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Ukraine running out of options to retake significant territory
(www.washingtonpost.com)
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this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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Quick, throw more money on the fire!
The problem is that Ukraine is given enough not to lose, but not enough to win. At this rate, Ukraine will depend on western hand-outs much longer than if the West fully committed to see Ukraine restore its borders.
That's the point. The West doesn't want the war to ever end.
Then it's up to the people to demand more support from Ukraine.
Absurd. America has already given $75 billion in "assistance" to keep this war going, imagine if that had been spent on people who need it in America? And you want to spend even more than that??? Every bomb is food stolen from the mouth of a hungry child.
Yeah because this is a demon shithole country. Money only gets spent on murder, never on helping fucking anyone.
About 24 billion is non-military financial aid and 4 billion more is humanitarian, so that's a big chunk not being spent on bombs. Slightly more than half of the remainder is the estimated value of old stock being sent over and therefore could not be "spent" on assistance for Americans anyway. The remaining 23 billion that is actually money spent on equipment and training is less than half of one percent of annual federal government expenditure. Weapons for Ukraine are not the reason money isn't being spent on what you want it to be spent on.
How many billions of dollars do you want to spend on bombs?
Depends on what the countries sending it can afford and what it would take for Russia to stop invading. That's not the point I'm making. The point is that the none of the countries aiding Ukraine are currently spending anything anywhere close to enough of their budgets to significantly affect any other spending they do. If you're unhappy with how your government directs the other 99.6% of its budget, yeah, I get that. I am at mine too. But helping Ukraine is not the problem there.
No one is helping Ukraine! It's all just a ploy to keep the war going forever.
Where do you think inflation comes from? It comes from throwing money into the war machine.
Ukrainians sure as hell seem to feel otherwise. I'll also note that you lumped in $28 billion of non-military financial and humanitarian aid from America as "throwing money into the war machine", and America's aid is proportionally more military than most countries. Eight million Ukrainian refugees displaced by the war are being housed across Europe, and that is counted in the assistance figures too. If you don't think housing refugees counts as helping, then frankly go fuck yourself.
It does not come from half a percent of the federal budget. The amount is simply nowhere near big enough. If all of the American spending on assistance to Ukraine was actual new money printed, it would increase the money supply in the US by a grand total of 0.35%. Hell even if the entire US military budget was new printed money it'd still only add 4%, and that's a ludicrously unrealistic scenario
Inflation is coming from countries all over the world leaving the US dollar to trade in their own currencies. Part of that is because America spends infinite money on war, and it's also a side effect of the unprecedented sanctions regime against Russia. There is now a self-fulfilling cycle of dedollarization happening because of this war.
Is dedollarisation why inflation rates were similar across Europe over the past year? Have the sanctions ended without me noticing and that's why the rates are now pretty much back down to normal in the US? And what happened to aid to Ukraine being the cause of inflation a moment ago?
Their inflation is pretty heavily tied to shit like pipelines getting blown up and the Black Sea trade route being shut down. Inflation is complex, but are you really arguing the war is unrelated? Also, you know, they're also throwing their own money on the fire.
That doesn't undo the inflation that already happened! The sanctions are priced in.
It is, but I just wanted to highlight the multifaceted ways the burning money pile in Ukraine is causing inflation.
I'm arguing that the US is largely isolated from the economic effects of the war, and that this is evidenced by the lesser inflation spike in the US compared to Europe. America is barely exposed to the Russian and Ukrainian markets and is even a net exporter of some highly impacted commodities like natural gas.
Nobody said it undid anything. If what you said was right, though, then surely the rates would stay high given that the circumstances you claim are causing them haven't changed? Since they haven't, it seems unreasonable to pin the blame there with no further justification.
I think that actually you just started with a conclusion you wanted to reach - that whatever America is doing is bad in all situations - and said whatever came to mind to get there. The war in Ukraine does drive some inflation, but the US is largely isolated from it, and this is further evidenced by the fact that American inflation was already high before the Russian military movements in late February 2022. I mean really, can you think of nothing else that happened in the past few years that might perhaps have reduced production and trade across the world, thereby increasing prices? Something that has, unlike the Russian invasion, become less of a problem in the past year?
I'm sure that choosing a 0.4% decrease in government spending over equipping millions of people to defend their homes from a militaristic empire is somehow a move for human rights in your eyes, though.
That is but a small part of all the reasons why inflation could occur.
You're right, part of it is the sanctions regime and global dedollarization.
So inflation is Russia's fault.
We just need to let NATO turbo-fuck Russia and make it a vassal state. It's a failed state as-is and a constant irritant.
Do you want global nuclear war?
Do the Russians?
What is your plan than?
What should the west do?
Let me guess, you have no alternative that does not boil down to "Let Putin and people like him do what they want."
Negotiate an end to the war. I'd support a UN monitored vote in the Donbass region and Crimea (and any other contested area) on whether they want to join Russia or stay with Ukraine.
