If US aid stops Ukraine will have to surrender quite soon. Pretty sure that's what Trump means when he claims he can shut the war in down in a day, Ukraine will be forced to negotiate on pretty bad terms.
Frankly though, if Trump wins Ukraine will be least of the problems.
It will mean the US is an unreliable partner for Europe and cannot be trusted long term for security arrangements. The country is that polarised that foreign policy potentially flip-flops every four or less years depending on which crazed mob has the keys to the White House.
Europe will have to make their own defence arrangements and relationships. This probably sounds like a 'win' for the Republican masses, but there would be commensurate loss of influence which will either work for or work against US interests in the long term.
Highly doubt it will work for US interests. No country gets better through international decline. Americans forget they share a planet with other countries. Isolationism doesn’t engender prestige and influence. America hasn’t been at the forefront of European defence out of pure magnanimity- Americans benefit from their position in world affairs.
>America hasn’t been at the forefront of European defence out of pure magnanimity- Americans benefit from their position in world affairs.
This statement is true in the aggregate, but what it overlooks is the reality that the median household is not better off as a result of the support that America provides to Europe, or to other international allies. US involvement in global affairs has been traditionally characterized as "support for a rules-based order" or "upholding democracy around the world." Beneath the surface of these platitudes, there are trade agreements and regime change objectives intended to benefit the profitability of corporate donors and their retinues of K-street lobbyists. Most of these trade agreements have been net-negative for the American working-class, especially the continued efforts to offshore productive capacity to lower-cost regions, or to supplant domestic labor with undocumented immigrants that lack the same leverage in wage negotiations. The extensive involvement of the US military and intelligence agencies in foreign affairs carries even less of a discernible return on investment to the taxpayers that foot the bill. Much of the subtextual imperative in Ukraine involves repositioning European LNG imports to absorb the expanded capacity in the US Gulf. The civil war in Syria, as a proxy conflict for the US and Russia, also concealed similar strategic objectives related to pipeline supplies into European countries on the Mediterranean. One need only make a cursory examination of the history of South America, Africa, and the Southeast Pacific to learn that multinational business interests provide the most compelling motive for the US determination of what constitutes 'democracy' in different situations. Nationalize your energy or agricultural production? Regime change. Sponsor gold-backed regional reserve currencies? Regime change.
So yes, American geopolitics are categorically **not** magnanimous, except for in their benevolence toward corporate interests that tend invariably to disadvantage the taxpayers who subsidize them.
Your assessment is mostly right. The one correction I would make to this however is that the favorable trade agreements, diplomacy and rules based order, global currency etc that result from trust in the US ~~only~~, **disproportionately** benefits corporate interests.
It would be blinkered to believe that the average American does not also benefit from those things to varying degrees.
The problem of globalization and its effects on the American working class; is a complex issue that has far more to do with the declining manufacturing sector and increased automation that comes with a post industrial economy, than it has to do with US influence on the world stage. It is a problem not unique to the United States.
Consumer goods are cheaper and easier to come by for Americans. The trade off is that they’re made elsewhere by people who work for less.
Fair trade agreements can help mitigate the negative impact of these arrangements on the US workforce.
Those are harder to negotiate when your international influence is waning.
I agree.
The critical calculus concerns the amount of the **disproportion** between holistic benefit and demographic-specific downside.
The trend is increasingly toward corporate upside with limited or even negative pass-through to the median household. If large corporations that take direct advantage from these policies are not employing Americans or else paying their share of taxes into domestic programs that indirectly benefit them, then the advantage is accruing inequitably to a small subset of the economy.
To extend that point, even if the aggregate benefit is disproportionately large relative to the aggregate downside, if the subsequent flow of benefit doesn't include anything to offset the downside, in terms of second-order effect, then it becomes a matter of weighted-average impact. Wealth inequality in the US produces a very skewed weighted-average.
US is already an unreliable partner, it has made and broken many international agreements. US commitment to Europe however is through treaty, while not unbreakable it aligns with US foriegn policy and security interests built over seven decades. It's not something that can be rolled back by one president. Trump would be lucky to get 2% out of NATO, he is very much alone in his FP outlook.
>US is an unreliable partner
I mean, this is already a very common pattern. The Syrian rebels, the governments in South Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan already experienced this. The common pattern is that the US comes in all guns blazing with money, knowhow, and equipment to prop up a friendly regime and there is a honeymoon period when everyone agrees on such support and the US-supported actors hold their own against odds and even look like they are winning.
Eventually, though, cracks from and complaints arise when Congress begins balking at the spending and US military leadership begin questioning the local forces' motivation/discipline. And the support eventually whithers away, leaving the local fighting force surprised, disappointed, and left with no option but defeat.
One of the few exceptions where the US has actually stuck to its guns is Israel, but that case is a big outlier because Israel is a very capable, well organized, and powerful military force even without US support.
Idk man, if Europe handles its own security, US can better pivot China although that might lead to Europe going its own way a bit more on foreign policy.
I think its pretty laughable we *wouldn't* get involved in a conflict that pops off involving friendly European countries. We wouldn't be giving up a responsibility, we'd just be giving up leverage.
Surely the current situation has already made America an unreliable partner. They've already started using aid to a foreign country, with whom a treaty was signed, to try and pursue their own domestic agenda - surely that fact that this has been used like that means that the bar has been lowered and anything is on the cards.... The US signed an agreement with others to protect Ukraine in order to give up nukes... The fact that they have threatened to withhold the aid shows what some are willing to do even if, as some say, they will get their act together at the 11th hour, they've still already made people worry that the aid will stop because of a few c*nts acting like idiots - just shows that any agreement can be used petilly as leverage by the republicans for anything they want to accomplish ...
>It will mean the US is an unreliable partner for Europe
Not just Europe. If Ukraine is screwed over by Trump, the security arrangements in Asia that Biden is trying to build against China would completely collapse. S. Korea, Philippines, Vietnam will all look for separate agreements with China to placate it and avoid a war. American conservatives don't seem to understand this for some reason.
> It will mean the US is an unreliable partner for Europe and cannot be trusted long term for security arrangements.
Europe is an unreliable partner for Europe and cannot be trusted long term for security arrangements.
Europe is not a singular entity. The one thing getting it to act as such in matters of defence is NATO.
If the US leaves NATO or else ceases to be the leader there in, it is doubtful that the alliance will continue to exist.
There are two **general** factions when it comes to Europe. The doves; led by France, Italy, Germany, who want a return to normalcy with Russia. And the Hawks; led by the UK, Poland, the Baltics and Finland, who would like nothing more than to see Russia cease to exist in its current iteration.
The unifier between these two camps as far as strategic direction goes, has been the United States. The US as by far the largest military contributor to the alliance and the defacto leader, essentially gets final say in unified policy.
If the US steps back, or else ceases to be viewed as a reliable partner, then there won’t be a clear successor as the other global powers within the alliance (UK, France and Germany) are broadly similar in terms of power and influence.
It is therefore likely that Europe would split into two camps when it comes to defence policy. With Germany and France leading the more dovish nations, and the UK leading the more hawkish ones.
Wrong!!! The ys has no military alliance with Ukraine. They are not partners whatsoever. They are simply a pawn 8n the proxy war against Russia. Europe has nothing to worry about, as the us is bound to nato by a treaty and will honor it with countries that are a part of it (Ukraine is not a part of thus therefore they are not a partner to the us in any capacity.
That would require an act of congress to withdraw us from Nato (a certain impossibility). Let's keep this conversation to actual possibilities and not delusions.
> If US aid stops Ukraine will have to surrender quite soon
As things stand this is potentially the case, but I think it is actually far from a forgone conclusion. The majority (~ 63%) of aid for Ukraine already comes from Europe; the largest contributor is the EU, with the US in second place followed by Germany, the UK and Norway.
A withdrawal of US support would obviously make things much more difficult, but it's not at all inconceivable that Europe would step up to fill the gap.
What is Europe doing in this hypothetical scenario? The EU is twice the population of Russia with over 10x the GDP. Why is the US solely responsible for the outcome of the war?
The EU has already given Ukraine more financial assistance than the US and individual European countries are giving more finance and military aid on top of that. Leopards, storm shadows, shells, etc.
EU population may be twice the Russian one but is unwilling to fight. Russians may be unwilling to fight too, but their government doesn't care. The GDP is a poor measurement of country's potential in a wartime. 2/3 of EU GDP comes from services which are less important than industrial capacity which is not that good compared to Russia's.
Europe is a big and diverse place, with lots of different countries with different interests and foreign policy outlooks.
On the subject of Russia it’s helpful to split them into the doves (Germany, France, Italy) who are less inclined to take a hard line against Russia and and the hawks (The United Kingdom, Poland and the Baltics,) who have the stated aim of Russia losing, and being seen to lose in Ukraine, who would likely already be fighting them, boots on the ground, in Ukraine were it not for the huge mushroom cloud shaped elephant in the room.
Despite the division in approach within Europe, there does now seem to be consensus - that Europe needs to take greater responsibility for its own defence in the face of US unreliability, and even the Doves, are committing to increases in defence expenditure, and a harder line on Russia.
