The promises of Donald ‘The Art of the Deal’ Trump of ending the war in 24 hours/one week/two weeks/soon - take your pick – are total nonsense, have lead and will lead nowhere. Here is why.
Trump just doesn’t get it. He still thinks dealing with Putin is no different than dealing with a NYC real estate broker. He has no more idea about Putin than LBJ had about Ho Chi Minh.
One might say that Grumpy has no more idea about Ukraine than Trump has about Putin. Ukraine is a far-right one-party terror regime, where Zelensky "suspended" all the opposition parties and seized their TV stations. But Grumpy goes on about fweeedom and democwacy.
Ukraine has been enslaved by the International Monetary Fund, which demands ongoing war as the price for sustaining its unpayable debt. (The NATO countries, if they vote together, have voting control at the IMF.)
Zelensky was elected with overwhelming support, with a promise to bring peace to the Donbass. This led him to public conflict with the neo-Nazis (who threatened to roll a grenade under his legs), and this led to his capitulation, abandoning the "Steinmeier Formula" for implementing the 2015 Minsk Agreements, and embracing Ukraine's military buildup toward re-igniting the frozen Donbass war in February 2022. See "How Zelensky Made Peace with Neo-Nazis": https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/04/how-zelensky-made-peace-with-neo-nazis/
By embracing the neo-Nazi agenda of continuing to fight in the Donbass, Zelensky simultaneously embraced the IMF imperative to re-conquer the Donbass. I have not seen proof that the money from the 2014 IMF loan that Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky embezzled was the same money that Kolomoysky used to fund the neo-Nazi Azov group. However, Kolomoysky also funded the rise to power of his protege Zelensky. See "How One Ukrainian Billionaire Funded Hunter Biden, President Volodymyr Zelensky, and the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion" at https://thewallwillfall.org/2022/03/14/how-one-ukrainian-billionaire-funded-hunter-biden-president-volodymyr-zelensky-and-the-neo-nazi-azov-battalion/
That link is to a mirror site; the original link no longer shows up in a google search. (Zelensky's public pledge to keep all of Ukraine's promises to the IMF also no longer shows up in a google search.)
Perhaps you could say the same thing about theSoviets during World War II. Too many of uus are oblivious to the thuggish terror at the foundation of the current regime in Ukraine.
You do need to check your history, John. Especially in the Ukraine, many at first welcomed the Germans and collarbrorated with them as a counterpoint to Stalinist repression and the Holodomor until, of course, the einsatzgruppen began to arrive and to their thing.
You appear to have misunderstood my point. Soviet soldiers marched to their slaughter at Stalingrad (until German bullets ran out, and another city block was liberated, over and over) because of the terror regime that sent them off to war. And now it's the same with Ukraine's thug terror regime, which got counter-attacked by the Russians when the Ukrainians finally (after seven years of military build-up) broke the tattered cease-fire and began their pre-invasion bombardment.
actually ukrainians think they have been colonized by russia for centuries. of course the present invasion, killing and destruction of ukraine in cold blood is no problem compared to the monetary fund for the justifiers of putin
For my money, proving that Trump is a Russian asset will take more than the testimony of a couple of ex-Soviet spies. But as many have pointed out, if he isn’t one, he’s certainly acting as he was.
No, it seems like Trump is motivated to quickly cut our losses so he can refocus on China as the greater strategic threat. Perhaps Biden, by ensnaring us in the Ukrai e debacle, was acting as a Chinese asset; Hunter certainly took enough money from them.
Without bothering to look up the date, about three months ago I posted “This Show Does Not Need To Go On”, basically pointing out that negotiating with Putin’s Russia would be a futile waste of time.
Excellent as always. Everything clear and any person with a reasonable intelligence already knew that. Just will add that one driving force behind that man in the WH is a dream that he will end the war and get the Noble Peace prize. We all know that will never happen. Anyway thank you again.
All these points can be reduced to one: Putin will do anything to protect his authority, his position at the top. Like for any totalitarian, EVERYTHING is a weapon for him. That includes "negotiations," ceasefires, talks, "deals" of whatever kind -- all weapons of war.
The war is not even for empire, at least not yet. As the article notes, it is simply an ill-conceived and poorly executed attempt to eliminate Ukraine as a state, a people, and an idea. Failing that, to turn it into another Belarus. Putin absolutely has to do this because, as stated, Ukraine will function as a vector for diseases fatal to Russia: pluralism, individual rights, representative democracy, freedom... Russia as it is now will die -- obviously -- if any of those are introduced into it. So yes, in a way Putin is correct in saying that Ukraine is a great threat. But it's to him personally.
