Trump is still ignoring the root causes. He won't even say those words. He can't say those words because he's responsible for those root causes.
Trump tries to play like he would've done thing differently had he been in office before the war started but he can't prove that because its a hypothetical claim.
The truth is that he was voted into office and he had a chance from day one of his first administration to change policy on Ukraine but he didn't. He sent javelin missles and money instead.
He never uttered one word about there being too many young Ukrainian men dying or even a word of remorse over the deaths of the people of the Donbass. Even now he's content to sell arms to the Europeans so that they can use those arms to kill Russians. If he was truly troubled by all the killing he wouldn't sell the arms or give logistical support. He should have stopped support to Ukraine on day one of his second presidency.
If he had stopped all support then it wouldn't be his war, it would be Biden's war but he didn't. Trump made it his war.
A leader who can't tell the truth about his own culpability is a leader who shouldn't be trusted. Putin is wrong to trust Trump.
Just look at the people Trump brought to the Summit. Everyone he brought was a Russophobe, Neocon. Look at how he started off the welcoming ceremony with a flyover of weapons of war as a show of strength for a meeting that is titled, Pursuing Peace. That flyover was tone deaf.
The U.S. is tone deaf about its own conduct. America is always playing the role of the victim. Nothing is ever its fault. Even that strip of Armenian land that the U.S. wants to lease for 99 years is misnamed the Peace and Prosperity Corridor. That land is nothing of the sort.
It's a military base from which the U.S. intends to disrupt the Belt and Road initiative and to attack Iran and contain Russia. It will probably become a NATO base at some point.
Trump urgently calls for a peace summit but also lays the ground for war in a part of the world where it has no business being.
Putin needs to have as little to do with Trump as is possible. There should definitely be no commercial joint ventures with the Americans because they are not reliable partners. They will cripple Russia when they find it useful to do so. Economic blackmail is a big weapon of U.S. soft power.
I think you’re wrong-the roots were in James Baker’s promises in 1991 which were echoed by Thatcher then John Major, Francois Mitterrand, Helmut Kohl, and others. To wit, a promise not to move NATO an inch further eastward as the result of the Soviets budging and allowing two Germanies to unite. Moreover, the Soviet response to allow the end of the Iron Curtain and dismantle the Warsaw Pact was rewarded with western assurances that the new European security architecture would include the USSR. It wasn’t until the Clinton admin and the younger Bush admin that the neocons aggressively moved the goal posts toward NATO enlargement. This was way before Trump and what Putin was alluding to in the root causes. Putin spoke about this I believe in Munich in 2006. He realised around then that the west’s real goal was to dismember Russia after encircling it. Unlike you, I believe Trump is the first US President who might take us back to 1991.
Trump isn't taking us back to 1991. Trump is following the Neocon playback. Trump is following the Rand Corporation's strategy on over extending Russia and the Project 2025 strategy.
Trump has arranged for the U.S. to occupy under lease for 99 years, a strip of land that borders Turkyie, Armenia, Iran and Azerbaijan. The U.S. will place a contractor to manage this area.
The whole purpose of leasing this land is contain Russia, disrupt the building out of the, Belt and Road initiative and to threaten Iran.
Trump is still arming Ukraine by selling U.S. weapons to the Europeans who will sell/give them to Ukraine.
If Trump were a man of peace then he would offer up fair proposals for achieving peace that benefits everyone. This is what Putin does. A man of peace wouldn't sell weapons so that they could resell them to a country that exist only for the purpose of being a U.S. proxy that is dedicated to the destruction and weakening of Russia. The U.S. is acting no differently than does any other international criminal arms merchant.
NATO's expansion is one of the root causes of the war and one of the reasons that are listed by Putin.
Put yourself in Trump’s place. Is it easy to defang NATO and its oligarch backers? Would the propagandised peoples of Europe accept an immediate change or would they fall right into globalist hands if Trump was too one-sided toward Russia? Change has to be handled with care. For one thing, the European oligarchs aren’t going to get Russian energy if they cannot dismember Russia, and they must be placated with something else yet also threatened, in a way that keeps their hands tied. They get US LNG and continued access to US markets if they don’t continue backsliding on free speech, etc. They get US weapons, but it will drain them financially, like wading through a swamp, so they may get tired more rapidly. What matters is the outcome, not how many moves it takes to achieve, especially when those moves confuse the enemy into an inevitable loss. When they realise the loss is coming, simply to save face they will change direction on their own. (The Ukraine war will end but they must save face). That is better as their followers will be more easily brought along. One way it might happen would be ‘upholding democracy’ and having elections in Ukraine that allows the war to end ‘by the will of the people.’ If Trump cannot pull this off, no western leader can. But I stand by my point that I believe once Europeans move toward ‘saving face’ he must also return to 1991 roots if he expects to bring about a lasting end. If he doesn’t do that (and there may be limitations or constraints on him) then the neocons may regain a hold again later.
Saving face in order to cover your wrong doing is a sure way to an agreement that will lay the seeds for re-igniting the war against.
Putin wouldn't be shaming them They've already shamed themselves and they should be shamed publicly so they disappear.
Trump has to tell the truth but Trump can't even tell the truth about himself. He's useless as a leader as long as he can't critique his own decisions.
America is sitting on too many lies. Trump must turn into, a JFK and go before America with the truth as JFK did.
You mean well, but you’re being a bit idealistic and maybe a bit of a purist, which is fine, but I’m not sure you understand how dirty politics really is. Trade-offs have to be made even if you’re aiming for the greater good. You have to let people save face or you’ll gain too many enemies to be effective, again even if you’re aiming at the greater good. JFK told the truth and he lasted not even 2 years. But I don’t think you’re right about Trump. He is trying to make the world a better place. Not a perfect one, not only because nothing is perfect but because it’s in the eye of the beholder. But to move the country and the globe toward something universally better than a year ago is happening, however Herculean. I hope he and Putin restore Russia back in the world by detangling the morass of the Ukraine war. It V looks v. More v likely than it did a month ago.
I know how dirty politics is but this isn't politics. This is premeditated. None of this had to be. This all arose out of U.S. malevolence and no one should profit from committing a crime.
Russia wants a settlement thst a knowledge the root causes of the war. What's complicated about that? Why shouldn't that be exposed?
How is it that the U.S. can be allowed to break a promise to not expand NATO one inch to the East and that the consequences of that expansion not be laid to rest at the feet of the U.S.
For years, even decades, Russia warned the U.S. that e pansion to its borders would bring war. Russia warned that NATO membership for Ukraine was the reddest of redlines. And that it would bring civil war to Ukraine.
The Rand Corporation knew all of this on their own. They acknowledge it in their paper on how to over extending and weakening Russia. A paper which they wrote in the complete absence of any hostile actions from Russia.
The U.S. doesn't deserve to have a face saving way out. The U.S. is guilty of using acts of violence to achieve political ends and that is the definition of terrorism.
The U.S. wants to make a deal. What deal? Russia doesn't need to make a deal and it shouldn't. Russia is the aggrieved party. There isn't a single thing it did wrong other than to exist as a sovereign country.
Ukraine wants security guarantees to protect it from Russian aggression. What Russian aggression? That implies that Russia broke some laws or promises when it went into Ukraine in February of 2022.
