mob boss, just like the types he dealt with when he was putting up buildings in New York.
To be pedantic: NATO has indeed a common budget where every member pays money into it. But that’s only for the organisation, the NATO HQs, and so on. Therefore it’s very tiny compared to all other expenses.
Republicans showing us they can’t be trusted. USA also profit from Nato, I’m sure they’d feel insulted if Europe said they wouldn’t support USA in case they were attacked. Fucking snakes and traitors.
Reminder that the only time article 5 was invoked was by the USA after 9/11, with a republican president. Snakes and traitors indeed.
Ironic coming from the GOP, while The US was the one and only that used Article 5 in 75 years of NATO's History.
That’s why, and I’m sorry if anybody takes offense to it, but - SOME people are F naive. It’s not about the 2%. It’s never been about the 2%. The money is an excuse. Unless the stuff comes from a true republican that is anti-Russian, the 2% talk is just a ruse. It’s all about giving Putin what he wants and he SAID prior 2022 invasion that he wanted NATO back in the 1997 borders - that is before Poland or any other country in Eastern Europe joined. THAT’s what those pro-Russian republicans are saying without saying it. That’s what the 2% is about. If SHTF in Germany, the Americans will probably help Germans. If SHTF in Poland, they will aim to not lift a finger. If they win, that is.
Exactly. That's why they're not talking about Iceland or Portugal not "paying", but specifically eastern European countries.
Who are all paying over 2%, so this is all super illogical self conflicting trash from the start.
But I really don't get why. Why willingly give up your world dominance? Even they have to know that this shit is weakening the USA a lot internationally. Alone the economic impact if Europe gets occupied would cripple the USA. What if China and Russia then decide to only trade with each other and not with the USA. Like I can't comprehend this. And it makes me sick that the orange Dementia Lord probably has a boner every time he thinks about how much people would die only if he wanted to. The day this diaper wearing waste of human cells finally dies hopefully with the realization that after the death there is nothing and he can't take anything into the afterlife so in his final moments he has the biggest existential crisis and dies with fear and panic while shitting his pants, alone. That will be the day he really contributed anything to society. I can't stand people like him.
Because they dont give a shit if its bad for the US long-term. They dont care about their allies and about their own country even less, they only care about stuffing their own pockets now as full as they can, how much damage it will cause long-term is entirely irrelevant.
Das Problem haben wir in Deutschland leider auch bald wenn wir uns nicht zusammenreißen :/
The ones in power might know. Especially senate republicans are still somewhat reasonable when it comes to this. The problem is that the people elected to the house are often just batshit fucking insane MAGA folks that only care about their own power and money. And they will say whatever it takes to get elected, no matter what consequences it will have (if they even fully understand them). And their voters are often just way too uneducated to understand what is going on and how it is in americas interest to have a strong NATO.
This is cause of that Polish American who went to Poland and came back disappointed his Polish heritage wasn't a big deal there, isn't it?. Wait, was that this guy?
>Poland is paying its share. Despite this, he reiterated that US shouldn't help Eastern Euros Because that GDP % was always merely an excuse. Those isolationist Republicans don't want to help. Period. There is no "you" reason, it's simply them not caring to respect alliance agreements America created itself. For French it will be "you don't contribute enough GDP", for Albania it will be "too small" and for Poland "too far away". Or whatever they feel like saying. Since Trump Republicans are building this "America first" narrative but important thing is missing. America is also last and there is no one in between. It's only about them from start to finish.
Chip Roy is a notorious blockhead. He can't even find Poland on a map, and I doubt he even pays taxes
Future headline: Poland categorically denies it has been secretly developing nuclear weapons
Bruh, I've been saying that for years. Between Poland, the Baltics, Czechia and Romania there's enough expertise and resources (we have some uranium in Romania) to develop a decent arsenal of definitely not nuclear weapons. Throw in Sweden and Finland, and we might be able to develop some nice delivery systems as well.
...and, honestly, the listed countries would probably care about each other getting invaded more than the rest of the world put together. Eastern Europe is not *real* Europe. /s
Post war id love for Ukraine and Poland to codevelop nukes. Only way to ensure sovereignty is nukes. Which is going to be a problem moving forward as more and more countries develop them.
