I don't doubt that about Trump, but if you're going to throw around claims of bravery and cowardice, as as we're here, the University of St Andrews is about 1,250 miles from the front lines in Ukraine.
“From February 2022 until January 2025 I was as critical about the Biden Administration’s fears of escalation as practically anyone. They were far too deferential to Putin…”
That problem did not start with the Biden administration; being too deferential towards Russia and hypocritical in what limited assurances were offered to Ukraine has really been a fixture of US policy since the Sowiet Union collapsed.
See e.g. this book: Alexander Vindman, “The folly of realism”.
There is a book here (and I might write it) about the catastrophe of US foreign policy since 2001. And Obama certainly bears alot of the responsibility
Add me to that list, Norbert. It usually takes about 60 years for governments to declassify and make public their documents. I've had so many questions about what's been going on inside, both in Europe and the US. Of course Prof. O'Brien wouldn't know the contents of the classified material, but surely he knows stuff the rest of us don't.
Alexander Vindman, whose book I mentioned in this thread, knows a lot from his time as the Director of European Affairs for the United States National Security Council (NSC), and is otherwise well-connected to many key people. He’s the kind of person who has no need to wait for documents to get declassified before he can form a well-informed opinion in regard to what was going on. His book is IMO a good source of information on what people in the US government were thinking and why the US acted as it did in relation to Ukraine, from the late 1980s (when the Soviet Union was starting to disintegrate) until 2023. For my tastes, his analysis is a mite too ideological though; I believe that Phillips O'Brien would do a better job in that regard.
I think Fukuyama’s ‘End of History’ did an excellent job of capturing the American mindset going into 9/11, and in many ways presaged the degree to which US foreign policy in the 21st century has been fundamentally unmoored.
Fundamentally, we deceived ourselves into thinking that the .great game ended with German reunification, and we further deceived ourselves into thinking that the counterterrorist project was an expression of some gestalt of world governance… while the great game continued.
Obama was a foreign policy disaster. (see Ukraine, Syria, Iran…..) He was full of virtue signalling and then turning his back on victims when the bullets started flying.
Let's keep Obama in perspective compared to his predecessor. George. W. Bush committed the worst American strategic blunder of my lifetime, the invasion and occupation of Iraq. And he ruined the lives of the people of Iraq, who experienced ethnic cleansing, guerilla warfare, a broken economy, and loss of essential services such as electricity and water.
Sure, Obama could have done better. But, he didn't do anything close to as monumentally stupid as his predecessor. So, I disagree with calling his administration a "foreign policy disaster".
There has been a fair amount of propaganda about how terrible Obama was, blowing up his very real mistakes into more than they were (see Hunter Biden propaganda).
Not true. It was the Republican congress that refused to give Obama what the country needed—more stimulus checks, because it didn't want him to get credit for a recovery. The country could have come out of that recession faster. The American middle class has never fully recovered, even after 17.5 years.
And secondly but related, T. did not fall from the sky. He was the result of decades of neoliberalism, which caused grotesque wealth inequality, which exists to this day, not just in the US, but all over the world, all of which is fueling a rise of illiberalism, fascism. See: European countries, which for the last dozen or so years, just like the US, have been hanging onto democracy by the skin of their teeth. Good God, Poland is on the verge of committing collective suicide, as are other countries. Austerity is never the answer to economic recession or depression. It makes people miserable, which then makes them more vulnerable to propaganda (See the 1929 stock market crash and Great Depression, which caused a fringe political party in Germany with otherwise no hope of coming to power—it gained only 2.6% of the votes in the 1928 Reichstag elections—to come to power and by 1932 to gain a plurality of of votes so that its leader could negotiate with the president to have himself appointed chancellor). Added to that in the US were decades of propaganda fueled by the kind of racist talk that has been with the US since time immemorial.
For balance see also 'Hubris' by Prof Jonathan Haslan or 'The Lost Peace' by Prof Richard Sakwa. For context read 'Not One Inch' by Mary Sarotte. All available on audible for a free credit if you wish to properly educate yourself about the origins of this horrendous and thoroughly provoked war.
Ah, the 'provocation' of Ukraine trying to securely extricate itself from Russia's hallowed sphere of imperialism. And, to boot, creating a risk of a contagion of democracy infecting the Russia empire from just across the border.
No, the origins of this utterly unprovoked war of invasion lie in Russia's centuries-old and outdated traditions of autocracy, imperialism and brutalism (indifferent even to their own casualties). That's how old Moscovy grew to the size of South America today. It's an unmistaken common strain running though the tzars, communists, and now neonazi Putinists; and also explains the monumental cockup they made of their brief flirtation with democracy and privatisation in the Gorbachev era.