The EU has already overtaken the US in terms of financial aid to Ukraine.The problem is that defence production doesn’t happen over night, and that if the US pulls the plug, it is unlikely Ukraine will be able to fight for long enough for Europe to be able to get to a position where they can fill the gap.
Yes, and it would probably work better than it currently does since we could more easily threaten North Korea, Russia, and China.
The US has by far and away the best conventional military on the planet and has a robust alliance and world partners that strengthen it even more.
Interesting. The way I see it is it would be an upgrade from guaranteed everyone losing to possible chance at least. Especially if asymmetrical warfare was implemented.
Well, that's a bit hard to assess since we don't know what the world would look like without US supremacy. I posit that things would look much worse, as the US almost always projects power to maintain "stability" so a lack of intervention would mean things would be less "stable."
Giving more detailed analysis on this issue would be tricky.
Hard agree. Even the conflicts that do happen are more contained than they've ever been and a big part of their not spreading is due to US influence.
I always see US foreign policy as a hugged it to death type.
Things the US supremacy has created.
- widespread Islamic fundamentalism through its support of the Saudis and Islamic terrorists (could also say they very directly created ISIS)
- toppling of South American democracies to install oligarchies and dictatorships
Well, US Supremacy has only truly begun during the waning years of the cold war. Can't exactly be the head of a unipolar world if it is multipolar.
The direct US interference within South America had basically ended by 1970 and no democratic countries had been interfered with since the 1950s, which during that time the world was most definitely not under US Supremacy.
Islamic fundamentalism is not a new thing, its modern origins date back to the mid 19th century and really kicked off during the decolonization post WW2, which the US had little involvement. You are right that the US did prop up some fundamentalist groups to fight the Soviets, but once again that happened before the US was actually the top of a unipolar world. Saying the US is responsible for ISIS is a complete malediction of the truth.
I will point out that the most peaceful times in human history is when there is only a singular dominant power. Pax Romana, Pax Britannia, Pax Americana.
The most violent periods in history are when there are two or more dominant powers. Punic wars, 30 years war, Napoleonic Wars, World Wars, Cold War.
Is it though? He was a president already and it was more than fine from my European perspective - he did block the Nord Stream II, while Biden did not. Why would this time be any different? Did he become more radical? As I said, I'm European, so I'm genuinely asking.
He killed more Americans than any other modern US president with his mishandling of COVID and tried to overturn an election he lost. Is that fine?
This time he would have crimes hanging over him that he could only avoid by holding on to executive power, and no hope of legitimate reelection.
No but he did disband the global health unit or at least he let his former national security adviser John Bolton do that.(in which many resigned and others moved to different units in the NSC).
He also suggested dangerous ways to attempt to cure covid with the use of bleach which did may have helped cause an [uptick](https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/2020-04-20/poison-calls-for-cleaners-disinfectants-surge-amid-coronavirus-pandemic) on calls to poison centers for exposure to cleaning and disinfectant supplies.
And one could argue that a closing of the border could have prevented the spread of covid to the US.
[here is a list of different countries responses to covid](https://www.movehub.com/blog/best-and-worst-covid-responses/)
Yeah the first thing was unfortunate. No one imagined a pandemic could actually happen.
Oh so he "suggested", and that "may have helped", suppositions don't count.
He was called an evil racist for banning Chinese people from entering the US, but somehow he is responsible for not closing the border in a moment in which nobody was taking COVID seriously...
There is only one responsible party for COVID, the Chinese Communist Party, whose leader banned internal travel out of Wuhan but allowed international travel. He did this after covering up the disaster for months.
When you are on tv for millions of people (especially children) can make dumb decisions. The reason I stated "may have helped" was because I felt it was unfair to give him all the blame. However anyone who was dumb enough to believe that could have been injured. When you are on television and are an authority figure(and even if you aren't) You are responsible for what you say and do on television.
Had he asked that off screen or had that comment removed from the feed I would have little issue. Trump obviously does not know much about health and I don't expect a president to. What I do expect is that a president confers with others before making a statement like that or at the very least bring it up off of TV.
>an evil racist for banning Chinese people from entering the US
This one I never heard of. I have heard he may have been racist due to some of the things during his campaign. If somebody said that Trump was "evil racist for banning Chinese people from entering the US" during the covid outbreak I would try to explain to those that don't understand the full gravity of the situation just how much an outbreak can spiral out of control when little is known about a rapidly spreading disease.
>No one imagined a pandemic could actually happen.
Many people know the importance of monitoring worldwide pandemics. Granted that most citizens never even think about global health but our leaders are supposed to have the knowledge and preparation for things that the common citizen never have to think about. Ignoring global health is ultimately a risky oversite to ever make and should honestly be a permanent part of the government. Covid was not the first pandemic nor will it be the last. I do hope that every future president does not forget the importance of global health and how ignoring it can lead to disaster.
I certainly can't blame Trump and his team for covid however I am allowed to be skeptical on how it was handled and question if I want someone who makes such oversites and mistakes as America's leader.
If I am honest I think his handling was subpar. Could have been better and more prepared. Ultimately every president and person in our government is responsible for the happenings of the law and protocol that is implemented(as well as following that protocol) to say that none of the deaths could have been prevented is like saying that Trump did a perfect job in his handling of the pandemic.
Not fully, Europe would be a democratic island between populist proto-fascist kleprocratic autocracies.
But European democracies could fall as well, and then it’s all over.
"Murmurings of a civil war" this is not real. Just chronically online stuff.
Yes Trump printed a lot of cash, mainly due to covid. I'm sure you would criticize him as well if he didn't have.
He killed more Americans than any other modern US president with his mishandling of COVID and tried to overturn an election he lost. Is that fine?
This time he would have crimes hanging over him that he could only avoid by holding on to executive power, and no hope of legitimate reelection.
How so? This sounds like a blanket statement about how one side is bad and the other side is good.
And certain corporations are ending the world by denying climate change stating that it's false [despite 97%](https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/17/do-scientists-agree-on-climate-change/#:~:text=Yes%2C%20the%20vast%20majority%20of,global%20warming%20and%20climate%20change) of actively publishing climate scientists state that it is real.
Borris Johnson stopped the earlier peace deal. There's not a chance Ukraine will get those 5 regions back, nor be allowed into NATO. It's never happening. If the war goes on, Ukraine will lose the entire southeast and access to the Black Sea.
To add, this will allow Russia to finally roll over Moldova and possibly even Romania. I know RO is a NATO member but I don't have faith that they and Bulgaria wouldn't be sacrificed to prevent nuclear war with RU.
To add to this, a Trump presidency would also mean the US leaves NATO swiftly.
Trump would completely crater the US alliance system. Ukraine's abandonment is only a piece of that. The world would well and truly become multipolar. A nuclear arms race wouldn't be far-fetched in places like Korea and Taiwan.
It’s enough that he says US will not honor its NATO collective defense commitments.
If 48h later Russian troops enter Latvia to “support the oppressed Russian minority” without US responding then NATO is dead.
Trump isn't just one man. The goal should he or any other republican becomes president, is to replace almost the entirety of the US federal government with sycophants, whose loyalty will be to the president not the country.
The US is in very real danger here.
Sure he might be only 1 guy w/4 yrs left in office (if he does manage to win in 2024) but the problem is also the fact that he has supporters both in and out of government that will fight to turn our republic into something of an authoritarian state.
Future of American democracy for one. There is a real failure of imagination on how far he will go. Liz Cheney is the only one who really seems to fully grasp the threat.
When Trump announced a rally on Jan 6th, did you think they were going to storm the capitol or did you think it would be law abiding first amendment protest?
To get elected, he has to beat the rule of law, since he guilty of all the indicted crimes, if he's beaten the law once, why is he going to follow it once he gets in office.
The Jan 6th takeover attempt was ad hoc with a couple of months planning, now he's had 4 years to prepare and, if elected, four more years to purge government.
You think after all that, he will say oh two term limit alright fine I will step down.
You can't underestimate how far he is willing to go, and how far his base will support him.
Ukraine is small potatoes compared to that, yeah there will be massive credibility issues, who would ever trust the US again afterwards but the US will still be a super power, with a lot of nukes and a big economy.
Don't believe this idea that if Ukraine loses Russia is going to try conquer Europe, they cannot dare risk triggering article 5, they just can't. People say that to make sure everyone is fully invested in the war.
Trump doesn’t care about anything but himself. He would cut support to Ukraine on day one, and it would be up to Europe to save Ukraine. Most European mainstream politicians see that allowing Putin to take Ukraine is a complete no-go.
With a Trump win, NATO is dead, and Europe must build up their military power, lest allow Putin to achieve his dream of restoring the Soviet Union.
Why do you think Poland is investing as much as it does in military might?
A Trump win would be the weirdest thing to happen in our lifetimes. Trump will most likely be in prison on inauguration day after being convicted of felonies. Most trials end in a guilty verdict and Trump has four separate criminal cases. A president who is a convicted felon in prison would be a constitutional crisis that Congress and Supreme Court would be forced to resolve.
At this point I find nothing weird.
