4 ms·

Of course. The US "negotiators" for the so called mineral deal trying fleece Ukraine, a state fighting valiantly for it's freedom and continued existence, out o

by etiam 2y ago

Of course. The US "negotiators" for the so called mineral deal trying fleece Ukraine, a state fighting valiantly for it's freedom and continued existence, out of 400 billion dollars in protection payments, had it as piece of the coercion to threaten cutting Starlink access. In context, that's literally an act of war. Nobody wants to be addicted to this and vulnerable to being coerced and manipulated by threats of having service revoked at catastrophic times unless they do exactly whatever Musk and his puppetmasters say.

FirmwareBurner 2y ago
Unpopular opinion: How else should Ukraine pay for the military assistance it's receiving? That's not cheap. The US, NATO and EU taxpayers don't owe Ukraine anything for free since there's no contractual obligation to do so. Money doesn't just rain from the sky, the US and EU taxpayer are ultimately bankrolling this. Sharing profits from your natural resources in exchange for military resources seems like a great deal to me. Nothing in life is ever free, someone is always paying for it, usually through taxes. If you think this logic is flawed, argument me why.
- Y-bar 2y ago
  Speaking as a European now. I give Ukraine money via taxes and occasional donations. Ukraine repays me many times over by their blood, sweat, and tears to keep Europe free and democratic. This is an easy and cheap trade for me, and I could/should probably pay them even more for what they give in return.
  - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
    They're fighting to keeping themselves free. My country's and NATO's defense is what's keeping me free. Any additional assistance from my tax money to Ukraine (which I agree with) is entirely optional and should be repaid.
    - diggan 2y ago
      Some people only see today, others look forward. When people say Ukraine is fighting for European democracy and freedom, it's about what happens after Ukraine if they fall.
      - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        >Some people only see today, others look forward. When your bank balance is zero or negative and rent and bills are due, do you care about your own today or do you care about the tomorrow of another country hundreds/thousands of KM away? Because that's how most people think in private. Only the privileged with a warm home and a full stomach can afford to think about other countries. Everyone is rooting for Ukraine if you ask them, but not many are willing to sacrifice their own welfare for it.
    - argsnd 2y ago
      They are fighting the only country that exists which poses a threat to Europe. If they defeat that country we all benefit.
      - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        How will Ukraine defeat a nuclear power? Do you think Putin given his ego, after all he's put his country and reputation through, is just gonna walk back and admit defeat if you throw enough EU money and Ukrainian bodies at him? How naive can you be?
        andrewflnr 2y ago
        Small animals can defeat large, powerful predators simply by being too prickly to bother with. Russia is almost certainly not going to deploy nukes over Ukraine. The cost/benefit is just not there: they won't help take or hold territory, and they invite strategic retaliation from more actors than just Ukraine. So. Putin's political position is not unassailable (remember how touch-and-go things were with Prigozhin? How hardly anyone stood up to him?). If holding Ukraine becomes genuinely untenable, he'll have to make some excuse to leave, or fall. It's even possible he'll die of old age or pneumonia and be replaced by a more reasonable psychopath.
- argsnd 2y ago
  I do not accept the Trump administration’s view that defeating Russia is not worth anything to the rest of us.
  - Yeul 2y ago
    It's a sad day when the US president feels closer to a dictator than a democratically elected president. There's been an ideological shift in America that a lot of people are desperately trying to deny because it is truly terrifying.
- distances 2y ago
  Assuming one isn't interested in their fight for freedom: they are paying for this in blood. Ukraine is dismantling Europe's only local threat, and the oldest geopolitical rival of the US. They have already destroyed most of Russia's Cold War arsenal of conventional weapons. If we put this in a bit of a cynical way, the situation as it stands is an extremely cheap deal both for Europe and the US.