OK then - educate myself with what? I just gave your three well sourced references detailing actual events of the last 40 years and you give me a ranty version of the partial-at-best Establishment narrative. F*** off.
So no actual response then. Just the old go-away-and-read-this-stuff-till-you-agree-with-me line. That line being the establishment Russonazi narrative.
You just told me to educate myself & I asked you with what? The West gave the RF all sorts of guarantees about not expanding NATO Eastwards and since then treated them with distain. Now they're fighting them to the last Ukrainian. Your simpleton history ignores 40 years of much more relevant events. Go back to your crayons.
Educate yourself by reading and regurgitating something other than Kremlin handbooks.
No such agreements were made with Russia. And why should they have? Russia had wrongly extended its empire to much of eastern Europe; it had no right to be there in the first place once the dust had settled after WW2. And with Moscow's 800 year record of imperialist aggression against its neighbours, its neighbours were understandably keen to avoid being recolonised/resubjugated, keen to not be resubjected to Russia's sphere of imperialism. Defence against which, was the very purpose for which Nato was created.
And Russia was not and is not being threatened by anyone. It's just its unprovoked aggression that is being opposed.
Your simpleton rejection of the obvious history of the last 40 years is ridiculous. Go back to your Kremlin handbooks.
Get with the programme Rupert. The story around here is that it's Putin's desire to become the modern incarnation of either Catherine or Peter the Great. That pact was significant of course, but as just one of many examples to the Russians why they shouldn't take agreements with the West seriously and to prepare to make their case on the battlefield. The trouble for the West now is that Putin is nowhere near as militarily incompetent as Stalin or his generals as profligate with their troops as Zukov et al.
“The trouble for the West now is that Putin is nowhere near as militarily incompetent as Stalin or his generals as profligate with their troops as Zukov “
"He is absolutely terrified of doing anything to anger Putin."
I think this is probably more relevant than escalation fears. I think Trump is less motivated by fear of starting WWIII and more out of fear that Ukraine might humiliate or beat his ally and inspiration, Putin. I wouldn't be surprised if Kellogg is referencing fears about nuclear escalation because that's easier to sell / is less embarrassing to admit than 'Trump actually just wants Putin to win'.
I think that is right--though it is worth noting how Trump has also been afraid of escalation--a bit of a reminder to those who claimed Trump would be tough on Russia.
Or maybe what Trump is really afraid of is Putin and Putinism being seen as having lost the war, and pro-democracy and pro-rule-of-law movements everywhere (including in the US) getting corresponding uplift?
I think he may be afraid to do it as he's got a wife and kids and doesn't want to see them die horribly in a nuclear exchange. You seem indifferent to those kind of concerns - just like you're indifferent to the Ukrainian casualties your policies are producing.
Are we sure Trump is afraid of Russian nuclear threats?
I would think "acting as if you are afraid of Russian nuclear threats" gives Russia more power. As such "acting to be afraid" is something a Russian asset would do.
Note that we actively want our children to succeed and yet we fear the stupid actions that they may take. Trump wants to guide Putin towards success, but he fears that Putin will not be guided.
Trump has made it clear to both Putin and Zelensky his vision of a proper settlement of the war, but neither will accept his guidance. Zelensky wisely yields to Trump regarding incidentals, such as peace talks in Turkey or a minerals agreement that may not be worth the paper it's written on, but he holds his ground on essentials.
Trump's metaphor of "two kids bickering in the park" applies far more to his puerile spat with Elon Musk than it does to Russian aggression in Ukraine, as he initially intended it to. Illustrating, once again, his appalling lack of moral compass and the disastrous image he projects of the so-called " leader of the free world".
Trump's infantile mischaracterization certainly seemed to shock the press & analysts in Europe. Good. Yet they will not stop chasing the folly that Trump is poised to impose sanctions. Same thing with Republicans hostile to RU - they continue to claim that Trump will ultimately see the light.
The delusion of a Trump capable of turning on Putin will never die it seems.
The 'Free World' was always a fairytale for dimwits - it hasn't died with Trump - it died in Gaza - a genocide the Professor has not criticised here. Boring War indeed.
When will the Europeans start using the frozen russian assets-not just the interest? Perhaps they could suggest a "consequence based" withdrawal. For every hybrid/gray zone incident on the European Union (or america), extract maybe 100,000,000 of the capital. If trump is not going to EVER sanction putin (which his "watering down" of Lindsay Graham's bill is confirming) this could be a sanction like effort that the russians get to "make a choice". Put it to European rearmament and bolstering Ukraine
Ya, I think those frozen assets ought to be the focus of attention. Without that financial backing, I fear UKR remains in uphill fight to grow its domestic arms industry soon & sufficiently.
