- US officials are considering letting Ukraine strike Russia with US weapons, The New York Times reports.
- Ukraine says it’s necessary to fight cross-border attacks.
- But fears of crossing Russia’s red lines have long made the US hesitate.
The US has barred Ukraine from striking targets in Russian territory with its arsenal of US weapons.
But that may be about to change. The New York Times on Thursday reported that US officials were debating rolling back the rule, which Ukraine has argued severely hampers its ability to defend itself.
The proposed U-turn came after Russia placed weapons across the border from northeastern Ukraine and directed them at Kharkiv, the Times reported, noting that Ukraine would be able to use only non-American drones to hit back.
The Times reported that the proposal was still being debated and had yet to be formally proposed to President Joe Biden.
Do it
Why wouldn’t Biden allow it?
Two words: Nuclear War
Why are we less concerned about provoking Putin than we are about provoking Netanyahu?
Well yeah, only half our politicians work for Putin, but 100% work for Netanyahu.
Putin is already irritated at us and there’s no advantage to preventing further irritation short of actually engaging in direct combat with NATO forces, and a general principle of not letting others control your escalation (We want to control when US weapons are used against Russia because it impacts our diplomatic stance, even if Ukraine is the one firing them).
There is advantage to us for Ukraine winning, particularly if it’s with our weapons and support. It reassures our allies, it drives interest in closer alliances with us, and generally reinforces the “aligning with the US brings trade, wealth, safety and protection” message we like to use to spread influence. See also: Finland and Sweden.Israel on the other hand is a historical ally in a region of significance and contested influence.
Israel’s genocidal actions against the Palestinians is unacceptable. Full stop.
From a political standpoint, the actions Hamas took that precipitated the current military campaign make it difficult to condemn the response without undermining the message that US allies get US support when they’re attacked. It’s why all the wording and messaging gets so verbose: how do you say “of course you can defend yourself and we’ll help” while also saying “maybe not the big guns, and stop with the civilian killings”.
If the region weren’t contested, weren’t important, we had significantly moreallies in the area, and it wasn’t important for domestic political reasons, it would be a different story.Thank you for providing some nuance. Ugh, this situation is so complicated. I do wonder, however, how much it’s worth that we have such strong values surrounding the way we support our allies if we are willing to countenance the evil things they do and still call them allies.
I’m unfortunately not sure how much of it’s “values” and how much is “utility”.
People have values, nations don’t. Nations only exemplify their national values because the citizens will be outraged if they’re breached too far. Otherwise a nations foreign policy is better looked at through a lens of detached utilitarianism.Usually our value of “supporting our friends” and the self image of being the hero (I think WW2 was America’s highschool football) lines up nicely with the utility it provides.
We get a lot of advantages out of our allies, not least of which is fat piles of sweet, sweet trade goods. We would never precondition military training exercises, intelligence sharing or sensitive service export regulation exemptions on getting a favorable trade deal on mangoes, but we do tend to reserve those things for our close allies, and trade agreements are a very efficient way to develop those bonds.
Waterway access lets us send our navy everywhere which massively reduces piracy, to the benefit of all, but to our benefit the most, as the leading consumer of oceanic transport goods.
A military base will get you very strong support, and furthers our security interests of global force projection.Israel is very useful to us. The give us a naval port in the Mediterranean, military staging areas, and a regional toehold that would otherwise be significantly weaker. We also, again, get a lot of trade value from their medical supplies and electronics, and we get to sell them a lot of services.
Combined with the previously mentioned points about signaling strong resolve and unwavering support if you’ve earned it, it would be very costly for us to abandon Israel.It’s why our politicians with constituents who care about human rights are trying very hard to walk the tightrope of supporting Israel against Hamas while opposing killing civilians. (The messaging is not going well).
The Palestinians, unfortunately, do not possess strategic value. Their “value” comes from internal political pressure to not allow or support evil, which is tempered by the opposing political view being to make the evil worse, which explains a relatively subdued response.With goods, sales, power, influence and PR worth tens of billions one one side, and internal political pressure towards an ethical stance that might endanger some fraction of that value on the other, it’s a question of how much value we stand to loose by listening to that pressure, and exactly how strong that pressure is.
Ding ding ding on all points but - it’s not ‘the end of history’ anymore, definitely not after 9/11 and GWOT.
There are headwinds coming for US and western leadership, and the unlimited ‘bear hug’ support for
BibiIsrael has America standing alone at the UN, a global hypocrite in the “rules based international order” whilst pointing the finger at Russia and Ukraine, or China and the11109 dash line/Taiwan/Senkaku Islands/etc…The global south is turning against western leadership; South Africa’s dogged case at the ICC, the French getting ejected from their peacekeeping missions in multiple former colonies, India is sending assassins to run hits on US and Canadian soil, OPEC expansion, that nut in Argentina… There’s growing rejection of the Pax Americana and/or Bretton Woods, and not in same bipolar competition like in the Cold War
Oh, totally. Don’t disagree with anything you said. 😊
To be clear, I was just trying to illustrate “how nations choose to act” and a bit of the context of “why Ukraine and not Palestine?”.
Location and advertising reliability as an ally are just the easiest to convey, but there are of course so many different things that go into everything a nation as big as the US does.
The state department has tens of thousands of workers, before you even get to the “boring” parts of what the CIA does to get them the data (analyzing public shipping records mostly) they need to make those policies and agreements. Any attempt to summarize the considerations of those people will have to cut some content.
Utility is when an action or tool moves you closer to what you value.
