7 ms·

> The US has provided more funding to Ukraine than the world combined by a large margin This is not true for some time now. First google result (but there are

> The US has provided more funding to Ukraine than the world combined by a large margin This is not true for some time now. First google result (but there are more charts, numbers and sources): https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/ https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-s... Yet whoever provided more aid is irrelevant, since it's not enough anyway. We, as a world, are observing (and doing nothing, for the most part) fourth reich coming into action.

cglace 3y ago
It looks like your charts include things like refugee aid costs, which make up a large percentage of European aid. If you remove these costs and go strictly by military support, which is what we are talking about, then my point stands.
- joakleaf 3y ago
  No it does not; You said:"The US has provided more funding to Ukraine than the world combined by a large margin"... Pick "Military" only in the chart, add up the numbers of, Germany, UK, Denmark, Norway, and Netherlands, and you'll get a higher number than the US.
  - cglace 3y ago
    Sorry, I'll rephrase: the US has delivered roughly equivalent military aid to Ukraine as the rest of the world combined. Does that diminish my point? I guess that means the US cannot be trusted.
    - PurpleRamen 3y ago
      Seems kinda unfair. USA has the biggest military complex, bigger than the rest of world combined IIRC. Naturally, can they deliver military aid faster and better than the rest of the world.
      - ethbr1 3y ago
        Part of the annoyance, as a US citizen, is that we spend ~3.5% of GDP on military. And that's off a large GDP, so hiding scaling efficiencies that would allow it to run lower while maintaining capability. And much more during the Cold War era! That "bigger" is bought, and has been every year. We could spend that money on other things: social welfare, health care, etc. So, excusing Europe's inability to deliver mass military aid, when they've willingly underinvested in their defense industry and equipment for decades, rings a bit hollow.
        cglace 3y ago
        Yeah, especially when Europeans have mocked the US for decades for spending too much on its military while relying on security guarantees for their protection.
        piva00 3y ago
        The US does get a lot from that in exchange, it's not like the US is being altruistic and providing security out of the goodness in your hearts, the US never does anything altruistically (as most nation-states do not), the dissonance that even well-educated Americans have as if they were footing a bill without getting nothing in return is frankly baffling.
        mrguyorama 3y ago
        It's infuriating how many Americans don't seem to realize that we would spend the exact same amount on our military even if Russia, China, and NATO all evaporated tomorrow. We police the world because being the world police is fabulously profitable. You want to maintain the largest economy in the world? Well then you want to keep up the status quo of "you can do business between most countries, and can ship anything across the world for pennies per pound with near zero risk".
        ethbr1 3y ago
        > "you can do business between most countries, and can ship anything across the world for pennies per pound with near zero risk" Arguably, the biggest beneficiary of the US Navy's protection of commercial shipping has been China. Especially considering China doesn't pay for any of that protection.
    - piva00 3y ago
      You are not rephrasing, you are moving the goal posts, you said: > The US has provided more funding to Ukraine than the world combined by a large margin, and the lesson you take away is that the US is somehow at fault. No, it has not provided more funding to Ukraine than the world combined, the EU by itself has provided more military aid than the US already. You're just wrong. It's not hard to admit that, trying to save face just made it worse...
      - cglace 3y ago
        The EU's military commitments narrowly edge out US military commitments before a new bill is approved. This does not take away from the larger point of the US not being a bad partner to Ukraine or that the US cannot be trusted as a partner.
  - KingOfCoders 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - Shocka1 3y ago
      I don't disagree with the overall point you are arguing (AKA I agree with you), but comments like this are of no help to the conversation. I get a strong sense from this and other comments in this thread that you might be anti-American, which strikes me as biased and small minded thinking for someone that seems so intelligent. This is not intended to be an insult, but be better. There are plenty of forums to act like this on, and HN isn't one of them.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - tristan957 3y ago
      My US high school math was the equivalent of Calculus 2 in college. I don't understand your point.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
"we" are doing nothing because "we" are not under attack; Ukraine did not have defense pacts with other countries, and the military aid took a while to get started because of the risk of Russia seeing it as hostility towards them, further escalating the conflict. If it escalates, it will escalate bigly. If Russia attacks a NATO country, article 5 will / should kick in and the combined military force of 31 countries (with or without the US) will combine their strengths. But nobody wants this to escalate further, because nukes. Nothing will matter anymore if Russia decides to use them. It doesn't matter if they lose hundreds of thousands of people, material, and are completely humiliated, as long as they have nukes, "we" cannot strike back. At this point, wishful thinking that the Ukraine conflict seizes up again, keeps the Russian army occupied, and things cool off slowly. Or that the Russian leadership is replaced, but there's no guarantees it would be replaced by someone who would stop the war.
- KingOfCoders 3y ago
  "But nobody wants this to escalate further, because nukes." France and the UK will not use nukes when Poland is invaded. Russia will not use nukes when invading Poland. Russia might not even use nukes when losing Kaliningrad (but I'm not so sure there, if Ukraine gets back Crimea we will see).
  - thriftwy 3y ago
    What are you going to do with Kaliningrad if you occupy it? Are you going to hand out EU Schengen passports to its residents? You may get a large line for ingress if you're going to swap Russian passpors for EU ones. If you don't, Russia will politely ask to have its territory back and would get that eventually. Bottom line, stop thinking about the land as if it was not full of people settled there.
    - SXX 3y ago
      Honestly if you offer residents of Kaliningrad some free EU passports on condition they need to move out of Russia I pretty certain like 90% of them will gladly accept.

