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Biden approves American military contractors to deploy to Ukraine

30 points by jdmark 2y ago

p1esk 2y ago
“ We have not made any decisions and any discussion of this is premature,” said one administration official. “The president is absolutely firm that he will not be sending US troops to Ukraine.”
- clipsy 2y ago
  Do you need someone to help you understand what "US troops" are?
  - p1esk 2y ago
    Do you need someone to remind you the rules of a polite conversation? This is not Reddit.
richrichie 2y ago
[flagged]
- DarknessFalls 2y ago
  Because we don't want Russia to get a foothold right at the backdoor of our NATO allies.
  - richrichie 2y ago
    It appears the other way around. NATO has expanded, contravening the guarantee that led USSR to give up its rightfully owned territory in Germany and has been knocking on the doors of Russia. It is evidently a critical national security interest for Russia, given the track record of unilateral regime change operations by NATO that have left millions dead and millions more displaced.
    - anon291 2y ago
      You are absolutely right about NATO, but wrong about Russia. At the end of the day American hegemony has essentially produced the most peaceful, prosperous period ever and America is pretty open to any country joining this hegemony as long as you play by its basic rules. This does not mean giving up your culture. American hegemony is able to allow such disparate economies and societies as Saudi Arabia and Norway to operate in fairly peaceful markets. At the end of the day, it is in the best interest of everyone to basically do what America says. Unlike previous regimes, America has not completely run roughshod over anyone other than people that were already doing extremely questionable things. And it doesn't matter because if your leaders kowtow enough to American demands, you can be pretty sure we will leave you alone. So basically, Russia is going to lose and will make a fool of themselves as they already have, and America will come out of this relatively unscathed. At the end of the day, America has no real competition. The Pax Americana is substantively different than Pax Brittanica and Pax Romana, in that Americas is worldwide and there is no country able to threaten America in any meaningful way. We are blessed to be surrounded by two very friendly countries that play well with us. Moreover all the countries that might threaten us are literally dying out.
      - richrichie 2y ago
        > allow such disparate economies and societies as Saudi Arabia and Norway to operate in fairly peaceful markets. While the US operates at an arms length from KSA with none of the usual theatrics about human rights violations, LGBTQ rights, etc, it has not adopted the same approach to China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, etc. It aggressively meddles in them in cultural and political spheres, not allowing such disparate actors to operate in the same peaceful markets. The recent animosity towards China is mind boggling. I remember Wolfowitz’s PNAC and full spectrum domination from 2001. The US seem to have lost plenty of its power projection since then. But for its vassal states, most countries do not seem to care about its sanctions on Russia. People don’t mind a just thug keeping peace and offering protection for a reasonable sum though. The US did that role well.
        anon291 2y ago
- bad_username 2y ago
