We warned from the outset that Russia might well win the war in Ukraine and lose the peace. In fact, the odds are rising that there will be no peace, particularly of the sort that Vladimir Putin has said he wants, which is a durable resolution of conflict, and not yet another comparatively short-term cessation of hostilities in which Russia’s opponents take a breather and then re-start hostilities, even if in a less intense way than full-on fighting.
We’ll unpack why this looks to be the case in short order. But if that prognosis proves to correct, the question then becomes what solution, particularly in terms of territorial disposition, is least bad for Russia in security terms. We concur with Moscow-based analyst Mark Sleboda (who has reluctantly come around to this view, as he claims more and more Russians have), that as painful as an occupation of Russia-hating Western Ukraine would be, leaving it as a Banderite territory on Russia’s borders, to be funded and armed by NATO, would be worse. Note that Sleboda did not consider our preferred outcome, turning these strongly irredentist areas into de-electrified zones. That would greatly thin out population levels, reducing the cost of occupation.
We’ll turn finally to an issue of what it might mean for Russia to “impose terms” which is a formula some commentators (including yours truly) have used without considering what that might mean in practice.
Why the Trump “Negotiations” With Ukraine Will Go Nowhere
The short version, as we have said before, is that there is no overlap in bargaining positions. That means no deal. Indeed, based on what Putin and key officials have consistenly been saying, it’s very unlikely that “talks” will amount to more than preliminary feelers, even with a Trump-Putin face-to-face.1
Even with rumors via (per Alexander Mercouris, as of then only) Dima at Military Summary’s show, that Trump might try to engage Putin on a broad set of security interests, there’s not enough there there to budge Putin with respect to an unresolved threat on Russia’s border. Trump cannot provide what Putin has been seeking at least since 2007: a new European security architecture. In my humble opinion, this is the only sort of offer that might induce Putin to make concessions with respect to his current position on Ukraine, since it could solve the underlying conflict, and not the immediate bone of contention.
Putin’s position, as stated on June 14 and reiterated by Putin and various officials, Russia requires a firm commitment that Ukraine will never join NATO nor engage in NATO-boosting shenanigans like participating in NATO war games and will pull all forces out of the four oblasts that Russia regards as Russian territory. That means ceding territory not held by Russia.
Russia also insists that Ukraine de-militarize; Putin has suggested returning to the haggling over weapons levels that had begun in the spring 2022 Istanbul talks, and “denazifying,” which means among other things outlawing Banderite parties and symbols.
Asking Ukraine to give up areas Russia has not already taken is cheeky, but even more so is Russia’s demand for regime change in Ukraine.2
As we have said before, Trump cannot deliver anything of the kind. He cannot deliver NATO, which is a consensus-based body. He can’t even deliver a credible promise to keep Ukraine out of NATO via a US refusal to vote for its entry, since a later Administration would reverse that. EU leaders ex Orban and Fico were also implacably opposed to cooperating with Trump, and are even more so now that he’s taking an undue interest in Denmark’s Greenland. So they won’t cooperate out of general cussedness.
Similarly, as we have described, Trump cannot even deliver Ukraine. Even when the US was lavishing support on Ukraine, it often defied its paymaster, via flagrant corruption (such as failing to build defense lines around Kursk), terrorist acts, and continuing to pour men and weapons into trying to hold positions that the US urged Ukraine to relinquish. Now with Trump clearly inclined to cut Ukraine loose, what leverage does he have?
Let us also remember that conflicts regularly end without negotiations or meaningful agreements. As Lawrence Freedman pointed out in the New Statesman:
Those that demand Ukraine and its Western supporters work out what concessions will be offered to Russia to cut a deal to end the war, often claim that this will have to be done at some point because ‘wars always end with a negotiation.’ Despite its regular repetition, and however the Russo-Ukraine War concludes, this claim is simply not true. Not all wars end with negotiations. Some end with surrenders, as was the case with both Germany and Japan in 1945, or regime change, as with Italy in 1943, or cease-fires, which might require some negotiation but leave the underlying dispute unresolved, as with Korea in 1953. Even when there are negotiations intended to end a war they often fail…
Once a war has begun, compromises become much harder to identify let alone agree and confirm in treaty form. This will require intense bargaining over specific language in the full knowledge that any ambiguity will later be exploited.
Trust between the belligerents will be in even shorter supply than before….
Which is why remarkably few wars end with negotiations on the dispute which prompted the war.
The last sentence above is important for the Russia-Ukraine war. Again, Putin has been insisting since 2007 of a “new European security framework.” That would mean at a minimum no NATO forever for Ukraine and better yet, a deal limiting other threats, like no nuclear capable missiles within X minutes of flight time to the Russian border. Putin almost got what he wanted when Ukraine had agreed to no NATO membership in the draft of deal terms in the March-April 2022 Istanbul negotiations. But Boris Johnson kicked that table over on behalf of the US and NATO, making it explicit that the conflict was a proxy war and Ukraine was not free to make decisions, despite occasional pious noises otherwise. That further, greatly complicates any resolution. It isn’t just that Russia is faced with a much bigger foe, despite its military ineptitude. It is also faced with a coalition (as Alex Vershinin pointed out) that often squabbles openly about what to do (see regarding weapons commitments, for instance).
Freedman’s article is very much worth reading in full. After the in-depth discussion of the Falklands War, the final section explores the elements that are needed to come to a durable settlement of a conflict via negotiations. They are notably absent here.
Is Russia’s Least Bad Option to Go to the Polish Border?
Your humble blogger had been for some time of the view that if Russia’s paramount aim is security, it cannot leave a rump Ukraine in the West. That part of the country has been the home of the Banderites and many (most?) of its residents harbored strong anti-Russia sentiments.3 If that part of the country is not under Russian control, the resentful Europeans, with the help of perfidious Albion, will make it de facto part of NATO and will do everything they can to stoke hatred of Russia. And if Vance loses in 2028, you can expect the US to join in supplying weapons.
Now Russia has other considerations, like the economic and political cost of garrisoning part of Ukraine, or a son-of-end-of-WWII alternative of administering it for long enough to round up or drive out the Banderites, and re-indoctrinate the remaining population sufficiently so it might be given close to full self-determination down the road.
Keep in mind that Russia would have to manage not just domestic opinion but also that of its economic allies. They won’t like the spectacle of Russia gobbling up all of Ukraine. But if the US and Ukraine keep being hostile to Russia’s security needs, they might wind up making Russia’s case better than Putin ever could.
John Helmer for some time has been writing that the General Staff has been champing at the bit to prosecute the war more aggressively. Early in the electric war, Helmer reported that the General Staff was examining the idea of establishing a large de-electrified/demilitarized zone. An advantage is Russia could impose that unilaterally where it saw fit.
Some readers may think I am making too much of Mark Sleboda’s views, but of all the English-speaking commentators I have encountered, he has been far and away the most accurate in forecasting the pace of the war. That means far longer than just about anyone else thought possible. For instance, most milpundits have been talking about the Ukraine military collapsing any day now, yessiree.4 By contrast, Sleboda says it will take till the end of 2025 for Russia to clear the Donbass. Recall it still has to take two key cities, Slaviansk and Kramatorsk, on the last major defense line. Also consider that for Russia merely to secure the four oblasts that it now deems to be part of Russia, it will have to take two major cities that straddle the Dnieper: Zaporzhizhia (2024 population estimate 796,000) and Kherson (2024 population estimate 320,000). The only city in this size range that Russia has won is Mariupol, which had a population at the time of 420,000. That is not to say it won’t happen, but it is another piece of the minimum end-state for Russia that has not happened and does not look to be quick and easy.
How can Ukraine keep going when even the Pentagon said (a couple of months ago) that it could run out of men in as soon as 6 months, and other source then said 10 to 12 tops? Sleboda reported around ten that the MoD had estimated that for every year that Ukraine dropped the conscription age (now 25) it could raise another 100,000 men. Even if you think that’s high in light of flight across borders, Ukraine can probably raise one last army of at least 200,000. The Russian press has reported that Zelensky has relented to US pressure, but there has been no announcement so far of any conscription changes.
16 year old Ukrainians 'mass fleeing' in special buses to EU advertised on Facebook
Interviewee admits she's packed her son off to Germany already…
US is trying to force Zelensky to lower conscription age to teenagers pic.twitter.com/wK0EtUO3Ed— RT (@RT_com) January 11, 2025
In case there are doubts that the Trump Administration would insist on lower the conscription age, a new Financial Times article puts paid to that idea. From Trump to urge Zelenskyy to lower Ukraine’s conscription age to 18:
[Incoming National Security Adviser Mike] Waltz said [on ABC] that its first steps would be to open dialogue with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin — to whom the US has not spoken directly since the war began — and to ask Kyiv to mobilise more men in order to stabilise Ukraine’s front lines ahead of negotiations….
He added: “This isn’t just about munitions, ammunition or writing more cheques. It’s about seeing the front lines stabilise so that we can enter into some type of deal.”
This looks like Trump is moving away from the idea of abandoning the conflict. Perhaps he hopes that an only moderately higher level of intensity from Ukraine will check Russia’s progress. But to anyone following the war, that’s a delusion. At best, perhaps the Trump Team is trying to make demands of Ukraine that Zelensky will reject, and that will justify a wind-down of support. But per above, the Russian press seems to think that Zelensky has, or is about to, capitulate to US demands.
Sleboda also pointed out in this talk that all of the weapons that the West had sent has not appeared on the battlefield, so Russian experts believe there are still some in reserve.5 Te Biden Administration and the Pentagon have graciously pointed out that there’s $3.8 billion in US weapons authorizations for Ukraine that have yet to be sent. So even if Ukraine is getting close to scraping the bottom of the barrel, it is not there yet.
Consider the section starting at 22:50:
Sleboda: When this war first started, I was entirely against the Russian occupation of West Ukraine, because they really do hate Russians there, by and large.
Thomas: Which is why they don’t want to take all of it.
Sleboda: It’s going to be weaponized against them. The entire population there will be just raised as a Western warrior caste for to restart the conflict, you know. in a few years, as soon as possible by the West, right, they’ll be trained.
I think at this point, the terrible costs of a occupation and the resulting guerrilla war in West Ukraine are actually less than the costs of a rump West Ukrainian Banderite statelet that will continue to be weaponized against Russia. And I think that may be part of the plan, the US plan, you know, at some level, not their initial plan, but Plan D or Plan E is oh, “You know, so the Russians are just going to keep going. We’re not going to give them some sort of deal that officiates this or admits that we lost here. We’ll make them fight for every inch. And let’s see them choke on it.”
Again, not to overdo on a key point, but John Helmer indicated that the Russian General Staff has been frustrated that Putin opposed a much speedier destruction of the Ukraine electrical grid as a way to end the war. Russia seems to have the means to prostrate Ukraine quickly if it wanted to. So why not?
