A large number of EU resolutions on Ukraine are being blocked by Hungary, said Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis.
Hungary is digging in and refusing to wave through billions in military aid for Ukraine, prompting growing dismay among other EU countries.
"I have to calm myself [when] I talk about this issue, because it’s getting really ridiculous now,” a senior EU diplomat said of the standoff with Hungary, speaking before Monday’s meeting of EU foreign ministers. “What’s happening is outrageous.”
Diplomats had hoped to have a new €6.6 billion package ready ahead of this week’s meetings of foreign and defense ministers in Brussels. The deal included €860 million for arms procurement, reported by POLITICO last week.
Most of Mankind is not American and even in a perfect Democracy (which the US is not, not even in the same universe as one) the leaders only ever have a duty towards the citizens of that Democracy - i.e. the voters - not the rest of Mankind.
Basically, for any person who lives outside a big and military powerful country, that country is just as bad being a Democracy as it is being an Authoritarian regime because both kinds of regimes don’t give a rat’s arse about outsiders. I mean, the leaders in the Democracy will naturally use beautifull words and say they “really do care” - because they’re politicians trained to talk a pretty talk in order to win elections - but when it comes what they actually think and do they care just as little as the Authoritarian ones.
The only reason why Democracies are a bit safer to be around of is because, if they’re real Democracies (i.e. have the interests of all of their citizens as top priority rather than being “vote for which agent of the oligarchs you would like to have” like America) they’re way less likelly to initiate wars without significant upsides because it’s not in the interest of that country’s citizens to suffer due to War, whilst Authoritarian regimes will happilly sacrifice their population in a War if that is good for the leader(s).
So the reality is that for Mankind it’s unclear if the end of Pax Americana will be a good thing, a bad thing or just a change of assholes.
There are 3 great military powers on this earth: China, Russia, and NATO. Of those, the only one whose expansion involves voluntary action from the joining member is NATO. Of those, the only one that doesn’t aggressively consume neighboring nations is NATO.
Without NATO, the other two would begin moving to conquer the Earth. We have only experienced less than a century of peace solely due to a very carefully balanced scale of military might. That time of peace will end the moment NATO falls. Hundreds of Millions will die in the resulting decades, entire ecosystems will be destroyed in fire.
The threat to Democracy isn’t the loss of America, if you ever thought that was the point then you’re a moron. The threat to Democracy is the rise of Russia and China.