| It's not ridiculous at all. Not all leaders can be negotiated with, that is simply my point. Maybe as an American you do not understand the depth of feeling, it does not affect you because you don't live here and subsequently you don't care. You can regress into the isolationism that the US likes to embrace every now and then. But we still have to live with an imperialist Russia on our door step. > (Germany) is a major dove on this issue. No, they're not dovish, they're just not leaders and not willing to take initiative and require others to move first. That stems from their history. They've sent huge amounts of aid already to Ukraine (~1% of GDP versus 0.2% of GDP for the USA). > Europe’s economy is in shambles I mean, it's not as good as the USA's, but it's not in shambles. It's relatively OK. I live here. I'd rather live here than in Russia. Russia is a glorified petrol station with nukes and a military. Europe's economy still absolutely dwarfs Russia's. When I speak to my (many) Russian colleagues, it's clear they'd rather be here in Germany than in Russia. > US were to push for détente It's not realistic. The only person who is going to do that is Trump. There's no scenario where we Europeans just give up our security and let imperial war conquests become acceptable on our continent (not yours, yank) for the sake of Trump's ego. Why? Because we think he's completely retarded. Only Americans like him. And how would we benefit exactly from trading away our security? How can the US force us? All it would do is seal the USA's historic break from its European allies (And I know it's not popular at the moment in the USA, but any one with a basic understanding of geopolitics knows that the USA's strongest asset its just how many rich and powerful allies it has). Good luck standing up to China alone, in that case. Then the West is truly fucked! |
Putin isn't Hitler. People are way too quick to write off negotiation when it is people's real lives at play.
> They've sent huge amounts of aid already to Ukraine (~1% of GDP versus 0.2% of GDP for the USA).
False? not sure where you are getting your numbers from but USA has sent both considerably more in magnitude and as a percentage of the GDP through the end of 2023.
Germany doesn't even spend 2% of GDP on all military expenses (they recently pledged to as it is a new NATO requirement), they are not spending half of that on Ukraine allocation.
> It's not realistic. The only person who is going to do that is Trump.
Wavering support for the Ukraine war is not just a Trump-ism phenomenon. I am not sure how the media reports this in the UK but support is collapsing across both parties in the polls.
A majority of Americans think Trump is stupid too and you are very unlikely to meet a supporter on HN.
> Good luck standing up to China alone, in that case
US policymakers already perceive no will to stand up to China among EU lawmakers.
> And how would we benefit exactly from trading away our security? How can the US force us?
EU+UK citizens will not be willing to pay the full brunt of this conflict for an extended period of time.
The fact of the matter is that most Europeans are much more ambivalent about this conflict than you are implying [0] which is obvious from the polling. Ratchet up the spending and energy price impact to considerable portions of GDP and what will happen?
[0]: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/at-your-service/files/be-hear...