Sounds as if the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is not best pleased with Trump and Hegseth's unilateral declarations about Ukraine. 

 

A state of emergency would give Scholz the ability to massively increase support to Ukraine.

 

Quote

"Today, we must confront the reality of what the actions and statements from the US administration mean for Ukraine, Europe, and the world. Failure to act will mean a threat to the security of our country and our continent. I will not allow that to happen at this critical time for our country," the German leader promised.

 

Scholz proposes declaring state of emergency in Germany due to war in Ukraine

 

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/scholz-proposes-declaring-state-of-emergency-in-germany-due-to-war-in-ukraine/ar-AA1z1Pte

 

Sweden has also countered the US position, stating that there is no reason why Ukraine can't become a NATO member in future.

 

Ukraine's future NATO membership not off the table, Sweden says

 

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-future-nato-membership-not-off-table-sweden-says-2025-02-13/

2 minutes ago, GroveHillWanderer said:

Sounds as if the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is not best pleased with Trump and Hegseth's unilateral declarations about Ukraine. 

 

A state of emergency would give Scholz the ability to massively increase support to Ukraine.

 

 

Scholz proposes declaring state of emergency in Germany due to war in Ukraine

 

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/scholz-proposes-declaring-state-of-emergency-in-germany-due-to-war-in-ukraine/ar-AA1z1Pte

 

Sweden has also countered the US position, stating that there is no reason why Ukraine can't become a NATO member in future.

 

Ukraine's future NATO membership not off the table, Sweden says

 

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-future-nato-membership-not-off-table-sweden-says-2025-02-13/

IIRC NATO membership is dependent on a unanimous vote of existing members to admit a new member.

 

Under Trump, the US would never agree, as he is too busy kissing Putin's rear end.

 

If Trump pulled out of NATO, that would clear the way.

 

OTOH, it would also signal to the rest of the world an alliance with America is worthless.

5 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

IIRC NATO membership is dependent on a unanimous vote of existing members to admit a new member.

 

Under Trump, the US would never agree, as he is too busy kissing Putin's rear end.

 

If Trump pulled out of NATO, that would clear the way.

 

OTOH, it would also signal to the rest of the world an alliance with America is worthless.

More Trump obsession babble. We arent pulling out of Nato as long as they do what they are told, and they will.

 

Its a new day. The free ride is over.

2 minutes ago, Yagoda said:

More Trump obsession babble. We arent pulling out of Nato as long as they do what they are told, and they will.

 

Its a new day. The free ride is over.

NATO is an alliance and is NOT told by any tinpot dictator like Trump what to do!

Go and look up the word "alliance" in a dictionary and while you are it it read the NATO Atlantic Charter which includes this;

The NATO Motto is "animus in consulendo liber" (Latin for 'a mind unfettered in deliberation').

This is not something you can ever be accused of!

21 minutes ago, GroveHillWanderer said:

A state of emergency would give Scholz the ability to massively increase support to Ukraine.

 

Send your Leopards to Kursk.

It worked out so well last time.

 

Hitler believed that a victory here would reassert German strength and improve his prestige with his allies, who he thought were considering withdrawing from the war.

 

Hey!  

History!

It rhymes!

Why isnt he calling a state of emergency about this? Germany has got their own problems 

Ok Olaf, tell Zelensky you will support the war and send 100s of billions of dollars to him and weapons to keep the fight going. Good luck.

7 minutes ago, scottiejohn said:

NATO is an alliance and is NOT told by any tinpot dictator like Trump what to do!

Go and look up the word "alliance" in a dictionary and while you are it it read the NATO Atlantic Charter which includes this;

The NATO Motto is "animus in consulendo liber" (Latin for 'a mind unfettered in deliberation').

This is not something you can ever be accused of!

Yap yap yap the stalking little flamer is back.

 

NATO will do whats its told. So will your country. Trump is YOUR boss.

Just now, Yagoda said:

Yap yap yap the stalking little flamer is back.

 

NATO will do whats its told. So will your country. Trump is YOUR boss.