  - maxglute 2y ago
    If one isn't interested in their fight then cheap=/= maximally profitable. Foot in door by luring proxies to trade blood for $. Once proxies dependant and fully sunk cost, enshitification commences. If one is cynical, RU as future competition is done, extraction of UKR can begin. Dead horse still worth something as glue.
    - eru 2y ago
      Whenever I read theories like this, I am saddened that we don't live in such a utopia where eg the US (and Russia etc) have perhaps some weird and questionable goals, but go about achieving them rationally and efficiently.
- petesergeant 2y ago
  > How else should Ukraine pay for the military assistance it's receiving? Boots on the ground. They're fighting an excellent proxy war against Russia on behalf of NATO, severely stretching NATO's largest geopolitical ally, at the extreme cost of young Ukrainian men ending up in the ground. Sweden and Finland have been brought into the alliance, very valuable lessons have been learned, exceptional military intelligence gained, for a bit of cash and essentially no NATO causalities. By the end of the war, an exhausted Russia will have almost zero capacity to mount a conventional attack against any NATO member for a decade. In short, why should Ukraine be paying with treasure when they're already paying so much with blood?
- eigart 2y ago
  Ukraine is fighting on behalf of all of Europe. The cost is the least of our worries. They are sending their children so I don’t have to send mine. Blackmailing them for profit is despicable.
  - GJim 2y ago
    > Ukraine is fighting on behalf of all the free world. Fixed that for you.
- steve_gh 2y ago
  It's the price you pay for being rich, free and alive at the same time - Lord John Marbury
- jemmyw 2y ago
  For the same reasons the US entered WWI and WWII - the US economy has gained more than any other from a stable rule based world. The US paid to rebuild Europe after WWII and that act did nothing but pay dividends. Thought of another way, if those minerals in the ground are useful resources for the US, it's more in the US benefit to pay now to stabilize the situation so they can later buy the minerals from a happy and productive population - as the amount of trade going the other way will probably be vastly greater. Same is true of Russia, if it was possible to undo the fuckup there after the fall of the USSR. It could be a huge economy. It's not a zero sum game, if Ukraine and Russia have bigger free economies then everyone else gets bigger too. That's the idea anyway, it's worked before. It maybe didn't work with China because we forgot the free part. But Ukraine was already heading in the right direction with democracy and fighting corruption - which is pretty much the reason for the war.
  - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
    Historical fact: US population also didn't want to enter WW2 because they saw the war as Europe's problem, just like how I see this war mostly as Ukraine's problem. The US only entered WW2 after Pearl Harbor.
    - piva00 2y ago
      Your analogy means you would only like to enter war after Russia bombs somewhere else in Europe? When it becomes inevitable to go to war and we have to pay orders of magnitude more in economical terms, and an immeasurable price in lives? That sounds rather... Stupid?
      - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        >Your analogy means It doesn't. That's what your made up analogy means in your head. Don't put words in my mouth to twist the narrative in your corner. I was only pointing out that today, just like 70+ years ago in WW2, individuals want to stay out of other countrys' wars out of self preservation.
- gambiting 2y ago
  >> taxpayers don't owe Ukraine anything for free since there's no contractual obligation to do so If your neighbour was being attacked would you help them even if you never signed a contract saying you will come to his defence?
- Yeul 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - eru 2y ago
    > Killing Russians is basically one of the best things a government can spend money on. I wouldn't be so cynical. Dismantling the power of the Russian government: yes. But that doesn't necessarily have to involve offing Russian men. They are also people, and their lives are worth something.
    - Yeul 2y ago
      Unfortunately history teaches us that any Russian government is unwilling to accept peaceful coexistence.
