By John Q. Hosedrinker Well, the next best time to plant a tree is today. Give them more weapons now Should’ve, Would’ve Could’ve, doesn’t help them now! “We should have provided Ukraine with much more military support much earlier,” Jens Stoltenberg told the Financial Times. “I think we all have to admit, we should have given them more weapons pre-invasion.” While I agree wholeheartedly, this is 20/20 hindsight. The USA had just armed Afghanistan and saw their entire national army collapse in days, and they probably worried Ukraine would collapse the first few days of the war. I can understand why the USA didn’t want weapons immediately falling into the hands of Russia if Ukraine surrendered early. No shit. So start making up for past mistakes by getting them everything they need now to end this war. Russia won’t stop until Ukraine is nothing but scorched earth. Ukraine’s allies “should have given them more advanced weapons, faster, after the invasion,” Stoltenberg said. “I take my part of the responsibility,” he added. Realistically, could a Ukraine with a blank cheque for NATO weapons eventually win much faster against Russia or would the sheer numbers mean the conflict still drags out? im still with ukraine, but NATO says the same thing every year while still holding up more/better weapons for ukraine Ukraine was armed with the intention that the government was going to fall, so Nato armed them for an insurgency. The moment that it was clear that the Ukrainian army wasn’t going to fold, and Kyiv wasn’t going to fall, about 3-4 weeks after the start of the invasion, the floodgates should have been opened. or not at all. yes. it takes months to organize the logistics and training of throwing things like Himars, western tanks, f16, m777 into the Ukrainian military, but you know what takes longer? STARTING the process after almost 2 years of fighting, Just STARTING it… by the time Nato started taking this remotely seriously, Russia had already switched to almost a full war economy, and the opportunity to win a total victory passed on. Now there’s no scenario where Ukraine ends this war intact without there isn’t an even larger war elsewhere. Even in a best case scenario where they take the territory back, the only way that is going to happen is if there’s an internal collapse within Russia, and guess what, then we’ve got a Nuclear armed Russian Civil war for the world to deal with, and that’s even more dangerous than the shit-show we’re already in. The only scenario where the fighting ends and there is actual peice, is where Ukraine has to give up part of its territory, but NATO and Ukraine tell Russia to pound sand, and Ukraine is accepted into NATO and given Article 5 protection. Otherwise its war with Nato. Short of a scenario where either Russia or Ukraine ceases to exist, and we’re in a further escalated war on one side of eurasia or the other… a scenario where both sides end up unhappy. is unfortunately the only one thats viable. (and dont take this as being a pro vatnik opinion, if it were up to me, well, you dont want to hear a crazy person’s opinions on what should have been done to the russians. but i will just say that this is the only realist scenario that makes any sense if people actually want the war to stop, because russian peace treaties without article 5 are only good for wiping your ass) Well he is an EX-chief now, nothing will be expected regardless of what he says, might as well make some statements. No shit. Can’t fix the past, but we could at least remove the restrictions on the weapons we have given them. The West’s approach to supporting Ukraine has been baffling to say the least. A continuous string of unforced errors. Its quite obvious that the war in Ukraine would of gone in a different direction if Ukraine got all the weapons it needed without restrictions instead of this slow war of attrition we have today. Rather than spending all this time reflecting on what NATO should do, The west needs to remove all restrictions on all military aid to Ukraine. Start with allowing Ukraine to strike inside Russia with those long range missiles. Arm Ukraine now. Max it out. Step it up. Be brave. Be bold. Channel our WW2 spirit of badassery. Ukraine is doing the actual heavy lifting. Arming them to shield the world is just the cost of security in a world filled with Putin’s and Xi’s. Can‘t be. Countless Redditors repeatedly assured me that we are “boiling the frog” and that everything is going perfectly according to plan. Same as in some other post I commented some time one. It’s fun how they start making “correct statements” after they no longer in power to make any decision. In general, it feels like there are factors behind the scenes that make them be extremely “wary” and slow in making real decisions while they are in position. I always wondered if they really believe in russia’s nuke threats and stuff and because of that they give moderate amount of help. Another conspiracy we have in Ukraine is that US and Europe both are interested in the conflict going slowly as russia is being held in position of being sanctioned hard with a “fraction of efforts”. Yeyeye, you can say “money here, money there” but in any