kravietz 🦇<p><span class="h-card"><a class="u-url mention" href="https://beige.party/@SnowshadowII" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>SnowshadowII</span></a></span> </p><p>Sorry, but I disagree with the FT author when he wrote this, and all subsequent chain of thoughts:</p><blockquote><p>What Vance did was to subvert the ideas of freedom, democracy and shared values that have underpinned the western alliance for 80 years. </p></blockquote><p>What <a class="hashtag" href="https://agora.echelon.pl/tag/vance" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Vance</a> did was to rudely but accurately describing the behaviour of European capitals towards <a class="hashtag" href="https://agora.echelon.pl/tag/russia" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Russia</a> imperial ambitions over the last decade. Europe not only lost decisiveness, but entirely lost the moral compass - as a reminder, as Russian army invaded <a class="hashtag" href="https://agora.echelon.pl/tag/crimea" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Crimea</a> and <a class="hashtag" href="https://agora.echelon.pl/tag/donbas" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Donbas</a> in 2014, European politicians and media consistently spoke about “pro-Russian separatists”. </p><p>As <a class="hashtag" href="https://agora.echelon.pl/tag/netherlands" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Netherlands</a> mourned almost 300 people shot down by Russians in <a class="hashtag" href="https://agora.echelon.pl/tag/mh17" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#MH17</a> in 2014, Berlin negotiated Nord Stream 2 to further pour money into Russian weapons while France sold them thermal imaging for latest weapons systems. And this continued for well over a decade, until Putin attacked. But even in January 2022 Berlin refused UK flights with defensive weapons (!) directed to Germany in a gesture that was just as petty as disgusting. </p><p>Then the same capitals consistently blocked supplies of any heavy weapons to Ukraine and cared more about stability of Russia than existence of <a class="hashtag" href="https://agora.echelon.pl/tag/ukraine" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Ukraine</a>. Only after a year or so the countries somehow changed their stance and started actually supporting Ukraine, but at a rate that merely allows it to survive and nothing more. There was lots of words, but very little actions.</p><p>What Vance said was rude, but I don’t think European leaders left him any options after these 10+ years, and it seem to have worked. If it had worked, it means it was justified.</p><p><span class="h-card"><a class="u-url mention" href="https://mstdn.ca/@gemelliz" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>gemelliz</span></a></span> <span class="h-card"><a class="u-url mention" href="https://mastodon.social/@Snowshadow" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>Snowshadow</span></a></span></p>