The euro reluctance is purely financial self interest. They have no intention of returning the money to RU. It is destined to be the rebuilding fund for UKR - relieving Europe of that post war burden. Trouble is the money is desperately needed NOW so there is a country to rebuild.
If this hypothesis is correct, it needs to be ongoing payments; anything that has only happened in the past is not effective with someone like Trump who has a habit of not honouring his debts. For example, cf. Krugman’s assessment of the Trump-Musk conflict https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/wake-up-and-smell-the-corruption
There is no need for payments if you have someone with the balls.
What comes to mind is compromat or some financial construction that allows Putin to ruin Trump and his beloved ones or a Russian agent being married to someone close to Trump threatening violence.
So many ways that must be known to a former KGB agent.
“Compromat” is IMO totally implausible to be the issue: Trump has already been found by US courts of law to be (in the colloquial sense to the term) a rapist and to have committed criminal acts by falsifying business records. Everyone who cares about such things already knows about this and also that he is corrupt in very major ways, that according to a former wife of his (Ivana) he had a book of speeches of Adolf Hitler on his bedside table in order to learn how to succeed in politics, and that (while married to someone else: Melania) he had sex with a porn star whose silence he afterwards attempted to buy for quite a lot of money. What kind of kompromat could possibly exist that could (in Trump’s eyes) be worse than all that taken together!?
“some financial construction that allows Putin to ruin Trump and his beloved ones” is IMO also totally implausible in view of all the corruption money that Trump is raking in for example through his “meme coins”.
“a Russian agent being married to someone close to Trump threatening violence”? Trump could quite easily have the agent thrown into jail, and kept there. In contrast to most of what Trump is doing, that would in fact be entirely legal and legitimate.
In conclusion, although in general I agree that “so many ways that must be known to a former KGB agent”, in this particular situation I see only two plausible explanations for Trump’s astonishingly extreme pro-Putin stance: Either (as neroden suggested) Russia is somehow continually buying Trump’s cooperation with quite significant amounts of money. Or otherwise Trump truly cares about Putin winning this war. (Maybe because Trump hates democracy, maybe because he hates Zelenskyy but admires Putin [Putin is a true mafia state boss, something that Trump only aspires to], maybe for multiple reasons together.)
What if the “kompromat” is not an “ordinary” crime, but something vile, treasonous, or which the orange clown is simply deeply embarrassed of? It is plausible, though not likely, I think.
I agree, I'm sure it's ongoing payments. We have records of some of the previous payments (buying Trump properties at 4 times market value through straw buyers, getting him loans laundered through Deutsche Bank when he wasn't creditworthy, etc.)
But I don't know what the CURRENT payment stream is. Maybe it involves Trump's crypto scams?
While I’m not sure, and while I tend to think that Trump’s general anti-democracy attitude and and a desire to punish Zelenskyy (who had defied Trump’s demand in relation to Biden Jr) probably also play a role, this is now also in my eyes the most plausible explanation. (It isn’t really all that plausible to me that maybe somehow Trump truly cares about Putin winning this war so much that that would overcome Trump’s general lack of ability to give enduring attention to anything that isn’t directly about himself.) Well if the information is correct that Russia is headed towards a severe fiscal crisis, chances are that any such payments from Russia would stop at that time, and it will then be publicly visible whether Trump’s attitude changes significantly.
“Trump's crypto scams?”
I haven’t looked into those in any detail. Do they have a feature that would allow Trump to get informed when someone makes a big purchase?
They could just tell him. While there's no feature which requires him to be informed of the purchases, there is a feature which allows them to prove to him that they made the purchase
Really, who cares what Trump thinks anymore (does he "think"?). The war will continue to, hopefully, a Ukrainian victory or a collapse of the Putin regime regardless of Trump's tantrums. Europe will ramp up its support. Ukraine will continue to surprise the world and its allies with creative and innovative ways to attack the Russian war machine. The US has become a "paper tiger" diplomatically and economically thanks to a feckless regime.
We might just see a sudden collapse of the Russian government. The Putin regime is increasingly under monetary pressure from the sanctions. Their economy is tottering on the brink.
Imagine riding an electric scooter - a cheap one that doesn’t go fast. In 2 hours you’ll have gotten as far as the Russian military did in Ukraine in all of 2024. In those two hours, you’ll have seen around you 800 dead Russians per minute. EVERY MINUTE. To say nothing of the severely wounded.