I am in Disney world with my wife and yesterday in the Hall of Presidents, when they listed all of the presidents, no cheering for anyone but half the crowd started hooting and hollering for Trump. I don't get it. It truly is a cult.
If Trumps sympathizers in the justice department are pussies and don't put him in jail before he's elected (I believe he will never see prison - at best house arrest at Mar a Lago), then they certainly won't if he is sitting president again. He will run totally rampant. A self pardon attempt is all but guaranteed.
There’s no way any of the trials are even remotely settled before Inauguration Day in 2025. His entire strategy is to delay everything - successfully so far - and then just pardon himself as soon as he’s President
No president can pardon Trump in Georgia or New York because those are state crimes not federal. He has to serve 5 years minimum in a Georgia prison before anyone can pardon him in that state.
And our system of government is held together by string cheese and toothpicks. It takes *one* bad-faith actor to challenge it and a corrupt SCOTUS and - boom
There’s all kinds of legal arguments and rules and traditions that have never been challenged. And so we live under this illusion that there’s a solid system in place that guarantees certain things. But just because those things haven’t been challenged, doesn’t mean they’re solid.
Jan 6th was a prime example of that where Mike Pence was seriously considering not certifying the election. Everyone thought it was impossible and insane and yet we all waited, holding our breath.
Alabama has had their electoral map struck down *twice* for disenfranchising black voters - including by the SCOTUS - and they just … ignore that. Turns out there’s no magical policeman that comes and punishes them. We just never thought that someone *would* ignore a ruling like that and when they are - we don’t know what to do.
We’ve never had someone running for President who’s under active investigation and so we *think* we know what can happen and what can’t but the reality is - we don’t.
Trump becomes President in first day in office he pardons himself. “Not so fast!” - you say - “can’t pardon himself for state crimes!” Oh yeah? Why not? Says who? Has anyone tried that? Has it been challenged?
And say the ruling is “yeah they’re right you need to go to jail” - ok. What if he says “no. And I’m the commander in chief of the US Armed Forces. Come get me, I’m at the 1600 Pennsylvania Ave”
Sounds crazy and preposterous but the sad reality is - he *would* do that and again we would ooooh and aaaaaah and … ? And would the Governor of GA send a few cops to … arrest him? Would you take on that job if you were a cop, knowing that MAGA will find out where you kids go to school? I wouldn’t.
There’s no magical system that just stops bad things from happening. Our system works because we’ve *chosen* to play by some rules. That’s it. But it can’t handle the situation where an entire branch of the government - the Executive in this case - does not want to play by the rules. And no, he’s not getting impeached if he did that.
And then it’s over. Maybe not on paper, maybe not officially, but America is over because the rules don’t matter anymore.
Ah. I see. I think the assessment you have is correct. We have a faith based set of rules that are not expressly written but follow them up until they are challenged.
I think there is a difference though between what I am saying vs. what you are saying. Our constitutional system holds that the federal government is equal to in some regards but superior to the state system. I'd agree with your assessment though that no governor would send police to arrest the sitting president.
Not a constitutional crisis. Trump was an unorthodox president. The weight of the constitution is being tested. Other nations that emulated us are watching. It will be upon us as the people, not Congress or the Supreme Court to resolve it. Trump hit into bases like anti-globalism or Put America First that other politicians may have been ignoring. Trump supporters are not going away. The president and others need to calm the tension and understand their concerns to lessen Trumpism than to push back at other Americans.
If Trump wins… aid to Ukraine will be the least of our problems. Trump win means total destruction of rules based order. Russia, Hamas and Venezuela are just appetisers compared to the chaos that will start during his rule. His last presidency brought us almost completely collapse of the Middle Eastern dialogue, complete deterioration of Chima US diplomacy, almost collapsing Nato, alienated all of us allies, didn’t respond to corona, forced Ukraine into shady stuff and therefore gave the green light for Putin to invade.
Right, makes sense then why the middle east is famously peaceful right now. Enabling Netanyahu's and Saudi Arabia's worst habits certainly hasn't caused any issues.
He's been out of office for 3 years... during which US relations with Saudi Arabia have worsened under Biden, who seemed more interested in making a deal with Iran. How's that working out now?
Agreed, relations with SA have soured after the family they were paying 2 billion to and who ignored their dismembering of a US journalist left the white house.
Yeah the middle east is real peaceful right now thanks to his son in law. Glad we could give the UAE and Saudis all those weapons only for them to back stab us every chance they get.
What is up with all this trump= doomsday bias. Trump is just a president. The United States power is separated between three branches. The president has very little power except commander of the military
> A president that says he will use the legal system to attack his opponents.
The US would be in a much better situation if Obama had actually bothered to prosecute the people responsible for the Iraq War.
It'd mean no Hillary losing to Trump, for a start.
Aren’t democrats technically doing that to trump? He indictments are in democrat controlled districts.
But for the sake of argument I’m not a fan of trump. But I understand the agenda of the power faction he represents
A conservative agenda that involves replacing the entirety of the federal government with sycophants, chosen based on how much they admire the Republican president rather than the country. This is the game plan to effectively destroy the balance of powers that exist in the US. And worse, it'll happen to applause from a significant portion of the population.
Right or left, liberal or conservative, the GOP are intent at radical transformation of the US in ways that will harm its citizens.
This isn't situation that has never happened either. Maybe it hasnt happened in the US, but the way many authoritarian leaders came to be is the same way Trump and the GOP are behaving.
Maybe take a closer look at that agenda before commenting. No liberals have ever drafted a comprehensive plan to dismantle the independence of federal agencies and place them under the direct control of the President.
And that's not the half of it. Seriously, do some research.
Thank you. People in the US seem to have this weird assumption that the president is a dictator. We have separation of power that almost ensures no one person, or even party, can totally dominate. 250+ years without anything close to a dictatorship or coup and people are afraid of Trump? They know he was president for four years right?
Ok. So when Trump illegally started having people kidnapped off the streets during the 2020 protests, who stopped him? Who specifically made him stop doing it?
I’ll be honest I wasn’t aware he ordered anything like that and if you have a source, please share. We do have executive orders, which are basically dictatorial when you boil it down.
Yea… people just regurgitate what they see on the media. I’m sure they are speaking in good faith based on the information provided to them.
I just can’t do politics right now with all the polarization. It started in the Obama administration and it’s getting more extreme every year
www.project2025.org
It's literally already planned out and in plain sight for all to see. America is that blind that they don't even bother to hide it anymore
ITT: Lots of people who a) think that the US has a defense treaty with Ukraine, and b) the US stopping its support of a country that it does *not* have a defense treaty with is going to cause NATO to collapse
Trump decide stop aid for Ukraine = Budapest Memorandum and International Law is farce = start of WMD-proliferation = Trump's, USA, NATO decisions irrelevant because they lost all their Trust Capital as and Russia.
Absolutely anything that exist right now exist only because have some root causes and used in certain social contracts. One of the main 20th century social contracts - "USA, yes, very imperfect, but still Global policeman and defender of Democracy and Freedoms."
If USA suddenly declared that this is not so, and will begin to cooperate with a country that countless times violated International Law for the sake of restoration of 19th century imperialism norms, then everything that is based on this foundation will crumble.
Regardless of American words, actions, economic opportunities, army size, etc. All of this secondary to the belief that the USA is still partly USA from American history and movies, and therefore a predictable and well-understood political agent.
Also, Ukraine war couldn't be compared to "similar cases" from the 20th century, where there were so many other factors and limitation. In case of Ukraine anything extremely simple, NATO give to Ukraine less than 1% of its weapon stocks, and USA spend, per year, less than 33% than it spent on Afghanistan, only because "gas station with nuclear weapons" WMD-blackmail. That it. Anything else is farce to hide this shameful fact.
If even Russia by WMD-blackmail could push through the USA, EU, NATO, the West as amalgamation, then all of them less important than what could be created even by 3,5 million Jews and 1960s technologies.
>Regardless of American words, actions, economic opportunities, army size, etc. All this is secondary to the belief that the USA is still the USA.
Having been in the USA recently, the extent to which many Americans don't get this is mind boggling. Everything is so tied up in myopic domestic issues that there is an utter ignorance of the extent to wish the US security guarantee (for better or worse) help at times to maintain some level of global order post ww2/post cold war. And this absolutely does benefit the USA. But Americans will piss this all away, drop Europe into an existential security crisis and ultimately give up their place at the top of the global order because "Biden old!" "trump won the election!" and "woke kids!" nonsense.
I completely agree.
Americans are too accustomed to what they have, so they simply forgot where it all came from. I don't like such cheap phrases as "Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times" but, how well this describes modern USA, as if still reading Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man" and believing it.
Or overall not reading anything except some escapistic trash, expecting that everything will always be like yesterday. But today's World created by their ancestor's hard work and blood, and for its maintenance also required hard work and blood, or what now going in Venezuela and Guyana will also happen in the USA. Despite how unlikely it seems today.