  > I am yet to see a clear articulation of 1. What those critical interests are The critical interest of the US is in avoiding direct war of the US with Russia when it invades Poland or Estonia. Russia _will_ invade a NATO country if it conquers Ukraine, and the US will be obliged to defend it. So if the voluntary support of Ukraine allows to avoid that scenario today, it obviously is critically interesting. > Why they are worth pursuing at the risk of a/ destruction of European economies b/ alienating China, Because it is much better to risk the destruction of European economy (btw, how exactly?) or alienate China than risk sleepwalking into a potentially civilization-ending NATO-Russia war.
  - richrichie 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - friend_and_foe 2y ago
      Seriously. This is just scaremongering. Could it happen? Anything can happen. Will it happen? I dunno, but acting like it is a foregone conclusion as justification for escalation is nothing more than pro war propaganda.
    - bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
      You're the kind of person who said that Russia invading Ukraine wasn't a serious argument. Sorry.
  - mint2 2y ago
    You forgot to mention, if the US didn’t back Europe’s stance on Ukraine (yes Europe’s stance), then China would have a green light to invade Taiwan, and most certainly do it. And once that precedent is set of invading neighbors like that, neither Russia nor China would stop with just Ukraine and Taiwan.
    - richrichie 2y ago
      Not quite. Europe has been bullied into a war with its principal commodity and energy supplier. Wish there were leaders like Jacques Chirac who had the balls to put their own national interests first.
- hulitu 2y ago
  > 2. Why they are worth pursuing at the risk of a/ destruction of European economies Because Europe was (maybe still is) a treat economicaly for the US economy, especially automotive sector. And the EU was trying to become also a military aliance which will be a treat to NATO, if they separate. At the moment the US is buying a lot of politicians in EU (vdL for example) but this won't last forever.
  - petre 2y ago
    You're joking, right? EU people are quite reasonable, they just don't quite like being bossed around. The Germans needed North Stream blown up and Ukraine invaded in order to understand that they shouldn't have relied on Russian gas to grow their economy. Some of Germans I've spoken to still don't get it as of today, regardless how frank the current and former US administrations were regarding this and contributions to NATO. Somehow they fail to comprehend that the US gave them protection during the Cold War and it's also US brokered agreements that led to the reunification of Germany on 15 March 1991. The French being French like stuff done their way and knew they can't fully rely on the US since the '50s. But at least they got their shit together with Germany and are building a new tank platform, the MGCS. Some of the German aerospace industry was already consolidated into Airbus Helicopters and they've also jointly developed the Eurofighter platform with the UK, Spain and Italy. Norway, Denmark, The Nederlands, Belgium, Poland, Romania, Greece and Turkey are buying US weapons systems, no surprises there.
    - richrichie 2y ago
      > The Germans needed North Stream blown up and Ukraine invaded in order to understand that they shouldn't have relied on Russian gas to grow their economy. Some of Germans I've spoken to still don't get it as of today This is like an abusive husband who tells the wife how the beatings are for her owm good!
      - petre 2y ago
        No, it's like parents taking their fat stubborn kid to sports camp to get him off ponchiki, setting the ponchiki joint alight and than feeding him doughnuts. All of this because the ponchiki joint's owner used the profits to arm up and attack their neighbour, which they promised to leave alone. (For the record, ponchiki taste way better than doughnuts, at least I'll give the Russians that)
- archagon 2y ago
  Regime?