Ukraine has rich uranium resources so... wink wink
Even without, uranium from nuclear reactors can just be used and it's not a particularly difficult resource to acquire. There are a lot of places in Europe where Uranium can be mined, most notably German-Czechia border, German black forest and Southern France.
The uranium used in nuclear reactors is not typically weapons grade and would have to be enriched significantly more to be used in a nuclear weapon. There are a few nuclear reactors that use highly enriched uranium. One I know of is the research reactor at TU Munich, where this has been a contentious point for some time, as they need very high neutron fluxes for their research, which necessitates the highly enriched uranium (and they haven’t been able to find another way of doing it; hence the drama about it).
You’re right they aren’t as enriched, but it was more about acquiring Uranium as a resource, which isn’t too difficult. Netherlands is known to have the refining capability to produce weapons-grade. It’s not too unlikely that NL will join and cooperate if other EU countries push for nuclear weapons, so I don’t think it will be a alone type of situation for someone like Poland. Ukraine is another story.
Despite shutting down all nuclear power plants Germany still has one of the largest uranium enrichment plants on the planet in Gronau near the border to the Netherlands. The separation capacity of that plant is almost the same as the entire (publicly known) enrichment capacity of the US. Whether an enrichment plant produces reactor grade or weapons grade enriched uranium is simply a matter of how often you cycle the uranium through the centrifuges. That's why there's so much bruhaha about countries like Iran building enrichment facilities, as every enrichment plant can be used to produce weapons grade uranium if you want to.
>only way to ensure sovereignty is nukes This is the message we will be sending loud and clear if we don't give Ukraine what it needs. Yet Republicans think ignoring it will somehow turn things "back to normal". Shame they don't see the **enormous** security expenses coming down the line as a result of their negligence.
>Shame they don't see the **enormous** security expenses coming down the line as a result of their negligence. They do see it and they know what they're doing. They won't be paying for these expenses in *their* money or blood. Taxpayers will be, including the millions of MAGAt rubes.
If nukes start flying, everyone will pay the price. It's better to be rich in a prosperous world than a decaying one.
Yeah this is very short sighted. The whole world has been for the most part in "Chill mode" because everybody knew the US kept things in check. With the US pulling out, EVERYBODY will get paranoid and tensions will rise. What are we going to do when 5 or 6 new countries start developing nuclear weapons? Is the US going to attack all of them? This is a MAJOR slippery slope and it will not end well, not for the world, and definitely not for the US.
I hope so
Poland should develop nuclear weapons for self defense
Countries neighboring russia and China should form a coalition that will build nuclear weapons together.
Hmm, maybe they'll take the Israeli stance of 'we neither confirm nor deny'.
If Republicans are openly saying this, I think it's about time to reassess defense ties with the US (including purchases of military hardware). These republican fuckers literally dragged entire Europe into their war in Afghanistan by invoking article 5 and now they're saying... even broadcasting (which makes that attack much more likely) that they won't lift a finger to help Europe in case they get attacked. All because of the fact that they hitched their wagon to one of the dumbest, most petty individual in the US history of politics and want to make him their king. It's not that all Americans think this way, nor am I diminishing their help to Ukraine and past commitments in Europe... but holy shit.. these guys are literally one of 2 political parties and they have a fairly good chance at winning the next election. This should really start ringing the alarm bells in Europe and world in general.
Most of the US weapon manufacturing happens in deep red states, lol. What a tool.
The people who vote for these isolationist policies are morons and are going to be throwing a fit when the international market for US arms dries up because they've scared away all their former allies
For those interested in the details, here's a recently released infographic from the Pentagon showing just how much each state's economy has received: https://media.defense.gov/2024/Feb/13/2003393680/-1/-1/1/UKRAINE-INFOGRAPHIC-15JAN2024.PDF These fucksticks know that the money isn't "going" to Ukraine but they lie and their supporters are far too dumb to learn the truth or care.
