OsoDorado said:

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Unbelievable embarrassment for the U.S. !!

And Trump wants the Nobel Peace Prize?

The whole world (except his MAGA base) thinks he's a fool.

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I tell you who doesn't think Trump is a fool - these men, and their mothers, wives, children and sometimes, grandchildren:

Forced conscription in #Ukraine:
'Let me go, I want to live' - the man screams as Zelensky's goons, paid by the #EU, are abducting him to sacrifice in an already lost war. #UK #US #UkraineRussiaWar #UkraineRussianWar #NATO #Ukrainekrieg pic.twitter.com/z6FsEb1CMF

— Alex Bukovsky (@BungeeWedgie) February 24, 2025

Forced conscription in #Ukraine:
Zelensky's regime treats own people worse than dogs. Catches them and sends them to die.
This is supposedly the democracy we are funding.
#EU #US #UkraineRussiaWar #UkraineRussianWar #NATO #Ukrainekrieg pic.twitter.com/RqNo2HIPmY

— Alex Bukovsky (@BungeeWedgie) February 25, 2025

🇺🇦💔 The horrors of conscription going on in Ukraine...

This is the democracy the west is pushing, the winning Ukrainians. Forced to dіе for the profit of Zelensky and the west. pic.twitter.com/jRbIU1tJbo

— Spetsnaℤ 007 🇷🇺 (@Alex_Oloyede2) January 13, 2025

I credit the Trump administration for moving decisively towards ending this mass slaughter that has already taken the lives of over 800,000 Ukrainian soldiers.

concordtom said:

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/meeting-trump-zelenskyy-seek-security-050136802.html


I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you again how passionately I detest Donald Trump.

I cannot imagine a more despicable American.

I am so embarrassed in front of my European friends

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Hey, you don't have to be, friend!

War is overrated, so 20th century.

What this underscores is how horrible and ineffectual the Biden Administratiion's foreign policy was.

Fund and arm a futile war in Ukraine
Fund and arm a genocide in the Middle East
Saber rattling and false promises on protecting Taiwan

With Trump, 1 and 3 are or will be negotiated

concordtom said:

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From my Ukrainian friend: Yeah. Very bad. Basically any bigger country w nukes can do whatever they want to a smaller country.

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That is the thing that MAGA fiends are ignoring. Other countries have foreign affairs. Most of these are going to look to acquire their own deterrents. As they move toward that it will be really really messy.

Consider.

I am making foreign policy in Finland. I look at what I see and say "Well, Russia attacked us once before because they worried about our proximity to St. Petersburg. Pretty clear that the current administration would love to kill Nato and end its article 5 obligations and likely would push come to shove. We need our own deterrents."

Now Russian isn't going to like that. Isn't going to like that at ALL....up to (see Isreal) either outright bombing or using low level conflict to set back our counterfactual Finnish nuke program.

And then, after all said and done unless they invest in SLBMs we have a nuclear armed state that lacks first strike survivability. WHich means they need to be seen as credibly having their forces on high alert so they are not destroyed. We know (Scary) from Cold War archives just how close we got on multiple occasions of armageddon because of goose flocks or computer glitches.

This is the brilliance of NATO. It keps countries that are poorly suited to be nuclear states (not because they are BAD people but because of geography, size of economy, ect) under a nuclear umbrella of a country with a nuclear triad. That served AMERICAN interests....at an extinction level.

But I get it. I am an old fart. I remember what it was like in the 1970s and 1980s to live in that world.

Anarchistbear said:

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What this underscores is how horrible and ineffectual the Biden Administratiion's foreign policy was.

Fund and arm a futile war in Ukraine
Fund and arm a genocide in the Middle East
Saber rattling and false promises on protecting Taiwan

With Trump, 1 and 3 are or will be negotiated

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You get the world you are dealt and I think you are facile on this. The more challenging critique of Biden (because it gets at the hard choices in a hard world are).

1) Not push back strongly and with a united Europe that even after Maidan revolution they saw Ukraine in the Russian Sphere of influence and thus needed to remain, at best neutral. No NATO and the US believing it a mistake to allow them in to the EU. Trumpites/GOP would have needed to put a sock into criticizing Obama for giving into Russia (hah!!!)

2) I am not even sure of what you want here and think Trump is going to do. I mean it seems to be giving Isreal a free hand to do what it wants in both Gaza and the West Bank. Like so many I figure Trumps real test is going to be if Israel formally annexes the West Bank. I would think Bibbi thinks that makes sense right now.

3) Not sure what you are thinking here either? That Trump should remove US security guarantees and that the world is better if China invades? That somehow he is seen as credible right now and that our security guarantee to Taiwan is solid? Not seeing that at ALL

1) Ukraine was never going to be in NATO- that was clear before, during or after the war. The reason is obvious: US and European young men are not dying for Ukraine. The strategy was to isolate Russia economically and arm Ukraine but it soon became obvious that neither was successful in ending the war.and we were proceeding to some Korea like cease fire. Rather than changing this dynamic by engaging with Russia, or managing some future guarantees with Europe and Ukraine they did nothing, all the while telling us Trump was going to give it away.

2. I want to shut off military aid to Israel but am not naive enough to think this will happen while I'm still alive. Nor do I expect anything under Trump. But again the Dems strategy was to call for a "cease fire" which is ludicrous and meaningless while at the same time arming Bibi's advances and genocide while alienating a changing US electorate's view of this commitment

3) Our security guarantees to Taiwan are vague ( purposefully). We do not guarantee intervening militarily but an "abiding interest" in helping Taiwan defend itself. But this is all rooted in the 1940's and has little relevance to US strategic goals or the world of 2025.
Providing weapons to Taiwan may serve political interest but the reality is that China and Taiwan are going to unify and that China may certainly choose to annex militarily. If that happens, defending Taiwan would mean a military and political disaster for the US.
Biden once again exacerbates this by positing a) we will defend Taiwan and b) Taiwan has a right to independence. Trump doesn't believe either of these- both are in opposition to stated US policy- and will approach this as a business not a military deal

I just want to take your number 3.

If that is true than what about our security guarantees to the Baltics? to Poland? To South Korea? To the Philippines? If it is ALL transactional then the challenge is that the number 2 economy of the world is always going to outbid. So where is your line and how do you make it credible so that things don't escalte out of control.

socaltownie said:

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I just want to take your number 3.

If that is true than what about our security guarantees to the Baltics? to Poland? To South Korea? To the Philippines? If it is ALL transactional then the challenge is that the number 2 economy of the world is always going to outbid. So where is your line and how do you make it credible so that things don't escalte out of control.

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If the US remains in NATO then Poland will be defended, the Baltics not. But this is really a European not
an Americzn dilemma

The US could have security agreements with Japan, South Korea and the Philippines. These are countries we recognize as allies and support militarily . We do not recognize Taiwan as a separate country from China so to defend it makes no sense.

We defend it so the commitments to the others are (more) credible

Fyi Baltics are part of nato.

No, in defending Taiwan we lose credibility because we don't succeed