The fact that there's a major land war in Ukraine, which the US did not start and had no power to prevent, has come at a huge cost. This is true. Given that Ukraine patently was not just going to roll over, and even if the US hadn't supported them, much of Europe absolutely would. I think it's petty plain the war would still be raging fiercely anyway. Most likely Russia would be on the skirts of or in Kyiv and Odessa by now, with a horrible bloody partisan conflict reminiscent of Vietnam or Afghanistan, or a massively scaled up version of the Chechnya war raging throughout the country.

Do you relish the prospect of Russian troops on the borders of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania? I don't.

Meanwhile US relations with Europe would be at the lowest level since WW2, it would be seen as an utter abandonment and betrayal of our shared values, including US treaty guarantees on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. America's allies across the world would know for a fact the US could not be relied upon to support them. Russia would know this. Taiwan would know this. China and North Korea would know this.

They would also realise that this situation might only last as long as the current administration. There are some in the world that would see this as a golden opportunity.

>The fact that there's a major land war in Ukraine, which the US did not start and had no power to prevent

Come now, two of the more plausible candidates for the beginning of this whole thing are the violated promise not to expand NATO Eastward and the American invasion of Serbia. Relations between America, and its allies, and Russia have been soured for decades now, with America being largely to blame.

NATO never made any formal commitment not to expand eastward, and Russian presidents from Yeltsin onwards were completely relaxed about eastern European countries choosing freely to join NATO. Gorbachev is on record saying he was never even aware any such statements had been given.

In May 2002 Vladimir Putin said Ukraine was entitled to decide on its own whether to join NATO and that he did not see such a decision as one that would “cloud” Russian-Ukrainian relations.

I think it's highly loaded to phrase this as NATO expansion. It sounds like NATO somehow coerced these countries into joining, or annexed them somehow. These countries came beating on NATO's door desperate to be let in. The instigating trigger for Putin's 2014 annexation of Crimea wasn't anything anyone in NATO said or did, it was the newly elected Ukrainian government's signalling that they wanted to join NATO.

>I think it's highly loaded to phrase this as NATO expansion. It sounds like NATO somehow coerced these countries into joining, or annexed them somehow.

That's not where I would put the emphasis. Though there was some courting, the anti-Russian sentiment in these countries was genuine.

Russia shares its borders with 14 other nations. What happened is that, one by one, many of these joined, or became partner to, an alliance which views Russia as something to be contained. Russian leaders may not have been worried at first, but that changed later.

>views Russia as something to be contained.

Contained within it's borders. You mean like constrained from territorial expansion and annexation of neighbouring territory? Yes. Just as all the European countries are contained within their borders.

Being constrained within your borders should be the default for everyone. The fact that Moscow has a president that doesn't think that way is exactly the problem NATO was created to deal with.

I'm a realist, I know there are cases when military interventions are necessary. Preventing genocide in Kosovo, kicking the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. There can be messy situations where the right course of action isn't clear, but Ukraine is not one of those. Flat out annexing large swathes of neighbouring countries is precisely the problem NATO was created to counter. It turns out for very, very good reason.

You're joking right?

> two of the more plausible candidates for the beginning of this whole thing are [...] the American invasion of Serbia

Are we talking about 1999?

Yeah. Those initial airstrikes really freaked Russia out. Relations were never the same after them. NATO's first military attack really shook them.

> Relations were never the same after them.

There have been... a lot of momentous geopolitical events since 1999.

They were shaken so much they decided to bomb and shell the living crap out over every square inch of Chechnya to get it out of their system. I'm sure blowing up some of their own apartment buildings that September helped them de-stress. I'm sorry, but the Russian government isn't a bunch of children. They're not that easily rattled.

That was long after the whole mess in Bosnia, so it's not like we hadn't seen a horrible bloody genocidal conflict that the US and European countries intervened in before.

yes, 1999

> the US did not start and had no power to prevent

Yeah we didn't start it, we just backed a coup to overthrow Ukraine's pro-Russian government in 2014 and, according to Merkel, used the Minsk (peace) agreements as cover to buy time to use NATO trainers to build up Ukraine's military. Russia and Ukraine were close to a deal at the very beginning of the war in Turkey and we obviously pressured Ukraine to abandon that. To this moment we have our secretary of defense on TV saying "no cease fire". The idea that we've been helpless bystanders to this war is false, it's the exact opposite, we've been in the driver's seat of this conflict from way before it started.

