US should return to isolationism now. It never was an actual superpower. It just convincingly played one from a distance. Nearly every US engagement in recent times just shown how inapt US is at effecting anything anywhere through military action. US getting directly involved in Ukraine will just clearly show vast scale of US military incompetence to China and anyone who could still have any doubts.
This is nonsense. The US advising Ukraine and supplying s limited amount of weapons has allowed them to hold out against Russia when they were supposed to collapse in a week. If anything, this war has shown Russia to be a paper tiger. They're literally resorting to WW2 era tanks at this point.
Keep in mind that Russia and the US are both nuclear powers, so that complicates things as neither Putin, Biden, or Zelensky want nukes being thrown around.
Between the US's actually functioning carriers, F-22s, modern tanks, and finally functional JSFs...I don't think Russia's untrained cannon fodder being supplied by civilian vans is going to win out.
That being said, the democratic countries in Eastern europe are tiny and most have a very small military presence. Without NATO, Russia could conceivably storm into those countries.
I don't think there is a good answer here. Either let Putin steamroll a chunk of Europe or spend a ton of additional taxpayer dollars. A little googling suggests the U.S. support for Ukraine is 1.5% of our federal budget, which is crazy high if you think about it.
Isolationism has its benefits and drawbacks of course.
> A little googling suggests the U.S. support for Ukraine is 1.5% of our federal budget, which is crazy high if you think about it.
Isn't it surprising how little this mountain of money achieves? It just slows down Russia at the unsustainable cost of Ukrainian lives.
Maybe US budget is so huge for other reasons than their military prowess? Maybe everything US does is just vastly overpriced for its value? Could American military be even more overpriced than American healtcare?
I'm just saying it's a ton of money. We didn't just donate a few billion and call it quits.
I think part of this is viewed as an ongoing expense where we're constantly giving someone weapons (Israel, Ukraine, whoever) in order to keep the Defense industry in business. It is a roundabout way to give our tax dollars to Raytheon and other firms without directly giving it to them.
Slowing down Russia at the cost of Ukrainian lives is a decision for them to make. You might feel differently if your country was being invaded. The US citizen should get a vote though if they're paying through taxes and inflation.
Overpriced? Almost certainly. Government isn't efficient. It's run much more efficiently than Russia or China though where much of the funding is siphoned off due to corruption. We don't appear to have that problem at least, although the Pentagon constantly failing audits is suspicious and something we do need to look into.
I could only find older expression of this sentiment towards Findland but I heard about it recently too, just didn't pinpoint the source and I can't find it now:
