128
Germany slashes Ukraine funding in savings push
(www.politico.eu)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2024
128 points (93.8% liked)
World News
39019 readers
2176 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I cannot exaggerate to you that this 100% fulfils the negative perceptions of European governments that American isolationists have. The article says they cut Ukraine funding to fund social programs. The right-wing narrative in America is that needing to have the huge military is why we have a weak social safety net (not true btw, med4all for example would save Uncle Sam money) which is framed as "we pay for European social programs." But here's a government... literally cutting military spending in the middle of aiding a real war that could be highly consequential to the country in question to fund social programs.
How is an American supposed to argue in favor of funding the defense of Europe when the richest country in Europe doesn't want to fund the defense of Europe? If Germany gets to decide to go for "Germany first," how long until "Britain first?" "France first?" "Italy first?" Will Ukraine funding just be a hot potato that everyone will claim is important but nobody actually wants to do?
When European countries started raising military spending in response to a threat, it weakened American isolationist arguments. But this strengthens them. I hope no other European countries pull this shit.
There is no Europe entity. There's the EU and NATO with Ukraine not being a member in any of them.
I don't have any more special connection to Ukrainians than you have because I am European. They are foreigners to me just as they are to you. This goes for most Europeans except maybe for Slavic people.
The rest support Ukraine for the same reasons the US do. Because Russia is a geopolitical rival. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is immoral but it's not the actual reason for any support of Ukraine. EU countries and the US can live happily with people getting massacred in other countries with Gaza being the most prominent but far from the only example.
So Germany will support Ukraine up to the point its not inconvenient for them. They don't have any special kinship nor any legal obligation to assist more.
If Russia had performed better in the war Germany probably would feel urged to spend more both in Ukraine to win time to rearm itself. As things stand, Russia cannot threaten Germany and whether it occupies parts of Ukraine is not the end of the world (for Germany).
The US won't "stop funding the defense" of EU or Taiwan or any other country. That's the basis of US power. Trump might be compromised, other right wongers might be interested in trading USA's dominance in the world for remaking of according to their fantasies but they are going to meet pushback from the establishment, including right wingers, including the military. Not going to be alright in any sense but the US military won't just withdraw.
Germany is increasing military spending. Not by as much as the defence ministry would like, but it's definitely not a cut.
As to the Ukraine aid the government is pointing at those Russian central bank funds, interest on those more than makes up for the shortfall: They're in fact estimating that the money they budgeted won't even be used up now that that stuff is available and, unsurprisingly, has priority. Why should Germany spend money when we can make the Russians spend it.
Seriously? Don't bother. We've written you off as fickle bastards long ago and are completely prepared for a Trump re-election and the US going full isolationist. Russia will react with a renewment of effort, Europe won't falter, Putin won't know what's happening (completely convinced that you somehow rule us), he will be replaced not by kinder but at least a bit saner people, war will end.
And definitely don't wait for us to shape our policy to be convenient for your own political struggles. We've got more important stuff to do.
Also, do have a look here. Germany spent around 40bn so far, the US 70bn. The US has about 4x the population. We're spending more than twice as much as the US per capita, and that's not even counting in that most of what the US sent was military hardware that they would have decommissioned, anyway, valued at replacement cost, not what it actually cost you: Negative amounts, because you don't have to spend money on actually decommissioning it.