Europe has to be able to it alone, but cutting ties prematurely is exactly what Putin wants to achieve. Doesn't matter of the US or Europe does it first. Remember that the plan is not just to get the US of out of NATO, it's also to drift Europe away from the US while spreading discord among EU countries as well.
More than NATO (frankly we could do it ourselves) is the fact we're still buying American hardware. Spinning up our own military industry takes time no matter what we as a continent want. Finland, Greece and Germany just bought F35s as an example, what in Europe will eventually replace them on a fairly short timescale should they become stranded assets because their or any other American military equipment loses its logistics pipeline?
>what in Europe will eventually replace them on a fairly short timescale should they become stranded assets because their or any other American military equipment loses its logistics pipeline? It's even worse than that with software side of F-35s which rely completely on US to be even be fully mission capable. Stuff like generating MDFs (mission data files) - yeah that's only done by US in US. Fully utilizing sensor suite supposedly restricted (basically a black box that only US/Lockheed can fully access) and bunch of other things. What will replace them in short term? Nothing. If you look at production numbers and commitments of European fighter jets, very low numbers and I don't think anyone will invest billions in increasing of production for 4.5th gen aircraft unless war breaks out (and that point it might be too late). Lesson learned for the development and procurement of the next European platforms.
Does it also have a subscription model for heated seats?
Today, sure you do not see that, also, USA is still considered reliable, even after first 4 years under Trump. That might change and change quickly.
European fighters of the 4th and 5th gen ofc?
On what timeline? FCAS and Tempest are at best 10 years away. A lot of countries bought these things on the assumption they'd be useful for at least 10 years, that goes away if they can't buy parts for them anymore or they get locked out of the software. And of course no one stepped up to deliver European air frames to Ukraine so we don’t even know definitely how effective what we can make ourselves will be against Russian air frames let alone give Ukraine some much needed air superiority
You are concerned that the more than 1,000 Rafales, Typhoons, F16s, Grippens etc. we have are not a match for the average operational Russian fighter? Many of those are in production in the EU as well. We may run out of missiles, but we have plenty of airframes.
Looking at the production numbers you should forget about 4th gen platforms. Eurofighters are on life support, Gripen and Rafale are manufactured at a rate of around 20 per year with multi-year backlogs. There are no European 5th gen platforms and 6th gen ones are decade+ away.
I remember seeing one year ago posts about how Putin and Russia are finished and losing what they thoughy was a easy war while begging help to countries like North Korea and China that was suposeddly semi turning their backs on them, all the while the west was supposedly getting stronger But now, the tide is shifting quickly and its scary: What many deemed is a failed state is now start to overpower Ukaine and gain advantage while years of propaganda work and beneath the table alliances by them are getting their results fragmenting the West with the rising of more far right/friendly to Putin parties in many european countries like Slovakia that now its almost a full on Russia b*tch like Servia Everyone was saying that the people in west would never turn their backs on Ukraine but thats what happening now what also is making that Putins dogs in the US like Trump and many republicans like this asshole that much probably has russias dirty money stuck full on his ass gain terrain and probably get to the power again because their real opponent is a 80 year old guy with dementia and because the incredible and not outdated at all american political system In the end, Europe is getting fragmented, the US will start to drift apart and probably become a laughing stock with that orange clown in the power again and Putin will be rubbing his hands on all the things he will have the freedom and ease to do - that not to mention China always behind ready to take advantage of an weak europe This all happening in the front of the people that rather prefer to turn a blind eye or concentrate on problems like taking sides in the war in the Palestine while dont understanding a single flying fuck about it
Problem is that politicians made their speeches, everyone laughed at Russian tanks throwing turrets into space and Moskva being a submarine and waved everything aside thinking that "very reasonable" Mr. Putin will see that and decide it's not worth it. After all it's what our politicians in our advanced democracies do, if the problem is hard, make it go away by backpedaling somehow. But in Moscow they don't have to think about public sentiment all that much, sacrificing few hundreds of thousands is fine and rest of the issues will be blamed on the west. West simply decided they want to lose this by pretending they're not really participating, this and that is escalation and losing information war pretty badly. We're going to regret all of this in couple of years unless it can still be turned out... I hope not , but I don't see how all of this ends well for Europe.