Russia didn't break any laws or promises to Ukraine. Yes, Russia promised to respect Russia's borders but that promise was conditional on Ukraine abiding by 3 things that were written into its Constitution. Those 3 things are:
Perpetual neutrality
That it remain non-aligned in other words not pursue NATO membership
That Ukraine never have nuclear weapons
In other words Russia didn't want its former territory/State to become a threat to it. That's called preventing war.
The U.S. would never allow Canada, Mexico or any country in Central or South America to have nuclear weapons of its own. It would never allow them to allow Russia or China to build military bases on their land.
The U.S. and Europe make the argument that Ukraine is a sovereign nation and therefore shouldn't be told by Russia how big its military can be, what weapons it can have or what alliances or organizations it can join.
That's hypocritical because they deny those same things to nations that are near them or far away as in the case of Iran. Trump has clearly stated that Iran cannot have its own nuclear program even international law gives all nations the right to have a nuclear program for civilian purposes. But Israel can have a nuclear program and weapons. Plus it isn't a member of the nuclear none proliferation treaty. Whereas Iran was a member.
U.S. guilt goes way beyond dirty politics. It's organized crime.
Except Europe allowed Putin to amass a $200 billion sovereign wealth fund along with awarding Russia the World Cup! Putin is the one who believed he could invade Ukraine and Europe would continue to look the other way…Putin underestimated Biden and you never underestimate your enemy!
Putin isn't an imbecile or traitor. He, unlike Trump, is smart enough to know that its better to get what you want through peaceful and diplomatic means if you can and the opportunity presents itself. Trump made Putin an offer that Putin foind compelling. Though not compelling enough for Putin to sign.
Putin didn't let up on his demands
demands. He's still not going to consent to an unconditional ceasefire.
Zelensky is a poor leader and should go down in history as such. Maybe one of the worst. Ukraine thinking becoming a member of NATO was ballsy. He should have never believed what was spewed to him in that first meeting with Putin where no incursion had yet begun and peace was easily had. This has been a cluster fuck from the jump.
Zelenskyy was chosen/funded to run for President for a variety of reasons. I suspect he’s more interested in men than women for one. So ideologically I think he may even passionately believe in a western-style ‘tolerant’ culture for Ukraine from a personal perspective. He was a comedian for his career. How did he develop strong views about NATO during this time? The short answer is (if he wasn’t in the intelligence community and only posing as a comedian) he’s got his handlers supplying him with opinions. As such it might not matter what he actually thought but whether or not he is persuaded to adopt a new set of opinions plus a face saving pivot. Actually, he may need protection as well for after the war. There are probably some people with serious grievances with him so he will need lots of money and security to ‘change his opinions.’
I’m sure those concerns and situations were discussed in DC. with every major NATO member being in attendance. Zelensky also met with Trump alone which had the globalists shaking in their shoes. It was apparent by the looks on their faces in the some of the photos I saw. It was glorious really. It’s really all up to Putin now.
I agree. Also, what if ‘crossfire hurricane’ were to point back to Europe in US coup attempts? Trump shows good future ties with European (including UK) countries are more important than revenge. But I do wonder about ‘leverage’ and if even Trump can offer something adequate to Putin. All hinges on security guarantees- including Russia’s. It will have to be creative. But might economic deals sweeten it? Win-win via energy, rare earths, but limited so that Russia doesn’t dominate European energy? Shared influence costs more but it’s balance-of-power. Europe/UK might want deals- Russian rare earths, Nordstream under US control with a security guarantee. Ukrainian elections must come and legitimise the idea that Ukraine also ‘won’ to save face for the whole process…
Don’t worry. Trump has payback all set up. From the Bit-bonds that are coming to the unfreezing of Russian assets the hammer for the EU and European countries is coming. The gloves are off.
Nordstream can never be under U.S. control. The hypocrisy of that very thought just jumps out.
First of all if it is put under U.S. control ask, how does that change the situation in Europe for the better? Putting it under U.S. control just falls back into the villainization of Russia. That Russia is a threat to be tolerated but not respected.
Secondly the hypocrisy that the U.S. would be making money off the pipeline that Trump brags about shutting down and which Biden destroyed in an act of sabotage is just mean behavior by the West.
It would be one more way of humiliating Russia and a continuance of isolatoling Russia on a continent that it calls home just like the other countries of Europe do.
The Ukrainian strategy is simple enough - offer no real concessions, negotiate as little as possible, and then run screaming to NATO that Russia does not want an end to the war.
The plan ever always only was for NATO to come to the rescue, once thr number of Ukrainians to soak up Russian munitions started to run low, and that the United States would get roped in, rather than leave their poodles hanging out to dry.
And why not? For the Ukrainian leadership, the war has brought nothing but benefits. Before February of 2022, Zelenskii was the increasingly authoritarian ruler of a corrupt, backward, Nazi-infested dump. Now he is The Beacon Of Muh Democracy, the leader of a country so democratic that it need not bother with tiresome elections or pesky term limits. Sure, it sucks for the dumb Ukrainian farmboys and factory workers who are press-ganged into the slaughter, but nobody in Washington, nobody in Brussels, nobody in Kiev cares in the least about them.
Hell, Putin probably cares more about them than any of their supposed leaders.
Zelenskyy isn’t really Ukraine’s leader but is the pick of its oligarchs and our western oligarchs. Apart from that I agree, and it’s very clear the need in European capitals to keep this going as they risk 1) no more common external threat justifying a flimsy ‘unity’ 2) no more hope for common fiscal framework justified by Ukraine to keep the debt bubbles afloat 3) no more hope of natural resource spoils of war, etc. The disaster of all these losses is too great but they can’t get it that Trump is not going to pull a Roosevelt for them.
I’m female. In 1776, I would have been likely milking cows and hoping any war would end soon without taking a husband, father, or sons away. Granted, some ideals may be worth fighting for at certain times. But fighting a war in Ukraine , outnumbered, so that different western oligarchs can get legal hold of your black earth (rich farmland), rare earths, or even other spoils in a nearby country (Russia) isn’t a good reason in my book, unless you’re conscripted and have no choice- like the poor Ukrainians. God rest their souls.
That was the original thought after the Warsaw Pact ended. Then the Yugoslavia conflicts began after Slovenia seceeded… NATO got involved, likely to secure its future and even justify new missions of empire… while the neocons dreamed of both Caspian oil and Iraqi oil… to go back now and confront what NATO morphed into might be logical, but then consider that Soviet GDP fell by 25% when its military industrial complex collapsed in the early 1990s. The US might be petrified to ever end empire games- what kind of economy could save it? Ah, the tariffs… might be a step toward alternatives, coming to fruition years from now.
Personally I’d go back to 1991 when there was a rare opportunity to create a more peaceful Europe, but in terms of gdp- its collapse impoverished ordinary Soviets. There was hyperinflation that led to starving elderly people who lost their live savings and were too old to emigrate or adapt. You don’t want unintended consequences like this.
Ps the economic literature called the collapse of transition economies in the post Soviet space ‘de-development.’ This was the fate of much of the ‘second world.’ Poland avoided it by getting debt write-down from George bush. Czech Republic used vouchers to transfer state wealth to the people successfully but standards of living are still lower than Western Europe. East German development is still behind west Germany because they overvalued their currency at reunification to protect west German jobs. Transition caused fateful divergences. Economic disruptions (GDP falling) caused some bad outcomes.
