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Comment by epistasis | Hacker News Reader

The US stopped all aid this year, except for intelligence sharing.

It's wild that people in the US think this war is not their war. They promised to defend Ukraine's territory decades ago, and barely followed through for three years, then as soon as Trump took office they completely broke their promise.

By breaking their promise, the US is encouraging nuclear proliferation throughout the world. It's extremely shortsighted and stupid to not be providing the miniscule amount of current military budget that could stop this war permanently. The US and Europe have been too timid and stupid from the start, causing massive bloodshed. But Europe is getting smarter and stronger as the US gets stupider and weaker.

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Morally, I think the US should be involved, but practically, we have shown ourselves to be baffoons, and Europe really needs:

1. A common enemy

2. Reason for further integration (EU-level federation is woefully incomplete)

3. Reason for heavy deficit spending, to heat up their sluggish economies

So practically, I do hope Europe does it themselves

Inspired by the other (somewhat aggressive) replies, I looked into what the US promised exactly and unfortunately, it looks like there was never a promise to defend Ukraine.

The relevant document is the Budapest Memorandum [0]. Ukraine, Russia, the UK and the USA are signatories and essentially each agree to respect Ukraine's borders and sovereignty and not to engage in certain hostile acts.

However the only obligation in the event of a breach is that if nuclear weapons are used against Ukraine, or Ukraine is threatened by them, the signatories must seek immediate action from the UN Security Council.

I hate to say it but it looks like the US and UK are adhering to the agreement as-written. The problem as I see it is that Ukraine accepted the agreement without stronger security guarantees.

[0]: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ukraine_Memorandum_on_Securit...

Maybe, but Bill Clinton recently:

>“We forced Ukraine to give up nuclear weapons, cruise missiles, and strategic bombers. We promised to protect Ukraine from Russia. We made Ukraine vulnerable. So yes, this is our war.”

He was the one who did the deal.

He should be the one to enforce it then.

Are you saying you want to put him back in charge?

He had decent approval ratings and was the last president to run an actual budget surplus rather than the huge deficits of late so you could do worse.

I mean, fair. I just don't think the person I responded to actually thought that part through.

Ah yes, let's not have consistent policy in the USA, and let's not keep our promises/guarantees. That will make America great.

If the President says 'this is what I negotiated' we should fulfill that agreement, not look for ways to get out of the agreement or legal loopholes (sure the Ukrainians agreement said one thing, but in the English version we put something less binding). I get that doing so wouldn't be billionaire behavior that we worship (how can I get the better end of the deal AND get out of whatever commitments I made).

I haven't actually seen any evidence of such a promise though. From what I've read, the US explicitly avoided making any such commitments at the time.

Was he stating a fact, or was this perhaps some political rhetoric?

We can dig into the differences of "security guarantees" versus "security assurances" and the precise requirements in the text, but ultimately the disarmament of Ukraine made a promise to the rest od the world about the possibility of nuclear disarmament. And the question is whether it's possible to have security from Russia unless a country has nuclear weapons.

A defended Ukraine promised the rest of the world that they could be a country and not need to build nuclear weapons. An abandoned Ukraine means that every country needs to have nuclear weapons or the world will stand aside as nuclear powers invade every other country.

It's quite clear which world Trump wants to live in. As soon as North Korea got the bomb, he started acting sycophantically and weak towards North Korea.

We are entering a far more dangerous world, and as far as defense spending goes a far more expensive world by not giving Ukraine the conventional weapons it needs to defend itself.

>It's wild that people in the US think this war is not their war. They promised to defend Ukraine's territory decades ago, and barely followed through for three years, then as soon as Trump took office they completely broke their promise.

We did defend Ukraine to the best of our ability, given that we will not risk an apocalypse or bankruptcy over it. There is a limit to everything. Don't be naive.

>By breaking their promise, the US is encouraging nuclear proliferation throughout the world.

Would you rather have a nuclear war now, instead of mere proliferation?

>But Europe is getting smarter and stronger as the US gets stupider and weaker.

If Europe was smart, they would back a peace plan asap. They are not prepared to win a war with Russia, especially if China sides with Russia.

This might have more credibility as a post if the current "president" of the USA wasn't very obviously (a) compromised by Russia, (b) mentally incompetent, or (c) a fascist whose only interest was personal gain.

[flagged]

>We did defend Ukraine to the best of our ability

The US under Biden defended them in a very wishy washy way. He could have said do not invade or we'll send jets to stop the invading troops. But he actually said something like if it's only a small invasion the US is unlikely to get involved, and refused to allow other people's F16s to be used until a couple of years in.

If he'd just said we are not fighting but we'll send the NATO surplus stuff over 20 years old to Ukraine freely at the start that likely would have been enough. But no. "Escalation management" - Ukraine not allowed to win incase it upsets the invaders.

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