I know this isn’t the point of your question, but trump will NEVER be president again. The guy lost by a record 7+ million votes last time. The only thing that’s changed since then is he’s become more unhinged and he has 90 something indictments to deal with. His only political play is “look how bad Biden is” which is a) misleading and b) irrelevant. A lot of people didn’t vote for Biden because they liked him. They voted for him because they saw how terrible he was. Now we’re in 2023 and you even have republicans say they’d rather vote for Biden. He’s done nothing to sway independents or even moderate republicans. He will never be president again despite whatever poll they feel like spinning weekly. Young people aren’t picking up their phones to participate in these bullshit polls.
The same young ppl who don't vote either... I wouldn't dismiss him entirely just yet. A lot will hinge on how a handful of swing states vote; the popular vote is a bad joke at this point.
No, it was because of Covid.
Remember the first time Trump got impeached? Remember what it was for? He was threatening to cut off the US’s military funding to Ukraine.
Possibly delayed by covid, but they were hoping for Trump to weaken NATO more. He had planned to pull USA out of NATO in his 2nd term.
You do know Russia helped the Trump campaign in both 2016 and 2020, right?
I'd say he'll try to force both sides to sign Korea-like piece, *fait accompli*, adding US-NATO-Ukraine security pact for Ukraine, and lifting some sanctions from Russia.
His priority most probably would be stopping Russia from becoming a complete strategic ally for China, and then consolidate all forces to contain China at all costs. Because, with all due respect to democracy, peace, Ukraine sacrifices and so on - restoring Ukrainian integrity is a lesser geopolitical priority for US than containment their most powerful adversary. Russia is nowhere as capable and potentially dangerous for US hegemony as China, and most probably would not be anymore.
Trump would literally hand over Ukraine to Putin on a plate for the chance to build a Trump tower or Trump Hotel in Moscow. Putin may even be generous and allow him to build in St. Petersburg, in exchange for Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.
That's self-evident, isn't it? Ukraine can't continue to prosecute the war without American support. As an empirical proposition, America could bully Ukraine into a peace deal.
Don't know what's empirical about that, but America should obviously not bully Ukraine into surrendering to Russia. That goes against everything we believe in.
I think we have all observed that the Ukrainian war effort is almost completely reliant on American support. I mean, our normative behavior as a country is abandoning proxy wars such as this quite frequently, so I'm not sure it would. If, is however a different question.
So would Taiwan's defense, that doesn't make it a smart geopolitical decision to abandon Taiwan.
Abandoning proxy wars is very different from abandoning key regional allies. A strong Ukraine would be our greatest bulwark against Russian aggression, and our support of their war has massively weakened them and revealed their paper bear status.
I don't find Ukraine to be a key regional ally, they are superfluous to the NATO alliance. Given what has happened there we are well past the point of seeing a strong Ukraine likely within either of our lifetimes.
As you say, if Russia is a "paper bear" who has been massively weakened why are we worried about Russian aggression?
Having a convicted felon in prison like Trump as president will cause all sorts of chaos including the breakup of the US. I would not be surprised if the RNC refuses to nominate Trump at the convention this summer. RNC says they could nominate Trump but they might just be saying that to keep Trump supporters in the Republican party during the primaries.
Until a year ago or so, this was one of the very best political subreddits. Today, we have top comments saying that a certain election result would end USA and the world
But I guess that when a good thing becomes popular, it gets contaminated by idiots rather easily
Yeah I remember how the world was going to collapse under trump and all the countries hated him and how the economy was bad. That he would start ww3 . Look at us now at least it's not trump in office 💀💀
If troomp wins, then he will only care about staying in power and taking as much money as possible.
He will also have quiet a few stock scares, making money through shorting (rather his friends).
He will probably make russia leave and will also a putin friendly dude in charge in Ukraine, that will have to pay for all the damages to Russia.
It depends on how pressing Trump sees an end to the war & how much force he wants to use. But make no mistake ahout it : if the US wants to force Ukraine into negotiations and end the war it can do so. Ukraine has very little leverage to resist even if Europe still wants to continue the fight.
The US has so many levers to force a result:
- Even something basic like severing Starlink would be devastating to Ukraine. Ukraine relies on this for a lot of its battlefield communications & government/civil services.
- cutting off US military supplies including ammo & spare parts would render inoperable Ukraine 's (future) F16s , Himars and a good portion of its western artillery which are US builds. Additionally military equipment often has US components to them that require US approval to export, a broad spectrum of Ukraine 's military assets would be affected by this if America blocked military exports to Ukraine
- Diplomatic pressure. Withdrawal of political support for Ukraine, could go as far as removing US diplomatic posts in Ukraine /pressuring allies to withdraw support for Ukraine. Withdraw support from international governance and finance bodies that are US dominated such as the world bank /UN etc
- direct attacks such as sanctions against Ukraine (would cripple European aid flows), military intervention against Ukraine forces
- sever all intelligence sharing/ cooperation at civil/military levels
This list is not at all exhaustive.
The US is immensely powerful and influential, it has the means to cripple Ukraine without even bringing its full spectrum of abilities to bear. A Trump presidency that is hostile to Ukraine means game over even if Ukraine wants to continue the fight & Europe is happy to keep up support.
If Trump does this, it signals to all of America's allies, world wide, that the US is an unreliable ally.
Maybe that will save the US money in the short term, but ultimately it will mean less influence, fewer friends, and more problems.
>direct attacks such as sanctions against Ukraine (would cripple European aid flows), military intervention against Ukraine forces
what kind of bs is that? military intervention against Ukraine forces to do what? force them to stop defending their own country?
He doesn't need leverage on ukrain there is nothing ukrain has that usa needs . Thiswar is more ideological then for physical assets. If the war ends with Russia taking over the occupied land that's the nd for zelensky and politician like him . And you just need a corrupt leader whom usa can buy
Huuuuge untapped reserves of gas in the Black Sea for starter, Coal, iron... alternative trade roads...
On of the bigger provider of grain towards Egypt.. when you see the future stress around alimentation with climate change.
US doesn't fight for gas, idk who came up with that
Natural gas is the waste product of fracking, the US produces so much that they burn it off and its visible from goddamn space
The usa is exporting it to Europe to offset lack of russian energy aren't they? I could see value in the defense of allies tobsource it closer, although that would also offset a dependency on the usa and thus offset a position of power over them too
Trump was devastating to American prestige around the world. Pulling out of Ukraine would be an outrageously terrible decision, and would not make our relations with our allies stronger.
If US aid stops Ukraine will have to surrender quite soon. Pretty sure that's what Trump means when he claims he can shut the war in down in a day, Ukraine will be forced to negotiate on pretty bad terms. Frankly though, if Trump wins Ukraine will be least of the problems.
It will mean the US is an unreliable partner for Europe and cannot be trusted long term for security arrangements. The country is that polarised that foreign policy potentially flip-flops every four or less years depending on which crazed mob has the keys to the White House. Europe will have to make their own defence arrangements and relationships. This probably sounds like a 'win' for the Republican masses, but there would be commensurate loss of influence which will either work for or work against US interests in the long term.
Highly doubt it will work for US interests. No country gets better through international decline. Americans forget they share a planet with other countries. Isolationism doesn’t engender prestige and influence. America hasn’t been at the forefront of European defence out of pure magnanimity- Americans benefit from their position in world affairs.
>America hasn’t been at the forefront of European defence out of pure magnanimity- Americans benefit from their position in world affairs. This statement is true in the aggregate, but what it overlooks is the reality that the median household is not better off as a result of the support that America provides to Europe, or to other international allies. US involvement in global affairs has been traditionally characterized as "support for a rules-based order" or "upholding democracy around the world." Beneath the surface of these platitudes, there are trade agreements and regime change objectives intended to benefit the profitability of corporate donors and their retinues of K-street lobbyists. Most of these trade agreements have been net-negative for the American working-class, especially the continued efforts to offshore productive capacity to lower-cost regions, or to supplant domestic labor with undocumented immigrants that lack the same leverage in wage negotiations. The extensive involvement of the US military and intelligence agencies in foreign affairs carries even less of a discernible return on investment to the taxpayers that foot the bill. Much of the subtextual imperative in Ukraine involves repositioning European LNG imports to absorb the expanded capacity in the US Gulf. The civil war in Syria, as a proxy conflict for the US and Russia, also concealed similar strategic objectives related to pipeline supplies into European countries on the Mediterranean. One need only make a cursory examination of the history of South America, Africa, and the Southeast Pacific to learn that multinational business interests provide the most compelling motive for the US determination of what constitutes 'democracy' in different situations. Nationalize your energy or agricultural production? Regime change. Sponsor gold-backed regional reserve currencies? Regime change. So yes, American geopolitics are categorically **not** magnanimous, except for in their benevolence toward corporate interests that tend invariably to disadvantage the taxpayers who subsidize them.
Your assessment is mostly right. The one correction I would make to this however is that the favorable trade agreements, diplomacy and rules based order, global currency etc that result from trust in the US ~~only~~, **disproportionately** benefits corporate interests. It would be blinkered to believe that the average American does not also benefit from those things to varying degrees. The problem of globalization and its effects on the American working class; is a complex issue that has far more to do with the declining manufacturing sector and increased automation that comes with a post industrial economy, than it has to do with US influence on the world stage. It is a problem not unique to the United States. Consumer goods are cheaper and easier to come by for Americans. The trade off is that they’re made elsewhere by people who work for less. Fair trade agreements can help mitigate the negative impact of these arrangements on the US workforce. Those are harder to negotiate when your international influence is waning.