Of course Ukraine can win militarily. Simply give them the material means, which other countries can do easily despite their no-money no-stuff blather. Even easier would be apply some actual sanctions as opposed to the very minor ones on paper now; and even those are not being enforced. Or just declare Russia to be a non-country like we did with South Africa in the early 1990s. A few years of that and SA ceased to exist. Russia wouldn't last three months at this point.
Finally, Trump is not a player in any of this except as he gives or does not give significant military support to Ukraine. Russia fears that he might, but otherwise cares about him not at all. It will be quite interesting if he is forced to, eventually.
Russia is beginning to grasp that Trump is capable of anything, and of its opposite, sometimes together, and always without notice. He could send U.S. marines to fight against Ukraine in the Donbas or sell atomic weapons to Zelensky -- maybe on the same day. Putin has him in his pocket, but also doesn't, and some days the sky is blue. So yes, the Russians are afraid of Trump. The intimate as much on state TV almost daily.
i guess i disagree. i think trump has consistently been on the russian side, ever since helsinki. and i totally do not believe anything the russians say on tv. i think they try to confuse the west so it is not so obvious that trump is in their pocket. because trump is incredibly obvious about it. just remembering the oval office ambush of zelensky
OK, more simply: Trump is not inherently on anyone's side. He doesn't care about Ukraine OR Russia beyond what he can get out of them for himself -- which is not actual caring. He doesn't even care about the U.S.A. Trump is a simple animal. He responds to ("cares about" would be too nuanced in his case) only two things: money and adulation. That's it.
But the nature of this is that those two flows must be constant and increasing. So if Trump ever takes it into his head that insufficient cash or fawning is being directed his way, he will lash out. That includes at the Russians. ("OK, we got the Moscow one, but where is the Trump Tower in Petrograd??") They are quite aware of this, so Trump makes the Russians nervous even as he takes their side.
i totally agree that trump is out for himself. but i think he made some agreement where he promised something. so i am assuming the russians aren't counting on his keeping promises. they must have something that will make him keep that promise. but in the meantime or maybe even from the start trump saw that he really admires the soviet style politics, the crudeness of it, the lack of ethics, basically putin. i think he thinks putin is great for invading ukraine. this got him the great idea of grabbing canada and greenland. let russia have its part of the planet and he will have hsi part.
and china also.
but no, he doesn't make the russians nervous at all. they have him securely. and also they see that he likes what they are doing.
we wish that he were making the russians nervous. he is making europeans nervous. and thus the russians very very happy
anyway, this makes more sense to me then thinking that the russians are worried. putin absolutely shows no signs of worry.
My own two cents: Russia, also, cannot win militarily. Russia, too, is becoming exhausted (What? Russia is INexhaustable! I mean, so I've been told...), and Putin IS hoping for a change...a change in the status quo of sanctions et al, that could give him the new life he and his military desperately need (probably via China. Trump would be just as feckless actually directly helping Russia as he is doing, well, everything). THIS is the thing I fear.
I will suggest that, from the perspective of geopolitical rivalry, the ongoing war in Ukraine benefits no one but China. Trump wants to find a way to hand a good chunk of Ukraine back to Russia so he can bury that distraction and focus on China as a strategic rival, and also focus on battening down the hatches for our impending unpayable-debt implosion. In other words, Grumpy simply doesn’t get it.
excellent until you write: trump doesn't have a clue. trump either has to or wants to please putin. or both. after his answer in helsinki it became obvious that the die was cast many years ago. trump would tow the line for putin. but i think trump genuinely likes what putin is doing. enlarging his empire. he wants to grab canada and greenland, etc to be as great as putin. it is a nasty clue, but trump does have a clue
Nothing new in the analysis either, only the obvious. What would be more interesting but difficult would be to give readers a current picture of the Russian military and economic situation after three years of war, huge casualties, and more biting sanctions for some time. Putin's motivation is trite and stale, normal for an imperialist revanchist. Trump is an ignorant charlatan totally incapable of even knowing there is anything to know or understand. Zelensky is a patriot and hero in the classic mold. For all any of the current foreign "realists" and commentators know, they would have said the same in say November 1940 about Britain's chances of surviving alone against Hitler's expanding Reich. The supposed prescience of experts and commentators is vastly overrated. There are lots of developments they can't and don't foresee. Fir all we know, a year from now Putin will have been liquidated despite all his precautions and Trump may be struggling under the loss of his mental faculties ( he plausibly has Alzheimer's) before looming mid- term elections
The current military and economic picture is not knowable. But even if it were, it would still be hard to interpret. For example, the sanctions on Russia are very mild and even those are almost never actually enforced. The "huge casualties" are huge only to our eyes; to Russians they are nothing, since human life (even that of your children) is not prized in that culture.
