Trump Might Be Feeling Pressure For Protecting Putin--But Not From Those Who Matter

Hi All,

In case you missed it, I had a piece come out in The Atlantic on the Ukrainian drone attack (Operation Spiderweb) on Russian airbases. Here is a gift link if you want to have a look for free. The piece is as much about the impact of the attack on other militaries as it is on the attack itself. It seems that even the skeptics have now reached the stage of accepting that legacy military equipment (large tanks, vehicles of all types, warships, aircraft) are becoming dangerously vulnerable to smaller, cheaper defensive systems. Drones/UAVs are just part of this btw. As I was the first person to try and kickstart this debate, after the full-scale invasion, in The Atlantic as well—a gift link to that is here, its a question that I am thinking about more and more these days—particularly as European states are now going to spend more and more money trying to defend themselves. There will be some more pieces for subscribers on this in the coming weeks—maybe the end of this week if I feel I can say something useful by then.

Before I start getting into this question in more detail, however, I thought it might be interesting for me to breakdown the US political situation when it comes to sanctions on Russia and aid to Ukraine, and to point out the group you really need to watch to see if Trump is changing position (so far he is not—and the reporting that he is seems to me to be entirely misguided). That being said, Trump is clearly feeling some pressure as he stands loyally by Putin and protects the Russian dictator from the wishes of a majority of the US population and Congress.

Senators Graham (right) and Blumenthal (left) meeting President Zelensky this week. Graham does not matter in Trump’s inner circle.

There Is Overwhelming US Political and Popular Support To Support Ukraine

If the US were operating normally, you would say that more support for Ukraine and harsher sanctions on Russia were as close to a sure thing as anything in American politics can be.