Money. US profits immensely from a stable world order. Peace and predictability is good for business.
Security guarantees also prevent nuclear proliferation. If Ukraine is defeated, the lesson many countries will learn is to have a strong nuclear deterrent.
That depends. It was true of WW2, but that had a unique set of circumstances. The US economy performed much better in the 90s, after the end of the Cold War, then it did in the 2000s with the invasions of Iraq/Afghan
There are no “arguments” being raised here. An argument would be something like “America relies on Ukraine as a key source of XYZ so it would be bad if Russia took it over.” Can you even tell me without looking how much U.S.-Ukraine trade there was before the war?
All these platitudes about “interests” and “soft power” seem to be predicated on an assumption that nobody is willing to articulate. Are we all expected to be Francis Fukuyama cultists here who take it as axiomatic that it’s in america’s interest to defend the borders of european countries? If that’s the argument, then I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. Because I happen to think liberals have actually been right on that issue since the 1970s.
That's shockingly first-order. Even if there was zero bilateral US-Ukraine trade as of 2022 there's:
(a) trade with other EU partners that depend on Ukrainian food imports, gas transshipments, etc., and also on those trade partners. y'know, not being embroiled in trench war on their eastern front.
(b) trade with APAC partners that depends on EU partners that depends on (a). Even the most blatantly obvious ASML -> TSMC -> NVDA -> FAANGetc relationship transits that entire chain.
(c) the entire web of mutually beneficial international trade that benefits from (1) a more or less stable system of borders and laws and (2) again, participants in said system burning the minimum amount of blood and treasure trenches.
So what is it you really think? US involvement is unnecessary to maintain both its current position and the rest of the international system? Or that system unnecessary to maintain the state of the world today, and some alternative arrangement would be preferable? And we can smoothly transition to your preferred system with a belligerent Russia?
I'm being a bit unfair in the preceding paragraph, so I'll ask in all sincerity: what's your alternative policy in 2014? 2022? now? what outcomes do you predict under your policy? Who is (dis)advantaged?
The argument is that appeasing Putin in Donbas will work about as well as appeasing him in Crimea, creating successively more damaging conflicts in Europe until Article 5 gets tested and either NATO falls apart or we enter a hot war with Russia, and yeah, that's gonna cost money. You know that this is the point of the WWII comparison, which is why you have so studiously ignored the argument, trying to dodge it harder than neo dodging bullets in the first matrix.
Nobody in America knows what a Donbas or a Crimea is. These all sound like Russian places to me. The names of the places alone sound like they are none of America’s business.
You need studies to show that peace & stability support greater productivity and wealth?
Likely as it is that research can indeed confirm this, given the depth & tone of your inquiry, perhaps the most immediate convincing experiment would be best: find someone you can employ to harass and threaten your property and your person, occasionally to devastating effect, alongside another person who can study your productivity and wealth before and after.
Perhaps with further similar efforts here you can even persuade some people to volunteer for half of that project free of charge.
Your debate tactic reminds me of some variation of the gish gallop. I thought there was a word for it, but I can't find it.
You just ask question after question after question after question, with an extremely disproportionate amount of effort required between you and the person you are asking, and hope that the other side eventually gives up.
Edit: jakelazaroff pinned it down for me, "sealioning"
No. vardump specifically said that the money from stability justifies spending money to support Ukraine. That is only true if the latter is outweighed by the former.
We know the amount spent in support of Ukraine. The only missing piece of the puzzle is the specific dollar valuation of the deterrence value of further assistance to Ukraine to resist the Russian invasion.
If Ukraine regaining its pre-2022 (or pre-2014) borders is not worth a dollar value that exceeds the cost to achieve that outcome, then vardump's assertion of "money" as the reason is insufficient.
If “interests” means something concrete it shouldn’t take a lot of effort to explain what it means. To me it seems like the word is used to avoid acknowledging that “there’s no there, there.”
Enough that it makes Trump very upset whenever another country talks about using a reserve currency other than the dollar. Why would you need studies when you have the leader's own words?