Among the reasons:
Avoiding creating a massive humanitarian crisis, on the order of 10x Gaza, albeit without flattening buildings. Russia would become an international pariah. It would be seen as incumbent on Russia to provide relief, which it would be unable to do on this scale.
That scale of loss of services would also give the US and NATO the excuse of sending in large numbers of armed forces, to supply provisions and medical care and preserve public order. That is the last thing Russia wants.
By contrast, despite understandable Ukrainian loud complaints, the steady, systematic degrading of the Ukraine grid has become so regularized that it is almost background noise in the war coverage.
Keeping the good will of its economic allies. Most are deeply troubled by the idea of Russia taking terrain from a neighbor, even if they understand intellectually that this is now the only option left in terms of Russian security after the US and NATO scuppered the Istanbul negotiations. As the war has progressed, more and more Global South members have come around to Russia’s point of view, as reflected in the shift in votes on UN resolutions denouncing Russia’s action. A slow, incremental imposition of new realities, particularly if the West refuses to relent on the core demand of “no Ukraine in NATO, ever” will help keep them on board.
The Problem of Russia “Imposing Terms”
I must confess to occasionally resorting to the formula of Russia will wind up prosecuting the war until it has defeated the current regime in Ukraine and that it will then “impose terms”. But if you view Russia as following Clausewitz, this falls short of one of his definition of success, which is “getting the enemy to do our will”. This is a fuller formulation, from Antulio J. Echevarria II in Defense Analysis:
Clausewitz derived his proposition that “victory consists not only in the occupation of the battlefield, but in the destruction of the enemy’s physical and psychic forces” from the conditions of victory as he defined them for both the strategic and tactical levels of war. On the strategic level, Clausewitz wrote that victory in war required: 1) the complete or partial destruction of the enemy’s armed forces; 2) the occupation of his country; and 3) the breaking of his will to fight.
Even if Russia can do that with respect to Ukraine, its opponent is the US and NATO. Even if the US withdraws support from this adventure, most EU states are determined to carry on in some manner.
NATO’s will to fight seems very much intact, even if it is having trouble with budget implications. And as a recent long article in the Atlantic, by the Prince of Darkness of US neocons, Robert Kagan, shows, he’s still raring for continuing to mix things up with Russia, and no doubt has plenty of company.
To reduce this to practical terms, what happens if Ukraine’s military “collapses” as many milpundits foresee? Perhaps it will reach the level of a Syria-level of soldiers simply refusing to fight, which there amounted to a disintegration of the command structure. Or perhaps Russia really will have to conquer Kiev and seize the key command centers.5
A wee issue here will be the probability of the lack of a credible surrender instrument. Perhaps readers may think it’s silly to consider such a nicety. Isn’t possession nine-tenths of the law?
Even in private contracts, deficiencies or anomalies in the form of agreements can reflect problems with the deal itself. An overly-specified contract may point to a lack of trust between the parties and high expectations that they’ll wind up adjudicating it. Having a party sign that is lightweight (as in not clearly having enough resources) may indicate an intent to defraud.
In keeping if you look at the French surrender in 1940 and the end of World War II, considerable attention was paid to who and where these documents were signed. The German text, for instance, was drafted assuming political leaders would ink it; it was later revised to have the heads of the major armed services execute it, which is what happened. Even in the case of the German agreement, Russian additions to terms that Eisenhower agreed were important and delayed the signing.
In Syria, as far as I can tell, there was never an agreement with the Syrian government. Assad fled, importantly no one in his armed services was asked to execute a surrender document as a proxy for the Assad government. The Russians are very concerned with form, both for themselves and for appearances with their allies, so I doubt they’d accept roll this way.
The US and NATO will be keen to deny Russia a valid-looking surrender deal. They would create a government in exile. If the diminished Zelensky does not manage to arrange his exit, they have an arguably better fallback in the form of Ukraine’s former military chief, Valerii Zaluzhny, conveniently already stationed in London as an ambassador. He has the further advantage of being a diehard Banderite, having had not one but two statutes of Bandera in Zaluzhny’s Kiev office.
Even if the establishment of a government in exile winds up being a bit messy, it’s hard to see how Russia could get a credible representative from the Ukraine side to execute it. Zelensky would be unlikely to survive to do so (Banderites have already threatened repeatedly to kill him were he to try); the only way that might happen is if Russia would guarantee his safety, which means going permanently to Russia. That would be depicted as Zelensky signing under duress (which is narrowly accurate if not for the typical reasons). The same survival risk would apply to the current head of Ukraine’s armed forces, General Syrsky. So it seems not unlikely that someone who was not part of either the top military or political leadership would serve as the Ukraine representative, again contributing to the West’s ability to denounce any surrender or “imposition of terms”.
Again, the point here is not to fixate on a document that from the Russian side would signal an intent to halt their prosecution of the war and move to an occupation/administration phase, but to highlight that its likely deficiencies as an agreement would symbolize that the conflict has not reached a lasting resolution. Odds favor even if the war grind on into 2026 that the European will to carry on not yet having been broken. In a recent video, John Mearshimer provided a list of ways the West could continue a lower-level conflict with Russia, starting with Kaliningrad. Moreover, there will still be Ukraine backers in the US, feeding hopes that the US will resume support in the future even if Trump succeeded in closing the US money and weapons spigot.
Now admittedly, Trump is working on regime change, or at least regime redirection, across Europe, as Conor describes in detail today. But these efforts, like so many US interventions, have good odds of backfiring. So betting on them working out as intended is premature.
As Freedman summed up his New Statesman piece,
It is important to remember that contrary to the idea that wars must end with a negotiated solution in practice they rarely do.
____
1 It may be an artifact of translation, but Putin seems often (if not 100% consistently) made a distinction between being willing to hear what the various proxy war participants have to say, as opposed to start negotiations with them. Perhaps in a geopolitical analogue to the US mantra that we provide “access” to healthcare, which is not the same as providing healthcare, Putin saying he is willing to negotiate does not mean he has committed to negotiating. Just insert another word and the formulation becomes more obvious. Saying you are willing to get married does not mean you’ve committed to tying the knot.
2 Turnabout is fair play; Ukraine insisted on regime change in Russia via putting a provision in the Ukraine constitution that bars negotiations with Russia as long as Putin is President. Putin has pointed out that that has to go if talks with Ukraine are to come to fruition. Mind you, given the givens, it’s entirely logical, as Putin has, to question whether Zelensky can sign binding agreements. Russia’s reading of the Ukraine constitution is that Zelensky is no longer the legitimate head of the state, but the head of the Rada could execute treaties. Putin has pointed out that Ukraine could firm up Zelensky’s position by holding elections…assuming, of course that he were to win legitimately, a prospect that seems vanishingly unlikely given his low popularity ratings. And let us not forget niceties like Zelensky having banned opposition parties and shut down opposition media.
Note that Putin did not exhibit such sensitivities with respect to the Minsk Accords. The person that signed on behalf of Ukraine was not an official, but an ex-President who’d been designated as a representative (from what I can tell, without having had a post created or legislative approval).
3 An example: a Scottish contact was negotiating for IT contracting in Ukraine. He had a good command of Russian. Even though the meeting (near Kiev) was expected to be in Russian, he was told to keep his mouth shut: “You are blonde and blue-eyed, that’s enough. If they hear you have a Russian accent, the deal will be off.”
4 I have to admit I was too trusting of this point of view, particularly when it came from people with expertise like Colonel Macgregor. The fact that Russia will win does not mean it will pick up the pace all that much even as Ukraine gets weaker.
5 Or the level of appropriation for sale to arms merchants could have risen markedly.
6 Presumably Ukraine would destroy them, but that’s still an admission of defeat.
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Could Russia calculate that a Morgenthau Plan type landlocked, rump Ukraine is preferable to outright occupation, shifting the costs of managing/rebuilding it to the feckless, resource poor and increasingly deindustrialized Europeans and a disillusioned/distracted US? If it were small and poor enough, what threat would it pose that the Balts or the Poles don’t already represent?
I agree. The risk of a properly rearmed Ukraine is very slight. The people are gone and the upcoming demographics is terrible. Europe and the US simply do not have more spare equipment to give Ukraine and the legacy Soviet stock is now all gone. There’s still the likelihood Gladio operations coming out of Western Ukraine but those kinds of operations will come no matter what.
Leaving a dysfunctional Western Ukraine for Europe and the US to squabble responsibility over will minimize costs for Russia and maximize a future break between Europeans and Americans, whereas occupying Western Ukraine creates a common enemy and common threat for them to unite against.
Good points, however I think the Ukranians in the West who appear to be as fanatical as the Israelis will never give up fighting unlike the Poles and Baltic states. The conflict will be as permanent as in the Koreas but once the borders are settled and an armistice agreed on. Things will gradually settle down maybe.
Russia has no alternative but to impose a Roman peace…. “burn/create a desert!”
In my youth late 1960’s we knew a person who had “worked” in the Ruthenian/Polish regions added to Kiev administration by Stalin, his memorable observation was of blood feuds and murderous religious/ethnic attitudes.
Burn a desert!
US still has large “war reserves”, Biden’s presidential draw authorities (for Ukraine and Israel) have gone to the point that combatant commanders contingency plans will be stripped of calculated ammunition and reinforcement/attrition weapons stores. US magazines are getting thin. Thinner the better for long term Russia.
Ukraine might raise another army, but equipping it and finding 18 months to train it are incongruous.
US and vassals are not trustworthy with agreements.
US and vassals are trustworthy with agreements, to break every single one ASAP.
Just as any Native American — you know — descended from those who lived there prior to the European invasions.
You’re quite right, there’s no peace deal in sight. But looking further down the road, it’s important to see how fragile the apparently solid grip of the US on much of Europe actually is. Many have already woken up to realise they were the real target of the Ukraine gambit, not Russia. And since Trump was elected, skeptical looks at Atlanticism have multiplied daily. So maintaining NATO’s current posture is beginning to become a threat to the legitimacy of NATO itself. Particularly as ramping up Russian menace is not sustained by what people can see is actually happening. The spirit of 22 when ‘Russia’s illegal invasion’ seemed plain to many, already looks jaded.
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One strategic issue that might come into consideration is that one military lesson of the war seems to be that close geographical proximity of an enemy may not matter so much these days. We now know that its impossible to build up an army for invasion on a border without anyone knowing about it. Nobody thinks, for example, that NATO is going to launch a surprise tank invasion from Estonia or Latvia into Moscow.
In many ways, occupying Ukraine could make Russia’s strategic position worse. It means it pushes its border right up to the core heartlands of Europe, and right next to existing major Nato military bases. This means it not just has to deal with banderite insurgents, it needs a defensible line along a very difficult to defend borderland.
