With Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky meeting in New York on Sept. 27, 2024, here's a look back at the call that triggered Trump's first impeachment. Here's the Sept. 27. 2019 Kyiv Post cover.
For all the brash Trump statements on Ukraine, I find it increasingly difficult, sadly, to see a resolution to the war in Ukraine without China playing a key role. Most of China’s proposals, indeed all its statements thus far, have been feints. This includes the most recent China-Brazil proposal that Zelensky spoke about at the UNGA. Beijing knows very well that such proposals won’t wash.
Much depends upon how long China wants Putin to stay in power, and stay strong and dominant within Russia. China doesn't want any leader in Moscow who might even come to have a semblance of understanding with the US and the West. China will always prefer authoritarians with a pro-Beijing outlook, even if that’s opportunistic. More than leverage, it's about China's wider long-term interests. The Beijing-Moscow nexus is now deep. It’s both strategic, geo-economic, and it has emerging, little analyzed, long-term military connotations. It will come to influence and, perhaps, even define the US-China strategic rivalry in many ways.
The worry is that Trump, through his transactional, short-term view of strategy and diplomacy, and indeed his deep-rooted, ideological and ego-driven alignment with Putin and authoritarians, will inadvertently fall prey to some sort of a compromise that has a Chinese angle at its core, if he does come back to the Presidency. And that might well play to Beijing’s advantage even across the US-China relationship, besides the ramifications across Russia and a wider Europe (look for Hungary here, as an example). Of course, the compromise will not favor Ukraine in any way.
If Trump wins, the onus is on Europe to find the formula that gives Ukraine its strategic autonomy without compromise. But then, again, Europe's economy is constrained and its considerable economic dependence on China, doesn’t give one much confidence. If Harris wins, China will still dominate, but the chances of a Ukraine-specific solution are higher.
You have taken issue with replies I've posted here saying that you were there and know more than I do, but that does not confer knowledge. Your claim, without corroborating data, is mere posturing. For all we know, you and Zelensky were growing Ukrainian Kush and running a Comedy Club.
Your posts here are clearly designed to get us (Americans) hepped up on assisting Ukraine in its resistance to Russia's invasion. I appreciate that you may have a dog in that fight, but as an American I do not need to be smoking Russian pot, as you suggested, to decide for myself that perhaps our dogs belong elsewhere.
I understand that in some ways the machinations of inept statesmen from my country have helped lead Ukraine into its current morass, one of them having been our recent meddling with the stability of Ukraine's government. I am ashamed that my country dabbles in the business of others, and often does so wearing the mask of good and democratic intentions, but in the current instance there is no doubt that American military support for Ukraine is not aimed at helping the brave young Ukrainian's save their democracy (god, don't people ever get tired of that posturing?) but to destabilize the government of Russia and to inflict damage on its economy. No mater what goals you may have, this effort can do no good for my country. I do not want my country used this way.
If you were really there, as you say, you might have made more efforts at a better outcome. Surely you must have known that Ukraine joining NATO was going to be a bridge too far? At this point you might tap the Danes again, they seem eager to help, and they offer the added bonus of being huge sperm donors, something you are going to desperately need.
trump is so obviously a Putin puppet, and trump loves murderous dictators. Let's hope we can make trump go away forever in November.
For all the brash Trump statements on Ukraine, I find it increasingly difficult, sadly, to see a resolution to the war in Ukraine without China playing a key role. Most of China’s proposals, indeed all its statements thus far, have been feints. This includes the most recent China-Brazil proposal that Zelensky spoke about at the UNGA. Beijing knows very well that such proposals won’t wash.
Much depends upon how long China wants Putin to stay in power, and stay strong and dominant within Russia. China doesn't want any leader in Moscow who might even come to have a semblance of understanding with the US and the West. China will always prefer authoritarians with a pro-Beijing outlook, even if that’s opportunistic. More than leverage, it's about China's wider long-term interests. The Beijing-Moscow nexus is now deep. It’s both strategic, geo-economic, and it has emerging, little analyzed, long-term military connotations. It will come to influence and, perhaps, even define the US-China strategic rivalry in many ways.
The worry is that Trump, through his transactional, short-term view of strategy and diplomacy, and indeed his deep-rooted, ideological and ego-driven alignment with Putin and authoritarians, will inadvertently fall prey to some sort of a compromise that has a Chinese angle at its core, if he does come back to the Presidency. And that might well play to Beijing’s advantage even across the US-China relationship, besides the ramifications across Russia and a wider Europe (look for Hungary here, as an example). Of course, the compromise will not favor Ukraine in any way.
If Trump wins, the onus is on Europe to find the formula that gives Ukraine its strategic autonomy without compromise. But then, again, Europe's economy is constrained and its considerable economic dependence on China, doesn’t give one much confidence. If Harris wins, China will still dominate, but the chances of a Ukraine-specific solution are higher.
You have taken issue with replies I've posted here saying that you were there and know more than I do, but that does not confer knowledge. Your claim, without corroborating data, is mere posturing. For all we know, you and Zelensky were growing Ukrainian Kush and running a Comedy Club.
Your posts here are clearly designed to get us (Americans) hepped up on assisting Ukraine in its resistance to Russia's invasion. I appreciate that you may have a dog in that fight, but as an American I do not need to be smoking Russian pot, as you suggested, to decide for myself that perhaps our dogs belong elsewhere.
I understand that in some ways the machinations of inept statesmen from my country have helped lead Ukraine into its current morass, one of them having been our recent meddling with the stability of Ukraine's government. I am ashamed that my country dabbles in the business of others, and often does so wearing the mask of good and democratic intentions, but in the current instance there is no doubt that American military support for Ukraine is not aimed at helping the brave young Ukrainian's save their democracy (god, don't people ever get tired of that posturing?) but to destabilize the government of Russia and to inflict damage on its economy. No mater what goals you may have, this effort can do no good for my country. I do not want my country used this way.
If you were really there, as you say, you might have made more efforts at a better outcome. Surely you must have known that Ukraine joining NATO was going to be a bridge too far? At this point you might tap the Danes again, they seem eager to help, and they offer the added bonus of being huge sperm donors, something you are going to desperately need.