They aren’t opposites; they’re two components of the same mechanism.
“values” in this context was being used in the ethical or cultural sense not the economic sense.
“Equality” and “justice” are American Values, and “clear shipping routes” are something with utility. “Ideals” would have also worked for “American values”.
Why the hell are we concerned with Putin’s feelings on the subject?
I’m sure it also enrages him that we’re helping Ukraine at all, so what’s the point?
In fact, we should be going out of our way to purposefully piss him off.
He’s 71 and possibly has cancer, inducing a coronary might be the quickest way to get this war over with.The europeans are very worried about the war crossing countries. For the Americans it’s easier to say that because war is not at your door.
I don’t have a clear view of what’s better, but obviously we can’t let Russia win that war in the sense of conquering Ukraine.
I suppose at the end it will calm, and it will be more like a South Corea / North Corea cold war.obviously we can’t let Russia win that war
What does Russian victory look like at this point? I’ve heard folks insist anything less than NATO troops in Crimea constitutes a Russian win.
My opinion is that Russia will keep a part of Ukraine, and there will be a tacit stop of the war. Noone says they won, noone surrender, a little bit like North and South Corea. Maybe Russia says internally that they have finished the nazis so the special operation is finished (so they ‘win’ officially to their people) but that they can’t leave Ukraine or they will come back.
Noone says they won, noone surrender, a little bit like North and South Corea.
The Korean War ended with an enormous defeat by western military forces. I could conceivably see a situation in which the Russians overextend, provoke a reprisal by - idk, Poland or Romania - and get run back to the Donbas. But in that event, I don’t know if NAFO meme-teams are satisfied. When this war started, you had dudes cheering for bombs across Moscow and troops pouring up into Georgia and down through Finland.
I’m not sure who signs the peace deal with Russia when these are the expectations. It really does feel like westerners see Russians the same way Israelis see Palestinians.
I do not wish for the death of the Russian people. I wish for the removal, by any means necessary, of their authoritarian government who is seeking to expand their control into previously peaceful and unaligned nations.
It isn’t just “bomb all the ruskies and call it a day”, the majority of the Russian populace is a victim here as much as anyone else. I wish for a better life for them and for us all. But a few eggs will need to break to make that omelette.
Hard to swallow pills: Putin dying is not a positive outcome for the world - yet. There’s no groomed successor or lieutenant in the wings, when he leaves the scene it will be knives out inside the Kremlin (and outside it), which will lead to a fractured Moscow with Balkanization of the fringes like Georgia and Chechnya, or an even more brutal dictator, likely coming from the military sphere rather than civil.
There is no moderate off-ramp for Russia currently, and after Prigozin nobody in Russia is going to be permitted to collect power that can even think of challenging Putin.
Do it already!
They let Israel do it. What’s stopping them from… not caring that Ukraine does it too?
I assume you mean that we let Israel strike Palestine? Yes, that’s been true, but neither Hamas, nor the Palestinian Authority, or any other Palistinian group, have nuclear capabilities. That’s the concern with Russia, that they will respond with a tactical nuclear strike, or worse. Whether that fear is founded or not is a different question, of course.
Which would be the most elaborate suicide of the 21st century. If Putin drops a nuke somewhere the remaining lifespan of himself and his nation will be measured in minutes, as all of NATO and the west no longer have a potential worst option to avoid. At this point we just have to hope he understands that. I hope nobody loses a city because of it.
“The US is thinking about…”
This means literally nothing. This is not news. This is a trash headline for a trash article.
It’s scouting public or opinion and/or fabricating consent. Nothing new
Pretty sure the UK has given green light to use its weapons on Russian soil. Macron keeps the option open to deploy French troops. US weapons are approved for use against unarmed civilians in Palestine.
🤷♀️
They could have… you know …done it 2 years ago. Maybe that would have been a little more helpful.
Escalations escalate. And Europeans (nevermind Saudis, Africans, or East Asians) aren’t at all interested in Total War.
“Maybe we should have just nuked Moscow on day one” is the sort of thing you only get to say when you can fall back on a save file if you don’t like the results.
Well, whatever they can do to news away from their support for Israel’s genocide. Even if it means the decimation of your entire continent. Sorry, collateral damage. We’re talking about covering up our own involvement in war crimes. A few froofy Europeans are well worth it. Your deaths will not be in vain. Capitalism will thrive, don’t you worry.
Fuck puthead. Hes been asking for a while now
Lol you mean Putin is calm and collected now?
Late as fuck but better than nothing. The airfields used to deploy glide bomb launchers should be obliterated
Kind of annoyed people here still haven’t made the connection that NATO doesn’t want to support an offensive war because that would cost money and the entire MIC would not be making tech for profit. Hence why most tech given to Ukraine has been 90s surplus.
Nukes don’t really mean anything even to Putin. Unless Moscow is under direct invasion, MAD will keep even the most insane at bay.
It’s not like we haven’t already seen Ukrainians strike across the border. But the attacks have been expensive, exhaustive, and done little to curb subsequent Russian advances.
I guess Americans want us to unleash our double super secret Win Every Time war machines to finally beat Putler Once And Forever. Perhaps we’re coming to terms with the reality of modern warfare relative to the hype.
Putin can Crimea fucking river, stop bombing Ukraine and you won’t have to worry about it!
So does this mean we’re blaming the gun manufacturers if their weapons are used inappropriately? (Honestly don’t know whether to put a /s or not)
As long as you only use the gun as armor, to stop incoming bullets, it’s all good.
No firing the gun though.
Fire away