So I’d suggest that having a weakened rump Ukraine joining Nato might not actually be all that strategically important. Once Russia completely controls the entry to the Azov Sea (and hence the great inland freshwater transport networks), and controls the sea entry to the Dnieper, Ukraine is no longer a strategic threat to Russia. There are no first strike assets Nato can put in Ukraine that represents a greater threat to Russia than they can’t put into Finland or Latvia. Nato’s most valuable military assets have to be kept well back from the border – no missile base or airfield can hope to survive the first day of combat if its within 500 km of Russia.
Perhaps informally abandoning a requirement for Ukraine to be neutral could be the basis for a ceasefire agreement that would leave Russia with the breakaway provinces (and whatever else is deemed militarily necessary) and stop the fighting. For all the reasons outlined above, a full agreement is impossible for now, but a Korean style ceasefire with ‘understandings’ would at least stop the bloodshed and, from the Russian point of view, high economic cost of the war. Whatever has been stated as war aims by Putin, in reality, this achieves Russias realistic strategic objectives.
Estonia or Latvia were never good place to start an invasion from, because they lack strategic depth. Road to Moscow goes trough KIev.
Entry to the Azov Sea is Kerch Strait.
Completely agree on every point. With a ceasefire Russia could develop the areas it has conquered with the mind to promote prosperity. Russia could periodically “mow the lawn” and disable the electric grid of rump Ukraine from time to time. Ultimately rump Ukraine would choose to identify as European and try to make money from things other than war. Right now war, is the way the Ukrainians make money so it’s advantageous for the ruling class and the local PMC. So much depends on the willingness of Washington to continue its aim of world conquest. That’s more important than anything Russia chooses to do.
“There are no first strike assets Nato can put in Ukraine that represents a greater threat to Russia than they can’t put into Finland or Latvia”
I have no idea why that gets overlooked when people ask “what if NATO puts first-strike weapons in Ukraine?” More likely, It is a matter of time until the UK or US develops hypersonics that can be launched from a submarine’s 21-inch torpedo tube, so an even more likely scenario is the US, UK and (maybe) Germany rotating submarines in the Baltic with such weapons. Obviously, Russia will likewise park a Kilo or similar stealthy submarine with hypersonics 200 miles from Washington DC.
The Vertical Launch Tubes at the Polish and Rumanian Aegis (SPY-1D radar) sites are the same on US missile ships, which interchangeable hold cruise missiles. US already has near first strike capability!
The US Army has Typhon system which a deployable truck mounted ground launch cruise missile system Carried in a C-17. Road march and set up rapidly. One was deployed recently to the Philippines in an exercise, Quick turn around from leaving the INF treaty!
US is not agreement trsutworthy.
Burn a desert!
I think that’s right. Many countries with borders face continuing low-level threats that they deal with as best they can, but which are not threatening in the great scheme of things. Angry but powerless Ukrainians and angry but largely ineffective Europeans don’t between them constitute more than a nuisance. And whatever government takes over in Kiev will be acutely aware of its own weakness and of the strength and long-term bad mood of Moscow. It’s not impossible that Kiev will decide that its interests are best served by cracking down on the Banderites and hanging on to what they can keep, similar to the way the new Irish government cracked down on the IRA in 1922-23. Alternatively, there’s Ukraine as pre-war Gaza 2,0, without the weather and the sea, at least for the next couple of generations. .
What this shows, I think, is that any “final solution” to the political problem is a mirage, except insofar as it will be imposed by the balance of power between Russia and the West, and what each is able to do on the ground. As in many regions of the world, there is no “answer,” but only a series of interim brute-force solutions.
That’s assuming the whole ‘Finland and Baltics in NATO’ question is completely closed going forward; I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Recall the Russian’s diplomatic note that they sent the Western powers in Dec of 2021 before the war began, which included removal of multinational NATO forces from eastern Europe and the Baltics. The whole goal of a new European security architecture is aimed squarely at that, but given the absolute rabidness of the Baltics and company, and the seemingly impossible to remove Neocons and friends embedded deep within Western governments, I expect much more trouble around Kaliningrad to come as a way of increasing the pressure on Russia.
‘No reverse gear’ as Mercouris says.
“Understandings” are doing a lot of work here. I don’t think that’s possible as long as there is a NATO and the presence of US troops in Europe. I think the only “peace” is predicated on dissolution of NATO. That is improbable so the Russians, left to their own, will have to find a line tbst offers them best security regardless of what NATO says.
In this sense, the borders might be similar to your suggestion (also in line with Dmitri Trenin’s ideas). But there will be no real agreement on what undergirds it.
The problem with leaving a rump Ukraine is that it still leaves open the nice smooth grassland that various European armies have used to march to Russia. I cant see how Russians will accept this as a victory.
Also I wonder how much trouble even a rump Ukraine could cause just by occasionally letting “terrorists” launch a few cheap drones at expensive Russian infrastructure locations?
Why not? Didn’t they quite successfully launch a surprise tank invasion into Kursk already?
Quite successfully, if you count Sudza as Moscow.
This is why Russia had Cossacks. The actions of Cossacks were responsible for 90% of Russia’s bad reputation, but they were also very feared.
The people in Sudza did not have arms, and the border guards were all very confused why anyone would invade the middle of nowhere. Moscow has long resisted allowing local militias to arm themselves to man the borders again, but this will be a necessity wherever the border is drawn with the Ukraine.
It’s almost like one can’t turn a border-land into a border-line, in the vast Eurasian Steppes. Speaking of drawing lines, there is also the constant media blabbering of red lines (due to historical, cultural, and geometrical ignorance). Instead of talking about stepping over Russian red lines, they should be talking about walking trough Russian (Red) Borderlands.
Yes, i thing it is interesting to pay attention to what Sleboda has to say, one of the few known voices with knowledge on the terrain. Ukraine will indeed turn a Russian problem to deal, Banderites included, but l also see supporting them by the “West”, whatever the West turns to be after the defeat, as problematic. Very problematic and unwise. The times when Western meddling could go “unnoticed” to say it in this way have long gone.
My guess is Russia installs a pro-Russian strong man to keep the peace, and maybe enough west Ukrainians will by then want peace enough that a majority votes for him. Roads/railroads monitored, the west might have minimal options for mischief.
Can’t see Russia not controlling the entire country.
If we assume a continuing Ukraine War, the prerequisite is not only rebuilding US and EU weapon stocks to previous levels (US of course also generously and preferentially supplying the Zionists), but going well beyond that with LOTS more modern equipment and more trained military. All this comes from a gutted industrial base with higher energy costs and a demographic where 77% of the military age cohort is unfit to grab??? Add the desired 5% GDP spend for the military from shrinking economies, which will require austerity for social and infrastructure spending. For the US, the desire for increased fortifications and provocations of China are also the big ticket focus.
I don’t see how the west can keep Ukraine fighting for years works in the mid-term. Yapping Baltic and Polish poodles notwithstanding. At some point it will end like Vietnam (no meaningful peace treaty there) with the Banderites moving to Florida and Canada.
It would not be this Ukraine but some sort of rump Ukraine. And it would not be war at this level of intensity. The action would be harassment, terrorism, plus putting in missiles that could hit pre-war Russia.
Exactly, NATO still seems strong, and intent on Fighting Russia, but its leaders are all being swept out by domestic politics, and the economics of (re)building and (re)arming a capable military from a deindustrialized base are implausible. If we view NATO as an organization for extracting tribute from European vassals in the form of US Arms sales, then Trump’s disdain and the debacle in Ukraine both represent existential threats that it may not survive. NATO cannot keep fighting, but probably the Brits at least, will keep arming and training terrorists to infiltrate into Russia. The blowback scenarios practically write themselves.
This entire conflict is based on an edifice of bad faith and propaganda foisted on Europe by Biden and his crew along with the indeed disappearing faithful among the Euro leadership. With the demented Biden admin out of the picture here’s suggesting that that which cannot continue will not. Or at least it will continue only if the Trumpies actively want it to continue.
And I at least think they do not.
From this morning’s Doctorow link
Exactly?
Maybe he can do a Ronnie and invade Grenada again. Even Reagan wasn’t so deluded as to go to war with Russia. To be sure there was still an active antiwar and antinuke movement then putting on the pressure.
One wildcard seems to me to be the extent to which Trump wants to continue with NATO at all.
Do people really believe that there is a non-zero chance of USA just giving up on one of its most important imperial tools? Trump, with his openly imperialistic ambitions, would not only want to keep NATO, but to enlarge it even more. The whole NATO smack talk is nothing more than a way to squeeze even more money from the vassals (also known as allies). He asks for 5% of GDP and threatens, in order to settle on 3% or whatever. It’s not rocket science, but the “art” of the deal (and circus).
The beginnings of this war go all the way back to the Dulles brothers at the end of WW-2. That, at the least is the start of the American phase of the struggle.
Some contend that it really began with the Allied “Interventions” in Murmansk and the Far East back at the end of WW-1.
A truly long term view would push the struggle phase back to the incursions into Eastern Europe by the Mongol Hordes in the 1200s. Inscrutable Easterners versus Tricky Westerners has been a staple theme in European history for centuries.
There is a scene at the beginning of Eisensteins Russian film “Alexander Nevsky” where the hero views a coffle of “white” slaves being herded off to captivity in the East. One of the Khan’s emissaries tries to recruit Nevsky to work for the Mongol State. Later, Nevsky rallies the Rus to defeat the Teutonic Knights. This being filmed just before WW-2 started, the inference is clear. Trouble is coming to Dnieper River City.
You could certainly make the case that the 20th century was all about the Russian revolution but what about now? There’s utterly no reason for this war in Ukraine other than small time grifters like Biden or Boris to pretend they are “running the world.” End the madness and give peace a chance. It’s not impossible that Trump will go there. There’s no percentage for him in keeping up Biden’s vanity war.
Something, something, trees, forest. “Now” is not just three years of war in the Ukraine, but the whole expansion of NATO eastwards that has been actively going on for decades (which is a moment in historical terms). To think that it’s about Trump, or Biden, or any US president, is just naive (to put it mildly). Even if the war somehow ends tomorrow (by some hypothetical miracle-deal), it won’t be a real end, but a pause for rearming and continuation in few years Syrian style. World wars don’t end by deals, and this one is just getting started.
I don’t agree. NATO was purely an American invention and we can un-invent it just as well. And Trump has even threatened to do that very thing. For sure the UK has a paw in all this but their animosity toward Russia was always an urging to the continent “let’s you and him fight” although they did fight a war in Crimea many many years ago. Biden’s predecessor Obama even said that Russia was entitled to a sphere of influence but his successor had to puff himself up after the Afghanistan debacle.
I’d suggest that if you think history doesn’t have much to do with the personalities of the powerful then you haven’t read much history. For sure the power itself shapes their behavior but the rulers themselves are not all the same. Biden–in history–will be one of our very worst presidents.
I never suggested that NATO is anything but US tool (to keep in, out, and down). Not only have I read history, but have lived trough some of it (being from Cold War Europe). The cult of personality view of history is US thingy (and has been talk about on this site), maybe because it fits well into Hollywood educaton. The words coming out of mouths of US presidents are worth even less than their signatures on deals/agreements/etc. They are clowns. Bloodly clowns. With lots of blood.
