I have slowly realized that Trump is caught in a dilemma: How to not let Russia succeed while simultaneously booting the European arse into defending itself. Those are hard goals to balance.
Europe is flipping roughly 2/3rds of the bill for this war so far. They spent about the same as we did from day one and under Trump they became the primary.
https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/35554.jpeg
They are dealing with the majority of the refugees. We in fact took on very little of them!
They have supplied much of the military hardware, from day one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_aid_to_Ukraine_during_the_Russo-Ukrainian_war (look at the listing of hardware)
They will deal with the bulk of the post war clean up and economic rebuilding.
They are the ones from where the bulk of mercenaries and their casualties (volunteers from the West) come from:
https://strategic-culture.su/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/inf181_kia-01-scaled.jpg (2 years old, the numbers are vastly higher today).
What are you talking about?
I should also add, that it’s the Euro’s that are far more threatened and impacted by this war than we are, both in security and economically.
The idea that Europe isn’t carrying any weight or contributing their share is simply put another cliche, no differently than the Cold War feelings some try to conjure up to pretend like the Russians are this huge threat.
Have the Euro’s carried their weight in the past? No. Have they been the most reliable allies we can depend on? No. They historically were quick to call NATO (the US) into action (say the Balkans and conflict with Serbia) but then slow to come to help, post 9-11 in any tangible way (i.e. military).
They won’t want to see that about themselves, but they really have been moochers (historically, post Cold War) that want the security provided, but not stick their necks on the block (bleed) or pay for our collective security.
But claiming they aren’t contributing with Ukraine, is simply factually inaccurate. With Ukraine they have been contributing from day one and in many aspects carry more than we do.
