Your humble blogger is normally not keen about making a video interview on new developments the anchor of a post. However, below, you will see Judge Napolitano present a deeply disturbing fresh clip from a Trump press briefing to his guest, Colonel Douglas Macgregor. Many of you may recall that Macgregor was a military adviser to Trump during his first term. This segment confirms what yours truly had warned about, yet quite a few members of the commentariat seem unwilling to accept: that the Ukraine minerals deal, if consummated, will commit the US to involvement in and therefore support of Ukraine.
Put it another way, there’s no value to this arrangement, and high embarrassment to Trump, if peace negotiations fail (perhaps more accurately, fail even to get started). Russia will continue to eat up Ukraine and may eventually occupies Western Ukraine. Even if the expressed intent is simply to assure a Russia friendly regime in whatever territory Russia deems to be rump Ukraine, Trump will look like a fool and/or powerless.
The other reason for hoisting this Judge Napolitano talk is that based on a Twitter search, I was unable to find the troublesome Trump remarks. So the second reason for promoting this segment is to help get it in circulation.
Because yours truly is a very slow and inaccurate typist, forgive me for not transcribing more of the important parts of this show. If you have time to listen, start at 1:00, with Boris Johnson praising the prospect of a US-Ukraine minerals agreement because it “commits the US to a free, sovereign and secure Ukraine.” But even more dispositive are the comments from Trump himself. I’m excerpting a bit more since both Napolitano and Macgregor, heretofore keen Trump supporters, read the last remarks the same way I do.
Starting at 3:30:
Napolitano: Colonel, here is what the President said, just a few minutes ago. Chris, and and, it’s even worse than BoJo because President Trump is talking about US personnel, he doesn’t say military, US personnel on the ground, and nobody will mess with us…..
[at 3:54] Trump: They spent $350 billion dollars and Europe spent $100 billion. Now does anybody really think that’s fair? But then we find out a little while ago, not so long ago, a few months ago I found out that the money they spent, they get back [note Macron disputed this claim in person in a White House press conference early in the week, that only a portion of the EU funds were loans]. But the money we spent, we don’t get back. I said, “Well, we’re gonna get it back.” And we’ll be able to make a deal. And again, President Zelensky’s coming to sign the deal, and it’s a great thing. It’s a great deal for Ukraine too because get us over there, we’re going to be working over there, we’ll be on the land, and that way, it’s sort of automatic security, because nobody is going to be messing around with our people while when we’re there. And so we’ll be there in that way. But Europe will be watching it very closely. I know that UK has said and France has said that they want to put, they volunteered to put so-called peacekeepers on the ground. And I think that’s a good thing.
Napolitano: You know, we both respect him and applaud his willingness to talk with the Russians. But statements like that betray either gross ignorance or very very bad intel. Your thoughts, Colonel..
Macgregor: No, I think that’s a polite way to put it. To be frank, President Trump needs to get out of this notion of putting anybody in Ukraine who’s not Ukrainian. And stay away from it. I heard this and I was genuinely disappointed, because there’s been a gross misinterpretation.
We’ve had somewhere between 1.2 and 1.5 million Ukrainian dead in this war, along with 100,000 Russian troops….[at 6:00] This is a catastrophe. And President Trump should recognize that talking about deals regarding rare earth minerals to somehow pay us back for a war we did everything in our power to cultivate and launch, for a war that we subsidized, for a war that persisted far longer than it should have because of our influence, is a disaster. I think he should be much more mindful of the human losses, recognize this country is now wrecked, recognize that Russia has also paid a price for its victory, and back away from this. Stop talking about deals that are going to compensate us for something good. We didn’t do anything good. We did the opposite…
[At 7:07] At this stage, I think it’s both in bad taste as well as ill advised to talk about this sort of thing in public….
[AT 7:26] Napolitano: Why is he still arming Ukraine while the man next to him, Secretary of State Rubio, he must have been wincing, the camera was off him so we couldn’t see the look in his face, is supposed to be negotiating with his opposite number, Foreign Minister Lavrov? Why are we still arming the Ukrainians>
Macgregor: Well, ostensively because we’re going to receive some sort of payment…[At 7:58] Again, it makes no sense. All of the aid should stop immediately, not humanitarian aid, but certainly any form of military aid, should stop immediately. Why should the Russians take us seriously for a second if we sustain it?
Now it is possible that Trump will be saved from himself and Ukraine will not approve the deal (remember it takes Rada approval and not just Zelensky’s signature) and Trump will go back to Plan A, of instead pursing a deal with Russia and using whatever comes out of that to cover his Ukraine exit. But right now, Trump looks keen on getting a big-sounding deal done, even if it mires him and the US in Ukraine.
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just quickly and as merely additional angles on minerals:
-Martyanov in his comments yesterday wrote on minerals issue: not real for now, but we will see.
-Sleboda reminded of the rather limited value of the minerals (excavation is the big problem) + we know RU has most of the relevant territory
-Sleboda pointed out that initial deal drafts had suggested Ukraine hand over 50% of all profits created by any trade deals to US which Z of course rejected
The deal is broader than minerals. It includes earnings on government-owned facilities, and ports are mentioned. Meaning Odessa. Not hard to think Ukraine threw that in to give the US an incentive to make sure they keep that and the Black Sea coast.
And with all due respect, these military guys miss the point. It does not matter how hard it might be to extract the minerals. It has been noised about all over they US that they are worth trillions. Therefore Trump will be able to sell Congress on more Ukraine funding as a loan against these assets.
In addition. the US and Collective West have NOT conceded Russian ownership of the parts of Ukraine they now occupy. They still regard it as Ukraine land and therefore part of this deal. So expect the US to demand Russia compensate the US for the expropriation of these rights.
