Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said Ukraine still has a path to victory and allies can help it defeat Russian forces by contributing a chunk of their economic output to the war effort.

Every member of the so-called Ramstein group — more than 50 countries including all 31 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — should channel the equivalent of 0.25% of their gross domestic product to Kyiv annually, Kallas said. That would raise at least €120 billion ($131 billion) and swing the conflict in Ukraine’s favor, she said.

  • CanadaPlus@futurology.today
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    8 months ago

    To be clear to anyone skimming, we’re currently spending half of what Russia does each month.

    It’s kind of impressive how well it’s been going in that light. Our system is truly much more efficient.

    In the future, it would be good if there was a way to allocate budget to supporting foreign wars the way it’s allocated for domestic militaries. Right now it sounds like it goes package-by-package, so spending is very difficult to sustain once the public gets bored.

    • Jackinopolis@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      naively pushing for this is difficult because it can be easily interpreted as funding proxy wars and forever wars. It would probably need to be obfuscated as ‘effective defense spending’ or an excuse to reduce/replace stockpiles. The later a reason for the first few Ukrainian aid bills iirc.

      • CanadaPlus@futurology.today
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        8 months ago

        Quite possibly. I’m no good as a politician or salesperson, but that would be the policy solution to a lack of reliability in the allocation process.

        If the guys who are always drunk on working Saturdays win because they have a longer attention span, that’s just unbelievable.

    • MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      What’s the long term plan here? Keep letting Russia annex portions of neighboring countries in hope that they will stop annexing territory?

    • trajekolus@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      It is Russia that started the war, and is “stoking” it. The countries that assist Ukraine with arms are doing so to prevent Russian imperialism from expanding into Europe and beyond. It is very necessary that they continue to do so.

    • MrMakabar@feddit.de
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      8 months ago

      Russia is depleting its war reserves fast. That is both weapons produced by the Soviets and the sorveign wealth fund. Combine that with falling oil revenues and Russia has to cut back on civilan spending, which is already happening. That makes the life of the average Russian worse. Combine that with thousands of casulties and you have a population, which likes Putin less and less. Seriously we are at a point were 1:385 Russians is a casulty in the war in Ukraine. That means most Russians will know of somebody, who is a friend of a friend that has either died or has been badly injured in Ukraine. That obviously makes revolution more likely.

      Then you have the option of helping Ukraine in freeing its territory. Russia can not hide large losses and they make Putin look weak. Especially things like blowing up the Kerch bridge and cutting the land bridge to Crimea are somewhat possible as next steps. Right now the front is stable, but Ukraine has had a year to prepare for a new break through and has already crossed the Dnipro near Kherson.

      We already had Wagner marching on Moscow, so we know Putin has internal competition. This has happened before. Russia lost WW1 this way, Afghanistan has really hurt the Soviet Union and was a huge part of its break up and again Wagner showed that this is possible again. This is really the strategy to beat Russia. Slowly grinding them down.

    • fosforus@sopuli.xyz
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      8 months ago

      That’s how Vietnam+USSR won against USA and how Afganistan+USA won against USSR. Just keep doing it until somebody who understands sunk cost fallacy pulls the plug.

      The bad part about this particular war is that taking Crimea involves a lot of offensives, which are notoriously difficult to pull off. Especially if the enemy is fortified in. But then again, it did work against USA in Vietnam so why not here.

      If they could just get that bridge… keep pummeling various targets inside Russia, Crimea, everywhere until they’re spread out so thin that a massive strike at Kerch Strait gets through.