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Ask HN: Can't Ukraine lease/sell border land to EU temporarily
Why can't Ukraine sell, say 5 KM of land along border to EU for a $ with an option to buy back at 100% premium? No Russian tanks/aircraft can fly thereby protecting. Instead of Ukraine joining NATO NATO can play this credible gimmmick, just like Russia played a gimmmick by declaring independence.
- Blackthorn 5y agoBecause if a EU country wanted to actually defend Ukraine, they'd just do it. They don't need to play that sort of ridiculous game. They can literally go in there with military assistance and start shooting. That they aren't doing that, means they don't actually have the will to defend Ukraine against Russia. Ukraine trying to play a little land border game isn't going to change that reality.
- rambojazz 5y ago> That they aren't doing that, means they don't actually have the will to defend Ukraine against Russia This is an oversimplification. They are willing to. However there is a hug step from offering economic support to sending your own troops on the field.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 5y agoBecause the EU wouldn’t want to buy it?
- 323 5y agoShort answer: that's not how borders work.
- templarchamp 5y agoit worked for hong kong, guantanamo etc. Sell the whole Ukraine for a $ to be redeemed on par in future. Russia will halt all crap in 0.001 seconds.
- Teever 5y agoOne Weird Trick / Dictators Hate Him! C'mon man, do you actually think that this will work?
- templarchamp 5y agonot the border, i mean arbitrary land, say 50 miles, along the border.
- 323 5y agoFor a simple sale/loan the land would remain Ukrainean. Just like if an American buys a house in Russia, it won't mean now that USA can militarily defend it. Every piece of land has actually two owners: the sovereign nation and the civilian/company "owning it" as understood in regular speech.
- templarchamp 5y agoYeah, 2 owners like Guantanamo? Ukraine can relinquish control for a known time, even a year. Russia would dare not start war by crossing another country. If there is no will to defend, there is no solution.
- templarchamp 5y agoYou are confusing an individual from a sovereign state. If a state buys it, it belongs to the state where the constitution protections are enforced.
- templarchamp 5y agoI think while Russia thinks creatively, the other side thinks linearly. Spain, UK, France or Poland should buy the land and poke a finger at the aggressor - just a thought.
- throwaway6734 5y agoI don't understand how Russia is thinking creatively here. If Ukraine resistance keeps up there's no way Russia has the will or money to maintain an occupation. What has been gained in this invasion? Europe has been woken up to it's need to spend more on defense. Ukrainians have been hardened against Russia. NATO was given a chance to show it's worth
- klyrs 5y agoAre any of them itching to enter a land war with Russia?
- littlestymaar 5y agoIt looks like they don't, otherwise they would have deployed forces in Ukraine before the invasion forcing Russia to attack them first. (And that's something we may regret, because I don't think Russia was willing to have a land war with a bunch of European armed forces either)
- mhh__ 5y agoI'm not sure that's the play. They don't need land, they need balls (i.e. if the Russians continue then fundamentally detach them from the modern world). On a tactical level they probably already have more than enough breathing room to be able to mobilize (which I would imagine the US has already done) every information gathering asset in the region to provide Intel to the Ukrainian troops. As far as I'm aware there are already publicly documented AWACS aircraft on patrol as you'd expect. I have family by a few RAF bases with some saucy planes but it would be foolish to comment on it in a time like this so gossip will stay as such.
- templarchamp 5y agoI am not saying from defensive posture -but from a posture to prevent further escalation and aggression. Russia is able to do what it does is simply because it thinks it can get away with it. It is not fair - so ring fencing at the cheapest cost to force NATO to trigger Article V will give pause. will Russia cross the red line?
- pjerem 5y ago> will Russia cross the red line? Who knows ? And, furthermore, who will take the bet ?
- sharken 5y agoTrump would be the closest to do that, just look at the rhetoric from the North Korea crisis in 2017: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%932018_North_Korea_crisis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%932018_North_Kore...
- mhh__ 5y agoThat makes more sense although I am still skeptical, i.e. the moment the line is crossed possibly by chance you then have an emboldened enemy.
- pmoriarty 5y agoSo then if Russia continues to invade Ukraine anyway, what is the EU going to do? Is it going to fight Russia? That leads to nuclear war.
- templarchamp 5y agowhat is EU going to do if Russia invades Poland anyway? Thermonuclear war? Are you saying the whole security apparatus and international institutions are all bluff? If so, Russia would have figured out the bluff by now.
- seszett 5y agoNuclear deterrence doesn't mean that France would retaliate with nuclear weapons to a conventional attack, but that French nuclear weapons make it unlikely, not worth it, for Russia to use its own weapons first.
- templarchamp 5y agoRussia passed a law to use nukes for conventional attack even on foreign soil...
- ben_w 5y agoThat law doesn’t prevent ~200 Russian cities from being evaporated by the French nuclear arsenal, and neither world it prevent France from responding to a nuclear attack with said arsenal. That, not law, is the important part of MAD.
- ben_w 5y agoI don’t claim to know the right solution to any difficulties in international politics, but I can say the difference between the current situation and your hypothetical is that Poland is in the EU so Article 42.7 of the Lisbon treaty world apply, and is also in NATO so Article 5 of the NATO treaty would apply too. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/sede/dv/sede200612mutualdefsolidarityclauses_/sede200612mutualdefsolidarityclauses_en.pdf https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/... https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm
- beebeepka 5y agoWhy don't struggling parents simply sell some of their children to raise money! Do you have any other ideas? We need moar
- alanbernstein 5y agoLike Denis Leary says: because they've got the bomb.
- smanikim 5y agoYou can call it conspiracy theory but I believe that US/Russia and many other countries gonna benefit out of it by selling arms as most countries started increase their defence budget.