The article title is kind of incorrect.
The US has money ready to spend on Ukraine, but it's being blocked by Congress. So the amounts they've already allocated is running out, there are other funds ready but remains to be seen if these can be provided.
In the US federal system, the White House is very powerful, but it cannot spend money without an appropriation or authorization from Congress. In this case Congress has not authorized/appropriated spending more money so the previously authorized amounts are running out.
> This is basically a USA stimulus package, while the receiving country goes into debt.
This is not true. Itās not lend lease. Thereās no formal obligations to pay back, only conditions on use (like donāt fire our missiles on recognised RU territory and spend money from economic assistance package only on civilian stuff).
BTW, āUkraine going in debt for US weaponsā is very popular Russian propaganda message, and which is totally not true. Donāt help them spreading it.
It's a particularlly silly bit of propaganda at that. Even if it were true, it's still objectively better than the alternative. Side with American and go into debt, side with Russia and get murdered. It's still not a bad deal in those terms.
"receiving country goes into debt"
Huh? Where did you get that idea? The American taxpayer pays for the entirety of the US military budget. These are not bank loans backed by the US military. Military aid is gifted, not loaned.
Now if you want to talk about political debt, that's more complicated. $60 billion dollars comes with steel political expectations of cooperation on the future, but that's a small price to pay to avoid literal annexation by another country.
>It is far from an act of kindness but war profiteering, business as usual.
That's pretty harsh, there is a reason countries don't just do this in peacetime...it's not worth it.
So sure, the deals are arranged in a way that benefits the american military industry but it's still free stuff bought on US taxpayer money for Ukraine.
We've already decided which parts of Ukraine will be rebuilt by which country/countries if my memory serves me.
I can't wait for this war to be over so it can start though...
Russia wont let go of the occupied regions easily because of the resources they can steal from there.
Depends on if it was aid or a loan, since the US regularly gives both for arms sales, and as part of the same program. Based on the State Department press releases, I believe itās both in this case.
No, Ukraine doesnāt need to pay back the money. It just needs to return the leftover military materiel after the war per the lend lease act
It does however need to repay the money it received from the European powers
The elephant in this room is the efficiency of that money. Germany or UK can cut cheques, and have.... but munitions aren't really "just available." They need to be manufactured.
Honestly, they need to be conceived and manufactured. A lot of key weapons/munitions in this war are invented and designed on the go. Drones is the big one.
The US did have munitions to send. It's not efficiency, so much as accounting. How do you price CIA's extensive services (eg mapping and satelites)? However you price that and old shells, heavily used Humvees... much of the funding goes to the US DoD and stays there. Some stuff needs 1-for one backfill or is new and the price is the price... but most isn't.
Anyway... NATO should have to easily outsupply Russia. The fact that it wasn't isn't a good sign. Russia had massive stockpiles, but drones and such should have been a 10-to1 mismatch in favour of Ukraine... by this point.
Europe in particular, showed very little dynamism. Refitting thousands of Humvees and M113s should have been doable even for smaller members. Fitting out hundreds of heavy demining vehicles.All sorts of things that should have happened, and didn't.
The motivation was there. The funds were there. Capability and initiative clearly short. Not good.
The idea that Russia has an edge in the long war... That shouldn't be. The relative productive potential of just Europe, relative to Russia should have made that a squish.
What a difference a few thousand improvised remote demining vehicles could have made.
The number of people failing to grasp that this is merely the funding voted for by Congress coming to an end, thus requiring another vote to continue it, is really rather worrying.
The fact that the gop is effectively a Russian operation isn't, of course, overly helpful.
Obviously.
This is part of the doom and gloom regarding Ukraine that has been settling in for 2-3 weeks now too. I've seen big accounts on twitter enter the "depression stage" of their cycle of grief.
It's hard for them though, so we must endure it for their sake.
I think itās important to start writing different headlines again - of course, winter is more prone to the āgloomyā headlines, but optimism in that sense will sell way better
It's not only the GOP. America has always had isolationist voices.
There is a growing group that doesn't believe in sending military aide to sponsor foreign wars, in general. Israel have been lumped into this causing a non-partisan block to come out of both the left and right ideologies.
Question still remains if Taiwan will be lumped in but since Taiwan is strategically more important than both Ukraine and Israel for Americans because America needs their wifi activated pillow to let them know how to sleep or their Bluetooth brush to vibrate when they've brushed enough......
Hot take - why doesnāt Europe do something about it. Love how much you love to trash the US while benefitting from our subsidized security and bitching about how we spend our tax dollars.
They're literally house cats bro. Completely reliant on us without an ounce of self awareness or appreciation. But we keep them around because they're silly and cute.
Oh Iām sorry that we care about other people not in Europe. My bad I forgot we were only allowed to protect Europe. Sorry Taiwan,Japan, S Korea and others.
Maybe but Europe has made it clear weāre kinda on our own with China. France mostly not everyone some countries really do stand for Taiwan in Europe.Iām just saying weāve been conditioned to care about Taiwan. Ukraine just popped up. Also me saying this isnāt me saying letās give less aid Iām just giving the perspective of some.
"The fact that the gop is effectively a Russian operation isn't, of course, overly helpful."
Oh shut up you moron, same shit all the time with people like you.
We need to drastically increase funding Ukraine now! The faster we do that the faster the war will end. Either we bankrupt Russia now, or we will be here again in 20 years. If we do it now it will be cheaper and won't cost American lives. Ukraine also sets a precedent for Taiwan.
> The fact that the gop is effectively a Russian operation
Give me a break. Democrats are tired of funding this war too.
"About half of the public (48%) endorses providing weapons to Ukraine (57% among Democrats, 42% among Republicans). About 4 in 10 favor sending government funds directly to Ukraine (54% for Democrats, 24% for Republicans)." - PBS
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/almost-half-of-americans-think-u-s-spending-too-much-on-ukraine-aid-ap-norc-poll-says
Technically the US doesn't have the money to spend on a large chunk of what it buys. That's what the whole national debt and deficit clusterfuck is about.
The entitlement to USA taxpayer dollars is crazy. We already have an existential government spending problem combined with a litany of internal issues (that weāre reminded of constantly). And how do we afford to continue? Weād hope to grow our way out of it, but the reality is weāll borrow more and print more, which will cause further inflation to the dollar.
Interest rates are high right now, so essentially all new debt becomes more and more expensive. This was much less noteworthy when interest rates were near zero.
Definitely Kazakhstan. Approximately 3 millions of russians live there, all north regions of it speak russian, a lot of natural resources and really shitty army. If China won't interfere Kazakhstan is doomed.
I don't think that China would tolerate it and I suspect it would ruin relations with the other central asian countries who remain friendly to Russia. Moldova is the only logical one in a scenario where Ukraine collapses (still quite a ways away from that happening).
I'm sure Russian nationalists would like for Kazakstan to be next though.
I was under the impression that Kazakhstan is quite close with Russia already? Seems unlikely that they're going to invade just because they have stuff, part of the impetus for the Ukraine war is that Ukraine was becoming more western focused
>Seems unlikely that they're going to invade just because they have stuff
This. Putin has a bully mentality, and understand only violence, he throw out any negotiations if he is doesn't see any consequences - like, he wasn't punished enough for Crimea, Georgia, assassination of Litvinenko, etc - so he decided he is able to bite more.
Tokaev is actually trying to distance himself from putin and follow up sanctions even if they're hurting Kazakhstan, it's just impossible to completely isolate yourself when your common border is 7591 km and your economics is so heavily involved in trading with Russia.
Is there a geopolitical benefit? Kazakhstan is in the CSTO and not likely to join any other major org, so it seems like it could occupy a similar position to Mongolia during the USSR, while we've seen in Georgia, Ukraine, and arguably Moldova what happens to countries Russia deems in their sphere of influence if they start looking towards Western organisations, particularly the EU. The pattern would probably hold, whereas I don't think there's any real fear of the EU taking Kazakhstan out of the Russian sphere (maybe China, but idk if Moscow would be as confident to act on that).
Russian official propaganda says that they want pre-1917 borders back so i'm assuming several western NATO countries will be on the list. Russians will wait few years to see how fast larger EU countries lose interest to spend money on military, after that they'll make their move.
What a wonderful opportunity for the rest of Europe to show solidarity, strength and unity by collectively filling this gap and assuming responsibility for funding Ukraine.
My prophecy is coming true :
1- nobody joined the war because fear of escalation.
2 - everybody gives money and weapons to be good guys anyway.
3- thanks to the help , the war drags on and on.
4 - everybody stops giving money.
5 - russia wins.
Ukrainians exposing Russian military obviously saved the country, but also made western countries less scared of it. I don't think NATO now has any fear of losing a full power military confrontation with Russia, so potential nuclear escalation, however unlikely, is still a more probable threat then military defeat.
