Oddly, even Russia-sympathetic commentators seem loath to take Putin and other top Russia officials at their word with respect to Ukraine. Russia’s demand for no NATO, no way, no how, ever in Ukraine means a very fast impasse for any Trump negotiation attempts. As we will explain, Trump can’t deliver NATO nor can he deliver Ukraine. Having Ukraine renounce NATO is one of Putin’s preconditions to negotiations and a pause in hostilities. The “nyet means nyet” of now CIA Director Bill Burns famed 2008 memo on Russian opposition to Ukraine in NATO is as firm as ever. Yet it has still not been accepted by Team West.
Russia nevertheless has incentives to some negotiation-like activities. Putin has repeatedly maintained he is willing to negotiate, and it would behoove the Russian side to go though the motions a bit, even if that means broken-recording what they have already said, if nothing else to keep the good will of key economic partners like China and India. They are not comfortable with Russia slowly gobbling up a neighbor, even with Putin’s repeated explanations as to why the West has turned Ukraine into an existential threat to Russia. The Western media may give Russia an unexpected helping hand. Since most mainstream media outlets are predisposed to treat willingness to discuss positions as an admission of Russian weakness, the press is likely to hype any exchanges as amounting to more than they really do.
So expect a bit of talking theater to try to minimize embarrassment for the Trump side. As Alexander Mercouris has pointed out, for US officials to exit the Biden cone of silence with respect to Russia would be a marked step forward.
But even before getting to the elephant in the room, that Putin has set what for Ukraine, the US and NATO is an impossibly high bar for commencing “talks”: that Ukraine formally drop its plans for joining NATO and withdraw all its troops from the four oblasts that Russia has designated as part of Russia. That means their original administrative boundaries, which was beyond what Russia then and even now occupies. Only then would Russia halt combat operations.1</sup
And in the context of that June 14 speech,2 “talks” means negotiations, as in horse trading over bargaining positions with the objective of coming to a resolution. It is hardly uncommon for two parties to have no overlap in what they deem acceptable, as attested by the number of divorces and commercial disputes that wind up in court. So there is no reason, as many observers weirdly seem to assume that there is any deal to be had, now or any time soon.
But not all talks are created equal. For broader political purposes, Russia can be expected to indulge in some sessions of Trump officials and Russian officials “talking” past each other to get through to the Trump team that Putin really means what he has repeatedly said.
Putin is unusually transparent for a world leader in setting forth his positions and explaining why Russia regards them as necessary.
Remember that early in the Special Military Operation, Putin had also warned that the longer the war went on, “the more difficult it will be for them to negotiate with us.” This pointed to the reality that as Russia made progress on the battlefield, it would increase its demands in light of its improved bargaining position. Putin and others in top roles have reiterated this notion in a coded manner, that any negotiations must reflect realities on the ground,
So what does Trump do when he can no longer hide the fact that his repeated and loud pledges that he could quickly and easily end the war in Ukraine have all come to naught? Will he go the Richard Nixon “peace with honor” route, and try to spin abandonment of Ukraine as a win for the US? That might be colorable in light of Ukraine intransigence, as in blame can be shifted to them for the negotiation failure.
But Trump is a lot like Biden in that he often lashes out at and tries to punish opponents. Will he realize that Russia, ex nukes, is an immovable object? Will he go all in for the Russian frozen asset heist? Will he not oppose the expected move of the probable replacement for German’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Friedrich Merz, of launching German Taurus missiles into Russia? Recall the Taurus has a longer range than the US ATACMS.
Why Trump Cannot Deliver a Settlement
Trump has two insurmountable problems: Ukraine and NATO.
With Ukraine, Zelensky is ferociously opposed to negotiations. He has rejected ideas from the Trump side that fall well short of what Russia deems to be its bare minimum. He lambasted the idea of a freeze on the current line of conflict, which throws cold water on the latest Trump scheme.3
In a further intended poke in the eye to Russia, Zelensky today said he would not agree to limit Ukraine’s armaments even if Ukraine were invited to join NATO. In fact, any NATO future for Ukraine is a non-starter for Russia, so Zelensky is just over-egging the pudding. But here, he is going out of his way to repudiate the preliminary Istanbul peace terms of March-April 2022. Ukraine had inked an outline that committed Ukraine to staying out of NATO. As Victoria Nuland later whinged, it also contained a big annex over Ukraine’s arms limits. There was a big bid-asked spread between what Ukraine and Russia wanted, but they apparently had gotten as far as listing weapons categories and putting numbers to each.
And even though Zelensky is refusing to budge long after his term has expired, it’s not as if a replacement would be any more willing to negotiate. The Banderites are still the power behind the throne. They are as motivated as the US neocons and their EU/NATO allies to fight to the last Ukrainian. Russia has promised war crimes trials. There seem to be more than enough snuff videos Ukrainians happily took of Russian soldiers’ deliberately brutal killings to make charges stick.
Remember, Trump has no negotiating leverage here. He played the money card prematurely by saying no more serious funding of Ukraine. Even if Trump were to attempt a flip-flop, Republicans in Congress, who recognize Ukraine has become a losing cause in their districts, are not certain to follow. If anyone in Ukraine is in contact with reality, they also know US weapons stocks are low and the US has competing priorities in terms of what theater to supply.
So nothing will change with Ukraine until there is a Russian-forced regime change, say by military/political collapse that leads to a puppet-like government or Russia imposing terms (we previously pointed to the Allies’ post-WWII control of German territory and its lengthy return to sovereignity as a possible model).
But the NATO and EU are just as intractable. EU leaders (save the renegade and marginalized Viktor Orban of Hungary and his new confrere, Robert Fico of Slovakia, and interestingly, just recently, Georgia Meloni of Italy4) top to bottom have loathed and vilified Trump starting with his first term. Recall how they would childishly diss him at gatherings by refusing to talk to him. The antipathy has been mutual and has only gotten worse as Trump threatened to cut NATO funding and looks set to deliver.
The EU has been putting uber-Russia-hawks into key positions. Ursula von der Leyen has managed to maneuver her way into asserting more authority as president of the European Commission than she has on paper and continues to try to do everything she can to punish Russia, even though her sanctions package and fierce speeches lack any punch. Mark Rutte as new NATO chief, has managed to outdo his predecessor Jens Stoltenberg in anti-Russia choler. Kaja Kallas, who has has taken Josep Borrell’s post as the EU’s foreign minister equivalent, has taken to egging Zelensky on in his opposition to Trump. From an interview today in the Financial Times, Stop pushing Zelenskyy into peace talks, warns EU’s top diplomat:
Western capitals should stop suggesting peace talks to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and instead ensure their promises of security guarantees to Kyiv are not “empty”, the EU’s chief diplomat has warned….
The former Estonian prime minister spoke to the Financial Times ahead of an EU leaders’ summit on Thursday set to discuss how Europe can adapt its support to Kyiv after Donald Trump returns to the White House….
On Wednesday evening Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte hosted talks with Zelenskyy and a small group of senior EU leaders including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to discuss potential options for the future of European support to Ukraine.
Speaking ahead of that meeting, Rutte said talk of a peace deal only helped Putin. “If we now start to discuss amongst ourselves what a peace deal could look like, we make it so easy for the Russians,” he said.
“I think we would be very wise to put some lid on this and focus on the business at hand . . . to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs to prevent Putin from winning.”
If you have been following the various “security guarantees” formulas the Europeans have been discussing among themselves, they are all 100% not acceptable to Russia, like deferred entry into NATO or a 100,000 ish “ceasefire” force from various NATO states, which Russia correctly regards as no different than moving NATO into Ukraine.
Anti-Spiegel (hat tip Micael T) makes it even more clear that Rutte is trying to put the kibosh on even airing the possibility of peace discussions. The article’s sub-head, via machine translation:
NATO Secretary General Rutte has said that public discussions about a possible peace solution must be brought “under control” and that the focus must instead be on how to supply Ukraine with more weapons in order to “secure Ukraine’s victory”.
As for Rutte, he is resorting to the tired, empty ruse of pretending that somehow Ukraine can improve its position even as Ukraine is losing more ground, literally and figuratively, every day. Putin has already won. The only question is by how much. Having the West be the difficult party and extent the conflict is only to Russia’s advantage.
As for NATO, Trump could not deliver NATO even if most of its leaders stopped hating him, say by virtue of getting lobotomies. We’ve pointed out how weak NATO’s governance is. For instance, it’s vaunted Article 5 commitments amount to almost nothing. They translate as, “If a NATO member is in trouble, we will formally consider whether to do anything.” Aurelien, in a piece I have referred to several times, NATO’s Phantom Armies, gave a worked example of how hard it would be to get NATO to Do Something.
It turns out NATO governance is even worse than I imagined. From the NATO website:
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A decision reached by consensus is an agreement reached by common consent.
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When a “NATO decision” is announced, it is therefore the expression of the collective will of all the sovereign states that are members of the Alliance.
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This principle of consensus is applied at every committee level, which means that all NATO decisions are collective decisions made by its member countries.
Consensus decision-making is a fundamental principle. It has been accepted as the sole basis for decision-making in NATO since the creation of the Alliance in 1949.
Consensus decision-making means that there is no voting at NATO. Consultations take place until a decision that is acceptable to all is reached. Sometimes member countries agree to disagree on an issue. In general, this negotiation process is rapid, since members consult each other on a regular basis and therefore often know and understand each other’s positions in advance.
Facilitating the process of consultation and consensus decision-making is one of the NATO Secretary General’s main tasks.
The principle of consensus decision-making applies throughout NATO – from the North Atlantic Council, the Alliance’s principal political decision-making body, all the way down through its subordinate committees and structures.
