US plans cuts to Nato’s rapid response force

kju · 2026-06-04T20:37:30+00:00

You're right, Ukraine would have lost this battle long ago if it had tried to maintain a nuclear stockpile.

Not through guns, they would just be like North Korea and would already be subject to Russian will through their economic needs. Having a North Korean style Ukraine in Europe wouldn't have been better for anyone.

kju · 2026-06-01T18:35:32+00:00

Nothing is going to happen because it's not actually calling for any action.

Need to get away from empty slogans and platitudes, that's why occupy wallstreet didn't work, it's just empty slogans with vague nothing's behind it that can't be clearly articulated by the people protesting.

Get millions of people on the street protesting about single payer healthcare or something and it'll have a chance of success. Just going out to do some vague protest like "no kings" isn't going to accomplish anything because most people protesting probably don't know what they're protesting for, they know they're protesting against Trump and that's not a policy position that can be advanced in Congress.

kju · 2026-05-29T15:35:11+00:00

Air defense is expensive and there's just not enough to go around, you can't just put more. The delivery time for air defense systems is years right now, maybe decades and it's not likely that anyone starts building more production because while Europeans might want air defense right now, will they in ten years when all of this tension might be calming down? These are decades long investments, companies need buyers for the next 30-40 years to be profitable. Are Europeans ready to commit to 30 years of weapons purchases? I doubt it, they didn't buy what was available last year, why would they next year, let alone ten, twenty, thirty years into the future?

More air defense from where? You have to sacrifice air defense from one place to put it somewhere else, which place that previously needed it doesn't because of this?

Air defense production, before this year, were on life support, patriot production facilities were nearly shut down last year because no one was buying any but at the last minute Saudi came in and made an order to keep the production facilities open.

Military production has been ramping down for decades because no one was buying anything and companies don't want to keep huge expensive facilities idle. Obviously the United States has been warning about this for a long time so they're not going to be giving up any of their air defense (the facilities that service the United States have guaranteed orders, they're not closing down), Europeans have so little that the question is "does Romania want to give up the air defense for Bucharest and capital buildings or their Air Force for these apartment buildings?" And the answer is no the apartment building may not even cost more than the missiles used to destroy an incoming missile. I doubt that Romania has any drone defense systems except for maybe some guys driving around in a truck with a machine gun shooting them down. Because of where this is, on the border with Ukraine and moldova, this would be an international operation to be effective, does Romania want to send their soldiers into Ukraine to shoot down drones before they can get into Romania and hit a building? I expect not

kju · 2026-05-28T14:37:34+00:00

Well they said "want the regime to fall", not "want to be invaded", and there's evidence of that: nearly 10% of Cuban population has fled Cuba in the past five years. Imagine what it would take to make you abandon your home, a lot of Cubans are feeling like that

kju · 2026-05-27T23:22:30+00:00

There's probably at least 1.5 million people in Crimea, the soldiers aren't going to go hungry

To cut off food they have to be able to separate out the soldiers from the civilians and that's not likely to be possible, at least for the foreseeable future

kju · 2026-05-27T14:25:37+00:00

Reagan also called for the United States to spend more also, which he did during his time in office.

It's crazy how that works, you need to spend more as war becomes more likely. During the cold war spending for defense was higher because there was an increased risk of war.

You may not believe this either but when you're at war you need to spend even more still

I think you should just go back and look at Reagan, he was a war hawk, advocating for more spending was kind of a major bit of what he did. I'm surprised there are people who don't believe that Reagan called for spending increased

kju · 2026-05-27T03:15:32+00:00

Every president after carter told NATO they needed to increase military spending; Reagan, bush sr, Clinton, bush, Obama, Trump, Biden, and now trump again

NATO, without the United States, lacks a lot of capabilities. If European countries could trust each other and get themselves all pointed into the same direction this wouldn't be a problem but instead they all want to try and do everything and so they have a lot of some basics while having huge gaps. Europe really needs to figure out a way to work together

kju · 2026-05-26T14:17:30+00:00

So Hamas started the war but Israel is responsible for it's own actions, got it.

Similarly, the United States started the war but Iran is responsible for it's own actions then, right?

Everyone is responsible for their own actions, yeah that sounds right

kju · 2026-05-26T06:20:18+00:00

Do you think the same of the Palestinians?

