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> Who benefits from the defense of Ukraine? Everyone who values peace and cooperation over war and conquest. US military spending is currently at a historic l
by mopsi 2y ago
> Who benefits from the defense of Ukraine?
Everyone who values peace and cooperation over war and conquest.
US military spending is currently at a historic low, at 2.7% of the gross domestic product (GDP). During the Cold War, military spending never fell below 4.5%. Chart: https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Photos/igphoto/2002099941/ https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Photos/igphoto/2002099941...
As of 2024, 1% of US GDP equals approximately 290 billion dollars per year. A return to Cold War era baseline would mean 1.8% increase or about 520 billion more spent on the military each year. (Probably even more, since the US entered the Cold War with a massive WWII-era army and the industry to support it. The US isn't currently capable of producing a new main battle tank every 20 minutes like back then.)
The US has spent 120 billion in all forms of aid (military, financial, humanitarian) to Ukraine over three years. That's 40 billion dollars per year on average. Why would anyone throw away the current support for Ukraine that effectively keeps Russia in check, only to replace it with renewed Cold War standoff in the middle of Europe that is bound to cost at least ten times more?
It's as if some people have fallen into collective amnesia and forgotten what the world looked like just 40 years ago. Germany was split in half by barbed wire and minefields, and civilians were gunned down from machine gun nests if they tried to flee from totalitarian oppression in East Germany to the free West Germany. Along the border that separated free people of Europe from those under Moscow-controlled dictatorships, massive armies stood facing each other.
I understand why Putin wants it all back. This was the world he was born into, the system he grew up with and indoctrinated into at the KGB. These were the glory days of the Russian empire of his time. But why on earth would any European or American want to turn back time?
European countries closest to Russia have already started increasing military spending to about 5%, and even countries as far west as France have floated the same idea. With the return of Cold War era threats that the sitting American president is cheerleading, it's just inevitable.
- tkdg1257 2y agoYes, Ukraine can fulfill the role of West Germany during the cold war. That means we have to stop the hot war, which just gets people killed and has caused at least 10 million refugees all over Europe. So, like Germany, it can give up territories in the East for practical reasons. The fortifications need to be build, the borders need to be secured and Ukraine has to be armed. Ukraine can then live well like Germany and Austria (not in NATO) during the cold war. Continuing the hot war is insane.
- aredox 2y agoAnd Ukraine gets to keep the Russian territories it holds? And also Ukraine gets under a Nuclear umbrella? The US was already supposed to protect Ukraine's borders according to the Budapest memorandum. What proof do you have the US will now commit to protect Ukraine like it protected West Germany during the Cold War?
- AtlasBarfed 2y agoRefugees is another way of saying "demographic infusion". Europe is in such desperate need of immigration to offset their population decline. And Russians/Ukrainians are generally a lot better at integrating that Middle Eastern muslims or Africans because of the religious divide. In the short run if I was the EU I would send troops to comprehensively defeat the Russians in Ukraine, including taking Crimea back, and then take Belarus. The westernization of Belarus and Ukraine would make a mighty wall of defense against Russia and allow the EU to wait out the fall of Putin and the massive chaos it will cause.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- hollerith 2y agoPoland and Romania also make a mighty wall of defense against Russia without causing an expected tens of millions of deaths like your plan would cause. Till the invasion of Ukraine, I did not know so many people were so eager to kill young men and civilians.
- AtlasBarfed 2y agoRadical pacifism cannot stand up to depraved aggression. Putin is a ghoul that sends prisoners and "lesser" ethnicities to their deaths in meat waves assaults in Ukraine. He looks at Soviets machine gunning their own retreating underequipped death assaults as the proper way to run an army. He steals children, attacks civilians, bombs nuclear plants, mocks your leaders, threatens nuclear armageddon. Look, you fight him in Ukraine, or you fight in Eastern Europe, or you fight him on your home soil. You honor your democratic oaths and commitments to alliance and protection, or you cowardly abandon your allies to Putin. There is no magic land where no soldiers die in this age. The 75 years of pax americana post-WWII peace is over. The current "peace" accord is appeasement and imperial robbery by the US. Russia will simply use it to learn, restock, marshal forces, and reattack in 2-5 years, only a moron wouldn't see that. Putin's stated strategic goals are to attack the Baltics and Poland at a minimum, and if he successfully does that with a still functioning army, he will proceed westward until he is stopped. If we really cared about not spilling blood, NATO would have provided unrestrained aerial superiority and bombing to nullify all Russian artillery, missiles, and bombing, and brought their logistics to a halt. Instead we chose to arm Ukraine with the minimum amount of resistance and annoyance to drain both the Ukrainian and Russian forces. We live in interesting times.