The reality is, the military industrial complex, which is in complete control of foreign policy, has been pushing for this for years so they could get a $100B+ check from DC and they got it.

Well, the victory in Ukraine is low cost high profit business for the US.

There is unprecedented growth of oil and natural gas sales to Europe, which completely displaced Russia as the biggest supplier. The arms contracts are rising heavily, making at least half of the world's armies interested in replacing old equipment. Prices are rising as well as profits.

Secondly, securing Ukraine would add up to the capitalistic market huge amounts of resources like grains and metals. This is a huge area of future investments that would provide gains for capital markets for years. Not to mention educated, hard-working populace.

There is also a matter of prestige. It is hard not to see the military advantage that western weapons have over the soviet ones. The risk of any other conflict is lower elsewhere. Still, the US is considered a worthy ally, whose guarantees are reliable.

Those are the advantages. Costs? Old military equipment that should be replaced anyway. Some money as well, but hey, banks are being given free cash as well. No boots on the ground, NATO expansion, many of the help come from allies. You can't make it cheaper.

And above all, morally you are still on the right side. Incredible.

In wars factories making guns make money selling guns. You could as well say Iran or Turku engineered the conflict to sell drones. Maybe the North Korean 152mm shell manufacturers are behind it all.

Raytheon didn’t invade Ukraine. Boeing didn’t invade Ukraine. There’s one country with one leader that invaded Ukraine, and that is where the sole responsibility lies for that decision.

He did so solely and specifically in response to the expressed democratic wishes of the Ukrainian people. That is what this war is about. You know it, I know it, the rest is just distraction.

>we just backed a coup to overthrow Ukraine's pro-Russian government in 2014

You have been misinformed. The sovereign institution in Ukraine is the Verkhovna Rada, the parliament, which overwhelmingly approved an association agreement with the European Union. Yanukovych refused to sign it, and after extensive popular protests in favour of the association agreement, on 22 February 2010 the parliament voted overwhelmingly to remove Yanukovych from office. Crucially he then issued an official statement of resignation.

The constitutional situation is messy, for sure, but the guy resigned. He didn't have to do that, but he did. The fact he went crying to mommy in Moscow and then tried to un-resign himself is rather sad, but doesn't change the facts.

>The reality is, the military industrial complex, which is in complete control of foreign policy, has been pushing for this for years

So the military industrial complex in the USA have been pushing for Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine. I'm not sure I understand how that works. Could you explain?

The US had a preferred candidate and used their influence? Absolutely shocking, ground-shattering news. I sure hope no one else does that sort of thing in Ukraine.

It goes beyond "preference" we have State Dept officials on tape having a conversation where they're hand picking the Ukrainian cabinet. Again, imagine what the US would do if we had a tape of Chinese officials picking out the top officials of Mexico. There is no way to paint the US as innocent here.

They're expressing a preference for who winds up in the Cabinet, yes. There's no indication in that transcript they have anything other than diplomatic pressure and persuasion to make that preference a reality. Note phrashing like "I think your argument to him, which you'll need to make".

The Russians will have had their corresponding preferences and influence campaigns, just as they did in US elections. (They may have even expressed them via dioxin, in Yushchenko's case.)

There was no coercion, no bribery, no extortion, they were giving advice to friendly politicians and offering support. What do you think diplomats do?

  > What do you think diplomats do?

Well, large parts of our diplomatic corps tend to foment and finance coup's around the world. We're pretty smart about it though, first we bring in the NGO's like The National Endowment for Democracy (and many others) which act as an outsourced part of our CIA, then we apply pressure from within. Our playbook is pretty well known by now.

Or wait, how many coups do you think the US has actually been involved in since WWII?

Then again, the fact that you claim the US uses no coercion means you're probably trolling and I fell for it, so well played.