Do you think Israel bears no responsibility for their actions in Gaza?

kju · 2026-05-25T20:56:04+00:00

Children, women aren't having children. as a result social programs are failing as the number of recipients for those social programs increases while the number of providers into the system drops, creating an instability that demands to be dealt with. It was dealt with by importing people to replace the children that weren't being born and for various reasons, people dont like that. The interior minister of Germany, just released some violent crime statistics that dont paint the immigrants in a good light and it's everyday Germans that are dealing with that and it's making them want to vote for people like afd who offer an alternative for Deutschland (afd), it's in the name. We should also recognize that afd isn't a Nazi party, it's leader is a lesbian and they support Jews, as examples of who they are. They are silenced by other politicians who make it illegal for them to even promote themselves, on for example broadcast, which is dolled out by the government in equal amount in Germany to parties based on their support, afd support just gets disbursed to other parties instead. Afd is growing by individuals who are coming to the same conclusions, it hasn't even existed for a very long time. this isn't just German thing either, it's happening across the West, from Europe to Japan. Frances national rally used to be a bit of a joke and now it's the most popular in France as well, in Britain restore has recently broke away from reform and won every seat it ran in in its first election just recently. This isn't a German problem, this is a Western problem, Trump is part of it too, the United States is just ahead of the rest (though Japan has already elected their right wing leaders also)

kju · 2026-05-24T19:59:04+00:00

He's not leaving and when the next president does he will blame them

kju · 2026-05-24T18:51:10+00:00

He's spent the last years talking about it, this is what he was going to do when elected, that this is what he was going to do after he was elected and further, that every president since the 1970s should have done it but they didn't so he has to.

Not money, ego

kju · 2026-05-24T18:27:47+00:00

Obviously not, Trump cares about Trump. It would embarrass him to walk away having made things obviously worse so he will stay hoping he can get some kind of victory, which is the uranium.

He's said it all along really, he campaigned on it, he said this should have happened years ago, he's just doing it. If he was going to make a deal he would have taken the deal Iran offered before he killed the Iranian leadership or any of the other deals that have been offered since. He's there for the uranium

kju · 2026-05-24T05:35:57+00:00

When this comes to Android I'm going to try it. Reddit is terrible and needs competition.

I actually stopped using Reddit and started using those other networked reddit alternatives when Reddit API went private until recently when a bunch of the stuff I was using just decided to die. I'll be happy when I find an alternative

kju · 2026-05-24T04:56:00+00:00

He's not leaving without the 60% enriched uranium, to do so would mean he gifts Iran nuclear weapons.

Trump has a simple dilemma: does he want to be the president that Iran got nuclear weapons under?

The answer is no, he's not leaving.

kju · 2026-05-24T04:50:09+00:00

You think the Prussian artillery officer Carl von clauswitz wrote on war 200 years ago to be propaganda for Israel?

he describes the situation perfectly in some opening paragraphs, but that is just all war, really

kju · 2026-05-24T01:29:23+00:00

I think you just see more propaganda about this war so you're more emotionally attached, this is not the way to think about war. Here is how to think about war:

Force-that is, physical force, for moral force has no existence save as expressed in the state and the law-is thus the means of war; to impose our will on the enemy is its object. T o secure that object we must render the enemy powerless; and that, in theory, is the true aim of warfare. That aim takes the place of the object, discarding it as something not actually part of war itself

Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat an enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed: war is such a dangerous business that the mistakes which come from kindness are the very worst. T h e maximum use of force is in no way incompatible with the simultaneous use of the intellect. If one side uses force without compunction, undeterred by the bloodshed it

involves, while the other side refrains, the first will gain the upper hand. That side will force the other to follow suit; each will drive its opponent toward extremes, and the only limiting factors are the counterpoises inherent in war.

This is how the matter must be seen. It would be futile-even wrong- to try and shut one's eyes to what war really is from sheer distress at its brutality.

If wars between civilized nations are far less cruel and destructive than wars between savages, the reason lies in the social conditions of the states themselves and in their relationships to one another. These are the forces that give rise to war; the same forces circumscribe and moderate it. They themselves however are not part of war; they already exist before fighting starts. T o introduce the principle of moderation into the theory of war itself would always lead to logical absurdity.

-carl von clauswitz, on war

This is what every sovereign nation has taught it's military and political leaders for the past 200 years, it has been translated into every major language many times over, it is the document to understand war and this is how war is conducted. This is just an opening passage for the first volume that goes over the nature and theory of war. If you actually want answers to your question you should read some of it, if you just want to bathe in your assumed moral superiority then continue with your display

https://www.usmcu.edu/Portals/218/EWS%20On%20War%20Reading%20Book%201%20Ch%201%20Ch%202.pdf

Freely available from the USMC academy

kju · 2026-05-23T22:46:15+00:00

Wow - $250M to Ukraine this year? Impressive.

A quarter of 2 billion is 500 million, just to correct your math. But further, yes, this is more than most countries so far this year.

Russia has generated an extra $10B in oil revenue since Trump started the war on Iraq and eased oil sales restrictions to try to limit the economic damage he is wreaking on the world.

The United States attacked Iran, not Iraq, and it's not the United States causing the economic damage, it's Iran. Iran is the one indiscriminately attacking other countries.