Calcs + source: 4,168 km sq gains per ISW, minus 1250 which was in Russia = 54 km x 54km of land. (Ukraine’s presidential office claims much less than that.) 95k dead in 2024 per Mediazona + BBC methodology (largely verified with specific names, methodology highly corroborated by records of Wagner death payments).
If the Russians are overloading their remaining aircraft to wage attacks, it means more breakdowns, wear, and tear on them. That will cause more cannibalism of their hangar queens and more stress on the supply of parts warehoused. It may even put more of their aircraft in the "spares" pile. All in all, it's a huge blow to Russia that has multiple effects to their military power.
Granting that the terror attacks on cities are always morally wrong (they were wrong when UK did it in WWII and when US nuked Japan as well -- I'm not in any way relativistic about this, FWIW). Setting that aside for this question...
... how likely is the Russian terror air strikes strategy to prevail over Ukraine's targeted air strikes. Like most things, I'm sure "it depends". But how much does it depend? My amateur war history knowledge lands on the side of: usually indiscriminate bombing does not lead to victory, but maybe it did in Chechnya and Japan? I would have said in Syria too six months ago, but that changed quickly. But I don't have expert knowledge of history (or anywhere close).
My assumptions on the specifics are something like this: Russia is more or less at max capacity with conventional strikes. It will get worse, but there is no radical escalation forthcoming (absent full military assistance from China or the US). Ukraine's strike capabilities are increasing steadily. Increased capabilities like a successful ballistic missile program with some capacity for volume (just one example) are not unlikely in the next 12 months. Probably nothing like parity, but the gap will close slowly.
Given an expert knowledge of history, what are the range of likely outcomes for the two strategies within the spectrum of possibilities?
Re: attacks on civilians and the Syria example I think it's important to distinguish between two objectives / outcomes of a campaign of bombing civilians. If the intention is to terrorise and cow a civilian population into submission then I think you're right that this sort of campaign has a poor record of success - at least if the population realise they're in an existential war.
The campaign in Syria was successful* because it's aim wasn't merely to cause civilians to flee, it was to destroy sufficient infrastructure that civilian life was no longer logistically possible. The Assad government and its Russian allies had the time and resources to systematically destroy all means of production and distribution of food, water, healthcare, power, etc. Without those things only a small population can survive at a kind of subsistence level. Even then, most of these campaigns required besieging areas, which frequently held out for years before finally collapsing / negotiating an exit.
*Assad was eventually beaten, of course. By a military opponent that evolved, through the loss of allies that were militarily propping his regime up and by a loss of support even among the communities that had supported him. But prior to that his strategy was successful. One of the reasons I'm so unforgiving of Obama is that he essentially paved the way for a new (or rediscovered?) military strategy to be proven: extermination, depopulation, the deliberate attempt to clear large parts of a country of life. There are no red lines and democratic states would eventually give up in the face of unrestrained violence.
It's why Ukraine's success is so important not just for its own people and for Europe, but if the world is to have any hope of re-establishing or rebuilding some previously at least somewhat respected norms.
TACO.
“When danger reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.”
Brave, Brave Sir Donald....
I don't doubt that about Trump, but if you're going to throw around claims of bravery and cowardice, as as we're here, the University of St Andrews is about 1,250 miles from the front lines in Ukraine.
What an odd, clumsy, inelegant way to try and change the subject. Do better.
He and Weber are the resident Russian trolls here.
Ah. I see. What an odd way to spend one’s time.
Hmm. I don't believe I've seen anything posted by someone called Weber here. Surely you don't mean Kathleen Weber?
I do. You can see her slippery attitude in a thread below.
Please be kind to Kathleen. Imagine you are talking to a grandmother you disagree with.
“From February 2022 until January 2025 I was as critical about the Biden Administration’s fears of escalation as practically anyone. They were far too deferential to Putin…”
That problem did not start with the Biden administration; being too deferential towards Russia and hypocritical in what limited assurances were offered to Ukraine has really been a fixture of US policy since the Sowiet Union collapsed.
See e.g. this book: Alexander Vindman, “The folly of realism”.
Absolutely--just wanted to start with a mea culpa of my own discussion of the war so far
Obama was quite deferential about the 2014 invasion.
There is a book here (and I might write it) about the catastrophe of US foreign policy since 2001. And Obama certainly bears alot of the responsibility
I’d certainly be very interested in reading your take on this!
Add me to that list, Norbert. It usually takes about 60 years for governments to declassify and make public their documents. I've had so many questions about what's been going on inside, both in Europe and the US. Of course Prof. O'Brien wouldn't know the contents of the classified material, but surely he knows stuff the rest of us don't.
