Friends, DJT held a rally last night in South Carolina in which he pointed out that, as President, he had been extremely "tough" on Russia, but, at the same time, he would seek to end Russia's current invasion of Ukraine by engaging in dialogue with Vladimir Putin. Trump hastened to add that, if he were still President, Putin never would have invaded in the first place. All in all, there's a lot to digest in these comments. The Trump Administration did institute some tough sanctions against Russia -- tougher than anything the Obama Administration pursued -- and it supplied weapons, for the first time, to Ukraine. On the other hand, Trump was notoriously skeptical of NATO, and perhaps Putin may have felt it was far less likely that Ukraine would be enrolled in the Western military alliance as long as Trump was in charge. Trump was also respectful towards Putin in their various meetings, a fact that the Western press viewed as confirmation of Trump's (alleged) subservience to Putin. Probably Putin appreciated the fact that Trump was cordial, and he has repeatedly complimented Putin's intelligence and savvy (to the Left's consternation, naturally). What do you think? Would Trump have allowed our position in Afghanistan to deterioriate in such a rapid and humiliating way, as Biden did? Would Putin have felt comfortable invading Ukraine with Trump looking over his shoulder? Would he have felt such an invasion was necessary? Of course, we'll never know for sure...
https://nypost.com/2022/03/12/trump-says-he-would-be-speaking-to-putin-to-avoid-wwiii/
In other news, both the Ukrainians and the Russians are reporting progress in their talks aimed at resolving the current conflict. This is most intriguing. It's also not a huge surprise to me, since I would imagine virtually all stakeholders can see how destructive and dangerous this war could become, if it continues. Fingers crossed for a settlement that will return us, more or less, to the status quo ante, but will remove the irritant of potential Ukrainian memebership in NATO once and for all. And, if both sides can't agree right away on the formula for peace, perhaps we could have a ceasefire in the interim?
https://www.newsmax.com/headline/russia-ukraine-negotiations/2022/03/13/id/1060951/
Dr. Waddy from Jack: The talks were reported today to have broken off . But the occurence already of multiple meetings gives hope of more. Meanwhile, why do we hesitate? Guarantee the Russians that we will oppose Nato membership for Ukraine ! That is ours alone to decide. We would have to convince them that we would uphold such an agreement. President Trump would be a good spokesman for us in this though far leftist controlled Biden would never agree to his ambassadorship. He might as well, for the good of his country, since his domestic discreditation is
ReplyDeletealmost assured in Nov.by domestic issues; he will find no redemption in "rally'round the flag" hopes. The real America feels his far leftist presumption in very objective and comprehensive ways now!! With this central issue, Ukraine in Nato,removed, negotiation between Russia and Ukraine might prosper.
Dr. Waddy from Jack : Putin and President Trump probably sized each other up as hombres! That might well have given Putin pause. But meanwhile President Trump unwisely helped arm Ukraine. With the advent of Kumbayaa Biden, badass Putin saw his opening to the closure of a long suppurating sore! Russia had reached the very limit of its astounding endurance of Western geographical investment since 1989!How naive of any in the West not to recognize the inevitability of forceful Russian reaction! You don't do that to a country like Russia without VERY compelling reasons and we do not have them.Its time for us to step off, as Russia wisely did in '62. Give Russia that guarantee and thereby perhaps prevent further tragedy in Ukraine and even beyond. Have you ever faced a physical opponent motivated by absolute determination to defeat you? I have and I know you must have motivation equal to his! We do not! Ukraine is not our hill to fight on though we must be blithe to help them rebuild. We goaded them, with good will but with consummate wrongheadedness!
ReplyDeleteJack, I suppose we could preempt the current negotiations by pulling the rug out from under Ukraine's bid to join NATO, but I suspect that would (rightly) be seen as a cynical betrayal of the Ukrainians. It's better, in my opinion, if they take NATO off the table themselves. Better still would have been a decision to do so BEFORE Russia invaded!
ReplyDeleteJack, that is a very fair point that Trump may have erred in giving weapons to Ukraine. We (in the West) sent a clear message to the Ukrainians that we had their backs. We never did, in point of fact. They took the ball and ran with it. The blame is on us for deceiving them, and on them for being naive enough to believe that, in the final analysis, anyone would help them fight Russia. Plenty of miscalculations to go around, some of them Putin's too. And that's how you get a world war, after all: lots of lots of bad judgement!
