Yeah, well, that’s all well and good, but, what’s the strategy? Where’s the money going? Ukraine really hasn’t done all that much with the gobs of military materials NATO members, particularly the U.S., has given it. The government has been acting rather authoritarian, has cracked down on Christians, it’s well known that graft is huge in their government, and they’ve even tried to sell some of the military goods we’ve sent them
‘No Time to Go Wobbly’: Why Britain Is Lobbying U.S. Republicans on Ukraine
When David Cameron, Britain’s foreign secretary and onetime prime minister, visited Washington last month, he took time out to press the case for backing Ukraine with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Georgia Republican who stridently opposes further American military aid to the country.
Last week, Boris Johnson, another former prime minister, argued that the reelection of Donald Trump to the White House would not be such a bad thing, so long as Trump comes around on helping Ukraine. “I simply cannot believe that Trump will ditch the Ukrainians,” Johnson wrote in a Daily Mail column that read like a personal appeal to the candidate.
If the “special relationship” between Britain and the United States has taken on an air of special pleading in recent weeks, it is because Britain, rock solid in its support for Ukraine, now views its role as bucking up an ally for whom aid to the embattled country has become a political obstacle course.
British diplomats said Cameron and other senior officials had made it a priority to reach out to Republicans who were hostile to further aid. For reasons of history and geography, Britain recognized that support is not as “instinctive” for Americans as it for the British, according to a senior diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivity of the matter.
Why does Britain care?
Many Britons view the war in Ukraine — just over three hours away by plane — as almost on their doorstep, and their support reflects a fear that a Russian victory would pose an existential threat to the security of Europe and Britain. Addressing the Ukrainian Parliament this month, Sunak described military aid as “an investment in our collective security” and said, “if Putin wins in Ukraine, he will not stop here.”
Yet, Britain has only spend the dollar equivalent of $16.384 billion. The US has spent at least $113 billion. But, no one is quite sure how much exactly, because our government accounting stinks. If Britain is so concerned about an “existential threat” why are they not doing more?
Britain’s army chief, Gen. Patrick Sanders, warned in a speech Wednesday that Britons were now a “prewar generation,” who could be pressed into service to confront a military threat to Europe from an emboldened Russia. Downing Street later clarified that Sanders was not opening the door to peacetime conscription.
Emboldened, eh? Like when Biden was vice president and Putin took Crimea? Or how, under Biden’s presidency, his Afghanistan withdrawal plan was horrific, which emboldened Putin? If Britain wants more U.S. support, why not pony up their own money? Say, 40 billion pounds instead of 3.2 billion? Perhaps Britain is getting more out of supporting Ukraine, what does the U.S. get? What, exactly, is the difference in a Ukraine controlled Ukraine and a Russia controlled Ukraine? None of these “you big meanie Republicans need to support Ukraine” articles give actual reasons as to why we should. As to what we get out of it. “Protect Democracy”? Zelensky has cancelled elections this spring. We don’t get grain from Ukraine. Britain does. But, while exports are down, they’re are still growing and shipping. Ukrainians are still going on holiday. What’s the strategy here? What’s the endgame?
Heck, if Russia is a threat to Europe, why has the U.S. spent way more on Ukraine than all of the EU NATO nations?
All of our traditional Euro allies like the UK are backing Ukraine against Trump’s supporter Putin. Also new Euro allies Finland Sweden and even Switzerland have sent military aid including jets and tanks. Even Israel has sent both aid and “volunteers” As a percentage of GDP some other Euro countries have sent MORE than the USA.
ifw-kiel.de
search ukraine support tracker
When totaling all aid military, humanitarian, financial aid the Europeans have given MORE that the USA
As far as not doing much with what they have received, the Ukrainians have pushed the Russians back about 200 miles from their furthest advances when they almost too the capital. They have destroyed about 1/2 of Putin’s conventional military forces. Pretty impressive for a country with less than 1/3 of the population of russia.
And the European NATO allies are perfectly welcome to keep sending money and materiel to Ukraine. But we should not.
Vote nuRepublicans into the House, Senate and White House! Then America can withdraw from the rest of the world and take care of Americans First!
Look, if you don’t know what’s going on, it would be better for you to just shut the fuck up instead of your usual habit of repeating hoaxes, mouthing off, and generally just writing a bunch of stupid shit.
Strong argument there, Bro.
You would do well to take the same lesson.
IF they do not secure our southern border and stop the invasion of illegals….There is nothing I am willing to do to support Ukraine and to be honest…. Israel as well since a vast majority of these Deep Staters want wars, wars, and more wars at the expense of my Children and grandchildren.
Nothing. We will spend billions to defend their border from invasion but leave ours wide open.
It is not negotiable for the MAGA movement. Defend our borders before we defend others.
And if the EU is funding the war over there then good for them. That is the way it should be.
I am not willing to defend Taiwan, Canada, The EU, NATO or anyone as long as our border remains wide open and Biden is threatening TX for trying to stop this insanity from flooding into its state.