Well regrets is I gave offense but I still disagree with the idea that all US leaders are the same. FDR and Truman for example were very different. And I believe Trump and Biden are different although that remains to be seen in practice.
Alastair Crooke has another column out today about the battling conflict zone personalities.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/01/13/trump-iran-and-the-obama-strategic-blueprint/
After the Russian Revolution just about every major Western power sent troops to overthrow the new government.
Even though the USSR didnt turn out the way Trotsky or Lenin would have liked, the act of overthrowing what the West considered the rightful government is an unpardonable sin that Russia can never be forgiven for and therefore it must be Balkanized and conquered.
It’s all about the Western Values, that those pesky Orthodox Slavs just don’t want to accept.
It occurs to me that perhaps the Russians do not have to push all the way to the Polish border. They could halt at the border of Lviv Oblast and leave it as the population is inherently hateful of anything Russian so not worth occupying. That Oblast could even rename itself as Banderistan but here is the thing. It would have bugger all industry and only a very small population so could never generate a big army. It might do stuff like drone attacks but the Russians would do reprisal attacks. If it gets too bad the Russians could just de-electrify the place and let most of the people flee to the EU. That is, if the EU has not made hard borders to stop any more Ukrainians fleeing there. But in any case the demographics for this region are going to be horrific and the European nations are going to exhaust themselves preparing for a make-believe Russian invasion that will never come. It’s gunna be a mess.
This morning drones struck Kazan. Look at how far that is. Quite likely they came from Kazakhstan, as the range of these drones is 1000 km, while Kazan is 1200 km from the border (just as the drones that attacked Murmansk we know for certain came from Finland — the range of the drones used was only a third of the distance from Ukraine to Murmansk), but Russian Geran drones do have that range, so Ukraine might soon have drones with such range too.
They will still be able to strike into Russia from Lvov even assuming no further expansion of capabilities, and they will still be able to attack from other countries and pretend it was “Ukraine” as long as there is an Ukraine.
No piece of territory can be allowed to remain outside of direct Russian control, so that there is no possibility of carrying out such attacks from behind the proxy’s back.
Having no geopolitical expertise, but being an avid reader of history, it seems to me that the piece missing in this and every other analysis is the creation of stable conflict. The British Empire were masters of this. You don’t need a lot of occupation troops if a target country is in permanent conflict with their neighbor. Perhaps something along the lines of giving a nice kusok of Galacia to Poland, leaving a rump Ukraine adjacent. Ideally split Lvov down the middle. No wall necessary, or if necessary it will be built by the victims themselves. No love is lost between the parties, and there is enough historical resentment to keep them occupied, so to speak, for generations.
I don’t see that as acceptable to Russia. And the UN would not recognize any effort to gift part of Ukraine to another country, since the occupied land is not recognized as part of Russia. And if you think the EU is being mean to Hungary now, you have no idea what they might try if Poland would go along with an illegal annexation. They’d cut off all EU funding as fast as they could. They might even seize Polish financial assets.
Yves, thank you very much for your comment. Absolutely accurate. Except, that historically when an irresistible force meets an immovable object, not every rule is applied.
The only viable long term solution for Russia is the breakup of NATO and driving the Americans out of Europe and West Asia. Or an American deep state that is genuinely no longer interested in unipolar hegemony (in which case NATO and American military presence in Europe is also unnecessary).
The whole raison d’etre of the Deep State is world conquest something they will never give up. A generation or two of fanatical neocons being promoted and hired by Deep State agencies and NGO’s will stand in the way of any attempt to change focus unless Trump can find a way to gradually change that. We don’t know what will happen with Trump or whether some of his people can managed to prevail in the upcoming battles inside Washington.
break up the E.U. also. it really is hitler and Mussolini’s wet dream. best thing for russia to do, is to drive right up to the border with hungary and slovakia.
thus giving them a way out of the E.U. death trap, and also will help serbia.
Thanks for rounding out your thoughts on this topic. I think the matter of Russian allies is a key factor in any decisions Putin might be evaluating. If that is true, taking it slow and steady and not committing humanitarian disasters has 2 key benefits. It increases the needed comittment from the West while economic conditions could deteriorate. It gives the West more chances to do something stupid and make it so that China and the ROW agree to give Russia a freer hand. Zelensky and any similar leaders in whatever is left of Ukraine will only ever try to ridiculously escalate the situation. The US probably has more deep state tricks up its sleeve. The more chances Russia gives a desperate Ukraine to make a mistake the more likely them making a mistake becomes.
I don’t think much of the big picture has changed recently. The RF is at war with the US, not Ukraine. Another possible end game is a hot war. Visibly re-writing the history of WW2 only makes this more likely in my view.
I agree but there is too much noise about Trump negotiation schemes, as if they could change anything save thaw relations a bit with Russia. Hence the need to keep reminding readers, even if the effort seems repetitive to those who are following the conflict closely.
I will point to Connor’s article posted just before this as a probable but not certain outcome as to how Russia will “win the peace.” Europe’s increasingly popular so called “far right” is more accurately described as European neoliberals who differ on a few specific policies vs tradional neoliberals who currently hold power, AND favor normalizing relations and doing business with Russia because its good for non-MIC and non-US business interests. That’s good for Russia and world peace.
“Far right” are those that want to send tanks eastwards, “far left” are those that want to send tanks westwards.
NATO is calling out 2030 as a target year for a reason I assume.
What does that mean?
They might have gathered enough strength by then which by recent NATO-calculations they consider sufficient to project threat on RU soft spots. Be that Kaliningrad, Belarus, Baltic Sea or Crimea. That those calculations are insane doesn’t matter (anybody remember the element of NATO incompetence in the sci-fi blockbuster “Edge of Tomorrow”?).
The current repeated statistics for proof of NATO’s supremacy – which I have quoted here and which are being handed around in German antiwar circles every week as an agument against increased spending – are another indicator. 2200 fighter bombers, 6300 tanks, 3000 missiles, 3 mn. soldiers (don’t ask me)…
Yves´ – excellent piece I must say – does not get into Taiwan. However Taiwan as a hot spot is scheduled for about the same time as EU is scheduled to be ready for “war”.
So another possible answer to the Ukraine question might be in conjunction with the Pacific issue. By then it’s also clear who Trump’s successor will be.
I guess the question will become tougher when RU has definitely secured the area which has been fought over since 2014.
How will the Ukraine political class react after that?
There are Banderites still. But they are only as powerful as the majority lets them. Antipathy towards Russians is one matter. Genocidal hatred another. And the huge majority of everyday people doesn’t share either.
If they do draft teens I predict a Vietnam moment at some point. Often the disturbance comes from places least expected.
Are the US/EU prepared for a Ukrainian population unwilling to sacrifice more of its sons after e.g. 50.000 have already been killed?
And are the Russians?
So lets go to sleep for another year and talk about this then.
Taiwan is another place where people want to have a cake and eat it, too.
Surveys make it pretty clear that most Taiwanese don’t want to be ruled from Beijing, but…
Whether they don’t want to be “Chinese” is ambiguous, depending on deliberately unclear wording.
They certainly don’t want to die to not to be ruled by China–same surveys also show, at least as of some years ago as I remember, that most of the people who say they don’t want to be ruled from Beijing don’t want to put their lives at risk to fight China–they just want to leave, really, if there’s a real risk of a fight.
So, what they do is to pay the US thinking that that’s enough (ie buy useless, from Taiwan’s security perspective, tanks and such–forgetting that they are still spending US money), instead of taking their own defense seriously. Personally, I think that’s downright insulting from American perspective, at least for the “real Americans,” so to speak, who prioritize US over US empiring. In the end, the Taiwanese, like the Europeans, will have to figure out how to deal with their neighborhood with their own resources, not navel gaze at our expense.
…always amazed over the geographical luck the US has enjoyed concerning its own borders and the border issues of its rivals. More luck than brains….
Nah. Luck has nothing to do with it. It’s all hard work of continent wide genocide, in order to create necessary “living space”. Same thing happened in Australia. There were also other attempts that did not end up as successfully.
>”It’s all hard work of continent wide genocide”
…somehow evokes in my mind the image of French movies about French troops fighting anti-colonialist uprisings…sweaty brows, silent men, torture in the back of some shack, French Foreign Legion smoking in the front porch…two decades ago in German theatres there was a phase when they liked to stage Jean Genet’s play “The Screens”…
Agree with some of your points. Treating Ukrainians as passive takers of what is happening is not a good idea. On the top of this exhaustion at population level, not among the banderistas, I am sure that Russia is doing serious work in assessing, validating, and recruiting among the present Ukrainian prisoners future cadres that might be willing to replace some of the ultranationalists in power and hunt down the malcontents and trouble makers.
Also taking the Black Sea Coast and Odessa in receivership, and hostage for good behaviour, as well as garisoning the points of entry from Pland, Romania, etc. and doing a Syria, as Israel has done, destroying all essential equipment (radars, laubchers, tanks, planes, drone factories, etc., etc. etc.) Ukraine has left so that the Army is just like NYC Police and other control aspects, can minimize the Russian effort for subduing Ukraine.
Any Ukrainian government in exile will have no legitimacy and I am sure that Arestovicy, who recently express his belief that only Russia can ensure Ukraine’s security, would be more than willing to drive a stake through their hearts, at least metaphorically. That is if Russians will be able to secure his return to ukraine, same way Germans arranged for the return of Lenin to Petersburg in 1917…
WHat will the west’s hand be, with Europe’s economy sinking, and the population not willing to put up with this shite. Germany under AfD/CDU will not get gas from Russia unless certain assurances are given… And the German population, as subdued they might be, will not stand for a deterioration of their lives. Hitler was ok as long as the loot kept coming, the roads get built, etc… The French are on their part very irritable and ready to make barricades out of cars, trucks, etc… And UK and the US are both pressure cookers…
The Lenin comparison is an interesting point.
However re: Arestovych – was it not Sleboda – perhaps in one of the above appearances mentioned by Yves – who said A. is not a trusted dealer to the rightwing any more?
While human loss among teens for Ukraine could be a cause for uproar – I personally doubt very much any such event in Europe, where you will have no human losses. (Which is the one part of the NATO plan that I do not get. How do you fight without soldiers? But if you do they die and the support is evaporating.)
Andrei Martyanov stresses a very important psychological detail as armies fighting are concerned: The Russians are fighting for their own country’s survival. Always have since 1917.
Now for each Russian to understand that 2022+ again is a war for survival reveals a geopolitical savvyness most of your highly educated European elites would never grasp.
What does that tell you about how much Russian society as a whole is ready to sacrifice?
If Russian intellectuals with respectable science degrees – i.e. white collar people – go fighting at the front as officers leading an attack with machine gun and dagger – US folks of the same ilk who today are behind some computer at CalTech – that reveals a complexity of understanding of ones own position in the world at large that demands admiration. For them this is a just war.
