Media reports said as much as $700 billion could be allocated to Europe's defenses, though it was not clear how much of that amount would go to Kyiv.

Summary

European officials are preparing a multibillion-dollar defense package to bolster regional security and support Ukraine, announced by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock at the Munich Security Conference.

The package, potentially valued up to 700 billion euros, will fund military training, arms deliveries, and security guarantees amid concerns over Russian aggression and diminishing U.S. contributions to NATO.

The move follows calls for Europe to boost its own defense spending while U.S.-Russian talks, which exclude Ukraine and Europe, on ending the Ukraine conflict continue.

  • orgrinrt@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    Personally I’d go if they just let me. I’m a reserve sergeant with strong will to actually do something, knowing full well I will perish there, and cry for mommy in a ditch, or something else entirely, as of yet unimaginable to me.

    Defense is something I accept and will always help with if I just can, if the cause is right. Other kinds of war or violence? I’d rather go to jail than participate. In defense of gender minorities, people with mental health issues struggling as it is, when we now have great support networks and financial help guaranteeing housing, food, electricity, everything necessary, I would face the horrifying prospect of unimaginable pain and fear, desperation, so that those that do not wish to, or can’t, do not have to.

    I have strength and vitality some do not have. And if the only thing standing between the peaceful, at least good enough life they (we!) now have, is the sacrifice of those just selfless enough to face horrors, I’d feel bad letting them do it without me, if and when I am capable to help.

    But this is only as long as the thing we’d defend is worth defending. Our current state definitely is. I’m openly pan-sexual enby, and nobody looks at me twice. I get to work, study, participate in society just like most everyone do. If that is in danger, I won’t sit down and wait for them to come for me and my kin.

    But I also don’t think anyone else should be forced to do that, unless they really do want to and understand the horrors of what it will be.

    I have the benefit of military training and familiarity with guns and warfare in general (in theoretical level, though, which is still better than nothing), so I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I didn’t put those to use in defense of my fellow minorities often persecuted elsewhere.

      • orgrinrt@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        Definitely not. The orange man and the US in general is equal in my eyes to Russia. A bad, backwards place I would fight if it tried to thrust its diseased member into my current life and surroundings.

        Instead, I’d give a lot for what I have now: The relative safety and social progress, as well as the socialist elements such as our guaranteed welfare for everyone without gotchas or requirements, the general atmosphere of acceptance towards sexual and gender minorities etc.

        A lot of reasons to “throw my life away”. The life wouldn’t be worth much if I couldn’t be myself, if I couldn’t survive and thrive even when unable to work or function. So I’d rather go fighting for those as opposed to bending over to get fucked either way.