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282

It's morally and strategically inexcusable for Russia to outspend Ukraine on defence, says Sanna Marin | Yle News (yle.fi)

submitted 6 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

29 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Summarized: The article discusses former Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin's views on Europe's response to the Ukraine war. Marin argues that it is morally and strategically unacceptable for Russia to outspend Ukraine on defense. She suggests that Europe could close the resource gap between Ukraine and Russia by allocating just 0.2% of its GDP. Marin emphasizes that supporting Ukraine is a matter of will and that Europe must take leadership in its own security. She also notes that Europe can no longer rely solely on transatlantic cooperation for its defense. Marin's comments were made in the context of a report by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, where she now works as a strategic advisor.

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[–] [email protected] 92 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

It is morally and strategically inexcusable that the American voter is dumber than dogshit and allowed all of this. It is an outrage that the dumbest minority among us has driven us to turn our backs on our allies and OURSELVES, JESUS FUCK.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 6 days ago (2 children)

You're not wrong, but it's a bad idea to rely on just one country for something so important. Every nation should stand against hostile foreign powers by helping Ukraine defend itself. Step up that funding!

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Agree, but we have abdicated our position as leader of the Western alliance, to the great danger of everyone except the blyats and the Chinese.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Oh I think we're poised to do much worse than simply abdicating our position as leader of the Western alliance. Right now as we speak representatives from the United States and Russia are hashing out an agreement, without representation from Ukraine or any other part of Europe, which will see Russia immediately assume ownership over sovereign Ukrainian territory immediately, leaving the Russian army inside Ukraine to invade and take the rest anytime it likes. We're not gone neutral here, we're squarely on the side of the Russians.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago

Yes, and it pisses me off. Republicans are traitors, and we should treat them as such.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Can individuals also support Ukraine? What about corporations? Does Ukraine accept donations from private entities?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago

Yes, anyone can donate. Here's the official site setup by the Ukrainian government: https://u24.gov.ua/

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago

Yes, they have since the very beginning of the war

[+] [email protected] -12 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

And why does it go back to the American voters that Europe has democratically chosen time after time to ditch defence spending and push the tab on the US?

FFS, the American Left has been begging for us to get out of the "World Police" mindset for decades now. The US exiting NATO and not getting involved in another European "you're the wrong type of white person" ethnic conflict is a decidedly good thing for everyone who isn't a wealthy Western Euro'n.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Europe is spending more than America to help Ukraine.

[+] [email protected] -18 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Source that any individual European nation is spending more towards Ukraine defense than the US? Or are you saying "Trade organization of some of the world's wealthiest countries 1.5x the size of the US is spending more on blankets and Tylenol than America"?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 days ago (2 children)

No individual European country is, but you and I both said "Europe", not "a European country". I'm saying that of the support Ukraine has received, most of it is from Europe. In terms of different categories of military equipment, though? Yeah, the US has often been outspent. In terms of value sent by individual countries, Poland has sent the most tanks and Germany has sent the most howitzers and anti-air systems. Sweden has nearly matched the US for IFVs. Even if you completely ignore the costs of supporting the Ukrainian government financially, giving homes to all of the Ukrainian refugees, and paying for humanitarian work in Ukraine — all of which are absolutely necessary for the war effort — the only way you can think that Europe isn't doing anything is if you've just never looked.

Source: https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

from that link:

[–] [email protected] -4 points 6 days ago

Cool, sounds like yall got it from here 👍

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Oh ffs. Obama was all over NATO countries trying to get them to up their defense spending.

The US exiting NATO is exactly what a useful idiot would want.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Did Obama succeed?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Piss off. You were saying how the left was begging to get out of NATO.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I most certainly was not.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

You know, you’re right. I read it quickly and thought it was that other cunt.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

The "world police" issue is when America gets involved uninvited and clearly with ulterior motives. This is an entirely different situation

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

“world police” means doing police work at a global level.

Police fundamentally exist so that individuals can outsource their security to the state. Police disincentivize coercion by maintaining the ability to do violence and doing violence on those who use violence. It allows individuals to not have to think about physical in order to move freely.

“world police” means one country’s military defending other countries so that those countries don’t have to maintain a military or handle their own security.

The meaning of the phrase is inherent to the phrase’s word: it just means playing a police role (punishing aggression between third parties to maintain a peaceful atmosphere) for the world (planet Earth).

[–] [email protected] 41 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Note the inexcusable part is that we allow it, and it's that they are allowed to outspend Ukraine and allies!!.

[+] [email protected] -47 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Well, yeah, but firstly Europe's gotta come up with the finances, and I don't believe societies built around yearly 5 week holiday time for their workers, and "free" health care for their citizens are going to allow massive sacrifices in those and so many other social services where the GDP will need to be funneled to purchase and fabricate the weaponry needed to enable Ukraine to continue to defend itself from the Russian war machine. That's not even taking into account, how much more of their GDP Europe is going to need to divert, to do the same for themselves. Now let's talk about fabrications and purchasing or weapons, and standing up massive boots on the ground conventional armies, Europe doesn't have that sort of expertise, or infrastructure, and the worlds largest arms producer is now likely off the table as an arms supplier for any fight with Russia. Europe is at least starting to make the right noises, though little concrete forward movement, still, yet I', pretty positive it's already way too late.

[–] NobodyElse 29 points 6 days ago

It says right in the summary that it’s 0.2% of the GDP, which shouldn’t impact other services greatly. There’s no need to turn into a dog-eat-dog style war machine to counter realistic foreign threats.

I like NATO as an alliance of countries looking after each other, but no such alliance should fall apart if any one member falls short and I’ve never been thrilled with the US role of world police. Europe needs to be able to defend itself on its own and stepping up their own contribution to NATO (and their own defense capabilities) is a good thing.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

The annual return on Norway's sovereign wealth fund is over 100 billion euros. So there's that. It's really not going to impact us if a chunk of that is used to buy weapons. The money is just getting reinvested for a rainy day and it looks a lot like it's shitting it down rn.

[+] [email protected] -16 points 6 days ago (1 children)

and yet, almost none of that has gone to defense, i mean you folks sure have got the best prisons in the world, and healthcare to beat the band, lot's of suicide though, but without the us as overwatch, or supplier of future weaponry to be used vs russia even on offer to purchase any longer, and without any standing army of any note, or much in the way of weapons stockpiles, and trump about to institute global reiprocal tarrifs sure to plunge the country and world into global depression (coincidentally) not seen since the 1930's, i wish you the best of fortune

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago

First off the suicide rate in the Nordic countries (with the very notable exception of Greenland) is actually lower than the states. It's just higher than other parts of western Europe.

Second, Norway has a larger proportion of the population in active service than the states. Much larger when you include reservists. Also there is national service here so in a pinch a large proportion of the population can be called up.

You have to consider that Norway has a. Population of 5.5m so you should ask how Norway stacks up against Atlanta (met area).

As for the equipment I have no idea what we spend it on. But the navy seems pretty well equipped and the air force uses f35s so I guess it's mostly up to date. Also Norway isn't the easiest place to invade geographically. None of the roads are really good enough to drive tanks on. And the whole country is connected by bridges and tunnels which are easily collapsed if necessary.

Also there is very tight cooperation between Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. So you really can't look at any one of those countries in isolation.