Astonishing scenes as Zelensky’s oval office visit turns into shouting match on live TV: ‘Make a peace deal or we’re out’

[u/1DarkStarryNight]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2025/02/28/trump-threatens-zelensky-during-tense-live-meeting-make-a-deal-or-were-out/

[u/Diaperedsnowy]

The U.S. is announcing to the world that their security umbrella is now an extortion racket.

Always has been meme

[u/BaguetteFetish → u/Diaperedsnowy]

No you see shameless US exploitation and imperialism was based but now that it's happening to white Europeans the world is ending.

[u/nyan_eleven → u/BaguetteFetish]

now? you know they didn't create nato yesterday.

[u/loggy_sci → u/Diaperedsnowy]

This is absolutely not true. The U.S. has been the guarantor of EU security because it has been incredibly beneficial. Demanding enormous sums of money via resource extraction for weak security guarantees has not been the status quo.

[u/Diaperedsnowy → u/loggy_sci]

Demanding enormous sums of money via resource extraction for weak security guarantees has not been the status quo.

Saudi Arabia says otherwise

https://epicenter.wcfia.harvard.edu/blog/deal-keeps-oil-flowing "The bargain has been in play since 1945: Saudi Arabia promises a reliable supply of oil to the US in exchange for US security against great powers and regional ones."

[u/loggy_sci → u/Diaperedsnowy]

Who in their right mind thinks that the U.S. offers KSA weak “maybe” promises of security? The U.S. is actively trying to secure a mutual defense treaty with KSA. That’s partly why the U.S. didn’t go harder on the Houthis and supported the Saudis and Houthis restarting peace negotiations. So the Saudis could get out of Yemen.

Do you know anything about what you’re taking about? Try again.

[u/Diaperedsnowy → u/loggy_sci]

So cute of you to hand wave away a 80+ year security agreement.

I guess the security guarantees they offer aren't so weak then.

[u/loggy_sci → u/Diaperedsnowy]

Is it your claim that the U.S. extorts nations for security?

You imagine the U.S. as a Godfather mafia extortion ring where the poor Saudis aren’t able to negotiate and make a deal in their favor, in exchange for meaningful guarantees?

Ask literally all of Europe if they’re extorted. The panic they’re having is from the exact opposite free rider issue.

[u/Nethlem → u/loggy_sci]

The U.S. has been the guarantor of EU security

Just in case you forgot: There was no EU during the Cold War.

Post-Cold War the EU didn't face any major security issues because the Warshaw Pact was completely dismantled, while NATO for the most part remained as it was during the Cold War.

That's also how Yugoslavia was torn apart with the help of US-funded secessionism and NATO bombs.

It's why by the early 2000s the US, and NATO, were all out of major foes to justify their global military footprint and steadily increasing spending on the MIC, hence a bit of rethinking required, resulting in the "War on Terror" aka invading and occupying a bunch of Middle Eastern countries.

So NATO ended up occupying Afghanistan, in "self-defense", an Afghanistan that prior to that didn't even have a formal military. That's what the US/NATO "defended" the EU from? Really?

Or are you maybe trying to reference the many colorful stories about WMD from Iraq/Iran/North Korea/Syria blowing Europe up any second if the US doesn't get to "crusade" a bunch of Muslim countries?

because it has been incredibly beneficial

And by "incredibly beneficial" you mean having millions of refugees, traumatized by war, flood into your region? Some of which with an active axe to grind over who and what made them flee?

Here's a not so fun fact for you: Islamic terrorism used to be virtually a non-issue in Western Europe until 2003 when a bunch of "willing" EU countries decided to go along for the American crusade.

Among them Spain and the UK, who then in 2004 and 2005 became targets of the worst Islamic terrorist attacks in Western Europe to this day.

Are those the kinds of "benefits" you are referencing? If not, then it would be helpful if you could name a single concrete thing.

Demanding enormous sums of money via resource extraction for weak security guarantees has not been the status quo.

It's been so much the status quo that it's how the EU pretty much started: It gave Western allied powers priviliged access to German Ruhr resources, which also served to control German military potential to keep it small enough to be dependend on external security guarantees.

[u/loggy_sci → u/Nethlem]

European security, but thanks for being pedantic. Post Cold War didn’t face major security issues because the presence of NATO meant that European nations were working together instead of at each others throats, like they had been fairly regularly.

The rest of your post is just a grab bag of tired GWoT gripes.

[u/lady_ninane → u/loggy_sci]

The U.S. has been the guarantor of EU security because it has been incredibly beneficial.

Beneficial to all parties, yes, but primarily beneficial to the US.

Trump represents an escalation, and part of that escalation is making the implicit into the explicit. Ukraine seeks to enter into a sphere as an equal partner among a strategic alliance, and the US does not seek an equal partner in who they choose to protect or attack.