      - etiam 2y ago
        > Killing Russians is basically one of the best things a government can spend money on. In that sense the Russians have managed to get a long history of governments with fantastic spending policy. They are even spending other nations' money to get the job done! Real shame about the aim and timing though. Even with that volume, they barely get any of the worst ones, and when occasionally they do purge it's always after purgee has done plenty of damage and maybe even started considering repenting a little bit...
  - dang 2y ago
    > Killing $group is basically one of the best things Wtf? You can't post like this here, regardless of who you want to kill. If you do it again we will ban you. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting to this site, we'd appreciate it. We're trying for something very different here.
- macspoofing 2y ago
  >How else should Ukraine pay for the military assistance it's receiving?... Sharing profits from your natural resources in exchange for military resources seems like a great deal to me. Sorry, where did you get that this deal is for _FUTURE_ military resources??? Seriously - where did you hear that? The only way the Trump administration characterized the mineral deal is as repayment for PAST military aid, even though it was perfectly understood that those were GRANTS (i.e. there were no terms attached to the military aid). The Trump administration also accused Ukraine of cheating/tricking the US/Biden administration to get this military aid ... and also of starting the war ... and also of being a dictatorship ... and also of being an obstacle to peace. Trump administration also made it clear that the mineral deal is NOT a security guarantee, nor is the mineral deal payment for FUTURE military aid. ------------ It is a common pattern that whenever Trump says X, apologists, like you, come out of the woodwork and say something like "Well, what he really meant to say is Y". Yes, it would be different if the mineral deal was payment for future military aid .. but it isn't - so why are you saying that?
- ghusto 2y ago
  It's a shame that asking an honest question is getting downvoted. It's like downvoting learning. I'll answer from my perspective, before you're greyed out to oblivion. My understanding is that for the USA, sending weapons isn't the same as giving away money. The military industrial complex gains from more weapons needing to be built, for one thing. For the free world at large, it's beneficial to oppose Putin via a proxy war for obvious reasons. We're all getting something out of this, and I'd say if it's in return for sending weapons, that's a good deal (for us!).
- eru 2y ago
  > Unpopular opinion: How else should Ukraine pay for the military assistance it's receiving? That's a weird question. Most of that equipment was more or less produced in the first place for fighting Russia. Equivalently, you could ask how the US should be paying Ukraine for the manpower they are providing. The US is getting a huge discount here, because they only have to supply some equipment for the fight. Ukraine is supplying the manpower for free.
- Paradigma11 2y ago
  The problem is that stopping support now after US congress and president had vowed to support Ukraine "for as long as it takes" is going to be far more expensive. Small things like Tesla sales crumbling, which means less tax revenue. The US had 320B USD in arms sales 2024. Usually about 60% of that stays in country as tax revenue. Europe is upping its spending massively but a big part is developing production capacity for the most complex and expensive stuff that will be in direct competition to the US. Never mind such BS like the US vetoing Grippen to sell their planes to Colombia because of the use of US engines. All in all the US has proven itself to be an unreliable ally. This lack of trust will result in additional costs and lost opportunities in the next decades.
mlindner 2y ago
Cutting off Starlink was never threatened on Ukraine access. SpaceX, Musk and Ukraine themselves (both Zelensky and other Ukrainian government officials) have all denied it.
- eru 2y ago
  Alas, people might not trust these denials much. Better safe than sorry.
- AlecSchueler 2y ago
  Things can change with the wind these days
- LunaSea 2y ago
  Musky simply leaked Starlink ground terminal locations to Russia so that they could bomb the locations
  - eru 2y ago
    What's the evidence for that?