Black Sea is an interesting idea as trap in terms of dual-use policy: Turning settlement on economic deal later into NATO military asset. Which has been one cornerstone of RAND-ish think for decades. And why this probably is a non-starter for RU. Unless they got total control. But how do you control container shipping? The first day after a deal with RU MI-6 would start pouring in weapons again.
p.s. So far I do not entirely understand Sleboda´s enthusiasm over this alleged “sea change”. Pentagon had seen it coming for at least 2 years (e.g. Texeira leaks, regardless of their questionable authenticity on certain details.)
We´ll find out…
I completely agree. I cannot help but think that this is also an attempt to secure the interests of Blackrock who has made huge investments in Ukraine. It is also an attempt to supersede any agreements Europe has made with Ukraine on developing its wealth. My personal opinion is that this is an elaborate ploy to develop leverage in future negotiations with Russia regarding the future of post war Ukraine.
That imbecile Trump doesn’t do “elaborate ploys.” I thought that much would be clear by now. If you want to get some idea of how far into the depths of lunatic megalomania Trump has gone, check out that AI monstrosity he put up on Truth Social. The one about the imaginary future of Gaza. THAT is who the Russians must deal with.
I think Ritter concurs with your view:
see TC 35:30 (rare earths deal via Trump)
(pretty good show which for reasons beyond me was taken off YT)
NATO’S UNCIVIL WAR – WITH GARLAND NIXON, SCOTT RITTER, AND ANDREI MARTYANOV
https://rumble.com/v6pmdqr-natos-uncivil-war-with-garland-nixon-scott-ritter-and-andrei-martyanov.html?e9s=src_v1_upp
https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2025/01/16/velikobritaniya-i-ukraina-zaklyuchili-soglashenie-o-partnerstve-na-100-let-a152525
Great Britain and Ukraine have signed a partnership agreement for 100 years “The Moscow Times”
“On Thursday, January 16, (2025, four days before Donald Trumps inaugeration) British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed an agreement on cooperation between the two countries in Kiev. The treaty covers a wide range of topics, including trade, defense, science, education, culture and energy……..
…The document cements the position of the United Kingdom as a priority partner of Ukraine in the fields of energy, critical mineral extraction and production of environmentally friendly steel.
The agreement will also “strengthen military cooperation ……..”
IMO, Trump is in a fight to the death, with the bankers and military industrialists, who have been running the world for the last few hundred years. This fight, ultimately, is not about wealth. It is about Trump, and his family’s physical survival.
Trump is just trolling the UK and the EU. I don’t believe that he cares at all about The Ukraines Mineral wealth…………
Ukraine/ rare earths
From an Austrian news site quoting various sources (often using Spanish press as the blogger appears to be Spanish) and often Komsomolskaya Pravda:
German-language:
https://nestormachno.alanier.at/pressespiegel-komsomolskaja-pravda-26-2-seltene-erden/#comments
“Press review Komsomolskaya Pravda, February 26: Rare earths
“WHY ARE WE SUDDENLY TALKING ABOUT RARE EARTHS EVERYWHERE AND WHAT ARE THEY FOR?”
I have no time to sum it up here as I originally intended.
But the text is not long and well readable via google-translate.
Eventually the post via Russian sources, CSIS and EU-comments doubts that there is that much in Ukraine´s soil. Problem: The known geological surveys are between 30 and 60 years old. However with the EU so much lacking any earths even this limited amount in Ukraine is of significance.
It also confirms a point made by Sleboda that RU has not enough earths or as many as it would make it independent from other countries.
There is also a comparison made to mining activities by the US in Afghanistan which are described as lacking results. Predicting failure in Ukraine.
There is no trusting Trump in this matter. Russia will use the strength of its military to settle the issue.
He got hopes up (1 day resolution) and now is making them go away. Keeping as many folks as possible on edge, confused, and in dread appears to be what he relishes. It certainly seems the case with one way out contrivance after another delivering the most unlikely proposals one can imagine. And with whichever one is enacted there’s always a ton of collateral damage. I wonder what percent of the MICIMATTai complex supports all this, Bannon doesn’t. I wonder what percent of that thing Trump imagines supports him. We talked Ukraine into this mess; why should we get spoils/booty??
You don’t get spoils/booty. They/them (the rich) get it.
Winners get it (which we aren’t this time). But what developed after WWI taught us to be less gougey after WWII. Whichever nation’s less decimated is set up to have virtual reparations pouring in even if they don’t demand gold. After all this Ukraine/Putin propaganda (and after Dems not pump’n up peace in ’24), despite the 100K lost, Russia is less decimated…gained new allies, etc. We took a hit in terms of falling prey to shadow projection, Democrats even more than Republicans. My old team.
My sense is that Trump and his people are all over the place, moving simultaneously in every direction imaginable and then some in matters Ukrainian. One the one hand, they are talking about deals that basically take over Ukraine (in the manner of unequal treaties imposed on China etc. in 19th century), there are talks of weapons potentially continuing to flow (but they did stop the flow, more or less–I think–for a while), then we have had the Suez-esque vote in UNSC where US joined Russia and China on a resolution against Ukr and European states. Is there a coherent design behind all these? I’m inclind to think not: I suspect that it’s more the case of Trump and his people churning up the mud to see what happens. They probably don’t have a clear design or even expectation of what exactly will happen. They are inclined to find what they consider to be “advantageous” (whatever that could mean) based on what pops up, but not something specific from get go.
If so, trying to divine the “intent” of the Trump administration seems dangerous. They can and will do pretty much anything depending on how things flow. They are, at most, hedging against all possibilities (well, not exactly–but the rationale is the same–they will have a finger in everything so that, if things turn in one direction or the other, they’ll adjust accordingly.) So they will have made some preparations to turn profit on Ukraine if elements of the current regime somehow survive. They will have cut deals with Russia in case they wind up holding all cards. But they are not committed to any side. It is, in a sense, sensible and “realistic,” but it also makes US untrustworthy and unreliable, even more than before, in a sense. Biden and co. were, at least, firmly committed to the current Ukrainian regime winning, no matter how much they had to torture reality. So they were very reliable from the European side…and totally unreliable if you were on the other side. Now, the Trump administration is not very reliable from either side.