So we all need to encourage him in this effort.
Alexander Vindman, whose book I mentioned in this thread, knows a lot from his time as the Director of European Affairs for the United States National Security Council (NSC), and is otherwise well-connected to many key people. He’s the kind of person who has no need to wait for documents to get declassified before he can form a well-informed opinion in regard to what was going on. His book is IMO a good source of information on what people in the US government were thinking and why the US acted as it did in relation to Ukraine, from the late 1980s (when the Soviet Union was starting to disintegrate) until 2023. For my tastes, his analysis is a mite too ideological though; I believe that Phillips O'Brien would do a better job in that regard.
I think Fukuyama’s ‘End of History’ did an excellent job of capturing the American mindset going into 9/11, and in many ways presaged the degree to which US foreign policy in the 21st century has been fundamentally unmoored.
Fundamentally, we deceived ourselves into thinking that the .great game ended with German reunification, and we further deceived ourselves into thinking that the counterterrorist project was an expression of some gestalt of world governance… while the great game continued.
Obama was a foreign policy disaster. (see Ukraine, Syria, Iran…..) He was full of virtue signalling and then turning his back on victims when the bullets started flying.
Let's keep Obama in perspective compared to his predecessor. George. W. Bush committed the worst American strategic blunder of my lifetime, the invasion and occupation of Iraq. And he ruined the lives of the people of Iraq, who experienced ethnic cleansing, guerilla warfare, a broken economy, and loss of essential services such as electricity and water.
Sure, Obama could have done better. But, he didn't do anything close to as monumentally stupid as his predecessor. So, I disagree with calling his administration a "foreign policy disaster".
There has been a fair amount of propaganda about how terrible Obama was, blowing up his very real mistakes into more than they were (see Hunter Biden propaganda).
All very true what you said. Obama’s disappointments weren’t nearly as bad as George W’s.
Obama should have done much more. The U.S. and Europe have been agonizingly slow to respond to Putin's war on Ukraine.
Obama bears responsibility for the prolonged Great Recession which in turn produced a climate that gave rise to Trump.
Not true. It was the Republican congress that refused to give Obama what the country needed—more stimulus checks, because it didn't want him to get credit for a recovery. The country could have come out of that recession faster. The American middle class has never fully recovered, even after 17.5 years.
And secondly but related, T. did not fall from the sky. He was the result of decades of neoliberalism, which caused grotesque wealth inequality, which exists to this day, not just in the US, but all over the world, all of which is fueling a rise of illiberalism, fascism. See: European countries, which for the last dozen or so years, just like the US, have been hanging onto democracy by the skin of their teeth. Good God, Poland is on the verge of committing collective suicide, as are other countries. Austerity is never the answer to economic recession or depression. It makes people miserable, which then makes them more vulnerable to propaganda (See the 1929 stock market crash and Great Depression, which caused a fringe political party in Germany with otherwise no hope of coming to power—it gained only 2.6% of the votes in the 1928 Reichstag elections—to come to power and by 1932 to gain a plurality of of votes so that its leader could negotiate with the president to have himself appointed chancellor). Added to that in the US were decades of propaganda fueled by the kind of racist talk that has been with the US since time immemorial.
For balance see also 'Hubris' by Prof Jonathan Haslan or 'The Lost Peace' by Prof Richard Sakwa. For context read 'Not One Inch' by Mary Sarotte. All available on audible for a free credit if you wish to properly educate yourself about the origins of this horrendous and thoroughly provoked war.
Ah, the 'provocation' of Ukraine trying to securely extricate itself from Russia's hallowed sphere of imperialism. And, to boot, creating a risk of a contagion of democracy infecting the Russia empire from just across the border.
No, the origins of this utterly unprovoked war of invasion lie in Russia's centuries-old and outdated traditions of autocracy, imperialism and brutalism (indifferent even to their own casualties). That's how old Moscovy grew to the size of South America today. It's an unmistaken common strain running though the tzars, communists, and now neonazi Putinists; and also explains the monumental cockup they made of their brief flirtation with democracy and privatisation in the Gorbachev era.
High time you educated yourself.
OK then - educate myself with what? I just gave your three well sourced references detailing actual events of the last 40 years and you give me a ranty version of the partial-at-best Establishment narrative. F*** off.
So no actual response then. Just the old go-away-and-read-this-stuff-till-you-agree-with-me line. That line being the establishment Russonazi narrative.
You just told me to educate myself & I asked you with what? The West gave the RF all sorts of guarantees about not expanding NATO Eastwards and since then treated them with distain. Now they're fighting them to the last Ukrainian. Your simpleton history ignores 40 years of much more relevant events. Go back to your crayons.
