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> The piece de resistance was when Europeans laughed when Trump asked them to spend more on defense only to be caught entirely off guard when Ukraine was invade
by yawpitch 2y ago
> The piece de resistance was when Europeans laughed when Trump asked them to spend more on defense only to be caught entirely off guard when Ukraine was invaded.
So the piece de resistance was when Trump gave Putin carte blanche to invade Ukraine?
Just to be clear, he’s about to give Putin carte blanche to keep pushing to (eventually) Belgium. Never mind what he’ll do in his next first 100 days to provide carte blanche into Taiwan.
The man has the tactical savvy and realpolitik of a toaster.
- asdasdsddd 2y agoThe joke is not on America, but the complacent European leaders who are actually affected by an aggressive Russia. The fact that the carte blanche is even Trumps to give is the problem in the first place.
- yawpitch 2y agoThinking America isn’t directly effected by expansionist aggression into Europe really seems to be one of those “doomed to repeat” lessons of history. Oddly enough the size of the “failed to study” crowd also seems to have a lot of overlap with the people who vote for populists, racists, and America-Uber-Alles isolationists.
- asdasdsddd 2y agoWe already provide security guarantees to over 20 nations in Europe. Do you think we should extend it to the rest of the world? At what point is this considered overextension, one of the leading indicators of the downfall of great empires and a source of internal misalignment, debt, and administrative burden.
- The_Colonel 2y agoNote that US was one of the 3 powers signing Budapest Memorandum, actively urging Ukraine to give up nuclear weapons in exchange for Ukrainian sovereignty and security assurances. While this document doesn't oblige US to defend Ukrainian sovereignty, I don't think US is completely off the hook here either.
- yawpitch 2y ago[flagged]
- leereeves 2y ago> So the piece de resistance was when Trump gave Putin carte blanche to invade Ukraine? Putin invaded Crimea while Obama was President and then invaded Ukraine again while Biden was President. The idea that Trump enables Putin is just a laughable counterfactual. Since Euromaidan, Trump is the only President that hasn't watched Putin invade Ukraine.
- yawpitch 2y agoTrump undermined the fundamental concept of NATO by making it an explicit pay-for-play, left Ukraine without a US Ambassador from May 2019 until after the invasion, tied frozen military aid (which remained frozen for the rest of his term) to a quid pro quo response on a phone call he was impeached for, repeatedly over many years stroked Putin like one of his microphones, and then shattered the idea of a stable democracy capable of handling a peaceful transition of power. History will, absolutely, bear out that Putin’s longstanding support for Trump always was a long game power play for Ukraine (and Georgia, and eventually Poland, Lithuania, Finland… there’s a lot of dominoes).
- aguaviva 2y agoLeft Ukraine without a US Ambassador from May 2019 until after the invasion, Biden took over in January 2021.
- yawpitch 2y agoTrump made the post a partisan hot potato that was open to the highest bidder, it took the incoming administration a bit of deliberation to determine how to replace that shit show with someone both sides of a pretty evenly split Senate could approve of… I’m also not blaming Trump for anything that started under Obama’s watch and that he just inherited and didn’t act on immediately.
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- aguaviva 2y agoHe’s about to give Putin carte blanche to keep pushing to (eventually) Belgium. He's not of course, and weird, untenable exaggerations like this aren't helpful.