If one were to believe, as I suspect, that the Trump administration does not care for trust from the Europeans and is willing to accept abandoning them altogether, this seems like not unreasonable thing. You won’t get much from the Russian side either–they don’t trust you much to begin with and acting unpredictably doesn’t win much confidence either. But it does at least get you into a position to start talking which you couldn’t earlier–so it’s a sort of win, although much depends on how things play out.
I think one problem is that too many of us are trying to pin down Trump in one box or another–that he’s trying to end the war, stop the war, trying to make deal with Russia, or keep holding on to Project Ukraine, or whatever. I don’t think he has a clear goal–he’s throwing stuff everywhere to see what sticks and hasn’t really made up his mind–or even plans to for the time being at least. But this means that whatever happens will likely be dictated by reality. So everyone is scrambling to twist reality in their favor–i.e. having 20-30 thousand EU troops as “bait,” for instance” (even more than the Ukrainian “minerals” deal) in the hope that Ukraine becomes such a political liability that Trump is forced to join in. But it is also evident that Trump is not letting himself drawn in to make any firm commitment either–the mineral deal, per the other thread, allows for a lot of room for US to exploit its provisions for maximum advantage–but the terms are so vague that no one can really make much of them, for now. Trump is not ruling anything out, but making vague noises as if he might go with one of these schemes if the situation is right–and no one really knows if he won’t (or will) for sure. In other words, Trump is really playing “strategic ambiguity” hard, and, imho, much better than what people like Macron were trying to do earlier.
But as noted above, this carries with it a big price–you may not be cut out of any possibility in the future, but you won’t be able to get a big cut because no one trusts you either. I suspect that Trump thinks, and he may be right, that since US is such a big player, we’ll get a decent sized cut regardless so we can play this game–and we don’t care that much for foreign things anyways.
Great comment and I think most will agree that Trump has no personal ideology on Ukraine and the oft-used statement that “Trump just repeats what the last person told him if it sounds plausible” is in play here. Other than with respect to absolute statements by Trump such as “Ukraine will not be in NATO,” I think it is equally useful to look at statements by Musk, Vance, Don Jr and others with consistent contact with Trump (I am not sure how often he speaks to Don Jr.) for tea leaves on where this will eventually land. I suspect Tulsi will act as a weather vane and do what best positions her for 2028.
I am not sure how many saw it, but Don Jr. had a comment yesterday stating it made no sense to side with Russia instead of Ukraine.
I just read that some are challenging the authenticity of the Don Jr. comments i referenced (even if fake, they would be reasonably consistent with other comments he has made).
Tax cuts for the rich. That’s the one thing for certain to be delivered.
Has he in fact done ANYTHING on the economic front that makes working class lives concretely and materially better? I certainly haven’t heard him talk about implementing #M4A, for example.
I mean, he’s done a bunch of things already, including firing working class people, threatening others with job loss and talking about cutting back Medicaid, SNAP and CHIP. But most of his actions seem to be about making a small number of rich people even richer at the expense of others.
What is his job exactly?
His job is that he chairs the committee for what Marx called the common management of the affairs of the bourgeoisie. I’m not sure why there would be any question about what he’s done for the working class; any talk of ‘re-alignment’ aside, it has been plain for years that Republicans in general, and here Trump, and even in their MAGA form, effectively and practically exist to give an anti-establishment face to the same austerity, the same socialism-for-the-rich policies of every other iteration of the ruling class. I suspect this administration will be looked at much like those in Russia in the 90’s: they are looting the place.
It feels like showbiz, it’s an open-ended creative process to come up with whatever plot and story becomes the next episode. Whatever keeps the suspense going and the audience riveted, invested. At this point killing off any character is game, any turn possible.
While homeless people are left to rot in the streets. Not important right now. He’ll get to that during his 3rd term.
It’s improvisational tragicomedy, featuring real blood.
I’m inclined to think you are right. I see this as mostly bluster, designed to help put up a smokescreen for the inevitable defeat, and make it look less of a disaster, because of handwaving about potential economic benefits somehow, somewhere. Note that Trump doesn’t explicitly say that US troops will be deployed, which implies the opposite. His argument seems to be that the Russians would not dare attack US contractors working on the ground on Ukraine, although he still seems to think this would be in the context of a European peacekeeping deployment, which of course the Russians have definitively rejected. It strikes me as typical Trump: confuse people, divert attention, make headlines, avoid specifics …
Trillion dollar deposits? This is all very fanciful and not at all how mining exploration happens.Do they think that personnel from the USGS will set up shop on top of it? In many (most?) cases the REE is supplemental to another metal extraction making the REE economical to produce.
I’m aware of good REE prospects in favorable political situations (no one shooting at your crew), massive surface carbonatites with preliminary work indicating that more exploration is warranted. Yet no one is stepping up to invest. Not until the market price makes the project feasible. China pretty much controls the market price at least for now.
A Canadian exploration project I worked on 25 years ago was able to raise millions in working capital. The market price of the target minerals dropped by a factor of 10X when the Chinese dumped warehoused minerals onto the market. Effectively chilling any interest in the project ever since.
The use of the word ‘rare’ seems to excite speculation in people who otherwise have never thought about such things. Pretty sketchy.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/18/business/afghanistan-lithium-rare-earths-mining/index.html
When you hear Trump mouth the words “Rare Earth minerals”, you can tell that his brain has wrapped around the word “rare” like something he’d like to see under a glass dome on his desk. He may be very cunning and a clever scammer, but he’s dumb as a rock sometimes. He is a chaos agent. It’s very hard to take half of what he says seriously.