Educate yourself by reading and regurgitating something other than Kremlin handbooks.
No such agreements were made with Russia. And why should they have? Russia had wrongly extended its empire to much of eastern Europe; it had no right to be there in the first place once the dust had settled after WW2. And with Moscow's 800 year record of imperialist aggression against its neighbours, its neighbours were understandably keen to avoid being recolonised/resubjugated, keen to not be resubjected to Russia's sphere of imperialism. Defence against which, was the very purpose for which Nato was created.
And Russia was not and is not being threatened by anyone. It's just its unprovoked aggression that is being opposed.
Your simpleton rejection of the obvious history of the last 40 years is ridiculous. Go back to your Kremlin handbooks.
The origin of this war was the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Ivan.
Get with the programme Rupert. The story around here is that it's Putin's desire to become the modern incarnation of either Catherine or Peter the Great. That pact was significant of course, but as just one of many examples to the Russians why they shouldn't take agreements with the West seriously and to prepare to make their case on the battlefield. The trouble for the West now is that Putin is nowhere near as militarily incompetent as Stalin or his generals as profligate with their troops as Zukov et al.
“The trouble for the West now is that Putin is nowhere near as militarily incompetent as Stalin or his generals as profligate with their troops as Zukov “
Putin is in worse shape , I’ve da n.
"He is absolutely terrified of doing anything to anger Putin."
I think this is probably more relevant than escalation fears. I think Trump is less motivated by fear of starting WWIII and more out of fear that Ukraine might humiliate or beat his ally and inspiration, Putin. I wouldn't be surprised if Kellogg is referencing fears about nuclear escalation because that's easier to sell / is less embarrassing to admit than 'Trump actually just wants Putin to win'.
I think that is right--though it is worth noting how Trump has also been afraid of escalation--a bit of a reminder to those who claimed Trump would be tough on Russia.
Or maybe what Trump is really afraid of is Putin and Putinism being seen as having lost the war, and pro-democracy and pro-rule-of-law movements everywhere (including in the US) getting corresponding uplift?
That certainly would be against his interest
Trump is afraid of displeasing Putin.
Trump is in Putin's pocket, has been, and will be.
Trump's seeming independence is just part of his dance with Putin, part of the pantomime.
>though it is worth noting how Trump has also been afraid of escalation
Sounds like TACO to me.
TIARA is simpler and direct, I think.
Trump Is A Russian Asset.
I think he may be afraid to do it as he's got a wife and kids and doesn't want to see them die horribly in a nuclear exchange. You seem indifferent to those kind of concerns - just like you're indifferent to the Ukrainian casualties your policies are producing.
What where all those ranty tweets about then if not to anger Putin?
But *why* would Trump *fear* Russian escalation?
He actively wants Russia to prevail after all, and that would advance that goal.
Indeed--though he has also been afraid of Russian nuclear threats for years.
Are we sure Trump is afraid of Russian nuclear threats?
I would think "acting as if you are afraid of Russian nuclear threats" gives Russia more power. As such "acting to be afraid" is something a Russian asset would do.
Note that we actively want our children to succeed and yet we fear the stupid actions that they may take. Trump wants to guide Putin towards success, but he fears that Putin will not be guided.
Putin is guiding Trump, and has been for a long time—with considerable success, as we all know.
This would-be guidance being ...?
Trump has made it clear to both Putin and Zelensky his vision of a proper settlement of the war, but neither will accept his guidance. Zelensky wisely yields to Trump regarding incidentals, such as peace talks in Turkey or a minerals agreement that may not be worth the paper it's written on, but he holds his ground on essentials.
You haven't addressed my question.
I thought you were asking me what guidance trump was giving to Putin. Could you please clarify your question?
I was. You haven't provided them.
Trump's metaphor of "two kids bickering in the park" applies far more to his puerile spat with Elon Musk than it does to Russian aggression in Ukraine, as he initially intended it to. Illustrating, once again, his appalling lack of moral compass and the disastrous image he projects of the so-called " leader of the free world".
Trump's infantile mischaracterization certainly seemed to shock the press & analysts in Europe. Good. Yet they will not stop chasing the folly that Trump is poised to impose sanctions. Same thing with Republicans hostile to RU - they continue to claim that Trump will ultimately see the light.
The delusion of a Trump capable of turning on Putin will never die it seems.
The US use to be the leader of the free world. It certainly isn’t now.
The 'Free World' was always a fairytale for dimwits - it hasn't died with Trump - it died in Gaza - a genocide the Professor has not criticised here. Boring War indeed.