You’re a very smart guy. You can’t seriously be wondering how allowing a major power to wage and win a war of aggression in Europe might be contrary to American interests? He’ll surely be appeased by the Donbas and stop there, right?
I am a smart guy—which is why even as a college student I knew the Iraq War was going to be a monumental cluster fuck.
To me, it seems like the people supporting American involvement in Ukraine are throwing about the same vague platitudes about “dictators” and “interests” without anything concrete to back them up.
At least Iraq and its neighbors had oil—there was a credible narrative that what happened there would directly hit Americans in their pocket books. American interest in Europe seems even more attenuated. It seems to be nothing more than romantic sympathy.
Iraq is not the correct analogy. Iraq put us a bit over our skis attempting to enforce our desired norms while entertaining some acquisitive impulses against an inferior opponent with ultimately limited aims. i.e. Saddam wasn’t interested in taking over the world.
The conclusion to draw from that is not that all conflict and cruelty outside the New World is irrelevant to Americans and their interests. You’re a bit older than me, but neither of us have experienced a world with a truly aggressive near-peer power. We’ve lived our entire lives on the laurels of our grandfathers’ victories in Europe and Asia. The resulting international system organized around fixed borders, the rule of law, and low barriers has allowed to flourish the multitude of mutually beneficial trade relationships that support literally the entirety of the only way of life either of has ever known.
It’s an unstable equilibrium. To not defend order against might risks knocking the whole thing down - and then who knows? Maybe we carry on with China and the rest of APAC while Russia dominates Europe? Maybe we live a decade or a generation of poorer, meaner, more isolated lives confined to the New World? Maybe the expansionary impulse brings them, eventually, to our shores?
Iraq wasn’t a mistake. Iraq exemplified the type of error you make and will continue to make when you commit the U.S. to enforcing “rule of law” around the world. Heck, the very concept of international “rule of law” is repugnant-that means there must be some country enforcing the law.
The US has among the lowest levels of trade dependency of any country in the world. In 1960, which is remembered as a Golden Age, trade was just 10% of GDP. We would be just fine, probably better, living in a world where regional powers kept their back yards clean and the occasional border skirmish broke out. Even if that meant somewhat reduced trade.
Empire also imposes a demographic cost on america. Every time we destroy a country in a war trying to maintain the “rules based order” we have to accept a massive influx of refugees. In the long run these people will not be able to maintain the american system the founding population created.
Fundamentally different situation. A more appropriate comparison would be the first Gulf War, when the US helped to kick Iraq out of Kuwait. Equating the later Iraq war with the situation in Ukraine is a category error.
On your aside: I'll admit, I said that completely sincerely, they've had pretty informative and well-informed things to say in other discussions around here. Coming back with "Yes I am" has caused me to update my beliefs a bit.
I agree the first gulf war is a better comparison. In our household we thought Bush was wrong about that too, and I recall my dad being quite happy he lost reelection over it. I’d argue it set us up to get roped in for Round 2.
Bush didn't lose re-election over the first Gulf War, which on the whole went swimmingly for the US in a very short timeframe. He lost because he looked out of touch in his electioneering and didn't know the price of milk during a debate with Bill Clinton. There was a recession underway that drained some of the froth out of the irrationally exuberant 1980s. Of course it didn't help him that he was basically a CIA policy wonk whereas Clinton was the most charismatic candidate since Kennedy.
Crimea is the better comparison. The US appeased Russia on Crimea in 2014 (the sanctions were too weak) and it caused the Ukraine invasion in 2022. Why would appeasing on Donbas in 2025 work better?
It should perhaps be of american interest to support its allies. As its allies did to support the so-called war on terrorism with Afghanistan and Iraq.
Those two wars imo changed USA and put the country in debt and misalignment internally. Bush was an absolute catastrophy.
You can't point the fingers at the leaders. Even though the country is not a democracy, but a business club with only two parties, being funded by companies.
USA is no longer, and hasn't been for decades, very far from Russia in its cribbled walk towards war and destruction.
I can't see how the country can uphold its stance with their allies and when China makes their move, it will leave US on its own.
