what exactly are you referring to?

Why do you say that? Americans not caring about democracy and freedom wasn’t on my personal bingo card prior to the 2024 election so it did come as a bit of a shock to me.

Agreed, I don’t mean to suggest anyone should go back to viewing the Republicans as a normal political party if they do. It would be purely opportunistic on their part.

There’s also value in making him even less popular at home as this is very likely to do if it drags out with no clear end. If the dems got control of the both the senate and the house in November everyone probably would have to deal with less of his bs. Even better if the majority becomes big enough for them to do more. There’s probably even a point where even his own party would start to finally distance themselves from him more.

Hasn’t he done that already? What is the US doing to help Ukraine at this point?

It was just another post on “Truth social”. Full version of this particular ramble here:

Many Countries, especially those who are affected by Iran’s attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe. We have already destroyed 100% of Iran’s Military capability, but it’s easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close range missile somewhere along, or in, this Waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are. Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send Ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a Nation that has been totally decapitated. In the meantime, the United States will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline, and continually shooting Iranian Boats and Ships out of the water. One way or the other, we will soon get the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE, and FREE! President DONALD J. TRUMP

Clearly that is doing more than just saying they “may have interest”. It is expressing a desire for them to on his part. I guess it’s not pleading but it is definitely him publicly urging them to do it. It’s also interesting that in the same message he claims that many countries will be sending warships before expressing this hope that some he lists would.

Nation state and a cultural identity are not the same thing. A single language is related to the former but also not really the defining feature. The idea of Italy existed for centuries before it became one. Nation state as a concept is recent enough that it only started becoming popular after the United States was founded, from the French revolution onwards.

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Sadly it has a pretty good chance of affecting many people who never supported him as well.

That would depend on the details of the hypothetical. Certainly if Ukraine was able to develop a credible threat with first strike survivability before Russia became aware I would expect Russia to be forced to move towards de-escalation and diplomacy because their major cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg which Putin has tried to shield completely from all effects of the war would be in danger.

Lacking that and with a credible ability to eliminate the nuclear weapon completely with a pre-emptive strike Russia would probably do it even if it meant nuclear strikes against Ukraine.

Well as soon as oil prices surged and markets dipped, Trump switched from “war could go on forever” to “almost done”. I guess it remains to be seen if it is only a rhetoric switch but if that was the case it wouldn’t help for long. The less certain thing is whether Trump can even get the strait to reopen by withdrawing at this point.

They’d care because it’s not just the poor citizens you’d sacrifice to the gods of nuclear fire but also the very important ones with money and political connections. And the stock markets would really sink, the thing that gets Trump to TACO out every time.

Of course you want as strong a deterrent as possible but from estimates I’ve read North Korea’s 10 nukes with MIRVs and decoy launches would very likely still be effective enough to extract a very serious price for invading.

Obviously if you just assume there is not even the slightest bit of rational self-interest from the actors involved, you’ve already lost humanity to nukes anyway.

There’s still a significant deterrent effect even if you’d “only” lose a few major cities worth while others stay around. There’s also potential for extended responses by other nuclear weapons states that further increase deterrence for such a scenario.

I’m not so sure about that since it’s still possible for them to hit stuff and people they care about even though they may not care about the country or its people in general.

And no doubt the S&P500 would tank so there’s that. Seems to be the one thing Trump cares about more than anything else.

Works both ways, while the USA is thinking about invading another country with nuclear weapons they have to know that will lead to nukes from that country hitting their major cities which will probably make them think twice.

Then the discussion moves to pre-emptive strikes which have the same problem if the other country already has nukes. Eventually we end up in this situation where some might see even pursuing a nuclear weapons technology as justification for a war of aggression like we’re seeing in Iran so you certainly need to be careful during that phase but once you get there you’re in a much safer place than you used to.

they exist to prevent conflict at all because everyone knows the consequences of using them.

Putin attacking Ukraine has certainly played a part here but the big and much more impactful final push for this has been NATO members losing trust in the USA and its nuclear umbrella because of Trump. After all every one of these European nations except for Ukraine which is the only non-member was happy with the NATO guarantees for a very long time before this.

The great powers got veto rights for them to participate at all in it and for them to be able to do as they please in the future. I don’t think “weaponising” is the correct framing because from the point of view of probably pretty much everyone else other than them (and of course even for them when it comes to the other ones) it would absolutely be a good thing if the UN was able to limit their actions too. The people who came up with the whole concept of international law certainly would not have preferred this situation where the law is not the same for everyone, it’s against the basic principles of rule of law.

This comment should win some kind of an award. How on earth could anyone think the history of Ukrainian culture began 30 years ago when a regime that itself had only existed for around 70 years fell apart?

Yeah, it’s a consequence of pretending that there is no difference between the Democrats and Republicans and ending up helping Trump get in power.