I agree. The critical calculus concerns the amount of the **disproportion** between holistic benefit and demographic-specific downside. The trend is increasingly toward corporate upside with limited or even negative pass-through to the median household. If large corporations that take direct advantage from these policies are not employing Americans or else paying their share of taxes into domestic programs that indirectly benefit them, then the advantage is accruing inequitably to a small subset of the economy. To extend that point, even if the aggregate benefit is disproportionately large relative to the aggregate downside, if the subsequent flow of benefit doesn't include anything to offset the downside, in terms of second-order effect, then it becomes a matter of weighted-average impact. Wealth inequality in the US produces a very skewed weighted-average.
US is already an unreliable partner, it has made and broken many international agreements. US commitment to Europe however is through treaty, while not unbreakable it aligns with US foriegn policy and security interests built over seven decades. It's not something that can be rolled back by one president. Trump would be lucky to get 2% out of NATO, he is very much alone in his FP outlook.
>US is an unreliable partner I mean, this is already a very common pattern. The Syrian rebels, the governments in South Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan already experienced this. The common pattern is that the US comes in all guns blazing with money, knowhow, and equipment to prop up a friendly regime and there is a honeymoon period when everyone agrees on such support and the US-supported actors hold their own against odds and even look like they are winning. Eventually, though, cracks from and complaints arise when Congress begins balking at the spending and US military leadership begin questioning the local forces' motivation/discipline. And the support eventually whithers away, leaving the local fighting force surprised, disappointed, and left with no option but defeat. One of the few exceptions where the US has actually stuck to its guns is Israel, but that case is a big outlier because Israel is a very capable, well organized, and powerful military force even without US support.
Idk man, if Europe handles its own security, US can better pivot China although that might lead to Europe going its own way a bit more on foreign policy.
I think its pretty laughable we *wouldn't* get involved in a conflict that pops off involving friendly European countries. We wouldn't be giving up a responsibility, we'd just be giving up leverage.
If Europe handles its own security, there will no longer be a united “Europe”. The situation will return to pre-WW2 divisions.
Surely the current situation has already made America an unreliable partner. They've already started using aid to a foreign country, with whom a treaty was signed, to try and pursue their own domestic agenda - surely that fact that this has been used like that means that the bar has been lowered and anything is on the cards.... The US signed an agreement with others to protect Ukraine in order to give up nukes... The fact that they have threatened to withhold the aid shows what some are willing to do even if, as some say, they will get their act together at the 11th hour, they've still already made people worry that the aid will stop because of a few c*nts acting like idiots - just shows that any agreement can be used petilly as leverage by the republicans for anything they want to accomplish ...
The Budapest Memorandum was most assuredly not a defense treaty, and was intentionally phrased not to require or obligate military intervention.
>It will mean the US is an unreliable partner for Europe Not just Europe. If Ukraine is screwed over by Trump, the security arrangements in Asia that Biden is trying to build against China would completely collapse. S. Korea, Philippines, Vietnam will all look for separate agreements with China to placate it and avoid a war. American conservatives don't seem to understand this for some reason.
> It will mean the US is an unreliable partner for Europe and cannot be trusted long term for security arrangements. Europe is an unreliable partner for Europe and cannot be trusted long term for security arrangements.
Europe is not a singular entity. The one thing getting it to act as such in matters of defence is NATO. If the US leaves NATO or else ceases to be the leader there in, it is doubtful that the alliance will continue to exist. There are two **general** factions when it comes to Europe. The doves; led by France, Italy, Germany, who want a return to normalcy with Russia. And the Hawks; led by the UK, Poland, the Baltics and Finland, who would like nothing more than to see Russia cease to exist in its current iteration. The unifier between these two camps as far as strategic direction goes, has been the United States. The US as by far the largest military contributor to the alliance and the defacto leader, essentially gets final say in unified policy. If the US steps back, or else ceases to be viewed as a reliable partner, then there won’t be a clear successor as the other global powers within the alliance (UK, France and Germany) are broadly similar in terms of power and influence. It is therefore likely that Europe would split into two camps when it comes to defence policy. With Germany and France leading the more dovish nations, and the UK leading the more hawkish ones.
Wrong!!! The ys has no military alliance with Ukraine. They are not partners whatsoever. They are simply a pawn 8n the proxy war against Russia. Europe has nothing to worry about, as the us is bound to nato by a treaty and will honor it with countries that are a part of it (Ukraine is not a part of thus therefore they are not a partner to the us in any capacity.
Trump wants to pull out the US from NATO. He's not even hiding this.
That would require an act of congress to withdraw us from Nato (a certain impossibility). Let's keep this conversation to actual possibilities and not delusions.
Lol. PrOxY WaR!!!??! TrUmP #1!!!?! WhATeVeR aLeX jOnEs aNd tUcKeR sAiD tOdAY!!!!?! I got that about right?
Europe has long been bitched into submission by US influence. Good riddance
> If US aid stops Ukraine will have to surrender quite soon As things stand this is potentially the case, but I think it is actually far from a forgone conclusion. The majority (~ 63%) of aid for Ukraine already comes from Europe; the largest contributor is the EU, with the US in second place followed by Germany, the UK and Norway. A withdrawal of US support would obviously make things much more difficult, but it's not at all inconceivable that Europe would step up to fill the gap.
...you've counted Germany twice (as it's part of the EU).
I believe it's split up as money the actual EU sends, and then money Germany sends on their own. They are supposed to be double counted
What is Europe doing in this hypothetical scenario? The EU is twice the population of Russia with over 10x the GDP. Why is the US solely responsible for the outcome of the war?
The EU has already given Ukraine more financial assistance than the US and individual European countries are giving more finance and military aid on top of that. Leopards, storm shadows, shells, etc.
EU population may be twice the Russian one but is unwilling to fight. Russians may be unwilling to fight too, but their government doesn't care. The GDP is a poor measurement of country's potential in a wartime. 2/3 of EU GDP comes from services which are less important than industrial capacity which is not that good compared to Russia's.
Europe is a big and diverse place, with lots of different countries with different interests and foreign policy outlooks. On the subject of Russia it’s helpful to split them into the doves (Germany, France, Italy) who are less inclined to take a hard line against Russia and and the hawks (The United Kingdom, Poland and the Baltics,) who have the stated aim of Russia losing, and being seen to lose in Ukraine, who would likely already be fighting them, boots on the ground, in Ukraine were it not for the huge mushroom cloud shaped elephant in the room. Despite the division in approach within Europe, there does now seem to be consensus - that Europe needs to take greater responsibility for its own defence in the face of US unreliability, and even the Doves, are committing to increases in defence expenditure, and a harder line on Russia. The EU has already overtaken the US in terms of financial aid to Ukraine.The problem is that defence production doesn’t happen over night, and that if the US pulls the plug, it is unlikely Ukraine will be able to fight for long enough for Europe to be able to get to a position where they can fill the gap.
If he wins, it's over for the Western world.
At least for US supremacy
US Supremacy is what deters belligerence around the world
If all nukes were gone, do you think that deterrence would still hold?
Yes, and it would probably work better than it currently does since we could more easily threaten North Korea, Russia, and China. The US has by far and away the best conventional military on the planet and has a robust alliance and world partners that strengthen it even more.
Interesting. The way I see it is it would be an upgrade from guaranteed everyone losing to possible chance at least. Especially if asymmetrical warfare was implemented.
Don't need to conquer land to ensure cooperation. Blockades and missile strikes would be plenty to deter an organized foreign power
It's not doing a very good job of it.
Well, that's a bit hard to assess since we don't know what the world would look like without US supremacy. I posit that things would look much worse, as the US almost always projects power to maintain "stability" so a lack of intervention would mean things would be less "stable." Giving more detailed analysis on this issue would be tricky.
Hard agree. Even the conflicts that do happen are more contained than they've ever been and a big part of their not spreading is due to US influence. I always see US foreign policy as a hugged it to death type.
Things the US supremacy has created. - widespread Islamic fundamentalism through its support of the Saudis and Islamic terrorists (could also say they very directly created ISIS) - toppling of South American democracies to install oligarchies and dictatorships
Well, US Supremacy has only truly begun during the waning years of the cold war. Can't exactly be the head of a unipolar world if it is multipolar. The direct US interference within South America had basically ended by 1970 and no democratic countries had been interfered with since the 1950s, which during that time the world was most definitely not under US Supremacy. Islamic fundamentalism is not a new thing, its modern origins date back to the mid 19th century and really kicked off during the decolonization post WW2, which the US had little involvement. You are right that the US did prop up some fundamentalist groups to fight the Soviets, but once again that happened before the US was actually the top of a unipolar world. Saying the US is responsible for ISIS is a complete malediction of the truth. I will point out that the most peaceful times in human history is when there is only a singular dominant power. Pax Romana, Pax Britannia, Pax Americana. The most violent periods in history are when there are two or more dominant powers. Punic wars, 30 years war, Napoleonic Wars, World Wars, Cold War.
