And the possibility of Trump exiting NATO is growing. Because the next issue is when Europe starts to replacing US systems with its own to help Ukraine, Trump might get angry about it.

Insane it is then. Will this mean all the U.S. military bases in Europe being put under wraps.

On the good side, Musk backed down from shutting down starlink from Ukraine. At least Elon understood that his commercial product will face problems, if the producers shuts down the service from customers so easily.

We’ll Tesla stock is tanking, he’ll have to keep his Starlink clients on board to avoid bankruptcy, or at least to keep his ambitions in space flight going.

Also going back to the point about how feeble Trump is about worries of economic recession. Has it not occurred to him that the economic prosperity the West has enjoyed over the last 80years is reliant on peace and stability and good relations between trading partners around the world. And that all this strong man disruption that he’s doing is only going to disrupt that peace and stability resulting in recession, or depression?
I bet that in the minds of the republicans driving this madness forward. Everyone is equally prosperous, indeed the economy is booming and by cutting all the bureaucracy, red tape and global supply lines. All their consumer goods will still be supplied on time and with up to date tech’. In the minds of the Brexiters we were going to alight in the sunlit uplands of free trade and prosperity, freed from the shackles of the single market. The reality was the exact opposite.

Who has given Ukraine's autonomy away? Surely, if the Ukrainians were autonomous the only ones who could have done so is they themselves.

Trump would blackmail the Ukrainians into capitulation.

He won't, because he can't. I recall seeing your mention in other posts that the Russians are militarily in a weak spot and can be pressured. I think the opposite is true.

All Trump needs to do is say if Russia doesn’t compromise, U.S. support for Ukraine would be doubled. Or they would give them full air support. A Strong U.S. leader would be able to do this. I suspect Trump is weak.

Yes, but Ukraine’s autonomy has effectively been given away before the negotiations have begun. And Russia will not soften her line that Ukraine must not join NATO, and there must not be a peacekeeping, or deterrent forces on the ground in Ukraine. The negotiations are over before they have begun. Unless that is Trump finds some cajonas and forces Russia into a much weaker position.
Do you think he will go there?

Here is an expert to explain the situation,
https://youtu.be/vyCS1GSLqzk?feature=shared

It's a very long way for Europe to become a united world power. See, UK is not even in the EU (the Brexit, remember?). I don't see the point of getting enthusiastic over strategic revisions that are still on the making. And then let our imagination jump to desirable future scenarios as if they were already within reach. Things can go awfully wrong in so many ways.

Yes, it’s a long way off for Europe, but the forces against this outcome have taken a knock.

This is not about enthusiasms for outcomes, but rather looking for trends. I gave you my reasoning before for why the U.S. turning against her closest allies in Europe puts her in a weak position globally, resulting in a pincer movement whereby the U.S. becomes distracted by developments in Europe while she becomes overstretched in her pivot to the east. That thinking that Russia is powerful is flawed out of date thinking. She is small, ie, the state and run by a tinpot dictator, who relied on oil and gas revenues. There may have been a time a generation ago when Russia was a world power. But that time is long gone. Although by turning against Europe the U.S. may enable Russia to regain her world power status.
So for the U.S. there are two choices. A powerful U.S. allied with Europe as a counter to China, with an inconsequential Russia. Or a powerful U.S. alone in the world against a powerful Russia allied with China, with an inconsequential Europe.

Now if the U.S. sees China, rightly, as the greatest threat. Then the first option is the logical one and the second is insane.

Did you watch the interview with Oleksandr Chalyi, where he literally states he believes the Russians were serious and ready for a negotiated settlement during the Istanbul agreements?

There will be many people who think Putin can be trusted, but the only person who can answer the question is Putin. All we can do is judge him from his actions and the verdict is not good.

There is a narrative coming out of Russia which we can assess. Which is basically saying our safety, autonomy, sovereignty etc can only be protected, secured, with the emasculation of Ukraine.

Any negotiations which Putin agrees to which does not achieve this is sure to be reneged on. Presumably this is why Trump is pushing for this. Whether he is happy to facilitate this end for Putin, or he is being blackmailed, or conned into it.

I think it’s still too early to be optimistic about European reactions.

Already Reform in the U.K. is split and in disarray. Established rightwing political commentators, such as Andrew Neil are washing their hands of Trump. Putin is Kryptonite, on a level in the public opinion with Hitler. I haven’t been following the reaction from the right in other European countries. However the resolve and camaraderie between EU leaders is clear to see.