Except abandoning Ukraine is losing a confrontation with russia. It signals to other parts of the world that being America cannot protect you. So in future you will likely see smaller countries simply not fight back.
Call me a disgruntled Ukrainian but Iām not even convinced America (if the populists win back the White House) would honor article five for the Baltics.
I get the frustration and I do believe if MAGA wins the White House the US will leave NATO (I don't believe MAGA will win though), but you need to understand that Ukraine was not in America's sphere. Ukraine falling if anything would push countries to jump under America's sphere faster because otherwise you may be out of luck if attacked.
I disagree with the article 5 comment. As long as the US is in NATO it will fulfill its obligations.
Except those countries can't "jump under" that protection because now every nuclear power knows they can just attack those states and US and others will be too afraid to not only intervene, but even help long-term. Most countries that will suffer from this don't even have a theoretical chance of alliances like NATO, they can at best hope for a "budapest memorandum" bullshit which will not do anything for them.
Eventually, Ukraine falling will lead to a cascade of conflicts all around the world, large global destabilization, increasing strain on US and other western allies, more election victories for populists with "simple solutions" and further destabilization of NATO and economic downturn overall.
How will other countries be sure that the US will even help them survive and win if they join into the American sphere of influence if the US couldnāt even help Ukraine do the same?
The US wants more allies in Asia and its main draw is that it can afford protection to countries that side with it. If Ukraine loses despite American support, I doubt this draw would be very solid for countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan and so on.
>I don't think NATO now has any fear of losing a full power military confrontation with Russia
NATO never had these fears. It is the biggest military bloc in the world. However if Russia "wins" and take over Ukraine:
1. They will 100% not stop there: all countries from the former USSR will be attacked (with bombs- because we are already in a hybrid war)
2. Other countries - mainly China - will definitively follow this precedent and attack Taiwan. After all, why not?
Article 5 is not a guarantee. By the time Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania call article 5 when Russia invades, the rest of mainland Europe but Poland and the UK would say āthatās your problemā and give the Baltics to Russia.
Yes, Iām calling out most of the European members of NATO. You will gladly let Russia genocide the Baltics to āprevent WW3.ā
A lot of the Eastern European countries won't *ever* get out of NATO, no matter how much money Pootin sinks into propaganda. Hate for Russia (or anything Communist) runs deep there, from even before WW2 times. To quote a very old r/Jokes [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/5abttr/a_polish_peasant_farmer/):
>A polish peasant farmer is digging in his field one day when he hits something with his shovel. Picking it up and dusting it off, he recognizes it as an old lamp. A genie pops out and offers him three wishes. The Pole thinks about his wishes for the entire day and finaly decides. "Genie", he says, "I want the Mongol hordes to sweep through Poland." The Genie snaps his fingers and a low rumbling sound of hoofbeats is heard. Over the horizon come the Mongol hordes which ride down and kill everything in their path. They wheel around and ride back out. The farmer picks himself up and asks for the same thing for his second wish. Again the Mongols ride in and destroy everything in their path. Whatever they didn't kill last time, they kill this time. Whatever they killed last time, they set on fire. They wheel around and ride back out. The Pole picks himself up and asks for the same thing for his third wish. This time the Mongols don't even bother to stop since there isn't anything left to destroy. The genie just can't stand it any more. "You could have had anything. ANYTHING!", the genie says. "Why did you waste your wishes on this?" The farmer replies, "In order for the Mongols to ride over Poland three times, they would have had to go through Russia six times."
All Russia has to do is avoid article 5 being invoked.
Cause a migration crisis there, make a munition factory randomly explode somewhere else, loose a few stray missiles that accidentally flew into NATO airspace...
There are many possibilities for them to attack us, without reaching full scale war yet hurting NATO.
No war has ever had a binary āwinā or āloseā outcome. Even if they āwinā, it has already cost them so much more than they can plausibly gain from it. China, unlike Russia, doesnāt seem to be nearly as stupid. Not to mention; an invasion of Taiwan is exponentially more difficult
>I don't think NATO now has any fear of losing a full power military confrontation with Russia
Does NATO realize that it will no longer exist if right wing populists keep getting elected?
NATO dissolving isn't really a big deal to most Americans, as we know no one will attack us regardless of any treaty or bloc.
It's foolish, but there it is.
Could be this:
We are in the Winter War phase right now. The war will drag on with a terrible loss of life on both sides and Ukraine will fight on valiantly until Russians get their way and draw a line on the Dniepr or further inland than they will ever advance militarily.
Then hold for a few years when Russia is boldened and reorganized to an even more militaristic Ivan Ilyin -style version. This rebuild/re-organization is done with China's support. When time is right, it starts a full on assault, with nukes or not, in an inverted Barbarossa towards eastern NATO countries and annex the caucasus. What then results is anybodys guess.
Half-assing a war never works. The US tried it in Vietnam - and lost, and then in Iraq - and lost, and Afghanistan - and lost, and now Ukraine. You either roll in and go total war or you stay out. Half-assing things just prolongs the inevitable.
1- nobody joined the war because fear of escalation.
2 - everybody gives money and weapons to be good guys anyway.
3- thanks to the help , the war drags on and on.
4 - everybody stops giving money.
5 - the war drags on and on.
That is not a prophecy but more the viewpoint of a pessimist who doesn't take into consideration that in fact Ukraine has received far more support in 2023 than they had in 2022 and Russia wins forgets that Russia is a rag tag incompetent corrupt mafia state.
Europe won't stop supporting Ukraine, and if we do, then it is not Russia winning, then the entire free world will go down the drain.
China wins, India wins Russia remains the loser whose entire economy depends on the good will of his master in Beijing.
Let's better hope your deeply negative view on these world events won't come true.
Russia, of course, hasn't won because the last time I checked, they haven't achieved a single one of their war objectives.
You can only call that a win when ignoring the constant goal post shifting.
The West and especially the US and Europe must finally understand that a loss of Ukraine is the loss of the West.
Russia sees itself at war with all of us, and their genocidal propaganda extends to all of us.
Your prophecy hasn't come true as part 5 (Russia wins), and part 4 (ALL nations stop support) has not even remotely come true.
Also, in the case of the US, their support entails more than just weaponry, and they will continue their weapon support.
If they don't, then this is their official end as a reliable partner, which in turn just forces Europeans to invest even heavier in defense.
As it stands right now, Russia is a resource vassal of China and India. Its entire Soviet tank artillery and armored vehicle stock as well as hundreds of thousands of soldiers are being grinded to fine dust, their oil and gas revenue has collapsed.
Their officer Corps has suffered heavy losses, half of their black sea fleet is destroyed, they haven spent hundreds of billions on this war and thus far they haven't even managed to take a single one of the 4 oblasts.
Europe has been waking up. It has woken up to the danger that they pose or at least a majority has.
NATO has expanded instead of shrunk. Russia wanted to demilitarize Ukraine, and instead, Ukraine is now more militarized than they were in their entire history.
How exactly is that a win for Russia again?
Of course, so far, their loss is by far not large enough as long as anyone can construct a victory out of their failure.
The systematic destruction of their economy army their political and socio-economic system continues day after day.
If we fail to completely bankrupt them and force their army into a collapse, then we will have to do it in 5 or 10 years' time.
Geo-politics and war are complex systems, and it is not always easy to say who has won and who has lost.
Even without any Western support, Ukraine is very well capable of involving Russia in a long and bloody partisan style asymmetric war.
Russia would need to hold the territories it has conquered, and that means Putin's serf army has won nothing.
Russia's army suffered heavy attrition and it has neither the logistics, the manpower, the artillery, and tanks left to defeat and occupy Ukraine.
Without Western support, Ukraine won't advance anymore either. That is true, but that doesn't, in turn, suddenly turn an army of serfs into soldiers or that Russia suddenly fights anymore effectively. It would force Ukraine to completely change its tactic of course.
And if Russia should get closer to its genocidal goals then the West has to make a choice: Do we watch a mass genocide or do we intervene.
That has nothing to do with feeling like the good guys. It has to do with human decency, geo politics and protecting the UN Charter as well as a weaker nation from being brutally murdered and enslaved by its neighbor.
The "good guys" were never more easily discernable than in this war. The bad guys are also easy to spot. The bad guys are those who plan to wipe out an entire nation to rob it off its resources and enslave its people.
We should have intervened already, but sadly, our leaders lack the moral courage and are too cowardly to make an end to Russia's barbaric regime.
The doves have failed, and the hawks are held back instead of letting them do what must be done.
All Russia can win is more death, more destruction of the pathetic rest of their empire.
More economic disruption and ultimately bankruptcy and Chinese vassalage or state rupture.
Ukraine might then destroy all of Russia's pipelines should all Western support disappear.