30 points by jdmark 2y ago

“ We have not made any decisions and any discussion of this is premature,” said one administration official. “The president is absolutely firm that he will not be sending US troops to Ukraine.”

clipsy 2y ago
Do you need someone to help you understand what "US troops" are?
- p1esk 2y ago
  Do you need someone to remind you the rules of a polite conversation? This is not Reddit.

richrichie 2y ago

[flagged]

DarknessFalls 2y ago
Because we don't want Russia to get a foothold right at the backdoor of our NATO allies.
- richrichie 2y ago
  It appears the other way around. NATO has expanded, contravening the guarantee that led USSR to give up its rightfully owned territory in Germany and has been knocking on the doors of Russia. It is evidently a critical national security interest for Russia, given the track record of unilateral regime change operations by NATO that have left millions dead and millions more displaced.
  - anon291 2y ago
    You are absolutely right about NATO, but wrong about Russia. At the end of the day American hegemony has essentially produced the most peaceful, prosperous period ever and America is pretty open to any country joining this hegemony as long as you play by its basic rules. This does not mean giving up your culture. American hegemony is able to allow such disparate economies and societies as Saudi Arabia and Norway to operate in fairly peaceful markets. At the end of the day, it is in the best interest of everyone to basically do what America says. Unlike previous regimes, America has not completely run roughshod over anyone other than people that were already doing extremely questionable things. And it doesn't matter because if your leaders kowtow enough to American demands, you can be pretty sure we will leave you alone. So basically, Russia is going to lose and will make a fool of themselves as they already have, and America will come out of this relatively unscathed. At the end of the day, America has no real competition. The Pax Americana is substantively different than Pax Brittanica and Pax Romana, in that Americas is worldwide and there is no country able to threaten America in any meaningful way. We are blessed to be surrounded by two very friendly countries that play well with us. Moreover all the countries that might threaten us are literally dying out.
    - richrichie 2y ago
      > allow such disparate economies and societies as Saudi Arabia and Norway to operate in fairly peaceful markets. While the US operates at an arms length from KSA with none of the usual theatrics about human rights violations, LGBTQ rights, etc, it has not adopted the same approach to China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, etc. It aggressively meddles in them in cultural and political spheres, not allowing such disparate actors to operate in the same peaceful markets. The recent animosity towards China is mind boggling. I remember Wolfowitz’s PNAC and full spectrum domination from 2001. The US seem to have lost plenty of its power projection since then. But for its vassal states, most countries do not seem to care about its sanctions on Russia. People don’t mind a just thug keeping peace and offering protection for a reasonable sum though. The US did that role well.
      - anon291 2y ago
bad_username 2y ago
> I am yet to see a clear articulation of 1. What those critical interests are The critical interest of the US is in avoiding direct war of the US with Russia when it invades Poland or Estonia. Russia _will_ invade a NATO country if it conquers Ukraine, and the US will be obliged to defend it. So if the voluntary support of Ukraine allows to avoid that scenario today, it obviously is critically interesting. > Why they are worth pursuing at the risk of a/ destruction of European economies b/ alienating China, Because it is much better to risk the destruction of European economy (btw, how exactly?) or alienate China than risk sleepwalking into a potentially civilization-ending NATO-Russia war.
- richrichie 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - friend_and_foe 2y ago
    Seriously. This is just scaremongering. Could it happen? Anything can happen. Will it happen? I dunno, but acting like it is a foregone conclusion as justification for escalation is nothing more than pro war propaganda.
  - bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
    You're the kind of person who said that Russia invading Ukraine wasn't a serious argument. Sorry.
- mint2 2y ago
  You forgot to mention, if the US didn’t back Europe’s stance on Ukraine (yes Europe’s stance), then China would have a green light to invade Taiwan, and most certainly do it. And once that precedent is set of invading neighbors like that, neither Russia nor China would stop with just Ukraine and Taiwan.
  - richrichie 2y ago
    Not quite. Europe has been bullied into a war with its principal commodity and energy supplier. Wish there were leaders like Jacques Chirac who had the balls to put their own national interests first.
hulitu 2y ago
> 2. Why they are worth pursuing at the risk of a/ destruction of European economies Because Europe was (maybe still is) a treat economicaly for the US economy, especially automotive sector. And the EU was trying to become also a military aliance which will be a treat to NATO, if they separate. At the moment the US is buying a lot of politicians in EU (vdL for example) but this won't last forever.
- petre 2y ago
  You're joking, right? EU people are quite reasonable, they just don't quite like being bossed around. The Germans needed North Stream blown up and Ukraine invaded in order to understand that they shouldn't have relied on Russian gas to grow their economy. Some of Germans I've spoken to still don't get it as of today, regardless how frank the current and former US administrations were regarding this and contributions to NATO. Somehow they fail to comprehend that the US gave them protection during the Cold War and it's also US brokered agreements that led to the reunification of Germany on 15 March 1991. The French being French like stuff done their way and knew they can't fully rely on the US since the '50s. But at least they got their shit together with Germany and are building a new tank platform, the MGCS. Some of the German aerospace industry was already consolidated into Airbus Helicopters and they've also jointly developed the Eurofighter platform with the UK, Spain and Italy. Norway, Denmark, The Nederlands, Belgium, Poland, Romania, Greece and Turkey are buying US weapons systems, no surprises there.
  - richrichie 2y ago
    > The Germans needed North Stream blown up and Ukraine invaded in order to understand that they shouldn't have relied on Russian gas to grow their economy. Some of Germans I've spoken to still don't get it as of today This is like an abusive husband who tells the wife how the beatings are for her owm good!
    - petre 2y ago
      No, it's like parents taking their fat stubborn kid to sports camp to get him off ponchiki, setting the ponchiki joint alight and than feeding him doughnuts. All of this because the ponchiki joint's owner used the profits to arm up and attack their neighbour, which they promised to leave alone. (For the record, ponchiki taste way better than doughnuts, at least I'll give the Russians that)
archagon 2y ago
Regime?