Comment by nradov
5 days ago
None of the European countries are doing much relative to their economies. Russia's GDP is about the same as Italy's. The rest of the EU and NATO countries together have an economy that is enormously larger than Russia's. So why do they allow Russia to push them around?
Here are the aid allocations to Ukraine as a share of GDP of the top contributors (all approximate from 2022 through to 2026):
Denmark: 3%
Estonia: 3%
Lithuania: 2.5%
Norway: 2.5%
Latvia: 2%
Sweden: 2%
Finland: 1.5%
...
UK [†]: 0.75%
...
United States [†]: 0.5%
[†]: These countries signed an agreement that they would protect Ukraine's sovereignty.
For context, the US's entire national defense budget is about 3% of our GDP. Or alternatively, Medicare is 3% of our GDP.
This statement is false: "None of the European countries are doing much relative to their economies."
Ya, that's basically nothing. None of those European countries have asked their citizens to sacrifice. The welfare state continues uninterrupted. They were still buying Russian fossil fuels instead of telling people to put on a sweater.
As a US citizen I think that our country should also do more to assist Ukraine. But fundamentally this is a European problem. They need to find a solution instead of expecting the US to bail them out again.
If 3% of GDP is basically nothing (US defense budget or Medicare), then why isn’t the expectation that the US puts in “basically nothing” (3%) as a token gesture towards its promise to guarantee their sovereignty?
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