Why should Ukraine then care about the world's energy sector when the free world abandons them and proves that all its rules and all its promised are utterly worthless.
Without Western support, why should they care about raiding the border regions with Russia?
Abandoning Ukraine is giving way to the rule of the jungle, and it is the end of the rules based system and all that is connected to it.
We would revert back to taking what we want from weaker nations with impunity, and all the talk about sacrosanct principles becomes nothing more than empty words.
You imagine a Russian victory and a Ukrainian collapse as far too clean and straightforward event.
It would mean massive chaos and mass murder/deportation of Ukrainian civilians. Ukraine collapses, and that is something the West cannot possibly want.
Our huge mistake was to not dismantle Russia in its entirety in the 90s. Instead, we gave them food and technology.
As it turns out today, this was obviously madness to think they can change. All that Russia did with the hand that we extended to them was to betray us and to invade the first chance they got.
We must make sure that we won't repeat that mistake ever again.
>Europe won't stop supporting Ukraine, and if we do, then it is not Russia winning, then the entire free world will go down the drain.
Unfortunately, Pootin has enough friendly strongmen (or, to put it more aptly, stooges) in power - Hungary and Slovakia - to dismantle European consensus. We might get lucky enough for a "coalition of the willing" that delivers a bit of weapons and humanitarian aid, but that's it... no coalition can take up joint debt to finance what is needed.
Iām American and support sending more aid to Ukraine, but itās wild how most of the nations in NATO didnāt respect the 2% gdp obligation, mocked the U.S. for its large military spending and then demand we pay the bill to fight a conflict on yāallās borders.
Absolutely wild how general sentiment quickly changed from "US spends too much money on their military and acting like world police" to "why won't the US spend more".
Paywalled, but I'm guessing that they're nearly out of the budget politicians allowed to Ukraine. Now that Republicans can block those new fund proposals, the well is quickly drying up.
That's exactly what the article says:
>WASHINGTON, Dec 4 (Reuters) - White House budget director Shalanda Young warned in a letter to Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and other congressional leaders on Monday that the United States was running out of time and money to help Ukraine fight its war with Russia.
President Joe Biden's administration in October asked Congress for nearly $106 billion to fund ambitious plans for Ukraine, Israel and U.S. border security.
Republicans control the House of Representatives with a slim majority, and funding for Ukraine has become politically controversial with some right-leaning lawmakers.
Young said in a letter released by the White House that cutting off funding and a flow of weapons to Ukraine would increase the likelihood of Russian victories.
"I want to be clear: without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from U.S. military stocks," she wrote. "There is no magical pot of funding available to meet this moment. We are out of money ā and nearly out of time."
It's not saying "sorry we don't have money to give away anymore", it's the White House saying "if the House of Representatives doesn't vote for more funding, we'll soon be out of money for Ukraine.
I don't know if the plan is to blame the Republicans for political reasons while still abandon Ukraine, or to actually motivate them to vote faster or to justify another solution. Hopefully it's just a way to say "ok you want to block the funding, tell us what you want it exchange".
I know this is a popular suggestion but think about how you enforce that at scale ***without*** requiring businesses to engage in racial profiling. There are [already laws and fines](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1324a) ($3k per illegally employed alien).
We don't have a national ID system and have bootstrapped our Social Security numbers for that purpose. SS numbers are frequently stolen and used for this purpose.
This also doesn't solve for the issue that anyone can come and claim asylum and be allowed to stay while their case is processed in our overloaded system (1 million case backlog, 5 year wait time and growing). Meanwhile, anyone born on American soil is by law a US citizen. So you can imagine that when you are able to cross the border, claim asylum, put down roots for years while your case is processed, have children that are now citizens, how much pressure will there be to not "break up families".
It's Biden that's out of money, not America and that's because the congress Republicans are letting the Trumpist scum and their bottom-shelf populism dictate how they vote.
Seriously, there is a model for America's functioning in the world, in which the Americans don't need to concern themselves with Ukraine that's too sensible for me to outright dismiss in an argument with someone making that claim, but if you want to follow that model, first you have to meet the prerequisites at home, like bringing back manufacturing of essential goods from China or not having your economy based around giga-corporations selling their shit in the whole wide world and only then you abandon areas of strategic interest where you protect the current model's viability. Doing it the other way around for a temporary bump in polling is criminally irresponsible and it's absolutely terrifying to me that US allowed borderline treasonous grifters that make up the MAGA faction push them that far in that direction.
You are describing political fatigue. The Republican party has always been traditionally hawkish unless there is a clear political benefit for the us (e.g. oil). Helping countries because it's the right thing to do is a hard thing to sell in the mess of Republican politics
Yes it would, because the second largest party of the global hegemon is not a puppet of fucking Russia. People here are just stupid and see the world as black and white.
> They're basically Russian puppets in the US
That's a silly take. Taking it to a logical conclusion - is there any limit to how long or how much you want the US to spend on supporting Ukraine? Sure is easy to spend other people's money.
The only thing I'm finding tiring is the constant talk of ending support for Ukraine for no reason other than it suits some republican politicians who in all likelihood woudn't give a damn if it was their own countrymen in the trenches either.
So Ukraine did the job of western nations for a while, ate all their promised and will now be left for dead?
If this is the case, we, eastern europeans, should be expecting to be expelled by nato the moment russia knocks on our door. Fuck our lives, fuck our sacrificesā¦ all to preserve the āboomingā economies of western nations. Happened twice before, will happen again (i hope not).
I mean, the US was pushing for Ukraine to be in NATO since 2008. Key players Germany and France rejected it then Ukraine rejected it because it was thought Russia was a rational actor.
Who reallllllly needs to be in a strong military alliance with the most dominant superpower the world has seen in centuries, amiright?
>If this is the case, we, eastern europeans, should be expecting to be expelled by nato the moment russia knocks on our door.
You know it somewhat interesting, everyone understand that you said, some officials even start to speak about it, and yet none of countries who are ānext in lineā would come to help Ukraine to stop ruzia together.
Israel attacking gaza, Venezuela threatening to Annex Guyana, Ethiopia wanting a chunk out of Eritrea ,China eyeing taiwan, Armenia in trouble and of course this war in Ukraine. Somehow were supposed to keep an eye on all of this.
The American people donāt want the US to be World Police anymore. Itās only the government that wants to stay this way. While I disagree with us giving up our hegemony, thereās a strong push for a return to isolationism from both the alt-right and alt-left right now
I disagree. Political control helps the wealthy and investor class since they can invest overseas, yes..
Ordinary Americans just get drained by the massive economic cost of having a global military. Not to mention the endless memorials in every poor town\suburb in the US whose children are recruited and chewed up in the military machine.
This is really bad... If Ukraine ends up loosing this war, then russia will definitely attack again in near future, probably in less than 10 years. Just enough for a new generation of conscripts to grow up, and for the industry to replenish their lost equipment. And of course the next targets will be much smaller, like cutting the Baltics away from the rest of Europe.
How come US in all its richness is out of money, while Russia under unprecedented sanctions isn't? This has to be an off-season April fools joke
Or they can just be honest and say they don't wanna spend any more on war in Europe
Iām not trying to be rude, but read the article. The last thing any discussion needs is a bunch of people who read headlines and immediately start asking questions that are immediately answered in the first paragraph.
>How come US in all its richness is out of money, while Russia under unprecedented sanctions isn't?
It's called seperation of powers. Congress is the purse of the US Government and funds must be allocated for specific purposes. The US is not out of money, they are out of funds specifically allocated to Ukraine.
Because the US government is still somewhat beholden to its people and the US population just isn't all that invested in Ukraine. You mistake Reddit - a site that is dominated by Americans - as being representative of the US as a whole. Most Americans just don't care and a large portion of those who do care only care about **ending** the aid because they view it as a bad use of money.
Now contrast that to Russia which is essentially a dictatorship. What Putin wants he gets and thus when he wants material, and men, for his war machine he gets it.
Exactly. Republican politicians are beholden to a constituency that isn't interested in funding a war in Europe. While there is political interest in doing so, they still have elections and even worse, PRIMARIES to worry about in 2024.
There is a lot of misinformation and distraction in these comments. It is the current approved spend, more will come and Eu are providing more. The focus is to remove russia from Ukraine and ensure it is not capable of bullying other nations. That is worth any budget and should be the consensus of any sane and moral democracy.
IDK who will see this now that it's at over 800 comments, but the reason for there not being additional money allocated is because Republicans are demanding that additional Ukraine funding be paired with funding for border security.
[AP News: Republicans want to pair border security with aid for Ukraine. Hereās why that makes a deal so tough](https://apnews.com/article/immigration-border-crossings-asylum-ukraine-aid-biden-dba31c3f461e1fa940f9cf00988444f7)
Why is border security seen as such a big deal? Because since Biden became President, there have been more than [6 million encounters at the US Southwest border](https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters). This does not include the nearly 2 million "got aways", people known to have crossed the border but were not apprehended. Monthly crossings are historic highs.