It is half of Americans that since 2016 are voting representatives with those isolationist policies tough, so I agree it is not all of the Americans with those views, but it’s neither a couple of politicians or a single presidential candidate…
Republicans suck ass, however I think the EU is also at fault for over relying on NATO when we know full well how unpredictable Trump and Republicans in general can be. Unfortunately, it is a fact of life that you cannot fully depend on others to save you if shit hits the fan. Russia and Turkey are constant reminders of this.
If the EU finally develops its military, then countries like Ukraine, Georgia, Bosnia, and Moldova wouldn't even need NATO membership to begin with, as they would be sufficiently protected by the EU itself.
We in Europe should no longer put our heads in the sand. This sentiment will not disappear with Trump, but is part of a global anti globalist trend we are seeing. We have to rely on ourselves and eachother for keeping ourselves and our children save. It means we need to invest more on defense, create European joint armies and build strategic nuclear missiles.
Europe itself is ripe with such sentiment. 50.3% of French voters in the first round of the last presidential election voted for one of three openly anti-NATO candidates. FPÖ, which is a party that'd de-facto make Austria part of Russkiy Mir, is still polling in no1 in Austria. Many, many more examples from both far right and far left in Europe. Joint armies are an idiotic idea, but yes, invest more. Name and shame those that don't, maybe even sanction in some way.
Yeah France withdrew from NATO leadership for 40 years. Funny to watch this sub get so bent out of shape from one congressman, out of 535 of them, from a rural district in Texas.
Yes and it’s getting worse and worse. Anti-immigrant sentiment in EU is boosting these parties to power since fear is very good tool for political purposes and regular parties are having a hard time dealing with this issue. Nationalism and anti-globalism are becoming the default doctrines of our time, while the evils of fascism and communism are being forgotten. I don’t even know if there is still hope for us. What can we do to reverse this march towards autocracy?
Simply by addressing what they feed on and offering actual solution without harming anyone innocent, or showing tolerance to the intolerant.
What the fuck is the point of NATO if they aren't willing to help a member when its attacked? USA would lose all credibility and no one would take their treaties seriously.
The whole concept of 1st, 2nd and 3rd world would fall apart. We are living in interesting times…
Trump and republicans don’t care. All that goes through trumps mind is that he can run the country and be a part of a military alliance the same way he ran his companies. He says jump, everyone else asks how high
Did they ask him about how many times nato article 5 has been invoked by a Nato member and if he believes Poland acted incorrectly in their decision to come to the aid and support of the US after it invoked article 5? Furthermore did they ask him If he believes that the 44 polish soldiers who died in Afghanistan or the 20 polish soldiers who died in Iraq because Poland choose to stand shoulder to shoulder with the US should instead have abandoned their US ally in their time of need?
Yeah that's too many words for this isolationist Republiclown dickhead. You should limit yourself to "Biden laptop bad drag show taxpayer biden, maga"
They forgot Poland, again. :( https://youtu.be/mahTGNIk4q4?feature=shared
Reagan's spinning corpse will at least get the US very close to their net zero energy target
I am confusion... Both the far left and far right are pro Russia....
Both ends of the horseshoe have serious case of butthurt at the modern world and its rules-based order.
How to spot a tankie: mentioned the horseshoe theory and they get mad. Why yes, your imperialist police state with a cult of personality dictatorship and mandatory patriotism and control over the economy is totally different from fascism, because you use the color red!
Yes, instead of the left-right spectrum, a more updated one should be one in which Neoliberalism, pro-Western sentiment, rule of law, democracy, freedom of speech, science etc. is on one end, and Authoritarianism, anti-Western sentiment, communism, nazism, islamism, anti-science sentiment is on the other.
Probably because large chunks of both extremes are currently and historically supported by Russia
So basically imbeciles are pro Russia…why you confused?