Dr. Waddy from Jack: We wronged Ukraine with our overconfidence. It was well intended but terribly wrongheaded. Should Ukraine have known this? Given it s close historical relationship with Russia, it is reasonable to question Ukraine's judgement. How could they not have expected decisive action from Russia should they express a hope to join Nato? Perhaps it was completely understandable visceral antipathy to Russian rule which bred in Ukraine some hope it could escape the Russian sphere, with our help! We encouraged that perhaps forlorn thought. We must make amends and accept the opprobrium we deserve (despite our good intentions: Shaw once had one of his Kings say " you know, its you 'GOOD' people who do all the great wrongs"). I do not subscribe to that Shavian cynicism in its entirety but it does have merit (witness the good who enable our destructive far left). We can do our best for Ukraine by now being completely frank with them in private: "We will not fight Russia unless it attacks Nato. We will not support Nato membership for Ukraine; we are not willing to endure the possibility of our having thus brought about war for us with Russia. We urge you to assure Russia you will not seek to join Nato, ever. We declare all willingness to help you rebuild. We regret our ill considered expressed willingness to support Ukraine even as far as lethal aid. We will seek always to be a wisely considered friend to Ukraine short of conflict with Russia which we cannot risk short of obvious threat to our own fundamental safety". Our past conduct is a thing of shame for us: we can best make up for it by learning from it and not repeating it. We are very powerful but not omnipotent! Let us,as a civilized nation, admit our fault in this and do right!
ReplyDeleteWhat Trump showed the other night was how much of an autocrat he desires to be. Firing anyone in the government on a whim?
ReplyDeleteBut, to the point of today's post, Putin was banking on Trump being around in the second term. He knew Trump would be pulling the U.S. out of NATO, thus letting Putin have an easier time taking Ukraine. I imagine there would have been a transactional cost for Putin, likely Trump Tower Kyiv (or the Russian spelling Kiev), Trump Tower Mariupol and Trump Tower Odessa. Plus Trump would have a major tournament of the new Arabian golf tour at his Lviv country club.
The U.S. needs to be out of NATO anyway, regardless of what Trump thinks, period. The Europeans need to be responsible for their own defense and are capable of doing so. This should have been done 30 years ago when the Soviet Union went out of existence. Just think of how all of that money could have been spent in our own country instead of the Euro-Weenies.
DeleteAs far as The Ukraine is concerned, it is another corrupt country that has been invaded by another corrupt country, in this case Russia. So piss on Europe? How does NATO affect your personal well being? Do you enjoy paying more for gas because of the stupidity of the current administration?
Jack, we may well say all those things to Ukraine...privately. Sadly, we would never say them publicly, because that would be admitting fault -- and, worse than fault, weakness. We don't owe Ukraine any military assistance, in my view. We do owe them an apology. We've led them down a very bleak path.
ReplyDeleteHa! Rod, you assume Putin was waiting for Trump to take the U.S. out of NATO before he attacked Ukraine? But...he decided to attack anyway, even though Joe Tough-As-Nails Biden is in charge instead? Boy, what a gross error in judgement! He's in big trouble now! And, pray tell, what makes you think a U.S. president could unilaterally cancel an alliance even if he wanted to? And what makes you think that Trump, even though he did no such thing in his first term, would have been certain to do so in his second? Silly question, I know: it's true, because you want it to be.
I agree with Ray: Trump SHOULD HAVE taken us out of NATO. He didn't, just as he failed to follow through on almost all his idle threats. It's very possible that Trump would have prevented Putin from invading Ukraine, but that's probably because Putin would have felt Trump respected him and Russia's interests. Putin sees Biden, by contrast, as inveterately anti-Russian AND weak. A bad combo.
Nick, Trump's main concern as president was to get re-elected. So, a move out of NATO in the first term would have been an election issue. He already had enough issues to deal with. But, in the second term, given that he would be term-limited, he would do as much as he could get away with.