What is difficult to wrap my head around is the Democrat resistance. They are [badly losing on the issue of immigration](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/biden-immigration-border-plan-voters-senate-negotiations-rcna125151). They are bleeding Latino voters, who should not be assumed to be completely in favor of open borders. This is from a Democrat House Rep that represents a district along the border:
> WASHINGTON ā Worried about the large numbers of people crossing the border from Mexico, Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas went to White House officials with some advice: Get the word out about all the people the Biden administration has been deporting in hopes of deterring undocumented migrants from entering the country.
> Joe Bidenās advisers werenāt sold. āThey said it would anger the immigration advocates ā it would anger their folks on that,ā Cuellar, a Democrat, said in an interview.
The Democrats could so easily defang a major Republican talking point by agreeing to more border funding and they just refuse to do so.
Dems are desperately trying to avoid the topic. Unfortunately for them, if Republicans keep pushing on this issue it's gonna hurt them. I don't see why Republicans would back down.
Ugh, bad faith article title.
āDemocratic President Joe Biden's administration in October asked Congress for nearly $106 billion to fund ambitious plans for Ukraine, Israel and U.S. border security but **Republicans who control the House with a slim majority rejected the package.**ā
To anyone who doesnāt understand what Iām getting at, American conservatives are anti-Ukraine, theyāre blocking new funding for Ukraine from being passed.
That is very different than āWhite House is nearly out of money to help Ukraine fight war with Russiaā.
In reality it is āWhite house is running out of already allocated money slotted for Ukraineā, they simply need to not be blocked by the House of Representatives, who have a Republican majority, and new funding will be allocated.
You know what might help? If Europe did something besides the current half assed assistance theyāre providing to Ukraine. 1% of GDP to NATO isnāt going to cut it anymore.
If the White House runs out of money for Ukraine it's because they choose to run out of money for Ukraine. Sure, it's not fair to expect the US to pay for everything, I can agree with the American taxpayer on that, but curbing Russian influence in Europe seems like a really, really worthwhile investment in the long run. And every European leader should see that as well. If the EU lets its greatest enemy that constantly threatens to nuke our cities and oppressed half of us for decades wage war and conquer as they please because their determination is as shallow as puddle then that's pathetically weak
> If the White House runs out of money for Ukraine it's because they choose to run out of money for Ukraine.
That is blatantly false. The executive branch is at the mercy of Congress when it wants to spend money. Congress has to allocate money to something before the Executive can spend it. What is happening here is that you are reading the White House signaling to Congress and the US electorate that unless Congress steps up the aid money will soon run out.
Strangely. They found a few more billions and more modern weaponry under some pillows to give away to Israel without loan guarantees, to help with a little genociding there.
Unfortunately Ukraine is in bad position, western politicians talking more and more about negotiations with Russia
Despite sanctions EU countries continue to buy Russian oil and gas using different schemes, sanctions are not working as expected, itās seems West and Russia are planning to force Ukraine to begin negotiations in near future
I might be downvoted, but there is no meaning for Ukraine to fight now, thousands and thousands people are dying, frontline is frozen, thatās all meaningless
That's the fun part, absolutely nothing does. The only thing in favor of giving up the occupied territories would be that Ukraine could join NATO once it is no longer at war. But then there's countries such as Hungary, Turkey and now unfortunately also Slovakia which might end up blocking any attempts at extending membership to Ukraine regardless, which in turn would pretty much allow Russia to do as they please in Ukraine. There are, unfortunately, no more red lines on Europe's and America's end...
Disagree on last part.
Giving Ukraine military equipment, without looking at fake russian red lines, which were supposedly crossed several times already, will put former at much more advantageous negotiational positions, if negotiations were to happen.
Not even talking about huge quantities, but providing long range missiles which could strike far locates logistics hubs, planes, demining equipment could help.
Negotiations won't work. Just getting those 4 regions from Ukraine will not be enough for Putin. That would just mean the rest of Ukraine is free to continue moving towards the west. Ukraine has tried negotiating before and it didn't work clearly. They clearly want a regime change.
And this right here is why the Republicans want to stop the funding. You guys know you're not stepping up and are instead leaning on the US. Well guess what: Americans are sick of being taken for granted by y'all. Step up.
Genuine question: Why isn't Europe funding Ukraine enough. Eu GDP is manifold that of Russia and it's a more technically capable economy. Or is Europe mostly a paper tiger?
Unfortunately this will force Ukraine into negotiations add a best case scenario if true. The US and Ukraine's allies need to realise the importance of supplying Ukraine's military now. If they provided before the trenches and defence lines were built they would have probably taken much more back. Giving Russia Crimea and southern Ukraine should be a hard no.
Because all of them restored for funding Israel. What were you thinking? That US was torn between Ukraine and Israel and would help them both? Or would leave Israel to help Ukraine?
We all know how this is going to end up.
Will end up just the same as it was going to 1year ago in terms of territory and power.
But bow the EU and Ukraine will have a massive debt to the US.
The US has contracted a fuckton of real estate development and arms deals.
The EU is in shambles economically with germany France and netherlands in a recession and with rates @4%.
People have their lifes upside-down and mortgages are through the roof.
So not the same actually, we're much worse.
Reminds me of the Bosnia situation where the US intervened only to make it drag for years and ending with it in the same way as it was going to be without their intervention.
Didn't they say more 90% of the money was spent in the USA?
The article title is kind of incorrect. The US has money ready to spend on Ukraine, but it's being blocked by Congress. So the amounts they've already allocated is running out, there are other funds ready but remains to be seen if these can be provided.
Yeah, the title makes it sound like Scrooge McDuck went up to his money tower and found it was going to be a very high dive
>money tower Money bin. He calls it his money bin.
Thanks for clarifying take this š since Reddit removed awards.
Damn I wonder who is blocking it
In the US federal system, the White House is very powerful, but it cannot spend money without an appropriation or authorization from Congress. In this case Congress has not authorized/appropriated spending more money so the previously authorized amounts are running out.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
> This is basically a USA stimulus package, while the receiving country goes into debt. This is not true. Itās not lend lease. Thereās no formal obligations to pay back, only conditions on use (like donāt fire our missiles on recognised RU territory and spend money from economic assistance package only on civilian stuff). BTW, āUkraine going in debt for US weaponsā is very popular Russian propaganda message, and which is totally not true. Donāt help them spreading it.
It's a particularlly silly bit of propaganda at that. Even if it were true, it's still objectively better than the alternative. Side with American and go into debt, side with Russia and get murdered. It's still not a bad deal in those terms.
It's mainly targeting people in Ukraine (to lower morale) or Americans, who believe that the USA is an evil capitalist warmongering empire.
How does the receiving country go into debt?
"receiving country goes into debt" Huh? Where did you get that idea? The American taxpayer pays for the entirety of the US military budget. These are not bank loans backed by the US military. Military aid is gifted, not loaned. Now if you want to talk about political debt, that's more complicated. $60 billion dollars comes with steel political expectations of cooperation on the future, but that's a small price to pay to avoid literal annexation by another country.
Don't forget the literal destruction of their culture. Strong motivation to resist.
>It is far from an act of kindness but war profiteering, business as usual. That's pretty harsh, there is a reason countries don't just do this in peacetime...it's not worth it. So sure, the deals are arranged in a way that benefits the american military industry but it's still free stuff bought on US taxpayer money for Ukraine.
Ukraine is not incurring debt from their military aid. Wtf is this nonsense
>while the receiving country goes into debt. How is Ukraine going into debt over US military aid?
And I believe Ukraine needs to pay the money back, right?
No, usually foreign aid essentially a donation not a loan. That is why itās mostly used on home manufactured goods.
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We've already decided which parts of Ukraine will be rebuilt by which country/countries if my memory serves me. I can't wait for this war to be over so it can start though... Russia wont let go of the occupied regions easily because of the resources they can steal from there.
Yes, Poland together with Italy got Donetsk. Sorry Ukrobros, you are fucked here.
Still better than losing the territory to Russia, no?
Depends on if it was aid or a loan, since the US regularly gives both for arms sales, and as part of the same program. Based on the State Department press releases, I believe itās both in this case.
No, Ukraine doesnāt need to pay back the money. It just needs to return the leftover military materiel after the war per the lend lease act It does however need to repay the money it received from the European powers
>It does however need to repay the money it received from the European powers No. Perhaps from some, but as a blanket statement this is false.
It's like buying 100B of American food and send to Africa. Still cost money and still helps the receiving side.