The Russian economy can collapse, sure, but that's no problem either. Russia didn't even have an economy as we understand that until around 2001. Plus they are self-sufficient in food and energy. They can always become a closed economy again and just do everything internally -- no trade required. Yes, quality of life will go down, but unlike western people Russians can handle that with ease.
Western commentators project their own standards and tolerances on Russia, and for this reason are almost always dead wrong about it. Putin is not "an imperialist revanchist," at least not at the moment. He may get to that later, but right now he's just trying not to get deposed and killed. Imagine that he ordered the war to stop. Not defeat, but just call it off. Then imagine 700,000 drunken men with rifles and battle trauma suddenly arriving back in the homeland having failed to beat the Nazis. How do you think that would go for Putin?
Good points, well made. It's still more than conceivable that Putin can be removed from power. "Imperialist revanchist" in the strict sense, i.e. wanting to restore the Russian area of control, hegemony, and influence including Ukraine, a part of the Russian (and then Soviet) empire since its absorption over the period from 1764 to the end of the 18th century; and then again, from 1922 when Ukrainian resistance was suppressed by the Red Army.
Revanchism is defined not simply as retaliation (e.g. for defeat in a war, as used of the French desire to avenge the catastrophic defeat in the Franco-Prussian War) but to recover lost territory (Alsace-Lorraine in that example of France before WWI. Putin certainly has declared that he sees Ukraine in that sense. I agree that Putin is riding a tiger. I don't believe he can get off it easily either.
I don't have sufficient insights into the Russian national "character" or the Russian perception of casualties or readiness to return to a closed economic system to be able to comment on those aspects. You may. I defer to those who are more informed than I am in such matters.
Trump just doesn’t get it. He still thinks dealing with Putin is no different than dealing with a NYC real estate broker. He has no more idea about Putin than LBJ had about Ho Chi Minh.
Not a bad comparison, actually.
One might say that Grumpy has no more idea about Ukraine than Trump has about Putin. Ukraine is a far-right one-party terror regime, where Zelensky "suspended" all the opposition parties and seized their TV stations. But Grumpy goes on about fweeedom and democwacy.
Ukraine has been enslaved by the International Monetary Fund, which demands ongoing war as the price for sustaining its unpayable debt. (The NATO countries, if they vote together, have voting control at the IMF.)
Regarding Ukraine's thug regime, you might first look at "Neo-Nazis and the Far Right are on the March in Ukraine" from 2019, just before Zelensky's election: https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/
Zelensky was elected with overwhelming support, with a promise to bring peace to the Donbass. This led him to public conflict with the neo-Nazis (who threatened to roll a grenade under his legs), and this led to his capitulation, abandoning the "Steinmeier Formula" for implementing the 2015 Minsk Agreements, and embracing Ukraine's military buildup toward re-igniting the frozen Donbass war in February 2022. See "How Zelensky Made Peace with Neo-Nazis": https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/04/how-zelensky-made-peace-with-neo-nazis/
By embracing the neo-Nazi agenda of continuing to fight in the Donbass, Zelensky simultaneously embraced the IMF imperative to re-conquer the Donbass. I have not seen proof that the money from the 2014 IMF loan that Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky embezzled was the same money that Kolomoysky used to fund the neo-Nazi Azov group. However, Kolomoysky also funded the rise to power of his protege Zelensky. See "How One Ukrainian Billionaire Funded Hunter Biden, President Volodymyr Zelensky, and the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion" at https://thewallwillfall.org/2022/03/14/how-one-ukrainian-billionaire-funded-hunter-biden-president-volodymyr-zelensky-and-the-neo-nazi-azov-battalion/
That link is to a mirror site; the original link no longer shows up in a google search. (Zelensky's public pledge to keep all of Ukraine's promises to the IMF also no longer shows up in a google search.)
Ah, John, I‘ve so missed your anti-Zelensky rants! One wonders why so many Ukrainians have given their lives to defend such a corrupt government.
Perhaps you could say the same thing about theSoviets during World War II. Too many of uus are oblivious to the thuggish terror at the foundation of the current regime in Ukraine.
You do need to check your history, John. Especially in the Ukraine, many at first welcomed the Germans and collarbrorated with them as a counterpoint to Stalinist repression and the Holodomor until, of course, the einsatzgruppen began to arrive and to their thing.