Trump may be your boss and I assume you along with 70million odd other lunatics voted for him will do as he dictates to you!

 

Just remember that NO ONE else in the world voted for him and neither you nor him can or will tell me or other non Americans what to do!

 

Your insufferable arrogance, and that goes for most MAGAlomanics, has the potential to destroy the world order as we know it.

 

Please do not respond!

If you insist in so doing then please refrain from using any of the following as they do NOT apply to the majority of NON MAGAlomaniacs;

Democrat

Leftist

Socialist

Yap yap yap

 

9 hours ago, bkk6060 said:

Ok Olaf, tell Zelensky you will support the war and send 100s of billions of dollars to him and weapons to keep the fight going. Good luck.

All in the nine days he has left as Germany leader???

1 hour ago, pegman said:

All in the nine days he has left as Germany leader???

 

........as offended liverwurst.

15 minutes ago, scottiejohn said:

You forgot to bark! So I will do it for you; Yap Yap Yap!

Lookie, the widdle puppy cant help himself. Isnt he cute. At least he waited a few minutes. 

 

Dude how about a bit of ladvice for you. You are never going to have a happy life stalking and waiting with bated breath and eager anticipation for some anonymous dude to post something on a Forum so you can fire off a silly response. Its sort of childish, but hey, your life.

 

Back to your regularly scheduled stalking. Ill go find something to post about, bet you are on it like a puppy on a dead possum.

Hegseth did not say that Ukraine would never be a member of NATO, he only said that becoming a NATO member would not be part of the negotiations. 

 

What NATO member is ready to put boots on the ground in NATO. 

 

There is talk that as part of the negotiation, that in the event that Russia invaded Ukraine in the future, it would be treated as an attack on a NATO member by the US. 

IMO, but for Ukraine Scholz would have remained an unknown nobody outside Germany. Trying to retain his place in the history books with an ineffectual and nonsense pronouncement.

3 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

Hegseth did not say that Ukraine would never be a member of NATO, he only said that becoming a NATO member would not be part of the negotiations. 

 

What NATO member is ready to put boots on the ground in NATO. 

 

There is talk that as part of the negotiation, that in the event that Russia invaded Ukraine in the future, it would be treated as an attack on a NATO member by the US. 

No one is going to give Ukraine a security guarantee. Nobody! It would be suicide considering how the Ukrainian majority enjoys abusing its minorities some of which have a very big brother nearby. Zero chance Putin begins negotiations unless NATO membership is off the table. The President of Ukraine, now considered a dictator because of his cancelling of elections, is grasping at straws. The west have tried for three years to come up with some leverage against Russia. Everything has failed and either Ukraine capitulates or all of the east side of the Dnieper River along with the rest of the coast on the Black Sea will be lost after a year or two more fighting. Think Vietnam after January 1973. Poland, Romania and Hungry can then split up what remains

3 hours ago, Yagoda said:

Lookie, the widdle puppy cant help himself. Isnt he cute. At least he waited a few minutes. 

 

Dude how about a bit of ladvice for you. You are never going to have a happy life stalking and waiting with bated breath and eager anticipation for some anonymous dude to post something on a Forum so you can fire off a silly response. Its sort of childish, but hey, your life.

 

Back to your regularly scheduled stalking. Ill go find something to post about, bet you are on it like a puppy on a dead possum.

When you can find a real live fact to post about, please let us know.

 

It will be a new experience for everyone.

6 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

When you can find a real live fact to post about, please let us know.

 

It will be a new experience for everyone.

Hi what side are you on in this topic?

 

Oh, got it, you would rather talk about me, not anything on topic. Thats called stalking and trolling. But good for your post count and admiration among your blathering sycophants.

19 hours ago, GroveHillWanderer said:

Sweden has also countered the US position, stating that there is no reason why Ukraine can't become a NATO member in future.

 

If the US says no, then Ukraine will not become a member. End of. Membership is by consensus. Each member country of nato has a veto on new members.