He needs sideburns, and a chainsaw.
“Strategic ambiguity”….. love it! Pretty analogous to one of my faves – “If you can’t blind them with brilliance, then baffle ‘em with bullshit. “ Both of which dovetail nicely with “move fast and break things”. All of which suggests to me that ‘they’ are making it up as they go. Sheesh. Wotta way to run an empire – unless the goal is into the ground. Like a mafiosi “bust out”.
I see an opportunist shaking the trees looking for opportunities.
Opportunities for whom exactly?
Technical term is throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks, and they do throw a lot, and all over the place.
@HK, thanks, very interesting comment. I read it as exercise in diplomatic short-shortedness, one where Trump is attempting to make long term diplomatic outcomes over major issues of war and peace a thing of the past. The cast of mind behind this exercise is one obsessed above all with micro concerns (rare earth minerals etc) to the utter disregard of macro concens (the lives or deaths of millions).
Judging just from Ukraine and the Middle East, Trump’s world is vastly shrunken by comparison with the larger worlds envisioned and addressed by most any previous US president I can think of. In the longer run, would you not agree that his obsessively transactional, zero-trust world of micro concerns is bound to collapse under the immense weight of the larger issues in which Trump appears to show no interest? Granted, Trump for the time being is enjoying immense success imposing on the rest of the world his dollars and cents focus on tiny particulars. But is the US a suffciently big player, as you note, for this minutely materialist mindset to keep this president in office for four years?
My understanding is that Biden made a final arms gift/loan of materials–500 million–on the way out the door and this may be the “still be armed.”
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/09/politics/us-ukraine-aid-biden/index.html
Some have suggested that this plus European help could keep the Ukraine army going for as long as six months but of course it’s the lack of trained soldiers that is now their real problem.
Meanwhile negotiations on restoring relations continue today in Turkey.
Honestly those of us who comment on this are not trying to be disputatious and are merely trying to understand what’s going on. I agree that Alastair Crooke in particular is way too glib in his assumption that Trump is some kind of grand strategist and it’s more likely that he is what he always was–amateur president. There has been a lot of that going around in our 21st c.
Trump does have a more professional staff now which creates the illusion of a plan.
Meanwhile I see no harm in hoping for the best while not being surprised by the worst.
$500 million is couch lint. The figure I heard was that the Pentagon had $3.8 billion authorized but not yet distributed at the end of Biden’s term, presumably weapons supplies. Again, couch lint.
PS (since the last comment seems to have disappeared into moderation box)
One reason I’m inclined to give Trump a “benefit of the doubt” (I don’t think it’s quite that, personally) is that whatever he is doing will be necessarily biased towards reality. He will play to the reality as it evolves, but he won’t do anything to actively shape it. So others are free to try to shape the reality to their advantage, and the only thing Trump will do is to negotiate that he’ll get the maximum advantage out of it IF things turn out in that direction without making any commitment to that reality being realized. So Trump won’t rule out taking a piece out of whatever scheme Macron and Stamer are up to, or what Zelenski is up to, but it will be 100% up to them to bring about that reality. In this sense, then, there’s no point in reading into Turmp talking agreeably with Macron or the “mineral deal” or whatever. Everything is contingent on how things turn out and Trump is merely trying to make sure that he has foot in every door, IMHO.
Huh?
Trump grounded in reality?
Have a look at his tariffs. First, they will increase inflation when he says he wants to reduce it.
Second, despite his claims otherwise, they will not generate enough receipts to replace income taxes.
Third, they will destroy rather than create jobs. That was demonstrated on a small scale in Trump 1.0. If he was reality-based, why did he not learn that lesson?
Fourth, they will not bring back manufacturing. Perhaps as a subsidiary part of a 10-20 year industrial policy, they could, selectively applied. But by themselves, no way.
I could give many other examples but that alone should make the point.
Reality, missing.
US even under Trump could no more protect its interest in minerals by Kiev than the USN and RN could keep Dutch interests in Java in early 1942.
To do so would require more U.S. Air power in the region than bases, infrastructure or U.S. could deploy
Same problem Kiev had and RF saw since the 2023 offensive.
EU is likely down to procuring munitions to send, US has a lot more to send from stock earmarked for other use.
Dneiper is a 1000 klicks too far! Maybe 2000.
Logistics; supplies, equipment, fuel, vehicles, transport, store rooms, distance, lift…. lines of communication.
No career fighting industrial age war in the enemy’s front yard
There is also the time interval it would take to build the mining infrastructure in Ukraine.
The USA and Ukraine may not be very competent in building about anything now in a war damaged Ukraine.
It could be years of spending even more before there would be a positive cash flow.
However, Russia may be competent in this regard.
But not a good look for Trump to pay Russia to build what he might call “Our Beautiful Mines” that come on line toward the end of his administration and bleed ever more money until then.
I wonder, if there were “big, beautiful profits” why have there been no investments?
IIRC rare earth refining is environmentally unfriendly.
Maybe once Europium (REE) is rebranded as Americopium it’ll create some investment action.
I suppose what I”m getting at is that Trump operates on a different approach to “reality.”
The Neocon approach to reality is predicated on: we want X and we will bend reality to suit X at whatever cost. That X, furthermore, is “planned for” in detail in advance. Once things start not going as planned, they’ll double down so that things adhere to their “plans.”
WRT Trump, well, it’s a lot harder to tell. Trump talks fantastical schemes. How committed he really is to any of them is not clear–but everything we’ve seen suggests that he is pretty malleable. He might talk X, but if there are difficulties encountered trying to get to X, he’ll adjust. He might still engage in a lot of BS along the way, but it’s all talk. He doesn’t really believe any of it, so he’s not really committed to making every inch of that come true. So, yes, in this sense, Trump is more constrained by “reality” than the neocons are, precisely because he has no concrete plans and he’ll make things up as he goes along, depending on what he sees along the way. I don’t think we’ll ever see him trying to force the storm to obey his well (except as an act.)