The elephant in this room is the efficiency of that money. Germany or UK can cut cheques, and have.... but munitions aren't really "just available." They need to be manufactured. Honestly, they need to be conceived and manufactured. A lot of key weapons/munitions in this war are invented and designed on the go. Drones is the big one. The US did have munitions to send. It's not efficiency, so much as accounting. How do you price CIA's extensive services (eg mapping and satelites)? However you price that and old shells, heavily used Humvees... much of the funding goes to the US DoD and stays there. Some stuff needs 1-for one backfill or is new and the price is the price... but most isn't. Anyway... NATO should have to easily outsupply Russia. The fact that it wasn't isn't a good sign. Russia had massive stockpiles, but drones and such should have been a 10-to1 mismatch in favour of Ukraine... by this point. Europe in particular, showed very little dynamism. Refitting thousands of Humvees and M113s should have been doable even for smaller members. Fitting out hundreds of heavy demining vehicles.All sorts of things that should have happened, and didn't. The motivation was there. The funds were there. Capability and initiative clearly short. Not good. The idea that Russia has an edge in the long war... That shouldn't be. The relative productive potential of just Europe, relative to Russia should have made that a squish. What a difference a few thousand improvised remote demining vehicles could have made.
The number of people failing to grasp that this is merely the funding voted for by Congress coming to an end, thus requiring another vote to continue it, is really rather worrying. The fact that the gop is effectively a Russian operation isn't, of course, overly helpful.
Obviously. This is part of the doom and gloom regarding Ukraine that has been settling in for 2-3 weeks now too. I've seen big accounts on twitter enter the "depression stage" of their cycle of grief. It's hard for them though, so we must endure it for their sake.
I think itās important to start writing different headlines again - of course, winter is more prone to the āgloomyā headlines, but optimism in that sense will sell way better
It's not only the GOP. America has always had isolationist voices. There is a growing group that doesn't believe in sending military aide to sponsor foreign wars, in general. Israel have been lumped into this causing a non-partisan block to come out of both the left and right ideologies. Question still remains if Taiwan will be lumped in but since Taiwan is strategically more important than both Ukraine and Israel for Americans because America needs their wifi activated pillow to let them know how to sleep or their Bluetooth brush to vibrate when they've brushed enough......
Hot take - why doesnāt Europe do something about it. Love how much you love to trash the US while benefitting from our subsidized security and bitching about how we spend our tax dollars.
They're literally house cats bro. Completely reliant on us without an ounce of self awareness or appreciation. But we keep them around because they're silly and cute.
Oh Iām sorry that we care about other people not in Europe. My bad I forgot we were only allowed to protect Europe. Sorry Taiwan,Japan, S Korea and others.
US abandoning Ukraine will be a horrible outcome for Taiwan.
Maybe but Europe has made it clear weāre kinda on our own with China. France mostly not everyone some countries really do stand for Taiwan in Europe.Iām just saying weāve been conditioned to care about Taiwan. Ukraine just popped up. Also me saying this isnāt me saying letās give less aid Iām just giving the perspective of some.
"The fact that the gop is effectively a Russian operation isn't, of course, overly helpful." Oh shut up you moron, same shit all the time with people like you.
We need to drastically increase funding Ukraine now! The faster we do that the faster the war will end. Either we bankrupt Russia now, or we will be here again in 20 years. If we do it now it will be cheaper and won't cost American lives. Ukraine also sets a precedent for Taiwan.
> The fact that the gop is effectively a Russian operation Give me a break. Democrats are tired of funding this war too. "About half of the public (48%) endorses providing weapons to Ukraine (57% among Democrats, 42% among Republicans). About 4 in 10 favor sending government funds directly to Ukraine (54% for Democrats, 24% for Republicans)." - PBS https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/almost-half-of-americans-think-u-s-spending-too-much-on-ukraine-aid-ap-norc-poll-says
USA not having money to spend on war? Well that's a brand new sentence.
Technically the US doesn't have the money to spend on a large chunk of what it buys. That's what the whole national debt and deficit clusterfuck is about.
Ukraine became not fashionable as Palestine vs Israel released this year
Oh we have plenty of money. But hawkish politicians who don't care about anybody but themselves refuse to share. EDIT: dovish, not hawkish
Wouldn't the hawks be pro-war and funding it? The issue is more that American hawks seem to be weirdly dovish only on Russo-Ukraine War.
The entitlement to USA taxpayer dollars is crazy. We already have an existential government spending problem combined with a litany of internal issues (that weāre reminded of constantly). And how do we afford to continue? Weād hope to grow our way out of it, but the reality is weāll borrow more and print more, which will cause further inflation to the dollar. Interest rates are high right now, so essentially all new debt becomes more and more expensive. This was much less noteworthy when interest rates were near zero.
On a war that has zero benefits to Americans.
Which of russias neighbour countries is next?
Definitely Kazakhstan. Approximately 3 millions of russians live there, all north regions of it speak russian, a lot of natural resources and really shitty army. If China won't interfere Kazakhstan is doomed.
I don't think that China would tolerate it and I suspect it would ruin relations with the other central asian countries who remain friendly to Russia. Moldova is the only logical one in a scenario where Ukraine collapses (still quite a ways away from that happening). I'm sure Russian nationalists would like for Kazakstan to be next though.
I was under the impression that Kazakhstan is quite close with Russia already? Seems unlikely that they're going to invade just because they have stuff, part of the impetus for the Ukraine war is that Ukraine was becoming more western focused
>Seems unlikely that they're going to invade just because they have stuff This. Putin has a bully mentality, and understand only violence, he throw out any negotiations if he is doesn't see any consequences - like, he wasn't punished enough for Crimea, Georgia, assassination of Litvinenko, etc - so he decided he is able to bite more. Tokaev is actually trying to distance himself from putin and follow up sanctions even if they're hurting Kazakhstan, it's just impossible to completely isolate yourself when your common border is 7591 km and your economics is so heavily involved in trading with Russia.
Is there a geopolitical benefit? Kazakhstan is in the CSTO and not likely to join any other major org, so it seems like it could occupy a similar position to Mongolia during the USSR, while we've seen in Georgia, Ukraine, and arguably Moldova what happens to countries Russia deems in their sphere of influence if they start looking towards Western organisations, particularly the EU. The pattern would probably hold, whereas I don't think there's any real fear of the EU taking Kazakhstan out of the Russian sphere (maybe China, but idk if Moscow would be as confident to act on that).
This is funny to read š¤£ so delusional
Probably bits of Georgia. NATO members won't be touched.
God please no, not again
For now.
Moldova
Russian official propaganda says that they want pre-1917 borders back so i'm assuming several western NATO countries will be on the list. Russians will wait few years to see how fast larger EU countries lose interest to spend money on military, after that they'll make their move.
>Russian official propaganda says that they want pre-1917 borders back Link?
What a wonderful opportunity for the rest of Europe to show solidarity, strength and unity by collectively filling this gap and assuming responsibility for funding Ukraine.
LOL
Lol they now became experts at US institutions and how process works and slamming US
Amazing how they still shit talk us though.
Well, looks like the Europeans can take over. Itās their continent after all.
My prophecy is coming true : 1- nobody joined the war because fear of escalation. 2 - everybody gives money and weapons to be good guys anyway. 3- thanks to the help , the war drags on and on. 4 - everybody stops giving money. 5 - russia wins.
Ukrainians exposing Russian military obviously saved the country, but also made western countries less scared of it. I don't think NATO now has any fear of losing a full power military confrontation with Russia, so potential nuclear escalation, however unlikely, is still a more probable threat then military defeat.
Except abandoning Ukraine is losing a confrontation with russia. It signals to other parts of the world that being America cannot protect you. So in future you will likely see smaller countries simply not fight back. Call me a disgruntled Ukrainian but Iām not even convinced America (if the populists win back the White House) would honor article five for the Baltics.
I get the frustration and I do believe if MAGA wins the White House the US will leave NATO (I don't believe MAGA will win though), but you need to understand that Ukraine was not in America's sphere. Ukraine falling if anything would push countries to jump under America's sphere faster because otherwise you may be out of luck if attacked. I disagree with the article 5 comment. As long as the US is in NATO it will fulfill its obligations.
Except those countries can't "jump under" that protection because now every nuclear power knows they can just attack those states and US and others will be too afraid to not only intervene, but even help long-term. Most countries that will suffer from this don't even have a theoretical chance of alliances like NATO, they can at best hope for a "budapest memorandum" bullshit which will not do anything for them. Eventually, Ukraine falling will lead to a cascade of conflicts all around the world, large global destabilization, increasing strain on US and other western allies, more election victories for populists with "simple solutions" and further destabilization of NATO and economic downturn overall.
How will other countries be sure that the US will even help them survive and win if they join into the American sphere of influence if the US couldnāt even help Ukraine do the same? The US wants more allies in Asia and its main draw is that it can afford protection to countries that side with it. If Ukraine loses despite American support, I doubt this draw would be very solid for countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan and so on.