Zelensky is sitting in a swamp he fabricated for himself and Ukraine and is unwilling to step up to reality as reality can easily destroy him. Reality will not move toward him, he will have to change his position or all those tens of thousands of young Ukrainian women who recently demonstrated against the war will catch up with him by pushing the whole of society toward their liking. The whole of this NATO intrusion was presented and accepted as a brilliant idea by the US/NATO/Ukraine leadership and in reality it was completely retarded from conception. The West has to come to terms with at least the very basics of the security needs of the Russian Federation and recognize that full independence for Ukraine is not a solution to the present problem. And I still do not classify myself as ‘Ukrainophobic’. I am simply a pragmatic analyst, looking at the unacceptable population losses as a result of war and emigration, a self-mutilation of Ukraine society. At the same time it was a terrible mistake from Ukrainians to deny their own traditional social values and allow the ‘comedian with limited talents’ to elevate itself to his present position. This whole period in Ukraine history will be evaluated as a surrealistic, tragic parody one day by Ukraine itself.
They can't conclude an agreement before telling Zelensky his fate, so I wasnt much surprised at the non-announcement.
It does seem in retrospect, though, that Trump deliberately timed this meeting to coincide with the imminent collapse of Povrosk, which threatened to expose the devastating failure of this US/NATO project to the general public, for use as a form of leverage against the neocons, who Trump would like Mr Putin to believe have been holding him hostage.
And of course if the meeting failed to produce fruit, Trump simply throws up his arms and blames it all on "Biden's War." So, Trump wins, America loses by being further misled (again) into believing America/Trump is doing something good.
Even if Trump is motivated to end the war and improve relations with the Russians, his constant focus on self-aggrandizement at the expense of everything else, others' lives included, diminishes America and is painful to watch.
All I can say is Mr Putin has a very difficult job in deciding a path forward on this mess. Apart from the fact of nuclear weapons in the hands of children, Im not sure why Russia even wants relations with America.
Hints and innuendo with a dash of hopium. We both know this war will end on Russia's terms, and so does Putin. Trump's job, and he is NOT the decisionmaker here, is to keep the MIC grift flowing for as long as possible.
When it comes to a peace deal, my ancestors founded Missouri. Show me.
Trump actually has to prevent economic collapse, whatever else he does. Putin would understand that and allow for it. Even if you hated the US MIC you don’t want a global economic crisis either.
But is Trump preventing an economic collapse or bringing it forward with or without a peace or ceasefire during the downward profile of the US economic and social position particularly of the lower middle class and the already impoverished poor aka MAGA mob.
To be honest, the options are an eventual disorderly adjustment off reserve currency status when or if the US defaults (assuming no change in the trajectory from Biden) or, the US has to actually adjust its economy structurally. Trump’s tariffs are a structural adjustment programme for the US. The poor and middle class likely will have less of a hit to living standards if the US avoids default and balances its trade and eliminates the fiscal deficit under Trump. However, in either path there are some hits to living standards, unless Trump deregulates adequately to increase economic growth. Regulation allegedly costs about $30k a person in the US. It’s a wedge that lowers living standards on its own. Trump’s team appears to be doing everything possible to give the US a chance without having an eventual default. Does facing it head on bring it forward? Maybe. Sovereign crises have a quick way of accelerating, and it was starting under Biden as soon as the debt was growing faster than the economy.
How can there be effect to the lower middle class and MAGA mob if prices rise by upwards of ,15% and products are unavailable is certain categories due to China redirecting trade towards the remainder of the world and away from the US. Seems your answer is no government or infrastructure as they are expensive but cause excess costs to industry in the long run.
No that’s not what I am saying. Deregulation often means more houses can be built, improving the standard of living. Or that small fisherman don’t have thousands of dollars in extra upfront costs to meet regulations, which stacks the deck in favour of large companies that can better afford the regulatory costs. Deregulation would make energy costs much cheaper for ordinary households rather than pursuing intermittent energy by force. Or would allow washing machines that are half the price because they allow more than 2 litres of water in them. Also, the US government changed the way it calculates inflation both in the 1980s and 1990s to deliberately understate inflation, even though shelter’ plus education and healthcare costs rose many times faster than they said as they massaged the data. No one cried then about inflation. People can buy fewer Chinese products on Amazon or pay $13 for a toy instead of $10. They can save that $3 by buying cheese from Wisconsin instead of from France for example. But deregulating will lower the cost of energy, food, and housing which is far more meaningful to the consumer on the whole. And even the screwed up statistics the US has will not show more than a percentage point or so more in inflation as the price level adjusts to the tariffs because most of the US economy is domestic (not imported). And more of the economy is services rather than goods. And much of the goods trade is USMCA compliant and therefore not targeted under the tariffs.
I think you have a rosy attitude to deregulation, you need to visit countries that are deregulated or very lightly regulated like Indonesia and see the benefits of regulations imposed on things. Yes there certainly are excessive regulations in some situations but generally they are beneficial.
The mega corporation will grow with or without excessive regulations and the old days of your youth will never return as you remembered them.
Population growth changes all and no turning back the clock.
Your example of a washing machine, well in Australia that is quite critical as our big cities have verged on the edge of running out of water, plus the cost of making water potable is increasing so that regulation is not onerous as you suggest.
Is a 400+hp V8 engine necessary or should regulations limit or impose charges on those who wish to have them that is a question one can pose about regulations that other countries have accepted but others have not.
One person's regulations is another benefit, it is all in the eye of the beholder.
Libertarians like no taxes or government but that suggests every street should have a toll
every school is privatised and we have people who can not read or write as they cannot afford to send their children to school as in Indonesia in poor villages.
In the meantime, there has been a major development, an hour or so ago. Donald Trump appears to have changed course and to share the Russian view. He stated that the best way to end the 'horrific' war between Russia and Ukraine is a peace agreement and not a ceasefire... The warmongers in the West, who wanted such a truce to give the Ukrainian army time to recover and to restart the war later, will not be pleased with this news.
Ps maybe if the Trump admin actually prosecutes over ‘Crossfire Hurricane,’ the associated release of information might pave the way for peace with Russia if emerging information completely discredits the ‘Russia Russia’ narrative and leads to consequences for those that peddled it. If so, it could prove harder to go back to another war against Russia later (over Ukraine or some other reason) because they couldn’t propagandise the American people into it. And, if the media are forced to cover the facts about ‘crossfire hurricane’ it just might even wake up some Europeans across the pond who are more severely brainwashed. Might…
Yes, it's high time the Europeans wake up, lest they are left holding the "baby" of the Ukrainian War. An ugly baby it is, by the way, and one that Obama or Biden fathered.
Check out which European or British oligarchs were hand picking people in both the Obama and Biden administrations… no, the ugly baby’s father is from across the pond.
They won’t, and ‘appears’ is the right word choice. There are reasons to appear to take the European side during the trade war before the deal with europe- the Europeans were hopeful and agreed to purchase LNG and arms. Hence the US will recoup some of what it spent in Ukraine by having Europe prop it up economically. Europeans still believe they can wait till they can gather strength again and launch some new scheme, but if Trump wants to avoid that he has to go with Russia back to 1991 and pursue an alternate timeline. If he doesn’t go back to 1991 in the solution, then it’s more of the same the next time a Democrat or Republican neocon is president.
Andrew, I'm ok but in what you say I don't see any compromise. Only satisfaction of all Russian requirements.
A compromise is both side concessions.
Where are the russian concessions?
What you describe looks like a total ukrainian surrender and I doubt that neocon and UE globalist will accept that without shouting to Trump's treason.
Can Trump allow himself such a political challenge?
This meeting was very very short. Even abbreviated.
