Fair point also

Not really directly related, but one of my favorite takes on it is from “Sky Over Kharkiv” by Serhiy Zhadan, some commentary on the day to day, from an ordinary Ukrainian watching his country full of normal people get dumped wholesale into a sustained hot war. Here’s his take on Ukraine’s mentality, as compared with the US’s and Russia’s:

And I’d like to make another point. I was rather skeptical of the current government. I was struck by one particular thing. The elections of 2019 brought a lot of young people to power – not my peers (I’m a far cry from being young) but a bunch of political youngsters who didn’t belong to dozens of parties or hadn’t worked for all kinds of shady cabinets of ministers. “But why do these young people,” I thought, “act like old functionaries from the Kuchma era? Where did their childish urge to make a quick buck and flaunt it come from? Why aren’t they trying to be different?” Thing is, I personally had the chance to do what I still consider rather constructive, useful things with a lot of them – everyone from ministers to mayors and governors. Nonetheless, I’d look toward the Parliament building and ask myself, “Why aren’t you trying to be different?”

Now [in wartime] with the naked eye you can see them trying to be different. Advisers, speakers, ministers, negotiators, officers, mayors, and commanders – these forty-year-old boys and girls whose generation has been dealt the cruel lot of having to stand up for their country. And this applies no less (and possibly even more) to the millions of soldiers, volunteer fighters, and just regular people pitching in, people shedding the swampy legacy of the twentieth century, like mud falling off new, yet well-chosen combat boots. Young Ukrainian men and women – that’s who this war of annihilation is being waged against. And then, in contrast, are the heads of Russia, Belarus, America, and Germany. The first two are old delusional geezers from the past century who look a lot like old Russian armored vehicles, but they’re old. And they’re Russian, which, in itself, does little to recommend a vehicle. Then there are the latter two – they’re cautious office clerks, retired capitulators who aren’t brave enough to admit that they, too, are involved in what’s going on.

Emphasis is mine

(And, I just wanna make it clear that I love that America is supporting Ukraine in the war; I’m not trying to talk any shit about the aid for Ukraine or its genuineness. Just I feel like even now there’s still a disconnect between views of the aid on the US and Ukrainian side and I want to stick up for the Ukraine viewpoint in that)

OK. Let’s agree on spineless traitors.

If you forget all the death and destruction caused by this war, then yes. I’m sure it’s very profitable.

It benefits NATO countries to curb the expansion of a rival power

“Rival” power is a matter of choice though, isn’t it? The EU could as easily have chosen to align with Russia as with they’ve done with the US. In the same way that both France and Germany are powers but they’re not really rival. EU should have gone its own way after 1991, NATO stopped making sense after the communist block was dissolved, and the fact that it kept growing and moving further towards the east in violation of the agreements reached last century, kinda shows that it’s not a defensive alliance as much as it is subservience to US’s geopolitical interests.

This isn’t to say the EU should be aligned to Russia or that the war in Ukraine isn’t primarily Putin’s fault, or that there shouldn’t be a military alliance in Europe, I’m just saying the US shouldn’t belong to it, let alone dictate its terms.

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Ofc there are situations that require military defense expenses. Once said that, using the military expenses to cross all the red lines drawn in the aftermath of WW2 is not to prevent a foreign invasion, but to instigate the chapter 3.

Do you think Russia will patiently wait until every country bordering it is pointing missiles at it? Then you understand nothing about big-scale military conflicts.