Hardly, Ivan. Frankly, the free world will continue to defeat Russia and authoritarianism.
You're ignoring a genocide you sick piece of shit. F*** you and the Nazi horse you rode in on.
When will the Europeans start using the frozen russian assets-not just the interest? Perhaps they could suggest a "consequence based" withdrawal. For every hybrid/gray zone incident on the European Union (or america), extract maybe 100,000,000 of the capital. If trump is not going to EVER sanction putin (which his "watering down" of Lindsay Graham's bill is confirming) this could be a sanction like effort that the russians get to "make a choice". Put it to European rearmament and bolstering Ukraine
Ya, I think those frozen assets ought to be the focus of attention. Without that financial backing, I fear UKR remains in uphill fight to grow its domestic arms industry soon & sufficiently.
The euro reluctance is purely financial self interest. They have no intention of returning the money to RU. It is destined to be the rebuilding fund for UKR - relieving Europe of that post war burden. Trouble is the money is desperately needed NOW so there is a country to rebuild.
Yeah, with Trump it's not fear -- he's just working for Putin. Someone should figure how how he's being paid.
If this hypothesis is correct, it needs to be ongoing payments; anything that has only happened in the past is not effective with someone like Trump who has a habit of not honouring his debts. For example, cf. Krugman’s assessment of the Trump-Musk conflict https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/wake-up-and-smell-the-corruption
There is no need for payments if you have someone with the balls.
What comes to mind is compromat or some financial construction that allows Putin to ruin Trump and his beloved ones or a Russian agent being married to someone close to Trump threatening violence.
So many ways that must be known to a former KGB agent.
“Compromat” is IMO totally implausible to be the issue: Trump has already been found by US courts of law to be (in the colloquial sense to the term) a rapist and to have committed criminal acts by falsifying business records. Everyone who cares about such things already knows about this and also that he is corrupt in very major ways, that according to a former wife of his (Ivana) he had a book of speeches of Adolf Hitler on his bedside table in order to learn how to succeed in politics, and that (while married to someone else: Melania) he had sex with a porn star whose silence he afterwards attempted to buy for quite a lot of money. What kind of kompromat could possibly exist that could (in Trump’s eyes) be worse than all that taken together!?
“some financial construction that allows Putin to ruin Trump and his beloved ones” is IMO also totally implausible in view of all the corruption money that Trump is raking in for example through his “meme coins”.
“a Russian agent being married to someone close to Trump threatening violence”? Trump could quite easily have the agent thrown into jail, and kept there. In contrast to most of what Trump is doing, that would in fact be entirely legal and legitimate.
In conclusion, although in general I agree that “so many ways that must be known to a former KGB agent”, in this particular situation I see only two plausible explanations for Trump’s astonishingly extreme pro-Putin stance: Either (as neroden suggested) Russia is somehow continually buying Trump’s cooperation with quite significant amounts of money. Or otherwise Trump truly cares about Putin winning this war. (Maybe because Trump hates democracy, maybe because he hates Zelenskyy but admires Putin [Putin is a true mafia state boss, something that Trump only aspires to], maybe for multiple reasons together.)
What if the “kompromat” is not an “ordinary” crime, but something vile, treasonous, or which the orange clown is simply deeply embarrassed of? It is plausible, though not likely, I think.
Like a video of Trump being the centerpiece of an all male gangbang.
Or proof (including video) of a visit to the Epstein island with minors.
Pretty sure those would be a good pieces in the kompromat file.
Lets agree to disagree on this topic.
I agree, I'm sure it's ongoing payments. We have records of some of the previous payments (buying Trump properties at 4 times market value through straw buyers, getting him loans laundered through Deutsche Bank when he wasn't creditworthy, etc.)
But I don't know what the CURRENT payment stream is. Maybe it involves Trump's crypto scams?
“I'm sure it's ongoing payments.”
While I’m not sure, and while I tend to think that Trump’s general anti-democracy attitude and and a desire to punish Zelenskyy (who had defied Trump’s demand in relation to Biden Jr) probably also play a role, this is now also in my eyes the most plausible explanation. (It isn’t really all that plausible to me that maybe somehow Trump truly cares about Putin winning this war so much that that would overcome Trump’s general lack of ability to give enduring attention to anything that isn’t directly about himself.) Well if the information is correct that Russia is headed towards a severe fiscal crisis, chances are that any such payments from Russia would stop at that time, and it will then be publicly visible whether Trump’s attitude changes significantly.
“Trump's crypto scams?”
I haven’t looked into those in any detail. Do they have a feature that would allow Trump to get informed when someone makes a big purchase?