Let's assume a peace is negotiated, in which each party assures it respects the aggreed-upon borders. Similar to the Budapest Memorandum, signed and broken by Russia. How could Ukraine trust them this time?
That sounds good at first glance. But given Russia has the opportunity to persecute any opposition in the contested areas, and bring in loyal settlers, the results are likely skewed even if the vote itself is fair and transparent.
Fundamentally, I still don't understand why one should negotiate with a burglar how much they get to keep.
America broke it first with the Belarus sanctions. The real question is if Russia can trust America.
And it can't, so I guess the war will never end. We'll argue about it for the next 20 years.
If the UN vote monitors detect manipulation then they call it off. Simple.
You’re consistently framing this as a war between the USA and Russia. It is not. Russia invaded its neighbor(s) and held sham referendums. Negotiations must happen between Ukraine and Russia. Nobody else. Since Russia currently doesn’t even acknowledge the right of Ukraine to exist I do not see this happening soon.
I have read all of your dozens of comments. You are trying really hard to twist the words of every comment you’re responding to everywhere in this thread, until people loose interest and you can have the last say (mission accomplished?). Your replies are structured to look like counter-arguments but they don’t even address the actual points you‘re quoting. If there is nothing else left to say you simply fallback to „[…] but the USA/the West“ - irregardless of context. There is no way to argue with you in good faith. Knowing this I still think it would be wrong to have you regurgitate the imperialistic propaganda here that you‘ve apparently felt victim to without saying anything at all.
He does that because he knows Russia was wrong to invade, can't admit it and needs to make bullshit up to sustain his world view.
As everyone seems to say: Tankies gonna tank
Can confirm, this happened to me.
It's still worthwhile to address bad arguments. While you might not change the mind of the person you're directly responding to, there are likely people in the audience who are on the fence. Offering alternative perspectives and sound reasoning can help them make up their mind. Maybe it becomes clearer if we imagine the absence of counterspeech. That situation can make a far-fetched view appear as if it was without alternatives, as if it was sound and normal. Which makes it more likely to be accepted.
I'm not sure wether it matters who has the last word.
Russia refuses to give back the lands seized.
Now what to you do?
Not an option the Ukrainian gov will accept. Nor should they.
When parts of the USA wanted to leave that was not response from the USA.
I don't expect Russia to give back lands seized. I expect the will of voters to be respected by both sides.
The Ukrainian government will accept any option we give them. They're our puppet.
That sure as hell wasn't democratic! It's not like Black people got a vote.
We are talking reality here not what you want.
That has already been rejected. It is not an option.
Again: Russia will not leave, Ukraine will accept nothing but a return to the pre-invasion 2014 borders.
What do you propose?
What the fuck are you talking about? Crimea had a vote, they voted to join. There hasn't been a vote in the Donbass.
Ukraine will do whatever the fuck we want because they are slaves to the infinite money spigot.
Ah, so you do think Putin and those like him should be able to do what ever they want.
Thanks for the confirmation.
Why do you make up shit?
I think Russia can be made to comply with a peace agreement, but it has to be a negotiation. That means give and take.
Enjoy 20 years of the next foreverwar.
There is absolutely no chance that Russia can survive 20 years of war. They're on the ropes after one and a half.
"Crimea had a vote" lmao.
And Biden stole the election, too, huh?
Rofl. You expect russia, whos already announced putin has won his next election, to respect the will of the people.
Would you like to buy the Brooklyn Bridge as well? I got the title right here.
Sorry, but as if. Russia is a UN veto power. And Russia would never accept UN troops sent by the West to oversee anything. And african nations won't want to piss off Putin by agreeing to this. Putin wants his anti-NATO back and this war will only end with Putin thuroughly defeated.
Not to mention that such a vote would be a farce anyway. Russia has had enough time to kill, torture, intimidate or disappear enough people that such a vote could never be fair.
And as for the money spent on Ukraine, it's but a cheap talking point to suggest that supporting Ukraine and supporting your own population are mutually exclusive. Not to mention believing that if the money wouldn't have been spent on Ukraine, that your own people would've seen that money is pretty delusional. For starters, most of the support sent by the US is hardware. And the given value for that support is the replacement cost for the kit sent. However, most of the kit sent was due to be replaced anyways, so the actual cost for the US is much lower than the figure being thrown around.
Russia having UN veto power is why a UN monitored vote could actually be trusted by both sides, what the hell are you talking about?
And no one is "supporting" Ukraine. They're ensuring the war never ends, there will never be enough support to actually end the war.
Make it make sense then. Russia invaded Ukraine, Russia wants to annex as much of Ukraine as it can, why would Russia agree to hold a fair vote that could see Russia lose all its captured territory?
Imagine if Russia hadn’t invaded Europe.
You know full well we do not spend food on horn children in America for they come from sin. We only care about the unborn. Ask clearly you are fake american.
Better than the tankie method of using lives instead!
It’s good use for the money, this way it’s not used to buy Russian fossil fuel or help billionaires commit suicide in expensive vanity submarines.