The last time German intellectuals participated in a just war was 1936 in Spain. In Europe today the idea of a just war is almost unthinkable.
I wonder if there were a way to explain this to your average Ukrainian. The NATO tale is in fact very fragile.
Once you get over the point what would happen if NATO stationed nukes in Ukraine, and why there is zero justification or legitimacy to that – it’s not that far to understanding why Russia does what she does. And thus not that fa from finding out about the truth. (Which is why the media NEVER dare go into that direction. Nobody brings it up ever.)
Certainly it is naive to assume RU could win Ukrainians in many numbers over. But it’s worth a thought.
I did always think it was a major mistake by the Russians to cede the “soft power” space entirely to the West.
Had the Russians made serious attempts to inform the Western publics about 2008, 2014 etc. who knows how they would have forced NATO’s hand? Instead of feeling offended and retreat.
Wonder what Nicolai Petro, a rare optimist, would have to say to this. He likes to speak about his students and how new generations do not care for the wars and propaganda of their parents. There is a certain realism to that view, too.
The Russians will not be given any platform to present their argument. And anyways, all they do is disinformation, no?! (sarc!)
A colleague/friend of mine, Ukrainian, is very much against Russia and Russians, but he cannot explain to me why Ukraine needs to be built up as an anti-Russian polity, beacause this is what happened. And this is why the Russians are acting up. And not only that, but also inviting the devil to join in…
“but he cannot explain to me why Ukraine needs to be built up as an anti-Russian polity”
that´s exactly the mother of all caveats…
> Now with Trump clearly inclined to cut Ukraine loose, what leverage does he have?
He could always open up corruption probes on the money and weapons sent to Ukraine and then, to his shock, find out about massive corruption in Ukraine and all the hidden mansions in Florida or wherever. After that asking for an official Interpol warrant on Zelensky, Ermak, Zaluzhny (I don’t know how international warrants work in detail) and whoever else is not pliable to his point of view. I’ve been hearing that Trump is a bully recently with all the Canada/Gulf of Mexico/Greenland stuff so why can’t he bully Ukraine then? Actually, that’s how Biden admin got rid of Kolomoiskiy, IIRC. A few threats to look closely on his US/EU assets and he was out of the way.
> 1 It may be an artifact of translation, but Putin seems often (if not 100% consistently) made a distinction between being willing to hear what the various proxy war participants have to say, as opposed to start negotiations with them. Perhaps in a geopolitical analogue to the US mantra that we provide “access” to healthcare, which is not the same as providing healthcare, Putin saying he is willing to negotiate does not mean he has committed to negotiating. Just insert another word and the formulation becomes more obvious. Saying you are willing to get married does not mean you’ve committed to tying the knot.
I’m pretty sure that Putin saying “we want to open negotiations with Ukraine/US/EU vassals” will provoke panic domestically and massive campaign of glee in Western MSM. After all, it would sound like Russia is losing the war. Because victors do not seek to open negotiations, losers do. So “we’re willing to listen and we were always willing to listen” is as much as he can say, plus its consistent with the previous statements.
*Sigh*
Everyone with an operating brain cell already knows Ukraine is the most corrupt country in the borderline-advanced to advanced category.
The US has no enforcement power in Ukraine. I am sure those oligarchs are mighty good at laundering money and other methods of hiding their ill-gotten gains.
Any resulting scandal would not dent Ukraine one iota. It might, however, dirty up a lot of Westerners who were in on the act or otherwise complicit.
The Banderites can bring their weapons, join their older relatives in Canada and assist in the Accession to the USA.
Everyone will be happy!
For comparison another embarrassing achievement by George Beebe for Responsible Statecraft:
Trump may get Russia and Ukraine to the table. Then what?
American statesmanship has been largely dormant since the Cold War. The new White House must be serious about reviving it.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/aei/
It sounds like Beebe was listening to his pals from the agency in one ear and State Department in the other.
However 2 items might hint at what – unsurprisingly – for now the US in broad sense and officially admittable wants:
-“The United States does not need and should not seek Chinese help in mediation. But inviting China’s special envoy on Ukraine to visit the United States and discuss a settlement — something Beijing sought but Biden refused to offer — would put pressure on Putin to join peace talks.”
-“But with diplomatic skill and a dollop of luck, Trump could achieve what until recently seemed all but impossible: an independent Ukraine securely embedded in the EU; a Europe better able to deter and counterbalance Russia with its own resources; and a Russia and China that are less united in their hostility toward Washington. That vision is well worth pursuing, even if the odds of failure are significant.”
The greedy Poles want their Lviv back and to force the local population to teach about the genocides of the Poles and Jews that their forefathers carried out, in their schools. The Hungarians would also like to take the Carpathian area to protect the ethnic Hungarian minority. Why should not such a deal be proposed, in return for a demilitarizing of those lands and a formal treaty of mutual peace? It would stretch the EU and NATO to the breaking point.
Then Russia keeps everything east of the Dniepr, the Kiev oblast and the south west of Ukraine (which includes all of the coast and Odessa, and links Russia to Transnistria). No rump state, and all of the gas and oil transport lines protected. Together with a homesteading law, the riches of the Ukraine could be enjoyed by Russia and a wave of new friendly immigrants. Best outcome for Russia.
And Ukraine goes back to being a country that does not exist, as was the case prior to 1991.
None of these countries will take these areas by force, and the UN will not recognize Russia as in control and able to dispose of them. The EU would severely discipline anyone who tried (all these countries depend on EU funds, even more so now that budgets are squeezed), and per above, that could include asset freezes until they backed off.
The Flat World of Thomas Friedman is dead. Welcome to Spheres of Influence.
If Trump can buy Greenland, he can justify non-EU, non-NATO Polish and Hungarian protectorates of Western Ukraine.
It will be sold as a humanitarian gesture, helping Ukraine to rebuild (contracts for Blackrock and EU) and strengthening NATO (MIC contracts; Ukrainian recruitment into EU armies). The Ukraine and Russia will be encouraged to settle their differences over energy and resume supplies to the Ukraine.
Whereas in reality it is a way to split the EU vassals. The US buys off the Eastern Europeans with a share of the lebensraum and cheap energy in the Ukraine, so they support its looting of Western Europe.
The EU is most assuredly not buying what Trump is selling. Denmark has said he is welcome to visit Greenland, and that is all.
You need a willing seller and buyer to consummate a transaction. There is no willing seller.
This Trump noise has managed to further solidify and perhaps even extend EU opposition to Trump.
And you are REALLY out of line in insinuating my positions in any way resembles Friedman’s. One more insult and you will be banned. Your remark was a clear-cut violation of our written site Policies.
Don’t you mean “visit Greenland”?
Oops, Greenland, correcting comment.
The Trump noise may have managed to further solidify and perhaps even extend the opposition of EU institutions to Trump but there seem to be many citizens of EU states who do not feel opposed to Trump and may see him as a helping hand when it comes to reclaiming their national sovereignty. This, so far, has been the reaction of the authorities in Greenland and they are likely to have had more than a hint of support from their constituents.
By emphasising the need for a US sphere of influence in the Western hemisphere, Trump is providing the ideological basis for a movement away from a sterile policy of hegemony to a policy which, at root, assumes that each power, as it’s economy grows, will become more influential and develop it’s own sphere of influence within the concert of nations. The Deep State may find it difficult to live with, but I doubt if the American people will – as long as it enables them to become more prosperous and if that prosperity is shared and doesn’t just drift upwards to the oligarchs.
The EU is a price-taker, not a price-maker.
It was always a CIA construct (remember Jean Monnet spent WW2 in Washington DC). The High Commission for Coal and Steel was formed to enable reindustrialisation and rearmament while binding Germany. The EC arose from it with wider competencies and later with more members. It showed some independence (agricultural policy, some industrial policy) but from the 1970’s (oil shock) adopted / accommodated the precepts of neoliberalism. It focused for twenty years on the internal project of More Europe because foreign policy was outsourced to the US nuclear umbrella. After German reunification, it briefly attempted nudging the global balance of power (Iraq War 1) but settled for looting Russia alongside the USA. Since 2001, it chose “with is” rather than “against us” and there has not been a cigarette paper between US and EU positions on any important matter.
Its leadership class, once the WW2 generation who were the last to have been global actors (especially France, UK, even Germany) had all died, has sold itself to the hegemon. Thatcher and Mitterand and Kohl were the last EU politicians with an instinct of autonomy. Everybody since has been a whipped dog.
In the UK, the rot set in with Blair, chaining himself to Bush. “I will be with you, whatever”. Thelma and fucking Louise, all the way to the bottom. :-(
If Mr Trump wants Greenland, the EU response will be ” how much?”. Everything else is just bluster for domestic political purposes. What’s the alternative? Appeal to the UN, with a US veto? Denmark to sanction Wegovy sales? Declare war on US?
They may find a face-saving solution, like all those RAF bases in the UK entirely staffed and run by the USAF! A condominium (New Caledonia) or leasing (Diego Garcia) or independence with a treaty of defence but the US will be directly suzerain rather than acting through its ambassador to Copenhagen.
How else is the USA going to pay for all those lift repairs except by upping the looting?
Ironically, it is the reverse of the Soviet Union giving Novorossiya and Crimea to the Ukraine….
Sorry, you need to get a grip. Your entire take is a massive category error.
National sovereignity is at all the same as the price of traded goods.
And Trump is only creating horror across pretty much all of America’s nominal allies as well as the so-called Global South. The EU was opposed to him in his first term. This only hardens their resolve. It will also make it more difficult for Orban and Fico to support him.
You’ll see martial law or more Romania-style restrictions of the elements of democracy in the EU before you see anything like Denmark selling Greenland. There is nada sentiment for it in Denmark, which has far less contentious politics due to its high happiness level than most EU states.
As a counter-example, look at the UK, which is currently proposing a “sale and leaseback” (quotes, because we are actually giving it away but then paying to rent it!) of Diego Garcia. Territory is negotiable even if not marketable.
We’re back to big power relations. Even if the USA does not take Greenland (but I think it will, in some form), it has moved the Overton Window as to what is the acceptable behaviour for an Empire, might is right etc.
As for price-taker, price-maker, let me reframe it as Europe is the demandeur. Now, they didnt ask to buy Greenland, Trump did , but in every other aspect of their existence, when Washington says jump, they ask how high. The Ukraine has more agency than Germany right now….
The fact that this the best you could come up with proves you have no argument. Diego Garcia’s status has long been contested by Mauritius, and I am sure Colonel Smithers could explain at length why. Diego Garcia was administered by Mauritius for more than 150 years, FFS. It has been long in the making that the UK would give it up in light of de facto US control. Why should the UK incur costs for US benefit.
https://warontherocks.com/2024/10/mauritius-one-step-closer-to-diego-garcia-sovereignty/
And the UK is giving it away because it has become a burden. Not even remotely comparable to resource-rich Greenland, now much more valuable due to global warming (thawing of polar route = greater strategic value via location, and much easier resource development).