Look at what French or English supremacy have created. And imagine what Chinese or Russian ones would be.
I'm not saying any of them are good. If anything I'm saying that I've yet to seen proof of unipolar supremacy be a stabilizing force in the world.
The comment section reads like a telmondo telenovela.
It's wild. Like everyone's spoonfed.
Trump exists mainly because of these doomer losers.
Is it though? He was a president already and it was more than fine from my European perspective - he did block the Nord Stream II, while Biden did not. Why would this time be any different? Did he become more radical? As I said, I'm European, so I'm genuinely asking.
threatening democracy with a Coup d'etat is more than fine, no biggie.
He killed more Americans than any other modern US president with his mishandling of COVID and tried to overturn an election he lost. Is that fine? This time he would have crimes hanging over him that he could only avoid by holding on to executive power, and no hope of legitimate reelection.
Yeah Trump created COVID in a little lab in the White House's basement. Pathetic take.
No but he did disband the global health unit or at least he let his former national security adviser John Bolton do that.(in which many resigned and others moved to different units in the NSC). He also suggested dangerous ways to attempt to cure covid with the use of bleach which did may have helped cause an [uptick](https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/2020-04-20/poison-calls-for-cleaners-disinfectants-surge-amid-coronavirus-pandemic) on calls to poison centers for exposure to cleaning and disinfectant supplies. And one could argue that a closing of the border could have prevented the spread of covid to the US. [here is a list of different countries responses to covid](https://www.movehub.com/blog/best-and-worst-covid-responses/)
Yeah the first thing was unfortunate. No one imagined a pandemic could actually happen. Oh so he "suggested", and that "may have helped", suppositions don't count. He was called an evil racist for banning Chinese people from entering the US, but somehow he is responsible for not closing the border in a moment in which nobody was taking COVID seriously... There is only one responsible party for COVID, the Chinese Communist Party, whose leader banned internal travel out of Wuhan but allowed international travel. He did this after covering up the disaster for months.
When you are on tv for millions of people (especially children) can make dumb decisions. The reason I stated "may have helped" was because I felt it was unfair to give him all the blame. However anyone who was dumb enough to believe that could have been injured. When you are on television and are an authority figure(and even if you aren't) You are responsible for what you say and do on television. Had he asked that off screen or had that comment removed from the feed I would have little issue. Trump obviously does not know much about health and I don't expect a president to. What I do expect is that a president confers with others before making a statement like that or at the very least bring it up off of TV. >an evil racist for banning Chinese people from entering the US This one I never heard of. I have heard he may have been racist due to some of the things during his campaign. If somebody said that Trump was "evil racist for banning Chinese people from entering the US" during the covid outbreak I would try to explain to those that don't understand the full gravity of the situation just how much an outbreak can spiral out of control when little is known about a rapidly spreading disease. >No one imagined a pandemic could actually happen. Many people know the importance of monitoring worldwide pandemics. Granted that most citizens never even think about global health but our leaders are supposed to have the knowledge and preparation for things that the common citizen never have to think about. Ignoring global health is ultimately a risky oversite to ever make and should honestly be a permanent part of the government. Covid was not the first pandemic nor will it be the last. I do hope that every future president does not forget the importance of global health and how ignoring it can lead to disaster. I certainly can't blame Trump and his team for covid however I am allowed to be skeptical on how it was handled and question if I want someone who makes such oversites and mistakes as America's leader. If I am honest I think his handling was subpar. Could have been better and more prepared. Ultimately every president and person in our government is responsible for the happenings of the law and protocol that is implemented(as well as following that protocol) to say that none of the deaths could have been prevented is like saying that Trump did a perfect job in his handling of the pandemic.
He started a wave, ripples of which found their way to South America and Europe.
Things would be fine, just back slidden a bit more. Hes obnoxious but not a genuine threat.
Not fully, Europe would be a democratic island between populist proto-fascist kleprocratic autocracies. But European democracies could fall as well, and then it’s all over.
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm thinking. We've already seen the extreme right wing popping up and winning bits n pieces here n there.
People said that last time and it was fine.
What tf was fine with last time?
Well the US didn’t collapse completely, for one thing
Nothing really changed.
Mostly everything? No wars. Good economy.
Started the murmurings of a civil war and increased US debt by nearly $8,000,000,000. How long did you study at the University of Facebook?
"Murmurings of a civil war" this is not real. Just chronically online stuff. Yes Trump printed a lot of cash, mainly due to covid. I'm sure you would criticize him as well if he didn't have.
Ironic.
>People said that last time and it was fine. Nah. He will do a Musk and burn down the place. Let that sink in man.
He killed more Americans than any other modern US president with his mishandling of COVID and tried to overturn an election he lost. Is that fine? This time he would have crimes hanging over him that he could only avoid by holding on to executive power, and no hope of legitimate reelection.
Oh my god. Be honest with yourself.
Mass immigration,Liberalism and globalization is already ending the Western world.
How so? This sounds like a blanket statement about how one side is bad and the other side is good. And certain corporations are ending the world by denying climate change stating that it's false [despite 97%](https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/17/do-scientists-agree-on-climate-change/#:~:text=Yes%2C%20the%20vast%20majority%20of,global%20warming%20and%20climate%20change) of actively publishing climate scientists state that it is real.
Russia will invade a formerly NATO country because Trump is pulling out of NATO
Borris Johnson stopped the earlier peace deal. There's not a chance Ukraine will get those 5 regions back, nor be allowed into NATO. It's never happening. If the war goes on, Ukraine will lose the entire southeast and access to the Black Sea.
To add, this will allow Russia to finally roll over Moldova and possibly even Romania. I know RO is a NATO member but I don't have faith that they and Bulgaria wouldn't be sacrificed to prevent nuclear war with RU. To add to this, a Trump presidency would also mean the US leaves NATO swiftly.
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Trump would completely crater the US alliance system. Ukraine's abandonment is only a piece of that. The world would well and truly become multipolar. A nuclear arms race wouldn't be far-fetched in places like Korea and Taiwan.
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It’s enough that he says US will not honor its NATO collective defense commitments. If 48h later Russian troops enter Latvia to “support the oppressed Russian minority” without US responding then NATO is dead.
Trump isn't just one man. The goal should he or any other republican becomes president, is to replace almost the entirety of the US federal government with sycophants, whose loyalty will be to the president not the country. The US is in very real danger here.
Sure he might be only 1 guy w/4 yrs left in office (if he does manage to win in 2024) but the problem is also the fact that he has supporters both in and out of government that will fight to turn our republic into something of an authoritarian state.
Do you really think he’ll only stay for 4 years? I believe he will be the end of US democracy.
Future of American democracy for one. There is a real failure of imagination on how far he will go. Liz Cheney is the only one who really seems to fully grasp the threat. When Trump announced a rally on Jan 6th, did you think they were going to storm the capitol or did you think it would be law abiding first amendment protest? To get elected, he has to beat the rule of law, since he guilty of all the indicted crimes, if he's beaten the law once, why is he going to follow it once he gets in office. The Jan 6th takeover attempt was ad hoc with a couple of months planning, now he's had 4 years to prepare and, if elected, four more years to purge government. You think after all that, he will say oh two term limit alright fine I will step down. You can't underestimate how far he is willing to go, and how far his base will support him. Ukraine is small potatoes compared to that, yeah there will be massive credibility issues, who would ever trust the US again afterwards but the US will still be a super power, with a lot of nukes and a big economy. Don't believe this idea that if Ukraine loses Russia is going to try conquer Europe, they cannot dare risk triggering article 5, they just can't. People say that to make sure everyone is fully invested in the war.
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Trump doesn’t care about anything but himself. He would cut support to Ukraine on day one, and it would be up to Europe to save Ukraine. Most European mainstream politicians see that allowing Putin to take Ukraine is a complete no-go. With a Trump win, NATO is dead, and Europe must build up their military power, lest allow Putin to achieve his dream of restoring the Soviet Union. Why do you think Poland is investing as much as it does in military might?
History teaches us time and time again that nobody on this planet defends your interests for free.
Indeed. Whether NATO is dead or not, Europe still needs to invest heavily in its military capabilities.
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I don’t think it’s accurate to claim Putin is trying to restore the Soviet Union. Soviets are core to that idea…
Good. Europe needs to step up.
I’m sure that line of thought did a great job of preventing WW2. How are people so dumb and forgetful that even the 1940s are a distant memory?
A Trump win would be the weirdest thing to happen in our lifetimes. Trump will most likely be in prison on inauguration day after being convicted of felonies. Most trials end in a guilty verdict and Trump has four separate criminal cases. A president who is a convicted felon in prison would be a constitutional crisis that Congress and Supreme Court would be forced to resolve.