by etiam 2y ago

FirmwareBurner 2y ago

Unpopular opinion: How else should Ukraine pay for the military assistance it's receiving? That's not cheap. The US, NATO and EU taxpayers don't owe Ukraine anything for free since there's no contractual obligation to do so. Money doesn't just rain from the sky, the US and EU taxpayer are ultimately bankrolling this. Sharing profits from your natural resources in exchange for military resources seems like a great deal to me. Nothing in life is ever free, someone is always paying for it, usually through taxes. If you think this logic is flawed, argument me why.

Y-bar 2y ago
Speaking as a European now. I give Ukraine money via taxes and occasional donations. Ukraine repays me many times over by their blood, sweat, and tears to keep Europe free and democratic. This is an easy and cheap trade for me, and I could/should probably pay them even more for what they give in return.
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  They're fighting to keeping themselves free. My country's and NATO's defense is what's keeping me free. Any additional assistance from my tax money to Ukraine (which I agree with) is entirely optional and should be repaid.
  - diggan 2y ago
    Some people only see today, others look forward. When people say Ukraine is fighting for European democracy and freedom, it's about what happens after Ukraine if they fall.
    - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
      >Some people only see today, others look forward. When your bank balance is zero or negative and rent and bills are due, do you care about your own today or do you care about the tomorrow of another country hundreds/thousands of KM away? Because that's how most people think in private. Only the privileged with a warm home and a full stomach can afford to think about other countries. Everyone is rooting for Ukraine if you ask them, but not many are willing to sacrifice their own welfare for it.
  - argsnd 2y ago
    They are fighting the only country that exists which poses a threat to Europe. If they defeat that country we all benefit.
    - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
      How will Ukraine defeat a nuclear power? Do you think Putin given his ego, after all he's put his country and reputation through, is just gonna walk back and admit defeat if you throw enough EU money and Ukrainian bodies at him? How naive can you be?
      - andrewflnr 2y ago
        Small animals can defeat large, powerful predators simply by being too prickly to bother with. Russia is almost certainly not going to deploy nukes over Ukraine. The cost/benefit is just not there: they won't help take or hold territory, and they invite strategic retaliation from more actors than just Ukraine. So. Putin's political position is not unassailable (remember how touch-and-go things were with Prigozhin? How hardly anyone stood up to him?). If holding Ukraine becomes genuinely untenable, he'll have to make some excuse to leave, or fall. It's even possible he'll die of old age or pneumonia and be replaced by a more reasonable psychopath.
argsnd 2y ago
I do not accept the Trump administration’s view that defeating Russia is not worth anything to the rest of us.
- Yeul 2y ago
  It's a sad day when the US president feels closer to a dictator than a democratically elected president. There's been an ideological shift in America that a lot of people are desperately trying to deny because it is truly terrifying.
distances 2y ago
Assuming one isn't interested in their fight for freedom: they are paying for this in blood. Ukraine is dismantling Europe's only local threat, and the oldest geopolitical rival of the US. They have already destroyed most of Russia's Cold War arsenal of conventional weapons. If we put this in a bit of a cynical way, the situation as it stands is an extremely cheap deal both for Europe and the US.
- maxglute 2y ago
  If one isn't interested in their fight then cheap=/= maximally profitable. Foot in door by luring proxies to trade blood for $. Once proxies dependant and fully sunk cost, enshitification commences. If one is cynical, RU as future competition is done, extraction of UKR can begin. Dead horse still worth something as glue.
  - eru 2y ago
    Whenever I read theories like this, I am saddened that we don't live in such a utopia where eg the US (and Russia etc) have perhaps some weird and questionable goals, but go about achieving them rationally and efficiently.
petesergeant 2y ago
> How else should Ukraine pay for the military assistance it's receiving? Boots on the ground. They're fighting an excellent proxy war against Russia on behalf of NATO, severely stretching NATO's largest geopolitical ally, at the extreme cost of young Ukrainian men ending up in the ground. Sweden and Finland have been brought into the alliance, very valuable lessons have been learned, exceptional military intelligence gained, for a bit of cash and essentially no NATO causalities. By the end of the war, an exhausted Russia will have almost zero capacity to mount a conventional attack against any NATO member for a decade. In short, why should Ukraine be paying with treasure when they're already paying so much with blood?
eigart 2y ago
Ukraine is fighting on behalf of all of Europe. The cost is the least of our worries. They are sending their children so I don’t have to send mine. Blackmailing them for profit is despicable.
- GJim 2y ago
  > Ukraine is fighting on behalf of all the free world. Fixed that for you.
steve_gh 2y ago
It's the price you pay for being rich, free and alive at the same time - Lord John Marbury
jemmyw 2y ago
For the same reasons the US entered WWI and WWII - the US economy has gained more than any other from a stable rule based world. The US paid to rebuild Europe after WWII and that act did nothing but pay dividends. Thought of another way, if those minerals in the ground are useful resources for the US, it's more in the US benefit to pay now to stabilize the situation so they can later buy the minerals from a happy and productive population - as the amount of trade going the other way will probably be vastly greater. Same is true of Russia, if it was possible to undo the fuckup there after the fall of the USSR. It could be a huge economy. It's not a zero sum game, if Ukraine and Russia have bigger free economies then everyone else gets bigger too. That's the idea anyway, it's worked before. It maybe didn't work with China because we forgot the free part. But Ukraine was already heading in the right direction with democracy and fighting corruption - which is pretty much the reason for the war.