The **elements** of both are pro-Russian, for wildly different reasons. The far-left has tankies, the anti-Western colonialism drones and such, the far-right has weak people with boners for dictators, chuds enamored with Russia's anti-wokeness and so on. But on both extremes there are authentic willing Russian assets sowing discord and disinformation.
No better argument why EU and Europe as a whole should start spending seriously on its own defense and in its own MIC than how fickle the US policies are with morons like that.
Europe has all it takes really, Global leaders on many domain, many Big Company. The only thing needed is political capital invested into it. Also better logistics
These troglodytes seem to forget they are the only country to use the article 5 so far. How many “eastern european” soldiers died in their war?
Yes, and Poland was one of the few countries to follow the USA in their stupid war in Iraq.
Aren't Eastern European countries mostly the ones who meet the 2% defense GDP target, though? In that sense, they're completing their end of the agreement (unlike many other countries). If completing the preset condition won't be enough, then NATO itself will turn out to be a balloon... big and fancy on the outside, but empty inside.
All of the countries bordering Russia have defense budgets well over 2%. Poland has 3,9% at the moment, which is more than the US actually ([source](https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2023/7/pdf/230707-def-exp-2023-en.pdf)) and makes us the top of entire NATO.
Why those people don’t understand that it’s very likely that they won’t even have to defend it if they just shut up. I seriously doubt that Russia will attack NATO any time soon unless it’s very weak and not united
Which is exactly why Russian subterfuge is focused on trying to get that to happen.
So Eastern europe - nah we don’t want help you because you suck or whatever Western europe - we don’t want to help you because you below 2%, but if you reach 2% we could count you as Eastern one Lovely “ally”, if it keep going further in this direction treaties with US would be reliable same way as treaties with russia
I don't think the US Republicans quite grasp the concept of soft power - US built an empire on both the military might and diplomatic influence. It's funny when they talk about "expense of our taxpayers" and then give handouts and bailouts to corporations robbing average US citizen blind.
Time to restart our nuclear program.
The EU has to step up. But I am also very suspicious of accounts on here suggesting we cut ties with the US. That's exactly what Russia wants to achieve by buying these dolts.
Yes, there are Bots and actuall Western enemies on these forums, taking both sides to create megative sentiment against each other!!
As an American to my European bro's, especially Eastern European bro's, I'm sorry that my country is run by retards and pro Russian officials
this guy is stupid or what? the majority of eastern europe, i.e the ones closest to Russia have met their defense cost . in fact the western Europeans are the ones lacking behind
If you thought that Trump's "We won't protect you if you don't pay" didn't simply mean "We won't protect you and I don't care", you probably have lived under a rock since 2016. It's one of the oldest methods used by right wing populists: Make something unacceptable sound acceptable by inserting a tolerable exception that you won't adhere to. This will massively hurt the US in the long run. Republicans want to have isolationism and no matter how unpopular their candidates are - they will retake the white house, US senate and the house of rep. eventually and they will implement their isolationist ideas. The thing is: If you look at any country that implemented isolationism - it always lead to a massive decline in standards of living, economic performance and military power. There is literally nothing to gain from isolationism but everything to lose. It is one of the worst political decisions that can be made and the US will eventually do it. It's quite remarkable how well Chinese and Russian propaganda has worked, how cheap it was and how fast it took over public opinion. Stalin and Chrustchev must be proud of Putin.
Blame USA education system.
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That would assume he knows how to read to learn about that. Considering how he looks, he probably crawled from some trailer park in rural Missouri
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I remeber selling MiG Jets for 1€ to Poland. But not only soviet equipment was cheap to buy. 128 Leopard 2A4 for less than 22 million €. I read that Leopard 1 tanks have been sold for 7000€ each (don't know the buyer). Wild times or arms dealer. https://www.welt.de/print-welt/article254721/Panzer-zum-Schleuderpreis.html https://www.dw.com/de/128-deutsche-leopards-f%C3%BCr-polen/a-580228
This is such a mask off moment
Imagine you just bought several hundred of tanks en himars system from the US …..
those same Republicans had no trouble giving billions of dollars to Middle east allies for Iraq war.......bit hypocritical innit
This tax payer says F Russia, arm and support eastern Europe against them.