This is a great examination of the war–something I hope the cheerleaders for Russia will read. In my view, it is not so much what Russia chooses to do or not to do that is the determiner of events but, rather, the result of the struggle within Washington particularly what the intel community, which is the center of the Deep State, chooses to do. It might be that there will be a shift towards true “America First” ideas within the Washington milieu. I don’t see the Europeans strongly maintaining Ukraine.
I think, for what it’s worth, Russia will grind on and see what deals can be had from Washington–Putin will cooperate with Trump as best he can to strengthen the hand of Trump in the Washington internal wars which have to occur. We need a major sea-change within Washington with a government which, at least, has some concern for its citizens as apart from the West. Let Europe and the other vassal states rule themselves more. Multilareralism is the only way towards peace on earth and good will towards humanity.
We had multilateralism in 1914 and 1939. How’d that work out for humanity? Not saying that U.S. hegemony is better (and it’s probably impossible long-term anyway) but there aren’t any panaceas.
I think Russia has a difficult, if at all possible end game if it’s the only side that wants to wrap things up. But, in this sense, Russia is kinda irrelevant, I think.
The real question is what US government seeks as its international role in the future, specifically the role it envisages for NATO. NATO is basically US basing troops in Europe and the Europeans singing praises of US-imposed world order. The bases are a useful forward staging ground for US empire and the Europeans provide the “international community” that supports the empiring. These presuppose that US wants to keep at the empiring business.
But the empiring business is expensive and risky. Trump is tapping into a very popular US sentiment when he says that US allies are not “paying a fair share.” It’s not just a matter of money, I think: US is not in mercenary business, where we look to make profit out of keeping troops to “protect” the Poles, Lithuania, Taiwanese, or South Koreans while they do extremely risky stuff without taking due precautions. Americans are not going to die for Latvians to keep antagonizing Russia pointlessly without raising an army of a million or two to keep the Russians at bay all by themselves (of course, they can’t–that’s the point.) The real “price” that Americans want from the allies is that they take their security situation sereiously, increase their defense spending where applicable, and start acting responsibly as if their lives depend on it (they do, in fact–they just think that Americans will save them no matter what they do to endanger themselves, while we are really saying that we don’t want to pay that price.)
Europeans, accustomed to American leadership that always presumed an empire, can’t seem to get their heads around this. They might offer cash–but cash is useless unless they actually use it for improving their own defense, which they may not even be able to for a long time. More important, they are actually escalating their moralism talk, as if US just wants more justification for empiring (well, some people here do…but I think Trump is sensing that a solid American majority is against this sort of thinking now.) If anything, the European moralizing is actually making a lot of Americans even more disgusted.
So the basis of US negotiations with Russia is how much US will stay committed to European security. Right now, US is seemingly committed to “defend” the Europeans no how crazy they get–because we are crazy, too, and their insanity justifies ours. But, suppose we don’t want to stay crazy? If we realize that all the European insanity is just adding to our expense and risk, European insanity is not something we want to encourage. In this sense then, US is not really negotiating with the Russians, then. We are negotiating with the Europeans, to set the standards of the latter’s behavior, to ensure that they start acting responsibly or no more NATO, and acting responsibly includes not needlessly antagonizing the Russians. In this sense, then, Russia is just a prop for US-European negotiations to redefine NATO, or, perhaps, even an intra-US negotiation over how much empiring we want to keep doing.
Perhaps the intra-US debate is the really important part: a lot of people, especially whose lives depend on it, want to keep empiring and to them, the sizable majority of the American people who want to quit empiring are the enemy and they are engaged in all sorts of dirty tricks to subvert this. This makes the negotiations difficult: those who oppose empiring need a Russia whose behavior is reasonable and does not strengthen the hands of the empire-builders at home. Now, if I were the Russians, do I want to take this risk? How strong is the anti-empire sentiment in US? How sincere is Trump in looking to do something about this? If the anti-empire coalition loses, then Russians will be in greater danger if they act “too nice,” after all. Ironically, then, the question becomes whether a key foreign leader put his trust in the American people to eventually do the right thing (i.e. not empiring too much.)
I think another way to look at this is that this sort of reverses how foreign policy negotiations were often carried out in the West lately, per Yves’ description: Western leaders spend all their time negotiating with themselves instead with the other side. This happens, at least in part, because all Western elites are presumed to favor empire building, just not agreed on the particulars. Here, the debate in the West is more fundamental and basic agreement cannot be presumed. So the opposing sides are negotiating with the foreigners (the “global” empire builders with the Europeans, the “isolationists” with the Russians) instead of with each other.
This is a very good set of points.
However, despite all of the Trump noise about NATO, I don’t recall him ever once threatening to remove US troops or weapons from Europe. He is insisting the Europeans bear more of the cost, which seems to mean pay the US more/all of the cost of its operations. But that over time would mean EU NATO members making more of their own weapons (they make a fair bit now, witness the many types of tanks).
You also assume Trump will not significantly walk back his position. He has already done so with respect to how fast he gets a pet deal done. He’s already put off his envoy Kellogg meeting with Zelensky until Trump at least has a meeting set with Putin. Per the FT article above, he is also insisting that Ukraine lower its conscription age and fight to improve its position, which in practice = the US continuing to fund the war. Ukraine has no reason to agree unless it gets more weapons. Perhaps Zelensky negotiates back: “We lower it to 24 now but only to 20 to 18 if you and NATO commit $x billion”.
You also assume Trump can deliver. Mercouris has pointed out that Mitch McConnell is dead set against ending support to Ukraine, and the Senate more generally has more MAGA opposed that MAGA-following Republicans. They can block Trump’s nominees. So the pro-Ukrainians still have a big bargaining chip and I doubt they will give it away cheaply.
Putin described to Oliver Stone in his 2016-2017 interviews how US presidents would make commitments to them, then renege. He was convinced it was the operation of what Putin called the permanent bureaucracy. If Trump were to try to lower US troop commitments to NATO, I don’t think he’d live very long.
I didn’t take Waltz’s words as an offer of a quid pro quo. Rather, I took that as a rhetorical positioning for the next argument: these people aren’t serious about defending their own country, so it’s pointless that we waste money on them. Yes, Zelensky can raise 18, 17, 16, or 15 year old men and women, but that won’t be enough. Trump people can then point to the enormous amount of money that Zelensky and his swell gang stole from Western aid, that their friends have gotten away without putting their own butts on line, etc. as more proof that these people don’t care about their own defense and want to play us as dupes. While it is inevitable that going against the Beltway Insider narrative about foreign policy will be extremely difficult, it is true also that Trump has very good sense of what his supporters want and the one thing that they mostly agree on is that US should cut down international commitments and I strongly suspect that Trump thinks he should go with the latter (not to mention the former have already proven themselves completely unreliable given their repeated attempts at backstabbing Trump).
I think I’m coming from a rather unusual perspective on this: my worldview nowadays is almost entirely American, but I do come from a background where I’m extremely familiar with the attitudes of a US ally/satelite/parasite, people who think that they are so important to US global strategy that they are doing US a favor by having US troops based on their territory. Well, that’s only true if US is looking to pursue a global empire. If we don’t care to pursue a global empire–and a large majority, I think, of the American public does not–why do we even have defense commitments to Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Germany, Israel, or UK, let alone Ukraine, at great expense to ourselves in treasure, blood, and credibility–the cost borne not just by not-really-Americans like Blinken and Sullivan, but by the US public in general? If so, we’d demand unacceptably high prices from our parasites so that they’d rather deal with their problems on their own rather than have US “pick up the defense burden.” I’d like to believe that Trumpists are taking slow steps to this goal: if the globalists say that we have to defend such and such noble peoples who are fighting for their whatever, then we want to expose them as frauds and hucksters that most of them are, or, at least, people who don’t care to lift a finger to defend themselves and think that they can have some stupid foreigners do their dirty work. Well, we may be foreigners, but we ain’t stupid, or so the saying might be.
I always wonder where exactly this American protection of Europe is supposed to be manifesting. At least from the break up of USSR, it’s mainly Europe being dragged into stupid US wars around the globe. Even in Ukraine, US Blob was the main instigator, from the initial idea of Ukraine in NATO to Vicky “F*ck EU” Nuland. Yes, there are the crazy Balts and Poles, but again it were the US elites who were supporting this New Europe nonsense as a way to neutralize the Old Europe. And now that it was revealed US can’t actually do the one thing NATO was supposed to be all about, i.e. defeat Russia in land war in Europe, they will wash their hands and tell EU to fix Ukraine on their own because they have bigger fight with China, in which Europe is of course expected to participate too.
It really looks like the kind of racket where you pay money for “protection”, but if something happens to your shop and you try to go to the mafia and complain, it turns out they will not catch the perpetrators or protect you in any way. All what happens is the next time the guy collecting the money shows at your door, he just demands double the previous amount. And then the Europe elites say how wonderful it is and offer to pay triple.
I have a feeling that the big hidden fear of Europeans is return of large intra-European wars. And the utility of NATO is not protecting them from some external enemy – it keeps them from fighting each other. That’s also a major reason for supporting Ukraine – if a European country successfully takes a chunk of another country by force, that opens a can of worms they want to see closed.
I have a feeling that you are a bit late with “if can of worms is opened” predictions. Intra-European wars have started in 1990s, and a big one in 2022. Major reason for supporting Ukraine is the order of the Boss (and hate that have always been there, and a wish to have another go at conquering Russians).
This is John Helmer from Sunday:
„In a single line expressed through a reporter, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov has explained the defeat of Syria as a tactical withdrawal in preparation for the “military conflict with NATO, and in the next 10 years. So, Russia right now needs solutions that will ensure at least a long-term balance in the global confrontation.”
This line appeared in the Kremlin-funded security analysis platform Vzglyad on January 3; there was no mention of Syria. In case the significance was missed, Vzglyad added the editorial line in italics: “In a long confrontation with the West, it is important to skillfully combine the economy and military. Judging by the first results of the activities of the economist Belousov as Minister of Defense, this is exactly what we see.”
A political source in Moscow concurs. “Russia has to fight all of NATO head-on within the next ten years. So if a deal can be made now to earn some time to rearm, then that’s a strategic choice that is going to have to be made.”
Not all military sources in Moscow agree. Some believe that during the process in October and November when President Vladimir Putin listened to General Staff and Foreign Ministry arguments for opposing the Turkish plan to break out of Idlib and capture Damascus, the Kremlin underestimated the message that Russia’s acquiescence would deliver to the US and the NATO allies. “Anyone now thinking Russia can be counted on as ally”, comments one, “is mistaken.”
