End the war. Sending billions of US taxpayer money to drop bombs over Ukraine hasn't really worked. Stop the suffering and the financial losses.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-tru...-security-2bf22e18?mod=hp_opin_pos_2#cxrecs_s The Trump Shock Comes to Europe The allies receive bracing, if not always helpful, warnings from the U.S. By The Editorial Board Feb. 16, 2025 at 12:51 pm ET European allies knew their relationship with the second Trump Administration would be challenging. Even so, the shocks they’ve received from Washington in recent days constitute a crisis. The warning, more or less: Shape up or the Americans are shipping out. Start with the Ukraine war. This is the largest military conflict on European soil since 1945, and the Continent’s leaders recognize the stakes for their security. But Mr. Trump’s message is that the U.S. doesn’t care what Europeans think about how the war should be resolved. Mr. Trump spoke on the phone to Russian President Vladimir Putin last week about ending the conflict, a development that caught Europe by surprise. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced, also without consulting allies, that Ukraine shouldn’t expect to regain territory lost during Russia’s first incursion in 2014. Asked at a conference whether Europeans would play a role in peace talks, Mr. Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg said “that is not going to happen.” These are slaps to North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies whose security is threatened by Mr. Putin’s imperial ambitions and that have contributed cash and equipment toward Ukraine’s defense. The insults also recognize reality, however. Too many European governments, especially the largest, have been too slow and stingy in providing support to Kyiv either for lack of strategic conviction or decades of spending on welfare instead of their militaries. The Trump Administration appears unwilling to let Europe leverage its noisy but dilatory contributions to the Ukraine war into a seat at the negotiating table. Much of Mr. Trump’s approach to peace talks is all wrong for America’s own interests, including Mr. Hegseth’s hint that the U.S. could agree with the Kremlin to reduce American troop numbers in Europe. But Europe has chosen to put itself in the position of taking others’ decisions about its security rather than making its own. Which is what we take to be Team Trump’s bigger theme in Europe last week. At a summit on artificial intelligence in Paris, Vice President JD Vance offered a bracing warning that Europe will leave itself behind in the next industrial revolution if it overregulates today’s frontier technology. Europeans aren’t accustomed to being told so bluntly by U.S. officials that Europe is impoverishing itself with its dirigisme, but someone had to say it. Then in Munich Mr. Vance delivered a more surprising rebuke when he asserted that Europe’s biggest security danger is “the threat from within.” He cited a political culture that aggressively tamps down on dissent, often in the name of combating “misinformation” or other ills such as racism, as mainstream politicians worry their power will be eroded by insurgent parties of the right and left. The subtext is that if Europeans expect Americans to defend Europe for the sake of democracy, Europe needs to be recognizably democratic. These interventions have triggered howls across Europe, sometimes with reason: German politicians have cause to be aggrieved at Mr. Vance for expressing veiled sympathy for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party a week before an election. It was a mistake, since he undermined center-right Friedrich Merz, who’s likely to be the next chancellor and is much more pro-American than the AfD. Yet in general Europeans are glumly conceding the Trump team has a point, at least on Ukraine and defense matters. French President Emmanuel Macron is convening an emergency summit of key European leaders this week to discuss their approach to Ukraine talks. They should heed Mr. Kellogg’s exhortation that the way for Europe to play a role is “coming up with concrete proposals, ideas, ramp up [defense] spending.” On the latter point, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said this weekend he’d overrule his own chancellor of the exchequer and insist defense spending rise to 2.5% of GDP, rather than the Treasury’s preferred 2.3% goal. Yet military leaders think more is needed, and even this goal has no deadline and will involve messy politicking in an economy that’s barely growing and when the government finances are a mess. Hence Mr. Vance’s exhortations about the importance of economic growth. *** A U.S. withdrawal from Europe would be a historic mistake, and damaging to American interests. But after last week Europe is on notice that Mr. Trump may be willing to leave the Continent to its own devices. Europe needs to act accordingly, and an economic revival and greater investment in its own defense are essential and urgent. Appeared in the February 18, 2025, print edition as 'The Trump Shock Comes to Europe'.
Of all the things going on right now, the end of the post-WWII order is the most distressing. 80 years of relative stability internationally with no major wars is coming to an end with no plan at all for what comes next. We will painfully re-learn some tough lessons. This feels like January and early February of 2020 when those who were paying attention and anchored in reality saw the disaster looming. Make sure your finances are in good shape and safe-ish places.
Ukraine now has an f-ton of folks who know how to fight. Regardless of what Putin and Trump decide in Saudi Arabia, they will have a say.
it's kinda wild that u would exclude the country that is involved in the conflict out of the peace talk. We all know putin is gonna make trump his btch and then what? Ukraine isn't gonna accept anything that comes out of this peace talk since they weren't even invited to the table. Are we gonna use Ukraine's refusal to russian terms as justification to leave ukraine hanging?