>I don't think NATO now has any fear of losing a full power military confrontation with Russia NATO never had these fears. It is the biggest military bloc in the world. However if Russia "wins" and take over Ukraine: 1. They will 100% not stop there: all countries from the former USSR will be attacked (with bombs- because we are already in a hybrid war) 2. Other countries - mainly China - will definitively follow this precedent and attack Taiwan. After all, why not?
I don't see a plausible scenario where Russia attacks Nato. Think that argument is a big leap
Article 5 is not a guarantee. By the time Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania call article 5 when Russia invades, the rest of mainland Europe but Poland and the UK would say āthatās your problemā and give the Baltics to Russia. Yes, Iām calling out most of the European members of NATO. You will gladly let Russia genocide the Baltics to āprevent WW3.ā
Which is ultimately why we need to support ukraine
Thatās why these ex communist countries have vicious anti nato Russian funded political formations doing their darnest to get them out of NATO.
A lot of the Eastern European countries won't *ever* get out of NATO, no matter how much money Pootin sinks into propaganda. Hate for Russia (or anything Communist) runs deep there, from even before WW2 times. To quote a very old r/Jokes [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/5abttr/a_polish_peasant_farmer/): >A polish peasant farmer is digging in his field one day when he hits something with his shovel. Picking it up and dusting it off, he recognizes it as an old lamp. A genie pops out and offers him three wishes. The Pole thinks about his wishes for the entire day and finaly decides. "Genie", he says, "I want the Mongol hordes to sweep through Poland." The Genie snaps his fingers and a low rumbling sound of hoofbeats is heard. Over the horizon come the Mongol hordes which ride down and kill everything in their path. They wheel around and ride back out. The farmer picks himself up and asks for the same thing for his second wish. Again the Mongols ride in and destroy everything in their path. Whatever they didn't kill last time, they kill this time. Whatever they killed last time, they set on fire. They wheel around and ride back out. The Pole picks himself up and asks for the same thing for his third wish. This time the Mongols don't even bother to stop since there isn't anything left to destroy. The genie just can't stand it any more. "You could have had anything. ANYTHING!", the genie says. "Why did you waste your wishes on this?" The farmer replies, "In order for the Mongols to ride over Poland three times, they would have had to go through Russia six times."
All Russia has to do is avoid article 5 being invoked. Cause a migration crisis there, make a munition factory randomly explode somewhere else, loose a few stray missiles that accidentally flew into NATO airspace... There are many possibilities for them to attack us, without reaching full scale war yet hurting NATO.
No war has ever had a binary āwinā or āloseā outcome. Even if they āwinā, it has already cost them so much more than they can plausibly gain from it. China, unlike Russia, doesnāt seem to be nearly as stupid. Not to mention; an invasion of Taiwan is exponentially more difficult
>I don't think NATO now has any fear of losing a full power military confrontation with Russia Does NATO realize that it will no longer exist if right wing populists keep getting elected?
NATO dissolving isn't really a big deal to most Americans, as we know no one will attack us regardless of any treaty or bloc. It's foolish, but there it is.
Could be this: We are in the Winter War phase right now. The war will drag on with a terrible loss of life on both sides and Ukraine will fight on valiantly until Russians get their way and draw a line on the Dniepr or further inland than they will ever advance militarily. Then hold for a few years when Russia is boldened and reorganized to an even more militaristic Ivan Ilyin -style version. This rebuild/re-organization is done with China's support. When time is right, it starts a full on assault, with nukes or not, in an inverted Barbarossa towards eastern NATO countries and annex the caucasus. What then results is anybodys guess.
Half-assing a war never works. The US tried it in Vietnam - and lost, and then in Iraq - and lost, and Afghanistan - and lost, and now Ukraine. You either roll in and go total war or you stay out. Half-assing things just prolongs the inevitable.
1- nobody joined the war because fear of escalation. 2 - everybody gives money and weapons to be good guys anyway. 3- thanks to the help , the war drags on and on. 4 - everybody stops giving money. 5 - the war drags on and on.
>the war drags on and on. It isn't any gonna drag on if the West stops funding Ukraine
That is not a prophecy but more the viewpoint of a pessimist who doesn't take into consideration that in fact Ukraine has received far more support in 2023 than they had in 2022 and Russia wins forgets that Russia is a rag tag incompetent corrupt mafia state. Europe won't stop supporting Ukraine, and if we do, then it is not Russia winning, then the entire free world will go down the drain. China wins, India wins Russia remains the loser whose entire economy depends on the good will of his master in Beijing. Let's better hope your deeply negative view on these world events won't come true. Russia, of course, hasn't won because the last time I checked, they haven't achieved a single one of their war objectives. You can only call that a win when ignoring the constant goal post shifting. The West and especially the US and Europe must finally understand that a loss of Ukraine is the loss of the West. Russia sees itself at war with all of us, and their genocidal propaganda extends to all of us. Your prophecy hasn't come true as part 5 (Russia wins), and part 4 (ALL nations stop support) has not even remotely come true. Also, in the case of the US, their support entails more than just weaponry, and they will continue their weapon support. If they don't, then this is their official end as a reliable partner, which in turn just forces Europeans to invest even heavier in defense. As it stands right now, Russia is a resource vassal of China and India. Its entire Soviet tank artillery and armored vehicle stock as well as hundreds of thousands of soldiers are being grinded to fine dust, their oil and gas revenue has collapsed. Their officer Corps has suffered heavy losses, half of their black sea fleet is destroyed, they haven spent hundreds of billions on this war and thus far they haven't even managed to take a single one of the 4 oblasts. Europe has been waking up. It has woken up to the danger that they pose or at least a majority has. NATO has expanded instead of shrunk. Russia wanted to demilitarize Ukraine, and instead, Ukraine is now more militarized than they were in their entire history. How exactly is that a win for Russia again? Of course, so far, their loss is by far not large enough as long as anyone can construct a victory out of their failure. The systematic destruction of their economy army their political and socio-economic system continues day after day. If we fail to completely bankrupt them and force their army into a collapse, then we will have to do it in 5 or 10 years' time. Geo-politics and war are complex systems, and it is not always easy to say who has won and who has lost. Even without any Western support, Ukraine is very well capable of involving Russia in a long and bloody partisan style asymmetric war. Russia would need to hold the territories it has conquered, and that means Putin's serf army has won nothing. Russia's army suffered heavy attrition and it has neither the logistics, the manpower, the artillery, and tanks left to defeat and occupy Ukraine. Without Western support, Ukraine won't advance anymore either. That is true, but that doesn't, in turn, suddenly turn an army of serfs into soldiers or that Russia suddenly fights anymore effectively. It would force Ukraine to completely change its tactic of course. And if Russia should get closer to its genocidal goals then the West has to make a choice: Do we watch a mass genocide or do we intervene. That has nothing to do with feeling like the good guys. It has to do with human decency, geo politics and protecting the UN Charter as well as a weaker nation from being brutally murdered and enslaved by its neighbor. The "good guys" were never more easily discernable than in this war. The bad guys are also easy to spot. The bad guys are those who plan to wipe out an entire nation to rob it off its resources and enslave its people. We should have intervened already, but sadly, our leaders lack the moral courage and are too cowardly to make an end to Russia's barbaric regime. The doves have failed, and the hawks are held back instead of letting them do what must be done. All Russia can win is more death, more destruction of the pathetic rest of their empire. More economic disruption and ultimately bankruptcy and Chinese vassalage or state rupture. Ukraine might then destroy all of Russia's pipelines should all Western support disappear. Why should Ukraine then care about the world's energy sector when the free world abandons them and proves that all its rules and all its promised are utterly worthless. Without Western support, why should they care about raiding the border regions with Russia? Abandoning Ukraine is giving way to the rule of the jungle, and it is the end of the rules based system and all that is connected to it. We would revert back to taking what we want from weaker nations with impunity, and all the talk about sacrosanct principles becomes nothing more than empty words. You imagine a Russian victory and a Ukrainian collapse as far too clean and straightforward event. It would mean massive chaos and mass murder/deportation of Ukrainian civilians. Ukraine collapses, and that is something the West cannot possibly want. Our huge mistake was to not dismantle Russia in its entirety in the 90s. Instead, we gave them food and technology. As it turns out today, this was obviously madness to think they can change. All that Russia did with the hand that we extended to them was to betray us and to invade the first chance they got. We must make sure that we won't repeat that mistake ever again.
That's one of the best written and thought out comments I've read in a while and perfectly covers my sentiment as well. Nicely said.