I tend to agree. I think Trump and his rank amateur bottom of the barrel picks are creating a state of emergency. In the first month of his presidency he has made the world infinitely less stable, and this man needs to be stopped. 

This is a multilayered issue. I agree with Trump that the other members of NATO need to step up and pull their weight with defence spending, as the US has been doing the heavy lifting thus far... and the other members have sherked their responsibilities in favour of social programs. That was okay after the Cold War finished and was called "The Peace Dividend"... however, that time is clearly over as many bad actors are now getting more powerful and the world is becoming much more dangerous every day. Europe should take responsibility for its defence and it's folly to rely on others for this... peace through strength works. Europe has had 80 years since WW2 to get it's defencive act together and they have fail badly.

On the other hand, the US cannot unilaterally decide everything in NATO, and Trump has mistakenly gone over the heads of all the US allies and just done a Neville Chamberlain appeasement job... that's not good, and dangerous, because if anyone thinks Putin will negotiate in good faith, then you are deluded. The Kremlin just sees a ceasefire or peace deal as a chance to reload and reprime itself for another go later. The only thing Putin respects is strength and the West isn't showing this at the moment, just tepid support for Ukraine at best.

Europe needs to man-up and say to the US "Don't get involved, we'll deal with it on this one"... showing it has a spine. The previous status-quo is gone and changes on many fronts are coming. Whilst I agree with Trump on a fair few things, his Ukraine strategy is foolish... you can't appease dictators or awful regimes, got to front them up.

14 hours ago, Sir Dude said:

On the other hand, the US cannot unilaterally decide everything in NATO, and Trump has mistakenly gone over the heads of all the US allies and just done a Neville Chamberlain appeasement job... that's not good, and dangerous, because if anyone thinks Putin will negotiate in good faith, then you are deluded.

Perhaps Trump really doesn't care one way or the other about Ukraine, and only cares that he'll get a peace prize if he is seen as ending it. On these pages it seems as though the entire world's countries care about Ukraine- they don't. Most of them don't care if Russia takes it all- makes zero difference to them, and a lot of them are more friendly with Russia and Russia's ally China than the west, which colonized and exploited them.

Here's a surprise for some on here, most of the planet's countries don't worship western democracy, seeing it for what it really is with it's perpetual wars in the M E, and they are not impressed.

 

BTW. Chamberlain had no choice as Britain had no military capable of defeating Germany, so he was at the disadvantage. Even after Churchill's re armanent the Germans easily defeated the British in France. Appeasement was his only realistic option at that time.

Ergo, Trump is not doing a Chamberlain- it's just that he has more important things to concentrate on and doesn't care.

14 hours ago, Sir Dude said:

Europe needs to man-up and say to the US "Don't get involved, we'll deal with it on this one"... showing it has a spine. The previous status-quo is gone and changes on many fronts are coming.

I doubt they are able to. 75 years of socialism has made Euro men into soft creatures. It takes hard times to breed hard men.

14 hours ago, John Drake said:

 

If the US says no, then Ukraine will not become a member. End of. Membership is by consensus. Each member country of nato has a veto on new members.

Another sensible post.

18 hours ago, pegman said:

No one is going to give Ukraine a security guarantee. Nobody! It would be suicide considering how the Ukrainian majority enjoys abusing its minorities some of which have a very big brother nearby. Zero chance Putin begins negotiations unless NATO membership is off the table. The President of Ukraine, now considered a dictator because of his cancelling of elections, is grasping at straws. The west have tried for three years to come up with some leverage against Russia. Everything has failed and either Ukraine capitulates or all of the east side of the Dnieper River along with the rest of the coast on the Black Sea will be lost after a year or two more fighting. Think Vietnam after January 1973. Poland, Romania and Hungry can then split up what remains

 

Tankie propaganda.

 

Churchill was never considered a dictator. The National Goverment went 10 years without election.

 

Putin is a dying man. He will be irrelevant in the future of Ukraine, and whatever is left of Russia when its federation collapses.

 

People like you would have thrown in the towel against the Nazis by 1942, because in 3 years, all that had happened was loss after loss after loss.

