Rats deserting a sinking ship is a bad omen
From what I understand the U.S. perspective to be - the idea is that the U.S. is in the process of getting a slice of the pie (rare earth minerals) and won’t pursue the rest of the pie (toppling the Russian government) via Ukraine. There is a framework agreement for the U.S. to access Ukraine’s rare earths, and Ukraine has technically “consented.” All the while, Ukraine is still under attack, holding roughly 80% of its territory, and losing thousands of lives defending itself. Russia controls 20%, and ballistic missile attacks continue, with the outcome appearing bleak - but let’s not dwell on inconvenient facts.
The prevailing narrative, from what I’ve seen in posts over the last few days, is that the U.S. “did all the heavy lifting” and now deserves the spoils. Ukraine is portrayed as a vending machine where military aid automatically converts into U.S. profit. Europe isn’t blameless: it has urged Ukraine to keep fighting, contributed political cover and sanctions, and effectively pushed a no-diplomacy policy that predated the war. Ukraine even enshrined roadblocks to negotiation in its constitution. The U.S. isn’t “deserting” anything. From this perspective, it is simply protecting its strategic interests. It may not have achieved all its foreign policy objectives, but it has secured the rare earths and ensured a few countries now owe it a lot of dollars - all while pretending to be the benevolent savior.
If Europe has a problem with this, it should get an army and go march to Ukraine, apparently.
This post was edited by ferdia on Jan 8 2026 06:11am