This lack of formal processs and votes goes a long way to explaining the bizarre protracted public negotiations among NATO members. The supposed consensual process historically no doubt significantly depended on the “Some animals are more equal than others” position of the US as the big funder of and significant arms supplier to NATO. And NATO hasn’t had to face bigger decisions than whether to participate in US-led campaigns against men in sandals with shoulder-mounted rocket launchers.5
But NATO was caught out when the US/EU shock and awe sanctions did not quickly prostrate Russia. They gained undue hope from Russia quickly seeking negotiations, and tried to press their advantage. When that did not pan out and they found themselves literally outgunned by Russia, and the US unable to live up to its image and generously supply Ukraine with arms, they were forced to make decisions on a national basis. The consensus fiction has been frayed. Decision-making will become even more difficult with the Trump Administration not in the business of knocking heads together.
Let us put it another way: there are only two settings in which I have seen consensus at work. One is in Japan, and their process does not translate to anywhere else. First, it is not at all nice. Power dynamics and who has what to offer matters a great deal. Second, Japan as a society and Japanese companies even more so have strongly held norms, so there is a well-shared understanding of how things should work and what generally good outcomes look like. This is pretty much never a given when working cross cultures.
The other place I have seen consensus decision-making at work is Occupy Wall Street. It was exhaustively time consuming and seldom produced good outcomes.
This may also explain why the EU is making noises about becoming more of a military alliance. The EU has much more sensible decision processes, staring with voting with certain levels required to move forward.
Let’s return to NATO decision-making and Ukraine. Again recall that in 2008, at the Bucharest Summit, NATO decided that Ukraine “will become a member of NATO.” That decision was reaffirmed in a 2009 Declaration to Complement the Charter.
I have no idea what the formal status of this Declaration is. But irrespective of its legal standing, it has become iconic within NATO if nothing else by dint of repetition and high visibility. It is impossible to see how NATO could retreat from it, given its “consensus” practices and the fact that some NATO members will always oppose Russia.
So this is a long way of saying that Russia’s pre-election assessment is being proven correct. It is not going to matter in the end who is President, save perhaps the crucial difference that Trump might be a smidge less likely to risk nuclear war. But Trump being less predictable will make for a wilder-seeming ride.
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1 Note that Putin is demanding a cessation of fighting before any deal of any sort, including a ceasefire, is inked.
2 Russian officials top to bottom have maintained that Russia’s objectives for the Special Military Operation will all be met. But those aims had been stated at a high level of abstraction, like “demilitarization.” So it had been fair to wonder what the Russia side would deem to be minimally acceptable. This speech was the first time Putin enumerated his preconditions to negotiations.
3 Do not forget that this falls short of the cheeky Russian requirement that Ukraine ceding additional territory in the four Russian-claimed oblasts along with withdrawing as a condition for Russia to stop fighting and only then start negotiating.
4 Italy for some time has been trying to distance itself from Project Ukraine without going into open opposition like Orban. Italy refused to send weapons, saying it did not even remotely want to be construed as waging war against Russia. Recall that after Germany, Italy was the second-biggest European customer for Russian gas, so it seems a wee bit more cognizant as to where its national interests lie.
5 Wellie, and Kosovo, but that was not a large commitment.
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There is one trolling counter proposal that Russia could make if Ukraine would not be excluded forever from NATO: immediate admission of Russia into NATO coupled with the withdrawal of United States and Canada from the same alliance and an affirmation of military Schengen throughout Europe–yes, by this, I mean that Russian army, as a NATO member, would be given free rein to peacefully occupy UK, for example. (obviously, sarcasm, but just imagine what the NATOistas’ reaction to this proposal might be…)
If they did join they would do us less harm than the US….
Well, that would be one way of demilitarizing Russia. NATO as it stands is about out of gear.
Excellent synthesis of the various dire problems at hand, Yves Smith. Complimenti.
I suspect that this paragraph, hidden in the middle, is more important that it may seem: “Remember, Trump has no negotiating leverage here. He played the money card prematurely by saying no more serious funding of Ukraine. Even if Trump were to attempt a flip-flop, Republicans in Congress, who recognize Ukraine has become a losing cause in their districts, are not certain to follow. If anyone in Ukraine is in contact with reality, they also know US weapons stocks are low and the US has competing priorities in terms of what theater to supply.”
Observations:
Trump is much more likely to recognize his lack of leverage than either (1) co-president Musk or (2) newly hipped Nancy Pelosi of the Dems, who, you may notice, didn’t get a brain implant.
In this regard, Trump, for all of his bluster, posturing, and American-style horrible negotiation, does know the expression “don’t throw good money after bad.” That is, the money card.
Republicans don’t want to lose the midterms. The current appreciation of Saint Luigi the Avenger indicates that the groundlings are restless. The proxy wars in Israel and Ukraine were already factors in the Democrats’ loss. Because Republicans are driven by almost pure will to power, they may find that the war is an inconvenience to congressional majorities (and the one-trick pony of Republican economic policy, tax breaks). Volatility works in all kinds of ways, eh.
Ukraine and reality: Nope. It appears that Zelenskyy doesn’t even know Churchill’s supposed statement, Jaw-jaw is better than war-war.
As pointed out the other day by journalist Davide Maria De Luca, Ukraine is a war of neoliberalism, as is Israel’s land grab. The dilemma is that these wars can go on indefinitely, so long as no one bothers the bourgeoisie and its compulsion to buy things.
Until, of course, the party is over. See Kaputt by Curzio Malaparte.
PS: With regard to Giorgia Meloni, she also is under pressure from her own coalition partners, Bannon-adjacent Matteo Salvini, who is no fan of Project Ukraine, and foreign minister and Berlusconi-bot, Antonio Tajani, who has already said flat out that Italian troops will not be sent to Ukraine. The “wild card” here, not so ironically, is the Partito Democratico, with the usual lady warmongers like Pina Picierno and the ever-indecisive Elly Schlein, who is turning out to be the Kamala Harris of Italian politics, a conservo-leftoid who speaks in supercazzola.
Since you mentioned Elly Schlein, I would point out (for the benefit of readers who don’t follow Italian politics) that she is a USA citizen and worked for both of Barry O’s prez campaigns. “Supercazzola” = senseless talk, nonsense, total BS (my interpretation anyway); the perfect word to describe Elly’s public utterances.
any connection between Ms Schlein and Willie Brown?
/s
A flibbertigibbet, in English.
And to think that years ago the eggheads tried get everybody adopt Esperanto as a Universal Language. The Italians may well have saved us. What a bunch of supercazzola that was.
“No more serious funding”.
Interesting concept. Outside the U.S. “serious funding” is obligating money on contracts to pay for items that will take several years to make.
U.S. serious funding depends on how deep into war reserves will Trump go which implies what other wars will he give up for the Ukraine (neocon) project. Trump has the Iran and Taiwan projects to keep loaded.
Zelenskyy is Thieu empowered by the neocon/msm.
RF has no reason to talk or meet any ante!
The man is also a petty small minded vindictive vengeful narcissist who punishes people for daring to contradict what he declares reality. You know like saying немає/нет when he puts forth a half baked peace plan that he has stated will be accepted by both Ukraine and Russia the day after he puts it on the table. The only question is who will Trump go after first and how long until the next thing draws his attention.
A maxim that Churchill himself did not follow since he loathed Hitler. Anyone else would have negotiated during the disaster Dunkirk was but Churchill would rather lose the entire Expeditionary Force then negotiate. That opening of WW2 also has curious parallels with the Ukraine-Russia war. Great Britain was slowly losing the airwar but still refused to negotiate until Churchill in a fit of pique that the Nazis accidentally bombed London ordered the bombing of Berlin (a symbolic attack that was a massive waste of the remaining air power GB had, kind of like Ukraine going after Kursk) and Hitler lost his marbles, declared that turning London into rubble took precedent over taking out the RAF which allowed the RAF to recover. It is the kind of Hail Mary Pass that Ukraine/EU/US are hoping for with their escalations, push Russia/Putin to the point where only symbolic targets will be on the list and allowing Ukraine to recover.
I strongly recommend reading “The Most Dangerous Enemy” by Stephen Bungay, a former BCG partner.
He comprehensively debunks (with data) the myth that the RAF was defeated or being defeated until the Luftwaffe turned to the cities. Even at the very height of the battle, the RAF’s ability to rotate squadrons from the quiet North to the South and vice versa for rest was never disrupted. Luftwaffe pilots had no such opportunity. The radar system was disrupted temporarily but never destroyed. Even Biggin Hill’s runway, constantly bombed, was repaired each day. More fundamentally, the (then world leading) command and control network was never severed.
Sure, the RAF suffered. It also had its own issues with poor tactical formations (battle hardened squadrons, especially highly skilled Czechs and Poles sensibly ignored the text book) and the Big Wing nonsense from Leigh Mallory and 12 Group. But it was able to maintain its strength. The Luftwaffe suffered even more without coming close to winning the air supremacy that it needed. All Fighter Command needed to do was to deny them that by staying in operation. Its ability to do so was never seriously compromised. Even the much referenced comment by Keith Park to Churchill that there were no reserves left was economical with the truth. It referred only to 11 Group: 10 Group was fully able to support and 12 Group was also able to do so but tended to like creating Big Wings instead. Park then went on to do defeat the Luftwaffe again when he took command in Malta in 1942 by stopping Kesselring’s attempt to throttle that island.
The book gets into far more detail but these are the highlights I recall. It’s all relative. In the same vein, I have no doubt that Russia is suffering too in Ukraine (and I discount all the talking heads who claim Ukrainian casualties are some mega multiple of Russia’s) but they are winning and have greater ability to take casualties via a war of attrition.
There are so many myths about WW2. We like the myth of near defeat in the Battle of Britain, of course. It makes the eventual victory look so much sweeter.