15 hours ago, Sir Dude said:

This is a multilayered issue. I agree with Trump that the other members of NATO need to step up and pull their weight with defence spending

 

Partly. The US defence spending is somewhat misleading. Much of the US defence budget is nothing to do with NATO commitments.  A significant portion of the US defense is wasted. In 2023, a GAO audit found the US military had no idea where 60% of their assets were. I suspect some of those assets only existed on paper, And of the rest, if they don't know where the stuff is, they might as well not exist. Another portion of their budget goes in overseas military aid to prop up governments vital to the interests of the US, but really not at all important to NATO. The US expends significant amounts garrisioning forces in Okinawa and Korea, again, not really much to do with NATO

 

Another aspect is nuclear weapons. About 10% of the US defence budget is spent on nuclear weapons. Within NATO, only the US, UK and France are armed with such. The UK's neclear deterrance cannot be considered truely independant. The Allied Powers required Germany to renounce neclear weapons, thus enshrining Europe's utter dependance on the US nuclear umbrella.

 

In Afghanistan, prior to 2010, US forces were split between ISAF, the NATO led mission, and USFOR-A , which is the command that spent its time chasing around the mountains looking for a Yemeni. US contribution to ISAF at the time was 13,000 troops. Number of troops chasing a Yemeni; 18,000

 

While the NATO treaty required countries to spend adequate amounts on defence, its right that the level needed should be determined by each member. There is much "in kind" defence spending. The US has the advantage of using European property and facilities to preposition equipment, people facilties that it could not in the Homeland, to enable a war to be thought across the Plains of Germany and not the praries of Kansas. If not for Ramstein, Mildenhall, Redzikowo and others, the US would need to spend more in its defence budget. The purpose of these bases is not to protect the UK, Germany and Poland. For instance, US bases in the UK were  vital to support US conflicts in the Middle East, infamously known for the attacks on Libya. Ramstein became familar to wounded US troops from the Middle East, providing vital medical aid is a manner that was of no benefit to Germany. If the US did not have access to Ascension and Diego Garcia, it would need to spend more  on filling those capability gaps.

 

The EU has about 1.4 million active servicemen. Europe as a whole has 1.6 million. Not including reserves. The US, not including reserves, has about 960,000 active troops.. There is clearly a disparity in spending, but what is the US doing with all that extra money. This is where that immortal line from the movie Independance Day about $30,000 toilet seats.

 

 

A lot of defence spending is figuratively peed up a wall. How much was wasted on the Active Denial System, that they had to withdraw, after it came out that there were fears about the safety of eyeglass wearers (might boil your eyeballs), The military invested billions in autonomous truck systems 20 years ago which came to nothing. The military basically pays double to develop each new system put into service. Typically a spec is issued, and a competition run. 2 proposals are accepted, and each is funded by the government ("Programmes") and then a winner decided. Sometime, the Programme is fully funded, but nothing comes of it.

 

As for US v European aid to Ukraine, that's also very complex. The US seemingly changes its mind day to day what it thinks its "owed". Currently it thinks Ukraine "owes" half a trillion USD. This comes down to accounting. Some charts show more US aid, others show more European aid. It comes down to accounting practice, so the numbers are meaningless.

 

Much of the equiment donated to Ukraine is old. Old weaponry generally becomes less effective; it has a shelf life, then it has to disposed of. Disposing of out of data munitions is expensive. Second had clapped out old UK armoured vehicles 50 years old are trickling onto the market for pennies.

 

The US DoD spends about $5 billion a year scrapping old equipment. The much vaunted Bradley was designed towards the end of the Vietnam war. The army didn't really want it, it entered service as part of pork barrel politics (something else that artificially inflates US defence spending). The average age of Bradleys in Ukraine is 40 year old. These have been pulled out of some storage yard in the US. They've gotten thousands of these things, and they are due to be replaced in 2029. 3700 in use, 2800 in storage.  They don't have enough crews to operate them all. Other equipment seen; Dutch M113s. The M113 is over 60 years old. Javelins are lifed to 20 years, and have been in service since 1996. What was sent was all old stuff, that the US would have had to pay to replace anyhow. Same with Stormshadows; you can't use them if they are older than 12 years old, as you can't guarantee them. Germany is dragging Leopard 1s and Marders essentially from scrapyards.  I think even Ferret armoured cars have been sent. 

