“Off Ramp”
Lots of handwringing over how the war ends. I like the Finnish Prime Minister’s approach. Let’s not over complicate this shit.
Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin was asked about a potential off-ramp for Russia to end the war in Ukraine. Her reply: pic.twitter.com/VblWxkMuFc
— Rikhard Husu (@RikhardHusu) October 7, 2022
Easy for her to say. We’re the ones underwriting this with massive checks every few weeks.
Not saying we shouldn’t be doing this, but should we have a say about negotiations?
I also notice nobody is asking how we’re paying for it. Interesting.
Easy for her to say? The Finns backed that up once already.
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, selling weapons is what America does. Just me, but I prefer giving them to Ukraine to selling them to the Saudis.
That’s not really the question though is it
No, the question is why should we give Putin what he wants, isn’t it?
RE VANELLA, the Bill Buckley of Delaware Liberal.
Uh, not exactly.
This gives me a great idea.
We are about 40 billion in – on this 2nd Ukrainian war – the first one was 2014.
Just as a measure – the US spent 800 billion just for our military to be in Afganistan – beyond the thousands our dead and wounded and the many vets dealing with PTSD. There should be a in depth review and debate after these elections and perhaps this war on how badly we (the US) overestimated Russian military strength. The Russians were to have “fixed” their military problems after their Georgia debacle. That obviously didn’t happen. Military Industrial complex indeed. Russia will not disappear – but the decolonization of Russia has started.
and Ukraine definitely won’t disappear….
Nevertheless, she’s right.
Pretty sure Finland has borne the cost of a culturally and militarily hostile Russia for the past two centuries. If I was Finnish, I’m pretty sure that’d be my response too.
I was thinking the same thing. It is not exactly an academic question for the Finns
Other then the Fascism fans in the Republican party (which would be all of them) I think funding Ukraine goes beyond “How do we pay for it” to something that must be done. In addition Ukraine has let the wind out of the sails of the Russian army and shown them to be pathetic and futile in what their trying to do. Finally it beats the hell out of a trillion dollar tax cut for the sacred rich. Haven’t paid for the either.
It’s interesting how arrive at the definition of “something that must be done”.
You know how they arrive there. “Does it affect our investments?” is the key question they ask.
We’ve been sending Ukraine a lot of weapons and supplies from inventory on hand. Investors should brighten up when replacement orders for new manufacturing starts hitting the books.
Total bilateral aid commitments to Ukraine as a percentage of donor gross domestic product (GDP) between January 24 and October 3, 2022, by country
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303450/bilateral-aid-to-ukraine-in-a-percent-of-donor-gdp/
Latvia 0.92%
Estonia 0.85%
Poland 0.49%
Lithuania 0.43%
Norway 0.38%
United States 0.25%
United Kingdom 0.24%
Slovakia 0.2%
Canada 0.18%
Czechia 0.16%
Austria 0.13%
Portugal 0.11%
Denmark 0.11%
Slovenia 0.1%
Sweden 0.09%
Greece 0.08%
Germany 0.08%
Luxembourg 0.07%
Netherlands 0.06%
Finland 0.06%
France 0.04%
Belgium 0.04%
Croatia 0.04%
Italy 0.04%
Hungary 0.03%
Spain 0.03%
Australia 0.02%
Ireland 0.02%
I guess I’m saying, sure, yeah, very pressing concern for the Finns. So, like, how about kicking an amount commensurate with the threat?
Ireland. Ya fucking cheap bastards!
Comparing the military aid from, say, Estonia and Finland. The latter has 4x the population and 5x the GDP.
Estonia has contributed €300m and recouped $140m from US Foreign Military Funding and €135m from EU’s European Peace Facility fund.
Finland has contributed €100m and added an extra €2bn to its own military purchases this year. Unlike Estonia, Finland is a net payer in EU and not yet a member of NATO.
With this stuff, you need the full context.