Yes, that is why Trump won the popular vote. Instead of trying to get behind a united government, small minded petty brainwashed liberals like you ignore how badly Biden damaged the US on the World Stage. The coverup of his dementia was criminal, you are perfectly fine with that, sad. By the way, who is running the Government these days? It sure isn’t Biden, or his VP
For (the Fox-addicted) Trump to recognize that he does not have leverage, the loyal war-hawk sycophants he is staffing his administration with and the three-letter agencies would have to tell him a lot of things he doesn’t want to hear.
It’s more likely he will just think the Russians are being intransigent – after all, how could they not recognize they are losing (as the echo chamber repeats ad nauseum) and bluster and threaten and escalate (else the US loses face) until the situation gets out of control.
”Supercazzola”! Hilarious.
I never heard that one. Many years ago I spoke Italian pretty well at an intermediate level. Is it a new term?
Putin is convinced that Russia can win on the battlefield, Zelensky and his cronies know that their power only lasts until the war is over, NATO doesn’t know how to end the war in Ukraine’s favor. And peace in Ukraine is not necessarily a priority for Trump and his supporters. So the war will go on and on.
Very succinctly put, so Russia will simply keep changing the facts on the ground until they are to its long term interests. Especially with the West having proved itself agreement compliance incapable so many times.
On and on may not last very long.
And what did Nuland say about the EU? What exactly do we owe them anyway? It does seem curious that not so very long ago there was talk about Russia and Germany having a virtual partnership. Nordstream was a mutual project was it not? If they followed the loony Biden/Blinken down the garden path re Russia then oh well. They too may find we are “not agreement capable.”
And this time that would be a good thing. We are not part of their ancient quarrels.
Pretty soon ukr will give up across the 600 mile front. They might hole up in cities for a bit, but no power/food/water/sewage removal will end that fairly soon.
Nato gives up right after ukr runs out of troops/canon fodder, which, again, looks really soon.
I see ukr as a new Russian satellite, as in ussr days, but Russia can afford one.k
I don’t think it CAN afford to administrate all Ukraine (let alone Europe, as the scaremongers still want to insist). You can’t stand next to every man with another man guarding them, as Bill Clinton once said, one of the few common sense statements the man ever made about the futility about a certain kind of dumb war-making.
But Russia can overrun that front, and make its way–now, once again–with a wild bombardment, to Kiev, and bring Zelensky to his knees. Then draw the buffer it seeks. The idea that the Russians love Trump, or plan to help him much. . . silly. My hunch–regrettably–is that that a truly hellacious blitzkrieg at some point soon settles the issue.
Trump, for his part, has far less credibility on the line than liberals seem to think. He’ll just shrug his shoulders and say that Zelensky wouldn’t listen. He keeps a million balls in the air, brays loudly, and pretends that losses are wins.
As in last week´s Bundestag´s debate over the vote of no confidence Mützenich stressed in his speech, Merz is completely unreliable in his TAURUS comments. When it serves him he acts strongman. But when it comes down to serious decisions he says the complete opposite and backs away. So Merz is hot air.
Were he not demanding TAURUS he wouldn´t distinguish himself from Scholz and generate less headlines.
Even a dishonest idiot like Strack-Zimmermann said it´s madness to start WWIII.
Any German government seriously steering to war will hit the brick wall.
As dumb as they might be – they all know this entire war was so far a TV simulation for couch potatoes with zero consequences for their voters in terms of bodily harm.
Of course as policy goes Team West has no interest in serious peace talks. Why should they. Their main task is to preserve the war in a managable scale, enough simmering to goad the EU. In Germany for instance Army officials have started to do their PR and recruiting in schools and universities. Imagine 30 years from now. With anti-Russian curricula in schools, childrens´ content with Scalp, Storm Shaow and Taurus as funny speaking toy-rockets (which was the case 2023 already on German state TV) and so on, this is more likely a long-term brainwashing plan for which a heightened genuine fear of war in the EU is detrimental – you want to keep high the hatred but never cross the threshold into reality.
As NATO is concerned – their DNA was developed in a time of overwhelming superiority. They could boast and intimidate because they knew they were untouchable. Which is one reason why the administration freaked out 1962 – their public projection was thwarted. The same psychology as 9/11. So said governance deficits of NATO today are due to being out-dated in the light of changing conditions. Just like their military.
But that doesn´t mean it will never be changed and the unanimous vote e.g. could never be abandoned if it would serve their needs. Though I doubt that. They want warmongering not warmaking.
Thanks for the calibration on Merz. Non-German Western commentators have been taking his bluster seriously and I made the mistake of thinking I didn’t need to verify.
Merz will do as been told even without being told. Just another voice from Germany.
There is a YT interview of Jeffrey Sachs with Tucker Carlson. That provides much background on Russian, diplomatic, economic and other issues given his activities over the past few decades. You can follow it well over the 1x playback speed.
The Russians have indicated that they are willing to negotiate but there are specific demands for a cease fire (which the West will never agree to), meaning there may be some symbolic negotiations while the battle rages. It will probably not be like Vietnam because its Ukraine doing the fighting, not the US.
Its unclear whether Trump really believes the Russian casualty numbers he is quoting, but he may actually think they are true, in which case, he might actually think that the Russians want to negotiate because of the level of losses. At some point, he is going to realize he has been had, in which case, who knows how he reacts.
Reports are that Ukraine is losing about 4K in soldiers a month between casualties and recruitment, which means they are suffering a sustained reduction in combat power. The conscription of 18-25 is somewhat of a deception, because they called up military reservists between 18-25 already, and this corresponds to a demographic winter in Ukraine, so even if they change the conscription laws, its unclear how many replacement troops they can muster. There is a serious question of how long the Ukrainian army can last before it crumples. It would surprising if it remains operational in 2026.
What is likely is some kind of sham/symbolic “negotiation” for awhile until the UA collapses, then there will be some kind of fait accompli for the Russian-side. Dems will blame Trump, Trump will blame UA and false and misleading intel on the true state of the UA from the Nat Sec establishment. Partisans will follow their talking points.
No, your assumption is not what Putin said. From his June 14, 2024 speech:
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/74285
As I stated in the post, renouncing NATO and withdrawing from the four oblasts, including territory Russia does not now control, is a condition for negotiations.
Yes, you are correct, and there is also the problem that there is nothing really to negotiate. The West has very little leverage to control the situation at this time, and have boxed themselves into maximalist demands that one would expect from the winner of a struggle, not the losing side. However, I am not convinced that Russia wouldn’t sit down with from someone from the US/EU to pretend to negotiate as an act of political theater, and Zelensky is not really an obstacle because I imagine he would be refrigerated within 24 hours of the Empire concluding he was an obstacle to whatever perverted strategy they thought they were pursuing.
The reason I say this is not based on Putin’s remarks, but just that if a serious diplomatic outreach involving the US/NATO/EU to attempt to end the conflict took place, it would legitimate and enhance the standing of the Russian Federation viz. the rest of the world, because it would constitute a kind of victory in itself, as well as a signal of desperation on the part of the West. Also, it would let the air out of the balloon for the world about Ukrainian “sovereignty.”
Not quite correct. Those are the conditions Putin laid out for a ceasefire. Without those, he has clearly said, negotiations can still happen. But also, during those negotiations, Russia will be continuing to smash up the NATO proxy.
No, that is not what his June 14 text said. I do not know how you can deny its clear language. Putin is always very precise and this is from the official Kremlin translation. Emphasis mine:
The Russia syntax seems difficult to render cleanly in English, but there is no mistaking that the negotiations start ONLY after the Ukraine withdrawal and formal commitment not to join NATO.
More like 60k killed and wounded a month (2k per day), plus increasing numbers of AWOLs, offset by perhaps 15k a month of press-ganged very unwilling new recruits. That’s the reason for the panic reactions in the West for lowering the recruitment age and dreams of official NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine. After three years of attrition (at somewhat lower rates in 2022 and 2023), the Russian army has reached the limits of the Ukrainian army’s ability to maintain its numbers.
You’re forgetting the secondary effect on the war in Gaza / Syraqistan. If Trump is made too look weak on Ukraine, he may well try to appear strong in Israel. An the insiders in Washington are likely counting on this. Frustrate or derail Trump’s peace efforts and you can convert him into a pugnacious if not belligerent President on all the fronts. This is all the easier with his cabinet chock full of neocons.
Russia appears to be well on its way to exiting its air and naval bases in Syria. Most commentators expect Russia to pull out fully pretty soon. So I fail to see how Trump can punish Russia in a theater Russia has already (largely) abandoned before Trump assumes office.
We apparently follow different commentators regarding Russia’s pull-out of Syria. What I’ve seeing is comments by Syrians and Russian along the lines of retaining status quo until at least March next year, when there’s supposed to be elections in Syria, and the Interim Government will be replaced by one that can enter negotiations with Russia.
I’ve seen US officials saying (in WP?) that Russia seems to be retaining the bases, and I’ve seen Turkiyet MoD stating that they prefer Russia to retain the bases in Syria.
Russia had many forward bases in north, around Aleppo in around Damascus, and was allowed peacefully to withdraw in all of them. Just recently (9 hours ago) Putin said that Russia has helped over 4000 Iranians to leave Syria.
They did move the S-400 to Libya, it seems, almost as if the war has ended (for now) in Syria. And the Russian bases in Libya do rely on Latakia airbase as a relay stop for now, so whatever is happening behind the scenes, Russian MoD seems to operate on the basis that they can keep on using Latakia in the future.
I have seen quite a few reports that Russia is negotiating with Libya to move most/all of its Syrian military assets there.
What Turkiye wants is a negative here. Turkiye already has leverage over Russia via the Strait of Dardanelles. The last thing Russia wants is for Turkiye to have more.
Turkiye and Russia have had a very complicated relationship (12 wars, among other things) during the last 5 centuries. They both have all kinds of leverages over each other – for example without Russian support Turkiyet will never become BRICS member or have energy to sell.
