Constructive changes
Never mind, at least Russia is happy. (Same article; part 2.)
Russia’s UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, acknowledged what he said were “constructive changes” in the US position on the conflict. US allies in Europe on the 15-member council – France, Britain, Denmark, Greece and Slovenia – abstained from the vote.
Ya “constructive changes” to side with Russia instead of Ukraine and most of Europe.
The UK’s ambassador to the UN, Barbara Woodward, said after the vote that while London shared the “ambition to find a lasting end to this war”, there should be “no equivalence between Russia and Ukraine in how this council refers to this war”.
She added the UK regretted “our proposals making these points clear were not taken onboard, and as such we could not support this resolution”.
In other words the US is now the enemy of the liberal democracies.
It was the first security council resolution to pass during the war. The council had been unable to take any action because Russia holds a veto.
Russia did not veto the Trump administration’s resolution.
In contrast, and highlighting the US and Russia’s global isolation, the 193-member UN general assembly earlier backed a resolution drafted by Ukraine and the EU condemning Russia.
While security council resolutions are considered binding, general assembly resolutions are not. However, general assembly resolutions carry diplomatic and political gravity as they illuminate the global consensus on issues.
The US, Russia, Israel, Belarus and North Korea all voted against the EU-Ukrainian resolution, underlining an extraordinary shift since the election of Donald Trump, who has largely absolved Vladimir Putin of responsibility for the invasion.
North fucking Korea.
They’re mob bosses divvying up territory. “You can have Ukraine if you let us do what we like in Greenland and Canada.”
Israel hates Ukraine now too?
Israel may have made promises to Trump in exchange for something…I don’t try to understand Netanyahu any more than I try to understand Trump. It makes my brain hurt.
So it’s not really talked about much but he basically disassembled (admittedly it’ll take a few years) the American military industrial complex over the past week… An enemy Europe (and presumably Oceania/Asia) isn’t going to buy war planes or other kit. Also, deep spending cuts were proposed for defense 8% per year for five years.
Lots of these MAGA shitheads, often former military, work at these factories and it’s steady guaranteed work with decent pay and benefits. Some of them also make commercial aircraft parts (which considering Airbus is in France could be a problem); the domestic market isn’t going to cut it if there are considerably less international flights. I’m imagining passenger aircraft getting shot down more often.
In all the bad shit I thought he’d do I didn’t think I was likely to lose my job. Now I’m almost certain of it.
BKISA – I was thinking exactly the same thing regarding European defense budgets. At present, a very large proportion of that money is spent on American goods. Sticking to that policy in future would be insane, as Trump has made very clear that he’d be prepared to use that dependence to exert pressure on Europe if he thought it was strategically advantageous to do so.
I don’t see that Europe has much choice but to build up its own manufacturing capabilities and to become much more self reliant in terms of munitions. Obviously that can’t happen overnight and there will be a period of continued, perhaps increased, purchases from the US, but the medium term strategy must now surely be to wind that down and transition to a Europe based defense manufacturing sector. Long term, that seems to totally undercut American industrial interests. (As well as fatally undermining the idea of a united Western alliance, making Europe less inclined to go along with the US on other diplomatic issues and setting up what would effectively be a new rival for the US in many geopolitical areas.)
Still, it’s nice that Israel and Syria have found something they can agree about.