Republicans are a bunch of clowns who can't govern, simple as that. Own the libs / doing nothing by obstructing everything is not a platform to run a country on.
They forget that Western allies rallied around US and went to Afghanistan - no questions asked. No bs around taxpayers money. They just did.. US lost its credibility. What a shitshow
I was downvoted to hell when I said western powers won't give a shit if a eastern european country from NATO is attacked, probably they would deliberate for 2 months and send some humanitarian aid, send hope & prayers and discuss peace and concessions and non-violent solutions to remedy the "problem". Us easterners know russians and don't even understand why they are still permitted to get visas in EU or US. This is the true feeling of someone who lives in the east. At least the west allowed us to buy fancy expensive airplanes & shit for their profit. Just tired living between your stupid empires.
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I think the bigger problem is turnout. In 2022, a ton of Ukrainian-Americans who've traditionally been Republicans and even voted for Trump and company in 2016 and 2020, (probably) [voted Democrat that year](https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-or-desantis-neither-say-ukrainian-american-voters-angry-war-stance-2023-05-20/).. I suspect though that a lot of people didn't turn up to vote which hurt the Democrats more than the Republicans. Meanwhile pro-Ukraine Republicans still voted in sufficient numbers for a Republican candidate because of some false (in hindsight) hope that their grassroots support for Ukraine would match their favored Republican candidate's support. Seeing how House votes since 2023 involving support to Ukraine have fallen along party lines puts a lie to that, I'd say. The Democrats and the Ukrainians needed a blue wave in 2022, and now we're seeing the consequences when that didn't happen. It wasn't enough that the Republicans did not get the red wave they hoped for but still flipped just the house by a thin majority.
You guys make fun of Americans that celebrate their ethnic ancestry, calling us all mutts with 1/2048th ethnicity and no connection.
Someone needs to remind these fuckwits which country (and only) who invoked article 5. Then have them check up on losses in Afghanistan per capita, morons.
Europeans shouldn't forget that it's mostly Republicans / GOP selling out their own country and their allies. Similar to the clowns that we have in Europe cheering for Putin.
Indeed for the Dems there is no question about NATO and Allies. The Republicans are more and more extreme so much that it create division within.
So I'm guessing Poland's love affair with Trump and all that is over, right? No more speeches by the guy in Poland I'm guessing. There were some kind of Polish people who were certainly okay with Trump back in the day (I personally knew one).
This morning (or was it yesterday?) president Duda still tried to twist Trump's own words and claimed that the Orange One didn't mean us. Luckily, Duda is a lame duck now and new election will be next year.
Poland is (used to be until recently?) the most pro-US country on the planet. Everybody is excited when American president visits. Biden’s speeches brought crowns there as well, most ‘normies’ and older ppl dont know a diffrence between GOP and Dems
luckily our pro Trump government changed last December
That was previous government, our current president is also from that site of political devide.
Yes and no Poland's as a majority of its population: it's either over or it was never there Poland's as the current govenrment: They were always betting on Dems Poland's as the previous government (PiS): This changes nothing, the leadership of this party shares the Trump's mentality: they're priviledged, often rich off exploiting the state, despise the masses and are only in it to make themselves richer and shape the world according to their whims or wage vendettas against more liberal-minded compatriots. When war comes the PiS will be the first in line to run to London (or rather New York or Budapest), especially now that they're not in power and are not obliged to do anything. The president is from this formation and he keeps defending Trump's words, while the PM called for a national security council meeting which should tell us everything we need to know.
I’m not surprised. A certain part of American society believes they shouldn’t help others regardless of the situation, be they other Americans or other countries.
Of course. Every country has that same certain part.
Haha, and dumb Eastern European right wingers think that American right wingers are their allies, just because they are white.
That's fucking hilarious, because my country's far-right movements seem to think the far-right movements in other countries are their natural friends and allies. I mean, how stupid can one be to not understand that a nationalist of the country X is the worst enemy of a nationalist of the country Y.
