- 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.
Lol you mean Putin is calm and collected now?
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.Lemmy users don’t understand nuance. “Israel bad” is all they understand.
That’s not what I was saying at all. I was legitimately asking the question. I hadn’t considered the foreign policy implications of Israel being an ally.
It’s good that you are willing to acknowledge that. A lot of people on here truly reject the concept that the situation is more complicated than “stop supporting Israel”. People are quick to spout that without thinking about the knock-on effects.
There are even people on here who are outright in support of Hamas, an oppressive Islamist group that has a far worse human rights record than Israel.
A lot of
peopleanonymous accounts on here truly reject the concept that the situation is more complicated than “stop supporting Israel”.
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.
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”.
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.
Do it
Why wouldn’t Biden allow it?
The same reason most of NATO have been very hesitant and the like:
Supporting a defensive war is one thing. Supporting an offensive war, against a nuclear power that threatens to nuke people on days ending in ‘y’, is another. And while it is incredibly unlikely that putin would actually attack anyone (since they can’t even handle a Ukraine with one arm tied behind its back), it will still lead to political turmoil as people insist the world is about to end.
But now? This is a REAL good way to distract people from the other, much less defensive, war that we are financing.
I never understand this logic. The war is still defensive regardless where the targets are.
That is the same kind of mess that made the no fly zone so untenable.
But to the eyes of a public who are not sure if they are more afraid of World War 3 or Iraq War 3? Having that line of “We are only helping Ukraine to defend themselves, not to escalate this war” “works”.
And if it sounds like we don’t actually care about the Ukrainian people and just view them as a tool to keep Russia busy?
How is it an offensive war if they’re still fighting on Ukrainian soil? I haven’t seen anyone propose invading Russia itself.
And while it is incredibly unlikely that putin would actually attack anyone
I think it is highly likely that if NATO ordered an airstrike out of Finland or Estonia or Turkyie, Russia would retaliate into a US/UK/French military base with equivalent force.
If NATO put tanks into Latvia and sent them across the border, I have no doubt Russia would send matched forces with the intention of pushing back into Latvia.
And because Russia is closer to Latvia, Estonia, Turkyie, and Finland than the US, that gives them a decive advantage.
Two words: Nuclear War
First you have to have nukes that work and that is debatable. Second, if they send a single nuke, they’ll be wiped off the face of the earth in about 15 minutes.
…but so will the a large part of the US
From who?
Russia, or possibly China and North Korea.
Come on, no chance. Russia likely doesn’t have any that work, China won’t nuke us, and North Korea??? Rofl. They’d blow themselves up before they get one to us.
If missles start landing on Russia with American flags on them things could get confusing really quickly.
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.
Fire away
sword missile his car, please
Hell yeah give him the Ron Popeil treatment.
Are you tired of your life as an authoritarian dictator? We sure are! Introducing the Ronco laser guided AGM-114R9X Instant Ginsu. Watch as the patented steel blades cut through the roof of this SUV, and are still tomato slicing sharp. Makes your darks darker and your whites redder. Order now for your six Instant Ginsu blades and receive a 100 pound kinetic warhead absolutely free, you just pay shipping and handling. Call 1-800-382-5968. Sorry, no CODs.
Fuck puthead. Hes been asking for a while now
Is Biden really trying to start WWIII before the election?
Liberals generally don’t try to start wars. They start them by trying as hard as they can to avoid them, deriving their choices from a woefully incorrect model of how war happens.
Presidents traditionally do better during war time
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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.
Ukraine has been slowly evolving into a 1980s era NATO army, while Russia has slowly been regressing into a 1960s Soviet one
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.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The New York Times on Thursday reported that US officials are debating rolling back the rule, which Ukraine has argued severely hampers its ability to defend itself.
The apparent U-turn comes after Russia placed weapons across the border from northeastern Ukraine and directed them at Kharkiv, according to the Times.
Analysts say the policy shift could hand Ukraine a crucial advantage in fighting Russia’s attacks, using US weapons to strike troop gatherings and Russian planes that carry “glide bombs.”
According to reports, Biden believes that Russia could hit back by launching an attack on the US or one of its allies, leading to a retaliatory spiral that could result in nuclear war.
But so far Russia has yet to respond to these moves with a massive escalatory attack, and analysts recently told BI that the Kremlin appears keen to avoid a direct war with NATO allies.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in an interview with Reuters this week, criticized Western caution, saying that its support typically came about a year too late.
The original article contains 496 words, the summary contains 171 words. Saved 66%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Putin’s red lines mean nothing, fuck him and his broke-ass country.
Putin has demonstrated a willingness to lie about when and where he will order the Russian army to attack.
As far as I’m concerned, that means he doesn’t get a voice at the table any more.
So I agree: fuck his red lines.
As long as US officials restrict strikes to avoid Russian nuclear deterrence installations, I don’t really see why this wasn’t already permitted.
The key US policy consideration in the conflict should be to avoid nuclear escalation. Don’t strike nuclear early warning radars, don’t strike nuclear silos, and everything else should be fine.
Putin might become “enraged”?
Oh no!
Anyway…can dbzer0 users comment here on lemmy.world?
Yeah dude I can see you from my l.w. account
That’s the whole point of Lemmy, isn’t it.
well see my post I made. Apparently there can be sync issues that are quite apparent.
There used to be a lot of problems with that back in December/January after the 0.19 release was being rolled out, but they managed to fix them eventually and I haven’t really had any issues for the past three months or so. Has your instance recently upgraded their software perhaps?
well the sync issues im talking about are quite specific use cases which you wouldnt encounter on the regular. See my post for reference. It’s about searching specific communities on difference instances from another instance. Then, only the communities with very little traffic will not be synced. I’ve no idea what my instance’s latest version is. Can a non-admin even check that?
It should be at the bottom of the page. Looks like your instance is on version 0.19.3, which I believe is the most recent one.
For any further questions, you should probably talk to your instance admin.
If it’s the latest version, then talking to instance admins wouldn’t be of any help, because every instance suffers from the same issue…
It might, because it could be configuration issue.
I can see your comment but I don’t belong to lemmy.world
Let’s find out together
Idk seems unlikely.
