askchapo

Completely depends on whatever the negotiated deal that ends the war is, but one thing you may count on is a half-hearted to 75%-hearted western attempt to rebuild the western-aligned part of Ukraine, I say this because for the most part what's going to get done is also what will make german/french/british/american companies money, other stuff not so much, and that's still predicated on the EU remaining halfway stable and not in its own internal serious crisis, which would make ukraine aid unpalatable.

I think the stuff that you saw america do in the cold war to build up anti-communist bastions like Japan and South Korea, so essentially planned industrialization with western enterprises moving to ukraine and easy access to US markets are NOT likely to be done, because for one there's a lot less of that industry left (German has its own internal debate about whether to diversify from or intensify its manufacturing sector) and these economies are just a lot less healthy, yeah america can do anything but do americans feel like that's true? Wouldn't there be pushback for policies that favor ukraine at the expense of americans? Trump wanting to pull out is already a sign of that.

And I think you 100% CANNOT guarantee Ukraine actually being let into NATO or the EU, Nato because, at the end of the day, without certain guarantees from Russia and Ukraine, and changes in both these countries (more easily in ukraine) I think the Nato people understand that Ukraine-Russia relations COULD worsen again to the point that there's another military conflict between them, and NATO will actually have to decide if it wants to end the world in nuclear apocalypse over some city in cyrilic that no one can point on a map (kiv keiv, idc what you call it), and this is beside the point but my personal opinion is that it wouldn't, Putin could call the bluff and invade estonia tomorrow because at the end of the day, the decision for a nuclear response will be made in places that won't be affected by Russia invading some random eastern european country, the actual text of article 5 talks about "respond appropriately" or something, it doesn't require a nuclear response and I think America would use it as justification to not end the world. So, in sum, might as well just not let Ukraine in, since it's a liability and a risk.

Regarding the EU, I think everyone (except Orban) can say in 2024, when the real choice is far in the future, that they'd allow Ukraine into the european union and find a place to integrate it in the EU market, but the people saying "Yes" now won't be the people actually deciding in, say 2030, on what to do with Ukraine, and the EU has losers, my country for example Portugal, but also Greece and Italy, and Ireland if they are forced to stop being a tax haven, that have literally 0 to win by letting Ukraine in and having it gobble up EU funds (which btw, are not charity, they're bribe money so shit doesn't get SO BAD in the recipient countries that they'll destabilize), now there's a lot of "Europeanism" (as in the European branch of American Nationalism) in these loser countries which makes going against EU decisions politically difficult, but that's right now, if shit gets worse in the future that will probably change. Also take into account that Ukraine is a big country with a lot of people, like, what do you actually do with it in the EU market? What do you have them do? Eastern Europe was integrated into the german industrial complex but that was a time when those sectors were GROWING, they GREW into the new EU countries, that shit isn't going to grow into ukraine because 1-it might be in recession by then and 2-germans nowadays will probably want to hold on to it. So, in sum, the EU has enough problems WITHOUT Ukraine, and Ukraine has enough problems on its own, there's not guarantee that the EU will have the capacity to actually integrate Ukraine without generating too many grievances

So it's fucked, it's a fucked country as countries usually are when they lose wars (or when they are made to lose wars, not because they could've ever won but because they could've negotiated out of it early instead of fighting to lose more).

TIP: Listen to the blowback season 1 episode on america's approach to "rebuilding" Iraq, how much of a ideological project of neoliberal grift it was, with the goal of privatizing state owned companies as some kind of "fix all" solution and taking precedence over actually helping people. Now, there's a lot less of that ideology around, and you can presume that the west will be more generous to a european country than to iraq, but then again, it might be the same thing again.