As for Europe, it might be a slow starter, but rather that than having to fight for even then smallest equality rights and options.
Wow, how I really dislike american politics and leadership, and its not just its current government.
The U.S. is strong because of our own power, but also because of our many many friends with a shared worldview. We use the word "interests" to cover how our friends help us in every situation, big or small.
For example, the US needs many raw materials and manufactured goods. Our economy is extremely strong because we get these easily and with little friction. Other countries trust our trade deals so they enter into them willingly. And so whenever the US needs a new import, we get it quickly and cheaply. As a concrete example, NVidia gets prime access to foundries and components. Sure, they spend money on it, but our "interests" ensure that the process is frictionless. Any other country would have a harder time.
We also have near universal military access. No other country even comes close. We nearly have permission in advance to go anywhere. If US shipping is interrupted, no one complains when our navy goes and uninterrupted it. In fact we are welcomed. If a US citizen is taking hostage, governments from the area want to help us.
Also, maybe you've noticed that no one is even close to attacking the US. We are so strong that it would be suicide, and that's partly because of our own strength, but also because of our many allies who would back us up.
Finally, we have moral interests. I believe everyone should live in a system based on laws, should elect their own leaders, and should have basic freedoms. The more we spread liberalism and democracy the better the world is.
Sure, you can nitpick about counterexamples. The Iraq war is a perfect example of messing this up. And not every country loves us.
But if you cannot see that the majority of countries are overwhelmingly friendly towards the US, and that we get enormous military and economic benefits, then you are blind.
> The U.S. is strong because of our own power, but also because of our many many friends with a shared worldview
You’re starting off on the wrong foot. That’s just Reagan-Bush universalism and everyone who bought into that stupid ideology has been wrong about everything my entire lifetime.
The way you say it, the Iraq War was simply poor execution of a basically sound ideology. To the contrary, the Iraq War was a predictable outcome of the notion that democracy promotion is in America’s material interest, or that it’s worth our while to police borders around the world. That’s a bad idea, rooted in a Christian/post-Christian version of the Ummah and the Iraq War should have discredited that ideology. If you continue to buy into those mistaken premises, a repeat of Iraq/Vietnam/Korea is inevitable.
> You’re starting off on the wrong foot. That’s just Reagan-Bush universalism and everyone who bought into that stupid ideology has been wrong about everything my entire lifetime.
This doesn't respond to my comment at all. You're just calling stuff stupid.
You shouldn't let someone bait you into tangent town like rayiner just did. He was posed a sharp question ("Will Putin stop at Donbas?") and he ducked it for a reason.
I didn’t answer the question about Donbas because it’s a non-sequiter. Who cares if he stops at Donbas or somewhat further than that? Domino theory was a stupid idea when Kissinger came up with it and it’s a stupid idea now. Do you think Russia is going to invade Germany? Germany doesn’t seem to think so, otherwise it would be investing heavily in defense.
Because him taking over a house gives him access to resources which he can use to build up strength, unchecked, and before you know it, the state next to you is involved in serious tumroil that affects your job, getting certain products, and so on.
And next thing you know, people who directly work for that drug dealer are all in your states government, and your way of life is slowly starting to get worse, and the only option you have is either go along and be constantly afraid, or revolt and risk of losing your life.
If you dont think it can happen, i envy your ignorance.
Why does it matter to the American people what happens to Poland in WW2?
Do you think we exist in a vacuum? The whole reason we have foreign policy is because there are major dire ramifications to conflicts across the world. Especially, as we've seen the past century, in Europe.
because the world is highly interconnected and it's much more expensive to deal with the results of instability than it is to try to prevent the instability in the first place
Saying we're more interconnected and that it's important to support stability doesn't mean that I support US hegemony, the domino theory and the need for military intervention everywhere. In fact I'm quite against US military action abroad, certainly in places like Iraq and Vietnam where it had no business being. But in this case, if a country like Russia is able to push its way into Ukraine unopposed, it does threaten the stability of Europe (a place where warfare was almost continuous going back millennia) which is a ReallyBadThing for Europe and for the US (and I don't mean for US hegemony, but for the US economy and wellbeing).