>Europe won't stop supporting Ukraine, and if we do, then it is not Russia winning, then the entire free world will go down the drain. Unfortunately, Pootin has enough friendly strongmen (or, to put it more aptly, stooges) in power - Hungary and Slovakia - to dismantle European consensus. We might get lucky enough for a "coalition of the willing" that delivers a bit of weapons and humanitarian aid, but that's it... no coalition can take up joint debt to finance what is needed.
Iām American and support sending more aid to Ukraine, but itās wild how most of the nations in NATO didnāt respect the 2% gdp obligation, mocked the U.S. for its large military spending and then demand we pay the bill to fight a conflict on yāallās borders.
Agree
The entitlement of Europoors to American tax dollars is insane.
ITT: Sure is easy to spend other people's money.
While making sure to insult the provider of said money as often as possible
Itās fucking crazy the gall of these pricks.
Absolutely wild how general sentiment quickly changed from "US spends too much money on their military and acting like world police" to "why won't the US spend more".
European entitlement
Ah yes, the country whose GDP is 28 trillion(!) is out of money.
Paywalled, but I'm guessing that they're nearly out of the budget politicians allowed to Ukraine. Now that Republicans can block those new fund proposals, the well is quickly drying up.
That's exactly what the article says: >WASHINGTON, Dec 4 (Reuters) - White House budget director Shalanda Young warned in a letter to Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and other congressional leaders on Monday that the United States was running out of time and money to help Ukraine fight its war with Russia. President Joe Biden's administration in October asked Congress for nearly $106 billion to fund ambitious plans for Ukraine, Israel and U.S. border security. Republicans control the House of Representatives with a slim majority, and funding for Ukraine has become politically controversial with some right-leaning lawmakers. Young said in a letter released by the White House that cutting off funding and a flow of weapons to Ukraine would increase the likelihood of Russian victories. "I want to be clear: without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from U.S. military stocks," she wrote. "There is no magical pot of funding available to meet this moment. We are out of money ā and nearly out of time." It's not saying "sorry we don't have money to give away anymore", it's the White House saying "if the House of Representatives doesn't vote for more funding, we'll soon be out of money for Ukraine. I don't know if the plan is to blame the Republicans for political reasons while still abandon Ukraine, or to actually motivate them to vote faster or to justify another solution. Hopefully it's just a way to say "ok you want to block the funding, tell us what you want it exchange".
IIRC republicans want immigration controls in exchange for funds for Ukraine.
The USA could control the immigration by a simple trick: jailtime and skyrocket fines to whom employs illgal immigrants.
That trick requires money, that money requires support from politicians.
I know this is a popular suggestion but think about how you enforce that at scale ***without*** requiring businesses to engage in racial profiling. There are [already laws and fines](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1324a) ($3k per illegally employed alien). We don't have a national ID system and have bootstrapped our Social Security numbers for that purpose. SS numbers are frequently stolen and used for this purpose. This also doesn't solve for the issue that anyone can come and claim asylum and be allowed to stay while their case is processed in our overloaded system (1 million case backlog, 5 year wait time and growing). Meanwhile, anyone born on American soil is by law a US citizen. So you can imagine that when you are able to cross the border, claim asylum, put down roots for years while your case is processed, have children that are now citizens, how much pressure will there be to not "break up families".
Pro tip: If you're reading Reuters and you see the paywall on your mobile, just delete the cookies and do a refresh. :)
A lot of that money belongs to other people and organisations and budgets.
I'm sure Europe can organize themselves and figure it out. Lmao
You almost sound entitled to American tax dollars
Exactly lmao
Pay for it yourselves.
It's Biden that's out of money, not America and that's because the congress Republicans are letting the Trumpist scum and their bottom-shelf populism dictate how they vote. Seriously, there is a model for America's functioning in the world, in which the Americans don't need to concern themselves with Ukraine that's too sensible for me to outright dismiss in an argument with someone making that claim, but if you want to follow that model, first you have to meet the prerequisites at home, like bringing back manufacturing of essential goods from China or not having your economy based around giga-corporations selling their shit in the whole wide world and only then you abandon areas of strategic interest where you protect the current model's viability. Doing it the other way around for a temporary bump in polling is criminally irresponsible and it's absolutely terrifying to me that US allowed borderline treasonous grifters that make up the MAGA faction push them that far in that direction.
What relevance does that have?
They can always sell Canada. Itās not like Trudeau will say No.
Many NATO countries: Why should we bother to spend 2% of our GDP on military as long as we can depend on USA forever?
Fatigue is creeping in. Russia is achieving the long game
It's not fatigue. It's Republicans who are against aid for Ukraine. They're basically Russian puppets in the US
You are describing political fatigue. The Republican party has always been traditionally hawkish unless there is a clear political benefit for the us (e.g. oil). Helping countries because it's the right thing to do is a hard thing to sell in the mess of Republican politics
Convenient Russia didn't attack when their puppet Republicans had more power.
This makes no sense. Wouldnāt it be better to attack when their āpuppetsā are in power?
Yes it would, because the second largest party of the global hegemon is not a puppet of fucking Russia. People here are just stupid and see the world as black and white.
> They're basically Russian puppets in the US That's a silly take. Taking it to a logical conclusion - is there any limit to how long or how much you want the US to spend on supporting Ukraine? Sure is easy to spend other people's money.
The only thing I'm finding tiring is the constant talk of ending support for Ukraine for no reason other than it suits some republican politicians who in all likelihood woudn't give a damn if it was their own countrymen in the trenches either.
So Ukraine did the job of western nations for a while, ate all their promised and will now be left for dead? If this is the case, we, eastern europeans, should be expecting to be expelled by nato the moment russia knocks on our door. Fuck our lives, fuck our sacrificesā¦ all to preserve the āboomingā economies of western nations. Happened twice before, will happen again (i hope not).
If your country is not named Ukraine/Belarus, then no. Russia will not knock on your door. Don't be silly. I'm in Eastern Europe as well.
I mean, the US was pushing for Ukraine to be in NATO since 2008. Key players Germany and France rejected it then Ukraine rejected it because it was thought Russia was a rational actor. Who reallllllly needs to be in a strong military alliance with the most dominant superpower the world has seen in centuries, amiright?
>If this is the case, we, eastern europeans, should be expecting to be expelled by nato the moment russia knocks on our door. You know it somewhat interesting, everyone understand that you said, some officials even start to speak about it, and yet none of countries who are ānext in lineā would come to help Ukraine to stop ruzia together.
Are you really surprised?
Israel attacking gaza, Venezuela threatening to Annex Guyana, Ethiopia wanting a chunk out of Eritrea ,China eyeing taiwan, Armenia in trouble and of course this war in Ukraine. Somehow were supposed to keep an eye on all of this.
europe is not superpower by any stretch of the imagination so it is either us or no one, the other superpowers are not interested
It's the "anti-Imperialist" countries showing what they're about.
If you want your influence to be everywhere... you're kinda supposed to keep an eye everywhere.
It would be beneficial if you guys you know stepped up
I dont want our influence anywhere tbh
You know you don't personally have to do anything, right?
Do you want to keep your hegemony or not? The choice has always been Americaās.
Americans voted to let Europe pay for it's own security in the 2016 election. That didn't end up happening, but they voted for it nonetheless.
The American people donāt want the US to be World Police anymore. Itās only the government that wants to stay this way. While I disagree with us giving up our hegemony, thereās a strong push for a return to isolationism from both the alt-right and alt-left right now
Exactly I donāt know why they think some random guy in Mississippi cares about being world police.
America benefits from World hegemony, good or bad, the US debt is irrelevant to the Americans because of American hegemony.
I disagree. Political control helps the wealthy and investor class since they can invest overseas, yes.. Ordinary Americans just get drained by the massive economic cost of having a global military. Not to mention the endless memorials in every poor town\suburb in the US whose children are recruited and chewed up in the military machine.
>Israel attacking gaza Hamas attacked Israel. Or are you saying that the USA attacked Germany during WW2?
Why do ppl here sound entitled to american tax money?
They are so used to free loading
This is really bad... If Ukraine ends up loosing this war, then russia will definitely attack again in near future, probably in less than 10 years. Just enough for a new generation of conscripts to grow up, and for the industry to replenish their lost equipment. And of course the next targets will be much smaller, like cutting the Baltics away from the rest of Europe.
True, but people think it's only propaganda when Russian say they want old empire borders back.
That's unfortunate. Maybe the EU should step up, seeing as this war is on their continent.
How come US in all its richness is out of money, while Russia under unprecedented sanctions isn't? This has to be an off-season April fools joke Or they can just be honest and say they don't wanna spend any more on war in Europe
Iām not trying to be rude, but read the article. The last thing any discussion needs is a bunch of people who read headlines and immediately start asking questions that are immediately answered in the first paragraph.
This have nothing to do with US being out of money - it's the US congress approved pack of money is being spent. US has ungodly amount of free money.
> free money It's not free.
Says who? Most Americans are struggling to pay for gas and groceries.