It's not a good sign no?
I don't know what will result of it, but one more time Poutine surprised us in being where nobody wait for him.
I feared these meeting and I was shocked that Poutine came in USA like a vassal go to his overlord. I was totally wrong.
Today, what I feel about this meeting is it was a wonderful demonstration of force and self confidence: "I come in peace but I don't fear you."
In the langage of street fight, it's the moment where the good guy, tired of the bully, come just in front of him, body to body, face to face, eye to eye and stay quiet, like saying " ok man, strike if you dare or shut the fuck up and go away".
It was a message to China-India-Brazil too: " ok boys, you see? I'm ready to go. You follow or you lay down, you choose."
Perhaps as the timeline converges with ‘crossfire hurricane’ investigations and a revelation of what the democrats did to try to frame Trump regarding Russia, it may be a unique moment to show the world they didn’t succeed in keeping these countries apart and that a better relationship is possible. I didn’t see Putin’s trip like a vassal to an overlord at all. Trump made a point that both of them as leaders were put through enough by the same group of people. Trump seemed to enjoy the commiseration. But definitely I agree- I’m wondering about the next moves of Ukraine, and more importantly Britain and France.
Useful intel, Andrew. My suggestion is to for the meeting in Alaska be a stepping stone to a development perspective uniting the self interests of both the US and Russia by building the Beering Straight tunnel/bridge
America is the largest oil producer owing to fracking. But Russia has far and away the largest natural gas reserves in the world, and it’s not even close. In terms of gas, I worry America uses much of what it produces but is trying to export its natural gas to offset trade imbalances, so it will drive up local prices. Also, the US refining situation was harmed by greens over decades, so it has to import Russian refined diesel. The crude oil from fracking is sweet, not sour as the refineries need. So the US imports sour crude from Canada and Mexico to refine while not investing in new refining capacity for sweet crude. Russia doesn’t have to fight as many internal actors bent on hobbling the energy sector and thus the economy. America’s cost of oil extraction is also higher than Saudi Arabia which has cheap megagiants. This is why Saudi cuts oil production to bankrupt small American frackers, such as in 2014-15, albeit it may have been asked to do it to undercut Russia after Maidan Square…
Trump wants to export America’s natural gas to China…that means he thinks renewables will eventually win out and make natural gas worthless. China has already hit peak oil consumption and so EVs are already eroding oil market share with Trump failing to covince the Philly diesel refinery to rebuild after it burned in his first term. Trump’s repealing Biden’s IRA simply buys Big Energy a few more years before inevitable decline like coal.
Renewables are not a reliable base load as they are intermittent energy. The plan is to move to nuclear energy, and even left wing billionaires signaled this in their plans for AI expansion. Green energy is a tactic similar to saddling the best horse with extra weight to slow it down so that it cannot compete. So is strategic denial of energy.
Nuclear is super expensive. Renewables are super cheap even with battery backup which can also be charged by natural gas. Basically peaker plants are the most expensive which is why batteries are cost competitive…and once you have batteries you can build a lot more renewable capacity. Texas has led the way on renewables the last several years and their grid is just gets more robust with more renewables.
Ps the reason you were told renewables were cheaper was to encourage them because oligarchs and politicians would know ahead of time which ‘green’ things would get government support (taxpayer money) and would invest in them ahead of time for personal gain in stock prices. In an era where the west was deindustrialising, they could still profit from their insider knowledge by directing government policy (choosing winners and losers) and adding the ‘tab’ to the debt-to-GDP for future generations to pay. Deregulating energy and bringing it back to free competition removes the possibility of easy money for the well connected.
Renewables’ costs were skewed by government subsidies which the taxpayer paid. Without them, we’re seeing projects cancelled. Even before that, the Ukraine war which the left started was already destroying wind power projects (and these companies had huge losses) owing to the inflationary shock the Ukraine war caused. Moreover the disposal costs of wind power blades and solar panels after their useful life of 10-15 years is high because they are made of toxic mixes of plastics, metals, and rare earths. Municipalities will bear these costs of disposal and millions of acres of landfills would have been required to fully rely on this for energy. Moreover 1/3 or more of the world’s land and all the farmland would be needed to replace hydrocarbons with renewables-I assume you like to eat? Moreover the energy grid would have to double in capacity to move to EVs and there is already a copper shortage. As the shortage gets larger, the cost will rise further making electrification costs soar. Moreover there isn’t enough lithium in the entire world to replace all the cars with EVs. And lithium is needed for batteries in laptops, phones, etc. Do you use those? Also, who pays the cost of mining tailings disposal? That’s expensive. All-in, nuclear is cheaper and feasible. Moreover the US abandoned thorium salt reactors in the 1970s because of the ‘greens’ but now China a has built a thorium salt reactor. There are other modern ways to acheive smaller scale nuclear reactors. Even France with its older nuclear reactors has benefitted as Germany decommissioned and exported reliable power to Germany, which is now de-industrialising. Is de-industrialisation not also a significant cost? What about lost jobs/incomes? Lastly, it was the switch to renewables that led to the epic Texas power failure in the winter of 2021. People were without power for four days in freezing temperatures, and some died in their homes. That never happened when Texas used coal-fired generation. It was too cold for wind blades to operate. It wasn’t sunny. The governor was told by Biden’s EPA that he couldn’t use hydrocarbons to meet the shortfall and people died as a consequence. Do you put a cost on life? I’m sure their families did.
Maybe but he was young then and people do change. Tulsi and RFK Jr also changed. Vance actually speaks as if he is genuine. If he isn’t it’s a good act. I’m not usually fooled.
Wrong… Tulsi clearly eviscerated Kamala Harris in the Presidential debate and saved America from the latter advancing beyond 1% in the primary. Then RFK Jr, well he has taken funding from using MRNA for respiratory viruses after metastudies showed they were more harmful than beneficial, hence they will revert to other, minor uses. He also is getting dyes linked to hyperactivity and cancer out of schools, sugary processed food out of SNAP benefits and more. If you ask me they are both knights in shining armour, and not he kind that tilt at windmills.
Q: What happens with all the "loans," (stolen) russian assets and reconstruction funds if Ukraine is settled as a loss? This is, after all, a major part.
Trump is still ignoring the root causes. He won't even say those words. He can't say those words because he's responsible for those root causes.
Trump tries to play like he would've done thing differently had he been in office before the war started but he can't prove that because its a hypothetical claim.
The truth is that he was voted into office and he had a chance from day one of his first administration to change policy on Ukraine but he didn't. He sent javelin missles and money instead.
He never uttered one word about there being too many young Ukrainian men dying or even a word of remorse over the deaths of the people of the Donbass. Even now he's content to sell arms to the Europeans so that they can use those arms to kill Russians. If he was truly troubled by all the killing he wouldn't sell the arms or give logistical support. He should have stopped support to Ukraine on day one of his second presidency.
If he had stopped all support then it wouldn't be his war, it would be Biden's war but he didn't. Trump made it his war.
A leader who can't tell the truth about his own culpability is a leader who shouldn't be trusted. Putin is wrong to trust Trump.
Just look at the people Trump brought to the Summit. Everyone he brought was a Russophobe, Neocon. Look at how he started off the welcoming ceremony with a flyover of weapons of war as a show of strength for a meeting that is titled, Pursuing Peace. That flyover was tone deaf.
