6 ms·

I think the other example is Israel which seems like the much more obviously belligerent, actively colonial nation state that the US is largely propping up (and

I think the other example is Israel which seems like the much more obviously belligerent, actively colonial nation state that the US is largely propping up (and wouldn't exist otherwise) also, arguably, the half-century of creating, establishing, funding, and build-up of NATO largely supersedes the point that Trump cut spending there temporarily. that all came from American coffers and the current conflict there is a long hangover from that

JumpCrisscross 6d ago
> colonial nation state that the US is largely propping up (and wouldn't exist otherwise) This is a baseless, American-centric notion I've heard frequently in New York and San Francisco. If America pulled support from Israel, it would find partners in other countries. India and China are at the top of the list–they want Israeli weapons technology and intelligence. Russia would probably play too. And depending on the kind of mess we leave Iran in, some Gulf countries may also find a way to come to a nuclear technology transfer deal with Tel Aviv.
- lovich 6d ago
  I don’t know why so many people take it as a given that Israel only exists because of America. They used to be aligned with the USSR and we did a lot of work to peel them off into our own domain. They also have their own military industrial complex and are perfectly capable of manufacturing the weapons they need domestically. They also have nukes.
  - paimapi 6d ago
    it probably has something to do with the fact that a full 2% of their GDP comes from US military aid alone: https://www.cfr.org/articles/us-aid-israel-four-charts https://www.cfr.org/articles/us-aid-israel-four-charts
    - lovich 6d ago
      And they can redirect resources to the war if we removed it. If anything, removal of our support probably leads to the use of dumber less targeted weapons like carpet bombing or good ole white phosphorus that they’ve already demonstrated use of in past conflicts. If we were giving them 30+% of their gdp then yea, dropping that probably stops the conflict. 2% is just a budget reshuffle.
      - paimapi 6d ago
        you should look up how much the 2008 financial crisis shrank the US GDP. 2% of an entire nation state's GDP especially with aid concentrated in gov\mil sectors of which a huge part of Israel's private sector is dependent on for grants is not a 'budget reshuffle'
        lovich 6d ago
        It is when there’s an existential threat which, agree with Israel’s government or not, they believe the neighboring Islamic factions are. I’m not claiming it would be easy but it’s definitely not an amount that losing would end the war overnight, which was the original claim I responded to
        funker337 6d ago
        [dead]
      - megous 6d ago
        Israelis can't carpet bomb. They don't have the tech. Are you saying 10's of thousands of bombs US supplied to level the entire cities and countryside to the ground is preferable to IL having to get this elsewhere, because why exactly? What does precision have to do with it? You can scroll around here to see what US did by providing all those mostly free bombs: https://earth.google.com/web/@31.31022959,34.24130746,30.07623278a,2340.44783902d,35y,0h,0t,0r/data=CgRCAggBOgMKATBCAggASg0I____________ARAA https://earth.google.com/web/@31.31022959,34.24130746,30.076... (south is the only thing google is not misrepresenting on the aerial imagery) This is preferable to carpet bombing, yeah? How?
- paimapi 6d ago
  oh? I didn't know China and Russia had such solid relationships with Israel. my understanding was that Israel has been repeatedly condemned by both and last I heard, the free-trade agreement with them has been stalled for years. but what do I know?
  - JumpCrisscross 6d ago
    > my understanding was that Israel has been repeatedly condemned by both and last I heard, the free-trade agreement with them has been stalled for years. but what do I know? India-Israel trade has been growing since diplomatic relations between the nations were established in 1992 (including since the war in Gaza) [1]. In 2025 they signed a bilateral investment agreement. And Israel is a growing defence provider to India. I know less about the China relationship, but it remains a major trading partner with Isrel [2]. (I do not believe there are significant military relations. China has recently been calling what Israel is doing in Gaza a genocide, and I'll note they started doing this a year ago, before Trump bungled into Iran, though for obvious reasons Beijing isn't dwelling on the question.) Russia is currently embedded with Iran, but nothing about that is geostrategic. Israel and the USSR once had close relations. Putin needs weapons for Ukraine. An Israel searching desperately for partners would be useful to Moscow. Note, too, that both China and India have governments in power that explicitly reject the rights of their domestic Muslim populations. [1] https://www.indembassyisrael.gov.in/pages?id=nel5a&subid=7ax9b https://www.indembassyisrael.gov.in/pages?id=nel5a&subid=7ax... [2] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/22/which-countries-trade-the-most-with-israel-and-what-do-they-buy-and-sell https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/22/which-countries-tra...
    - paimapi 6d ago
      Israel sanctioned BYD and China sanctioned Israeli cybersec firms back recently to my knowledge. The average Chinese citizen also is much more willing to call it a genocide and if there's one thing the Politburo knows to do, it's not to unnecessarily foment unrest by collusion I don't personally think it's likely relations would improve on this and I consider myself much better read on the goings-on of the PRC than most For the other nation states you discussed, I'm far from an expert on them so you very well might be right. But I doubt it'll be straightforward if the US were to cease aid. I also seriously doubt Israel would be so aggressively expansionist without the 300 billion or so they've received from the US. An un-invaded Iraq in combination with Iran would have put its existence at major jeopardy
lovich 6d ago
Israel vs Palestine is not a major conflict, especially given the one sided nature of the fight. Israel + US vs Iran is a majorish conflict but the US is directly a belligerent in that one. > also, arguably, the half-century of creating, establishing, funding, and build-up of NATO largely supersedes the point that Trump cut spending there temporarily. that all came from American coffers and the current conflict there is a long hangover from that Glossing over the Russian propaganda points accusing a defensive pact as a reason for starting a war, that still means that the conflict “ could be over tomorrow” is incorrect even if the US ended all support today.