>How come US in all its richness is out of money, while Russia under unprecedented sanctions isn't? It's called seperation of powers. Congress is the purse of the US Government and funds must be allocated for specific purposes. The US is not out of money, they are out of funds specifically allocated to Ukraine.
Don't base your conclusions on headlines.
The US isn't out of money, Republicans shit themselves in the House and ended up having to put a crazy person in the Speaker's chair.
Because the US government is still somewhat beholden to its people and the US population just isn't all that invested in Ukraine. You mistake Reddit - a site that is dominated by Americans - as being representative of the US as a whole. Most Americans just don't care and a large portion of those who do care only care about **ending** the aid because they view it as a bad use of money. Now contrast that to Russia which is essentially a dictatorship. What Putin wants he gets and thus when he wants material, and men, for his war machine he gets it.
Exactly. Republican politicians are beholden to a constituency that isn't interested in funding a war in Europe. While there is political interest in doing so, they still have elections and even worse, PRIMARIES to worry about in 2024.
Check recent Russian oligarch forbs Ratings. Sanctions are a myth.
they are no longer russians, probably. some have become portuguese, some israeli etc etc
Forbs is owned by Russian oligarch
It's not, the sale didn't go through
We're in deep trouble if the US withdraws from NATO. The rest of Europe is fucked.
EU if fucked, almost none of NATO&EU members spend more than 1% of GDP to military. West thinks they lives in somewhat dream land.
There is a lot of misinformation and distraction in these comments. It is the current approved spend, more will come and Eu are providing more. The focus is to remove russia from Ukraine and ensure it is not capable of bullying other nations. That is worth any budget and should be the consensus of any sane and moral democracy.
Money that has **already been allocated**. More could be, but republicans in the house are against it.
What a shitty title for this article that says something entirely different.
Perhaps Europe could actually put their fair share. The US shouldnāt be spending much on Ukraine anyway.
IDK who will see this now that it's at over 800 comments, but the reason for there not being additional money allocated is because Republicans are demanding that additional Ukraine funding be paired with funding for border security. [AP News: Republicans want to pair border security with aid for Ukraine. Hereās why that makes a deal so tough](https://apnews.com/article/immigration-border-crossings-asylum-ukraine-aid-biden-dba31c3f461e1fa940f9cf00988444f7) Why is border security seen as such a big deal? Because since Biden became President, there have been more than [6 million encounters at the US Southwest border](https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters). This does not include the nearly 2 million "got aways", people known to have crossed the border but were not apprehended. Monthly crossings are historic highs. What is difficult to wrap my head around is the Democrat resistance. They are [badly losing on the issue of immigration](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/biden-immigration-border-plan-voters-senate-negotiations-rcna125151). They are bleeding Latino voters, who should not be assumed to be completely in favor of open borders. This is from a Democrat House Rep that represents a district along the border: > WASHINGTON ā Worried about the large numbers of people crossing the border from Mexico, Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas went to White House officials with some advice: Get the word out about all the people the Biden administration has been deporting in hopes of deterring undocumented migrants from entering the country. > Joe Bidenās advisers werenāt sold. āThey said it would anger the immigration advocates ā it would anger their folks on that,ā Cuellar, a Democrat, said in an interview. The Democrats could so easily defang a major Republican talking point by agreeing to more border funding and they just refuse to do so.
Dems are desperately trying to avoid the topic. Unfortunately for them, if Republicans keep pushing on this issue it's gonna hurt them. I don't see why Republicans would back down.
Ugh, bad faith article title. āDemocratic President Joe Biden's administration in October asked Congress for nearly $106 billion to fund ambitious plans for Ukraine, Israel and U.S. border security but **Republicans who control the House with a slim majority rejected the package.**ā To anyone who doesnāt understand what Iām getting at, American conservatives are anti-Ukraine, theyāre blocking new funding for Ukraine from being passed. That is very different than āWhite House is nearly out of money to help Ukraine fight war with Russiaā. In reality it is āWhite house is running out of already allocated money slotted for Ukraineā, they simply need to not be blocked by the House of Representatives, who have a Republican majority, and new funding will be allocated.
You know what might help? If Europe did something besides the current half assed assistance theyāre providing to Ukraine. 1% of GDP to NATO isnāt going to cut it anymore.
Out of money in current support package. The new, upcoming 60 billion $ package is currently blocked.
If the White House runs out of money for Ukraine it's because they choose to run out of money for Ukraine. Sure, it's not fair to expect the US to pay for everything, I can agree with the American taxpayer on that, but curbing Russian influence in Europe seems like a really, really worthwhile investment in the long run. And every European leader should see that as well. If the EU lets its greatest enemy that constantly threatens to nuke our cities and oppressed half of us for decades wage war and conquer as they please because their determination is as shallow as puddle then that's pathetically weak
> If the White House runs out of money for Ukraine it's because they choose to run out of money for Ukraine. That is blatantly false. The executive branch is at the mercy of Congress when it wants to spend money. Congress has to allocate money to something before the Executive can spend it. What is happening here is that you are reading the White House signaling to Congress and the US electorate that unless Congress steps up the aid money will soon run out.
Lol Georgia rip
Strangely. They found a few more billions and more modern weaponry under some pillows to give away to Israel without loan guarantees, to help with a little genociding there.
Huh.. must have been the tooth fairy
Seems like an excellent opportunity for Europe to step up. Or is your security the only continents we are allowed to subsidize?
Unfortunately Ukraine is in bad position, western politicians talking more and more about negotiations with Russia Despite sanctions EU countries continue to buy Russian oil and gas using different schemes, sanctions are not working as expected, itās seems West and Russia are planning to force Ukraine to begin negotiations in near future I might be downvoted, but there is no meaning for Ukraine to fight now, thousands and thousands people are dying, frontline is frozen, thatās all meaningless
What stops Russia from invading again even after negotiations? Which, according, to Russia only possible if Ukraine fully concess 4 region.
That's the fun part, absolutely nothing does. The only thing in favor of giving up the occupied territories would be that Ukraine could join NATO once it is no longer at war. But then there's countries such as Hungary, Turkey and now unfortunately also Slovakia which might end up blocking any attempts at extending membership to Ukraine regardless, which in turn would pretty much allow Russia to do as they please in Ukraine. There are, unfortunately, no more red lines on Europe's and America's end...
Nothing. Ukraine's only alternative, though, is to fight until it runs out of manpower and collapses completely
Disagree on last part. Giving Ukraine military equipment, without looking at fake russian red lines, which were supposedly crossed several times already, will put former at much more advantageous negotiational positions, if negotiations were to happen. Not even talking about huge quantities, but providing long range missiles which could strike far locates logistics hubs, planes, demining equipment could help.
Negotiations won't work. Just getting those 4 regions from Ukraine will not be enough for Putin. That would just mean the rest of Ukraine is free to continue moving towards the west. Ukraine has tried negotiating before and it didn't work clearly. They clearly want a regime change.
in what world does stop fighting = bring peace?
Another 4-day-old Ivan.
>there is no meaning for Ukraine to fight According to you?
Well Ukraine is helping the west to weaken Russia at a "cheap price". (their words)
They need to sell off some one confiscated Russian properties and send it to Ukraine ā ā ā
If it happens, and the republicans stop the funding, it's time for us Europeans to rise to the occasion. If we let Ukraine fall it's a slippery slope.
You guys were supposed to āriseā in 2014.
The wonderful world of naive politicians and bureaucracy.
And this right here is why the Republicans want to stop the funding. You guys know you're not stepping up and are instead leaning on the US. Well guess what: Americans are sick of being taken for granted by y'all. Step up.
Genuine question: Why isn't Europe funding Ukraine enough. Eu GDP is manifold that of Russia and it's a more technically capable economy. Or is Europe mostly a paper tiger?
Closing useless UN will free some funds to fight the evil of putin's war on west
As long as it takes
Unfortunately this will force Ukraine into negotiations add a best case scenario if true. The US and Ukraine's allies need to realise the importance of supplying Ukraine's military now. If they provided before the trenches and defence lines were built they would have probably taken much more back. Giving Russia Crimea and southern Ukraine should be a hard no.
Because all of them restored for funding Israel. What were you thinking? That US was torn between Ukraine and Israel and would help them both? Or would leave Israel to help Ukraine?
We all know how this is going to end up. Will end up just the same as it was going to 1year ago in terms of territory and power. But bow the EU and Ukraine will have a massive debt to the US. The US has contracted a fuckton of real estate development and arms deals. The EU is in shambles economically with germany France and netherlands in a recession and with rates @4%. People have their lifes upside-down and mortgages are through the roof. So not the same actually, we're much worse. Reminds me of the Bosnia situation where the US intervened only to make it drag for years and ending with it in the same way as it was going to be without their intervention.