17 Feb
10:27am, 17 Feb 2025
31,780 posts
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richmac
I agree it can be rapid but then again so are earthquakes and they tend to have bad outcomes as well
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17 Feb
10:34am, 17 Feb 2025
7,483 posts
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paulcook
larkim wrote: It is interesting how the media reports on Trump's recent foreign policy moves as being a long lasting and permanent reset of the way things are. Sorry if I'm butchering your words, but giving Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, etc, to Russia isn't a reset. Europe wants one thing, Trump wants another. |
17 Feb
10:51am, 17 Feb 2025
26,658 posts
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larkim
Yes, I suppose it's whether what "Trump wants" becomes "what long term America wants". If the USA does really pull away from the post-WW2 "consensus" that pivots around NATO mutually defending against the "East" and turns it into a tripartite relationship which makes Europe as vulnerable to the USA as it is to Russia, that would be a major upheaval. And at the moment it feels like enough of their population want to say "we're tired of taking on a duty to 'protect' Europe and it's borders, because my groceries are getting expensive" rather than the previous consensus of "we enjoy being the West's policeman because it makes us feel important and superior". |
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17 Feb
10:54am, 17 Feb 2025
7,485 posts
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paulcook
larkim wrote: which makes Europe as vulnerable to the USA as it is to Russia, that would be a major upheaval. And at the moment it feels like enough of their population want to say "we're tired of taking on a duty to 'protect' Europe and it's borders, because my groceries are getting expensive" rather than the previous consensus of "we enjoy being the West's policeman because it makes us feel important and superior". It really feels like USA is not our ally at all. |
17 Feb
11:04am, 17 Feb 2025
27,417 posts
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Dave W
“Two peoples separated by a common language”. Looking at the US from here it’s unrecognisable as the country we have known most of our lives. Even with previous Republican presidents it was still a reasonably normal place. No one has taken a wrecking ball to it like Trump has now. Both domestically and internationally. So he’s either a stable genius or a complete blithering idiot. I plump for the latter. But time will tell. |
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17 Feb
11:04am, 17 Feb 2025
26,659 posts
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larkim
Or does it feel like the USA under Trump is not our ally at all? I suppose overall the key thing for these 4 years is how much he shifts the middle ground with any degree of permanence; on defence, on strategic alliances, on the economy, etc etc
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17 Feb
11:11am, 17 Feb 2025
7,486 posts
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paulcook
Yes, "is" as in present tense, Trump's America. Perhaps diplomacy hasn't changed, perhaps it has, but we can't rely on international stability for the Western world like we used to do. I guess some will argue this started with Brexit. Putin, for one but there will be others, will thrive off the instability and he played some kind of part in creating the instability around Brexit. And yet there are some "patriots" who would rather Putin be in charge of the UK than Starmer.
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17 Feb
11:12am, 17 Feb 2025
27,423 posts
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Dave W
I don’t trust him an inch. And I really don’t even think he’s got America or Americans at the top of his mind when he does things. It’s all about him. Hopefully he’ll make such a fuck up of it this year that even the craven Republican Party will have to do something. |
17 Feb
11:47am, 17 Feb 2025
18,484 posts
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jda
The genie is out of the bottle and nothing that "the US" chooses to agree to can ever be binding on the *next* government.
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17 Feb
11:48am, 17 Feb 2025
47,066 posts
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SPR
Hindsight certainly suggests how the war was handled wasn't the best way forward. The West essentially hoped that Russia would run out of money/ resolve/ etc, but if Trump is essentially saying he doesn't care about Ukraine and Europe can't support them by themselves then it would have been better to have been more forceful earlier and get a resolution.
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