 

 

If anything, a lot of the equipment sent represents a saving for the donors (on disposal costs). And its all being used to destroy the military of an adversary that they had all been purchased to defend against in the first place. Remenber NATO does not operate globally. Its restricted by treaty to north of the Tropic of Cancer. This is why there was no NATO support to the UK in 1982.

 

The US is calculating its "bill" largely based on the replacement costs, but not replacing like for like, but replacing with better (more expensive). In general, the US is not making stuff to send to Ukraine.  By presenting this as money owed, in effect, the US is expecting Ukraine to subsidise the US military. US aid of course benefits Ukraine, but arguably it also benefits the US, both from helping to degrade Russian capabilities now, thus providing for future defence savings (unless you are of the mind that the Allies should have maintained inflation adjusted levels of spend throughout the Cold War),  and also because Russian success in Ukraine would also likely impact the US economically (Russia would then have large control of the global trade in grain, and hence prices),

 

5 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Perhaps Trump really doesn't care one way or the other about Ukraine, and only cares that he'll get a peace prize if he is seen as ending it. On these pages it seems as though the entire world's countries care about Ukraine- they don't. Most of them don't care if Russia takes it all- makes zero difference to them, and a lot of them are more friendly with Russia and Russia's ally China than the west, which colonized and exploited them.

Here's a surprise for some on here, most of the planet's countries don't worship western democracy, seeing it for what it really is with it's perpetual wars in the M E, and they are not impressed.

 

BTW. Chamberlain had no choice as Britain had no military capable of defeating Germany, so he was at the disadvantage. Even after Churchill's re armanent the Germans easily defeated the British in France. Appeasement was his only realistic option at that time.

Ergo, Trump is not doing a Chamberlain- it's just that he has more important things to concentrate on and doesn't care.

 

More of your usual Russian apologist propaganda with a bit of rhetoric against the Western democratic model thrown in for good measure.

 

Btw: You are wrong (yet again) in your analysis of WW2. The German Military High Command warned Hitler against starting a war in 1938, as it knew that it was incapable of defeating the European Allies at that time: The Luftwaffe was not ready for war; the combined land forces of the UK and France outnumbered Germany's and the Royal Navy had military superiority.

 

If Chamberlain had supported Czechoslovakia over the Sudetenland, then events would have turned out very differently. For example and critically, it is almost unthinkable that the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact would have been signed. Indeed, given that Russia had a mutual assistance pact with Czechoslovakia (and a pact of sorts with France), if the UK and France had faced down Hitler's aggression - while at the same time increasing their own rearmament - it is extremely likely that Stalin would have joined the allies in any war against Germany in 1938/9, and there is no way that Germany could have successfully fought on so many fronts as was proven by events from 1943 onwards.

On 2/14/2025 at 7:08 PM, Yagoda said:

More Trump obsession babble. We arent pulling out of Nato as long as they do what they are told, and they will.

 

Its a new day. The free ride is over.

I'm not gonna kill you unless you give me all your money. And you will.

 

So you're saying I'm the good guy?

2 minutes ago, tomazbodner said:

I'm not gonna kill you unless you give me all your money. And you will.

 

So you're saying I'm the good guy?

No, you sound like a leftist. The left wants to take all my money, not the right. 

5 minutes ago, tomazbodner said:

I'm not gonna kill you unless you give me all your money. And you will.

 

So you're saying I'm the good guy?

Yep. America is always the good guy, even when it does f'd up things.

 

You are free to choose your own master. 

5 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

No, you sound like a leftist. The left wants to take all my money, not the right. 

Both of them want to take all your money. You just have polarized glasses on so you can only see one side doing it.