Regarding the geopolitics of the situation my position hasn’t changed much from our previous conversation. Trump is not as yet an authoritarian leader, it’s just cosplay at this point. I very much doubt that he will be able to overturn the democracy in the U.S. In which case, this is a blip and we will be back to business as usual once Trump leaves office. Or it would result in a civil war. In which case, the U.S. will withdraw from the world stage while they sort out issues at home for a few years.

Although if the U.S. were to step back from the world stage for some time(for whatever reason), geopolitics would return to a peaceful state for that period. Russia would be licking her wounds and China would continue as before, playing the long game. With the noticeable difference that Europe would be a strong world power, conducting trade and cooperation with China and the U.S. may well find herself in third place.

That’s what I keep doing, but you do not want to listen. I’ll repeat it in short. Pivot to Asia, the burden of Globalization, EU parasitism are the main premises of the reasoning. Russia is needed to contain China (Israel helps too) and keep it isolated from Europe. To Trump Russia looks enough depleted of power projection means and always jealous of the US attentions. While the EU looks too opportunistic about US economic and military support while being too snobbish about US global policing.
Now both the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and Israeli-Palestinian conflict must end to redirect energies where they need to be.

So this is what Trump is thinking? It’s still looney and quite a stretch.

These are details, Putin is still at the top of the pyramid. There is nothing else to be said. Unless you would like to demonstrate that Putin can be trusted.

And Putin wouldn’t invade if an agreement had been signed?
It doesn’t matter what argument is put forward, everything goes back to Putin. Someone who can’t be trusted.

Trump doesn't quite get it, because he cannot quite say publicly why Zelensky is insisting on fighting on: the US and UK urged him to fight on in March/April 2022, when a reasonable deal was about to signed concerning the neutral status of Ukraine.

A deal with Putin, yeah right.

Thucydides

SSU has covered this.

The small Baltic states and Poland would by now have been invaded, subjected to brutal abuse and assimilated into Russia by force. Or had Putin puppet governments installed, if they had not joined NATO. This why those countries requested NATO membership.

Making comparisons with other countries doesn’t account for these circumstances. Again we have been gaslit with Russian propaganda for decades on these issues. Propaganda behind which naked imperialist ambitions were played out.

Anyway, none of this matters.

There will be peace in Ukraine, and Europe won't be going to war with Russia, no matter how hard some disgruntled intellectuals might find it to swallow their words.

Correct, but Europe must re-arm quickly, this is why many people are shouting about the Russian threat. It takes a lot of effort to overcome the inertia that you hit when it actually comes to working out and funding how you are going to do it.
Russia’s special military operation is a failure. It has weakened her capabilities, reduced her to a pariah and resulted in the opposite of what it was supposed to achieve.
Russia had an opportunity to become a respected partner and actor on the world stage when Relations between the West and Russia were good following the fall of USSR. But it was all squandered and thrown away by a tinpot dictator. All it required was a bit of humility in accepting that the smaller now independent states that used to be in the USSR had a right to autonomy. They will have to wait another generation, or two now before they can come in from the cold.

It’s a myth that “we” said we wouldn’t expand NATO to the east.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/did-nato-promise-not-to-enlarge-gorbachev-says-no/

Also the idea that NATO is a threat to Russia, that there needs to be a buffer zone of neutral states between NATO and Russia are Kremlin talking points. A narrative used to mask Putin’s plans to invade and absorb all the previous states that formed part of USSR. An ambition thwarted if those states are members of NATO, a purely defensive alliance.

Canada might not be a good example, here as she may soon be annexed by an autocrat. She missed her chance to join USSR.

Anyway that moves away from the point I was making.

Yes, I agree, apart from the bit where we have managed our relations with Russia badly. But I return to my initial point that the root of the problem is with Communism and that the U.S. and nato actions are a symptom of that. The Cold War was a time when both U.S. and USSR meddled around the world with proxy wars etc. And as I say some of it might have been an overreaction, or heavy handed. But I don’t see how not doing that, or being only friendly to Russia would have avoided what happened in Putin’s head. Because the root cause is still in place and Russia will continue to spill out beyond her borders.
Going back to what I was saying about Europe. European countries did extend the arm of cooperation and friendship, including becoming involved economically and in terms of shared resources for a period of over 30yrs following the fall of USSR. But it turns out that economic involvement was exploited to fund the war chests for Putin’s wars with and infiltration of former soviet states. While developing the means to conduct a cyber war against the West.
On the other side of the argument is the idea that NATO expanded eastwards. Which brings us to the argument of whether peoples should be able to choose their own futures. All the countries that joined NATO following the fall of USSR asked freely to join, for purposes of defence. Because they as small states would be vulnerable to defeat by a strong Russia. Why would European countries deny them this opportunity to secure their safety and future as free countries?

