So, watching the video as a brit with a number if Ukrainian friends and colleagues, my first reaction is that this is the Trump Whitehouse looking for a cheap win.
However, I think their calculation here speaks to the difficulty of the current situation.
Putting aside the morality, sovereign integrity, and such: the situation appears to be entering/in a stalemate. The Ukrainian forces have done well to proactively take and hold Russian territory, and have held the line pretty well. However, there does not seem to be a play here that will conclusively end Russian occupation presently. The best case seems to be waiting out the supply of Russian troops, but the Ukrainian army doesn't have an endless supply of volunteers in this regard (I've worked with a few who have).
So the question has to be asked: how does this end decisively if neither side can win outright? And how much support is required to maintain the status quo?
I hate to say it, but I think they will likely have to lose territory. I think they could argue for greater security architecture (i.e. part of NATO but no nukes) to prevent repeat. But otherwise I can appreciate why the current administration is where its at.
There is precisely one solution, which is western troops on the ground in Ukraine.
Yes that’s terrifying, no it won’t lead to world war three.
Any other solution leads to widespread war across the globe.
As I’m fairly confident the west won’t put troops on the ground to fight russia, you can test my hypothesis by watching china start making moves on Taiwan in the short term, and then further wars breaking out over the next few years. I’ll go with several African countries, the Middle East (Jordan, Iran, Syria, Iraq), turkey, and once the Ukraine situation has settled multiple Eastern European countries. Worst case you’ll see the baltics invaded by Russia, I think there’s a good chance of that. Finland an outside bet.
I may be wrong, but I did anticipate the coup in turkey, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the election of trump.
Enjoy your life whilst you can. Conscription is coming. There will be a lot of western troop deployments. These are the good old days.
The west feels asleep at the wheel, and the next generations (including mine) have been so heavily insubordinated and worn down economically and spiritually that their capacity for envisioning a positive new future and policy seems minimal. Land grabs are back on the menu. The next generation of leaders has grown up on tiktok.
A young friend I know is a political "golden child" on the fast track to le4dership but only 3 years ago was talking about manosphere people and shoving tiktoks down my throat. I can't possibly communicate to you strongly enough how broken and emotionally stunted this coming generation is due to social media.
Happy I'm in tasmania, aus, learning to be a self sufficient young person. I'm living through the mistakes of the weak willed generations that came before me.
We have 5-10 years of bad enough normalcy left. The world, and us, the people in it, and our "common values" are going to be unrecognisable in 20 years.
I can't understand how we got so weak and unintelligent. Social media played a big role, and the elimination of anything except self aggrandisement in the popular culture, and the stupid labelling of anything a little nerdier as autistic or adhd or yada yada shows a society detaching itself from and losing patience for structured intelligence. Russia is behind a lot of this, and they place both sides. They bolster and distort transgender and autism communities etc as cultural weapons as much as they do conservative and libertarian ones. Their aim is to destroy the idea of the "normal" rational base.
To say russia is dumb, or slow moving is infantile. This is a calculating machine of evil which never rests and preys on the weakness and innocence of the west. I'm sure their propaganda divisions have their own cities at this point.
Read putins people and listen to londongrad s1 to understand just how hollow "western democratic institutions" are. Listen to WEF sexual escorts talk about how there's two camps of people who attend, one that believes climate change is going to end everyone, and the other that believes it almost will, and how the attendees gloat "tax the rich" as a joke as a running joke at bars. Read about how the ex IPCC head says there's a chance for 5°c warming. The world and the system you know is gone.
Funny, we were talking about where you should live to escape the attention of the superpowers and Tassie came up. A beautiful place.
I think we got here through the foolish release of unfettered capitalism after being spoilt by peace in the western for so long. Thatcher/Reagan decided there was no such thing as society, and then went about making it so.
This created the anger and resentment amongst people left behind by the actions of so many corporations. Essentially, neoliberalism.
The second major part of the problem has been social media (although arguably just another consequence of corporate greed), which has enabled the harnessing of that anger. It has also created complete polarisation, as exemplified by the AGI is here we are all going to die / AI is a complete con split (to give a HN example).