We are more interconnected, and Kissinger and the GOP agreed with this, but they are just evil German Socialist Democratic Party. His observation is well taken, but its a false flag to equate it with the entire neocon, unalive and steal at any cost philosophy:
They are not the same: Clearly they are not the same.
Well the US created the global system starting in the 1900s with the League of Nations and continuing with the UN, NATO, free trade agreement and multilateral alliances. So nearly one hundred years of constant policy across administrations felt it was a system that served our interests. It also lead to absolute transformation of people’s lives for the better in America and globally. Who didn’t like that system? Russia. They were isolated and sanctioned. So please explain why trump’s 180 degree turn served the US. The burden of proof is on you given the history of US policy.
Eisenhower thought that system should be temporary, and Jimmy Carter took pride that an american bomb was never dropped anywhere during his term.
Our foreign policy has been stuck in a doom loop of thinking that everything is like World War II for 70 years now. And whatever benefits we might have gained can’t possibly offset what we lost fighting pointless war after pointless war: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, etc. We have spent trillions of dollars to make the world free for trade that has hollowed out the economy and enriched globalists.
That’s not even counting all the millions of people we have killed in the process of our liberal democracy jihad.
I support Atlanticism, but this overestimates the US's need and relations with Europe (EU and non-EU) in the 21st century.
Our trade with APAC dwarfs total European trade, and America has ~150k armed personnel deployed in the Pacific versus ~65k in Europe.
Europe can and should be able to manage Russia and Africa for us - this is what they did well until the 2000s. Both Dem and Republican admins since the Bush admin have been pushing for Europe to regain it's strategic autonomy.
Trump is absolutely mismanaging this relationship, but a broken clock is right twice a day.
> this overestimates the US's need and relations with Europe (EU and non-EU) in the 21st century
If Europe goes to war America is in a higher state of defcon even if we try to pretend we’re uninvolved. Global trade would crash which means a lot of middle class jobs vanishing.
But the perception (even before Trump) was that our European allies can and should be able to hold down the fort in Europe, because it's increasingly looking like we cannot fight a two-continent war, and we at least have strategic depth in Europe, and not at all in the Pacific.
One way to avoid a two-continent war is to lend money to our European ally to buy weapons from us.
Another way is to sacrifice one continent.
I, and many others, can't stomach the second. Particularly when we built their security order, they certainly weren't managing Russia for us until the 2000s.
> One way to avoid a two-continent war is to lend money to our European ally to buy weapons from us.
I agree and prefer this method, but certain European states (looking at you Germany) will also have to drastically increase military spending as well.
The pot of military financial aid also needs to go to Asian allies like Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, and Philippines along with aligned states like Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and India.
> Another way is to sacrifice one continent
Which I dislike but is something the Trump admin has appeared to have chosen.
The idea Europe just needs to invest more is dated.
Yes, there's stuff in the news right now about Germany military spending - secretary of defense said they anticipated yet another increase package of 6.7B euros, and only got 1.2B.
Military spending is up dramatically from even 2 years ago, much less when you'd hear this argument from more dedicated hands, let's say, 2019, 2021.
It's a particularly poor timing to make the argument, because even if we elide every increase until Sunday, we're still left with Germany reacting to this by adding $100B over the next 4 years.
If if it wasn't out of date, I think it's important to state plainly the idea is: Europe needs to spend more in defense because the US decided to pull all support, even from things as simple as continuing to sell Europe defensive supplies as it fights Russia, and also hand chunks of Europe to Russia.
It's somewhat gut-wrenching to hear an out of date argument, in so many separate ways, as justification for rugging them completely. It causes nausea when its coupled to a shrug about broken clocks.
> It's a particularly poor timing to make the argument, because even if we elide every increase until Sunday, we're still left with Germany reacting to this by adding $100B over the next 4 years
And what stopped Germany from doing so in 2022, or 2019, or 2014?
And this is why there is resentment in the US - we've been telling Germany (and other European) states to do this for decades.
I'll reiterate this again - China is the primary threat against the US. Russia is bad as well, but China is the bigger bad.