You know you really have to look at this in a bit of a wider context. We are part of the reason why the situation has evovled the way it has because we excluded Russia from participating in the western world after the second world war. We stabbed them in the back after they had lost millions of people fighting on our side... because communism became the new big bad. And after the Iron curtain fell there was another chance to normalise realtions with them, instead we just pushed NATO (an alliance specially designed to keep them in check) up to their border, breaking our word that we wouldn't do it.

Maybe it's time to rectify that mistake? You have to create the conditions for stability, if we never try we will never have it.

I agree that the U.S. over reacted to the communist threat following WW2. But this wasn’t the root of the problem, it was a symptom. The root lies in Communism itself, it consists of a hidden hierarchy. Which is authoritarian by nature, because it marks its own homework and promotes people from within its own ranks. There is no accountability to the nation, or the people, just a mask, a facade of accountability, or democracy. This lie requires a secret police etc etc, KGB, Stazi, Gestapo.

The problem develops when this mentality becomes projected across borders into other countries.

Putin did spend a lot of time being courted by and working with European countries at the beginning of his reign and people thought it was a positive move towards normalisation, bringing Russia in from the cold. He even flirted with joining NATO. We were all getting along swimmingly for a while, but then weird things started happening and recriminations quickly developed into resentment and distrust.

It struck me when there was a diplomatic incident when Russians accused Britain of spying by hiding a camera in a stone, in 2006. Things went rapidly downhill from there. I’m not a Kremlinologist, but I expect Putin’s imperial ambitions were already developed by this point and he was already planning how to restore the USSR in its entirety. A plan which has been remorselessly carried out over the last 2 decades. The problem being that the entire continent’s of Asia and Europe were now subject the hidden ambition in one man’s head. A man who was enslaving his population and preparing to change the face of those continents to his will.

What can a bunch of peaceful democratic countries who find themselves in the scope of such ambitions do about it?

They need to check out Fort Knox quick. To check if there is any gold left.

But where does this idea come from that Trump wants to 'ally Russia'?

That's literally the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
— Tzeentch

Sure, it's very dumb, but if he's not trying that, then what the fuck is he doing?

If Trump is a genius and is playing a blinder in ending this war. We will see him turn the screw big time on Putin in the coming days. Perhaps after Zelenskyy has signed the mineral deal. So we will have our answer at that point. Alternatively if he follows a course of some kind of appeasement and continues to attack Europe then we will know that he is a Putin ally.

I struggling to see a difference between Trump and dictators. There seems to be no impediments to what he chooses to do.

I agree, although he hasn’t dismantled the democracy which elected him as yet. So his status is currently uncertain.

If you think that “integrated European army” is the likely result of Trump’s pressure and an integrated European army is precondition for the European strategic emancipation on world stage, then paradoxically Europeans should welcome Trump’s pressure. However Europe is not just Finland and Sweden, nor is their alliance going to compromise Trump’s agenda. And nationalism can be used also to break European cohesion, as it has been so far. Besides what European may need is not just an integrated army, but also an integrated military-industrial complex, and also a nuclear arsenal. Maybe the latter is even quicker to achieve.

Yes, paradoxically I think many Europeans do welcome it. That Europe is taking care of her own security. While regretting the cause of it and the political implosion of the U.S.
Your argument about nationalism in Europe was good in our last conversation and I didn’t have much of a counter argument. But now my argument is strong, that this crisis will weaken this nationalism and increase unity and cohesion across Europe. Some proponents of this nationalism are in disarray. They don’t know what to make of Trumps pivot to a Putin fanboy. Many of them while flirting with Russian talking points don’t take seriously the idea of swapping sides, so to speak. Nigel Farage is in this position in the U.K. There are Reform(his party) supporters abandoning Reform over the unpleasant taste of being aligned with Putin. More broadly nationalist support is based primarily on the immigration issue. Not some kind of appeasement, or support for Putin.

All this Putin stuff seems to have come from Trump, who isn’t a nationalist. Although hiding behind the banner of nationalism, he is a demagogue, who aspires to authoritarian rule. Politics doesn’t figure, it’s raw power.

It’s not being that widely reported on.
https://x.com/BarbMcQuade/status/1896943473120407962

What is the reason to walk away from your most powerful allies?

To become Rocket Man.

Or is it Icarus.


