cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/noncredibledefense/p/1490862/the-correct-response
this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2026
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So....
Is the US supposed to be the world police or not?
Budapest memorandum entitles Ukraine to assistance in this case.
Considering that Russia attacked them, I think any entitlements in the memorandum are null in their eyes. The agreement is effectively nullified. From what I've briefly read, the document is not forcing any party to assist Ukraine, beyond advocating for them at the UN security council.
I'd say the main difference here is that Ukraine probably wanted the "support" of the US. I think we did alright giving them access to money, weapons and training to defend themselves early on, and the major shortcoming was limiting the targets that they could strike with the weapons we sold. Turnabout is fair play, if Vlad wants to start throwing hands, he has to accept that he may get punched in the face.
No it does not. Not even a little bit.
The Budapest memorandum A) isn’t even a binding treaty. And B) only guarantees assurances from the US, UK, and Russia that they won’t invade Ukraine.
There are absolutely ZERO provisions for the US giving military defense to Ukraine in the event they are invaded.
The US and UK have upheld that. Neither have ever invaded Ukraine.
Depends on the day and personal beliefs of the person advocating for it. So, Schroedinger’s World Police. As a USian, I would prefer the EU took over the world police job. It's not worth the effort.
That is a very short-sighted view. The US' role as world police allowed it to station troops all over the world, projecting power and influence in every corner of the world. Every deal any country in the world made, always at least considered a US deal. The US was able to influence politics without actually having to flex the military muscle. They could always still do that if diplomacy didn't work. The projection of scientific and cultural power was also part of that influence.
And why can't the EU step up? The EU chose to let the US become the world police because they thought it would easier and cheaper. And now they are pissed about it.
The EU is legitimately currently trying to be the region police (not world police) as we speak. Part of that involves building up our own military industry. The US government is not happy about that, to put it mildly.
"Currently trying". Well, that only took several generations to pull their collective heads out of their asses. Imagine what that industrial/military complex is going to eventually cost EU citizens. Once you get on that particular horse, it's hard to get off.
They did not choose to. The EU wasn't even a thing when the USA became the de facto world police. And after WW2 the USA was so dominant that any such attempt by Europes stronger countries would have been in vain
True, the EU didn't exist when they first started to get comfortable with the US being the world cop. But get comfortable with it they did. Comfortable enough to cut military budgets and putting their reliance on the idea the that the US would intervene for them. Standing idly by during the formation of the Iron Curtin. It got so bad, that they proved incapable to get a handle on the Bosian War in their own back yard. It finally took the intervention of the US to give them enough spine to complete breaking up the ethnic cleansing. They had a generation to wind down the US world cop protection and did nothing.
It was never a good idea. And in the end, they have gotten what they should have known would have happened.
Did Ukraine ask for help?
yes
Then it's simple. The US should help Ukraine. They're being invaded and are asking for help. For the "pragmatists", any nation what helps Ukraine with have an easier time doing business with them afterwards.
The US has.
Ukraine has explicitly NOT asked for direct military assistance. They have not asked for troops or US airstrikes.
They have asked for weapons, logistics, intelligence, and ammunition. All of which have been provided by the US and European NATO nations.
Ukrainians repeatedly asked to close the sky, which is de-facto a sort of direct help. Also talks about NATO troops being stationed on the West part. Still no balls.
Second paragraph - only after 2022. Ukraine was denied even buying Western equipment in 2014. Obama is an asshole.
It's basically Chamberlain++.
Chamberlain's appeasement for fear of kicking off WWII was bad enough, but now nuclear missiles are on the table, so there's much more fear.
There's never a good time to kick off WWIII, so most nations are going to bend over backward to not do so.
I do not believe that Russia has working nukes and I bet most nation's intelligence don't believe they do either, but no one wants bet on that.
Also, I believe we're already in WWIII. At least at some point in the future, the start of it will be retroactively decided to have happened before now.
That's a huge stretch. Working ICBMs are 1960s tech'. Russia has repeatedly demonstrated they're perfectly capable of employing 1960s tech' reliably enough to function sometimes.
It doesn't take a 2026 nuke to hit a country in 2026. The more modern, the more likely it hits, but they have so many.
You're being pedantic about the term WWIII. We both know what I meant.