ReplyDeleteBTW, the whole bit about Trump being so tough on Putin is a myth. His sanctions were essentially toothless. For example, when in 2018 he issued sanctions to limit any loans to Russia, he did so even though 1) Russia didn't need them as it was flush with cash and 2) U.S. banks hd already been phasing out investment in Russia (from $45 billion to $10 billion).
Trump didn't and doesn't respect Putin. He compliments him because Putin is willing to be transactional.
Finally, Biden is not anti-Russian. He is anti-Putin. Biden is very supportive of the Russian people.
Putin may see Biden as weak, but the sanctions Biden has imposed, and persuaded allied nations to support, are light years tougher than Trump ever used or threatened to use.
Get some new material! You keep yapping about how much you love Biden and how much you hate Trump.
DeleteYou don't have any ideas of your own that have nothing to do with Biden or Trump?
Your rants and raves about Biden/Trump are getting real fucking boring.
You have no mind of your own?
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I doubt Biden has much independent or freely expressed thought about Russia, even now. He is controlled by the American far left; they have created of Russia a disingenuously conceived domestic threat to us, perhaps even inspired by Russian resentment of Nato expansion They intend to stand true by this in order to protect their fatuous "Green New Deal" from attack due to its obvious, preinvasion, leftist celebrated inflation and ruinous gas prices, all for irrefutable (but yet unproven)"environmental" dictates!"Why of course its the fault of Russia, yes? Oh yes!
ReplyDeleteOh do say so!!" Its an appalling thought that our very national security (say eh, from nuclear attack) is now in the hands of a marionette managed by the America hating far left!
Dr Waddyfrom Jack :I think Nato would have been wise to stop at having included a united Germany. Think what that would have meant to Russia! "Oh no, not the Krauts again,not all that!" And that alone might have suppressed any weakened Russian intent to regain its Stalin robbed Eastern European buffer. Instead, we unwisely challenged Russia in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania.
ReplyDeleteRod, I would agree with you that essentially ALL the sanctions against Russia pursued by the Obama and Trump administrations were meaningless/superficial. Nonetheless, Trump's sanctions were tougher than Obama's. And Russia did INVADE Ukraine once before, under Obama, and we did essentially nothing. Seems to me that, if you're Putin, and you want to know how the West will respond to aggression, your best guide is the past -- and, handily, Biden was part of that past. Now, you're right that Biden and NATO have shown a lot more backbone than Putin probably expected. Unfortunately, by their constant missteps they also backed us into a morass which may swallow civilization whole. Oops.
ReplyDeleteRay, Rod did say some interesting and original things, as a matter of fact. He said that Putin was willing to be "transactional". No shit! That's another way of saying that Putin is RATIONAL. And rational actors can be managed/handled. Or, rather, they can and should be, if our side is acting rationally/intelligently, too.
Jack, yes -- it's hard to know what, if anything, Biden thinks/feels in relation to Russia. Before Hillary fixated on Russia as Trump's Achilles' heel, it seems to me, the Left had no special grudge against Russia. Now...it's a different story! I still can't fathom it, especially in the light of their indifference to China's crimes.
Jack, I'll do you one better: Russia should have insisted that a united Germany should have remained outside of NATO and decidedly neutral. That would have been perfectly sensible and would have stopped short this headlong rush by NATO to Russia's border. Russia, though, in those days lacked the will to demand much of anything. Now it's paying the price (and inflicting it on others) for those few decades of frailty and inattention.
Dr.Waddy from Jack:What you said above about Germany above has much merit. I would suggest though that under any circumstance ,including a windfall of Russian relative weakness,it is reckless in the extreme to presumptuously toy with Russia over Ukraine(Ukraine itself)!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Russia is simply not made of the stuff to abide being hit when it was down. Theytook their time but now we are reaping the whirlwind spun by our terrible folly and so , most terribly, is Ukraine.
ReplyDeleteQuite right, Jack: any objective, fair-minded reading of history would reveal that the Russians are not always good, and not always bad, but it's extreme folly to take them lightly. In that regard, no one should be under any illusion: if Russia decides that the destruction of Ukraine is necessary to its survival, then Ukraine will be destroyed. By contrast, if we want Ukraine to survive, then there's only one way to achieve that end: to make it worth Russia's while to spare it.
ReplyDelete