I’ve just heard an interview with general Sir Richard Sherriff (ex chief of the European arm of NATO). Who has his finger on the pulse. That the Russian army is in a bad way. They are putting disabled people and teenagers onto the from line and using civilian vans and vehicles, even golf trolleys to supply them and morale is low.

Things are moving fast..
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_25_673

Trump has just banned all protest on college campuses, on price of jail.

So Trump is in a position where he needs to ensure that Putin still needs him for as long as possible, to avoid that devastation, and Putin seeks the time of highest impact.

Yes, makes sense. There was a similar thing happening in the U.K. with the Tory party. Particularly Boris Johnson, who pushed the Brexit vote over the line.

Europe is not one subject. It can be conveniently fragmented by pushing domestic nationalism. And Europeans, especially the anti-American and pro-Russian nationalists are happy to fragment Europe. Now those very same anti-American and pro-Russian nationalists will get what they wished for. They are going to love it.

There is a dichotomy here, nationalism pulls together for the fight in a war. If the libertarians want to create division in Europe to weaken the EU. Forcing them to step up to defend a European country is not the way to do it. Indeed, the opposite will happen. It will probably end in an integrated European army. I’m reminded of what Sweden and Finland did following Putin’s invasion. Strengthening NATO. They (Sweden) are prepairing for war conducting exercises with Canadian forces. Looks as though the opposite of what Putin wanted is going to happen.

Now Norway is going to enable access to her €1.5trillion sovereign fund for aid to Ukraine. I wonder if the Nobel prize representatives are following events.
Now what was that tally I was doing;
EU; €700billion.
Frozen Russian assets; €300billion.
Norwegian sovereign fund; €1.5trillion.

Looks like we can go it alone after all.

My understanding is that on one side, the pivot to Asia, namely the incumbency of competing superpower like China, has been a strategic concern for the US politics for a good decade. So an economically/military weak Russia, subordinate to China (which is also eroding Russian influence on its eastern flank), in desperate need to regain its superpower status (like at the end of the Second World War) can be instrumental to the US in exchange for a strategic partnership. On the other side, Europe has spent 30 years of globalisation enriching themselves and the US enemies (Russia and China) at the expense of the US, instead of taking a greater responsibility in opening its market to the US, and defending the West through soft-power (instead of spinning populist anti-Americanism, complacency toward anti-Western sentiments in the Rest), and also by military means.

The Trump administration has fxcked up big time. By cutting USAID they have fallen at the first hurdle. The biggest threat from China over the last few decades has been their aid and investment strategies around the third world(amongst others). Now the influence the U.S. had in these arenas has been handed to China on a plate. While Russia is following China’s example in the African continent and we have the rise of BRICS.
Secondly they have misunderstood the motives in Europe. The failure of the TTIP negotiations wasn’t a failure on the part of the EU, it was them not falling over and becoming an economic vassal block via U.S. litigation which would be imported along with the goods. A colonisation through the economic back door. Also the deleterious effects the U.S. experienced as a result of globalisation were also felt by European countries. It affected all Western countries and is the primary reason why the EU is struggling economically at this time.
They will fall at the next hurdle if they alienate Europe and find they have no friends anymore. How sad, although, they will have Putin’s shoulder to cry on I suppose.

But wouldn't the US aligning with Russia create a situation where a disgruntled Europe is now more open to Chinese influence?

If you could choose between retaining an alliance with Europe and gaining one with Russia, why would you choose Russia?

It’s a distopian Oligarchian nightmare which would usher in our demise due to climate change.

There must be something I'm not seeing.

It might be quite simple really. That Trump wants to be a dictator like Trump, Xi, Kim Jong-un. That his administration is following the Orbanisation playbook asap so that he can prevent anymore elections.

It could also just be basic psychology. Trump sees Putin as being like him (an image that Putin no doubt did everything to reinforce) and thus he projects his own frustrations on Putin.

There seem to be many plausible ways to explain Trump's behaviour on this issue. What puzzles me much more, as I have written above, is why everyone else in the Trump administration is behaving the way they are.

Yes, maybe. The way I read it is that Putin has something disgusting on Trump and when he realised that he was going to have to push harder against Putin if he’s going to get a deal. He immediately went to the plausible deniability that it was a set up orchestrated by the Biden’s and that he isn’t as depraved as he appears in the video. He might even claim it’s a deepfake.

A new iron curtain would imply Ukraine is in NATO. I think the Ukrainians would be ready to accept that deal. But neither Russia or the current US administration would accept it.

