Germany set to double Ukraine military aid

What about that whole 'Ukraine did Nordstream' narrative? Guess Germany knows it's a cover story.
- I don't think the majority in Germany care about nord stream, even if it was intact, we stopped importing gas from Russia more than a year ago and no one plans to resume it anytime soon. It's like slashing the tires on a car you sold for scrap last week.
  
  The ones that care are relistic: Ukraine support against Russia right now makes sense geopolitical. Doesn't mean they won't remember that an ally was willing to conduct an active act of war against their infrastructure for their own stupid narratives - as if it wasn't actually unused already anyway. The fact that it was basically already discarded only means it's not of immidiate importance, but I'm quite sure Ukraine is aiming for more cooperation with Germany and the EU. And you can bet that there are poeple who will take that into account when evaluating how much Ukraine can be trusted.
  It’s like slashing the tires on a car you sold for scrap last week.
  More like you plan to sell it for scrap anyway and then your neighbour smashes the wind shields on purpose. It's not an actual loss concerning you, but the act itself will be remembered.
- I heard Zelensky did himself while on vacation in the Baltic. No big deal, get a boat, get some snorkerls, boom!
  All of this in NATO waters but he borrowed harry potters cloak, so it worked out.
- I guess some things are more important to them. I'm sure the drivers making the deliveries will be ordered to put on their saddest faces

But there's no additional money available for infrastructure and social services within Germany. Something something Bundeshaushalt excuse and EU federal debt limit.
- Whew, watch out, I mentioned the same kind of sentiment on a post about the billions of dollars that America is sending for the war, and got lectured on "that's not how government budgeting works and you know it blah blah blah"
  
  It's neat how it's so easy for capitalist governments to authorize money for killing people, but when it comes to social spending there isn't even a penny to spare.
  The German finance minister has been gleeful up on his high horse preventing additional spending on important things Germans need, but approved a €100B special fund for the military in 2022 outside of the bounds of the federal budget.
  I think it's also worth mentioning that most of the US "aid" is actually loans. Even their food aid comes with real strong strings attached. The US owns Ukraine at this point. Although I'd don't know how German aid spending or military spending in support of Israel in general is structured.
- If they're unwilling to stop an aggressor at their doorstep for a fraction of their budget, having more infrastructure or social services won't help them much
  
  If it's such a small fraction, why is it so impossible to use it for other means?
  Name one country with a bigger military budget

money doesn't immediately create soldiers or weapons.
- Thing is that people running the west are completely detached from material reality. If you look at their backgrounds, they all come from media, law, lobbying, and so on. They think they can just will things to happen if they want them hard enough. They don't understand that you can't just spin up factories and create an educated workforce to operate them out of thin air.
  This leads to hilarious outcome like this one where EU leaders thought they could just dump money into shell production to increase it. Instead, the price for one artillery shell has gone up to 8,000 euros from 2,000 euros due to lack of supply and increased liquidity.
  https://www.reuters.com/world/nato-urges-common-standards-curbs-protectionism-boost-artillery-output-2023-10-24/

- I want whatever this clown is smoking lol
  
  sure, it's not like this was extensively documented in western media or anything
  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30414955
  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28329329
  https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/2021-05-04/ty-article/.premium/ukrainian-official-changes-tune-on-unacceptable-march-honoring-ss-unit/0000017f-e0e2-d7b2-a77f-e3e7ee990000 (https://archive.ph/ckwv4)
  https://www.ft.com/content/7191ec30-9677-423d-873c-e72b64725c2d
  https://gordonhahn.com/2015/05/02/ukraines-neo-fascist-right-sector-claims-responsibility-again-for-2-may-2014-terrorist-pogrom/
  http://www.errc.org/news/anti-roma-pogroms-in-ukraine-on-c14-and-tolerating-terror
  https://ingaza.wordpress.com/2022/08/10/what-ive-seen-of-ukraines-war-crimes-against-civilians-in-the-donbass-over-the-years/
  https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/20/ukraine-widespread-use-cluster-munitions
  https://www.npr.org/2023/01/31/1152743054/human-rights-watch-ukraine-landmines

Great timing, I'm sure everybody is forgetting how it cost a small fortune to heat their home last winter right about now.

This doesn't appear to be anything official, right? not certain how much a coalition publicly agreeing to this translates to actual funding for Ukraine. Would also be nice to see how this funding stacks vs the US, and vs other EU country contributions.
- It's officially agreed upon by all coalition members, but the finalizing of 2024's budget where they officially introduce that change is only scheduled for next week.
  Also just the original 4 billion € for next year is more than all other countries with the exception of US and UK have spend this whole war...
  
  That's just military aid though. In all, the EU has almost spent €85 billion to support Ukrainians.
  https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/api/files/attachment/876709/Factsheet_EU_Solidarity_with_Ukraine_EN.pdf.pdf
  For comparison, Russia is expected to have tripled their national military budget by 80 to €120 billion per year, or an increase of around 4% GDP. If the EU spends €60 billion /year on aid, that would mean around 0,4% of their GDP.
  