They could just tell him. While there's no feature which requires him to be informed of the purchases, there is a feature which allows them to prove to him that they made the purchase
Really, who cares what Trump thinks anymore (does he "think"?). The war will continue to, hopefully, a Ukrainian victory or a collapse of the Putin regime regardless of Trump's tantrums. Europe will ramp up its support. Ukraine will continue to surprise the world and its allies with creative and innovative ways to attack the Russian war machine. The US has become a "paper tiger" diplomatically and economically thanks to a feckless regime.
We might just see a sudden collapse of the Russian government. The Putin regime is increasingly under monetary pressure from the sanctions. Their economy is tottering on the brink.
Agree…….fetid Trumpian drivel.
Given that last week we were criticising the professor's perieod reading, I'll applaud this week's update
;)
If we are describing “The War in a Nutshell”…
Imagine riding an electric scooter - a cheap one that doesn’t go fast. In 2 hours you’ll have gotten as far as the Russian military did in Ukraine in all of 2024. In those two hours, you’ll have seen around you 800 dead Russians per minute. EVERY MINUTE. To say nothing of the severely wounded.
Calcs + source: 4,168 km sq gains per ISW, minus 1250 which was in Russia = 54 km x 54km of land. (Ukraine’s presidential office claims much less than that.) 95k dead in 2024 per Mediazona + BBC methodology (largely verified with specific names, methodology highly corroborated by records of Wagner death payments).
I'd like to popularize Donnie ALPO (Always Licks Putin's Orifice).
The primary purpose of the bombers which were damaged and destroyed is to threaten the US with nuclear war.
So I guess it would be only appropriate for the White House to call Zelenskyy to say thank you ;)
Thank you. Trump will fight anything that would benefit Ukraine.
If the Russians are overloading their remaining aircraft to wage attacks, it means more breakdowns, wear, and tear on them. That will cause more cannibalism of their hangar queens and more stress on the supply of parts warehoused. It may even put more of their aircraft in the "spares" pile. All in all, it's a huge blow to Russia that has multiple effects to their military power.
Granting that the terror attacks on cities are always morally wrong (they were wrong when UK did it in WWII and when US nuked Japan as well -- I'm not in any way relativistic about this, FWIW). Setting that aside for this question...
... how likely is the Russian terror air strikes strategy to prevail over Ukraine's targeted air strikes. Like most things, I'm sure "it depends". But how much does it depend? My amateur war history knowledge lands on the side of: usually indiscriminate bombing does not lead to victory, but maybe it did in Chechnya and Japan? I would have said in Syria too six months ago, but that changed quickly. But I don't have expert knowledge of history (or anywhere close).
My assumptions on the specifics are something like this: Russia is more or less at max capacity with conventional strikes. It will get worse, but there is no radical escalation forthcoming (absent full military assistance from China or the US). Ukraine's strike capabilities are increasing steadily. Increased capabilities like a successful ballistic missile program with some capacity for volume (just one example) are not unlikely in the next 12 months. Probably nothing like parity, but the gap will close slowly.
Given an expert knowledge of history, what are the range of likely outcomes for the two strategies within the spectrum of possibilities?
Re: attacks on civilians and the Syria example I think it's important to distinguish between two objectives / outcomes of a campaign of bombing civilians. If the intention is to terrorise and cow a civilian population into submission then I think you're right that this sort of campaign has a poor record of success - at least if the population realise they're in an existential war.
The campaign in Syria was successful* because it's aim wasn't merely to cause civilians to flee, it was to destroy sufficient infrastructure that civilian life was no longer logistically possible. The Assad government and its Russian allies had the time and resources to systematically destroy all means of production and distribution of food, water, healthcare, power, etc. Without those things only a small population can survive at a kind of subsistence level. Even then, most of these campaigns required besieging areas, which frequently held out for years before finally collapsing / negotiating an exit.
*Assad was eventually beaten, of course. By a military opponent that evolved, through the loss of allies that were militarily propping his regime up and by a loss of support even among the communities that had supported him. But prior to that his strategy was successful. One of the reasons I'm so unforgiving of Obama is that he essentially paved the way for a new (or rediscovered?) military strategy to be proven: extermination, depopulation, the deliberate attempt to clear large parts of a country of life. There are no red lines and democratic states would eventually give up in the face of unrestrained violence.
It's why Ukraine's success is so important not just for its own people and for Europe, but if the world is to have any hope of re-establishing or rebuilding some previously at least somewhat respected norms.
Thank you for this excellent post.
But i think its not about fear of escalation. Its much more. Its ideological alignment, part of the american authoritarian turn.