JumpCrisscross 6d ago

> colonial nation state that the US is largely propping up (and wouldn't exist otherwise) This is a baseless, American-centric notion I've heard frequently in New York and San Francisco. If America pulled support from Israel, it would find partners in other countries. India and China are at the top of the list–they want Israeli weapons technology and intelligence. Russia would probably play too. And depending on the kind of mess we leave Iran in, some Gulf countries may also find a way to come to a nuclear technology transfer deal with Tel Aviv.

lovich 6d ago
I don’t know why so many people take it as a given that Israel only exists because of America. They used to be aligned with the USSR and we did a lot of work to peel them off into our own domain. They also have their own military industrial complex and are perfectly capable of manufacturing the weapons they need domestically. They also have nukes.
- paimapi 6d ago
  it probably has something to do with the fact that a full 2% of their GDP comes from US military aid alone: https://www.cfr.org/articles/us-aid-israel-four-charts https://www.cfr.org/articles/us-aid-israel-four-charts
  - lovich 6d ago
    And they can redirect resources to the war if we removed it. If anything, removal of our support probably leads to the use of dumber less targeted weapons like carpet bombing or good ole white phosphorus that they’ve already demonstrated use of in past conflicts. If we were giving them 30+% of their gdp then yea, dropping that probably stops the conflict. 2% is just a budget reshuffle.
    - paimapi 6d ago
      you should look up how much the 2008 financial crisis shrank the US GDP. 2% of an entire nation state's GDP especially with aid concentrated in gov\mil sectors of which a huge part of Israel's private sector is dependent on for grants is not a 'budget reshuffle'
      - lovich 6d ago
        It is when there’s an existential threat which, agree with Israel’s government or not, they believe the neighboring Islamic factions are. I’m not claiming it would be easy but it’s definitely not an amount that losing would end the war overnight, which was the original claim I responded to
      - funker337 6d ago
        [dead]
    - megous 6d ago
      Israelis can't carpet bomb. They don't have the tech. Are you saying 10's of thousands of bombs US supplied to level the entire cities and countryside to the ground is preferable to IL having to get this elsewhere, because why exactly? What does precision have to do with it? You can scroll around here to see what US did by providing all those mostly free bombs: https://earth.google.com/web/@31.31022959,34.24130746,30.07623278a,2340.44783902d,35y,0h,0t,0r/data=CgRCAggBOgMKATBCAggASg0I____________ARAA https://earth.google.com/web/@31.31022959,34.24130746,30.076... (south is the only thing google is not misrepresenting on the aerial imagery) This is preferable to carpet bombing, yeah? How?
paimapi 6d ago
oh? I didn't know China and Russia had such solid relationships with Israel. my understanding was that Israel has been repeatedly condemned by both and last I heard, the free-trade agreement with them has been stalled for years. but what do I know?
- JumpCrisscross 6d ago
  > my understanding was that Israel has been repeatedly condemned by both and last I heard, the free-trade agreement with them has been stalled for years. but what do I know? India-Israel trade has been growing since diplomatic relations between the nations were established in 1992 (including since the war in Gaza) [1]. In 2025 they signed a bilateral investment agreement. And Israel is a growing defence provider to India. I know less about the China relationship, but it remains a major trading partner with Isrel [2]. (I do not believe there are significant military relations. China has recently been calling what Israel is doing in Gaza a genocide, and I'll note they started doing this a year ago, before Trump bungled into Iran, though for obvious reasons Beijing isn't dwelling on the question.) Russia is currently embedded with Iran, but nothing about that is geostrategic. Israel and the USSR once had close relations. Putin needs weapons for Ukraine. An Israel searching desperately for partners would be useful to Moscow. Note, too, that both China and India have governments in power that explicitly reject the rights of their domestic Muslim populations. [1] https://www.indembassyisrael.gov.in/pages?id=nel5a&subid=7ax9b https://www.indembassyisrael.gov.in/pages?id=nel5a&subid=7ax... [2] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/22/which-countries-trade-the-most-with-israel-and-what-do-they-buy-and-sell https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/22/which-countries-tra...
  - paimapi 6d ago
    Israel sanctioned BYD and China sanctioned Israeli cybersec firms back recently to my knowledge. The average Chinese citizen also is much more willing to call it a genocide and if there's one thing the Politburo knows to do, it's not to unnecessarily foment unrest by collusion I don't personally think it's likely relations would improve on this and I consider myself much better read on the goings-on of the PRC than most For the other nation states you discussed, I'm far from an expert on them so you very well might be right. But I doubt it'll be straightforward if the US were to cease aid. I also seriously doubt Israel would be so aggressively expansionist without the 300 billion or so they've received from the US. An un-invaded Iraq in combination with Iran would have put its existence at major jeopardy

lovich 6d ago

Israel vs Palestine is not a major conflict, especially given the one sided nature of the fight. Israel + US vs Iran is a majorish conflict but the US is directly a belligerent in that one. > also, arguably, the half-century of creating, establishing, funding, and build-up of NATO largely supersedes the point that Trump cut spending there temporarily. that all came from American coffers and the current conflict there is a long hangover from that Glossing over the Russian propaganda points accusing a defensive pact as a reason for starting a war, that still means that the conflict “ could be over tomorrow” is incorrect even if the US ended all support today.