We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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Samizdata quote of the day – Perceptions and posturing and vibes The notion that Russia is inherently stronger than Europe is false, of course — Europe has a lot more people and a lot more heavy industry. All the pushups in the world haven’t prevented the vaunted Russian military from turning in a decidedly lackluster performance in Ukraine. But to the American right, perceptions and posturing and vibes are often more important than numbers and statistics. Russia gives off strength, so it must be strong.
And to the American right, strength is everything in international affairs. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and concepts like the rules-based international order or international law are laughable. If Russia and Europe are to fight, Trump and company want to bet on the side with the shirtless pushups.
– Noah Smith
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Yes – Mr Putin has been in charge for 25 years, and the plan in 2022 was very much HIS military plan (and it failed). The Russian military may, finally, be getting its act together – but three years late, three years of horrible incompetence and vast numbers of dead young men.
Vast numbers of dead young men when both Russia and Ukraine were already in demographic decline – a fact that Mr Putin knew very well.
As for industry – Mr Putin has made Russia an economic colony of the People’s Republic of China, and the manufacturing power of China is vastly greater than that of Germany (Germany is what the post probably means when it talks about “Europe”, but even if it means every nation in the Continent of Europe bar Russia, then China and Russia still have much more manufacturing power).
Mr Putin has betrayed the Russian people to the People’s Republic of China, and he has also (as the late Mr Navalny may have been murdered for pointing out) betrayed the Russian people to the Islamic powers – in order to get more soldiers and more support. Western (if the term “Western” means anything any more) talk of “North Korean” soldiers hides the basic fact that Muslim soldiers (both from Russia and from the Central Asian Republics) are vastly more important in Russian forces – and that support from the Islamic Republic of Iran (and so on) is vastly more important than support from North Korea.
The betrayal of the Russian people by Mr Putin shows that he cares about one thing and one thing only – himself.
There was a move under Boris Yeltsin to establish a professional all volunteer military in Russia – where men would be properly trained in modern (as opposed to Soviet) tactics.
But a young Prime Minister vetoed that plan – what was good enough for Stalin, militarily, would be good enough now – according to that young Prime Minister.
His name? Vladimir Putin.
“We get Russian food and raw materials at knock down prices in terms of manufactured goods (and we do not even have to care very much about the quality of the manufactured goods we are sending to Russia) and we get the Russians to kill our Western enemies without losing the lives of any Chinese”.
A great deal for the People’s Republic of China Communist Party Dictatorship – and an utterly terrible deal for the Russian people, but Mr Putin does not care about the Russian people.
And if Russians start to complain about a certain demographic transformation in Russian towns and cities (the Call to Prayer and so on) – well then they get what Mr Navalny got.
The US isn’t abandoning Europe. It’s just forcing it to grow up (albeit kicking and screaming). Decades of asking have fallen on deaf ears and the time has come for tough love.
Europe has a lot more people and a lot more heavy industry
If so, what are Europe’s mighty armies and its great factories doing after three years supporting Ukraine’s just self defence?
Respectively, sitting in classes on respecting gender identity, and pouring out overpriced, unwanted EVs. Until Europe, and we in Britain, demonstrate some sort of willingness to step up, we have absolutely basis for criticising the Americans.
Russia is certainly stronger than almost all of us in one major respect.
Russia acts according to the rule of one strong-willed individual.
While the rest of us have to form internal coalitions and satisfy competing needs and just generally pay attention to multiple wills, Russia has one governing will.
Mordor was stronger than the Free Peoples of Middle Earth in that one aspect. But that’s not always enough.
But what Europe can do is to look strong. It can beef up its defenses by a huge amount, implement universal military training, build up its nuclear arsenal, and boost heavy industry and defense manufacturing. Poland is already doing all of this, and the UK, France, and Germany are already moving in the direction of rearmament. That’s good.
This struck me as the essential point. Poland only escaped from the Bolshevik lunacy 30 odd years ago. It is definitely not a decadent society. The question is – are the UK, France and Germany (and all the rest in Western Europe) redeemably decadent, or irredeemably decadent?
Europe has a lot more people and a lot more heavy industry
On paper.
In fact Europe has grown soft and decadent and has lost the *will* and the ability to fight. The most important thing for Europeans now is to secure retirement at 60 (preferably 55) on a guaranteed, fat, government pension.
Europe (western) has lost the will to fight.
The thing they might be willing to fight for is transgender rights.
Good thing nobody threatens them.
Lee:
Western Europe is indeed decadent. We would rather “decarbonize” than rearm.