Of course the US uses coercion. There have been numerous appalling cases that are utterly deplorable, mostly during the Cold War, but we’re talking about Ukraine. They didn’t use any in Ukraine, they didn’t need to. As the overwhelming vote in the Ukrainian parliament in favour of the EU accords, and numerous elections and polls in Ukraine since demonstrated clearly.

So which one is this an example of - not coercion or not bribery? Or not both:

https://www.wsj.com/video/opinion-joe-biden-forced-ukraine-t...

Do you think a government donating a billion dollars in aid money to a country has a legitimate interest in fighting corruption in that country, and a responsibility to their tax payers to ensure that money is well managed?

You didn't answer the question. We promised to give a billion dollars, then threatened to withhold it if they didn't do what we wanted. That is not a gift or a donation, that makes it a bribe. That was also a clear example of coercion - and it was done by our current President who was VP at the time.

I'm sure you were well aware of this and many other examples and yet you are on here pretending we don't use those tactics in Ukraine. Why?

It was a donation with conditions. International aid always comes with conditions as to how the money is used and managed, and donations to third world countries often include conditions relating to tackling corruption. There was nothing nefarious in that case. That prosecutor was obstructing corruption investigations, it would have been irresponsible to allow the money to go into Ukraine without ensuring the Ukrainian government was serious in tackling corruption.

Here's a UN report on aid agencies using their influence on recipient countries to demand better governance and fight corruption. So the answer to your question is, it was responsible aid management in line with international norms.

https://www.unodc.org/documents/treaties/publications/aid_ag...

No, it was Biden using his coercive power to stop the prosecutor in Ukraine that was looking into the shady dealings of Biden's son on the Board of Burisma.

On the Hunter Biden thing, since someone inevitably brought that up. According to the Ukrainians there never was any plan to investigate him, there was no evidence or reason they were aware of to bring a case, under that prosecutor or any other. Zelensky even refused to open such an investigation as spurious when directly threatened with withholding US aid as explicit coercion to do so.

Since you're so deeply concerned about US coercion of Ukraine for the personal political advantage of US politicians, I'm sure Trump's blatant attempts to do so as confirmed by several members of his own administration are particularly outrageous to you. Strange that you didn't mention it.

  > I'm sure Trump's blatant attempts to do so as confirmed by several members of his own administration are particularly outrageous to you. Strange that you didn't mention it.

Yes, a bunch of Trump's dealings are outrageous to me. One of the many reasons I didn't vote for him, he's a con artist. That doesn't change anything with the shady dealings, coercion and outright bribery that Biden has been involved in as VP and now as President.

> You have been misinformed > popular protests in favour of the association agreement, on 22 February 2010 the parliament voted overwhelmingly to remove Yanukovych

These "popular protests" were violent. The vote was at gunpoint, that's what makes it a coup.

> the military industrial complex in the USA have been pushing for Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine. I'm not sure I understand how that works. Could you explain?

Sure. They lobby the legislative and executive branch to aggressively expand NATO, to send NATO trainers into a military on Russia's border, they lobby to have the US sabotage the Minsk accords, so that anti-Russian forces in Ukraine spend 8 years killing thousands of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine.

It's like everyone taking the State Dept/arms industry bait on this conflict hasn't heard of the Monroe Doctrine. If another country did in Mexico 1/5th of what we've been doing in Ukraine for the past 15 years we would have turned Mexico into ashes.

As I’ve already pointed out all the countries that joined NATO did so with overwhelming popular support. The vote in the Ukrainian parliament was entirely free. Bear in mind until then Yanukovych was party to the negotiations with the EU. His decision to refuse to ratify it came as a total shock, hence the protests in support of the parliament.

The idea the parliament voted for the EU accord at gun point is absurd to the point of fantastical. Whose guns? The president was in charge of the army and police and he was pro Moscow. If there were any guns pointed, and there were, it was to try to prevent the pro western tide.

Lots of countries aren’t being affected by the land war, but are being affected by the US/EU sanctions on Russia. For example it’s exacerbating a major foreign currency shortage in Bangladesh: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/02/bangladesh-foreign-minister-...

> Meanwhile US relations with Europe would be at the lowest level since WW2, it would be seen as an utter abandonment and betrayal of our shared values, including US treaty guarantees on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine

If you’re referring to the Budapest agreement, it’s not a treaty. And other countries should educate themselves and understand that unilateral commitments by the President that aren’t ratified by Congress aren’t worth anything.