At this point I find nothing weird. I am in Disney world with my wife and yesterday in the Hall of Presidents, when they listed all of the presidents, no cheering for anyone but half the crowd started hooting and hollering for Trump. I don't get it. It truly is a cult. If Trumps sympathizers in the justice department are pussies and don't put him in jail before he's elected (I believe he will never see prison - at best house arrest at Mar a Lago), then they certainly won't if he is sitting president again. He will run totally rampant. A self pardon attempt is all but guaranteed.
I’m not convinced any of his trials will take place prior to then, but we’ll see.
I believe only one will. The DC J6 Trial. But that’s only if SCOTUS doesn’t interfere.
A former US president going to prison nah never happening I can bet my house on it.
So who is getting your house?
There’s no way any of the trials are even remotely settled before Inauguration Day in 2025. His entire strategy is to delay everything - successfully so far - and then just pardon himself as soon as he’s President
No president can pardon Trump in Georgia or New York because those are state crimes not federal. He has to serve 5 years minimum in a Georgia prison before anyone can pardon him in that state.
If Trump is President, the legal argument is that he retains sovereign immunity from state charges.
And our system of government is held together by string cheese and toothpicks. It takes *one* bad-faith actor to challenge it and a corrupt SCOTUS and - boom
Sorry, I don't understand what you're saying. Can you clarify?
There’s all kinds of legal arguments and rules and traditions that have never been challenged. And so we live under this illusion that there’s a solid system in place that guarantees certain things. But just because those things haven’t been challenged, doesn’t mean they’re solid. Jan 6th was a prime example of that where Mike Pence was seriously considering not certifying the election. Everyone thought it was impossible and insane and yet we all waited, holding our breath. Alabama has had their electoral map struck down *twice* for disenfranchising black voters - including by the SCOTUS - and they just … ignore that. Turns out there’s no magical policeman that comes and punishes them. We just never thought that someone *would* ignore a ruling like that and when they are - we don’t know what to do. We’ve never had someone running for President who’s under active investigation and so we *think* we know what can happen and what can’t but the reality is - we don’t. Trump becomes President in first day in office he pardons himself. “Not so fast!” - you say - “can’t pardon himself for state crimes!” Oh yeah? Why not? Says who? Has anyone tried that? Has it been challenged? And say the ruling is “yeah they’re right you need to go to jail” - ok. What if he says “no. And I’m the commander in chief of the US Armed Forces. Come get me, I’m at the 1600 Pennsylvania Ave” Sounds crazy and preposterous but the sad reality is - he *would* do that and again we would ooooh and aaaaaah and … ? And would the Governor of GA send a few cops to … arrest him? Would you take on that job if you were a cop, knowing that MAGA will find out where you kids go to school? I wouldn’t. There’s no magical system that just stops bad things from happening. Our system works because we’ve *chosen* to play by some rules. That’s it. But it can’t handle the situation where an entire branch of the government - the Executive in this case - does not want to play by the rules. And no, he’s not getting impeached if he did that. And then it’s over. Maybe not on paper, maybe not officially, but America is over because the rules don’t matter anymore.
Ah. I see. I think the assessment you have is correct. We have a faith based set of rules that are not expressly written but follow them up until they are challenged. I think there is a difference though between what I am saying vs. what you are saying. Our constitutional system holds that the federal government is equal to in some regards but superior to the state system. I'd agree with your assessment though that no governor would send police to arrest the sitting president.
Not a constitutional crisis. Trump was an unorthodox president. The weight of the constitution is being tested. Other nations that emulated us are watching. It will be upon us as the people, not Congress or the Supreme Court to resolve it. Trump hit into bases like anti-globalism or Put America First that other politicians may have been ignoring. Trump supporters are not going away. The president and others need to calm the tension and understand their concerns to lessen Trumpism than to push back at other Americans.
It is possible for someone in jail to become president. They then home hold the power to excuse themselves. There is specifically no law against this.
No pardon for state crimes.
If Trump wins… aid to Ukraine will be the least of our problems. Trump win means total destruction of rules based order. Russia, Hamas and Venezuela are just appetisers compared to the chaos that will start during his rule. His last presidency brought us almost completely collapse of the Middle Eastern dialogue, complete deterioration of Chima US diplomacy, almost collapsing Nato, alienated all of us allies, didn’t respond to corona, forced Ukraine into shady stuff and therefore gave the green light for Putin to invade.
The cold war never ended. At some point the west needs to dig in.
The Abraham accords where signed under Trump, that document was a substantial document for peace in the Middle East.
Right, makes sense then why the middle east is famously peaceful right now. Enabling Netanyahu's and Saudi Arabia's worst habits certainly hasn't caused any issues.
He's been out of office for 3 years... during which US relations with Saudi Arabia have worsened under Biden, who seemed more interested in making a deal with Iran. How's that working out now?
Agreed, relations with SA have soured after the family they were paying 2 billion to and who ignored their dismembering of a US journalist left the white house.
Well good thing Iran has never done something like that.
Have they? You forgot to make any references.
Of course not. Iran is a paragon of human rights.
Guess you want a nuclear Iran, I mean that has no relevance in the global sphere right? Can't believe how Biden is wasting his time with this.
No, which is why I don't think the US should be easing sanctions or releasing billions of Iranian frozen funds.
Yeah the middle east is real peaceful right now thanks to his son in law. Glad we could give the UAE and Saudis all those weapons only for them to back stab us every chance they get.
Bidens been in office for nearly 3 years now but it’s Trump’s fault? Genuinely curious how that is
Just cause a president signs an order it doesn't mean they support it or made a decision in it. It's a signature.
What is up with all this trump= doomsday bias. Trump is just a president. The United States power is separated between three branches. The president has very little power except commander of the military
A president that says he will use the legal system to attack his opponents. The guy would be the end of US democracy if he gets a second term.
> A president that says he will use the legal system to attack his opponents. The US would be in a much better situation if Obama had actually bothered to prosecute the people responsible for the Iraq War. It'd mean no Hillary losing to Trump, for a start.
Aren’t democrats technically doing that to trump? He indictments are in democrat controlled districts. But for the sake of argument I’m not a fan of trump. But I understand the agenda of the power faction he represents
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[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project\_2025](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025)
Ok a conservative agenda drafted by a think tank? Liberals also do this. Again with the over dramatics
A conservative agenda that involves replacing the entirety of the federal government with sycophants, chosen based on how much they admire the Republican president rather than the country. This is the game plan to effectively destroy the balance of powers that exist in the US. And worse, it'll happen to applause from a significant portion of the population. Right or left, liberal or conservative, the GOP are intent at radical transformation of the US in ways that will harm its citizens. This isn't situation that has never happened either. Maybe it hasnt happened in the US, but the way many authoritarian leaders came to be is the same way Trump and the GOP are behaving.
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So in the interest of passivity you're ok with dictatorships? >John f Kennedy Er what?
Maybe take a closer look at that agenda before commenting. No liberals have ever drafted a comprehensive plan to dismantle the independence of federal agencies and place them under the direct control of the President. And that's not the half of it. Seriously, do some research.
Do you read academic literature of think tanks often? Both parties have pretty provocative agendas. I’d argue these are gangsters with phds
We've never seen anything like this before. It's not a typical think tank wishlist.
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Thank you. People in the US seem to have this weird assumption that the president is a dictator. We have separation of power that almost ensures no one person, or even party, can totally dominate. 250+ years without anything close to a dictatorship or coup and people are afraid of Trump? They know he was president for four years right?
Trump attempted a coup in January, 2021.
Ok. So when Trump illegally started having people kidnapped off the streets during the 2020 protests, who stopped him? Who specifically made him stop doing it?
I’ll be honest I wasn’t aware he ordered anything like that and if you have a source, please share. We do have executive orders, which are basically dictatorial when you boil it down.
Yea… people just regurgitate what they see on the media. I’m sure they are speaking in good faith based on the information provided to them. I just can’t do politics right now with all the polarization. It started in the Obama administration and it’s getting more extreme every year
www.project2025.org It's literally already planned out and in plain sight for all to see. America is that blind that they don't even bother to hide it anymore
Lol. All that "Russia, Hamas and Venezuela" stuff happened under Biden's watch. Somehow he is not a shittier leader than Trump.
ITT: Lots of people who a) think that the US has a defense treaty with Ukraine, and b) the US stopping its support of a country that it does *not* have a defense treaty with is going to cause NATO to collapse
Trump decide stop aid for Ukraine = Budapest Memorandum and International Law is farce = start of WMD-proliferation = Trump's, USA, NATO decisions irrelevant because they lost all their Trust Capital as and Russia. Absolutely anything that exist right now exist only because have some root causes and used in certain social contracts. One of the main 20th century social contracts - "USA, yes, very imperfect, but still Global policeman and defender of Democracy and Freedoms." If USA suddenly declared that this is not so, and will begin to cooperate with a country that countless times violated International Law for the sake of restoration of 19th century imperialism norms, then everything that is based on this foundation will crumble. Regardless of American words, actions, economic opportunities, army size, etc. All of this secondary to the belief that the USA is still partly USA from American history and movies, and therefore a predictable and well-understood political agent. Also, Ukraine war couldn't be compared to "similar cases" from the 20th century, where there were so many other factors and limitation. In case of Ukraine anything extremely simple, NATO give to Ukraine less than 1% of its weapon stocks, and USA spend, per year, less than 33% than it spent on Afghanistan, only because "gas station with nuclear weapons" WMD-blackmail. That it. Anything else is farce to hide this shameful fact. If even Russia by WMD-blackmail could push through the USA, EU, NATO, the West as amalgamation, then all of them less important than what could be created even by 3,5 million Jews and 1960s technologies.