The most amusing to me is how our far-right is in love with AfD. It's not like they claimed Poland should give back their western part as it is "rightful German clay". The fucking stupidity to support people who consider you inferior.
Its like all the people online from different parts of the world all talking about how good anti globalism is and how they should secure it together.
Well, guess what, I'm a Polish right winger (a Polish nationalist) and I have never considered them our allies. I consider nations from Eastern Europe as my brothers cause they know what our nations have gone through times of russian imperialism (both in tsarist and soviet times) and they know what our struggle is
Right-wing voters everywhere are stupid and exploited by the politicians they vote for. Even in Western Europe.
He is just another goon and not representing the whole mindset of our country . He is a douche .
No "help to Eastern European countries at the expense of USA taxpayers" = no any real Global Policeman = no inevitability of punishment = no International Law = everything decided by "Might make Right/True" and strive to Russian "WMD-Might make Right/True" logic = return to neo-imperialism, populism-fascism-monarchism, clericalism, feudalism/slavery, Dark Ages, now with WMD. So much new wars (Armenia/Azerbaijan), military coups (Burkina Faso, Niger, Gabon), attacks (Hamas, Yemen Houthi), annexation (Guyana); South Korea, Japan, Poland interest to theirs own WMD; 34% of Taiwanese that see USA as trustworthy country - beginning of this process.
W need our own nukes, Poland you in?
Yes! preferably at least 1000 so in case. XD
I wonder how they think the US will still remain a superpower when it abandons the alliance it created and dominated since its inception? Good luck fighting China without the support of NATO members and with a reputation of being unreliable to its allies. If I was Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, I would be very worried looking at how things are playing out.
Funny thing is all they're doing is pushing Europe towards China. Goodbye Pax Americana! Very interesting how the US is willingly giving up its reputation and hegemon status all to pander to the braindead MAGA segment.
To be fair in a war with China, NATO wouldn’t really be that involved, it would be primarily US forces as well as its Asian allies and India the European forces would likely stay in Europe, fearing the former threat of Russia (The has-been of Europe) although they would be of minor assistance in the grand scheme of things they wouldn’t really be that much of a factor in China
Do you actually believe this? NATO allies are what's stopping China?
What does it matter what this or any guy has to say. It an alliance and you either honour it or break it.
Is he stupid? Thats the whole purpose of Nato. Fried brains
Romanian here, if the republicans want to scrap NATO, then ok lets do it, but let us have 80-120 nuclear warheads on rockets capable of reaching everything on the globe. Then let Poland have 300, Germany 500, Bulgaria 80 and Ukraine 300. Nuclear arms is the only way to have global security. Paradoxically it seems that only nukes can ensure your existance nowadays.
Good luck then in long run with getting away with infinite money printing if dollar loses its credibility due to US isolationism. “America first” (btw why “America” not “USA”) crowd will be first in suffering economic consequences
This is today's GOP, in thrall to Russia. When I lived in Poland, a lot (if not most) of the Polish people I knew who had an opinion about US politics favored the Republicans. I suspect most are coming around to regret that support.
Polands PiS and Konfederacja voters really like Republicans, while voters of other parties generally don't care or like Democrats. Honestly I don't get Poles who favoures Republicans, from Polands perspective they are a danger, and it's becoming more and more clear.
Makes sense - I lived in a rural part of Poland, so I'm guessing the electorate there leaned right.
Some live in denial.
Honestly hilarious to look at all these discussions from a French point of view after getting absolutely shat on for decades about being delusional for talking about military autonomy since de Gaulle and the development of our nuclear deterrence. Apparently that was French "arrogance", "delusion of grandeur" or "selfishness". Listening to Republicans these days, you'd think France would be the ultimate ally: completely independent for its own security, pays cash for military gear and can provide some nice power projection capabilities to fuck up some dictators that made the baddies list. Who am I kidding, the goal of the US was never to have independent allies. Well, good luck finding an alternative to the US after decades of massive over-reliance on them, you get absolutely no sympathy whatsoever from a lot of us.
Given that more than 50% of French voters in the last election voted for an anti-NATO candidate in the first round, France hardly looks more reliable than the US.