I believe that in the Russian calculations – if the Syrian bases are needed to support Russian bases in Libya and build-up in the Central Africa (as several Russian commentators insist) – are merely about moving different levers between the two countries to a new position, where each one gets what it needs in short term without sacrificing much in the long term.
It may not be a coincidence that the term “byzantine” originated in this region. Turkiyet is facing the wrath of USA, Israel and Gulf States in it’s Syrian operation, so it’s hard to say whether Russia or Turkiyet actually has the leverage in this situation.
I see Putin just said the bases might stay but some experts have indicated this is still being hotly debated among the leadership. And a big negative for Russia keeping the bases is they don’t want Turkiye to have even more leverage over them. Russia has reportedly removed its S-400s, which suggests even if it remains, the operations will be skimpy compared to what they once were.
I didn’t mean Russia. I meant Iran/the Palestinians. A wounded and bellicose Trump makes persuading him to escalate in the ME easier.
I think holding on to these bases has minimum benefit for Russia. In fact, I can’t think of any. Russia is far away and its presence in the Mediterranean is minimum and can be taken out by any nearby NATO country in a few hours.
In fact, I fail to see any benefit. Syria seems to have been Putin’s pet project. The most one can say is that Russia’s Syria operation is like America’s Ukraine project: Neither affects the security of Russia nor America, respectively, but are cynical and “cheap ways” to weaken the other. This is why Russia’s presence in Syria had always been very light. The moment it seemed to require substantial resources, Russia bailed out.
As a social worker in various institutional settings, I have some limited experience with consensus decision-making models, a favorite among, apparently, mental health professionals. Even in small institutional settings, they are terrible for all the reasons you point out plus:
It is incredibly time consuming….even setting a meeting time and place is laborious.
It eliminates the “loyal opposition”….no one is left to say “I told you so” when a decision goes sideways.
But worst of all, no one is responsible for any decision (a corollary to “I told you so”) since everyone is responsible.
The common reaction to a bad decision is a global shoulder shrug.
Historically, there had been one major political entity that worked by consensus: the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
It was very wealthy, and, when managing to finally take the necessary political decisions, could muster redoubtable military forces that the Ottomans, the Tartars, the Romanians, the Russians, the Cossacks, the Swedes, and the Austrians had quite a lot of trouble to contend with. Actually, all those enemies were frequently routed during the heyday of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth — the 16th and 17th centuries.
By the time the Poles eventually concluded that obligatory unanimity amongst all their bickering noblemen and that electing foreign princes as their kings to avoid giving pre-eminence to some Polish noble family was not a political process conducive to maintaining their sovereignty, it was too late — and Austria, Prussia, and Russia gobbled what remained of a once significant European power.
Was the decision to march onto Moscow made by consensus?
How exactly the alleged governing by unanimity worked in Poland was always mysterious to me, and the whole “invade Russia” business, as far as I can tell, seems to encapsulate that. Supposedly, Sigismund was opposed by many of the nobles who felt that Russian boyars could be won over with attractive terms (and they may not have been wrong–the Troubles and all that.) Zolkiewski keeps coming up as being opposed to Sigismund’s plans, but he’s always leading the vanguard of the Polish armies, all the way to the Moscow Kremlin, in fact, and all…
I have worked for many years in an organization that operates on rough consensus and running code
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7282
And we have been largely successful because both agreement and a working solution are needed to declare victory. That’s not to say that the process can’t be manipulated but inter-operability is a core principle and the length of time needed to get to both agreement and several working implementations can be a leveler.
I’ve been reading John Helmer lately. He’s gotten a lot of calls right about the SMO (impressively that of the “electric war”), he has solid sources in Russia, and he’s been covering Putin’s administration for a long time now. He’s been very critical lately of the “alt-media” in the west, compares it to the Murdoch press! He’s been highlighting tensions between the strategic imperatives of the Russian General Staff and the political imperatives of Putin and his style of governance.
Helmer writes in his most recent post:
“Putin also thinks politically; that is, on every topic which comes to him for decision he listens to or reads a wide range of views. To his interlocutors he appears to be attentive and to agree with them. In fact, he can appear to agree with several different and contradicting courses of action at the same time. He also agrees; decides; then changes his mind; issues a new, superseding decision. In this process, he tries to strike a balance between options and between those arguing their competing cases. Thinking politically in Putin’s case is balancing; it can look like equivocation, vacillation, indecision, confusion. […] President Putin thinks mnemonically and politically; this doesn’t mean he thinks strategically. This is the reason he is susceptible to making mistakes of anticipation, and repeating them.”
This tendency of Putin to “change his mind,” to not prioritize “strategic thinking,” and therefore to put himself in tension with the aims of his General Staff, makes me wonder–if we take Helmer to be on to something here–if he won’t, in the end, agree terms with the United States that shock us. Indeed, this is the same man who made two Minsk agreements, mistakes that he could “repeat” with a third agreement in that sad, self-defeating mold.
Putin (presumably in consensus with the Russian General Staff) set out the term to be negotiated with USA in Agreement on measures to ensure the security of The Russian Federation and member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 17th December 2021.
I don’t know why anyone would think the strategic goals set in that paper have changed. And if they have not changed, then everything Russia does diplomatically or militarily is aiming to achieve those goals. If the General Staff thinks otherwise, it will be replaced. Plain and simple. In Russia Armed Forced don’t design strategies, they implement them.
Other Russia commentators have pointed out that Helmer’s analysis is often skewed by his personal strong antipathy to Putin. Although most of his posts are sound and provide new information. he has also had some that are wildly off base. He’s now claiming “according to everyone I talk with” there will be war with Turkiye. WTF?!?! This suggests if nothing else a bizarre bias in his sources.
@yves War with Turkiye by whom? Russia?
Helmer seems not to like new analysts stepping on his Russia insider turf, a trait he seems to share with Doctorow. I ignore those comments.
Another little stumbling block, which no-one seems to mention, is the fact that Zelensky has no legal justification for still ‘leading’ the Ukraine. He is out of term, and his justification of war conditions seems not to be in the constitution(?) I’m not sure what Russia’s current position is on this, but it has been pointed out by them in the past. Will they concede to negotiate with him?Possibly they will want a whole new Ukrainian government to negotiate with – how difficult will that be? Or would they want elections to be after a preliminary negotiation? Anyone have an answer?
And some news on that:
“Let them supply it [THAAD – to Kiev]. We’ll ask our guys in Ukraine whether they would give us a hint about modern design elements that could be of use to us,” Putin mused. “When I say ‘our guys’ I don’t mean it ironically,” the president added. https://swentr.site/russia/609616-putin-our-guys-ukraine/
“It is very possible that in the first quarter 2025 a ‘truce’ may be reached with Russia so that Zelensky can call for elections. The real negotiations Russia-Ukraine can start only with the new elected president of Ukraine,” Raffone [director of the CIPI Foundation, a Brussels-based geopolitical affairs think tank] emphasized, highlighting Putin’s comments Thursday on the central importance of the political legitimacy of the government in Kiev for Moscow.” https://sputnikglobe.com/20241219/zelensky-may-be-ousted-if-he-tries-to-negotiate-peace-with-russia-heres-why-1121215868.html
Mentioned often enough in sources referred to by this site and in Yves’ post above (“And even though Zelensky is refusing to budge long after his term has expired,…”).
Russia will clearly not negotiate with “Elensky”, but I don’t think – caveat haven’t read NC throughly for the last 10 days – they would care whether a new presidency/government emerges from elections, the Rada designating someone else or through a coup provided they have the backing of the population and are agreement-capable.
OK. I stand corrected. In my defence, I don’t read everything.
See Putin’s lengthy press conference on Utoob today (12-19-24).
He answers your questions.
The focus of the post is the planned Trump negotiations, which initially bypass Ukraine. Yes, Russia sees a different order of battle, as in negotiations with Ukraine, which gets into your issues. But no matter who is nominally in charge, Trump cannot deliver Ukraine absent a complete regime change, not a mere departure of Zelensky, If there were to happen to be elections, the US would interfere to make sure any replacement was a hard liners. All of candidates bandied about in Western outlets are just as bad in their own ways as Zelensky, such as the Banderite one-time general Zaluzhny or former president Poroshenko, who was part of the “dupe Russia” Minsk Accords.
There’s also the wee problem that the Ukraine constitution states NATO membership as a strategic goal (as of 2019). So Zelensky’s government, already of somewhat questionable legitimacy due to the lack of elections, is now to broker a constitutional amendment? What if that triggers another Maidan type event?
Whatever the immediate result in Ukraine won’t change the geo-poiltical situation. Whether a negotiated end involving present Russian claims or the unconditional surrender of the UAF, Russia’s position will remain the same in the world. The US cannot attack Russia so Mr Trump is limited to talk and sanctions.
This anti-communism teaching bill shows that some sort of Cold War 2 is in contemplation, so what is the Russian economy going to do after the fighting subsides ? The actions of Belousov show that he understands the dilemma and is making a start beyond rebuilding the war damage. Russia will have to remain an armed camp for a long time and make sure its economy is not trapped like the Soviet Union was in defence spending.
It really comes down to the US position on NATO, we know Mr Trump thinks he has them in his pocket and they will do what they are told despite their rhetoric. In other words how isolationist are Mr Vance and the others coming up ? Mr Trump is easily diverted to new projects especially if they appeal to his vanity. For Russia the situation will be analogous to the end of WW2, they will need to be in a situation to project military power in the direction of Trieste to concentrate minds so that they can de-facto isolate Northern Europe, this means keeping their Central European sympathisers on side in the long term. The fallout from the looming gas line shutdown will tell a lot. Long term security for Russia means dismantling NATO capablilities to act in a co-ordinated manner by taking advantage of all opportunities that arise.