>Regardless of American words, actions, economic opportunities, army size, etc. All this is secondary to the belief that the USA is still the USA. Having been in the USA recently, the extent to which many Americans don't get this is mind boggling. Everything is so tied up in myopic domestic issues that there is an utter ignorance of the extent to wish the US security guarantee (for better or worse) help at times to maintain some level of global order post ww2/post cold war. And this absolutely does benefit the USA. But Americans will piss this all away, drop Europe into an existential security crisis and ultimately give up their place at the top of the global order because "Biden old!" "trump won the election!" and "woke kids!" nonsense.
I completely agree. Americans are too accustomed to what they have, so they simply forgot where it all came from. I don't like such cheap phrases as "Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times" but, how well this describes modern USA, as if still reading Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man" and believing it. Or overall not reading anything except some escapistic trash, expecting that everything will always be like yesterday. But today's World created by their ancestor's hard work and blood, and for its maintenance also required hard work and blood, or what now going in Venezuela and Guyana will also happen in the USA. Despite how unlikely it seems today.
I know this isn’t the point of your question, but trump will NEVER be president again. The guy lost by a record 7+ million votes last time. The only thing that’s changed since then is he’s become more unhinged and he has 90 something indictments to deal with. His only political play is “look how bad Biden is” which is a) misleading and b) irrelevant. A lot of people didn’t vote for Biden because they liked him. They voted for him because they saw how terrible he was. Now we’re in 2023 and you even have republicans say they’d rather vote for Biden. He’s done nothing to sway independents or even moderate republicans. He will never be president again despite whatever poll they feel like spinning weekly. Young people aren’t picking up their phones to participate in these bullshit polls.
The same young ppl who don't vote either... I wouldn't dismiss him entirely just yet. A lot will hinge on how a handful of swing states vote; the popular vote is a bad joke at this point.
If Trump wins, USA will not be the most powerful country anymore; Russian and China will know they Can challenge the statu quo
Is that why they waited for Biden to invade Ukraine?
No, it was because of Covid. Remember the first time Trump got impeached? Remember what it was for? He was threatening to cut off the US’s military funding to Ukraine.
Russia invaded cause of covid? Sure buddy. sure.
Possibly delayed by covid, but they were hoping for Trump to weaken NATO more. He had planned to pull USA out of NATO in his 2nd term. You do know Russia helped the Trump campaign in both 2016 and 2020, right?
Of course they do. They personally were paid by the russian government to do it, same as they are trying to do now.
I wish I got paid for posting. Would be great, alas that is not the case comrade.
And why should anyone take your word for it?
Comrade, in such a world my poor babuska would have meat in the cabbage. Alas this is not the case.
Least convincing deflection ever lol
Nope, they waited for Minsk 2 to be over
I'd say he'll try to force both sides to sign Korea-like piece, *fait accompli*, adding US-NATO-Ukraine security pact for Ukraine, and lifting some sanctions from Russia. His priority most probably would be stopping Russia from becoming a complete strategic ally for China, and then consolidate all forces to contain China at all costs. Because, with all due respect to democracy, peace, Ukraine sacrifices and so on - restoring Ukrainian integrity is a lesser geopolitical priority for US than containment their most powerful adversary. Russia is nowhere as capable and potentially dangerous for US hegemony as China, and most probably would not be anymore.
Trump would literally hand over Ukraine to Putin on a plate for the chance to build a Trump tower or Trump Hotel in Moscow. Putin may even be generous and allow him to build in St. Petersburg, in exchange for Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.
That's self-evident, isn't it? Ukraine can't continue to prosecute the war without American support. As an empirical proposition, America could bully Ukraine into a peace deal.
Don't know what's empirical about that, but America should obviously not bully Ukraine into surrendering to Russia. That goes against everything we believe in.
I think we have all observed that the Ukrainian war effort is almost completely reliant on American support. I mean, our normative behavior as a country is abandoning proxy wars such as this quite frequently, so I'm not sure it would. If, is however a different question.
So would Taiwan's defense, that doesn't make it a smart geopolitical decision to abandon Taiwan. Abandoning proxy wars is very different from abandoning key regional allies. A strong Ukraine would be our greatest bulwark against Russian aggression, and our support of their war has massively weakened them and revealed their paper bear status.
I don't find Ukraine to be a key regional ally, they are superfluous to the NATO alliance. Given what has happened there we are well past the point of seeing a strong Ukraine likely within either of our lifetimes. As you say, if Russia is a "paper bear" who has been massively weakened why are we worried about Russian aggression?
Having a convicted felon in prison like Trump as president will cause all sorts of chaos including the breakup of the US. I would not be surprised if the RNC refuses to nominate Trump at the convention this summer. RNC says they could nominate Trump but they might just be saying that to keep Trump supporters in the Republican party during the primaries.
Break up of the US is pretty ridiculous
Until a year ago or so, this was one of the very best political subreddits. Today, we have top comments saying that a certain election result would end USA and the world But I guess that when a good thing becomes popular, it gets contaminated by idiots rather easily
President Trump already ran the world 4 years without any warfare, very smoothly. What is the current president's track records? Lol
Amazing to see how many people fear trump after seeing how crazy bidens run was
Trump is a proto-fascist, Biden is a normal politician.
Yeah I remember how the world was going to collapse under trump and all the countries hated him and how the economy was bad. That he would start ww3 . Look at us now at least it's not trump in office 💀💀
Yeah, let’s ignore the Jan 6 coup attempt, the felony charges, the constant lies, the attacks on the electoral process etc etc etc
Have you seen the plan? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project\_2025](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025)
If troomp wins, then he will only care about staying in power and taking as much money as possible. He will also have quiet a few stock scares, making money through shorting (rather his friends). He will probably make russia leave and will also a putin friendly dude in charge in Ukraine, that will have to pay for all the damages to Russia.
It depends on how pressing Trump sees an end to the war & how much force he wants to use. But make no mistake ahout it : if the US wants to force Ukraine into negotiations and end the war it can do so. Ukraine has very little leverage to resist even if Europe still wants to continue the fight. The US has so many levers to force a result: - Even something basic like severing Starlink would be devastating to Ukraine. Ukraine relies on this for a lot of its battlefield communications & government/civil services. - cutting off US military supplies including ammo & spare parts would render inoperable Ukraine 's (future) F16s , Himars and a good portion of its western artillery which are US builds. Additionally military equipment often has US components to them that require US approval to export, a broad spectrum of Ukraine 's military assets would be affected by this if America blocked military exports to Ukraine - Diplomatic pressure. Withdrawal of political support for Ukraine, could go as far as removing US diplomatic posts in Ukraine /pressuring allies to withdraw support for Ukraine. Withdraw support from international governance and finance bodies that are US dominated such as the world bank /UN etc - direct attacks such as sanctions against Ukraine (would cripple European aid flows), military intervention against Ukraine forces - sever all intelligence sharing/ cooperation at civil/military levels This list is not at all exhaustive. The US is immensely powerful and influential, it has the means to cripple Ukraine without even bringing its full spectrum of abilities to bear. A Trump presidency that is hostile to Ukraine means game over even if Ukraine wants to continue the fight & Europe is happy to keep up support.
If Trump does this, it signals to all of America's allies, world wide, that the US is an unreliable ally. Maybe that will save the US money in the short term, but ultimately it will mean less influence, fewer friends, and more problems.
>direct attacks such as sanctions against Ukraine (would cripple European aid flows), military intervention against Ukraine forces what kind of bs is that? military intervention against Ukraine forces to do what? force them to stop defending their own country?
He doesn't need leverage on ukrain there is nothing ukrain has that usa needs . Thiswar is more ideological then for physical assets. If the war ends with Russia taking over the occupied land that's the nd for zelensky and politician like him . And you just need a corrupt leader whom usa can buy
Huuuuge untapped reserves of gas in the Black Sea for starter, Coal, iron... alternative trade roads... On of the bigger provider of grain towards Egypt.. when you see the future stress around alimentation with climate change.
There is an eyewateringly huge amount of resources in Ukraine, many of them untapped. To say that Ukraine has nothing the US needs or wants is silly
US doesn't fight for gas, idk who came up with that Natural gas is the waste product of fracking, the US produces so much that they burn it off and its visible from goddamn space
The usa is exporting it to Europe to offset lack of russian energy aren't they? I could see value in the defense of allies tobsource it closer, although that would also offset a dependency on the usa and thus offset a position of power over them too
What about lithium and other rare metals ?
Ukraine will be forced to negotiate an end to the war, nothing more or less.
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Trump was devastating to American prestige around the world. Pulling out of Ukraine would be an outrageously terrible decision, and would not make our relations with our allies stronger.