The U.S. is tone deaf about its own conduct. America is always playing the role of the victim. Nothing is ever its fault. Even that strip of Armenian land that the U.S. wants to lease for 99 years is misnamed the Peace and Prosperity Corridor. That land is nothing of the sort.
It's a military base from which the U.S. intends to disrupt the Belt and Road initiative and to attack Iran and contain Russia. It will probably become a NATO base at some point.
Trump urgently calls for a peace summit but also lays the ground for war in a part of the world where it has no business being.
Putin needs to have as little to do with Trump as is possible. There should definitely be no commercial joint ventures with the Americans because they are not reliable partners. They will cripple Russia when they find it useful to do so. Economic blackmail is a big weapon of U.S. soft power.
I think you’re wrong-the roots were in James Baker’s promises in 1991 which were echoed by Thatcher then John Major, Francois Mitterrand, Helmut Kohl, and others. To wit, a promise not to move NATO an inch further eastward as the result of the Soviets budging and allowing two Germanies to unite. Moreover, the Soviet response to allow the end of the Iron Curtain and dismantle the Warsaw Pact was rewarded with western assurances that the new European security architecture would include the USSR. It wasn’t until the Clinton admin and the younger Bush admin that the neocons aggressively moved the goal posts toward NATO enlargement. This was way before Trump and what Putin was alluding to in the root causes. Putin spoke about this I believe in Munich in 2006. He realised around then that the west’s real goal was to dismember Russia after encircling it. Unlike you, I believe Trump is the first US President who might take us back to 1991.
Trump isn't taking us back to 1991. Trump is following the Neocon playback. Trump is following the Rand Corporation's strategy on over extending Russia and the Project 2025 strategy.
Trump has arranged for the U.S. to occupy under lease for 99 years, a strip of land that borders Turkyie, Armenia, Iran and Azerbaijan. The U.S. will place a contractor to manage this area.
The whole purpose of leasing this land is contain Russia, disrupt the building out of the, Belt and Road initiative and to threaten Iran.
Trump is still arming Ukraine by selling U.S. weapons to the Europeans who will sell/give them to Ukraine.
If Trump were a man of peace then he would offer up fair proposals for achieving peace that benefits everyone. This is what Putin does. A man of peace wouldn't sell weapons so that they could resell them to a country that exist only for the purpose of being a U.S. proxy that is dedicated to the destruction and weakening of Russia. The U.S. is acting no differently than does any other international criminal arms merchant.
NATO's expansion is one of the root causes of the war and one of the reasons that are listed by Putin.
Put yourself in Trump’s place. Is it easy to defang NATO and its oligarch backers? Would the propagandised peoples of Europe accept an immediate change or would they fall right into globalist hands if Trump was too one-sided toward Russia? Change has to be handled with care. For one thing, the European oligarchs aren’t going to get Russian energy if they cannot dismember Russia, and they must be placated with something else yet also threatened, in a way that keeps their hands tied. They get US LNG and continued access to US markets if they don’t continue backsliding on free speech, etc. They get US weapons, but it will drain them financially, like wading through a swamp, so they may get tired more rapidly. What matters is the outcome, not how many moves it takes to achieve, especially when those moves confuse the enemy into an inevitable loss. When they realise the loss is coming, simply to save face they will change direction on their own. (The Ukraine war will end but they must save face). That is better as their followers will be more easily brought along. One way it might happen would be ‘upholding democracy’ and having elections in Ukraine that allows the war to end ‘by the will of the people.’ If Trump cannot pull this off, no western leader can. But I stand by my point that I believe once Europeans move toward ‘saving face’ he must also return to 1991 roots if he expects to bring about a lasting end. If he doesn’t do that (and there may be limitations or constraints on him) then the neocons may regain a hold again later.
Saving face in order to cover your wrong doing is a sure way to an agreement that will lay the seeds for re-igniting the war against.
Putin wouldn't be shaming them They've already shamed themselves and they should be shamed publicly so they disappear.
Trump has to tell the truth but Trump can't even tell the truth about himself. He's useless as a leader as long as he can't critique his own decisions.
America is sitting on too many lies. Trump must turn into, a JFK and go before America with the truth as JFK did.
You mean well, but you’re being a bit idealistic and maybe a bit of a purist, which is fine, but I’m not sure you understand how dirty politics really is. Trade-offs have to be made even if you’re aiming for the greater good. You have to let people save face or you’ll gain too many enemies to be effective, again even if you’re aiming at the greater good. JFK told the truth and he lasted not even 2 years. But I don’t think you’re right about Trump. He is trying to make the world a better place. Not a perfect one, not only because nothing is perfect but because it’s in the eye of the beholder. But to move the country and the globe toward something universally better than a year ago is happening, however Herculean. I hope he and Putin restore Russia back in the world by detangling the morass of the Ukraine war. It V looks v. More v likely than it did a month ago.
I know how dirty politics is but this isn't politics. This is premeditated. None of this had to be. This all arose out of U.S. malevolence and no one should profit from committing a crime.
Russia wants a settlement thst a knowledge the root causes of the war. What's complicated about that? Why shouldn't that be exposed?
How is it that the U.S. can be allowed to break a promise to not expand NATO one inch to the East and that the consequences of that expansion not be laid to rest at the feet of the U.S.
For years, even decades, Russia warned the U.S. that e pansion to its borders would bring war. Russia warned that NATO membership for Ukraine was the reddest of redlines. And that it would bring civil war to Ukraine.
The Rand Corporation knew all of this on their own. They acknowledge it in their paper on how to over extending and weakening Russia. A paper which they wrote in the complete absence of any hostile actions from Russia.
The U.S. doesn't deserve to have a face saving way out. The U.S. is guilty of using acts of violence to achieve political ends and that is the definition of terrorism.
The U.S. wants to make a deal. What deal? Russia doesn't need to make a deal and it shouldn't. Russia is the aggrieved party. There isn't a single thing it did wrong other than to exist as a sovereign country.
Ukraine wants security guarantees to protect it from Russian aggression. What Russian aggression? That implies that Russia broke some laws or promises when it went into Ukraine in February of 2022.
Russia didn't break any laws or promises to Ukraine. Yes, Russia promised to respect Russia's borders but that promise was conditional on Ukraine abiding by 3 things that were written into its Constitution. Those 3 things are:
Perpetual neutrality
That it remain non-aligned in other words not pursue NATO membership
That Ukraine never have nuclear weapons
In other words Russia didn't want its former territory/State to become a threat to it. That's called preventing war.
The U.S. would never allow Canada, Mexico or any country in Central or South America to have nuclear weapons of its own. It would never allow them to allow Russia or China to build military bases on their land.
The U.S. and Europe make the argument that Ukraine is a sovereign nation and therefore shouldn't be told by Russia how big its military can be, what weapons it can have or what alliances or organizations it can join.
That's hypocritical because they deny those same things to nations that are near them or far away as in the case of Iran. Trump has clearly stated that Iran cannot have its own nuclear program even international law gives all nations the right to have a nuclear program for civilian purposes. But Israel can have a nuclear program and weapons. Plus it isn't a member of the nuclear none proliferation treaty. Whereas Iran was a member.
U.S. guilt goes way beyond dirty politics. It's organized crime.
Except Europe allowed Putin to amass a $200 billion sovereign wealth fund along with awarding Russia the World Cup! Putin is the one who believed he could invade Ukraine and Europe would continue to look the other way…Putin underestimated Biden and you never underestimate your enemy!