  Bad ass for Germany and Ukraine. hope things go well.thanks for the context

Is this just a kind of inflation/recession write off for the EU and USA at this point? oh, our economy is not doing so great, we are short by X% of development from project, let's just write that off as 'aids' to Ukraine/Israel

This is the best summary I could come up with:
If approved by parliament, where Scholz's parties hold a majority, the boost would lift Germany's defence spending to 2.1% of its gross domestic product target, beyond the 2% pledged by all North Atlantic Treaty Organization members, the source added.
Lawmakers from Scholz's Social Democrats, the Free Democrats and the Green party agreed on the increase in negotiations over the proposed 2024 federal budget ahead of a formal meeting of the budget committee of the Bundestag - or lower house of parliament - on Thursday, Nov. 16, the source said.
A spokesperson for Germany's Ministry of Defence said the Bundestag committee has not finished negotiations and declined to comment further.
Defence minister Boris Pistorius, interviewed by broadcaster ARD, referred to the planned doubling of military aid to Ukraine.
"It is a strong signal to Ukraine that we will not leave them in the lurch," he said, adding the move, if agreed, would mean the annual budget allocation would be enough to last the whole year.
Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper had also said the committee is due to approve the additional 4 billion euros.
The original article contains 340 words, the summary contains 183 words. Saved 46%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

ITT: plenty of vatniks sowing doubt with further supporting Ukraine.
- I do wish there was some honest reporting from at least one of the sides though.
  
  Trolls and vatniks have been telling to the people it's "getting cold" since last year to dissuade more support for Ukraine. Well, a lot more will lose than just heating for homes by tolerating Putin.

yuppie

As if there wasn't enough support for fascism in the world already. Digging your own grave Germany.
- germany just loves nazis
- Supporting a country's right to sovereignty is fascist?
  No.
  
  Russian propaganda.
  Anti-semitism inspired by thinkers like Dugin and Prokhanov is popular in Russia.
  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/vladimir-putin-ukraine-attack-antisemitism-denazify
  TLDR: Russian ethnic nationalists, don't see Jews as the primary victims of the holocaust, they think of Russian Christians as its true victims, and even go so far to argue that Jews orchestrated the holocaust and/or the war. That's why they don't see a contradiction in a country led by a Jew being nazi. IRC they also recently blamed Ukraine for instigating an anti-semitic riot in Dagestan. Not that it would matter, because propaganda allows people to engage in double-think.
  As someone who's pretty left wing, it's very unfortunate because these fossils (and a younger generation who confuse contrarianism with critical thinking) have often infected left wing parties, ensuring they'll never have any influence on government and can be easily discredited for even their most sensible solutions. Communists supporting far right ultra-capitalists and often the exact same people who helped accelerate the catastrophic fall of the USSR.
  
  Ukraine lost its sovereignty back in 2014 when a western backed right wing coup overthrew the legitimate democratically elected government. Now, a western sponsored regime is sending hundreds of thousands of people to their deaths in a proxy war US is using to try and weaken Russia. US politicians openly admit this fact now.
- If you don't like it, go join the storm z unit and fight for freedom
  
  he doesn't really need to do that. throwing money at a problem limited by real resources doesn't solve shit. Russia has the advantage right now, even western media is admitting it.
  Capitalism is funny. When something is limited by the lack of money (say high speed rail), they say there is no money because fiscal deficit limit etc etc even though there is labor and resources available to build the same. When something is limited by lack of resources (say soldiers), they pump unnecessary amounts of money which is bound to leak out.
- I'm sure the parents of the hundreds of thousands of children that were abducted don't want them back.
  I mean the Ukrainians from the occupied areas are enjoying their stay in Putin's Filtration camps where they are systematically tortured and raped. If they're lucky they don't just "disappear" into a mass grave, they'll get to enjoy their resettlement to a poor russian oblast. Reeducation camps are great! You'll get an "education" and don't even have to take on a student loan.
  Ukrainians just don't appreciate all the things Putin has done for them. Systematically attacking their energy grid gave them a chance to experience christmas by candlelight. So romantic.
  Why don't they just surrender? I guess Zelensky must be a Nazi.
  GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS!

proudly standing tall on the bridge and saluting as the ship goes down...

So how close to losing and being forced into an unconditional surrender does Ukraine need to be before Europe stops sending aid at their own huge expense?
- Huge expense? Not one life lost, all infrastructure intact and got rid of mostly 80's military hardware while getting budget for new stuff and a whole lot of free field testing and marketing for export.
  We are not sending gold bars or euro bills, we're paying local companies to produce ammo or sending surplus hardware "for the value of $$$" that would otherwise sit in a hangar somewhere.
  This is the cheapest war "Europe" has ever fought, can't say the same about Ukraine or Russia.
  
  The reason they're trying to fast track EU membership for Ukraine, a country that in normal times would stand zero chance of membership, is so that its debts to the US will become all of the EU's. This won't be cheap.
- I think the plan is to not let it get to that point? Ukraine is the front line against Russia. If the front line falls, the front line then becomes Poland, which is just one step away from Germany.
  
  Poland would absolutely body the Russians in a conventional military conflict

The US is treating the EU like a doner kebab to feed Ukraine

Double it and give it to the next person.
EDIT: It was a joke about the famous stupid YouTube videos... Not saying they shouldn't give it to Ukraïne....
- Next person?
  
  Ignore the other reply. I was just making a stupid joke with the title about doubling it.
  As that is the famous phrase from dumb YouTube videos were they donate money to people (if is even real) or after doing something and they offer then to keep it or double it and give it to the next person.
  
  https://asiatimes.com/2023/11/why-is-the-west-moving-to-replace-zelensky/

Germany is on a steady decline, decisions like this increase the pace.
- Why?
  
  Because nobody needs to support their partners! The only thing that counts is OUR country and OUR freedom !!!!
  /s
- Elaborate please
  
  Germany is now running deficits to support a war that's already been decided. Ukraine is a corrupt country where many weapons given to it find their way onto the international black market. The standard of living in Germany is getting worse. Using deficit spending on a non-productive good like weapons to a foreign country that is corrupt will accelerate Germany's decline.