These sources believe that now the pressure on Putin to make fresh concessions in the Ukraine will intensify. “The US and NATO used the time we conceded in Minsk to prepare the war we weren’t as prepared to fight as they were in February 2022. Delay was our mistake. They want time now to rearm the Kiev regime for the next round. We should be aiming for capitulation in Kiev and no future for the enemy. For us, that’s the strategy.”.”
Helmer has been on this hobbyhorse, of a Putin betrayal of the General Staff and Russia via being willing to make concessions in negotiations, with no or very very strained readings of evidence.
Medvedev just put paid to the Helmer claim in the last 36 hours by saying Russia need to take all of Ukraine. Medvedev’s role is to state things Putin does not want to say but does not disagree with. This is now more or less what will happen if there is no solid commitment from the US and EU that there will be no Ukraine in NATO, evah.
…depending on subject I either take H. as a mere chronicler with much raw material in the offering (see above) minus the necessary military expertise which I think he does not truly have – which is still much worth considering my very limited resources as a German-based reader (it’s insane how little there is considering the technological possibilities) , or as a court reporter (British courts on RU matters, Dutch court on MH17) which appears to be more his specialty. I wouldn’t want to miss him. Claiming that by now I know how to handle his reporting. Initially assuming he is crazy in my pre-2022 world view of media…
p.s. His late wife appears to have been even more interesting. He must be quite lonesome I sometimes believe. Or is that just sentimental projection from afar?
The problem with Helmer is he is so uneven on Russia. He regularly has great original reports, like his electric war series. But he also goes way off the rails too often. Admittedly, Seymour Hersh, who is a whisperer for a lot of spook state insiders, is similarly highly uneven.
thoughts
Remember NATO was initially a safeguard to keep Europeans anti-Socialist.
The question: has Europe adopted enough Russophobia since 1949 to keep to the rules without the US boot?
Later NATO was a safeguard against EU turning into a third power – a benign alliance FOR human rights.
A thought even Noam Chomsky liked to fancy in the early 1990s (very naive in hindsight.)
Was it Rumsfeld decrying old Europe vs. new Europe?
Regarding the power shift within the EU he was right. EU expansion might have done the trick necessary for making it more aligned with the US.
On what grounds should Europe remain loyal to the US?
There is not a single reason beyond fear of the US. But how long can fear be a guarantee.
Eventually it is an economic calculation which side to choose.
So leaving the Europeans with Ukraine alone, as an American planner, I would regard as very very risky.
Especially if it is my intention to keep Russia busy. And that will remain one main goal for a long time due to Russia’s rising capabilities to project power in non-European theatres. Which is a core interest to the US.
John Mearsheimer makes one good point:
EU wants a hegemon to set the rules and who can punish any time because without a leader Europe’s nations are at danger of falling back into factions and eventually going to war again. Just the way they did pre 1945 for virtually 1000 years.
This stopped only due to US control and fear of WWIII. But imagine there is BRICS, there is no US any more looking over Europe and then Europe itself?
Either the EU would massacre itself or break apart over BRICS.
And both scenarios would be furthered by Ukraine.
Either by trying to bolster it militarily or over subsidies for Ukraine. Ukraine would ruin the EU.
While all the serious resources are spread outside Europe they are stuck with a swamp of nothing but bad blood.
From all the non-mainstream media coverage eight or nine months ago, it sounded like Russia would have things wrapped up by now, or in not more than another month or so. But the Ukrainians have been stubbornly holding out or giving ground very grudgingly. I think I’ve been seeing the daily report “clashes continue in Druzhba” for a couple months now. Russia isn’t going to freeze the current front lines when Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Kramatorsk, Kupyansk, Pokrovsk, and a wide range of territory around those cities remains in Ukrainian hands. And it seems like at a minimum Russia needs to add Sumy, Kharkov, Mykolaiv, and Odessa oblasts to their territory just to have some kind of reasonable security buffer for future misbehavior by Ukraine. If they can do that and install a pro-Russian regime in Kiev (and let that regime complete eradicating the Banderites for them), that would probably be enough for a win, versus going all the way to the border of Poland. But just getting that much will probably take another year and cooperation from Trump (in the form of reining in the US intelligence agencies and their cut-outs and foisting any remaining military support on the EU). Maybe a big part of the coming year for Russia would consist of complementing battlefield activity with building up anti-government politicians and partisan forces in Ukraine.
Drones.
Putin wouldn’t last too long if Russian citizens continued to be killed and maimed daily if he decided to resist the military and stop at Lvov and leave a territory that was ‘ukraine’ full of fanatics that would launch drones every day and night into Russian territory.
There is a big difference between the drones being launched from remaining ‘ukraine’ than from NATO/EU country territories and or Azer/Armenia.
I can see no alternative other than a slowish western roll to Ukraine’s western borders and installation of puppet government. Far from ideal, but we live in a far from ideal world.
This. I have little doubt that this is the current plan A in US MIC. Anduril and its likes are working overtime to develop autonomous killing machines, so they don’t need any Ukrainians on the front line any more.
Russia also insists that Ukraine de-militarize; Putin has suggested returning to the haggling over weapons levels that had begun in the spring 2022 Istanbul talks, and “denazifying,” which means among other things outlawing Banderite parties and symbols.
Hate, anger, blame, greed….all of which is the root of this issue, can not be legislated. It’s a choice, residing in the hearts of men and women and taught to children. Here in the US, hate and fear is easily sold on ‘news’ channels nightly….people are attracted to these emotions in ways I simply do not understand.
Funny about Musk and the Afd thinking the Nazis were all about seizing industry. According to William Manchester’s book the Krupps started out thinking Hitler was working for them. And he did kowtow.
But they did too of course and when you are in an existential war you end up doing the government’s bidding. The key takeaway is that the Krupp business survived and Hitler did not.
Oops sorry…this was for Conor’s post.
As long as there is an idea of Europe, this only gets “settled” with any finality when Russia is accepted as part of Europe.
Not suggesting anyone hold their breath.
I’m inclined to agree with Mark Sleboda. Interesting that Helmer sees a clash between RU’s generals (who want to dial the war up to 11) and Putin (who wants to slow-go it). The longer this war drags on, the likelier it is that the generals will get their way.
The idea that Trump and Putin will cut a deal is wishful thinking, as is the notion that RU is eager to end the fighting. I cannot imagine what Trump can realistically offer Putin, and I don’t see that RU economy is struggling. RU can continue fighting at this pace for a very long time. Given all the blood that’s already been shed, I doubt that Putin will agree to leave a rump UKR–populated with sullen nationalists–at NATO’s disposal to be re-armed for a Second Punic War.
One way or another, RU will neutralize the entirety of UKR; either directly via boots on the ground, or indirectly via installation of a friendly regime (which will do the dirty work of policing western UKR). At RU’s current pace, this might take many years. Putin seems to be in no hurry.
It seems to me that Putin would favour the ‘Ramzan Kadyrov’ solution for western Ukraine. Russia has a lot of experience with this methodology and has executed it very successfully in Chechnya.
Thank you, James.
A dozen or so years ago, I was at the races in Dubai and came across Kadyrov. He was the guest of honour of the Maktoum family and dressed like a medieval warlord, an interesting and splendid sight.
Upon my return to the City, I joked to the CEO of the Jockey Club’s bank that I had come across Kadyrov and he was interested in emulating his hosts by investing in British racing. The reaction was a sight to behold.
That was done before, in a way, in Ukraine. Worked quite well for the Russians, too.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohdan_Khmelnytsky
Russians named a battalion after him. It consists of former Ukrainian soldiers.
one problem among many:
Chechnya has allegedly around 1,5 mn. people.
Less than half of Berlin.
Ukraine, any part, does not.
Lviv has a population of 700,000. As Yves says, the rabidly anti-Russian Ukrainians are pretty much all in that far western region of Ukraine. That is certainly how it looked to me when I was in Ukraine in 2012.
Egypt has a population of 112 million and the US puppet Mubarak ruled over them, as America’s puppet dictator, quite effectively for many years.
That’s true.
p.s. How was 2012, if I may ask.
(Back then I ignored the warnings by my Ukrainian friends. But I wasn’t there myself so it was easy to ignore “aw, you exaggerating”…)
I’ve posted about it a few times before so I don’t want to linger on it, but I think the dialectic of this entire conflict only ends in colonization of Western Ukraine. That’s the only way I see that Russia can sustainably keep troops on the marchlands with an irreconcilable Europe. I think it was another poster (Daniil Adamov?) that mentioned that’s essentially what Novorussia v1.0 under the Romanovs was.
The total support of Israel by the West over the past year alone has blown away a lot of post-WWII precedents, including “don’t settle conquered territory with your own people”. Recruiting non-Russian immigrants, especially refugees, as colonists for the rear would provide a fig-leaf for even that, plus it might resolve a lot other current geopolitical contradictions to Russia’s advantage. It would be a big lift for civilian Russian institutions to integrate everyone, but they arguably even have at least the start of a working model from the minority republics.
I can’t understand a lot of things. I couldn’t before and I can’t now yet. Firstly, I can’t understand why there are so many guesses and hopes about what will do and will not Trump. He will do nothing, he was president between 2017 and 2021 and did nothing, nothing at all. His goverment was a circus, and I expect this time will be more of the same. Yes, this time he won with authority, but it’s the same guy, he didn’t move a finger to help people loyal to him (and more than “loyal”), he even abused them. Why this time has to be different?
Secondly, Europe or that myth sold as “Europe” ceased to exist in 1945. Can we remember the Suez crisis? Western part of Europe became vassal states of the US and Eastern ones of the USSR. EEC/EU never delivered any peace, not even convivence, I can remember Yugoslavia. There will be no more Europe in the future, maybe Eurasia, maybe not. It’s the death of 500 years of geopolitics, and once the anomaly disappears, it will go back to the state of things that existed prior to it.
Thirdly, Ukraine means literally a mere piece. It’s like to talk about Denmark, or Spain, or Bulgaria, in the whole arena of WW II. This is a global fight against the American imperialism (whatever come after it) but trying to avoid a disastrous collapse or at least with some control, if we can say such a thing. Like the “barbarians” tried to preserve the roman order until it was apparent it was a pipe dream.
So, the Ukraine war can last “as long as it takes”, as the Western clownacy like to say. Russia is pretty fine, if course it would be far better otherwise, but it’s fine. The West not that fine.
The situation is similar to that of the U.S. at the end of the Civil War. Union military triumph was undone by continued civil resistance in the south. Military occupation was not feasible. So, Jim Crow and the Klan.
The same scenario looms for western Ukraine. A breeding ground for permanent resistance. Which will be fed from outside. They will keep it up forever.
But, there is another way not available in the U.S. Re-colonization of the south by Union veterans was mooted but the lure of the opening west blocked this. Not so in the Ukraine case. There will be large number of Russian combat veterans. By generous state support let them flood the west and settle. And continue to be armed. Thin out the local resistance. Easy enought to see who they are when you too live in the neighborhood and possess the organization, weapons and discipline to back it up.
