A lot of us in the US don't subscribe to the idea of "either you're with us or against us". I don't expect every single country in the world to drop everything they are doing and rush to help us invade whatever country we want to invade. I think it is ridiculous to say the EU is not with us because they don't blindly follow us everywhere.
In hindsight, it was a bad idea to invade Iraq anyway.
I think you may be misconstruing that comment. I suspect the idea is that the US invading Iraq was a violation of the international rules based order, and the EU was complicit in it.
Probably not, but that’s a separate—if fruitful—discussion. (Better candidates: NATO bombing Yugoslavia.)
What’s not debatable is that it has changed. Given how lightfootedly Europe is playing its hand, it’s surprising it’s taken this long to get Putin at their throats, Trump at their wallets and Xi gutting their industry.
Isn't it their strategy to look cute and thus convince other countries to join EU and NATO? If they were to abandon it, they would need to replace all their foreign strategy.
> Isn't it their strategy to look cute and thus convince other countries to join EU and NATO
Nobody joins a defensive alliance because it's cute. To the extent a cogent geopolitical message has been delivered, between Bush and Biden, it's that the international order has two castes: nuclear-armed states and everyone else.
From Europe, it looks like Russia has spent the last decade committing assassinations and sabotages in "the West", including using chemical weapons and causing civilian casualties, has shot down airliners and lied about it, invaded Crimea and lied about it, invaded Donbas and lied about it, then triggered the largest war in Europe since WWII after profligate lies about exercises.
> From Russia it looks like that Europe is at Putin's throat supplying enormous amount of armaments and military equipment to the Ukraine, and helping them with the intelligence.
The solution to this problem is straightforward. Putin can get out of Ukraine. All of it.
Simple to do, easy to achieve. No more Russians or North Koreans need to die.
> The solution to this problem is straightforward. Putin can get out of Ukraine.
Or Ukraine can surrender. "Simple" to do, "easy" to achieve, no more Ukrainians need to die.
Disclaimer: I'm not suggesting Ukraine should surrender. I'm saying both Ukraine's surrender and the Russian pull-out are equally hard to do from their respective perspectives.
Ukraine limiting irrigation water to Crimea is peanuts compared to historical examples such as Free French Air Force participating in months of severe bombing of road and rail networks, bridges, railyards and other critical infrastructure of occupied France in preparation for the Normandy landings.
Or to to cite a more recent example, like the Russian armed forces mudering thousands of its "own" people in the siege of Mariupol (these being the 80 percent or so of the population who were Russian speaking, across the 5k-20k civilians estimated to have been killed). And damaging or destroying 90 percent of the buildings they used to live and work in.
I'm saying both Ukraine's surrender and the Russian pull-out are equally hard to do from their respective perspectives.
Which is completely ludicrous, of course.
For Ukraine, "surrender" means accepting permanent occupation and subjugation.
For Russia, it means they get egg on their face, basically. It will just go back to its corner and sulk for a while. Definitely very doable, as it's something they've done many times in the past.
There's simply no comparison.
And there's no symmetry at all between the two sides in this conflict.
I said: "from their respective perspectives" - that is, subjectively. You're talking about objective facts. I don't disagree with you, but you're also not (visibly) disagreeing with me: we're discussing two entirely different things. Objectively, an egg on your face is not comparable to subjugation. Subjectively, there might be people willing to die or kill at the mere sight of an egg - it would be dangerous to put an egg on their faces.
Drawing a caricature of a prophet and killing the author of the caricature is objectively not equivalent or comparable. Subjectively, though, you'll find people willing to kill the author and get killed or jailed for life for it.
People and societies have beliefs and values that differ. Without understanding the adversaries' beliefs, no agreement is possible. If no agreement is possible, the only way out is to eradicate one side. It might work out for Israel, but it is impossible in Ukraine.
In any case, I just want people to stop killing each other. I don't think one-sided demands (no matter how objectively justified and no matter which side they originate from) will help end it. Russians won't "just" "simply" pull out, and Ukraine won't "just" surrender.
There was no coup in Ukraine. Russian-backed president got over 100 protesters killed, ran away to Russia to avoid justice, and Ukrainian parliament held presidential elections to replace him.
The EU paid its "protection tax" by implicitly or explicitly endorsing any US actions. It's what always gave legitimacy to any US military action, what gave them the sheen of righteousness. The EU didn't "just watch", they did what they were expected to do.
Going forward, if Trump's anti-NATO agenda materializes, the US will have to find a different source of legitimacy for their actions or be painted as just an aggressor on the world stage.
What's the EU got to do with it? The EU is a glorified trade bloc, it doesn't work for the union on defense; that is handled by individual nations.
The UK did a similar amount to the US per capita in Iraq, even though we had less to gain and, frankly, it has punched above it's weight in practically every war going since well before the US even existed. Including Ukraine for example, where we were the first to arm them in advance of the invasion.
This comes across as american ignorance, I'm sorry to say.
That's funny. It died when the US invaded Iraq in 2003 and the EU continued business as usual.