NATO and the EU will not do what Trump tells them, particularly since he plans to cut funding, his source of leverage with them. It is a point of pride across all the European political mainstream to defy and vilify Trump.
In the direction of Trieste, because of the Balkan powder keg that USA/EU/Turkey/others will light up at some point in time.
What happens? The war will continue. Even the blockheads may come to understand that Russia has meant what it said all along.
About Merz, German politics and Taurus: Merz is the former head of Blackrock Germany. He is the German representative of the US deep state. He obviously believes by currying favors with the deep state they will help him get elected. All the major journalists in Germany are co-opted by the blob one way or another and are praising Merz’s stance. But the legacy media of Germany is in free fall. On top there’s Nordstream and the economic meltdown Germany is experiencing.
Even back in the day when the legacy media still ruled unchallenged the German public voted Schröder in for his stance against German participation in the war in Iraq. The same thing will happen to Merz. Wily and corrupt Scholz who is a man of the formerly state owned banks (Landesbanken) has recognized that and has strongly come out against further direct involvement in the Ukraine war. His stance will not suffice to make the Social Democrats anywhere near as strong as they once were. But he will substantially weaken Merz and the Christian Democrats. Against widespread popular disgust they will form the next government. On the long term though Germany will veer out of control of the blob. Chaos looms.
Merz looks pretty much the next champion of helplessness. Such a crowded club in Europe with too many candidates. Unable to change the direction of things in Ukraine, unable to direct Germany anywhere but the inevitable decline. There we go all under the direction of the most useless, incapable and idiotic leader of the 21st century: Our indescribable Ursula vdL, dressed in blue and yellow now less.
Champion of helplessness is an excellent description for the entire German establishment. They have trapped themselves, and us long with them.
One can hope that Wiedel and Wagenknecht (AFD and BSW) could wake up one day and agree to disagree on economic issues and unite on war, on foreign policy, immigration and the economy. Better to be in power than to be asterisks. Merz is simply awful but like Americans Germans are not big on paying attention and simply vote for the main stream media candidate. And the main stream media in Germany is basically the US mainstream media run through Google Translate with local stories thrown in. Without Russia Germany is doomed as the Anglo world figured out two hundred years ago. Unlike 200 years ago the opposite is no longer true. China can and will take Germany’s place as the technology and industrial power to be wedded to the natural resources of Russia.
“This pointed to the reality that as Russia made progress on the battlefield, it would increase its demands in light of its improved bargaining position.”
It is not that the bargaining position would be improved. All that being gained at substantial material and human loss, the Russian public would only be more intransigent.
Zelensky is trying his best to escalate the conflict and bring US/NATO in. A crazy Ukronazi welcomed a nuclear war.
As for Syria, I will not say either way. So far is really a Schroedinger’s cat.
Actually there is a precedent for this, namely Georgia. Which was carried along with Ukraine in this performative declaration over the years up until this year, when NATO consensus dropped them. On one hand it could be argued that Georgian government become hostile to West, on the other hand it is pretty clear this narrative was created by NATO/West, the Georgians just didn’t want to follow all the dictates from West, namely the one when they were supposed to turn their country into another Ukraine. So NATO can turn on dime, they just have to invent some narratives to tell themselves about it.
Several points I think should be mentioned. First the Ukraine will never enter NATO as it would require ALL the member states to agree to it. Countries like Hungary would vote it down immediately and Trump would back them. And having the Ukraine in NATO is one provocation away from having a shooting match between Russia and NATO which many countries will know. In addition, no country can join that is at war or has territorial disputes which disqualifies the Ukraine on both counts. They would have to accept the new borders to join but if they did, they can’t say that they now change their minds if they joined. Another factor is that the Russian Federation Constitution forbids negotiating away Russian territory which means not only Crimea but all four Oblasts, including territory which they have not yet captured. Finally Zelensky. He’s got to go. The Russians rightfully say that he is not the legal leader of the Ukraine which means holding elections to choose a new one. But the Russians also have the problem with dealing with the west which would be traumatized with “losing” the Ukraine. Would you believe a Swedish newspaper was talking about having to accept 500,000 Swedish deaths fighting Russia with plans to expand cemetery space? And Sweden would not be alone in this deluded thinking. How do you deal with people like that?
Well, that would be ~10% of the men in Sweden. Where would they put the graves?
Apparently a directive has been issued by the City of Gothenburg stating that a full ten hectares of land must be found for the planned mass graves alone. They are reckoning on coffin burials as in a war with Russia the electricity and gas needed for crematoriums would come up short. The Swedish Civil Defence Agency and the Swedish Armed Forces have now instructed Sweden’s cemetery managers to plan for all these extra burials. I note that Sweden doesn’t even have a border with Russia.
Graves and land for them is the issue.
All bureaucracies in Sweden are looking over their war time and crisis plans, which has in many casse been gathering dust since the fall of the Soviet union. Since 2018 the military has no longer the right of creating improvised military grave fields (in effect, digging graves in the forest). The agency for crisis planning and the Church of Sweden has counted on how much space should be reserved for emergency cementaries in case of war or other sudden mass death. They landed on a maximum of 500 000 deaths, so lower level bureacracies are now reserving land and updating crisis planning in line with that number. Sweden is sparsely populated and the government and the Church is Sweden are large landowners, so I don’t think there will be a problem allocating land that can become cemetaries in an emergency, which unless there is mass death mainly means that other things will not be built on that land (think forest and fields).
This is a bureaucratic process and should not be confused with the size of the Swedish military, with about 10k officers and 8k conscripts per year and ten years of recurring exercises, resulting in a total mobilisable military of 90k soldiers. There are plans for expanding to 12k conscripts per year, which would (ten years later) result in a total of 130k soldiers.
I am truly sickened by the thought of bureaucracies planning for Mass burials. Obviously of other people, not themselves, not the people making the plans not the people following the orders generally,
“we need to access land so that we can vary a lot of dead nobodys” humanity is no longer a factor in this modern era but I’m glad to be leaving before too very long
Very good article. Trump is going to have full hands of US politics, bond market is going against him, 10Y is now at 4.55%. Stealing Russian FX reserves would be a suicide from this point of view, dollars would flow into gold even more and trade would use dollar less. Russians would default on their Western loans, net effect would be zero in money terms and big negative for Western financial system. The easest solution for Trump is to make regime change in Kiev. Either nice way or hard way.
Thoughtful article. The neocons objectives seem to be to depose Putin and to dismember Russia (even up to a nuclear exchange) The ones in the Biden Administration seem to be acting with impunity, i.e. no concern that Trump might seek to retailiate against those who might interfere with his image as peace keeper. It seems as though, as stated by prominent inidviduals, that Russia doesn’t trust the US (Nato) to make honest agreements. It seems that for Putin to take Trump seriously, he would have to clean house with the neocons and their philospophy. However, many of the latter are close to Israel in addition to being in Congress. I.E.How is Trump going to bring any credibility to a ‘negotiating ‘ table’ in the first place. In addition, the US seems to be involved in stirring up things along Russia’s S.E boundary. Why would Russia (Putin) want to discuss Ukraine without bringing into play not only security arrangements in Europe but also in the Caucasus and West Asia? Who will Trump send as a negotiator on par with Lavrov. Mickey Mouse won’t do. A recent Rand analysis said that a long war in Ukraine would be counter productive to the US. In addition, nuclear weapons are instruments of terror which get negated if the the opponent can retailiate in kind. Biden will be leaving Trump a sorry mess to clean up.
Trump is business-centered, so we need to think Ferengi. What would a Ferengi do?
I’d guess his proposal would be mainly economic, centered around rebuilding and restructuring Ukraine’s destroyed infrastructure and industry in a way which benefits both Ukraine and Russia economically, perhaps a sort of joint administration sort of economic zone. Perhaps with some benefit to the US.
Russia and the US could commit finances to the rebuilding, taking share of the profits to be realized. Perhaps China might be allowed to make proposals. In return, US trade embargoes to be removed or reduced.
Ukraine neutrality would be made official, to be recognized by the US and/or UN. This gives Russia Ukraine’s commitment not to join NATO. Neutral parties could monitor the neutrality and reduction and withdrawal of forces by all sides, this gives Russia their denazificaton and withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the oblasts and D&L, is then coordinated with their own withdrawal. In lieu of demilitarizing completely, Putin could agree to a limited Ukraine military and what that looks like would be negotiable.
It could be structured as a business proposal, with prospectus, financial plan, value proposition, timelines, etc. The packaging of it as a business proposal would make it more palatable all around, including in Ferenginar….err, the United States.
The EU and NATO would need to be excluded from the process or else it won’t work. Trump is not a fan of either, to begin with, so this doesn’t seem to be too much of an obstacle.
You do recognize this will never happen.
Most areas to be rebuild will be on the Russian side….
And a pink pony for Zelensky.
Are you inhaling, ingesting or injecting ?
I mean the infrastructure in USA reflects a dedicated effort over generations to build world class cities and high speed rail with fantastic schools and housing…………ROFL
As for US efforts to rebuilt Gaza, Iraq, Syria, Libya………and the work they did rebuilding N Korea after bombing it to oblivion makes the herculean efforts US undertook in Vietnam and Afghanistan seem positively modest
I appreciate Trump sees golf courses as the way forward – but once he has privatised the Pentagon golf courses (they have lots) and hotels – he will have no need to go to Ukraine for the 18th hole
“Russia has promised war crimes trials. There seem to be more than enough snuff videos Ukrainians happily took of Russian soldiers’ deliberately brutal killings to make charges stick.”
Do we have info of any serious attempts by scholars, NGOs etc. from the West or at least non-RU origin that are systematically looking into this huge issue?
Non-Russian because any RU endeavours will be ignored truth-seeking and instead smeared here. So if they do hold a real trial, the smearing of the ICJ was nothing in comparison what would be happening here then.