Putin isn't an imbecile or traitor. He, unlike Trump, is smart enough to know that its better to get what you want through peaceful and diplomatic means if you can and the opportunity presents itself. Trump made Putin an offer that Putin foind compelling. Though not compelling enough for Putin to sign.
Putin didn't let up on his demands
demands. He's still not going to consent to an unconditional ceasefire.
I'm sad to say that you are right. The U.S. never has kept a promise.
Zelensky is a poor leader and should go down in history as such. Maybe one of the worst. Ukraine thinking becoming a member of NATO was ballsy. He should have never believed what was spewed to him in that first meeting with Putin where no incursion had yet begun and peace was easily had. This has been a cluster fuck from the jump.
Zelenskyy was chosen/funded to run for President for a variety of reasons. I suspect he’s more interested in men than women for one. So ideologically I think he may even passionately believe in a western-style ‘tolerant’ culture for Ukraine from a personal perspective. He was a comedian for his career. How did he develop strong views about NATO during this time? The short answer is (if he wasn’t in the intelligence community and only posing as a comedian) he’s got his handlers supplying him with opinions. As such it might not matter what he actually thought but whether or not he is persuaded to adopt a new set of opinions plus a face saving pivot. Actually, he may need protection as well for after the war. There are probably some people with serious grievances with him so he will need lots of money and security to ‘change his opinions.’
I’m sure those concerns and situations were discussed in DC. with every major NATO member being in attendance. Zelensky also met with Trump alone which had the globalists shaking in their shoes. It was apparent by the looks on their faces in the some of the photos I saw. It was glorious really. It’s really all up to Putin now.
I agree. Also, what if ‘crossfire hurricane’ were to point back to Europe in US coup attempts? Trump shows good future ties with European (including UK) countries are more important than revenge. But I do wonder about ‘leverage’ and if even Trump can offer something adequate to Putin. All hinges on security guarantees- including Russia’s. It will have to be creative. But might economic deals sweeten it? Win-win via energy, rare earths, but limited so that Russia doesn’t dominate European energy? Shared influence costs more but it’s balance-of-power. Europe/UK might want deals- Russian rare earths, Nordstream under US control with a security guarantee. Ukrainian elections must come and legitimise the idea that Ukraine also ‘won’ to save face for the whole process…
Don’t worry. Trump has payback all set up. From the Bit-bonds that are coming to the unfreezing of Russian assets the hammer for the EU and European countries is coming. The gloves are off.
Do you know who now brags about.dominating European energy supplies and making lots of money?
Trump. He said with great glee that the U.S. is the number one supplier of LNG to Europe and that America is making lots of money.
This can't last though and America's producers have said so. Shale production has been declining for years now.
Nordstream can never be under U.S. control. The hypocrisy of that very thought just jumps out.
First of all if it is put under U.S. control ask, how does that change the situation in Europe for the better? Putting it under U.S. control just falls back into the villainization of Russia. That Russia is a threat to be tolerated but not respected.
Secondly the hypocrisy that the U.S. would be making money off the pipeline that Trump brags about shutting down and which Biden destroyed in an act of sabotage is just mean behavior by the West.
It would be one more way of humiliating Russia and a continuance of isolatoling Russia on a continent that it calls home just like the other countries of Europe do.
The Ukrainian strategy is simple enough - offer no real concessions, negotiate as little as possible, and then run screaming to NATO that Russia does not want an end to the war.
The plan ever always only was for NATO to come to the rescue, once thr number of Ukrainians to soak up Russian munitions started to run low, and that the United States would get roped in, rather than leave their poodles hanging out to dry.
And why not? For the Ukrainian leadership, the war has brought nothing but benefits. Before February of 2022, Zelenskii was the increasingly authoritarian ruler of a corrupt, backward, Nazi-infested dump. Now he is The Beacon Of Muh Democracy, the leader of a country so democratic that it need not bother with tiresome elections or pesky term limits. Sure, it sucks for the dumb Ukrainian farmboys and factory workers who are press-ganged into the slaughter, but nobody in Washington, nobody in Brussels, nobody in Kiev cares in the least about them.
Hell, Putin probably cares more about them than any of their supposed leaders.
Zelenskyy isn’t really Ukraine’s leader but is the pick of its oligarchs and our western oligarchs. Apart from that I agree, and it’s very clear the need in European capitals to keep this going as they risk 1) no more common external threat justifying a flimsy ‘unity’ 2) no more hope for common fiscal framework justified by Ukraine to keep the debt bubbles afloat 3) no more hope of natural resource spoils of war, etc. The disaster of all these losses is too great but they can’t get it that Trump is not going to pull a Roosevelt for them.
This is realpolitik
You strike me as someone that would have been a Loyalist in 1776. 😉
I’m female. In 1776, I would have been likely milking cows and hoping any war would end soon without taking a husband, father, or sons away. Granted, some ideals may be worth fighting for at certain times. But fighting a war in Ukraine , outnumbered, so that different western oligarchs can get legal hold of your black earth (rich farmland), rare earths, or even other spoils in a nearby country (Russia) isn’t a good reason in my book, unless you’re conscripted and have no choice- like the poor Ukrainians. God rest their souls.
There always is a bold alternative:
dismantle NATO and once and for all lay the cold war to rest.
That was the original thought after the Warsaw Pact ended. Then the Yugoslavia conflicts began after Slovenia seceeded… NATO got involved, likely to secure its future and even justify new missions of empire… while the neocons dreamed of both Caspian oil and Iraqi oil… to go back now and confront what NATO morphed into might be logical, but then consider that Soviet GDP fell by 25% when its military industrial complex collapsed in the early 1990s. The US might be petrified to ever end empire games- what kind of economy could save it? Ah, the tariffs… might be a step toward alternatives, coming to fruition years from now.
The root issues ... how far back, how far down we are willing to go?
The GDP is not a good indicator for peace, let alone human developement.
Personally I’d go back to 1991 when there was a rare opportunity to create a more peaceful Europe, but in terms of gdp- its collapse impoverished ordinary Soviets. There was hyperinflation that led to starving elderly people who lost their live savings and were too old to emigrate or adapt. You don’t want unintended consequences like this.
Ps the economic literature called the collapse of transition economies in the post Soviet space ‘de-development.’ This was the fate of much of the ‘second world.’ Poland avoided it by getting debt write-down from George bush. Czech Republic used vouchers to transfer state wealth to the people successfully but standards of living are still lower than Western Europe. East German development is still behind west Germany because they overvalued their currency at reunification to protect west German jobs. Transition caused fateful divergences. Economic disruptions (GDP falling) caused some bad outcomes.
Zelensky is sitting in a swamp he fabricated for himself and Ukraine and is unwilling to step up to reality as reality can easily destroy him. Reality will not move toward him, he will have to change his position or all those tens of thousands of young Ukrainian women who recently demonstrated against the war will catch up with him by pushing the whole of society toward their liking. The whole of this NATO intrusion was presented and accepted as a brilliant idea by the US/NATO/Ukraine leadership and in reality it was completely retarded from conception. The West has to come to terms with at least the very basics of the security needs of the Russian Federation and recognize that full independence for Ukraine is not a solution to the present problem. And I still do not classify myself as ‘Ukrainophobic’. I am simply a pragmatic analyst, looking at the unacceptable population losses as a result of war and emigration, a self-mutilation of Ukraine society. At the same time it was a terrible mistake from Ukrainians to deny their own traditional social values and allow the ‘comedian with limited talents’ to elevate itself to his present position. This whole period in Ukraine history will be evaluated as a surrealistic, tragic parody one day by Ukraine itself.