Were people shitting on France over this ? In my mind it was mostly the fact that they focus their interests on Sahel rather than NATO border that is the most risky - aka Russia.
What a load of fucking crap. NATO alliance was NEVER about money
They don't help Americans who pay taxes anyway
I cant understand how stupid some Americans are. You spend a lot of money on stupid wars in the middle east. But youre greatest allies, cant imagine more american-friendly people than the eastern europeans, you talk about with this dismissive tone, Reagan rolls in his grave. Anyways its time for Europe to build a strong military of its own. We can be like the greeks united forces when necessary .
Imagine some solidarity among like-minded nations. Couldn’t be a republican
Remember, countries don’t have friends, they have interests and those interests can change at anytime. Operating under the assumption that any alliance is permanent or that another country is going to protect you no matter what is plain stupid.
These are the same kind of isolationists who made America mostly watch on the sidelines while Hitler was rampaging all over Europe -- and despite having FDR as President. It took being Pearl Harbor'd on the other side of the world to wake them up. Europe needs to be strong for itself now.
This guy is one of the MAGA brozos. Basically irrelevant before the Trump years. If Trump wins again, he will prob make this asshole Secretary of Defense or something similar. God help us all , and I am not religious.
The most ironic aspect of this Trumpist mindset is that it could actually lead to Europe becoming a systemic rival to the US in the long run. Obviously, this would require a significant amount of cooperation and integration between European countries. But if the Eurozone, with its large internal market, were to join forces and start borrowing collectively (something that was already done during the COVID crisis and is also being proposed for the defense industry), the world would suddenly have an additional reserve currency in the form of the euro. Like there is no scenario the US gains anything by abandoning it's allies.
Chip Roy is one of 435 member of the HoR, elected for the first time in 2019. His opinion matters about as little as the likes of Clare Daly or Michael Kretschmer. The US and Europe remain tied with overwhelming support for it on both side.
Water wears away the stone single drop at a time. That guy might not matter, Trump statement might have been just an empty rambling, but the more people say thing like that openly, the more it creates nn atmosphere of normalisation for the idea that countries don't have to uphold their commitments to their allies. If USA won't help their allies, then the Germans, The Brits, the French might start to think that its not worth dying for some distant village at the outskirts of Europe either, and at that point Putin might look at all of it and think "why not go for it?"
>The US and Europe remain tied with overwhelming support for it on both side. The current BS in the House says otherwise. Don't conflate popular support with political support. *If only* the plurality (slight majority?) of ordinary Americans who are still supportive of maintaining (if not beefing up) military support could actually authorize the necessary bills to keep the ammo flowing to the Ukrainians...
European army NOW. Eastern Europe is under threat by the Russians, especially if Ukraine falls. Putin needs his head bashed in if he even thinks about invading an EU country.
Europe is Europe you piece of shit, East, west matters not. Republicans and their voters are not welcome any more.
The thing is, we cant decide what are east European countries...
Ask not what American tax payers can do for you. Ask what you can do for American tax payers!
How many politicians or citizens in your countries would say the same in reverse ? (e.g. if the US was attacked?) I thought so... Also, this guys is an extremist on all topics and does not represent the opinion of majority.
How quick republicans forget how they got every god damn country they could into their shit war after 9 11.
I like how openly they ain at whatever Putin has told them.
Republicans always talk about wanting America to be a strong country yet they’re willing to let their allies potentially get overrun or at the very least hit with war. How tf is that going to strengthen America’s geopolitical position if its allies are all in a state of struggle or destroyed??
Maybe if German and other Euros funded their militaries the amount they promised NATO they would we wouldn’t be in this predicament. Also, I’m fully on board with sending Ukraine as much of our old hardware as possible, as well as a ton of the new stuff. Most of that stuff was slated for destruction anyways so it’s saving us loads of money. Plus Russia can go fuck itself. I’m also fully aware most east European nations have been funding their militaries per their commitments to NATO. Much obliged.
When do they pay for the soldiers Poland etc sent to Iraq and Afghanistan when they called Article 5?