In German education Bucha, Izium, Mariupol theatre and Azovstal Iron and Steel Works will stick as urban legends forever. They already have become proverbial in Germany. A non-RU assessment concurring with a RU would at least offer a reference that cannot be discarded in the West when quoted.
I would for instance not all be surprised if Chris Hedges did buy into all these lies too.
He did already praise the Ukrainian documentary that ran for the Oscars (did it win too? I forgot.)
Apart from artistic contentions (but that´s a different game altogether) it is to be asked how much of it should be regarded as “recod” at all, which documentaries btw usually have never been. Since when are documentaries which are art eventually, any bearers of truth in the essential sense of scholarly research and criminal investigation? Almost never. It’s an insane concept.
So may be the long lasting cultural repercussions – aka hatred of all things Russian – of this giganic psy-ops might be the most serious of all worries for coming decades.
p.s. for German speakers:
The 2nd edition of “Der Bandera Komplex” edited by Susann Witt-Stahl and daily JUNGE WELT is out now. . Limited series. 500 Copies I believe.
In case see here:
https://www.jungewelt-shop.de/Witt-Stahl-Hg-Der-Bandera-Komplex
A public presentation of the book + discussion:
Buchvorstellung: Der Bandera-Komplex
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hU_JKf9cuM
via “Natylie’s Place: Understanding Russia”
Glenn Diesen: How the Strategy of Fighting to the Last Ukrainian Was Sold to the Public as Morally Righteous
https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2024/12/glenn-diesen-how-the-strategy-of-fighting-to-the-last-ukrainian-was-sold-to-the-public-as-morally-righteous/#comments
reader’s comment:
“Russia has trillions of dollars worth of natural resources, whereas America has trillions of dollars in bad debts. The robber barons want the loot and will fight to the last Ukrainian. to steal it all.”
Of course not every robbery goes as planned. But the mindset is apt.
And when the last Ukrainian has gone with no progress towards getting their hands on those resources, what then?
Do these sociopaths simply shrug their shoulders and call it a day?
Or are they already looking around at their own populations to feed into the meat grinder?
To the last Westerner?
Oligarch’s and their families excluded of course.
The (Western) European leaders are so helpless. They are acting in a way that defies explanation. They cannot provide Ukraine with anything that can change the course of the war (soldiers, weapons, particularly missiles) yet they don’t want the war to be stopped. They are having trouble with energy supplies which are damaging their economies and they want more of the same but in higher doses. Rutte, according to the Antispiegel translation summarizes it best: more weapons, no peace. To what end? One might ask.
They are being damaged but believe that others may be suffering more damage. In one sense this is true because while waging war both contestants are suffering losses. Yet, what an awful state of mind. In Spain we use an old proverb which i believe is largely forgotten or unused in English. It can be said like this: The Europeans are like “the (proverbial) dog in the manger: won’t eat the oats or let anyone else eat them”. In this case the oats could be NG resources. But it is much worse when in this occasion Ukraine is being led to destruction. If this was a kind of superiority test it is failing miserably but we try and try just in case something turns.
Social glue in this state of schizophrenia: moral superiority as excercised e.g. by Agnes Strack-Zimmermann documented today in German NACHDENKSEITEN:
“Russian attack on NATO: When journalism becomes propaganda”
https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=126652
Considering the facts which anybody can gather – they have no plan whatsoever. A dog at least has its instincts I guess…
“(…)The FDP politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann says that Putin is preparing an attack on NATO. And the media jump on the statement as if it were exclusive news. But for this statement to actually become news, it would have to be backed up by something substantial. But that is missing. The dpa also rightly points this out. It says that Strack-Zimmermann “believes” in a Russian attack:
(…)
When you look at it closely: nothing. Despite the outrageous nature of the statement, it has no news value for serious journalism. And that is also because Strack-Zimmermann and her position on Russia are well known. She can be classified as a hardliner. The statement that Russia is planning to attack a NATO state fits exactly into the concept of those circles that advocate a hard-line policy towards Russia. And it also fits exactly into the concept of those who support NATO’s ever-increasing rearmament.
(…)
Editor’s note:
Here are some headlines about the “news”:
t-online : Strack-Zimmermann warns of imminent Putin attack
Tagesspiegel : “We know that Putin is preparing”: Strack-Zimmermann warns of Russian attack on NATO
Welt : Strack-Zimmermann warns of Putin attack on NATO
MSN : Strack-Zimmermann warns of Putin attack on NATO
Yahoo News : Strack-Zimmermann warns of Putin attack and calls for higher defense budget (from the news agency AFP)
(…)”
As JW below says it’s hot air. The claims by Zimmermann are and the threats derived from those.
Both are self-referential therefore. They are not directed at the Russians but at the domestic front.
But if this is circular it must implode. Like a rabid dog chasing its own tail going mad eventually.
On a similiar track about self-referential systemic failure of the West:
The Democratic Glass Beads
by Boaventura de Sousa Santos
Among the few authors at ZNet who have kept their wits.Typically he is not American! By now this I regard a major recommendation for scholarship and political commentaries.
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-democratic-glass-beads/
But imagine if some day in the future Taurus missiles are headed deep into Russia “on Ukraine’s behalf”. Not that I am saying this is likely, but still a possibility. That would indeed be NATO acting very directly (again) in Russia and would almost certainly grant Russian actions on NATO states. Do people like Zimmermann want something like this? Really? Has been she questioned on this possibility?
Her name is “Strack-Zimmermann” not Zimmermann.
https://www.bunte.de/stars/stars-die-liebe/marie-agnes-strack-zimmermann-teilt-ihr-liebesgeheimnis-fuer-eine-glueckliche-ehe.html
Her husband was born 1941 which suggests his father may have been on leave before the Ostfront. She hates Russians. She is a former publisher’s sales agent for children’s books and has carved a role for herself as a Kriegstreiberin. She is loathed but skipped off to the EU Parliament as her FDP Party imploded in the Bundestag
Zimmermann is not for WWIII. She said so herself. E.g. one year ago after publicly attacking Scholz over TAURUS when it came down to the vote of course she voted against providing UKR with TAURUS:
see here:
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/meinung/umgekippt-bei-der-taurus-entscheidung-strack-zimmermanns-worte-werden-plotzlich-sehr-klein-11069185.html
After following events for 3 years now I do not think any of these people would dare make this decision (regardless of the fact that here too I doubt TAURUS were to be used on targets truly worth of WWIII.)
They are actors with one main mission, trying to strike fear in our hearts (not the Russians´.) Especially now with the paradigmatic change of Oreshniks´ demonstration. The message sooner or later will have been conveyed by US analysts of Oreshnik to Zimmermann too .So she understands what it means.
They are idiots and liars but not suicidal. Her main job was to increase Rheinmetall´s profit which she has accomplished. Her redderick however was regarded so over the top that eventually they removed her to EU level where she is less harmful once her job was done.
p.s. Don’t misunderstand me for taking any of this lightly. But I am not falling for their bullshit any more. In fact the Russians have called their bluff and have been proven correct without really even raising the issue of WMDs. Zimmermann who has been member of every important German secret foreign affairs committee will have enough secret intel (which won´t contradict any of what we are exchanging on NC) to know the truth of HIMARS failing, of LEOPARDs failing, of Dnepro´s secret missile constructions site destroyed, of Dark Eagle most likely having failed again. And so on. That´s why I would argue any of this is for domestic purpose only. Which makes it even more cruel and cynical in a sense.
More cruel and cynical i agree. What it is not clear is what people like this Strack-Zimmerman represent when playing the warmongering game. Rheinmetal interests? But what about the rest of the German manufacturing industry? Are they happy with this? May be they are unhappy and that explains in part the collapse of the FDP.
I assume Zimmermann like 99% of German elites was convinced of RU-collapse balony. And as the demise of German industry is concerned – it´s beyond her influence and empathy. Remember she is from Düsseldorf, one of the richest constituencies in Germany, and is obliged to the industrial interests there, which haven´t changed since the 1930s. Rheinmetall was using RU slave labour then. They make money of killing them (and others of course too) now. Besides she is deeply imbedded there and highly respected (trying to enhance social services and what not.) In other words, a crazy, delusional person, participating in geopolitical matters she is completely uneducated in.
Besides she is not hit by the economic hardship. And she therefore justifies this development in Germany with the new ideological, almost religious war against the rise of authoritarianism/fascism in RU, China etc. It is the Democrats´ Neo-Conism without may be some elements of the neo. Of course this works only as long as there is a safe distante between her and those who are in deep financial trouble.
Which is why I believe this will remain Germany´s position for many years. Depending on how long it takes that Germany´s rich too get to feel the consequences. Either through economic downfall or public resistance (very unlikely.)
p.s. Mearsheimer in his closing statement with Napolitano on Dec. 19th says correctly, Europe´s armies have never been this small, and that in his view European elites do not take the RU threat seriously they would only say so in public.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxOVY0Rg0c8
I agree with this in general. They do so to gain domestic leverage. And that´s why I don´t take a Strack-Zimmermann seriously in her threats.
“To what end? One might ask.”
As Alistair Crooke notes here…..
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/12/16/new-geo-political-map-unfolding-the-end-syria-and-palestine-for-now/
“western countries are deep in debt; their fiscal room for manoeuvre is shrinking fast, and bond-holders are beginning to mutiny. There is a race to find a new collateral for fiat currencies. It used to be gold; since the 1970s it was oil, but the petrodollar has faltered. The Anglo-Americans would love to have Iran’s oil again – as they did until the 1970s – to collateralise and build a new money system tied to the real value inherent in commodities.”
The point being that even if it were possible to secure the resources of Iran via a successful regime change, what passes for an economic system in the West is running rapidly out of road and the resources of Iran would be insufficient to keep the show on the road. The debt levels for the continuation of the Ponzi Scheme are dependent upon securing the resources of the Eurasian Heartland and beyond.