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  Historical fact: US population also didn't want to enter WW2 because they saw the war as Europe's problem, just like how I see this war mostly as Ukraine's problem. The US only entered WW2 after Pearl Harbor.
  - piva00 2y ago
    Your analogy means you would only like to enter war after Russia bombs somewhere else in Europe? When it becomes inevitable to go to war and we have to pay orders of magnitude more in economical terms, and an immeasurable price in lives? That sounds rather... Stupid?
    - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
      >Your analogy means It doesn't. That's what your made up analogy means in your head. Don't put words in my mouth to twist the narrative in your corner. I was only pointing out that today, just like 70+ years ago in WW2, individuals want to stay out of other countrys' wars out of self preservation.
gambiting 2y ago
>> taxpayers don't owe Ukraine anything for free since there's no contractual obligation to do so If your neighbour was being attacked would you help them even if you never signed a contract saying you will come to his defence?
Yeul 2y ago
[flagged]
- eru 2y ago
  > Killing Russians is basically one of the best things a government can spend money on. I wouldn't be so cynical. Dismantling the power of the Russian government: yes. But that doesn't necessarily have to involve offing Russian men. They are also people, and their lives are worth something.
  - Yeul 2y ago
    Unfortunately history teaches us that any Russian government is unwilling to accept peaceful coexistence.
    - etiam 2y ago
      > Killing Russians is basically one of the best things a government can spend money on. In that sense the Russians have managed to get a long history of governments with fantastic spending policy. They are even spending other nations' money to get the job done! Real shame about the aim and timing though. Even with that volume, they barely get any of the worst ones, and when occasionally they do purge it's always after purgee has done plenty of damage and maybe even started considering repenting a little bit...
- dang 2y ago
  > Killing $group is basically one of the best things Wtf? You can't post like this here, regardless of who you want to kill. If you do it again we will ban you. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting to this site, we'd appreciate it. We're trying for something very different here.
macspoofing 2y ago
>How else should Ukraine pay for the military assistance it's receiving?... Sharing profits from your natural resources in exchange for military resources seems like a great deal to me. Sorry, where did you get that this deal is for _FUTURE_ military resources??? Seriously - where did you hear that? The only way the Trump administration characterized the mineral deal is as repayment for PAST military aid, even though it was perfectly understood that those were GRANTS (i.e. there were no terms attached to the military aid). The Trump administration also accused Ukraine of cheating/tricking the US/Biden administration to get this military aid ... and also of starting the war ... and also of being a dictatorship ... and also of being an obstacle to peace. Trump administration also made it clear that the mineral deal is NOT a security guarantee, nor is the mineral deal payment for FUTURE military aid. ------------ It is a common pattern that whenever Trump says X, apologists, like you, come out of the woodwork and say something like "Well, what he really meant to say is Y". Yes, it would be different if the mineral deal was payment for future military aid .. but it isn't - so why are you saying that?
ghusto 2y ago
It's a shame that asking an honest question is getting downvoted. It's like downvoting learning. I'll answer from my perspective, before you're greyed out to oblivion. My understanding is that for the USA, sending weapons isn't the same as giving away money. The military industrial complex gains from more weapons needing to be built, for one thing. For the free world at large, it's beneficial to oppose Putin via a proxy war for obvious reasons. We're all getting something out of this, and I'd say if it's in return for sending weapons, that's a good deal (for us!).
eru 2y ago
> Unpopular opinion: How else should Ukraine pay for the military assistance it's receiving? That's a weird question. Most of that equipment was more or less produced in the first place for fighting Russia. Equivalently, you could ask how the US should be paying Ukraine for the manpower they are providing. The US is getting a huge discount here, because they only have to supply some equipment for the fight. Ukraine is supplying the manpower for free.
Paradigma11 2y ago
The problem is that stopping support now after US congress and president had vowed to support Ukraine "for as long as it takes" is going to be far more expensive. Small things like Tesla sales crumbling, which means less tax revenue. The US had 320B USD in arms sales 2024. Usually about 60% of that stays in country as tax revenue. Europe is upping its spending massively but a big part is developing production capacity for the most complex and expensive stuff that will be in direct competition to the US. Never mind such BS like the US vetoing Grippen to sell their planes to Colombia because of the use of US engines. All in all the US has proven itself to be an unreliable ally. This lack of trust will result in additional costs and lost opportunities in the next decades.

mlindner 2y ago

Cutting off Starlink was never threatened on Ukraine access. SpaceX, Musk and Ukraine themselves (both Zelensky and other Ukrainian government officials) have all denied it.

eru 2y ago
Alas, people might not trust these denials much. Better safe than sorry.
AlecSchueler 2y ago
Things can change with the wind these days
LunaSea 2y ago
Musky simply leaked Starlink ground terminal locations to Russia so that they could bomb the locations
- eru 2y ago
  What's the evidence for that?