I think I see what you’re saying. Neoconservatism ran a reality distortion field. As Turd Blossom Karl Rove once said, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”
Trump’s behavior is more redolent of Robert Anton Wilson’s credo that “reality is what you can get away with”. When he vomits out how Mexico’s going to pay for the wall, or the US is going to rebuild Gaza, or we’re going to buy Greenland, it’s like he’s echolocating. He sends out a bunch of sonar pings, and the replies teach him the contours of what he can get away with.
… it’s like he’s echolocating.”
Great image and metaphor…
That’s a good analogy!
Great points. I think a better way to possibly describe Trump is his “warped” sense of reality.
Trump still thinks he can create some scenario in which the US gets its money back while ending the war. I understand it’s foolish. But I do think that is how his mind works. But would appreciate feedback if I am way off track.
Regardless of what Trump is doing, Wolf Street has been harping about the return of manufacturing to the US, https://wolfstreet.com/2025/02/24/apple-announces-server-manufacturing-plant-in-houston-adding-weight-to-eyepopping-us-factory-construction-boom/, except that newer factories will mostly be using industrial robots, so yeah the country might be producing things again, but that does not translate to more people getting employed. I don’t think Trump understands that part either.
What I would like to know concerning Trump and Ukraine is: The Rand Institute made a plan to weaken Russia as a nation by moving NATO closer to Russia’s borders, then over-throw Ukraines democratically elected government, train Ukrainian soldiers (including the fascist Azov Brigades), cause millions of citizens to flee Ukraine, watch 600,000 Ukrainian soldiers die and now want Ukraine to pony up the money to pay for the cost of the war by selling their Lithium deposits to the country that started the war. WOW, WOW, WOW. These Capitalists are some really really genetically hard-wired pshyco/feral dogs, sorry I mean they’re deeply interested in Democracy and Freedom for all, as long as you have some Lithium in your back yard.
The U.S. is no longer a country, it is a Corporate Circus pretending to be a government. So come one, come all and for a mere 5 million $ you can become a U.S.(X) Circus Citizen, and take your family to Washington D.C. to see Lena, Lena the laughing Hyena.
If you mean the 2019 RAND Corporation study, I’ve yet to see any hard evidence that senior decision-makers in Washington ever read it, let alone acted on it. I don’t think anybody much knew about it until it was disinterred in 2022. Remember, the whole point of such studies, of which dozens appear every year, is to recommend things that are not being done, and thus propose changes in policy. But given that the 2019-22 period overlapped two different Presidencies, and that at such times Washington is semi-paralysed those changes would have been hard to implement even with wide agreement. And from memory, I don’t think the report advocated overthrowing Zelensky, who anyway was quite popular in the West at the time.
The RAND report likely didn’t originate solely with them. And whether read or not, it almost certainly was sent to every DC policy maker.
Do senior high decision makers read reports?
Does RAND Corp. throw good parties?
And how well are they connected compared to others?
I think, it’s the other way round. These reports don’t come into existence by themselves. They are made on the instigation of parties that want to use them as argumentative background for the things they are doing and planning to do. Aggression towards Russia isn’t a novelty in geopolitics. It’s much like policies only are regarded real once they are published in the WaPo.
They also reflects what ideas are considered serious within the foreign policy establishment.
Once the war got going there was numerous statements about how Russia would be weakened by it. I in particular remember former secretary of State Hillary Clinton laughing about how Russia would get an Afghanistan in Ukraine. There was also statements about how Putin would or should be overthrown and how Russia would break up.
To me it sounded like riffing on the same melody.
Green Greenwald interviewing Steve Bannon on the minerals deal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1OIK9PVxNk
Walk the F away
Trump wants/needs a big foreign affairs win by the SOTU March 4. Gaza doesn’t cut it because – genocide and no money for non MIC US corporations yet. Whatever the SOTU speech says about Ukraine will be presented as a that big win. Trump is desperate to show something.
What’s left out of account is international law. There is no legal basis for the kind of deal that Trump wants.
Odious resource sales are like odious debts. If they are not in the interest of the nation, but of corrupt leaders doing insider deals, or dictated by force and urgency by foreign governments, such deals are as odious and hence subject to annulment as odious debts are.
Aurelien, a former member of the UK Foreign Office, has said there is no such thing as international law. You can’t have law without enforcement. There is no enforcement. What passes for international law are polite understandings often ignored in practice with no/few consequences. Look at how the US and UK/EU imposed illegal sanctions on Russia because not approved by the UN Security Council. Did that make any difference?
I think it is important to view the minerals deal within the context of the larger scope of all the bloviations, contradictory and outrageous statements of Trump et al. An incomplete but revealing list is 1. Statements regarding Greenland, Canada, Panama Canal etc. clearly designed to secure US dominance of important trade routes. 2. The rapprochement with Russia and denigration of Europe which signal a recognition that the west has lost the war. File this under the heading ‘Making lemonade out of lemons’. 3. The executive order reversing the oil agreements the Biden administration made with Venezuela. 4. Secretary Rubio’s statements recognizing the end of the unipolar world and the existence of a multi polar one. 5. The removal of language acknowledging the One China policy in the State Department website. 6. The deliberate trade war Trump is waging. 7. The support for a renewal of Israeli genocide in the Middle East and the establishment of Greater Israel. This all points to a strategy whereas the Trump Administration is attempting to navigate (albeit in a Tony Sopranoesque way) the Multipolar world we now live in. Instead of adopting the cooperative win win model of the BRICS nations, Trump is attempting to secure a distinct US sphere of influence. Within this sphere, the US will attempt to establish an absolute tyranny while also attempting to subvert Chinese influence in Asia to the best of its ability. Trumps tactic is to bluster and bully. If an opponent is strong and pushes back, he will back down and reach an agreement. If an opponent shows weakness Trump will crush them. Trump ALWAYS punches down.
I think the war in Ukraine has been good for some industries, and then thought the Ukrainian government was going to experiment with digital ids- assume there are members of the Trump entourage who may have an interest in seeing things continue. Testing out different capabilities with drones and starlink might be a for instance, one of several projects. AI for targeting in Gaza; maybe some autonomous drones in Ukraine. Who knows?
If it does not make sense then maybe we are missing the payoff. Is that the who whom question?
I see a lot of this Trump as dove narrative, and giving him the benefit of the doubt, and I’m more and more reminded of Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, given out of hope and for not being W.
This is even weirder because we’ve seen Trump as pres before, and he disproved it then. I get that it’s mostly talk, but during his last term, he did leave troops in Syria and have Qasem Soleimani assassinated.
Re: troops in Syria. Trump wanted to pull away from Obama’s Little Adventure on the Euphrates, but he was openly defied by his generals. It was a genuine constitutional crisis. Unfortunately, the rules-and-norms-based type of people were mostly cheering for the mutineers.
Trump was too beset by other problems at the time to be able to sack and replace a whole cabal of insubordinate senior officers who had the backing of strong Congressional lobbies. He didn’t have the political support to fight a mother of a battle in Washington, over an issue such as Syria.
Note that in this term, Trump is showing more “grip.” He promptly installed his own chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
The assassination of a foreign cabinet minister was the worst thing in foreign policy that Trump did during his first term. I’m often a Trump apologist, but not for that deed.
However, foreign policy skulduggery has been standard behaviour for US presidents for over a century.
You can take it for granted that US presidents will murder, kidnap, or torture people abroad. The question is whether they will start, or join, open wars.
Trump, so far, has been the only post-Cold War president who did not unnecessarily add to the number of open wars the USA was fighting, although I suppose one could technically claim that Biden’s involvements in Ukraine and Gaza were “merely” proxy wars.
Those around Trump also derailed him from invading Venezuela during his time in office the first time around so we’re still a long way from dove territory. If you want to argue that he’s pretty standard for US presidents for bloodthirstiness, then I agree. That wasn’t the point I was making though.
I didn´t know this:
In the German port city of Hamburg Monday the entire city held a memorial minute so that everything stood still and every citizen was silent – out of solidarity for Ukraine!!!!!
And it was the third, fucking time they have done this.
Frankly that´s even too much for me.
Hamburg has a history of a love for Nazis from Ukraine – but the entire city?!
This is clear fanaticism.
From Germany here (not Hamburg, though, living in the south): Most people here in Germany seem to be seriously ill-informed (manufacturing consent by the media at its best). They swallowed whole the idea that extending NATO right up to the border of Russia was completely legitimate (well, it’s been done before, Poland, Estonia, etc., but at the time Russia was too weak to do anything about it, or even hoped itself to become part of the West). Putin is a megalomaniac dictator only comparable to, of course, Hitler and if we do not oppose him in Ukraine now, he will attack Poland next, the Baltic States and finally Portugal. (Nobody can explain, however, how Russia, hard pressed to conquer Ukraine, is supposed to pull of this feat with the rest of Europe. It’s delusional thinking, but quite common and seems to be de rigueur with the political class here in Europe.) Add to it the perceived moral superiority of liberals and it explains why so many people feel obliged to participate in such shows of righteousness.
Trump is a mob boss. He is seeing who caves first, then makes his move.
You really shouldn’t judge these things on the basis of conventional diplomacy.
If Zelenski had any sense he should be flying to Moscow to do a deal.
I agree, it’s a bust out move: use debt (in domestic terms, the deficit) to take over the business, wring out all the capital you can, and go on to your next victim. Straight out of the Tony Soprano and Davey Scatino episodes.
I don’t think the mineral (and infrastructure) deal will go anywhere, but imagine if it would.
Somehow peace breaks out. Russia starts rebuilding the territory it has gained, maybe with help from China. Rump Ukraine tries to rebuild but has to send fees from infrastructure and minerals to the US. If the US doesn’t send those money back (as aid or investment), you have an unsustainable drain on an already shattered economy.
Then you might get a regime change (through election, coup or uprising). And where could the new regime get support once it has repudiated the debt? Well, Russia and China.
Or you get an oppressive security state that quells dissatisfaction. Essentially the German partition but this time DDR is in the West. Without the guaranteed education, jobs and healthcare of DDR.
Again, I don’t think the deal will have an effect on the material reality on the ground. But if it did, it would be pretty horrendous.
It is said that the Ukrainian deal is just a small part of a bigger deal with Russia to set a new security paradigm. I think a main goal of the Trump administration is to get Russia to pull away from China. And I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Put another way, Trump’s trying to figure out what deal he can make with Russia to break it away from China, and if he can’t do that then what can he do to save face.
Alex Krainer has some interesting theories about this mineral deal, and how part of it is about sticking it to the UK and the bank of London. He reminds us about the 100 Year deal that the UK made with the Ukraine and speculates that Ukraine has already promised those mineral rights to the UK. He also thinks it’s pretty rich that the US used Ukraine as a proxy to harm Russia and now Trump may be using Ukraine as a proxy to harm the UK and Bank of London. He recently talked about it on dialogue works and today on Capitol Cosm
I’m always disgusted when Trump says that the US needs to be paid for all the arms that it sent Ukraine. Ukraine has already paid for those arms with blood and loss of territory. No one should ever trust the United States. Okay, sorry to ramble, I get a bit lonely sometimes.
Trump recently said at press conference, there will be a US presence in Ukraine to safe guard US activities/interests, and that will protect Ukraine from anyone who messes with it’s Ukrainian interests.
This is like a memo to the MSM to scream bloody murder should Russia advance towards these US “interests” or Ukraine stages a false flag and says Russia did it, killed Americans and/or destroyed American interests in Ukraine, or a redline that Russia must not cross.
From walking away from Ukraine, to owning Ukraine, like Johnson owned Vietnam, within mere weeks.
I would find it surprising in a bad way were Trump and Congress to authorize more military aid to Ukraine. Talk of sending Americans to Ukraine as part of a commercial arrangement, however doomed, are not that. The Riyadh meeting and UN resolution point the other way.
Remember making an offer you can’t refuse?
If you wanted out of Ukraine and needed a reason to turn down any more support, you could offer a deal that had to be refused.
“You reject this offer? OK. I am out.”
Who is this transparent ploy supposed to fool?
p.s. I forgot the best part:
Hamburg´s local radio stations accompanied the memorial minute by broadcasting the Ukrainian anthem….
any more questions about the state of Germany?
“Bald flattern Zhelenski-fahnen uber allen strassen . . .”
How about München? Is Bandera’s grave kept shiny & clean, and covered in fresh flowers, and blue & yellow and red & black flags? 🇺🇦
All tactics and no strategy is the noise before defeat…
Russia will continue to eat up Ukraine and may eventually occupies Western Ukraine.
No: Russian can’t nor will, and in the first place will not, occupy Western Ukraine.
Please go to a public library and check History. Ukraine is similar to Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, Finland.
Current Ukraine is SSR Ukraine made by Leninists then Stalinists by adding former Austro-Hungarian then Polish Galicia with Ukraine proper (around core Zaporozhian cossacks) with Russian Donbass, Crimea, and Black Sea coast.
Galicians are the key ethnie used before by Austria then Germany and now by NATO against Russia.
Russians don’t want to have anything to do with Galicia nor in general anything West of the Dniepr.
Just learn a bit of Russian, get a visa and spend a month around. Russian public would prefer to get Nikolaev and Odessa. That’s all.
The more enraged will Galicia wiped by nuclear fire, or some kind of Gaza there.
As for Trump arming Ukraine, this is what was done under his first presidency.
As for American soldiers not being killed by Russians if they step foot in Donbass, US government is out of touch with reality. In order to reach the two main lithium deposits in now Russian Donbass, US army would need to repel Russians ie. build an offensive, break through front line and reach deep inside.
It is not like robbing wheat and oil fields of a very weak little Syria with help of CIA formed jihadists.
West is putting stress on Serbia at the moment to try and colour revolution it. The Empire ( not Mr Trump ) know that the real vulnerability is Russian soft power infiltration of central and south eastern Europe, including former GDR.
The idea, as at the end of WW2 is to be in a position to project military power in the direction of Trieste, thus cutting off foreign power projection to north west Europe, isolating it in a manner. Italy under depression conditions could be knocked out of NATO. That doesn’t mean to go to Trieste, but to credibly threaten it.
All this is the work of another decade and Russia is still building up her forces and stockpiles for the inevitable confrontation.
Russia has the means to do so.
About half the population has left. The sort of young men who lead insurgencies were already a small demographic and they are being fed into the war machine. So you don’t really know who is left in Western Ukraine. It will be disproportionately the very young and very old.
Polls in Ukraine show the public is exhausted by the war and wants it over, with more willing to resign themself to a Russia-favoring government.
Polls in Russia show more and more favoring taking more of Ukraine, so this is a moving target too.
We pointed out that there is the option of de-electrifying Western Ukraine and thus greatly reducing its population due to difficulty of living there.
Trump had a chance to walk away from the Ukraine. He could simply say that this was Biden’s war, not his. Project Ukraine failed so just draw a line under the whole thing. Instead he is committing the US to Ukraine for the next coupla generations like the UK has. It’s insane. This whole rare earths saga is just a fig leaf to cover him doing this. And for a so-called master negotiator, he really is a train-wreck. A day or so ago he said how it was the US that helped get this war start and kept it going. And it was he that supplied all those Javelines that destroyed all those Russian tanks. In other words he was boasting about all the Russians that he had killed. How do you think that would go down in Russia? Did you ever hear the Chinese and Russians boast how many Americans they killed by supplying weapons to North Vietnam. Is this his idea of a great negotiation tactic?
I don’t think that Trump has any real leverage on the Russians and he knows it. So he is falling back on what he knows – business and real estate deals. But for the Russians, this was and still is an existential war that has to be won. The US/EU may talk about supplying the Ukraine with weapons but those inventories have run too low to do that. The Russians produce more weapons than the entire west combined. So what is left? Giving the Ukrainians more money. Is Trump really going to Congress and ask for another $60 billion for them? But the clock is clicking still as the Russians are still advancing and the Ukrainian army continues to be shredded. All this talk of peacekeepers is to stop the Ukrainians final collapse. And if they do start to collapse, what does Trump do then? Send in the 82nd Airborne to occupy Odessa? Demand that the Russians not advance beyond a certain line? Try sanctioning Russia? Throw away hundreds of billions of dollars of future deals with the Russians because Zelensky?
I wonder about that boast about lethal military aid to Ukraine.
Some years ago, in a post that I think was related to one of the debates, the question of the connection between “what is” and “what DJT says” was discussed. It was suggested that DJT verbal utterances that don’t correspond to “what is” are not “lies” because the speaker doesn’t know the truth and is not trying to conceal it. I believe the term was “bull-shitting”, saying whatever was rhetorically useful in the moment, regardless of the truth content of the utterance.
Perhaps there is something similar with respect to diplomatically harmful utterances like boasting about reversing the BHO prohibition on lethal military aid. It may have been rhetorically useful, as a display (to that immediately present audience) of resolve in support of Ukraine. But yes, one can imagine that remarks like this will make an unfavorable impression on RF leaders and negotiators.
Did anybody else get a flurry of deranged text message, in a tither, being hystetical regarding “his words”?
Pretty depressing. I thought that while, as usual, we were presented with 2 totally unacceptable candidates, trump would get us out of Ukraine.
We’re never gonna get an acceptable candidate, our oligarchs have strengthened what was already total control. Imo Neoliberal wealth extraction is accelerating us decline towards just another 3rd world belligerent country with nukes like Britain.
Doesn’t this create a risk of directly drawing the US into the conflict? (US workers being there)
I wouldn’t judge Trump’s actions as inherently incompetent. He has removed everyone’s ability to know what they’re dealing with or what to expect from him – to know the difference between what he says and what he intends – there’s a method to his displays of madness.
Maybe that’s treating him too much like the characters in Being There treated Peter Sellers (Trump being like an evil version of him) – but his ‘flood the zone’ method of placing everyone into a permanent state of Cognitive Dissonance trying to figure out his intentions, is simultaneously a pretty powerful means of hiding true intention, especially if he may plan to do something unthinkable like risk a direct US vs Russia conflict (probably with the intention of making Russia blink first).
So maybe his methods are a good reason to start thinking about the possible unthinkable actions/outcomes.
Post-conference update: Nevermind, he’s incompetent, lol. These guys will put Armando Iannucci out of a job.
via Glenn Diesen Substack:
War and Peace in Ukraine
John Mearsheimer, Glenn Diesen & Pavel Shchelin with Diana Panchenko
109 min.
https://glenndiesen.substack.com/p/war-and-peace-in-ukraine
“French scientists in court over attack on Russian consulate in Marseille”
Two French researchers are due in court after staging a dramatic protest at the Russian consulate in Marseille this week, reportedly motivated by the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20250227-french-scientists-in-court-over-attack-on-russian-consulate-in-marseille
Unfortunately these are not some clueless idiots but allegedly scientists. They know very well and they are
products of French elite culture. This fits the pattern already applied against Russian scientists and science PhDs evicted from CERN or universities.
Certainly there is one reading wherein Trump seems to have taken ownership of the UKR morass.
Increasingly w/ Trump, being all over the place as he appears to be, there needs to be a surface reading and a minority report.
Here we might see Trump as essentially taking over title to all UKR assets (for $zero dollars) simply to put himself first in line–having pushed out the Brits, Blackrock, the French, etc.–for
a) any assets that remain once Russia’s done
b) any joint development w/ US that Russia may care to do, for reasons of detente, not coz they have to.
He’s turned a military/political problem into an investment/political problem. It didn’t cost the US any extra, and gave the US a card to play w/ Russia, offering Russia an opportunity to offer US a concession on something they don’t care much about so as to not have to tussle with them, otherwise, over issue(s) that they *do* care about.
At any point Trump can cut bait and say–we checked, the assets now in Russia-controlled territory were not that commercially viable (but they didn’t cost us anything extra) but gave us a partnership stake in some joint developments w/ Russia, who have the infrastructure already to bring it to market, and a lot more where that came from in Russia.
This is an incorrect reading, although due to incomplete reporting, I made the same mistake early on.
BlackRock et al will NOT be displaced. Ukraine is providing economic interests ONLY in government-owned assets.
But that is obviously a fraction of the Ukraine mineral deposits shown on the many maps floating about.
Trump should introduce Bakhmut V2, albeit in a more stylish manner. He should build a new Trump hotel and call it Bakhmut V2 : The Real Deal in Odessa, and when his term is over and the war is still going, he could relocate there and film the next few seasons of the Apprentice at the hotel. There’s no better way of saying “Up yours!!!” to Putin, am I right?? Heck the Secret Service apparatus will be there with Trump, so attacking the hotel is akin to attacking the USA.
Rabid russophobia is rampant in most of Europe. Irrefutable evidence thereof is provided by the fact that two middle-aged French scientists, working for the high-grade research center CNRS, deemed appropriate to throw three noisy explosive devices at the Russian consulate in Marseilles. The court showed unusual leniency for a “terrorist” attack, pronouncing two eight-month sentences (converted to electronic monitoring), after conceding that the “bombs” were just noisy, not harmful, giving credit to the oldest defendant’s claim that they “gave deep thought to the procedure so that it would be safe” following his wife’s concern that “it was a damned bad idea”. The episode surely looks much more like a goofy “pieds nickelés” story, than a genuine terrorist attack. And yet it raises some concerns. One of the perpetrators is married to an Ukrainian wife and is hosting his father-in-law who is a refugee in France. The other is of Romanian origin. Given their ages, they apparently co-notate Russia with the USSR, and transfer against the former the bad feelings they harbor against the latter. What puzzles me is that the USSR could take Russia from the age of the plow to the age of the Sputnik, but was unable to integrate its nationalities and establish lasting, friendly and cooperative relations with its Eastern European allies. As regards russophobic feelings by the other non-former Warsaw Pact European nations, it seems that the last leader to have a worthwhile vision for Europe has been the French Charles de Gaulle, with his concept of a “Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals” and his rejection of the NATO alliance. But his idea didn’t gel. Instead, the 1943 Mackinder’s specter of the victorious USSR becoming the world’s leading land power after conquering Germany (The Round World and the Winning of the Peace, Harold Mackinder, London, 1943) crept into every chancellery, obsessed every leader and press office, and percolated to the wider public. Seized by panic, no one is able to think straight anymore.
Sorry to nitpick: it’s Halford Mackinder (not Harold). Everyone interested in intl. affairs, geopolitics etc. should be familiar with him. It is good that you mentioned it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halford_Mackinder