cglace 3y ago

It looks like your charts include things like refugee aid costs, which make up a large percentage of European aid. If you remove these costs and go strictly by military support, which is what we are talking about, then my point stands.

joakleaf 3y ago
No it does not; You said:"The US has provided more funding to Ukraine than the world combined by a large margin"... Pick "Military" only in the chart, add up the numbers of, Germany, UK, Denmark, Norway, and Netherlands, and you'll get a higher number than the US.
- cglace 3y ago
  Sorry, I'll rephrase: the US has delivered roughly equivalent military aid to Ukraine as the rest of the world combined. Does that diminish my point? I guess that means the US cannot be trusted.
  - PurpleRamen 3y ago
    Seems kinda unfair. USA has the biggest military complex, bigger than the rest of world combined IIRC. Naturally, can they deliver military aid faster and better than the rest of the world.
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      Part of the annoyance, as a US citizen, is that we spend ~3.5% of GDP on military. And that's off a large GDP, so hiding scaling efficiencies that would allow it to run lower while maintaining capability. And much more during the Cold War era! That "bigger" is bought, and has been every year. We could spend that money on other things: social welfare, health care, etc. So, excusing Europe's inability to deliver mass military aid, when they've willingly underinvested in their defense industry and equipment for decades, rings a bit hollow.
      - cglace 3y ago
        Yeah, especially when Europeans have mocked the US for decades for spending too much on its military while relying on security guarantees for their protection.
        piva00 3y ago
        The US does get a lot from that in exchange, it's not like the US is being altruistic and providing security out of the goodness in your hearts, the US never does anything altruistically (as most nation-states do not), the dissonance that even well-educated Americans have as if they were footing a bill without getting nothing in return is frankly baffling.
        mrguyorama 3y ago
        It's infuriating how many Americans don't seem to realize that we would spend the exact same amount on our military even if Russia, China, and NATO all evaporated tomorrow. We police the world because being the world police is fabulously profitable. You want to maintain the largest economy in the world? Well then you want to keep up the status quo of "you can do business between most countries, and can ship anything across the world for pennies per pound with near zero risk".
        ethbr1 3y ago
        > "you can do business between most countries, and can ship anything across the world for pennies per pound with near zero risk" Arguably, the biggest beneficiary of the US Navy's protection of commercial shipping has been China. Especially considering China doesn't pay for any of that protection.
  - piva00 3y ago
    You are not rephrasing, you are moving the goal posts, you said: > The US has provided more funding to Ukraine than the world combined by a large margin, and the lesson you take away is that the US is somehow at fault. No, it has not provided more funding to Ukraine than the world combined, the EU by itself has provided more military aid than the US already. You're just wrong. It's not hard to admit that, trying to save face just made it worse...
    - cglace 3y ago
      The EU's military commitments narrowly edge out US military commitments before a new bill is approved. This does not take away from the larger point of the US not being a bad partner to Ukraine or that the US cannot be trusted as a partner.
- KingOfCoders 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - Shocka1 3y ago
    I don't disagree with the overall point you are arguing (AKA I agree with you), but comments like this are of no help to the conversation. I get a strong sense from this and other comments in this thread that you might be anti-American, which strikes me as biased and small minded thinking for someone that seems so intelligent. This is not intended to be an insult, but be better. There are plenty of forums to act like this on, and HN isn't one of them.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - tristan957 3y ago
    My US high school math was the equivalent of Calculus 2 in college. I don't understand your point.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

"we" are doing nothing because "we" are not under attack; Ukraine did not have defense pacts with other countries, and the military aid took a while to get started because of the risk of Russia seeing it as hostility towards them, further escalating the conflict. If it escalates, it will escalate bigly. If Russia attacks a NATO country, article 5 will / should kick in and the combined military force of 31 countries (with or without the US) will combine their strengths. But nobody wants this to escalate further, because nukes. Nothing will matter anymore if Russia decides to use them. It doesn't matter if they lose hundreds of thousands of people, material, and are completely humiliated, as long as they have nukes, "we" cannot strike back. At this point, wishful thinking that the Ukraine conflict seizes up again, keeps the Russian army occupied, and things cool off slowly. Or that the Russian leadership is replaced, but there's no guarantees it would be replaced by someone who would stop the war.

KingOfCoders 3y ago
"But nobody wants this to escalate further, because nukes." France and the UK will not use nukes when Poland is invaded. Russia will not use nukes when invading Poland. Russia might not even use nukes when losing Kaliningrad (but I'm not so sure there, if Ukraine gets back Crimea we will see).
- thriftwy 3y ago
  What are you going to do with Kaliningrad if you occupy it? Are you going to hand out EU Schengen passports to its residents? You may get a large line for ingress if you're going to swap Russian passpors for EU ones. If you don't, Russia will politely ask to have its territory back and would get that eventually. Bottom line, stop thinking about the land as if it was not full of people settled there.
  - SXX 3y ago
    Honestly if you offer residents of Kaliningrad some free EU passports on condition they need to move out of Russia I pretty certain like 90% of them will gladly accept.