American soldiers are directly in the line of fire in Taiwan, South Korea, and Okinawa. Yet South Korea and Japan have both worked on maintaining military capacity and spending after brushes in 2011 and 2016.
And it's been Germany that has constantly undermined French and British attempts at a Pan-European force because German leadership does not want expeditionary capabilities that France and the UK needs [0], and France is the only EU state left that has a true world class MIC.
> It's somewhat gut-wrenching to hear an out of date argument, in so many separate ways, as justification for rugging them completely
Because the "spend more" argument from the US has been coming for 15 years now. And it takes 3-4 years just to on-ramp manufacturing capacity.
Devoting funding alone is not enough to ramp up manufacturing overnight. We have been warning about this for decades, and now Germany (and even some of our other allies like France and UK) now have to contend with this on their own.
I worked as a Dem staffer in the early 2010s and even I am in agreement with Trump about this - because this is a policy that even Obama was driving.
We've been warning your leadership that something like this would happen for 15 years now. Yet your leadership did not listen. When even a Dem like me who worked in NatSec Policy is frustrated, you know much of Europe has burnt any goodwill that remains.
> I assume we have a shared understanding that more than just Europe was affected by WWII
Absolutely, but they were 2 different wars with entirely different personas and leadership.
For example, China and Japan treat WW2 as having started in 1936-37 and don't really view or care about WW1 or the European theaters of WW2
And European dependencies in Asia were already autonomous at that point (eg. British India had it's own autonomous military and political leadership after the 1920s era reforms independent of London, Dutch Indonesia and it 1930s era reforms, and French Indochina as well as they largely retained the pre-colonization era leadership).
> What does manage mean
Problems on the European and African continent should be dealt with by our European allies. Ideally, the US provides some amount of support and armament, but strategy within Europe and France should fall onto individual European allies.
You saw this in Ukraine pre-2022 with the UK and Turkiye helping Ukraine rebuild it's armed forces, and in much of the Sahel with French armed forces tamping down on Islamism and Russian/Chinese backed factions.
> Europe certainly has strategic autonomy, no
The issue is, what is "Europe".
There needs to be a much stronger unification of posture and strategy amongst our European allies, but you would often see France and Germany clash because France wants to ensure a unified European force has expeditionary capabilities (because of French dependencies in the Pacific and Africa), but Germany constantly pushes back because they want to remain Central Europe first.
On top of that, individual European MICs directly compete with each other and extremely furiously. For example, Dassault, Eurofighter GmBH, and Saab trying to undercut each other in global fighter jet sales.
And finally, individual European states do not see eye to eye. For example, France+Italy tends to have a very strong co-sell relationship with Israel (a direct competitor to Turkiye) and targets the India (a competitor to Pakistan) and UAE (a competitor to Saudi) market.
But Germany+Spain tends to have a very strong co-sell relationship with Turkiye (a direct competitor to Israel), who tends to sell to Pakistan (a direct competitor to India) and Saudi Arabia (a direct competitor to UAE)
While we would all want the EU to be a truly unified union, in it's present form, individual nation states will continue to zealously guard their soverignity.
And even on the economic front - to continue using the India example due to the plan to finalize the EU-India FTA this year [0] - countries like Germany+Spain directly compete with France+Italy, especially in the Automotive and Pharma sectors (two of Europe's largest and most globally competitive sectors).
For example, German+Spanish+Czech automotive manufacturers like Volkswagen AG (includes Spain's Seat and Czechia's Skoda) largely invested in China during the 2000s but French+Italian+Romanian manufacturers like Renault-Nissan, Citroen/Fiat/Stellantis, and Piaggo (scooters yes but THE scooter in India) invested heavily in India. An EU-India FTA doesn't impact French+Italian+Romanian manufacturers but directly undermines and harms German+Spanish+Czech manufacturers.
And Indian biopharma companies (the only manufacturing industry that India is competitive at globally) are largely partnerships with French (Sanofi), British (GSK, AstraZeneca), Swiss (Novartis), Israeli (Teva), and Japanese (Takeda) players that directly compete with German firms like Bayer and Boehringer Ingelheim that invested in China.
