An assessment, declassified as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged US lawmakers to back additional funding, describes Moscow’s setbacks during its most recent offensive as ‘severe’
it’s already an impossibility for russia to wage war with the US or European NATO countries alone
Some (!!!) EU NATO members have underinvested in defence for decades and now severely depleted their stocks to help Ukraine.
If Russia wins in Ukraine and if Trump withdraws from NATO or implies he won’t intervene in Europe again, then Russia is not unlikely to invade one of the Baltics. Putin’s allies say as much on a regular basis. The Suwalki Gap is basically indefensible by NATO allies anyway.
Even if Putin doesn’t actually invade, he’ll do constant military provocations, troop buildups, military exercises near the border, just to fuck with Europe and the US. A constant stream of shit, basically. That increases the likelihood of mistakes, and without the US nuclear umbrella, and even without Russia deliberately invading a (former) NATO country, that actually increases the chance of an all out war in Europe. The reason to have a strong conventional military, is so that you’re less likely to be existentially threatened and need to use unconventional(nuclear) weapons. The best case scenario is that Europe will be perpetually distracted. We’ll have to triple or even quadruple defense spending.
Of course, as a European, I can confidently predict what will actually happen in that case: with Russian support right wing populists will gain even more ground. “Our people first! Why are we spending so much on defense?” The EU project will die, a divided Europe will end up kowtowing to Beijing (even more), the US will lose market share in one of the world’s most important markets, and the likelihood of de-dollarisation will increase significantly. Beijing will also be far likelier to invade Taiwan. And no that wouldn’t be a cakewalk for the US.
Obviously, this is just me regurgitating stuff, but I don’t think anyone can argue that the stakes aren’t infinitely higher than Afghanistan or Iraq. If the US was able to spend thousands of billions fighting and dying in those wars, it’s a no brainer to spend tens of billions so that Ukrainians can have the ‘privilege’ of dying in a war against Russia and fighting to further European and US interests.
It’s not just the moral thing to do. You don’t need to care about war crimes. You don’t need to care about democracy or whatever. It’s in the west’s interests.
Trump won’t be able to withdraw from NATO; Congress is currently revoking the Presidents ability to unilaterally leave the alliance specifically in case Trump or another like him is elected.
Leaving NATO will now require an act of Congress, which makes it much more difficult for any president to do so.
This deterrent effect doesn’t come just from the NATO treaty, a bare-bones document whose signatories simply agree in Article 5 that “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” Deterrence comes from the Kremlin’s conviction that Americans really believe in collective defense, that the U.S. military really is prepared for collective defense, and that the U.S. president really is committed to act if collective security is challenged. Trump could end that conviction with a single speech, a single comment, even a single Truth Social post, and it won’t matter if Congress, the media, and the Republican Party are still arguing about the legality of withdrawing from NATO. Once the commander in chief says “I will not come to an ally’s aid if attacked,” why would anyone fear NATO, regardless of what obligations still exist on paper? And once the Russians, or anyone else, no longer fear a U.S. response to an attack, then the chances that they will carry one out grow higher. If such a scenario seems unlikely, it shouldn’t. Before February 2022, many refused to believe there could ever be a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. … When I asked several people with deep links to NATO to imagine what would happen to Europe, to Ukraine, and even to Taiwan and South Korea if Trump declared his refusal to observe Article 5, all of them agreed that faith in collective defense could evaporate quickly. Alexander Vershbow, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO and a former deputy secretary-general of NATO, pointed out that Trump could pull the American ambassador from his post, prevent diplomats from attending meetings, or stop contributing to the cost of the Brussels headquarters, all before Congress was able to block him: “He wouldn’t be in any way legally constrained from doing that.” Closing American bases in Europe and transferring thousands of soldiers would take longer, of course, but all of the political bodies in the alliance would nevertheless have to change the way they operate overnight. James Goldgeier, an international-relations professor at American University and the author of several books on NATO, thinks the result would be chaotic. “It’s not like you can say, ‘Okay, now we have another plan for how to deal with this,’ ” he told me. There is no alternative leadership available, no alternative source of command-and-control systems, no alternative space weapons, not even an alternative supply of ammunition. Europe would immediately be exposed to a possible Russian attack for which it is not prepared, and for which it would not be prepared for many years.
Some (!!!) EU NATO members have underinvested in defence for decades and now severely depleted their stocks to help Ukraine.
If Russia wins in Ukraine and if Trump withdraws from NATO or implies he won’t intervene in Europe again, then Russia is not unlikely to invade one of the Baltics. Putin’s allies say as much on a regular basis. The Suwalki Gap is basically indefensible by NATO allies anyway.
Even if Putin doesn’t actually invade, he’ll do constant military provocations, troop buildups, military exercises near the border, just to fuck with Europe and the US. A constant stream of shit, basically. That increases the likelihood of mistakes, and without the US nuclear umbrella, and even without Russia deliberately invading a (former) NATO country, that actually increases the chance of an all out war in Europe. The reason to have a strong conventional military, is so that you’re less likely to be existentially threatened and need to use unconventional(nuclear) weapons. The best case scenario is that Europe will be perpetually distracted. We’ll have to triple or even quadruple defense spending.
Of course, as a European, I can confidently predict what will actually happen in that case: with Russian support right wing populists will gain even more ground. “Our people first! Why are we spending so much on defense?” The EU project will die, a divided Europe will end up kowtowing to Beijing (even more), the US will lose market share in one of the world’s most important markets, and the likelihood of de-dollarisation will increase significantly. Beijing will also be far likelier to invade Taiwan. And no that wouldn’t be a cakewalk for the US.
Obviously, this is just me regurgitating stuff, but I don’t think anyone can argue that the stakes aren’t infinitely higher than Afghanistan or Iraq. If the US was able to spend thousands of billions fighting and dying in those wars, it’s a no brainer to spend tens of billions so that Ukrainians can have the ‘privilege’ of dying in a war against Russia and fighting to further European and US interests.
It’s not just the moral thing to do. You don’t need to care about war crimes. You don’t need to care about democracy or whatever. It’s in the west’s interests.
Trump won’t be able to withdraw from NATO; Congress is currently revoking the Presidents ability to unilaterally leave the alliance specifically in case Trump or another like him is elected.
Leaving NATO will now require an act of Congress, which makes it much more difficult for any president to do so.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/01/trump-2024-reelection-pull-out-of-nato-membership/676120/