Yes, but what alternative is there? The boundary has to be impermeable or Putin would infiltrate. Also the only way to guarantee Ukraine’s security is for her to be in NATO.
Putin might have no choice, there isn’t much he could do about it now. And the U.S. is trashing NATO and May even leave it. They can’t expect to dictate the direction of NATO in those circumstances.

The two sides are so far apart that it will require something this big to get anywhere near a deal.

Putin is weak and on the ropes.
— Punshhh

Nope.

I’m not going to labour the point, but is Putin so strong that he has ended up dug in, in eastern Ukraine. With Ukraine troops picking off his troops. Possibly up to 1,500 per day. Troops being one of Putin’s most scarce resources at the moment.

This is the bit where you tell me why the President during a heated row in the Oval Office in front of the worlds media, starts rambling on about dodgy laptops in hotel rooms, where disgusting things happened and that it was all a Biden scam.

I’m under no illusions about the nature of the U.S. I’d just rather have U.S. hegemony than the alternatives atm.

Yes the pragmatic solution is a ceasefire with the line drawn where the current frontline lies. With a new iron curtain erected. But we are a long way from that on both sides.
Ukraine can continue, with European support, even if the U.S. pulls out now. Also Trump is in a position to put considerable pressure on Putin, especially if he does a deal with Xi. This side of negotiations has not been reported on. I’m sure Xi would want a ceasefire now and this would be an opportunity to show strength on the global stage. Likewise if Trump forced Russia to end the war, the kudos would be enormous, something he would surely seek. But he is a petty two bit grifter, so probably can’t see that.

Trump has great power in this crisis, Putin is weak and on the ropes. Europe is ready to mobilise. The opportunities are enormous, but somehow I think Trump will make a mess of it. The biggest fail of all time.

But the Trump chaos is being steered in a more deliberate direction this time. Both internally and externally the goal seems to be to use Trump to engineer a breakdown of existing structures.

Yes, I agree, I suspect there is Kompromat on Trump which is being leveraged to pull his strings. Indeed there did seem to be a tell (when responding to Zelenskyy) in his ramblings about the way Putin had been attacked with a so called Biden scam. Referring to the Hunter Biden laptop, where he emphasised something disgusting happening in Hunter’s bedroom. I read this as there is something on a laptop disgusting in a bedroom, but Trump was on the tape rather than Hunter.

This inevitably results in a lot of chaos and shouting.

As I predicted.

There never was a deal. Putin had already pulled back from negotiations once the rare earth narrative was adopted. It’s all just Trump chaos.

Ouch, did I poke a bear, or something?

Look, I’m well aware of the points you raise. But I wasn’t addressing them, I was saying what the big story is, the big headline. That the post war settlement is coming to an end and a new settlement will be reached.

The U.S. and Russia have been sparring since the end of WW2. That was part of the Cold War narrative with occasional proxy wars, crises etc. It worked for a long period maybe 70 or 80yrs. That has now come to an end and the geopolitical tectonic plates are moving.

An important thing to remember in that settlement was the caretaker role of the US in Europe. This is why European countries haven’t developed powerful armies. This is why they have become complacent , always relying on Uncle Sam to do the heavy lifting. This suited both part parties. This was not likely to change much until Trump came along and trashed NATO. This combined with Putin’s imperial ambitions have changed the landscape and a new equilibrium will have to be found.

This inevitably results in a lot of chaos and shouting.

It's Schrödinger's war machine.

The story here is that Europe will now re-arm. This will take a decade or more. In the meantime Russia is weak and can be held at bay for that decade.
The fly in the ointment is the possibility that Trump will gift Ukraine to Putin. This will embolden Putin allowing him to replenish his army and threaten Europe before it re-arms and will have a destabilising effect on geopolitics.

In the meantime Russia is capable of throwing a vast amount of artillery at her opponent and is developing her drone capability quickly. A drone arms race is not good and needs to be choked off asap. This situation could become very expensive as Putin is throwing all his remaining money at it. This needs to be avoided and Trump throwing a spanner in the works really doesn’t help.

Memories of the McCarthy trials. Anti commy sentiment runs deep.

Europe's next.

Excuse me.
The U.S. is morally weak right now and Russia is bankrupt (her economy before the war was equivalent to a mid range European country).

Just heard from Sir Bill Browder that he was talking to EU leaders at the summit the other day, about releasing the frozen Russian Funds to support Ukraine.
Apparently it is being seriously considered which would add another €300billion to the war chest.

I don’t know who was responsible for delaying this move. Trump claims it was Belgium, but who would believe a word he says?