> Lots of countries aren’t being affected by the land war, but are being affected by the US/EU sanctions on Russia.

That is being affected by the land war. As soon as the first tank went over the line into Ukraine there were going to be harmful global consequences whatever any other country did.

As for presidential commitments. Taiwans existential security is based entirely on verbal presidential commitments going back to George W.

Well.

China relationship is strained for many reasons, Ukraine and their general support for Russia conducting the war is just icing on the cake. This has strained Chinese relations with multiple countries though (UK, EU members, etc.).

India I’m not seeing much in the way of change. The US at least didn’t really do anything different with India buying Russian oil.

US relations with South American companies are variable and generally slightly negative based on what I’ve seen, but I’m not really sure how they have gotten worse. What is leading you to believe that they are?

Saudi Arabia I somewhat agree with but think Middle East politics are extremely complex. Wouldn’t read much into Chinese efforts there.

On the other hand, the US has shored up massive support from all of Europe ex Belarus, Japan, South Korea, Canada, and Australia at a minimum. Finland joins NATO tomorrow.

Overall I’d say the war has been a large boost to American foreign relations on the whole. Can’t please everyone anyway.

W.r.t cost -> everybody is spending money. Russia especially.

On the contrary this looks like the beginning of the end of USA global hegemony. The dollar relevance is degrading and while the west is siding closer with the USA, the rest of the world is distancing itself from them.

> On the other hand, the US has shored up massive support from all of Europe ex Belarus, Japan

Regarding Japan this very news article contradicts you somehow.

> Finland joins NATO tomorrow.

Finland is insignificant from a geopolitical point of view. Its joining NATO only makes NATO less secure as a whole, rather than strenghtening it.

> Finland is insignificant from a geopolitical point of view. Its joining NATO only makes NATO less secure as a whole, rather than strenghtening it.

This makes zero sense. Please elaborate.

> The dollar relevance is degrading

Can you give some facts and figures to support this ? Because as I understand then the world would be tradin in multiple currencies for Oil&Gas.

> This makes zero sense. Please elaborate.

I did in another comment under this one. Would you elaborate on why the opposite would be true?

Lets keep thing simple : NATO ensures support from other members if your sovereignty is attacked.

Meaning you don't need to only depend on your own Military capabilities in order to protect your borders.

Finland joining makes Finland's borders a FAR more expensive attack than was previously.

> joining NATO only makes NATO less secure as a whole

NATO is not an offensive/invading force. It's a defensive force. If NATO had what you're referring to as a level of security, it has only increased due to more forces available to respond.

It's that simple.

> Its joining NATO only makes NATO less secure as a whole, rather than strenghtening it.

Why is that?

It doesn't bring additional strength to the table, rather it's a country in need of protection. This means now every other NATO country has a higher chance of being forced in a defensive war if something happens to Finland. On the other hand Finland won't be able to contribute much to protect other NATO countries. Hence, NATO countries are a bit less safe now.

> It doesn't bring additional strength to the table

Strong disagree. With Finland, NATO's control of the Baltic sea is insurmountable. Together with Turkey's control on the Black Sea, this completely cripples any Russian maritime capabilities.

> rather it's a country in need of protection

Also unlikely. The geography of the Finish border is such that an invasion via land is incredibly difficult. Dense forest and mountainous terrain create many easily defended bottlenecks, and the Finns with their outsized artillery are in a perfect position to defend those.

Even without NATO protection, the Finish gave the Russians a very bloody nose the last time they tried to invade. Since then, the Finish military has been re-structured with the single purpose to defend against another Russian invasion, whereas the Russian military is constrained by many other factors. Any Russian advance against the EU now has to come via the Ukrainian and Polish plains.

"ending US hegemony" is something every average American should cheer.

Demand for American currency abroad brought stability to the currency. If that demand should diminish significantly, future American financial excesses will become a lot more dangerous. This might speed along decline or motivate a return to more disciplined economic policies. Time will tell.

The end of the ability to run deficits. Social Security and medicare financial problems become exponentially more urgent and dire.

no I'm talking about the part where poor Americans who join the armed forces go to foreign countries, are asked to kill people and sometimes die themselves

Especially Latin Americans.