You appear to have misunderstood my point. Soviet soldiers marched to their slaughter at Stalingrad (until German bullets ran out, and another city block was liberated, over and over) because of the terror regime that sent them off to war. And now it's the same with Ukraine's thug terror regime, which got counter-attacked by the Russians when the Ukrainians finally (after seven years of military build-up) broke the tattered cease-fire and began their pre-invasion bombardment.
actually ukrainians think they have been colonized by russia for centuries. of course the present invasion, killing and destruction of ukraine in cold blood is no problem compared to the monetary fund for the justifiers of putin
Yyour absurd assertion that the Russians are killing and destroying IN COLD BLOOD is a key point of disagreement.
Those who control the IMF imposed a different form of genocide on the Russians in the early 1990s:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5966572-genocide
except lbj wasn't working for ho chi minh
For my money, proving that Trump is a Russian asset will take more than the testimony of a couple of ex-Soviet spies. But as many have pointed out, if he isn’t one, he’s certainly acting as he was.
No, it seems like Trump is motivated to quickly cut our losses so he can refocus on China as the greater strategic threat. Perhaps Biden, by ensnaring us in the Ukrai e debacle, was acting as a Chinese asset; Hunter certainly took enough money from them.
Exactly.
Without bothering to look up the date, about three months ago I posted “This Show Does Not Need To Go On”, basically pointing out that negotiating with Putin’s Russia would be a futile waste of time.
Excellent as always. Everything clear and any person with a reasonable intelligence already knew that. Just will add that one driving force behind that man in the WH is a dream that he will end the war and get the Noble Peace prize. We all know that will never happen. Anyway thank you again.
Thank YOU, John.
Except that LBJ was intelligent, hard-working, and engaged in something other than performing.
All these points can be reduced to one: Putin will do anything to protect his authority, his position at the top. Like for any totalitarian, EVERYTHING is a weapon for him. That includes "negotiations," ceasefires, talks, "deals" of whatever kind -- all weapons of war.
The war is not even for empire, at least not yet. As the article notes, it is simply an ill-conceived and poorly executed attempt to eliminate Ukraine as a state, a people, and an idea. Failing that, to turn it into another Belarus. Putin absolutely has to do this because, as stated, Ukraine will function as a vector for diseases fatal to Russia: pluralism, individual rights, representative democracy, freedom... Russia as it is now will die -- obviously -- if any of those are introduced into it. So yes, in a way Putin is correct in saying that Ukraine is a great threat. But it's to him personally.
Of course Ukraine can win militarily. Simply give them the material means, which other countries can do easily despite their no-money no-stuff blather. Even easier would be apply some actual sanctions as opposed to the very minor ones on paper now; and even those are not being enforced. Or just declare Russia to be a non-country like we did with South Africa in the early 1990s. A few years of that and SA ceased to exist. Russia wouldn't last three months at this point.
Finally, Trump is not a player in any of this except as he gives or does not give significant military support to Ukraine. Russia fears that he might, but otherwise cares about him not at all. It will be quite interesting if he is forced to, eventually.
do you really think russia fears that trump might give military support to ukraine or that putin knows he has trump in his pocket?
Russia is beginning to grasp that Trump is capable of anything, and of its opposite, sometimes together, and always without notice. He could send U.S. marines to fight against Ukraine in the Donbas or sell atomic weapons to Zelensky -- maybe on the same day. Putin has him in his pocket, but also doesn't, and some days the sky is blue. So yes, the Russians are afraid of Trump. The intimate as much on state TV almost daily.
i guess i disagree. i think trump has consistently been on the russian side, ever since helsinki. and i totally do not believe anything the russians say on tv. i think they try to confuse the west so it is not so obvious that trump is in their pocket. because trump is incredibly obvious about it. just remembering the oval office ambush of zelensky
OK, more simply: Trump is not inherently on anyone's side. He doesn't care about Ukraine OR Russia beyond what he can get out of them for himself -- which is not actual caring. He doesn't even care about the U.S.A. Trump is a simple animal. He responds to ("cares about" would be too nuanced in his case) only two things: money and adulation. That's it.
