“I am writing to express the United States’ full support for both the transfer of F-16 fighter aircraft to Ukraine and for the training of Ukrainian pilots by qualified F-16 instructors […] It remains critical that Ukraine is able to defend itself against ongoing Russian aggression and violation of its sovereignty” said Blinken.
Will this solidify a Ukrainian victory?
U.S. officials have privately said that F-16 jets would have been of little help to Ukraine in its current counteroffensive and will not be a game changer when they eventually arrive given Russian air defense systems and contested skies over Ukraine
Or will Russian radar and missle systems tear them up?
Fuck Putin, any little bit helps
Other than cost, I haven’t understood the hesitancy to give Ukraine all the weapons they ask for, immediately.
When war breaks out, it means diplomacy has failed. It only makes sense to no longer consider diplomacy a major factor when making wartime decisions - especially when providing support to a country that’s defending itself from an unprovoked invasion, which is a violation of international law. Half measures only prolong the war, which ultimately makes it more expensive for supporting countries. For Ukraine, civilians and soldiers are dying every day.
This war should have ended by now. I’m glad that most of the world is condemning Putin, but we’re not doing enough.
I’m not an expert or anything, but as it has been explained to me, the geo-political consequences of Ukraine having NATO weapons is enormous… If Ukraine were to have access to F-18s, F-35s, or any NATO asset, it would implicate NATO, and further escalate the conflict towards a NATO-Russian war (World War 3), and the precipitation of nuclear assets. This is why even France’s own Dassault assets and Sweden’s Saabs were not offered. F-16s are old enough, and used enough by non-NATO forces that this might be okay.
A prolonged war, while incredibly tragic, might still be less costly than World War 3…
Grrr. Damn geopolitics. I appreciate the response, though!
It’s justifying the cost more than the cost itself. It is hard to justify freely giving to a foreign nation when there are domestic issues that don’t have funding.
The state must build the narrative that the money being spent abroad is going to help the people more than if it was spent at domestically. This is not an easy trick to pull off and then even more challenging to maintain.
In my opinion, it’s hard to justify because it’s bullshit. Problems remain unsolved because the will isn’t there, not because we can’t afford it. Anyone who says, for example, that American public schools are underfunded because of our Ukraine policy will (and should) be laughed out of the room.
Thanks for doing your part to build and maintain the narrative comrade
Every escalation is a step closer to nuclear war. I can understand the hesitation.
Well, anything worsening the relation between nuclear powers could be considered a step closer to nuclear war. The question is how much of a step it is and how far away from nuclear war we are.
Any sane person would want to actively work to reduce escalation between nuclear powers instead of finding out what the breaking point is.
It takes years to train pilots, maintenance staff, logistics to bring a fighter jet to be ready into active operation in a hostile environment under normal conditions.
True, but I’m not just talking about jets. I’m talking about ALL weapons, like rockets and such. There’s been resistance over a lot of things.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
WASHINGTON, Aug 17 (Reuters) - The United States has approved sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands to defend against Russian invaders as soon as pilot training is completed, a U.S. official said on Thursday.
“We welcome Washington’s decision to pave the way for sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine,” Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra said on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
A coalition of 11 countries will start training Ukrainian pilots to fly the F-16 fighter jets later this month in Denmark, the Danish defence ministry said on Friday.
NATO members Denmark and the Netherlands have been leading international efforts to train pilots as well as support staff, maintain aircraft and ultimately enable Ukraine to obtain F-16s for use in its war with Russia.
“I am writing to express the United States’ full support for both the transfer of F-16 fighter aircraft to Ukraine and for the training of Ukrainian pilots by qualified F-16 instructors,” Blinken said in a letter to the two officials, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.
Kyiv will not be able to operate U.S.-built F-16 fighter jets this coming autumn and winter, Ukraine air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat told Ukrainian television late on Wednesday.
The original article contains 573 words, the summary contains 207 words. Saved 64%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
europeans insisting they’re independent countries but they need Uncle Sam’s permission to send their own military hardware anywhere 🤔
Still contains secrets that the US doesn’t want to fall in to the hands of her enemies. I’m sure part of the purchasing agreement is non-transfer clauses and the such to limit the risk. That said Ukraine should’ve had access to these last year
Sorry, but I’m going to be blunt. This is an ill informed comment. This is in fact normal with most weapons sales. For example:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/swiss-government-refuses-re-export-arms-ukraine-2023-03-10/
By your logic, Denmark, Germany and Spain aren’t independent of Switzerland, simply because they were able to refuse reexport. But of course that’s nonsense. It’s just that arms and weapons contract invariably include clauses which prohibit reexport without permission of the country of origin. To not include these clauses would make weapons trafficking far too easy. Simply export to a second country which isn’t on the sanctions list, then have them re-export to another country, then another country, then another country, then North Korea or wherever because the second to final country doesn’t have laws that prohibit it or has insufficient checks.
In this case, the US doing it publically bolsters US allies. The US has publicly said it’s ok, so that if shit hits the fan, the US can’t say “we didn’t approve of this weapons sale, so it’s their own problem”.
Also, don’t forget that the F16 is used as a delivery mechanism for nuclear weapons as part of nuclear sharing, so it’s not a crate of automatic rifles. It’s a serious escalation, given the Russians can never be entirely sure that the Ukrainian F16 flying towards their border isn’t actually a Dutch F16 armed with nukes. In the case of the Netherlands the B61 with a yield of 300 kilotons of which IRC they have 200 of at their disposal if shit hits the fan. The US really isn’t the bad guy for including stringent conditions on the reexport of a plane potentially capable of nuking Moscow.
TLDR The US may have undue influence on smaller NATO members, but this really isn’t a good example of that.
By your logic, Denmark, Germany and Spain aren’t independent of Switzerland
By his logic the US isn’t independent of Norway because they couldn’t send NASAMS to Ukraine without approval…
So his “logic” might just be bullshit.
Since it’s an arms deals via NATO, with weapons provided by the U.S., it seems fairly obvious the terms of the treaty include consent and/or approval when repurposing arms to non-member states.
Welcome to the real world where US jets can’t be re-exported without the US’ approval, where nobody can re-export Isreali-build missiles without Israel’s approval, where Switzerland blocks the delivery of ammunition produced by a Swiss company or where Estonia couldn’t even send old howitzers to Ukraine without Germany’s approval although those were actually soviet-build and only for a short time owned by Germany (via ex-GDR stocks)…
This has exactly zero to do with the US or Europe but with the internationally agreed terms of arms export that absolutely everyone agreed upon… or most arms trade would mostly cease to exist.
But that’s okay… we can live with the US being dependent on Europeans to send NASAMS to Ukraine and having to ask for approval first.
But nice atttempt at trolling…
Hexes gonna hex
This is the dumbest comment on Lemmy so far. Congratulations.
Ask yourself; why does the US have to approve this?
I don’t have to ask myself, this is a well known fact, not some secret gotcha.
Exactly, literally documented!
That’s what they want you to think.
Because we made the things and only lease them to other countries? Mainly cause other countries don’t want the full maintenance costs of our platforms.
I don’t know that is the case, but it seems like a fairly logical way to ensure that our platforms don’t get sold on the black market by anyone other than US
You can actually look it up. Munitions cannot be sold or transferred without the consent of the fabricating country. Asking yourself is so much better when you’ve got facts!