>> India I’m not seeing much in the way of change. The US at least didn’t really do anything different with India buying Russian oil.

On the contrary, perhaps relations are not that good.

https://hindupost.in/world/target-modi-us-regime-change-mach...

I didn't have high hopes based on the domain name but the opening is something else!

> The US is working very hard, in full force to change Modi regime; its the top agenda item for the Hillary-Obama Cabal that is the real power behind Biden.

US-NATO/EU relations, in contrast, have rarely been stronger, and a long-standing US goal of increasing European defense spending has now become feasible.

China and the Saudis are unlikely to somehow turn into genuine friends, and in China's case specifically the unified stance in Ukraine (as well as the "it's harder to invade than you might think" message) sends a bit of a message in the case of Taiwan.

The trade-off seems pretty acceptable.

> China and the Saudis are unlikely to somehow turn into genuine friends

China and the Saudis are the perfect match. Both are authoritarian regimes that do business. China needs liquid energy and the Saudi needs access to stuff and capital markets. The Chinese can now provide an alternative.

For clarity, I'm saying they're unlikely to turn into genuine friends of the US and US foreign policy. Wasn't talking about relations between China and Saudi. Ukraine hasn't really changed anything in that calculus.

I wonder where is the money to increase the spending? Even more insane level of debt? Even more suffering with inflation and lessening of public services?

Inaction has a price, too. Russia has even helpfully provided a concrete example of the costs of it.

>a long-standing US goal of increasing European defense spending has now become feasible.

Call me when every European nation actually hits their required NATO spending amount. Until then, talk is cheap.

It seems quite obvious that a major global conflict comes with a cost. The main question becomes, is the cost worth it? Inaction also has a cost, possibly less cost in the short term while the profits keep rolling in and more cost in the long term when the tanks start rolling in.

Sometimes it's okay to assume that cost, if it means standing on the right side morally.

As an Indian, I detest the Russian invasion. In fact, a number of Indians do, and it's only a few vocal fanatics who seem to support Russia's invasion. None of us thought Russia would be stupid enough to invade Ukraine, and we all thought it was a ploy to raise oilprices by making up "tensions at the border". And trust me, the West's relationship with India hasn't changed. Rather India's relationship with Russia has degraded slightly, since India has begun programmes in every front to dispose of Russian military tech.

India continues to buy oil from Russia, as does Japan, China, etc, only because it's the rational thing to do - you're getting dirt cheap prices and you're an oil-starved nation, why wouldn't you be an opportunist? And if I remember correctly, the West leadership tacitly supports this arrangement as that helps stabilize oil prices for the West buying from the rest of the suppliers.

US relations with the other countries in the list have degraded but that's largely because of the Trump and Biden governments policies towards them, and less because of Ukraine.

> India has begun programmes in every front to dispose of Russian military tech

I've been wondering about that. I imagined that countries buying weapons from Russia would be worried and considering to pivot to another seller. Maybe this not because of the poor display of those weapons in combat, after all they just must be not worse than the weapons of the neighbors or of the other internal factions, but because they could run out of spare parts and new items. If Russia doesn't have enough weapons to refill its own losses, it can sell some to get money, but not as much as one year ago.

I don't think that China is an option for India, so maybe the USA, something from Europe or internal production. The latter would be best because of no strings attached, but is it feasible in the short / medium term?

I can see the mutual partnerships are on the rise. There is a brand new polish-korean cooperation for producing various weapons. India may produce its own equipment by finding a reliable partner that would help with know-how.

I believe India is seeking a partnership with France. The US was in the running, but again, cost and tech transfer issues.

> on the right side morally

We just got 100s of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians killed so we could write a huge check to the US arms industry.

A lot of Ukrainians and former Soviet republic countries' citizens would disagree.

No it has not. We're looking at two new members to NATO, a rise in European unity coupled with an increase in defense spending, and the destruction of Russia's army.

Relations with China were already decaying, things seem normal with India, and Saudi Arabia is the result of Trump and Co kissing MBSs butt while in power. The Saudis are much more reliant on the US than the other way around