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?

Yes 1983 was the point of real danger.

Baerbock let it slip the other day that the EU is prepairing €700billion aid package for Ukraine. Apparently it was being kept quiet until after the German election. Looks like Europe is going to step up to the plate after all.
It was always going to happen, with or without US help. The day Putin threatened Europe with nuclear attack the day of the invasion, European history changed. Now they will re-arm and take care of their own security.

The Manchurian Candidate has finally been activated. Well played, Mr Putin!

This gives Putin legitimacy in his claim that this is Europe’s war, by encouraging and giving military support to Ukraine. Alongside EU expansionism.

Maybe Trump, in his own moronic way, stumbles to putting an end to the war that the US both instigated and prolonged. I doubt it, but who knows?

Although I am dead against the war and was shocked when Putin invaded. I realise that it was a fatal strategic error for Putin. His army is now depleted in arms and feet on the ground. His economy in tatters and all the lucrative energy deals with Europe ended. He is far less a potential threat to Europe and the West than he was before the war.

There is a longer background of US involvement here, I know.

Remember when Biden cancelled the border wall then two years later his own party begged him to restart it again? I bet life was a breeze not having to pay attention back then.

Remember when Trump put kids in cages.

It seems that all agencies will now have a Doge minder.

https://bsky.app/profile/joshtpm.bsky.social/post/3lhx4akbffs2z

That would mean 30-40% of Republicans plus a mass of independent voters don't care about rule of law. I think it's actually higher than that.

Maybe they think it’s corrupt, therefore can’t be trusted.
There’s also this thing where they know that what Trump does is wrong and there will be some economic pain etc. But it’s necessary to make American great again, or to break out of the malaise.

I love watching the USAID debacle unfold. It proves a few things.

The whole intersectional and progressive grip on culture throughout the world is largely astroturfed, payed for by American tax-payer dollars. It is forced; there is nothing organic about it.

Americans have been thanklessly funding foreign NGOs, media, Universities, and subsidizing the aid of other wealthy countries, like Australia.

Hidden beneath the facade of humanitarian benevolence is routine imperialism. “Experts” who lament a lack of access to such a piggy bank are now fearful China will step in to fill the void.

What you describe was the post war settlement. It worked ok for a few decades, until it ran out of steam as a result of the rise of China.
Now the US is committing Hari kari as a response and geopolitics is again in flux.
Fortunately Russia was broken before Trump’s second term, or things would be far worse now.
For me now the question is, will the new world order have two, or three competing superpowers? And will the US be one of them?

I’m a bit late to the thread. Just to put you at ease, mathematical infinities are not the same thing as philosophical infinities. They are precisely defined and used as means to perform mathematical equations. Which is pretty much what sime has said.

I live near the US airbase in Norfolk U.K. on the night when the drones were flying above us here there was a lot of military aircraft activity. While in the media there were just a handful of reports of unknown drone activity around airbases, then it went quiet.
This suggests two things;
It’s being played down, a security blackout.
The drones weren’t being shot down even though with the number of aircraft up there I would expect even one or two to be shot down. Again media blackout.

I would go with SSU’s suggestion, manoeuvres testing of military hardware. Or it’s the Ruski’s and it’s being kept quiet.

Considering the increasing use of drones in the conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine, it has dawned on me that this is the future of warfare. There I was thinking there would be armies of robots fighting wars, when in fact it will be swarms of drones.

I am optimistic about the present and future generations of people. 81% of Spaniards consider climate change, desertification, and CO2 serious issues, and we want to change the situation to better and live in a less polluted country. But I wonder whether we approached this issue too late or not.

As the climate in Europe becomes more unstable and intense, it is going to become increasingly more difficult to grow enough food to feed the population. Adaptation will be vital in fighting food insecurity. In the longer term it is much more serious, when AMOC collapses we will be in for a rollercoaster of unknown climatic changes.

I'm so envious! I listen to Max Richter at least once a week. Also Nils Frahm.

Yes, Nils Frahm too, of course.

I love his soundtrack for The Leftovers.

Yes, likewise.

I saw Max Richter in concert last night. He played the album, Blue notebooks, which he wrote 20yrs ago in protest against the Iraq war.
Sublime experience.