The euro elite have been a scourge of the planet for centuries. They have caused so much pain and death and robbed and looted the nations of the earth. Americans were the first ones to stand up to their bullshit and win. And now they are pissed we won’t fight another war for them. And the dumbass lefties want us to support the most corrupt place on the planet. Ukraine is a CiA outpost It’s not even a country anymore.
Dude is saying that American landed gentry slave owners saved the world from European colonialism which is.... a take I guess This guy needs to talk to some Latin Americans who wished the wealth extraction of their natural resources stayed in their country amongst their people instead of American capital owners.
I genuinely like your post. so refreshingly intelligent beyond the usual Putin bad commie, the new HItler/Stalin will roll domino style though Europe to England in much of the mainstream press-- or what I would call the NYT sneaky version of this-- this is democracy vs authoritarianism and . we of course are always for democracy and therefore blah blah blah. Ukraine was and still is very divided society between the Ukrainian and the Russian oriented. This gave the bilateral neocon US foreign establishment their opportunity to keep pushing NATO till they could put Nukes in Crimea and the Russian border. I am old enough to remember their outright panic when Gorbachev and the Russians wanted peace with the West and the "Peace Dividend" was so frightening to the military industrial complex and the US foreign policy establishment. They had to renig on their promise not to expand NATO eastward. I disagree with some of your facts,, 1). without research I believe you are right on the Budapest Memorandum and the three parties wrt to Ukrainian nukes. in 1994. 2) There is no recording, but I believe there is reliable evidence from Turkey and even an ex Israeli premier? of the U Boris Johnson and the US scuttling the agreement in 2021 or 2022. 3). Agree that the 2014 mess started when Russia offered a better economic deal than the West and Yanukovych though democratically elected, was ousted primarily after his decision to reject a trade agreement with the EU in favor of closer ties with Russia. 5). With regard to US involvement in the original 2014 Maidan Coup google Victoria Nuland and recorded call. Jeffrey Sachs who I find credible says he was present right during the Maidan coup and right after the coup an American official after the coup admitted to him US involvement as he assumed that he was there to provide economic advice to the new post coup government. Regardless, poor Ukraine was led down the Primrose Path to believe that it could win militarily and therebyen achieve more than the original peace plan they rejected when Boris Johnson suddenly visited-- just to lose much more terrotory than Crimea, not to mention the tremendous loss of life and destruction.
Many people became wealthy in march/april 2020 shorting end of the world pandemic FUD. Protip: China is not going to support Russia in a full European war, thefore, Russia will not be able to fight. And NATO loses all credibility.
Very pleased to see the peace talks occurring with Russia and USA. Remember, neither Russia nor Ukraine wanted this war. Russia invaded because of Biden/Blinken's move to prepare to bring Ukraine into NATO...just as the US would invade a neighboring country if Russia was positioning troops/weapons next to our border... and Ukraine is simply fighting because they were invaded. When we look at the major figures involved today - Trump/Rubio; Putin/Lavrov; and Zelensky... NONE of them wanted the war to break out. With Biden/Blinken out of the picture, the road is paved for peace to begin. GOOD DAY
There's no rewards here. Only continued suffering, death, and financial loss from continuing the war. There is no sense in continuing this war. And there is no sense in sending hard-earned money from the pockets of American taxpayers to Ukraine to fund bullets and bombs.
Ukraine bombed the Ilsky oil refinery and a massive pumping station, which the US owns a big piece of. Good job morons US companies Exxon and chevron own much of this. So with EU approval Ukraine has now attacked US owned infrastructure. They are really trying to have a war to save their own asses. EU is broke. Dead ****ing broke and can’t pay its obligations. UK alone owes billions on Ukraine war bonds. They don’t have the money.
This admin has a history of cutting out important parties. The Afghan government wasn't involved in the "peace" talks with the Taliban. That turned out great for the Taliban, not so much for the Afghan government.
If Ukraine had a crystal ball and could see the future (to today), it might be more inclined to capitulate for a "peace" deal. The main point is that Ukraine understandably seeks security assurances and does not trust Russia’s words. Without those assurances, it’s entirely reasonable for Ukraine to assume that "peace" is unattainable and thus refuse any deal lacking such guarantees. Whether there was Western pressure or not, it likely plays a secondary role to the need for security assurances.
Umm... how about the wars in Israel and Ukraine that broke out under Biden? Trump is ENDING WARS and creating peace. Yet somehow you twist this into "prepare for more wars"! Just a bizarre interpretation of events...