For ultimately what is the point of trying to run the world when the left is trying to destroy the USA from within? There is no point, so Taiwan, Israel and Ukraine can go fuk themselves along with the ANTI-MAGA RINO’S that keep us in perpetual wars so they can fill their overseas bank acounts!!
Our border is not wide open, but we understand why MAGAts keep pushing that lie.
Open border, invasion, poison the blood of America, illegals… all political propaganda.
Again Rimjob the drama queen.
Poor Rimjob.
Bwaha! Lolgfy
Of course our border borders wide open where do you think all these people are coming from are you stupid? Don’t you see the people streaming in on television? This is why nobody listens to you you see the truth and refuse to believe it. You see it with your own two eyes and deny it. It is an invasion and it is poisoning the blood of America. And it is a political agenda yours to turn America into a one party state. You’re absolutely ridiculous all this has been going on all these years you’ve seen the the lines of people coming in through the South of the border you’ve seen the caravans you’ve heard it on the news and you’re still gonna sit there and tell us then it’s a lie?
You’re a damn idiot. No wonder nobody believes anything you say I’m sitting here right now and CNN watching a lie of the wiggles invading United States and you’re telling me it’s a lie it’s even a left wing television program. You crazy *** *******
No, the borders are not “wide open”. Do you believe people are just streaming in unperturbed?
The border between NJ and PA is an “open border” (except for tolls). While you can drive unimpeded from NJ to PA over the Walt Whitman you can’t drive from Mexico to Texas without being stopped.
Unless they are sneaking in undetected (some are) almost all of the immigrants are stopped by US personnel at ports of entry, or turn themselves in as refugees or asylum seekers.
Speaking of stupid: Do you believe that Big Donnie Oranges won the election?
Huh?
Rimjob, what he say?
Bwaha! Lolgf
Teach is ready to surrender Ukraine to Putin the friend of Trump. Where is that surrender monkey?
Again poor johnnie boy is
BWAHA! LOLGF
Protect Ukraine’s borders but not our own. Brilliant move, Brandon!
Johnny can’t see for the trees…”Teach is ready to surrender Ukraine…”
You mean like Brandon is surrendering our southern border?
There is a lot to unpack here.
1. Ukraine is a highly corrupt country that has been used by a financial playground for some American politically connected people for their own enrichment. This point is irrefutable. That does not mean in and of itself, Ukraine does not deserve American assistance. Ukrainian theft of aid, Americans getting rich from aid, even the highly likely prospect that Ukraine is losing this war are all insufficient reasons to not support them.
2. The only reason to support Ukraine is that there is an American interest in doing so. It doesn’t matter if the goal is difficult or even nearly impossible to achieve, if it is a worthy goal. This alone is the failure of Ukraine policy. There doesn’t seem to be any American interest at stake in Ukraine. In the absence of American interests, there seems to be only the interests of “some” Americans and that is not good enough for the rest of us to follow the Lemming train of unlimited taxpayer support. If there is an enduring interest in supporting Ukraine, the US government has a moral and legal obligation to explain that to the American people and convince them that the expense if worthy. Our government has not done that.
3. UK telling USA to not go wobbly? Who is running this party? Many Europeans believe the war was started at the insistence of Mr. Johnson in UK. Others believe that Mr. Blinken in the USA started it. In any case, it seems to be a small handful of diplomats who have been running things in Ukraine since 2014 and goading them into a war with Russia when this was clearly not in the interest of Russia, Ukraine, America, or Europe. If there is an American policy behind this, the only one I can find is “weaken Russia”. And those handful of Diplomats are willing to kill over a million Ukrainians to do it.
4. With the exception of a few wars of annihilation, almost all wars end with a negotiated settlement. At some point, the people involved realize that the cost they are paying is not worth the gains they are getting and they seek negotiation to end the war and establish terms. Ukraine and Russia are well beyond that point. If Ukraine were not supported by NATO and the USA in particular, they would have ended this war 2 years ago and a few hundred thousand of their citizens would still be alive. The money spend on destroying their country could have been used to rebuild it. All a terrible waste because of sincerely stupid people in the USA running our foreign policy. I don’t even blame Biden for this. He is just a symptom. The deeper state in state department, NSA and DoD are the real puppet masters here.
5. How could Trump end the war in 24 hours? He could publicly announce the USA was done supporting Ukraine. That would lead to their immediate surrender and a negotiated settlement. No more people dying. The USA and UK have been preventing Ukraine from negotiating a settlement. If the USA gets out of the way, peace happens. ALL wars end in negotiation. This is going to happen sooner or later. The current US policy of supporting Ukraine until the end only ensures continued massive damage to Ukraine and their people before it inevitably happens. And anyone can see that the longer this goes on, the worse the terms will be for them.
6. Make no mistake. Ukraine is losing. There is no level of support that can change that. Even if US and (some) NATO forces cross into Ukraine to “stabilize the front”, they risk Russia widening the war , but they do not shift the balance of power to victory, only to a more prolonged defeat. The Russians are very good at math. They can see this as well as anyone.