developed country human life is valued higher than any money and Ukraine pays for each day of the war with human lives. I don’t know where is the truth honestly, that’s why I just live and hope. We long time ago stoped dreaming about gaining all our territories back. Current hope is to freeze it as it is but get into NATO so that there is no continuation of the war in a couple of years. Jens is a good man. The world could do worse than take his advice. They’re fighting our adversary for us to prevent them from expanding their borders so we don’t have to. Yeah, we should be giving them what they need. Well give them a ton more weapons now with less restrictions. STOP DRAGGING YOUR FEET! Ngl, I feel like we need to get the “old guard” mentality out of our system of not acting and realize dictatorships won’t collapse internally before military action upon their neighbors and minorities. Inkling out weapon shipments is some pussy-shit, and the political party that held up shipments are gonna reap-what-they-sow’d this November (in my home country). Those are words. Words are free. Actions matter. Virtual signaling after you don’t have the job anymore. Why didn’t you do it when you had the job bozo? In a sadly tragic sense, I’d say the problem started much earlier. Nato never showed any commitment to backing Ukraine pre-invasion out of fear of conflict with Russia and the assumption that Russia (Putin) wouldn’t actually be mad enough to harm his economic interests. They provided some weapons but only in a “hope this hurts the Russians a bit” sense. Putin essentially called Nato’s bluff (and was right) and did invade without consequence and it was only the Russian militaries incompetence that Russia didn’t succeed (and allowed Nato to actually start providing weapons) If Nato had been bolder and actually stationed troops (or at least no fly zone) within Ukraine pre-invasion then Russia would have had to call Nato’s bluff which would have been a much harder game to justify. Russia is of the old “hard man” school of thought, they think if you are not showing your strength you are weak. The western doctrine of “speak softly but carry a big stick” has failed several times because it’s a western concept, and other cultures (Saddam Hussein’s Iraq comes to mind) are of the opinion of “if I had that big a stick I would have used it by now”. Ya think. How about doing something to fix that, and consider lifting the restrictions too. Give them now Repatriations for damage caused by Russia should be assessed, and funds from the frozen Russian assets should be given to Ukraine (and to private owners whose property was destroyed, were injured, or had family members killed) No need to wait till end of war. It’s not disputed that Russia caused the damage. So make the compensation payments now. Russia can send their lawyers to court if they want to dispute the amount of damages getting paid out. The *best* time to give them more weapons was yesterday. The second best time is now. I mean we all thought the war would have ended in 7 days russia were in Kiev with tanks and helicopters. Then the war hawks wouldn’t have made all that money. No WAY! Way? It’s the Pro-Russian republicans who stopped more aid. Never forget that Best time to give them weapons was years ago, next best time is now. Get your boots on now, NATO, or you have a world of future hurt coming. Wake tf up. The second-best time to plant a HIMARS is now. How pissed is Volodymyr Zelenskyy, listening to that? Everyone was (rightfully) worried that Pooh-Tin would go nuclear, don’t forget that tiny bit of information and there’s no guarantee that if the filthy little sentient anal polyp feels backed into a wall, that he still won’t! I mean, Italy and Switzerland have absolutely laughably little in aid to Ukraine, barely breaking 0.1% GDP. Perhaps some members of NATO need to start chipping in? It is understandable. But better late than never. Now more warplanes and no more tying one hand behind humankind’s hero President Zelenskyy’s back. What the west is doing is telling china they wont get fully involved to protect Taiwan because China can threaten nukes. Obviously. We also should have allowed strikes within Russia from the start and closed down Ukrainian airspace. If we could do it for Libya why not Ukraine? Stoltenberg said these things even while he was the NATO SG. However, he’s not the one making decisions about what gets sent. Individual countries do that. OH FUCKING REALLY?!?!?!?! nato is so f’n worthless. I like the idea of them but in reality they are so scared to do anything they end up doing nothing Ya think ???!!! We should have helped when Crimea was taken. Not much we can do about that now other than help them as much as possible going forward. Using the ifonlyscope helps us find more shoulda’s, woulda’s and coulda’s. so give them more now you fucken dumb fucks. give them what they need to end this stupid fucken war and fuck putin! It’s always “Former guy in charge of x y and z says…” But never the current guy. It’s meaningless. r/NoShitSherlock If only one thousand and one people had told them! The west and their half measures allowing global catastrophe, a tale as old as time.