They can't conclude an agreement before telling Zelensky his fate, so I wasnt much surprised at the non-announcement.
It does seem in retrospect, though, that Trump deliberately timed this meeting to coincide with the imminent collapse of Povrosk, which threatened to expose the devastating failure of this US/NATO project to the general public, for use as a form of leverage against the neocons, who Trump would like Mr Putin to believe have been holding him hostage.
And of course if the meeting failed to produce fruit, Trump simply throws up his arms and blames it all on "Biden's War." So, Trump wins, America loses by being further misled (again) into believing America/Trump is doing something good.
Even if Trump is motivated to end the war and improve relations with the Russians, his constant focus on self-aggrandizement at the expense of everything else, others' lives included, diminishes America and is painful to watch.
All I can say is Mr Putin has a very difficult job in deciding a path forward on this mess. Apart from the fact of nuclear weapons in the hands of children, Im not sure why Russia even wants relations with America.
Hints and innuendo with a dash of hopium. We both know this war will end on Russia's terms, and so does Putin. Trump's job, and he is NOT the decisionmaker here, is to keep the MIC grift flowing for as long as possible.
When it comes to a peace deal, my ancestors founded Missouri. Show me.
Trump actually has to prevent economic collapse, whatever else he does. Putin would understand that and allow for it. Even if you hated the US MIC you don’t want a global economic crisis either.
But is Trump preventing an economic collapse or bringing it forward with or without a peace or ceasefire during the downward profile of the US economic and social position particularly of the lower middle class and the already impoverished poor aka MAGA mob.
To be honest, the options are an eventual disorderly adjustment off reserve currency status when or if the US defaults (assuming no change in the trajectory from Biden) or, the US has to actually adjust its economy structurally. Trump’s tariffs are a structural adjustment programme for the US. The poor and middle class likely will have less of a hit to living standards if the US avoids default and balances its trade and eliminates the fiscal deficit under Trump. However, in either path there are some hits to living standards, unless Trump deregulates adequately to increase economic growth. Regulation allegedly costs about $30k a person in the US. It’s a wedge that lowers living standards on its own. Trump’s team appears to be doing everything possible to give the US a chance without having an eventual default. Does facing it head on bring it forward? Maybe. Sovereign crises have a quick way of accelerating, and it was starting under Biden as soon as the debt was growing faster than the economy.
How can there be effect to the lower middle class and MAGA mob if prices rise by upwards of ,15% and products are unavailable is certain categories due to China redirecting trade towards the remainder of the world and away from the US. Seems your answer is no government or infrastructure as they are expensive but cause excess costs to industry in the long run.
No that’s not what I am saying. Deregulation often means more houses can be built, improving the standard of living. Or that small fisherman don’t have thousands of dollars in extra upfront costs to meet regulations, which stacks the deck in favour of large companies that can better afford the regulatory costs. Deregulation would make energy costs much cheaper for ordinary households rather than pursuing intermittent energy by force. Or would allow washing machines that are half the price because they allow more than 2 litres of water in them. Also, the US government changed the way it calculates inflation both in the 1980s and 1990s to deliberately understate inflation, even though shelter’ plus education and healthcare costs rose many times faster than they said as they massaged the data. No one cried then about inflation. People can buy fewer Chinese products on Amazon or pay $13 for a toy instead of $10. They can save that $3 by buying cheese from Wisconsin instead of from France for example. But deregulating will lower the cost of energy, food, and housing which is far more meaningful to the consumer on the whole. And even the screwed up statistics the US has will not show more than a percentage point or so more in inflation as the price level adjusts to the tariffs because most of the US economy is domestic (not imported). And more of the economy is services rather than goods. And much of the goods trade is USMCA compliant and therefore not targeted under the tariffs.
I think you have a rosy attitude to deregulation, you need to visit countries that are deregulated or very lightly regulated like Indonesia and see the benefits of regulations imposed on things. Yes there certainly are excessive regulations in some situations but generally they are beneficial.
The mega corporation will grow with or without excessive regulations and the old days of your youth will never return as you remembered them.
Population growth changes all and no turning back the clock.
Your example of a washing machine, well in Australia that is quite critical as our big cities have verged on the edge of running out of water, plus the cost of making water potable is increasing so that regulation is not onerous as you suggest.
Is a 400+hp V8 engine necessary or should regulations limit or impose charges on those who wish to have them that is a question one can pose about regulations that other countries have accepted but others have not.
One person's regulations is another benefit, it is all in the eye of the beholder.
Libertarians like no taxes or government but that suggests every street should have a toll
every school is privatised and we have people who can not read or write as they cannot afford to send their children to school as in Indonesia in poor villages.
!!!
In the meantime, there has been a major development, an hour or so ago. Donald Trump appears to have changed course and to share the Russian view. He stated that the best way to end the 'horrific' war between Russia and Ukraine is a peace agreement and not a ceasefire... The warmongers in the West, who wanted such a truce to give the Ukrainian army time to recover and to restart the war later, will not be pleased with this news.
Ps maybe if the Trump admin actually prosecutes over ‘Crossfire Hurricane,’ the associated release of information might pave the way for peace with Russia if emerging information completely discredits the ‘Russia Russia’ narrative and leads to consequences for those that peddled it. If so, it could prove harder to go back to another war against Russia later (over Ukraine or some other reason) because they couldn’t propagandise the American people into it. And, if the media are forced to cover the facts about ‘crossfire hurricane’ it just might even wake up some Europeans across the pond who are more severely brainwashed. Might…
Yes, it's high time the Europeans wake up, lest they are left holding the "baby" of the Ukrainian War. An ugly baby it is, by the way, and one that Obama or Biden fathered.
Check out which European or British oligarchs were hand picking people in both the Obama and Biden administrations… no, the ugly baby’s father is from across the pond.
Intriguing... I wonder whom you are referring to. I cannot check this out myself.
I’ll give you a hint- the color revolution gang… Orban kicked them out…
Thank you.
They won’t, and ‘appears’ is the right word choice. There are reasons to appear to take the European side during the trade war before the deal with europe- the Europeans were hopeful and agreed to purchase LNG and arms. Hence the US will recoup some of what it spent in Ukraine by having Europe prop it up economically. Europeans still believe they can wait till they can gather strength again and launch some new scheme, but if Trump wants to avoid that he has to go with Russia back to 1991 and pursue an alternate timeline. If he doesn’t go back to 1991 in the solution, then it’s more of the same the next time a Democrat or Republican neocon is president.
Not an All Ukraine referendum but for each region separately would be an interesting compromise.
Andrew, I'm ok but in what you say I don't see any compromise. Only satisfaction of all Russian requirements.
A compromise is both side concessions.
Where are the russian concessions?
What you describe looks like a total ukrainian surrender and I doubt that neocon and UE globalist will accept that without shouting to Trump's treason.
Can Trump allow himself such a political challenge?
This meeting was very very short. Even abbreviated.
It's not a good sign no?
I don't know what will result of it, but one more time Poutine surprised us in being where nobody wait for him.
I feared these meeting and I was shocked that Poutine came in USA like a vassal go to his overlord. I was totally wrong.
Today, what I feel about this meeting is it was a wonderful demonstration of force and self confidence: "I come in peace but I don't fear you."