Nukes don't store forever. They require more upkeep then other types of military equipment and Russia has proven to be lacking by their initial invasion. Keen eyes noticed that the trucks they were using were sitting for years by the dryrot wear on the tires.
I'm no nuclear expert but I do dabble in statistics, and you're making an argument for "the majority of the Russian stockpile will be too decrepit to function," not an argument for "all of the Russian stockpile will be too decrepit to function."
All it takes is one to kill millions. That's the scenario The West is desperately trying to avoid at any cost.
I don't know why you're doing mental gymnastics to deny either above point, but it's getting exhausting trying to keep up with you.
Nuclear material decays and as it decays, will not detonate with the energy from the explosive material it was built with. It NEEDS to be replaced on an regular basis, depending on the type it is. It's not a matter of a chance o-ring dry rotting or chance capacitor leaking or chance fuel going bad.
Putin's a bully. There's an implicate threat that Putin will use nukes if he doesn't get what he wants, but he'll never be happy with what he has. The best case scenario is he croaks on his own because he's too damn paranoid to let someone near him assassinate him. He's probably scared shitless from the recent drone attack on his palace.
Russia has blackmail on "The West." That's why they're complicate. Politicians are self serving shits. If they cared about unnecessary deaths, they would have handled Covid better.
That's 1940s technology.
Not sure why you included this because it's irrelevant and I agree, but I guess if you had to get a quick soapbox Red Herring out, it's not like I can stop you.
More Red Herring soapboxing. Try to stay on topic with your next comment.
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/22540-05-ukraine-could-not-have-kept-nuclear
There's more in there, but the gist is is that if Ukraine couldn't have maintained the nukes they had then the USSR fell, I don't think Russia could have either.
My point in calling out Putin as a bully is that if he actually has working nukes, he will use then whether or not we abide by his threats or not.
You seem to be arguing against a position you imagine I hold rather than what I've explained.
Every comment so far has been me trying to re-assert that position and you more or less ignoring it to put your straw man icing on the rest of your comment, like this here.
It's like debating if a house is on fire where one half of the debate thinks the other half is only talking about house fires because they think aliens are real, so they spend half their time disproving aliens.
You assert that Putin will use Nukes if the west helps Ukraine too much. I assert that Putin would use Nukes regardless if he had them.
Okay yeah that's where we differ, and I don't think we'll be able to convince each other of our respective positions.
The weird part is when you deviate to try to prove to me (and other readers) that Putin is a bully.
Putin is very obviously a bully and worse, so it doesn't make sense to tell me that.
I mean you could replace the Stars and Stripes here with French Tricolour or Union Jack and I still think it works. The point is more that the lukewarm response to the Crimean invasion emboldened Russia into attacking mainland Ukraine.
Maybe it's a filter of my English-speaking internet circles, but I've never seen memes like this about France or the UK. So you could replace the flags... The point is that it doesn't seem to happen.
The trick is to have a US-controlled strategic interest there. See Syria, Russians attack a US-defended oilfield, Russia denies they are Russian regulars, US turn 200 of them into moist ash with artillery and JDAMs
We're not supposed to. But in the instance of Ukraine, we signed a treaty with Ukraine, Russia and ourselves that if Ukraine dismantled their nuclear weapons that the US would defend Ukraine if Russia invaded. And Russia would defend Ukraine if US invaded.
but i guess international law is nonexistant and nobody gives a damn if a country makes a promise
This was already address in another thread. Short summary...
It's not a treaty, but a memorandum, it really only "mandates" that we will support them in the UN security council, it's not enforceable, and Russia already shit all over it.
The US and other countries not protecting Ukraine sends a massive signal to everyone else that you can only depend on yourself for protection, and that means everyone needs to have WMDs. So take that how you will.
So the US should be the world police.
This is pretty much the dilemma the US government faces, right? On the one hand, the public doesn't like intervention. On the other, they can totally do it, and in many cases it will save a lot of lives, or at least seems like it will.
The new MAGA school is basically to disregard the humanity of anyone who's not a ^(white)^ American citizen, which solves it neatly. At great cost in terms of basic morality, of course. The other one was neoconservativism, where you're openly the world police. Theoretically, unilaterally disarming is also an option, but almost nobody is talking about that.
The Democrats, and blue Americans in general, have yet to pick a lane.
This also ignores that the US has intervened aggressively, just in its usual fashion of profitable arms sales and supporting fascist militias.