But the nature of this is that those two flows must be constant and increasing. So if Trump ever takes it into his head that insufficient cash or fawning is being directed his way, he will lash out. That includes at the Russians. ("OK, we got the Moscow one, but where is the Trump Tower in Petrograd??") They are quite aware of this, so Trump makes the Russians nervous even as he takes their side.
i totally agree that trump is out for himself. but i think he made some agreement where he promised something. so i am assuming the russians aren't counting on his keeping promises. they must have something that will make him keep that promise. but in the meantime or maybe even from the start trump saw that he really admires the soviet style politics, the crudeness of it, the lack of ethics, basically putin. i think he thinks putin is great for invading ukraine. this got him the great idea of grabbing canada and greenland. let russia have its part of the planet and he will have hsi part.
and china also.
but no, he doesn't make the russians nervous at all. they have him securely. and also they see that he likes what they are doing.
we wish that he were making the russians nervous. he is making europeans nervous. and thus the russians very very happy
anyway, this makes more sense to me then thinking that the russians are worried. putin absolutely shows no signs of worry.
My own two cents: Russia, also, cannot win militarily. Russia, too, is becoming exhausted (What? Russia is INexhaustable! I mean, so I've been told...), and Putin IS hoping for a change...a change in the status quo of sanctions et al, that could give him the new life he and his military desperately need (probably via China. Trump would be just as feckless actually directly helping Russia as he is doing, well, everything). THIS is the thing I fear.
I will suggest that, from the perspective of geopolitical rivalry, the ongoing war in Ukraine benefits no one but China. Trump wants to find a way to hand a good chunk of Ukraine back to Russia so he can bury that distraction and focus on China as a strategic rival, and also focus on battening down the hatches for our impending unpayable-debt implosion. In other words, Grumpy simply doesn’t get it.
excellent until you write: trump doesn't have a clue. trump either has to or wants to please putin. or both. after his answer in helsinki it became obvious that the die was cast many years ago. trump would tow the line for putin. but i think trump genuinely likes what putin is doing. enlarging his empire. he wants to grab canada and greenland, etc to be as great as putin. it is a nasty clue, but trump does have a clue
Nothing new in the analysis either, only the obvious. What would be more interesting but difficult would be to give readers a current picture of the Russian military and economic situation after three years of war, huge casualties, and more biting sanctions for some time. Putin's motivation is trite and stale, normal for an imperialist revanchist. Trump is an ignorant charlatan totally incapable of even knowing there is anything to know or understand. Zelensky is a patriot and hero in the classic mold. For all any of the current foreign "realists" and commentators know, they would have said the same in say November 1940 about Britain's chances of surviving alone against Hitler's expanding Reich. The supposed prescience of experts and commentators is vastly overrated. There are lots of developments they can't and don't foresee. Fir all we know, a year from now Putin will have been liquidated despite all his precautions and Trump may be struggling under the loss of his mental faculties ( he plausibly has Alzheimer's) before looming mid- term elections
The current military and economic picture is not knowable. But even if it were, it would still be hard to interpret. For example, the sanctions on Russia are very mild and even those are almost never actually enforced. The "huge casualties" are huge only to our eyes; to Russians they are nothing, since human life (even that of your children) is not prized in that culture.
The Russian economy can collapse, sure, but that's no problem either. Russia didn't even have an economy as we understand that until around 2001. Plus they are self-sufficient in food and energy. They can always become a closed economy again and just do everything internally -- no trade required. Yes, quality of life will go down, but unlike western people Russians can handle that with ease.
Western commentators project their own standards and tolerances on Russia, and for this reason are almost always dead wrong about it. Putin is not "an imperialist revanchist," at least not at the moment. He may get to that later, but right now he's just trying not to get deposed and killed. Imagine that he ordered the war to stop. Not defeat, but just call it off. Then imagine 700,000 drunken men with rifles and battle trauma suddenly arriving back in the homeland having failed to beat the Nazis. How do you think that would go for Putin?
Good points, well made. It's still more than conceivable that Putin can be removed from power. "Imperialist revanchist" in the strict sense, i.e. wanting to restore the Russian area of control, hegemony, and influence including Ukraine, a part of the Russian (and then Soviet) empire since its absorption over the period from 1764 to the end of the 18th century; and then again, from 1922 when Ukrainian resistance was suppressed by the Red Army.
Revanchism is defined not simply as retaliation (e.g. for defeat in a war, as used of the French desire to avenge the catastrophic defeat in the Franco-Prussian War) but to recover lost territory (Alsace-Lorraine in that example of France before WWI. Putin certainly has declared that he sees Ukraine in that sense. I agree that Putin is riding a tiger. I don't believe he can get off it easily either.
I don't have sufficient insights into the Russian national "character" or the Russian perception of casualties or readiness to return to a closed economic system to be able to comment on those aspects. You may. I defer to those who are more informed than I am in such matters.