Russia Derangement Syndrome has gotten so insane that endless war and death is preferable to just accepting that you lost the war you provoked.
What are the odds that Europe starts militarizing again to counter Russia in any meaningful capacity (assuming the US withdraws entirely to focus on China)
They already are, but it will take some time before anything noticeable pops out the other end. Right now the focus is on drones to counter the Russian drones, and detection systems all along the border.
You can't be sending up a multi-billion euro fighter jet, in order to deal with €2,000 worth of drones.
EU & USA will attack Russia and China at the same time. They are already planning for it.
Neither of them really has any power to "reject" anything here.
The Europeans are irrelevant and i think Trump will just ignore their yapping. He despises most of them anyway. But Ukraine can definitely reject. The question is what will the US do in response?
Will Trump go through with the threat to cut off all military and intelligence support? Without US intelligence and US battlefield communications systems the entire Ukrainian army probably collapses within weeks. Europe can keep pumping cash and a trickle of weapons, but it just doesn't have the capability to replace the US's ISR.
Or he could apply more pressure with the anti-corruption investigations angle, though i think that the "anti-corruption" apparatus in Ukraine is more a European tool than it is a US one. Trump could very well flip flop again, or he could chicken out, not wanting the bad PR of being blamed for a Ukrainian collapse. I think Kiev and its European allies can try to blackmail Trump with this angle, but if Trump has the balls he can just call their bluff.
Of course this is assuming that Trump actually wants to end the war, which is not necessarily the case. He probably mostly just wants to pawn it off on the Europeans but in a way that doesn't make him look weak.
He despises most of them anyway.
I mean don't we all
Trump should sanction Ukraine now. The EU will fold naturally.
Zelensky saw his shadow, 6 more weeks of war.
Isn't this "plan" a us plan that the media is trying to portray as already accepeted by Russia before they even said anything? And considering Putin said yesterday that they are getting what they want militarily already I don't think Russia would accept something so bad either.
It's basically an opening US position, and if there's a serious plan to wind the war down on the US side then there are going to be months of discussion going forward. If the US expects Russia to simply accept the proposal as is, that's not gonna happen. Russians already stated that what was discussed in Alaska would have to be the bare minimum starting position. However, the plan might be to just dump the whole thing on the Europeans. If Europe and Ukraine reject the plan, then Russia doesn't even have to say anything. The US will just say this was a plan acceptable to us, and since you don't like it then it's all yours, have fun with it.
The plan is giving the us an excuse to dump the war on europe and make themselves look like a winner or less of a sore loser. The EU will shoot this plan down, then Trump will get very very mad and wash his hands from the entire thing, while ukraine collapses and russia has free reign.
Until the us actually dumps their (partial) puppet that is Ukraine I'll prefer to not assume it as using Ukraine is very profitable for a lot of the people with political power in the us.
The union and Ukraine seem to stuck in a rock and hard place without US support would they be willing to make up the short fall in aid to Ukraine
I'm guessing they're banking on Trump flip flopping again.
Which is not an unreasonable bet to make.
exactly, he changes his mind every day
That’ll just bite them in the ass
eventually it will
I think trump still has a dozen flops left in him (and at least that many flips) but he might be saving them for other stuff.
Indeed. Now that it's becoming impossible to hide the fact that the AFU is collapsing, he doesn't want to be left holding the bag. Throwing it over to the Europeans seems like his only way out now. He can say the terms were acceptable to the US, and if they're not acceptable to Europe then they're welcome to take over. This way he won't have to own the L.
Meanwhile, the Europeans completely trapped themselves in their own narrative. They've been talking about rearmament and being able to take on Russia to keep the Americans in. Now Trump might do judo on them and say since you've been saying you're so capable, you've got nothing to worry about. We'll sell you all the weapons you need, and the rest is up to you.
Would the US be willing to part or even sell some of their high tech equipment especially since they can only produce a short number of them and they're needed for the eventual confrontation with china in the Taiwan strait?
I doubt the actual capacity for production is going to be a consideration. What's gonna happen is that US companies will just get a bunch of contracts funded by European money. And then there are going to be inevitable delays because they can't actually produce that stuff, but by then the money is already committed and that's what matters.
Even if we do there are the reported US controlled kill switches. Not that they can't be reverse engineered and made moot, but that also takes time.
I fervently hope so. I'm beginning to think it's all deliberately elaborate orchestrated theatre to keep us distracted from whatever horrendously sinister plans the Western powers are enacting while we're distracted. I'm only half kidding.
no chance