7. Ukraine should seek a negotiated settlement with Russia as soon as possible, not because it would make Putin or Trump happy, but because they have already lost plenty in a pointless war. It is in their interests to bring it to a close and to not even wait for the next election in the USA thinking things will get better.
Professor Hale has made a perfectly reasonable and salient argument which will of course be ignored by both of the leftists here because it doesn’t go along with their narrative or they’re leftist propaganda.
CarolAnn,
I read every word. Mr Hale makes a number of unsupported assumptions which he will attribute to his secret sources etc. He attributes Putin’s unprovoked invasion on a cabal including the UKs Boris Johnson and the USs Anthony Blinken.
Is there a United States’ interest in preventing Russia from conquering a fledgling democracy in Eastern Europe? That IS the interest. Should we support Japan if North Korea decided to invade? Should we support Israel if Iran invaded them? What if Russia invaded Finland?
What US interests are served by our military support of Israel?
What are the European interests in supporting Ukraine in resisting Russia? The EU and other European nations have given Ukraine with at least $90 billion USD equivalent. The EU claims that if Ukraine falls that Putin may be encouraged to enter Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – NATO members formerly part of the USSR – starting a wider conflict.
Russia’s GDP is about one half of California’s, with much of Russia’s productivity accumulating to the Russian kleptocrats. Not surprisingly, CA’s GDP/person is about 10 times Russia’s.
The American nuRight has become enamored with Russia and Putin, at least in part a result of their allegiance to Putin’s supporter, our kleptocrat Donnie Oranges, in part because they are authoritarian at heart. The nuRight admires the “strength” of dictators like Putin, Trump, Xi, Kim, Orbon, Duterte, Balsonaro and Erdogan.
Of course the Russian invasion will result in a negotiated settlement, but only if there’s a stalemate. This is not a war, but an invasion.
If the west pulls all support, the “negotiated settlement” will be Russia conquering Ukraine making it another oblast. Mr and Mrs Zelensky will be hanged along with all the other “rebels”.
There you go again with your left wing lies.
you keep talking about this undefined “nuright” if you can’t talk English don’t talk at all. There is no such political movement or political party as the nuright.
And I don’t know of anyone including the left that doesn’t admire strength. And if your enemies are strong you can still admire their strength even if you disagree with their philosophy that’s something you’ve never understood. You’ve always been a loser like that. Cause if something’s your enemy there could be no good in it at all. That’s why you wanna tear down confederate statues because there’s no good in them they were Confederates. They were men of conviction who gave their lives for their beliefs just like the northern guys did. But they lost. I think after your enemy is defeated reconciliation should be a matter of course. You don’t apparently you think you gotta kill everybody. Well that’s the mindset of a leftist.
By the way quite a few of those people are not dictators starting with Trump he was elected president of the United states. If anybody was a dictator it’s your guy who wants to take our guns censor our people remove our men from the ballots throw our citizens in jail without trial etcetera etcetera etcetera. The modern Democrats have all the characteristics of oppressors and if you can’t see that you need to go get reeducated cause you have fallen completely for the misinformation. You seem to do that quite often because you’re all too willing to accept everything a leftist says and you’re all too willing to reject anything anybody who’s not a leftist says so you don’t seek truth you seek compliance.
Geno the commie,
Do YOU admire the “strength” exhibited by Putin, Xi and Kim??? If you stand up to Putin you end up in prison if you’re lucky. The 9/11 terrorists were incredibly strong and brave, wouldn’t you admit?
The Confederates were traitors and America showed them great compassion after the war. They rebelled against America to maintain the culture of slavery in the Old Confederacy. No doubt they were brave fighters.
Dictators are often elected and if he’s good he can get re-elected again and again. Didn’t Trump try that even though he lost? Donnie Oranges even said he wanted to be a dictator.
Um
Rimjob
Bwaha! Lolgf
As usual HB being a commie supporting leftist is more interested in the political ramifications and the Ukraine than the deaths and destruction that’s causing. He’s afraid that if Biden surrenders it’s gonna reflect badly on him. But guess what, it will. He should have never gone in there to begin with. And constantly repeating that Putin is Trump’s friend his first of all a lie and second of all makes no sense and nobody’s buying it. You’re preaching to the choir here moron.
You don’t care if 10 million Ukrainians and Russians die as long as Biden wins and it makes him look good. (You’re treating the Ukrainians the way you treat unborn babies: expendable). Nothing will make Biden look good Biden is a loser a commie and an old pervert and a liar. And he will never win in Ukraine. But it is stopping us or at least it’s being used as an excuse to stop us from securing our own border and that’s inexcusable. In fact that’s treason by people like you and biden specifically.
You immoral leftist Democrats don’t care how many babies you kill or Russians or Ukrainians or anything else you kill as long as you win elections you’re despicable. And you’re ugly too.
“What’s the strategy?” our esteemed host asked. It’s simple: to keep the war going until Vladimir Vladimirovich is either deposed or drops dead. Trouble is that no one knows when that might occur, or, if it does occur, whether the next President of Russia won’t be just as bad or even worse.