Let the western Ukrainians keep their language and culture. If they are disloyal, boot them to Poland wholesale. Better, the UK.
This is helpful but it is possible (I’m not saying likely, but possible) that pacification won’t be as difficult as it appears. There are standard measures for the number of troops per the level of population that required for occupation. Ukraine is down to about 20 million. The East was pretty densely populated. Say max 12 million left in the West. The historical rule of thumb is 20 per 1000 to deal with an active counterinsurgency. The entire 12 million would not be involved in that, so the low end of the usual range is probably OK, particularly in light of the great advances in ISR and communications monitoring, in that Russia would have a much better idea of how to distribute forces than historical occupiers. That’s 240,000 troops. Large, but not impossibly so. And if Russia has to forcibly take all of the West, the population will fall further.
Polls in Ukraine show that the public favors a peace over continuing the war, even it if means loss of territory. The longer the war drags on, the more the will of the population, ex the most rabid Banderites, will be broken. And keep in mind Russia intends to hold war crimes trials. Those guys are not hard to identify due to their love of Nazi images in their tattoos.
On top of that, counterinsurgency is a young man’s game. Ukraine already has a demographic drought of younger men. As we indicated above, the men of conscriptable age are fleeing Ukraine in large number. The war and the exodus will thin the number of men who would be available to make trouble.
Monsieur Smith, bonjour !
Je vous lis avec plaisir depuis un moment.
Mais je veux attirer votre attention sur un point :
– toutes ces statistiques qui parlent de gens, de leur vécu, par millions (d’habitants, de dollars, de hrivnias, de soldats, de jeunes et/ou de vieux), tout ça est en dehors de la compréhension de toutes ces foules qui vivent sur la planète Terre.
C’est un peu comme les statistiques économiques, les faux et vrais PIB…c’est un langage d’avocats, politiciens et économistes.
Ca n’a rien à voir avec ce que toutes ces gens sentent et/ou comprennent.
Les gens ne sont pas capables de comprendre la valeur de 1000 $, alors les millions, milliards, trillions….ce sont des contes de fées cinématographiques.
C’est ce que les suprématistes, souverainistes, nationalistes, ont compris et ils offrent aux foules des rêves à leur niveau de compréhension.
On ne peut pas arrêter une multitude de gens qui rêve, ça s’est vu avec le nazisme, le communisme (et je ne mets pas le signe d’égalité entre les deux) et même ce sinistre mouvement woke fait parti d’une même tendance.
Nul ne peut savoir comment l’Histoire va continuer, car impossible de savoir jusqu’où la foule accepte de laisser le sang couler.
Avec mes meilleures salutations
“ce sont des contes de fées cinématographiques”
I like that one. Thanks.
p.s. “wokeism” – c´est un problème politique en France (pour la gauche…?)
(sorry my bad French…)
Gordon Hahn´s take:
“The Potential for an Anti-Western Ukrainian Turn to the East”
11/1/25
https://gordonhahn.com/2025/01/11/the-potential-for-an-anti-western-ukrainian-turn-to-the-east/
ending:
“Although Russian puppet regime or Ukraine’s disappearance as an independent state are becoming more likely, peace talks between the future Trump administration and the Kremlin could produce an agreement that allows for an independent, rump and, crucially, neutral and largely military-denuded Ukraine. In such conditions, a clever, practical Ukrainian government might play off the West and the Sino-Russian-led Rest against each other to Ukraine’s benefit, as the overthrown Viktor Yanukovych once did. Now, however, EU membership prospects can be perhaps improved by moving close to BRICS+ either through cooperation or membership, since EU membership does not preclude BRICS+ membership (though BRICS+ membership could preclude EC accession. At any rate, there would be ways to game the two systems before making a decisive commitment either way.
It becomes an exercise in futility trying to imagine a scenario in which a truly neo-fascist regime coming to remains there long in lieu of massive Western backing and a very Russo-Western standoff that somehow remains peaceful ensuring the survival of Ukraine and many of the rest of us. Western backing is unlikely at any rate, since Western publics are tired enough of the corrupt, quasi-neo-fascist Maidan regime in its wartime iteration. Western backing of an outright neofascist regime of the kind a Yarosh or Biletskiy could head or strongly support seems a bridge too far even for today’s unprincipled West. An independent moderate regime or a Russian puppet regime seem more likely outcomes. The former could be formed only in conditions of a Russo-West peace agreement on Ukraine and Europe’s future security architecture. Ukrainian neutrality, which would have to be part and parcel of any such agreement, would hold the potential for a slow return of Ukraine to the east, maintaining self-interested and cordial relations with Moscow and the West, and Kiev’s joining the new Eurasian order.”
Man, I sure miss Mark in the morning on Sputnik.
Those Sputnik hosts now have their own Youtube shows, with Mark as guest. I guess you can stil listen to them in the moring. :)
Yes, but Sputnik behaved like real radio. Just turn it on and let it run. I can’t find a way to get those shows similarly lined up or to play audio only. If I could convert them to podcast format painlessly that might work. Same trouble with Nima and others.
Les eaux sont très troubles. Il faut avoir un “mental” d’enfer pour être Poutine, à ce jour. Il se peut que Poutine attende voir comment dans l’UE sédimentent les mouvements souverainistes afin d’orienter ses propres conditions de paix.
Great article and comments, doubt my comment here is as good, but I wonder if the Ukraine settlement might just be one part of a negotiated global multipolar rearrangement, as follows: US continues to vassalize Europe; US extends Monroe Doctrine to Greenland and gets Greenland without significant objection from Russia and China; US applies Monroe Doctrine to South America and takes over operation of Chinese ports in South America; and US effectively controls the Panama Canal. In exchange for which: Russian gets the oblasts and US commits to a rumpified, non-agression capable, non-NATO Ukraine, US provides Russia other security guarantees (enters into intermediate ballistic treaty, say–doubt it, Russian’s not giving up the Oreshniks; perhaps some sort of Iran-related bauble); US no longer objects to China taking over Taiwan, gives up South China Sea belligerence, Spratlys (?) and a Hong Kong-like takeover of Taiwan is negotiated, and voila, a rough multi-polar world (with Trump, Xi and Putin all getting Nobel Peace prizes, ha).
Hmm, wonder if there isn’t a British bookie who would give odds for this…
>”wonder if there isn’t a British bookie who would give odds for this…”
I doubt it.
But I like the basic directon of dividing the world.
Yet this version appears way too benign for US.
China will not give up any ports.
US will not let Taiwan go.
Thats one of the best prices in history.
So division yes, but genuine multipolarity, no.
Trump can’t even spell that word.
And – to borrow some nc-commenter’s great joke – neither does he have anyone he could pay to do it for him.
Any deal with USA would be temporary, just like it always was. Do you really think that USA would just leave Russia alone? Or leave China alone? Or Iran?
“Don, spell `alone´ for me”
“a l-o-a-n”
A Small Loan Of $1 Million
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXEOFHf1q9A
Thats a great one, thanks, since I never watched any of this.
Now I understand why he went broke, how many times, 3?
Poor bastard.
This hypocrisy is beautiful.
Picturing himself an underdog!
What a moron…
(He should have pursued a career in stand-up. Then he might have accomplished something tiny but worthwhile and honest.)
A key strategic shift from Yves’ angle here is to de-emphasize UKR and focus on the fact that the US and Russia find themselves in a state of war. Stop talking about UKR and start talking about relations between the two arguably being more dangerous than during the Cuban missile crisis. Appeal to Trump’s grandiosity by shifting the ground to talking about saving the world, not saving little Ukraine. Open up an avenue for expanding the format to a tri-partite or quadri-partitite (w/ India) concert of great powers, Yalta style.
What does Trump have the power to deliver on?
1. Cutting UKR funding.
2. Investigating corruption associated w/ UKR project.
3. Using bully pulpit of Presidency to undermine disinformation about causes of war.
4. Disrupt bogus intel picture of the war–casualties, strength of Russian forces, economy, costs to US and allies. Disseminating accurate intel picture.
5. Abstaining or even voting for UNSC recognition of the new territories & Crimea as Russian territory.
6. Pulling US forces assigned to NATO back to pre-expansion borders.
7. Denouncing and reversing policy of firing into Russia.
8. Acknowledging that Russia and US find themselves in a state of war and exploring a policy of de-escalation, detente.
9. Looking away as Russia punishes UK directly–e.g., sending an Oreshnik to destroy StormShadow factory as legitimate retaliation for acts of war (with implication that this defuses prospect of direct retaliation vs. the US)
10. Unfreezing Russian CB assets.
11. Returning confiscated diplomatic assets.
12. Establishing permanent joint US/RF deconfliction bodies.
13. Issue executive order that fudges sanctions enforcement–sanctions that harm the US, to be defined as Trump choses.
Russia and the US will never agree to other powers as parties to their negotiations. Each is a great power and no one else has a seat at the table. The only role is for individuals from other countries to act as facilitators.
Multiparty / Yalta approach would not compete with or substitute for US/RF bilaterals, but might follow if the latter achieve some success.
Thank you for this great article, and all the great comments! This, and Conor’s article are the two best pieces I have seen covering the coming attractions with our new President on the EU/Ukraine front.
Sleboda is right. Putin and Russia are in for the long haul. They will keep grinding. If they have to turn western Ukraine into a dead zone, they may do it, but for now, they will grind, and let that turn up the reason to do diplomacy. Ukraine will continue to do the desperate wacko attacks (because they are truly desperate) so that Russia’s BRICS partners will see that continuing the SMO is necessary.
Trump will not be able to deliver the one day peace deal, but saying that certainly helped get him elected. Americans don’t support this war despite all the best efforts of the MSM. Trump has no real leverage with Russia. His only real leverage is to walk away and dump the whole thing in the EU’s lap. MAGA would be happy to just no longer see America spending hundreds of billions to prop up Ukraine so it’s possible that if Trump cannot leverage enough out of the EU, he could call that “peace” and let it be at that. But it’s more likely he will use this leverage with the EU to continue the strip mining of national assets as in Italy while trying to continue some smaller level of support for Ukraine. During his last term he actually allowed weapons to be shipped to Ukraine that Obama had blocked.
One potential big positive is that America and Russia start talking again, and Trump makes it clear to Putin that at least for now (may change with the next President) he recognizes Russia’s concerns, and we all get to stop worrying a bit less about a nuclear exchange.
The one player in this that I never understood was the EU. Why EU WEF elites kowtow to America so much is not understandable. Ukraine never had to be their fight, and supporting it has done considerable damage to their economy. So, I don’t get it, and have a heck of a time predicting what they will do, but I’m going to have to assume the insanity will continue until enough of the current leadership is gone.
what may end up happening is a rump ukraine with most people gone and without the necessities for a functioning state that Russia will bomb to keep under control ever so often.
They wanted to make an Ukrainian Israel but they may have created a Ukrainian Gaza.