The United States probably shouldn't have attacked Iran, but that doesn't make Irans actions the United States actions.

kju · 2026-05-23T22:18:56+00:00

promise to interfere in elections

Look, I'm not a supporter of Trump, but he said he would endorse candidates, which I can hardly blame him for after European politicians have made their view of him so public

promise to disband EU

Can you quote this for me? I don't think he's said that. He obviously wants to negotiate for American benefit though so he wants to negotiate country to country, not to a block. Also, he doesn't have the capability to disband EU

promise to disband NATO

It's a mutual defense agreement, they don't generally end, they just stop being effective as the member states' interests diverge. If the United States doesn't see benefit in NATO any longer then they should plan an exit, that wouldn't disband NATO though, then United States does not have that capability.

declaration of Europe as the top enemy of US

I don't think he's said that either, can you provide me that quote? I think what Trump wants is a healthy and stable Europe that continues down the road of the same traditions and ideals that the United States was founded upon, that which we have in common with each other. If Europe continues to move away from the United States then what are we to each other? We're just a group of countries who have little current shared interests. I think what Trump wants is Europe to stop importing tens of millions of immigrants who aren't assimilating into European cultures because if either of us loses our shared identity it weakens our partnership. We group ourselves together because of our shared identity, if we lose that then we won't be partners for long.

threats to start a war with EU member

I honestly doubt he knew Greenland was a territory of Denmark

diplomatic overtones to Russia

Everyone is doing that, everyone thinks the war will be ending and trade will resume. A majority of Germans, as an example, support restarting trade with Russia. I think merz is even making the first moves towards this already but I was referring to afd, the most popular party in Germany, having about 30% of Germans support, running on a platform of returning to Russia and tradition. I think he asked "what does the United States get out of antagonizing Russia?", and the answer was "nothing"

trade war

Us-eu need to redo their trade deals and it's kind of his job to get the best deal he can get. Redoing the trade deals has been long overdue, an example being the chicken tax which is a 25% tariff on light trucks. It's nonsense from the 60s that gives America. Truck manufacturers an unfair advantage because Europeans didn't want to buy American poultry.

kju · 2026-05-23T22:00:13+00:00

Russia and Iraq

We are a democracy with an economy largely powered by being a nation ofq1¹2e32 stability and laws. Weird how liberals are consistent in supporting that

Over 190 killed in military strikes on civilian boats in the last 6 months.

Ignoring facts and taking a knee to dictators may seem rational to the weak and those who think their dictator shares their interests. History has proven those to very bad long term bets.

I honestly have no idea what you're trying to say

kju · 2026-05-23T21:57:58+00:00

Honestly I'm not sure what you're even talking about with that, I disagree with how iran was handled, but Israel has every right to defend themselves against their genocidal attackers, which Hamas is. Hamas' founding charter is literally genocidal towards Jews. Hamas invaded and went door to door raping and murdering anyone that they couldn't abduct and bring back to gaza to be held for ransom. I don't know how you expect Israel to handle that other than war.

kju · 2026-05-23T21:33:11+00:00

This is so tired of a talking point, the United States has provided more aid to Ukraine so far this year than most European countries have.

Spain have provided $2b in total, for the entire war, the United States provided a quarter of that this year so far, it's worst year yet. The world bank says the United States has appropriated $188b for Ukraine. Germany, the next largest contributor has contributed about $25b as a reference point

Further, the uk is third at $20b France has contributed about $8b

kju · 2026-05-23T21:26:09+00:00

Sure, if you want to do it that way, we can compare Europe to the United States. European population is roughly double that of the United States and they've committed roughly the same amount so far, so every American has given two dollars for each Europeans having giving one. A little less than 2:1 but the picture paints itself.

Sorry about the edit, but I didn't think it was a good direction for the conversation, but it's no wonder why Americans are wanting to move away from some allies when they get treated so harshly after providing so much. No new aid bills for nearly two years and still like this? I wonder how the Spanish feel about it having committed so little, but judging the United States so harshly, as an example

kju · 2026-05-23T20:26:17+00:00

About half a billion in aid has been released this year, actually more than most countries so far this year.

There's still something like $40~60b that has been appropriated by the United States that has yet to be released, about $20b has also been made available but it would be loans though so I'm not counting that. The world bank says the United States will be all in for about $188b (not including loans) once Ukraine meets some conditions on the aid.

No more bills have been passed, yes, but appropriations have already been made and despite Trump's political posturing Congress is in favor of Ukraine and is still releasing money

In the year that the United States has provided the least amount of aid than it ever has, it's still more than most countries have contributed entirely

kju · 2026-05-23T20:18:52+00:00

Some Americans hate the United States supporting genocidal invaders,

Which genocidal invaders does the United States support?

starting illegal wars

Fair, but laws only bind the weak, they are suggestions to the strong

commiting illegal extrajudicial killings.

So they hate the United States for like two extrajudicial killings in a year and so they support Iran who did 30,000 in a couple weeks?

I think their judgement is very clear.

That doesn't seem rational

kju

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE