The state of play in the Russia-US negotiations after their session early this week in Saudi Arabia failed to get much if any front-page attention. That was thanks to the furor over top US officials accidentally inviting Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeff Goldberg to participate in some Yemen-attack-planning on a Signal chat. The fallout has been revealing, including a Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth self-discrediting rant and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard refusing to answer if the texts were classified and stonewalling on releasing them to the Senate if not.
Back to the main event. Three teams traveled to Riyadh, a very senior Ukraine group, and mid-senior level representatives for the US and Russia. Multiple reports said, consistent with the plan agreed on the Putin-Trump phone call to hold bi-lateral talks, the US spent minimal time spent with the Ukraine delegation, only 40 minutes before the Russia-US discussions and 30 minutes after. That means the communication was one way.
By contrast, the US and Russian discussions took over 12 hours in one day. The two sides emerged, conveying the impression that they’d made progress, but said it was too late in the day for them to provide a joint statement as promised. They’d do it the next day. The White House put out its statement on the US-Russia talks.
No joint statement has been provided. This points to three possible bad developments, which are not mutually exclusive:
1. Russia and the US thought they had agreed an outline of terms for the supposed accomplishment of the pow-wow, that of a maritime ceasefire. But they amazingly found they had misunderstood each other on points key to one side (presumably the Russian side) and could not agree to a statement since there actually was an unresolved outtrade.
Frankly, this looks to have happened with the electricity infrastructure ceasefire. Russia got a readout published in record time. It described the agreement as covering “energy infrastructure”. The US readout instead said the ceasefire covered “energy and infrastructure” which is vastly more comprehensive. Ukraine immediately started complaining about Russia violating the pact. To clear up that loose end on March 25, the Kremlin published A list of energy facilities of Russia and Ukraine covered by the temporary moratorium on strikes against the energy system, as agreed upon by the Russian and American sides.1
As reported by Russian officials (more on that soon) , it was an improved version of the so-called grain deal, in which Russia would allow the passage of commercial vessels through the Black Sea for grain and fertilizer transport, along with a select waivers on sanctions so as to allow select Russian banks to receive payments for these products.
One of the big reasons Russia refused to renew this grain agreement was the failure to honor the financial components of the deal, which were as important as the transport part but just about entirely ignored in the Western press. A second part was Ukraine allegedly getting shipments of arms on commercial vessels, apparently due to Turkiye not doing adequate inspections of ships (a bug or a feature?). Ukraine even once sent drones along a protected shipment corridor, another agreement-breaching act.
So it’s not as if why the earlier deal failed should be a mystery if the US side was prepared….which seems not.
2. Russia and the US did have a deal. But US officials called the mothership in the morning, and were told to renege on certain elements. This is a non-uncommon bad faith trick in negotiating that I call double-brokering2 (there may be a term of art, if so, readers please pipe up).
3. Some sources claim Ukraine nixed the agreed joint text. This seems like a dog-ate-my-homework for some version of #1 or #2 above. But if true, this is yet another bad sign for negotiations. Russia and the US were supposed to truck bi-laterally. The tacit assumption was that the US could leash and collar Ukraine. But the Russian Ministry of Defense has been publicizing Ukraine violations of the energy infrastructure ceasefire. This confirms my thesis, that Ukraine has agency, and even though weak, still has possession of the vast majority of territorial Ukraine. Even though it will eventually be broken if it does not agree to a settlement, it’s clearly not about to do that soon (as in at least the next month or two).
So shorter: if Ukraine really could nix the joint statement, that vitiates the pretense that it is not a party to a settlement. It may be a very subordinate party that has to shut up and sit in the anteroom most of the time. But as of now, a deal can’t be concluded without Ukraine cooperation.
I had initially thought it was very clever for Russia to try to revive the grain deal. First, it’s much simpler to work from existing texts and renegotiate sections than start from scratch. Second, to a significant degree, this pact had been to benefit Africa, as in to get food and fertilizer there; Russia has intended to give it away to countries suffering from food shortages. So at least as of then, the aim was more to elevate Russia’s stature and less about profit (that may not be as true now given harvests and current market conditions). But third and perhaps most important, going over what happened with this grain scheme would allow Russia to give the US chapter, book and verse on Ukraine bad behavior, and enlist them in problem-solving to prevent its recurrence.
But now I wonder if the Americans are just too dumb and lazy. It seems all too possible that the American team arrived in Riyadh, not having even read the text of the earlier grain agreement, and some of what the Russians said went over their heads. It seems hard to fathom how the Russians could have gone into detail on the banking side of the agreement and have the Americans act as if they heard nothing of the kind. From CNN just a few hours ago:
US President Donald Trump said he believes Russia wants to end its war with Ukraine, but suggested Moscow could be “dragging their feet” after the Kremlin disputed accounts of agreements made with the US….
His comments came only hours after Russia said it would only implement a US-brokered deal to stop using force in the Black Sea once some of the sanctions imposed on its banks and exports over its invasion of Ukraine are lifted.
Following days of separate negotiations with Ukrainian and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia, the White House said on Tuesday that the two sides had agreed “to ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea.”
But while Zelensky confirmed in a news conference that Ukraine had agreed to stop using military force in the Black Sea, the Kremlin released its own statement on the talks, which included far-reaching conditions for signing up to the partial truce.
Those included lifting sanctions on its agricultural bank and other financial institutions and companies involved in exporting food and their re-connection to the SWIFT international payments system.
The US statements made no mention of the sanctions being lifted as a precondition to the ceasefire.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday afternoon, Trump said his administration was looking at Russia’s conditions. “We’re thinking about all of them right now. There are five or six conditions. We are looking at all of them,” he said.
The White House said that Russia and Ukraine also agreed to implement a previously announced pause on attacks against energy infrastructure.
If we are to take the Trump remarks at face value (always an iffy proposition), this looks like double-brokering: the Russian side was authorized to commit within certain parameters, while the US side was either not authorized to, or had undisclosed limits and went beyond them without informing the Russian side. The White House statement is at the 50,000 foot level and only mentions the US making an effort to remove financial impediments, not actually do so:
The United States will help restore Russia’s access to the world market for agricultural and fertilizer exports, lower maritime insurance costs, and enhance access to ports and payment systems for such transactions.
Given that no less than Putin had made a stink about the failure of the Western side to allow the agricultural bank to be reconnected to SWIFT, it is very hard to imagine that the Russian were unclear in Riyadh about their requirements on this point.
In fact, the Russian version of what was agreed in Riyadh, posted on the Kremlin site, lists the conditions that Trump alludes to. These items are set forth with such specificity as to make it hard to think Russia made them up after the fact. Russia believes it made clear the deal does not come into effect until these items have all been implemented. So the US can want what it wants or believe what it wants to believe all day, but there will be no “maritime ceasefire” otherwise.
However, the Russians must also have known that their requirements could not be delivered by the US. It’s not just a matter of Ukraine opposition. We’ve also said that the seemingly weak Europeans have agency. They made clear they won’t authorize the sanctions relief needed to make the “grain deal,” now the maritime ceasefire, go forward. From the Financial Times:
Brussels has rejected Russia’s demand to lift EU restrictions on a key agricultural bank as part of a partial ceasefire deal, saying its sanctions regime will stay in place until the “unconditional withdrawal” of Moscow’s troops from Ukraine.
In other words, after all the hype about a marine ceasefire, there is none. The US is still thinking about it. And Trump has the temerity to blame Russia for delay.
On top of that, there are reasons to think the US got cute. Recall after the Putin-Trump call, the Kremlin was out double-fast with its readout, at least in part to reassure Russians worried about a Putin sellout to the US. Here, the Russians held back, perhaps because they thought the joint statement would be published. Instead, the US punted on that and got its spin out first.
Now consider an overarching issue: the unseemly US hurry to get a “ceasefire” done, as if that were somehow tantamount to a cessation of hostilities. Russian has sensibly and consistently said no to a ceasefire before the underlying causes of the war are addressed. Putin has been playing faux-amenable to Trump trying to do that out of order by describing in detail how extensive the protections of Russian interests would have to be for a naked ceasefire to be acceptable. As I said earlier, the Russians could be in Paris by the time that all was negotiated and put in place.
In another not-positive sign for how US-Russia relations are going, Russia felt the need to make a forceful statement about Trump trying to take an interest in Russian assets behind Russia’s back. First, from the Washington Post on March 20:
President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky discussed “American ownership” of nuclear power plants in Ukraine in a phone call on Wednesday, the White House said. Zelensky offered a somewhat different account Thursday: He said that only one nuclear power plant had been discussed — the sprawling Zaporizhzhia plant, which is occupied by Russian forces — and that U.S. ownership was not on the table.
Andrei Martyanov provided a translation of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ smackdown yesterday:
In connection with the speculations circulated in the media on the possible transfer of the Zaporizhzhya NPP (ZNPP) to Ukraine or the establishment of some kind of “joint control” over the station with Ukraine, the United States or representatives of international organizations, we would like to clarify the following. ZNPP is a Russian nuclear facility. Following the referendums held at the end of September 2022, the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions became part of the Russian Federation as full-fledged subjects. On October 5, 2022, Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 711 “On the specifics of legal regulation in the field of atomic energy use in the territory of the Zaporizhzhya region” was signed, securing the status of ZNPP as a facility under Russian jurisdiction. The return of the station to the Russian nuclear industry is a long-standing fact that the international community can only acknowledge.
The transfer of ZNPP itself or control over it to Ukraine or any other country is impossible. All the station’s employees are citizens of the Russian Federation, their lives cannot be played with, especially considering the atrocities that Ukrainians have committed and continue to commit on the territory of our country. Joint operation of the Zaporizhzhya NPP with any state is also unacceptable. There are no such precedents in world practice. In this case, for example, it is impossible to properly ensure nuclear and physical nuclear safety, or regulate issues of civil liability for nuclear damage. An important aspect is that close cooperation between NATO intelligence services with Ukraine, which have impressive sabotage potential, makes it impossible to even temporarily admit representatives of these states to the Zaporizhzhya NPP.
The idea of any international organizations participating in the operation of the station also seems absurd, since neither the mandate nor the competence of any of them allows them to participate in the operation of nuclear facilities. In accordance with international law, including key specialized conventions, the states themselves bear the primary responsibility for ensuring nuclear and physical nuclear safety on their territory. In the case of ZNPP, it is the Russian Federation, and nothing else.
Ouch.
Recall that we had pointed out that the Trump “raw earth” scheme, which later had ports and power plants thrown in, would complicate any settlement, since the US would be laying claims to assets in Russian hands. Putin politely drew a line, saying the US could participate in the development of any mineral deposits (as in provide services on a contract basis), but Russia owned the four oblasts it deems to be part of Russia. Russia has now gone into “What about ‘no’ don’t you understand?” mode.
After being so deluded as to say he could end the war in 24 hours, Trump has fallen back, with his latest target date April 20. That is now clearly na ga happen. In keeping, there is no date for a Trump-Putin summit either.
Trump foolishly ignored the advice of Steve Bannon, which would have been to declare Ukraine to have been Biden’s war, send any remaining authorized cash and arms, and wash his hands of it. The longer this goes on, the more he owns it. He can deal more harshly with Ukraine intransigence by cutting off intel (a penalty box of a week, with longer suspensions for successive infractions?). Yet despite Trump having the fun of beating Zelensky up in the Oval Office, he has still not been brought to heel.
So what is the reason for the urgency about a “deal” with Russia, when Trump could put the US participation in Project Ukraine out of its misery in very short order? Some like Alexander Mercouris contend that it’s because he intuits Ukraine will collapse soon. Trump would lose any smidge of leverage and also have left himself open to accusations of “losing” Ukraine. If he had followed the Bannon plan, he would have greatly reduced that attack surface.
My guess is the urgency has to do with Iran. Larry Wilkerson, in a new interview with Nima of Dialogue Works, argued that (54:45) that the US is prodding Israel to keep up aggression in Syria despite already being over extended. Both Wilkerson in this clip and Chas Freeman in a new Judge Napolitano talk said that if the Israel were to attack Iran, which would clearly have to have US backing, that Russia would support Iran. From Judge Napolitano at 20:50:
Napolitano: Would an American military support of an Israeli attack on Tehran impair American-Russian relationships?
Freeman It would affect them very negatively because it would appear to demonstrate that we are prepared to bully and use force as a substitute for diplomacy, and that would discredit the diplomacy….I think this would really bring that to a point of no return.
Recall that the US has been laboring under the delusion that Russia would help the US when it is still supporting Ukraine. Bloomberg ran a bizarre article in early March that depicted Russia as willing to “do everything in its power”
Recall that Trump then said he sent a letter to the Supreme Leader, which oddly took a very long time to arrive and was rejected forcefully. For Trump to send a letter means both a lack of mediation and haste from the US side. From a Reuters report about a week after the Bloomberg story ran:
The Kremlin, asked on Monday if Russia had held consultations with Iran before or after Tehran responded to a letter from U.S. President Donald Trump urging the country to negotiate a nuclear deal, said Iran formulates its own policy positions.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that Tehran would not be bullied into negotiations, a day after Trump said he had sent a letter urging Iran to engage in talks on a new nuclear deal.
Before the US resumed its attacks on the Houthis, Marco Rubio called Lavrov and depicted Russia as having “consented”. Lavrov cleared his throat and disputed that characterization, making it clear Lavrov told Rubio the US should negotiate and not use force (I imagine Russia Foreign Ministry also had to make lots of calls to the strong Palestine supporters among its allies to reassure them that no way, no how did Russia support shelling Yemen).
Rumor has it that Trump demanded Iran Do Something in two months. Iran is clearly not going to Do Anything. Many many geopolitical commentators believe that the US is serious about wanting to commence a war against Iran in the near future.
But perhaps not. One way this war might not happen soon, which could mean “not at all”, is the Russia negotiations dragging out, which is certain. Russia will not be rushed and will need the US to demonstrate it can leash and collar Ukraine on key issues. It can’t do that ex a regime change, and it can’t displace the Banderites (they’d find that harder than the Russians would) even if it gets rid of Zelensky.
So a good guess for the rush to get a resolution in Ukraine is the barmy US assumption is that if that deal is done, Russia will be so happy with its better status with the US that it won’t back Iran.
I suspect many readers share my view that that belief is all wet.
But if the Trumpies believe that, it will stay their hand until a deal over Ukraine is done and dusted before they take on Iran.
One can only hope…
_____
1 It is not clear if this is merely clarification of what was agreed in on the Trump-Putin call, or the publication of disambiguation that took place in the Riyadh talks at the start of this week.
2Savvy negotiators NEVER let a principal negotiate with a broker. The reason is that anything the principal agrees to can be treated as a commitment, while anything the broker agrees to is subject to the assent of his principal. So a smart broker will accept the principal’s position as a starting point and try to ratchet further from that, based on some additional concern his principal has. A less obvious version of that may have been operative here, that Russian side likely had permission to deal within certain set parameters, while the US side did not or otherwise had much more limited authority, and whether out of bad faith or cavalierness, exceeded it.
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Thanks. Very comprehensive. I’ll admit I wondered why Trump was ignoring Bannon and wondered if something has gone seriously off the rails.
Meanwhile we have a British Prime Minister sucking up to Trump and being mega gung ho about British military help for Ukraine which is definitely “poking the Russian bear”. Very very unwise. With the exception of the people across the street from me who keep the Ukrainian flag flying (despite their usual rotation schedule of changing it weekly), nobody round here wants foreign entanglement. Bread and butter issues are their priority.
May’s local election will be interesting.
” why Trump was ignoring Bannon ”
Bannon is in the Mar-A-Lago wilderness, Trump takes inter-personal relations so personally that even prudent ideas are poisoned if it comes from the wrong person. I can’t even remember what Bannon did to be banished from the Trump inner circle.
Trump’s pettiness is MAGA’s big Achilles Heel. In my armchair opinion.
Thanks, Yves. Any thoughts on why the MSM so sloppily published headlines yesterday that “a deal on Black Sea was reached?” I saw several on Bloomberg, CNBC, etc. I ignored them because I knew that there was likely a catch.
Even though we know now that was all BS, these MSM outlets are giving the Trump admin credibility … low information voters won’t pay attention to critical analysis done by others such as yourself. Dima from Military Summary Channel also said yesterday that there was no deal reached. So as usual we must use alt-media to escape gaslighting.
This is the most horrible press environment in my lifetime. Thank goodness for NC, where would we be without it?
COVID brain fog? My operating assumption is the generalized competence decay is on a parallel curve to that of COVID brain rot as amplified by our digital dopamine loop hive mind.
Having actually worked with Witkoff and seen many of these people in the flesh, their genius in their own minds and in the minds of the carefully (financially) curated world they inhabit is manifest in their wealth and prominence, their genius is thusly self evident. They cut ties with reality shorty after their first big success, wherever that was, because since the 80s there’s been scant incentive for self reflection or admissions of infallibility. It won’t change until some substantial, unpleasant reality intrudes on their delusions.
In a video yesterday NC alumnus Philip Pilkinton observed this generation of western “leaders” may prove analogous to the Soviet ones under Chernenko. In 20 years no one will remember any of them, except maybe Trump/Yeltsin who led to…
admissions of fallibility
Replacement of reporters with cheap AI slop is another possibility. Replacing humans in the newsroom with bots that simply scan the headlines and other AI bots in a self-reinforcing crapification loop.
One thing that I use to wind myself up is the acceptance of failure in the Washington bureaucracies. A prime example is the 9/11 attacks. No one got fired. All the noise was who codda know? When the team goes 0 and 11, the coach gets fired. Follow up example is the 2008 great financial crisis. No one lost a bonus whether pre or post financial collapse.
Washington is a culture that rewards failure.
well…after all….as somemight say….there is no substitute for impartiality
Fwiw, many voters reward persistent failure, too.
Why would politicians change their behavior, when their current behavior rewards them and produces no negative personal consequences to them?
As long as Trump allows support to Ukraine with arms intelligence and funds, he is at war with Russia. The Russians ought to continue documenting Ukraine cease fire violations, warn negotiations are not working, then keep bringing this reality of Ukraine violations to the point up throwing monkey wrench into the discussion until Trump-In-A-Hurry gets frustrated and give s up ends negotiations and blames Russia for it. If Trump can’t or doesn’t want to control Ukraine, what’s the point of these discussions?
The end of the article:
“So a good guess for the rush to get a resolution in Ukraine is the barmy US assumption is that if that deal is done, Russia will be so happy with its better status with the US that it won’t back Iran.”
I think it makes more sense for the US to delay as long as possible, because it gives them more freedom to attack Iran.
Russia doesn’t want to get involved in another war that could compromise it’s focus in the last months of closing Ukraine down. It serves Putin’s interest to get a settlement near at home before the Iran situation comes to a head.
US interest would be better served by attacking Iran while Russia is tied up in Ukraine, I thought that was clear. So I guess I’m not buying the logic of the above-quoted paragraph in the previous comment.
Argh! Too late to edit! As Yves said, the quoted theory is all wet indeed!!
Well, Russia certainly is not going to fight for Iran in a kinetic war. But it will likely support Iran in all the ways it can.
For example, the long drawn out sale of Su-30/35 fighter to Iran still seem to be going nowhere. And yet we know that Iranian pilots have been training in Russia since 2022, Iran has already assembled 2 Su-30 fighters from parts and Iranian pilots are using Yak-130 trainers that can mimic (apparently very well) Sukhoi fighter feel and response.
Now, it seems that Russian Air Force received batched of Sukhoi fighter pretty regularly between 2022 and mid 2024, but after that there really has been only Su-57 and Su-34 batches delivered. And yet the Sukhoi factory in Komsomolsk-na-Amure is working three shifts seven days a week.
I wouldn’t be surprised if wake up tomorrow to notice that Iranian Air Force has been updated from 1970s to 2020s.
Good details polar scientist, thank you! I think we agree that while Russia won’t enter a kinetic war to fight for iran, neither can it afford to let Iran go down. Iran is of critical importance not only to russia, but also China and is in fact a member of brics. The contradictions are sharpening and the multipolar grouping cannot allow the West to destroy Iran.
I realize that people may think that Russia is not prepared to step forward, based on what happened to Syria, but the big difference is that Assad abandoned Syria, and that’s not going to happen in Iran.
Also, thank you very much to Yves for this excellent article.
The thing is Expat Trumps little brain isn’t home to nuance. I think that if he feels Russia is tied up in Ukraine it will leave them clear to attack Iran or at the very least rattle their sabres – and he may also try to get Russia to ‘lean’ on Iran. The man is a one dimensional thinker not capable of serious plotting.
Discussion today between Larry Johnson and Alastair Crooke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ2gyFWRVEY
AC seems to think that the US is close to launching an attack on Iran. I think I also saw Scott Ritter suggesting that there is a massing of firepower (B52s etc) at Diego Garcia. Doesn’t look good. And meanwhile the MSM and public strive hard to avoid attention to the continued starvation and massacre of Palestinians. The banality of evil.
Those sub-sonic planes were built before 1963 and are hardly stealthy. I wouldn’t think they could get past Iran defenses, and certainly not whatever Russia recently provided. Even the f35’s were maybe stymied in the aborted attack a few months ago.
Iran ain’t the Houthis. I think I read somewhere all the war games said the us would lose if it attacked Iran, if so, wouldn’t trump/netanyahu have to be nuts to do it? Oh, wait…
Sure seems far-fetched. Oil markets not buying it. Or maybe they think that would start ww3 and why bet on that if you’d be dead if you won?
This essay a great update, thanks.
ive seen 2 B52’s over my place(and likely heard many more)(one was darth cheneys loose nuke thing).
they fly very, very high, and cant be seen from the ground on a clear blue day unless they are directly overhead…some neato paint, or something.
theyre also very loud…one of the scariest sounds ive ever heard….because of what they represent.
i reckon they could, indeed, be shot down…by anyone with a bullet that can reach the stratosphere.
given all that…i figger that they are more a terror weapon than anything else.
The modern use for B-52s is as delivery vehicles for ‘stand off’ weapons, like missiles etc.
B-52s were shot down by the North Vietnamese back in the early 1970s. That was done using fairly “primitive” SAM ground based missiles.
See: https://simpleflying.com/linebacker-ii-how-many-b-52s-were-shot-down-vietnam-christmas-bombing-campaign/
My Third Grade class visited Homestead Airforce Base back in the Days of Yore and got to see up close several airframes, including a B-52. Even now I can remember how big that aircraft was.
From what I read, the ‘real players’ in the Airforce bomber force are the B-2s, the so called “Stealth” bombers. Those are supposedly gathering at Diego Garcia along with the other classes of airframe.
As has been mentioned elsewhere, the only way to “guarantee” success in destroying the Iranian assets, supposedly dug in quite deep, is to use nuclear warheads. That would be the end of everything. Imagine oil ’embargoed’ from the Middle East. China wouldn’t be the only nation economically crippled by that. Add in the destruction of many American “assets” world wide, not necessarily in the Continental US, and we have a retreat to a borderline Pre-Industrial civilization.
What worries me the most is that, from reading, it has become clear that certain groups within the West are magically thinking that they could survive and thrive in such a scenario.
What part of “Everyone Loses” do they not understand?
>What worries me the most is that, from reading, it has become clear that certain groups within the West are magically thinking that they could survive and thrive in such a scenario.
What part of “Everyone Loses” do they not understand?
They believe their own BS. I speculate that as long as they can hold out in their bunkers for a few weeks/months and they come out still standing, our idiots in DC will think they “won”.
Walking out to be rulers of ash, craters, radioactive waste land or nuclear winter. Crowned King Nothings.
But WHO CARES, WE WON!*
*See the Movie, “The Road”.
Or “The Book of Eli”
Or any apocalyptic story you can think of.
They are not B52s. They are B2s, stealth bombers. Also reported in Links earlier today.
Hmm, it’s all gone very quiet here in the UK about the UK “deal” to return the Chagos and Diego Garcia.
Perhaps the issue is being soft pedalled until US ambitions in Iran are player out, in every sense?
B52s are useless in a real peer war as their payloads are cruise missiles that are slow and weak (against very hardened targets).
B52s are perfect for attacking an opposing force that wears literal flip-flops and has no modern air defense.
They are B2s, stealth bombers that can carry super heavy bunker busters.
B-2s, not B-52s.
https://theaviationist.com/2025/03/26/b-2-unannounced-deployment-diego-garcia/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXmnmvDl-ao
It doesn’t look good indeed.
But then why is no container ship sent under the cover of which a mass drone swarm launches towards Diego Garcia and takes out the planes?
It is trivial to arrange — one of the major shipping lanes from Asia passes nearby.
As usual the “resistance” is never proactive, and if you are not proactive, you will keep getting beaten up, until terminal defeat and extinction.
Yea, that sounds like an excellent idea. Call Tehran right now! It is trivial to arrange, and they could not think of it by themselves because they lack tactical genius of a keyboard warrior. /s
I just don’t get such armchair general attitude. Dooming, and warmongering, and s#$%talking, like it’s all a game with infinite respawn. How about taking your own gun, or suicide vest, or whatever, and doing something about enacting one of those cunning plans?
How does any attack on Iran not require the U.S. to escalate fairly quickly to nuclear strikes, so as to prevent massive casualties on its own foreign bases, massive destruction of Tel Aviv, and the economic collapse that would follow the closing of the strait of Hormuz?
We can’t win a conventional war against Iran. If we attack them, I do think it is VERY likely we end up using nukes.
Obviously the Russians are going to have to make detailed accounts of their positions available to Fox News as that is the only way Trump will know about them.
Of course he could be playing 4D chess, the way some commenters claim, but the more likely explanation that he is an old man not up to the job as we always knew. And so the Gaza slaughter continues and the Ukraine war as well. These are both on Biden but if Trump bombs Iran then we really would have been better off with Joe eating his ice cream. Even Biden knew better than to bomb Iran.
A little thought experiment, or a caffeine induced hallucination, has led me to conclude that continuing this approach to 4D chess is likely to land the US in a four front war the US cannot possibly win in any normal sense, with only a nuclear exchange giving the possibility of a grisly draw, and if der Stürmer and le Macaron, the strong men of the East Atlantic powers, join in, it will be a five front war with Iran, Russia, China and North Korea having significant technological, manufacturing and manpower advantages over the US and the ‘allies’ it it will press into combat.
Der Stürmer and le Macaron.. truly the measure of our ” leaders”
That’s speculation on what Biden thinks which is impossible to know what the reduced mental capability stand-in thinks. I take it as realists in the Pentagon part of the collective Biden Regime voted no on the Iran attack. What I speculate is Biden would be willing to attack Iran as that is Israel’s wish, but the Regime couldn’t get buy-ins from crucial players.
“2. Russia and the US did have a deal. But US officials called the mothership in the morning, and were told to renege on certain elements. This is a non-uncommon bad faith trick in negotiating that I call double-brokering2 (there may be a term of art, if so, readers please pipe up).”
I think flight carriers of all varieties abuse this approach, called double-booking.
On a trip back home over the Atalntic, I was hold more than an hour in the suspense of not being allowed on the plane, because the company double booked. It doesn’t feel nice at all.
B-52s and B-2s are on the move. I think The Don is going to giver Bibi his attack of Iran. Soon? No idea. Could be moving the bombers is The Don’s idea of negotiating. The short video from Press TV in links this morning sure looks like Iran’s response to the rhetoric and the US bombers escorted by Israeli fighters. If attacked does Iran smack Israel and US bases and ships at sea? I wish I were not convinced that the Don et al are rank amateurs.
Yes, and 18 air tankers have vanished. They are getting ready for an air attack on Iran if it doesn’t bend the knee, with the 3 extra carriers as well. Saw some accounts of Iran oil tankers being detained already. Another maximum pressure campaign. The failure of the Israeli air attack showed them that the US will have to do the heavy lifting.
How they ever expect to be able to concentrate on China is a mystery, a large air attack on Iran will result in multi-year hostilities in West Asia and the closing of the Straight of Hormuz. Stockpile fuel now, countries like Australia will have to ration petrol and diesel. Perhaps it is seen as a backdoor way to pressure China by denying them fuel.
Huh?
Th US already did some of the heavy lifting in the failed attack of several months ago. What exactly is the US going to do this time unless they go full insane and use nukes.
“What exactly is the US going to do this time unless they go full insane and use nukes.”
No need for nukes.
Instead of attacking the strongly-protected, well-hardened, heavily-defended Iranian military installations and nuclear infrastructure, bomb the hell out of vulnerable, unfortified, undefended civilian infrastructure and dwellings — just like Israel did in Lebanon, forcing this country to fold, just like they have been doing in Gaza, and just like the USA has started to do in Yemen.
Unlike Gaza or Yemen, these vulnerable, unfortified civilian are not undefended. While Iranian air defenses can obviously be penetrated, they are layered and long range. The B-2s, I understand, have to come within the reach of the Iranian long-range missiles to release their stand off missiles.
Iran can even stretch it’s air defense area out to the Arabian sea, as it has half a dozen of so vessels with S-300 level AA capability. With a bit of cunning and luck, they have a chance of ambushing the incoming bombers.
And with it’s Kilo-class submarines and (alleged) IRBMs Iran can even reach out and touch Diego Garcia itself. Maybe Iran should offer a military alliance for Chagosians?
The problem being that an attack would be carried out from several directions simultaneously (if Israel and the USA are not complete idiots), that there are many more civilian targets — which complicates the layered defence (especially in the last short-range perimeter), and that if Iran has to stretch it, as you say, then the longer-range layer will become thinner.
While I still think the result is uncertain (will the USA bail out if losses mount too rapidly?), I strongly believe that Israel and the USA will go for the “softer” civilian targets first. Perhaps they will bomb the reinforced strategic Iranian assets, but only after Iran’s infrastructure has been sufficiently damaged, and its defences have been re-deployed to protect civilian zones.
Giving the priority to bombing civilian infrastructure is what Israel does/did in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria. This is what the USA does/did in Yemen, Serbia, Vietnam, North Korea. Past behaviour is still the best predictor of future action. This is why I also think that the current bombing of Yemen serves as a necessary disabling of one of, effectively, long-range layer defence element for Iran.
But maybe Israeli and American air marshalls (or whatever their rank is) after having a good look at the theatre of operations, will clear their throats and tell Bibi and Donald that such an offensive will led them quickly into a very sticky situation — even without landing ground troops and without close naval movements.
I’m afraid that heavy US losses in initial attacks on Iranian targets, and the resulting loss of face to the “mightiest military the world has ever seen” will drive the unhinged Trumpians to go nuclear sooner rather than later. Given the clearly incompetent and deluded war-mongering that has driven US foreign policy for decades, and the low wattage of most of the personages now driving the bus, war with Iran could go sideways even faster than NC’s commentariat thinks.
All the while, Russian military prepares another cauldron that consumes Ukes. Territory be damned!
Bradley’s without butt-holes is useless. Lavroff has learned his lesson: current diplomatic karioke is simply Minsk in reverse.
Thanks for the slick summary, Yves.
> But now I wonder if the Americans are just too dumb and lazy.
And I would agree with that. They’re running on hubris fumes that can’t fill post-cold-war-thinking lungs.
I’d close every base and recall all troops in Europe and Middle East and call it a day. I don’t have any alleys (sic), though.
Then all those vacant troops might start fixing problems at home. You can’t have that.
Hmmm… The ‘People’s Republic of Jackson Mississippi?’ (Jackson has a fairly well organized Black Revolutionary movement. Is it similar elsewhere? We may find out.)
At a workplace many, many years ago — long before blogs and email lists — I came across a bunch of discarded 3-ring binders for something called “The Art of Negotiating Newsletter.”
A couple times a month, Yves drops some hints as to what’s good negotiating strategy and what is not. I always wish she had the time to systematize these remarks and publish them — perhaps with commentary by Aurelian!
Yves, for sure, and Aurelian, too, are likely not interested in assignments ;)
On negotiating terminology:
Doonesbury December 7th 1980
Kissinger’s tactics referred to as “plateau bargaining” and “overreaching”:
Ofc Doonesbury/Gary Trudeau are hardly definitive sources, but Henry Kissinger on the other hand…
I think that I can understand the Russian negotiating strategy. They are playing for time to give their forces the chance to collapse more Ukrainian fortifications and maybe even get a Ukrainian collapse. But they are really playing it smart here in how they do it. Take the grain deal 2.0. The Russians say that they are willing to play ball again but this is a list of what has to be done to make it work. Things like allowing Russians ships to depart EU ports, allowing certain Russian banks to be hooked up again to the international network to allow for clearances of money, etc. Trump is now boxed in. The conditions are all reasonable and in fact necessary for a deal to go though but he either can’t deliver or won’t deliver. And after what happened with grain deal 1.0, the Russians won’t go ahead with their end until those conditions are in place.Trump may rant and blame the Russians but what can he do? It’s like he is asking the Russians for a loan but they say sure – just as soon as you hand over your collateral as you have proved untrustworthy in the past. Meanwhile the Russian military continues to advance in the Ukraine which will prove a constant headache for the White House.
I think it’s somewhat beyond negotiating strategy. And I don’t mean 4D chess, or any such thing, but a more holistic approach to the negotiations, while not letting any of that hinder the SMO effort.
It seems that Russia agreed on moratorium on strikes against energy infrastructure mostly because it’s getting hard to find targets in Ukraine – now Russia can concentrate on pounding what’s left of the Ukrainian military industry. And some transport hubs, too.
And it’s clearly not a coincidence that Russia revived the Grain Deal to see if this time USA actually delivers. Yes, the Western MSM is making [family blog] of a ruckus about Russia “making demands”, but if there’s going to be a negotiated cease fire, first there has to be a minimum of trust. For bonus points implementing the Grain Deal 2.0 for real seems to put US at odds with the EU and Ukraine. So even if it fails – like it did before – it opens up the cracks in The West just a little bit more.
I think Russia is just playing proforma theater for the world stage. They are painfully aware of how things have rolled since the fall of the USSR and all the history that proceeded it, Putin has laid it all out time and time again. The drama is the West has a penchant for thinking it writes history and everything else is a lie.
Its absurd to watch Western politicians and payed for academics/mouthpieces gaslight entire populations [Waves at WMD/threats to civilization] all on the gravy train spew rubbish for the unwashed. Then they get wound up when reality does not conform to their PR/Marketing and use that to militarize against some imaginary threat = fear in Hayek’s terms.
All Russia needs to do is, as I have suggest from the start of the SMO, is to just grind this out ruthlessly on the battlefield. This is absolutely contra the Western play book of showy PR/Marketing news cycles for the behaviorally adjusted fans at home. Just image these consumers of – the great civilization PR – slowly having to reconcile news cycles and endless just the opposite outcomes. None of the whizz bang gear is changing anything, just the opposite, picked off one by one and no Mfg base to replace it in time – efficiency for profit thingy – investors rejoice lmmao.
All whilst this is going on China is hitting back hard on sanctions, beef, soybean, et al, all whilst its Mfg side is surpassing what Japan did post WWII and its tech sector is blowing the doors off … in response the West is going to pauperize anyone not in the say top 10%.
It might be better think of Russia’s strategy not as ‘playing for time’ but as ‘playing with time.’
If the Russians also suspect this, they will string out the ceasefire talks to the end of Trump’s term. Russia will not want to invite the chaos of a middle east war or its blowback effects in Europe, unless it becomes preferable should the EU get its act together (Iran getting the bomb is far more likely)
I must confess to a certain perplexity over the Black-Sea ‘ceasefire’–the only text I’ve read or heard is more or less an extra-precise redo of the grain agreement. Russia has attacked no civilian cargo ships on the open sea–though it does occasionally seem to strike commercial ships in port if ISR/intel indicates military cargo. With this out of the way–which a proper inspection regime would obviate–there would be no firing on civilian ships to cease.
On the military side, I’ve seen / heard no talk of UKR/UK naval drones, RF navy operations, air patrols or NATO ISR flights. ‘Ceasefire’ would seem to apply in those cases, not to commercial shipping.
As for the process, Russia could still be thinking Trump may bail–once it’s established the UKR & Euros don’t want peace and therefore can’t be saved. Bannon’s way would have been much better. If Trump is truly looking at the fact that Russia can help him reduce forces facing off against NK, and could help get the Zionists off his back who want to nuke Iran, by offering some assurances that Russia has a no nukes arrangement with Iran in exchange for helping with its defense. He could / should want this, but gives no sign of it.
Putin may wish to initiate a call at this point and actually pitch Trump on alternatives to and perils of attacking Iran. Assuming Trump *wants* to say no to war with Iran but needs help saying no, Russia could potentially offer both carrot (RF assures no nukes) and stick (we’ll help Iran if it’s attacked).
Trump’s either the world’s greatest deal maker or not, actually, very good at this. I’m starting to lean toward the latter.
I could be underestimating him, but the reason i think trump is seeking haste is because he said he could do it and he wants the clout. I think if it were up to Vance, Hegseth, miller or others of that ilk the Bannon plan would have been executed. But Trump is insistent on “getting something” in the deal which is why that plan isn’t being executed. There also might be (not really ex) neocons in the mix who are throwing a wrench into the talks because they think the us should keep backing Ukraine and are delusional about the capabilities of the us supply chain and thus its military bandwidth. Like you pointed out, it had the potential to not be a quagmire for trump but it already is turning into one where he could loose marginal credibility for not pulling out and not getting anything, while dividing and frustrating his ruling coalition. I also think trump is probably fine with what’s happening right now, where he gets to say he’s working for peace and blaming everyone else for it not working out. The neocons are also probably fine with this as they might be able to link with dems to get more arms through. But this would certainly piss off the “populists”. I guess we’ll see how much pull they really have, if trump does cut off Ukraine deal or no deal it would indicate they do have sway, but after the whole signal thing they might be keeping their heads down and following their daddy for the near future.
Naked Capitalism: Mother of all Alt Media. Thank you as always for this high-level analysis. And for pointing me to sources like Andriy Martynov, the Duran, Brian Berletic, Simplicius, MoA, and so many others that make me feel at times that I live in an alternate reality and can actually see the future.