As a consequence, the strategic defeat of Russia and China to break them up into controllable colonies in order to access those resources is existential for the sociopaths which control the “Garden” so as to prevent the inevitable collapse of a not fit for purpose economic system for a while longer.
It would seem reasonable to surmise that this act of pure unwavering dogmatic faith in what is considered the vital and sacred necessity of maintaining at all and every cost the Western Oligarch created superior economic system at the expense of anything and everything else – up to and including the destruction of the planet rather than concede that superiority – represents the sole end.
I’m a big fan of Alistair Crooke’s geo-political analysis. But a lot of these guys wander into economics and are just clueless on how things work.
The EU is de-industrializing because of energy costs and long-term austerity policies crimping domestic demand.
Regarding the monetary system, Yves has already covered the difficulties BRICS faces in creating a new platform for trade/capital flows up and running as a SWIFT alternative.
Only major industrial economies in Europe are Germany and Italy with France. The cost base has been out of whack for decades. Post-2008 German exports have lived off China.
Energy costs are only a component. Gas was vital for Chemicals as a Feedstock. BASF needs the chemicals in the gas. Main exports from Germany are vehicles followed by chemicals. Highest wages are chemicals followed by vehicles.
So much is produced in Germany for export that it makes more sense to produce abroad. There is no energy price that makes it competitive to make a VW Golf in Germany yielding €200 margin.
You realise that windmills consume electricity when there is no wind ? There is no way you close 19 nuclear stations and 15 coal-fired stations even if you import 50% coal from Russia.
Energy costs are just a component on top of high labour costs with huge government levies – there is no way you can get a net pay increase in Germany. Taxes and Social Charges eat you alive but France and Belgium are worse.
If energy were free Germany would still be uncompetitive because of over-manning and low productivity with excessive labour costs and unreliable products. Skoda is the only part of VW competitive with Toyota
The EU and NATO noise is hot air. The EU cannot afford to do much and NATO non-nuclear offensive ( and defensive) weapons are proving to be fairly inadequate. Its unlikely that Taurus is more able than ATACMS or Storm Shadows to evade Russian AD. Whilst there have now been 5 incidents of missiles fired into Russia their results are becoming almost insignificant.
Putin is the front guy, but there is strong support in the country to finish the job. Every terrorist outrage increases the support for what most Russians see as an existential battle. If anything Putin now dare not pursue what he personally may want which is a negotiated settlement on something like Istanbul2.
Unless Trump somehow creates the perception of a ‘good deal for the US’ whilst simultaneously leaving Ukraine to Russia’s mercy, i cannot see how this is going to end anyway except on the battlefield.
Russia will grind on until the Ukrainian AFD is no more, and it can literally walk to wherever it wants to stop,
and with a Trump admin ‘nukes’ are removed from the calculation.
The main difference between SCALP/Storm Shadow and MBDA Taurus is that whereas SCALP uses a SAFRAN TR60-30 Turbojet Made in France the Taurus KEPD-350 uses a WILLIAMS INTERNATIONAL P8300-15 Turbofan Made in USA giving it a longer range. It has a Rockwell Collins Selective Availability Anti- Spoofing Module (SAASM) GPS system whereas Storm Shadow relies on classified US-owned cartographic data, using Terrain Contour Matching or TERCOM, to guide the missile to the target when GPS is disrupted.
It also means USA must give permission for it to be used as WILLIAMS is based in Pontiac, Michigan
The main difference is the range and whether Germans want to program the missile or whether British and French program Storm Shadow.
Russia can kill them all if necessary – Germany has still not explained dead tank crews from the Bundeswehr in Ukraine……….
https://www.mbda-systems.com/product/storm-shadow-scalp/
Would you agree then with those who argue that Taurus too would eventually be neutralized.
Do you not comprehend ? Taurus is simply a pretext to get Germany directly involved in war with Russia !
That is the U.K. plan. After BreXit U.K. used NATO to make itself indispensable by fracturing Franco-German axis driving EU. It used Poland and Baltics to isolate Germany with the aim of destroying any chance of Germany moving towards Russia snd China. China is Germsny‘s main market and Merkel had a EU-China Investment Treaty that would have reduced US influence.
Taurus is simply a means to get Germany directly in conflict. If you think NATO is going to do anything you do not understand politics in Europe. This is about putting U.K. on top of EU through NATO and that is why vdL was so important. No Francophone head of EU Commission would have have let Paris be outflanked
This is about putting U.K. on top of EU through NATO.
Exactly so. As has been the UK’s promotion of the Ukraine war itself since 2016.
Having just watched a report about a „drone strike“ on Murmansk which is 2000km from Ukraine the notion of US or Lithuania starting a war seems quite real since no media in NAFOland are reporting it.
It is startling to view the US as being so far from reality as its current Commander-in-Chief and no doubt its next. The world anticipates nuclear war. I look around and see most people as time-expired. No script for the next series.
There is nothing the US or Trump and his Boy Band can do in a world of Zero Trust. It maybe that after the nuclear exchange Jesus arrives and awards those Non Left Behind their just deserts
Certainly there is no trust. There is nothing left. Reagan at least took a step backward but Gorbachev was fooled and betrayed his nation. Putin will be replaced.
If you did not study the organisational structure of USSR and relationship of CPSU to State you cannot understand that Putin is much less imperial and dictatorial than US President. Russia has a STAVKA just as Stalin had a STAVKA.
Churchill was his own Minister of War and had no elections 1935-45 to contend with or reports of proceedings in Parliament and no free press
Putin is a linchpin balancing interest groups. General Staff wanted to punish Israel but Putin held back. Now MI6 has murdered a senior General IN Moscow !!!!
So far Western politicians have travelled safely to Kiev and Zelensky‘s family are alive. Why is s question Russians ask.
If Trump wants a deal the US should withdraw from Europe completely.
As Millennium 7 stated: if Oreshnik were to pulverise Aegis based in Romania or Poland US has only a nuclear response but only B-61 free-fall bombs in Europe. If US decides to use ICBMs it is goodbye USA
NATO has now responsibility for Ukraine out of Clay Kaserne in Wiesbaden as US shifts focus from Ramstein. I am so pleased to be far away from Wiesbaden and used to be a nice place but if US is setting it up for destruction and I can see it coming
Now Trump wants to threaten Iran which means Qatar gets melted and LNG disappears from Europe. Germany imported 25% electricity needs via 20GW connector but in Jan 2025 French turn on electric heating which cuts supply
Tübingen had power outages last week. Be interesting if Trump rattles cages and Europe goes dark.
Russia would not want that. There used to be a curtain that demarcated zones of interest.
You are right – that curtain used to run through Germany until 1990. Gorbachev unwisely failed to retain Soviet bases in GDR and trusted in 2+4 Treaty 1990 repeatedly violated by Germany.
Now that ATACMS fired into Russia are identified as being from South Korean stocks the scope is widening.
So long as US occupies Europe war is inevitable. In 1983 US planned „a limited nuclear war“ in Europe. Russia says that will not happen without US itself being targeted
There is no role for US in Europe or even UK
How is Ukraine being in NATO an “existential threat” to Russia? NATO has never attacked either Russia or the Soviet Union. To the contrary, it was the Soviet Union that militarily conquered and subjugated the Eastern European countries from Estonia to Bulgaria and Russia that attacked Ukraine. Ukraine wants to be in NATO for the same reason that Poland and the others did 30 years ago — for protection from Russia.
Also, how are the Banderites the power behind the throne in Ukraine? The far-right has a negligible presence in the Ukrainian legislature. If Zelensky doesn’t do their bidding, will they kidnap, torture, and kill his family?
I suggest you bone up on the Cuban Missile Crisis. We nearly had a nuclear war over the USSR wanting to install missiles in Cuba. Former CIA daily briefer to three Presidents, Ray McGovern, has described long form how NATO members have been installing missiles capable of reaching Moscow in infrastructure where Russia cannot determine if the missiles have nuclear warheads or not.
If China had done in Mexico anything dimly approaching what we did, like instigating a coup that installed a US hostile government, making speaking English illegal and persecuting Americans, fighting a civil war against Americans, training and arming a big military, the US would have invaded Mexico long ago.
Did you also miss that the US has admitted that the war in Ukraine as a proxy war against Russia?
As for the Banderites, they have severely beaten politician who oppose their policies. They even killed one. Zelensky campaigned on noralizing relations with Russia as his leading pledge. He got 73% of the vote, so he had a mandate to do that. Yet he quickly reversed himself. Covert Action cites the Jerusalem Post on the extent of neo-Nazi influence in Ukraine and states (which I have read elsewhere, this source came up first in a search) that Banderites threatened Zelenksy’s life if he talked to Putin. See: https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/03/24/how-zelensky-was-prevented-from-making-peace-in-the-donbas/
If Russia or China started funding, arming, and training head-chopping Mexican drug cartels…and then putting them into government!
My god, the speed with which consent would be manufactured to go to war would be breath-taking!
“NATO has never attacked either Russia or the Soviet Union.” — Huh? NATO is attacking Russia RIGHT NOW.
The command and control for the war is being run out of Brussels. The ISR and targeting is all completely run by NATO, with US-owned Starlink satellites. The soldiers are trained and equipped by NATO. Logistics is all supplied by NATO. Ukraine has very little indigenous capacity to manufacture and train an army. There are camps being run in Germany and Poland. There’s thousands of CIA contracted ‘sheep-dipped’ mercenaries from NATO, and NATO aligned, countries that act as special forces and run all the sophisticated NATO weapons systems like ATACAMS, HIMARS, and Patriot air defense systems that takes many months to learn.
To say ‘NATO isn’t attacking Russia’ is basically like saying the US wasn’t attacking Vietnam in 1963. Sure, there aren’t official uniformed soldiers there in an official capacity, but NATO has clearly done everything except exactly that.