The solution, as always, is for the rich and the powerful (including, say, academics and civil servants) to change their ways. But once institutions are failed and governments and companies are corrupt, that is very hard (impossible?) to do.
> I think they could argue for greater security architecture (i.e. part of NATO but no nukes) to prevent repeat. But otherwise I can appreciate why the current administration is where its at.
The current administration is redundantly clear that it won't allow Ukraine to join NATO to avoid antagonize Russia.
Yeah, I think they'll fold on that point, too, but the main stumbling block for Ukraine is that Russian guarantees mean little in a post-2021 invasion context given they made the same overtures after 2014.
The idea of the entire country becoming a DMZ just smacks of Putin lining up the next play and a Russian-leaning leader put in Zelenskis place.
Now EU, sans USA, needs UA, because EU is militarily weak.
If UA falls, EU will fall also; it cannot stop Vladimir, and this before considering the massiive impact of drones, which only RU and UA know how to operate effectively.
EU+UA is enough to keep UA up and this protects EU.
All in all, EU will keep UA up, however it is done, and in the end it will require EU military involvement. Maybe we get there sooner now, rather than later.
I think the capability to retake lost UA terrain belongs to USA and massive military buildup in UA.
EU military in UA keeps UA up just fine, but doesn't retake terrain - not enough military force for that.
Ends up with cease-fire, and UA not in NATO, as USA/HU/SK will prevent it, but probably security guarantees and troops on ground from rest of EU.
Everyone then settles down to the next cold war (and RU economy post-war spends a while in strong recession, taking immediate pressure off).
Problem is, Vladimir effectively subverts Western elections through social media.
How do you have free and fair elections with that going on?
Many characterize Putin's current position as taking as much territory as possible, while staying in the game long enough for US political climate to change. So I'd posit back, how would Putin's posture change if the US right was as aligned as the left on supporting Ukraine as long as it took? I suspect he would have taken a deal long ago.
Trump wants it to look as though he is the one making the deal happen, but the reality is he's the only reason it has not happened already. IMHO.
I agree with your point about Putin waiting for the WH administration to change. Were the president hawkish on Russia, however, I still doubt Putin would back down.
Putin needs to be seen to win at home to play to his core base. Biden wouldn't let him, Trump will, but to Putin that means:
1. Control of annexed territory.
2. No Ukrainian nukes.
3. No NATO/EU membership for Ukraine.
4. Zelenski removed and puppet/anti-democratic leader installed.
What we're hearing post-meeting is Trump laying the groundwork for point 4 and taking a firm position on 1.
I think what we have in Trump is a quintessentially weak leader. weak in a sense that he is easily led.
Whoever speaks the most authoritatively with him last is who gets to set his direction.
Vance set the stage in that session, and Trump ran onto the stage and tried to make sure he was in the spotlight the whole time.
Putin's aim is the complete destruction of Ukraine as a nation and the removal of the current democratically elected administration. Until that he can be only stopped with force.
> I hate to say it, but I think they will likely have to lose territory. I
I don't think it's territory what Putin wants. Even without its current territories, if Ukraine turns out to be successful and recover in the next 10 years, what will this mean to the Russian population? A total and absolute surrender of Ukraine is the end goal. No EU, no NATO, just another vassal-president and things go on like they were before 2022, but this time with half-destroyed country.
This war should have never started, I actually agree with Trump on this. But for that to happen, NATO should have entered Ukraine the first week after Putin did. And to those in Europe that argue against it, I would only say - are we better off now?
However, I think their calculation here speaks to the difficulty of the current situation.
Putting aside the morality, sovereign integrity, and such: the situation appears to be entering/in a stalemate. The Ukrainian forces have done well to proactively take and hold Russian territory, and have held the line pretty well. However, there does not seem to be a play here that will conclusively end Russian occupation presently. The best case seems to be waiting out the supply of Russian troops, but the Ukrainian army doesn't have an endless supply of volunteers in this regard (I've worked with a few who have).
So the question has to be asked: how does this end decisively if neither side can win outright? And how much support is required to maintain the status quo?
I hate to say it, but I think they will likely have to lose territory. I think they could argue for greater security architecture (i.e. part of NATO but no nukes) to prevent repeat. But otherwise I can appreciate why the current administration is where its at.
Its a sorry situation all around.