Penny dropped for European nations, will they step up instead of the US? Seems unlikely
I’m not sure if we have the capacity to step up.
We’ll have to wait and see what a peace treaty looks like before we start crying appeasement.
Brown envelope to Trump and Ukraine is now western Russia.
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Territorial loss, forced neutrality and lifting of sanctions is western surrender.
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Totally agreed.
Russia can’t just turn off the war economy they’re in - they’ll rearm and recruit and be back within 5 years. Not just Ukraine, but Moldova, Georgia and the Baltics in the crosshairs.
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If you’re Putin now would be the best time for all of that.
Who knows how long the U.S. will be in disarray.
Europe has a good chance of defending itself if it can coherently do it together as one Europe. There’s some significant forces there and the infrastructure to do it. Two nuclear powers.
It may force greater European cooperation than we’ve seen before.
Good job we shot our part in it in the foot with Brexit.
Yes, but maybe something outside the EU could be considered, taking into account that countries like Hungary will veto anything meaningful.
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AfD to come in, secretly produce some nukes, build a stockpile and then be like “come take em from me if u got a problem”
Spot on, another failure of the EU functions. Hungary attempted to block simple sanctions against Russia and aid to Ukraine. The UK was able to respond quicker and provide more support to Ukraine from the very start without referring to 27 other nations.
Maybe Europe needs a new short term bespoke defensive military alliance. Something much more closely and ideologically aligned than NATO. Is the political will there though? I know the UK, Baltics, scandinavians and Poland are serious nations but are the rest?
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Creating a new military alliance outside of NATO will result in the U.S. bringing freedom to Europe. By force of course.
If US is in there, it is ok
I was being sarcastic when saying “freedom”. The same sort of freedom the U.S. has brought to Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Trump and his teams actions so far is an absolute betrayal of Ukraine and Europe. Given that Trump is essentially saying the US will take over and occupy a part of another country, this is hardly surprising. I worry about the current state of geopolitics, and worry about a future where the US, Russia and China feel able to do whatever the hell they want to. China must be encouraged to take an opportunity and move into Taiwan, and Russia must think they can pause, consolidate the occupied territory, and then go again in a couple of years.
This is where Europe need to unite and step up to help Ukraine. The only thing I agree with the US on, is that the European nations, including the UK, need to spend more on defence. If Ukraine decide to accept this half-baked peace deal to end the war, I think everyone has to respect their decision, but equally they should not be forced into accepting a deal that concedes territory to Russia, because it suits the interests of the US.
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That’s exactly the way Trump and Musk want to cut the world up - that’s the game plan.
The US has always done what it wants. So has China.
Three superpowers all suffering from having broken economies, which is why I’m not worried about too much escalation. It would be lovely if they were capable of providing the basics to their own people before pissing money away on conflicts.
Friendship with US is such a losing endeavor.
Broken economies tend to lead to world wars.
There’s a lot of very uncomfortable parallels between now a 100 years ago.
A devastating flu pandemic that had a huge impact globally 
Struggling economies trying to deal with inflation that looks like taking us into global recession
Consolidation of authoritarian right wing strongmen with the purpose of restoring national pride
Rise of right wing politics in western nations
A religious population that is the focus of said right wing ire and attention
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