While at a macro-level a EU-India FTA is good for European autonomy from the US or China, it will undercut German+Spanish+Czech companies and benefit French+Italian+Romanian companies, and as such Germany has been lobbying against it (and India has retaliated by fining Volkswagen group $1.4B in back taxes and an additional $1.4B in interest [1] - an amount that will destroy VW Group's business in India [2] and maybe even globally depending on Chinese and NAM sales as it's an amount that's 17% of their net income).
And this is one of dozens of examples where individual European nation states do not have strategic alignment, and why when push comes to shove, they all ignore the EU and prioritize their own domestic needs.
UNPROFOR was primarily lead by French, Swedish, and Canadian military leadership. KFOR and IFOR was largely German and Italian.
Most of the blood, sweat, and tears of the UN and NATO intervention in Yugoslavia was European militaries like the Dutch, British, French, and Swedish.
The Clinton admin primarily provided air support and diplomatic cover, but most boots on the ground were European (and Canadian).
Lots of people forget that the UN was in Yugoslavia before the NATO intervention happened.
The EC monitors were first. UNPROFOR was there for Croatia initially. The Lisbon agreement in Bosnia in 1992 was supposed to have things like European judges on the constitutional court, which is something that people forget when they complain about Dayton. The national militaries famously had partiality to different sides of the conflict - French and Dutch vs Swedish and British.
Yep, yet nonetheless, it was an European initiative that helped solidify "Pan-Europeanism" as a doable initiative (it was also during the early stages of the EC turned EU).
I would argue that we did our bid for European stability, that everybody thought Ukraine would be quickly overrun. We don’t need to defend every inch of Ukrainian soil for us to consider it a success and a deterrent. We did far more here than Obama did to protect crimea.
Yes we raised the stakes considerably. Russia thought the Ukraine operation would be over in weeks.
Fast forward a few more years. Russia is encircling Kiev. Are we supposed to put American boots on the ground? Give them tactical nukes? Wouldn’t giving up then just “teach them” the same thing?
Is having a conflict in Ukraine somehow making Europe more stable? To be entirely honest, from realpolitik point of view what Trump is doing makes cold and calculated sense. He will sacrifice Ukraine so that it will become a rump buffer state between Europe and Russia, and then he can trade with both. That will satisfy Russia as well as their strategic goal (no NATO in Ukraine) was achieved and they can return to business as usual.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine Sweden and Finland have joined NATO, so now Russia has more, not less, border with NATO. How would a buffer on their southwestern border alleviate that?
It won't satisfy Russia, though. It will just give a thumbs up to them and anyone else wanting to make a land grab that they can go ahead and the US will look for appeasement. This is exactly the kind of thinking that lead to Chamberlain letting Hitler take the Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia.
Look, the fact that you guys came here to Europe and liberate us from the nazi Germany, then you defeated Japan, made you a global superpower because you effectively won the war. You have been in this position since the war until 20th of January this year. Trump is actively removing USA from the position of the leader. Talking about leaving NATO, removing soldiers from Europe, … something that took decades to establish takes weeks to destroy.
What’s next? “TSMC give us all trade secrets or we don’t defend Taiwan”?
You have all there benefited from these decades of being in that position.
> TSMC give us all trade secrets or we don’t defend Taiwan
Trump has already threatened to impose 100% tariffs on Taiwan if TSMC refuses to transfer technology to the US (thus effectively undermining Taiwan's own Silicon Shield defence strategy) and revitalise Intel: https://techsoda.substack.com/p/tsmc-faces-tough-choices-ami...
I hope Taiwanese leaders have the balls to say no -- it's not as if Trump has a stellar track record of honouring his word anyway. Besides, tariffs on Taiwanese chips will end up seriously hurting American companies like AMD and NVIDIA, so Trump might walk back the tariffs once Jensen Huang and Lisa Su pay sufficiently large bribes.
Dude. There’s always a bigger bully. National interest my ass. You’re being robbed by a bunch of hot shots and you smile and clap. The king Vladimir Trump is coming.