“it was the Soviet Union that militarily conquered and subjugated the Eastern European countries from Estonia to Bulgaria and Russia that attacked Ukraine.”
Mr. Andrews should know by now that Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, together with Nazi Germany, all declared war on the Soviet Union in WW2. Romania, for example, was allied with the Nazis from 1940 until 1944 and it supplied oil from Romanian fields in support of the Nazi invasion of the SU.
During the Russian civil war (1917-1922), Poland saw an opportunity to seize land from a weakened Russia. When the Nazis invaded Poland in WW2, Stalin did likewise from the east in order to take back land seized after WW1 by Poland. There just aren’t many innocent bystanders in the world.
Considering the enormous destruction brought upon the SU and Europe by the Nazi regime and their fascist sympathizers in European countries, you would think the resurgence of Fascism in Europe would be the bigger threat than anything Russia ever did to Europe. And Putin will never tolerate fascists on Russia’s border armed to the teeth by US/NATO.
Incorrect, only Romania and Hungary did.
Bulgaria declared war on the US and the UK, but not on the USSR.
There was a Soviet ambassador in Bulgaria and a Bulgarian ambassador in Moscow all throughout the war and that is rumoured to have been one of the main channels for communication between Nazi Germany and the USSR (yes, there apparently were such channels even then, as incredible as it sounds).
Russia attacked Poland in 1920, after it had won its Civil War. Ukraine had first attacked the Poles, but the Poles drove them back to Kiev. When the Red Army gained the initiative it reconquered Kiev and then drove onto Warsaw, the Polish army on its heels The Poles somehow broke the siege, and the Red Army collapsed and ran back to Russian soil. The Poles tried to demand that Ukrainian and Belorussian nations be created as buffers against the Russians, but the British and French who were running things by then refused.
Your points about the eastern European nations taken, but they remained subjugated after the war, unhappy and unfree, unlike Italy and West Germany who came to embrace the formed Allied countries.
33% Germany in 1937 borders is now under Polish control.
West Germany did not exist in 1937. It was created in 1948 when US printed D-Mark in USA and imposed wage controls in Western Zones with price controls lifted. US troops broke up strikes in Baden-Württemberg and arrested union leaders
The Soviet Zone was the rump left after Western allies combined their zones.
What you call Eastern Europe is called Central Europe in Europe. The Polish Communist regime was Jewish and the Communist regimes replaced Fascist regimes. Central Europe only had Czechoslovakia as a democracy pre-1938 – Poland was a Fascist anti-Jew dictatorship after 1935
You have a real chocolate box version of geopolitics
Keith Kellogg’s cereal box version of geopolitics.
Whose army was marching on Kiev in Spring, 1920? Hint: not the Soviets. Second hint: they were invading from the West.
This version of “history” belongs in the same bin as “Lincoln’s unprovoked full scale war of aggression against Virginia.”
Bulgaria was liberated from Ottomans by Russia in 1878. US did nothing
Most of Europe was liberated from Nazi Occupation by USSR 1914-45 and US was a peripheral player
These countries you refer to lived for 5 years under Nazi Germany and US did nothing except provide Luftwaffe with fuel additives and oil
Dulles Brothers were lawyers at Sullivan & Cromwell for leading Nazis and George Bush ancestors were bankers to War criminals like Fritz Thyssen hiding their assets
Soviet Union rolled over Eastern Europe in order to slay Nazi Germany, in case you forgot that short period of European history. Then it pulled it’s troops back from everywhere else but Poland and Germany, as the business of dealing with post-war Germany was not yet decided.
Then USA unilaterally forfeited every agreement made during the war and not just divided Germany, but let the Western part to join NATO. That’s when Soviet troops started to roll back to Eastern Europe and elections started to favor pro-Soviet parties – there was a clear need for a security buffer.
We’re still living the consequences of the West refusing to respect, nay! even consider, Russian/Soviet/Russian security issues.
In 2020 Banderites formed 80% of the Ukrainian security forces, and that’s all you need to control a country. At it’s height, Nazi party membership was ~7% of German-Austrian people. When you can freely beat, kill or exile your political opponents and ban media or even parties, it doesn’t really matter much who’s in the parliament.
And lastly, Ukrainian army started heavy artillery barrage on Luhansk and Donetsk a week before the Russian “humanitarian intervention”, with hundreds of thousands of refugees leaving the oblasts for safety. All the while people like Scholz publicly denying it was happening.
The simple principle of geopolitics is that Ukrainian security is decided in Moscow, just like Canadian or Mexican security is decided in Washington. Taiwanese and Korean security is decided in Peking. It’s immensely stupid to pretend that the big dogs don’t have spheres of interest and critical security concerns.
You see it now.
NATO was going to situate strike assets 450 km from Moscow. You can do a decapitation strike in 4-5 minutes from there.
We have not gotten to the decapitation strike part yet, but NATO has now situated strike assets in Ukraine, right on the border, and even invaded Russia.
Today half of Rylsk was destroyed by a massive NATO MLRS shelling, and this is becoming daily life at this point.
It is doing it daily now.
First, The Eastern European countries were much better off under Soviet rule than they would have been otherwise. You see it in their sorry modern state. If you have the eyes to see, of course.
Second, there is the small matter of how the USSR ended up occupying those territories — it liberated them from the Nazis. But then, of course, we have Zhukov’s immortal words that “we liberated the Europeans from fascism and they will never forgive us for it”
Third, most of Ukraine is core historic Russian territory. Kiev and Odessa are the third and fourth most important Russian cities. Ukrainian independence could be tolerated only as long as Ukraine was something like Belarus, or if the borders had been drawn more sensibly (i.e. have Ukraine starting somehwere to the west of the area around Zhytomyr). But the very existence of a hostile, let alone Banderite Ukraine constitutes an immediate reversion to the situation that existed in the 1941-1944 period (when the Nazi occupied it). That is not tolerable.
The majority of people in Ukraine are ethnic Russians. About 80%. But the Banderite minority took over through violent means and imposed Ukrainian nationalism on the rest (while Putin was as usual either asleep on the wheel or under the thumbs of the oligarchs, whose business interests would have been hurt by decisive action, and thus Russia did nothing until the absolutely last possible moment).
Who is oppressing who here?
Bandera and Shukhevych are national heroes #1 and #2.
It is very hard to find a picture of more than a dozen AFU soldiers without various Nazi insignia and other paraphernalia to be found in it.
How much more Banderized and nazified can the place get according to you?
In Eastern Europe, before going to sleep, everyone says a little pray for NATO, thanks the Pope for protection, and checks under the bed for Russians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o5yRNzO4SU
I listened to this segment on the Duran during my walk last night and I think it makes a nice companion piece to this one from Yves.
The Alex-es have suggested that it would be better if Trump didn’t bother with negotiations, getting bogged down and wasting time and getting politically investing in an intractable situation like this. They think the most sensible thing for Trump and the US to do is just…walk away…cut off funding and leave the Europeans to figure it out.
The big question from this segment that they point out, astutely, is the gap between US domestic perception of how the war has gone and the Russian perspective. Trump’s negotiator on this seems to have a tenuous grip on reality. He’s on FoxNews talking about high Russian casualties, as much as 5x as many as Ukrainian casualties. He’s talking about N. Korean troops. All kinds of loony stuff. A lot of Trump admin officials seem to have this idea in their heads that Putin and Russian high command is looking for a way out.
The pivotal question is 1) how quickly they reassess the facts on the ground 2) once they get a grasp of 1), how do they then pivot their approach to policy and negotiations?
Do they say, “holy crap, Ukraine and the EU are a complete lost cause…let’s GTFO of this mess”?
Trump could absolutely pitch budget cuts to Ukraine aid to a domestic American audience as prioritizing “America-first”. I think it would be tremendously popular to repudiate the Biden-era spending priorities.
Now that Russia has identified ACTAMS missile components as being from South Korean stocks we see why the propaganda about N Korea and reasons for the coup attempt
Biden was going to start a war with the North to set the whole world on fire
Fortunately South Korea politicians took decisive action and people took to streets. This coup was prepared last June
Blinken should be arrested and put on trial
From the realists’ perspective, Trump does have a card, a trump card: He can simply walk away. America has no troops in Ukraine, so he doesn’t even have to face a potential fiasco of Biden’s Afghan withdraw.
Besides, Congress is in no mood to give more money to Ukraine. Speaker Johnson is a Republican and a push-over. Trump even has the flexibility of giving whatever amount of money he deems fit: The Democrats are all Russian hawks.
The bottom line is that America is an ocean and a continent away and one way or another, Ukraine doesn’t affect America’s national security. Even the neocons know this and this is why the neocons’ appeal to the realists is: this isn’t about national security, but a cheap way to weaken Russia in order to preserve hegemony. Ideologically, the neocons frame this as a “good vs evil” thing, not that America is under threat.
Even the Europeans don’t believe they are under any threat. Their narratives swing from “Russia is a gas station masquerading as a nation and they are raiding washing machines and fighting with shovels” to “if we don’t stop them now, they will be in Dunkirk in no time”, but deep down they don’t believe either and their people don’t believe them either.
The brilliance of Occupy Wall Street was that their were no leaders. Consensus decisions, but also information passed around by shouting it out.
The snipers, believe it or not, were ready and waiting. But they couldn’t identify the leaders.
actually, it is all the Russian ruling class: Patrushev, Lavrov, Medvedev, Putin, etc.
“transparency” here means rationality. Russian politics are one of the last remaining instance of European rationalism in politics. It may seem “transparent” to Americans because Americans think by chains of prejudices and inverted implicit meanings that require decyphering. It’ s like the difference between religious imprecation and philosophical reasoning. American mind is perverted ie; things are not named as they are and is imprecative. American way has contaminated most EU ruling elites.