In the langage of street fight, it's the moment where the good guy, tired of the bully, come just in front of him, body to body, face to face, eye to eye and stay quiet, like saying " ok man, strike if you dare or shut the fuck up and go away".
It was a message to China-India-Brazil too: " ok boys, you see? I'm ready to go. You follow or you lay down, you choose."
Perhaps as the timeline converges with ‘crossfire hurricane’ investigations and a revelation of what the democrats did to try to frame Trump regarding Russia, it may be a unique moment to show the world they didn’t succeed in keeping these countries apart and that a better relationship is possible. I didn’t see Putin’s trip like a vassal to an overlord at all. Trump made a point that both of them as leaders were put through enough by the same group of people. Trump seemed to enjoy the commiseration. But definitely I agree- I’m wondering about the next moves of Ukraine, and more importantly Britain and France.
Useful intel, Andrew. My suggestion is to for the meeting in Alaska be a stepping stone to a development perspective uniting the self interests of both the US and Russia by building the Beering Straight tunnel/bridge
America is by far the biggest energy producer…have you been in a coma since 2008?? Wait until you hear who Liz Cheney supported in 2024!! 😆
America is the largest oil producer owing to fracking. But Russia has far and away the largest natural gas reserves in the world, and it’s not even close. In terms of gas, I worry America uses much of what it produces but is trying to export its natural gas to offset trade imbalances, so it will drive up local prices. Also, the US refining situation was harmed by greens over decades, so it has to import Russian refined diesel. The crude oil from fracking is sweet, not sour as the refineries need. So the US imports sour crude from Canada and Mexico to refine while not investing in new refining capacity for sweet crude. Russia doesn’t have to fight as many internal actors bent on hobbling the energy sector and thus the economy. America’s cost of oil extraction is also higher than Saudi Arabia which has cheap megagiants. This is why Saudi cuts oil production to bankrupt small American frackers, such as in 2014-15, albeit it may have been asked to do it to undercut Russia after Maidan Square…
Trump wants to export America’s natural gas to China…that means he thinks renewables will eventually win out and make natural gas worthless. China has already hit peak oil consumption and so EVs are already eroding oil market share with Trump failing to covince the Philly diesel refinery to rebuild after it burned in his first term. Trump’s repealing Biden’s IRA simply buys Big Energy a few more years before inevitable decline like coal.
Renewables are not a reliable base load as they are intermittent energy. The plan is to move to nuclear energy, and even left wing billionaires signaled this in their plans for AI expansion. Green energy is a tactic similar to saddling the best horse with extra weight to slow it down so that it cannot compete. So is strategic denial of energy.
Nuclear is super expensive. Renewables are super cheap even with battery backup which can also be charged by natural gas. Basically peaker plants are the most expensive which is why batteries are cost competitive…and once you have batteries you can build a lot more renewable capacity. Texas has led the way on renewables the last several years and their grid is just gets more robust with more renewables.
Ps the reason you were told renewables were cheaper was to encourage them because oligarchs and politicians would know ahead of time which ‘green’ things would get government support (taxpayer money) and would invest in them ahead of time for personal gain in stock prices. In an era where the west was deindustrialising, they could still profit from their insider knowledge by directing government policy (choosing winners and losers) and adding the ‘tab’ to the debt-to-GDP for future generations to pay. Deregulating energy and bringing it back to free competition removes the possibility of easy money for the well connected.
Renewables’ costs were skewed by government subsidies which the taxpayer paid. Without them, we’re seeing projects cancelled. Even before that, the Ukraine war which the left started was already destroying wind power projects (and these companies had huge losses) owing to the inflationary shock the Ukraine war caused. Moreover the disposal costs of wind power blades and solar panels after their useful life of 10-15 years is high because they are made of toxic mixes of plastics, metals, and rare earths. Municipalities will bear these costs of disposal and millions of acres of landfills would have been required to fully rely on this for energy. Moreover 1/3 or more of the world’s land and all the farmland would be needed to replace hydrocarbons with renewables-I assume you like to eat? Moreover the energy grid would have to double in capacity to move to EVs and there is already a copper shortage. As the shortage gets larger, the cost will rise further making electrification costs soar. Moreover there isn’t enough lithium in the entire world to replace all the cars with EVs. And lithium is needed for batteries in laptops, phones, etc. Do you use those? Also, who pays the cost of mining tailings disposal? That’s expensive. All-in, nuclear is cheaper and feasible. Moreover the US abandoned thorium salt reactors in the 1970s because of the ‘greens’ but now China a has built a thorium salt reactor. There are other modern ways to acheive smaller scale nuclear reactors. Even France with its older nuclear reactors has benefitted as Germany decommissioned and exported reliable power to Germany, which is now de-industrialising. Is de-industrialisation not also a significant cost? What about lost jobs/incomes? Lastly, it was the switch to renewables that led to the epic Texas power failure in the winter of 2021. People were without power for four days in freezing temperatures, and some died in their homes. That never happened when Texas used coal-fired generation. It was too cold for wind blades to operate. It wasn’t sunny. The governor was told by Biden’s EPA that he couldn’t use hydrocarbons to meet the shortfall and people died as a consequence. Do you put a cost on life? I’m sure their families did.
Good points.
But the question remains: what happens after the Trump presidency is over?
Difficult to see how that’s tractable ….
Hell, what happens when Trump changes his mind again?
Vance is pretending to be MAGA…he admitted to being a Jeb supporter in 2015.
Maybe but he was young then and people do change. Tulsi and RFK Jr also changed. Vance actually speaks as if he is genuine. If he isn’t it’s a good act. I’m not usually fooled.
Tulsi and RFK haven’t changed…they are nuts and they’ve always been nutz.
Wrong… Tulsi clearly eviscerated Kamala Harris in the Presidential debate and saved America from the latter advancing beyond 1% in the primary. Then RFK Jr, well he has taken funding from using MRNA for respiratory viruses after metastudies showed they were more harmful than beneficial, hence they will revert to other, minor uses. He also is getting dyes linked to hyperactivity and cancer out of schools, sugary processed food out of SNAP benefits and more. If you ask me they are both knights in shining armour, and not he kind that tilt at windmills.
Putin/Russia will NEVER 'LIMIT the scope' of the SMO!!!
What planet are you on??
Putin/Russia will also NEVER 'compromise'.
For SOME reason, individuals seem to forget 'one little thing'.......
RUSSIA IS WINNING!
RUSSIA HAS BEEN WINNING, from the start!
RUSSIA HAS WON this war!
PERIOD!
ZERO 'compromise' on ANYTHING, via Russia!
This IS the way that this is going to work......
Honor ALL of Russia's demands.
RESOLVE the ROOT CAUSES.
If not......Russia WILL CONTINUE THEIR SMO!
Period!
THE END!
There is also the 'little problem' of the FACT that the Ukraine has an ILLEGITIMATE GOVERNMENT!
THIS, TOO, needs to be addressed/resolved!
An ILLEGIT govt CANNOT sign ANYTHING; it will be deemed as NOT LAWFULLY BINDING.
By the way.....Russia WILL be taking BACK, Odessa!
GOD BLESS RUSSIA!
mutTrump is NATO salesman... He cannot stop selling stuff, because his Billionaires Friends will be upset.
Q: What happens with all the "loans," (stolen) russian assets and reconstruction funds if Ukraine is settled as a loss? This is, after all, a major part.
Thanks for your great work Andrew!
We've shared the link on our daily report.
A Skeptic War Reports
https://askeptic.substack.com/