There is a question about conscription. I consider this to be impossible. We do not have coherent societies any more. I do not believe that our large muslim population would consent to conscription. They want to live in Britain, not fight for it. The white working class who should form the backbone of the army have grown sick and tired of being looked down on by the left wing elites. Why fight for people who despise you?
One saving grace is that Putin is absolutely useless, and a good example of why you should never let a secret policeman rule a country. It has taken him three years to “conquer” 20% of Ukraine, a much weaker country. Blitzkrieg this is not.
“It has taken him three years to ‘conquer’ 20% of Ukraine, a much weaker country. Blitzkrieg this is not.”
Indeed. And a good part of Ukraine was already in Russian hands before the invasion (either Crimea which was occupied and annexed in 2014 or those areas held by Russian “separatist” proxies).
All in all, the Russian invasion has provided a stunning display of Russian military incompetence since Day One.
Well said JJM.
The Russian military would have been crushed by a Schwartzkoff or Patton in a few weeks. With F-35s on overwatch and A-10 ground attack planes, the Russian army would have suffered the fate of the Iraqi military in 1991.
And the Ukrainians managed to hold the Russians and push them back with some western support. Imagine if they’d had a full and rapid attack capability as I’ve outlined. Yet we bought Putin’s threats of using nukes.
I think Putin is full of shit; he’s more vulnerable than many think, including his pal in the White House.
From the Wall Street Journal ($), March 13. Headline: How Europe’s Military Stacks Up Against Russia Without U.S. Support:
Europe’s military shortcomings are well documented. Its forces rely on the U.S. for vital intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, transport aircraft and command-and-control. Perhaps most critical in a fight with Russia is Europe’s lack of air defenses. Russia has demolished Ukrainian towns and cities with missiles and rockets.
Still, Europe’s militaries together have significant defensive capabilities, which they are building through incessant training. The scale of exercises has increased and their focus has shifted to collective defense. U.S. absence from the reaction-force drill in February was largely due to troop rotations and European initiative to lead the effort, say NATO officials.
NATO’s 32 members last spring staged their largest exercise since the Cold War, including roughly 90,000 troops, more than 80 aircraft and 1,100 combat vehicles—a big chunk of which came from the U.S. This year, NATO plans nearly 100 separate exercises, said NATO’s supreme allied commander Europe, U.S. Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli, in January. Most are in or near Europe.
NATO’s training of Ukrainian soldiers in its leadership approach, known as mission command, helped its forces prevail against Russia’s assault on Kyiv, said Ukrainian and NATO officers. Russian combat commanders struggle to improvise and adapt, the past three years have shown.
NATO’s European militaries also have large amounts of equipment, though much needs to be readied for action. Together they have roughly 5,000 tanks and more than 2,800 self-propelled artillery systems. Russia has up to 3,000 tanks left, according to open-source analysts, though the actual numbers are difficult to judge after it lost thousands of tanks in Ukraine. It has about half as many self-propelled artillery systems as Europe, according to the International Institute of Strategic Studies, a think tank in London.
For more traditional air combat, NATO’s European members have roughly 2,000 jet fighters and other warplanes, according to the IISS. Europeans are expanding and modernizing those fleets. By 2030, Europe will have more than 500 cutting-edge U.S.-made F-35 fighter planes.
Russia’s air force has roughly 1,000 fighter, bomber and ground-attack aircraft, and they haven’t performed well in combat, according to the IISS, which estimates Russia has lost roughly one of every five planes it sent into combat.
When are you going to stop taking Trump literally, and start taking him seriously?
Putin is not Trump’s “pal”. The moves being made are not based on shirtless photos (the Trannie Administration has vacated the White House… )
Uro-peons would do well to listen to JD Vance as well – and ask themselves how committed their states and people are to Western humanism and democratic ideals. Not the feminized politics of victimhood – the muscular, masculine parts:
Personal responsibility as the flip side of free will
Family-centered, non-exploitative sexual morality
Non-situational ethics based on Judeo-Christian personhood, and brotherhood.
If we no longer share this cultural basis – why should we Americans care whether Europe is debached by Muzzies or Rooskies?
Ben David, no, speaking for myself, I have long gone past playing the “4-D chess” spin that his apologists come up with every time he says or tweets something appalling, or after his comments in the White House and behaviour towards Zelensky.
Look at the mess in the US equity market, with the worst relative performance for 25 years. Millions of folks’ 401(K) pension pots are getting drilled because a president thinks it is necessary to shake the world up by threatening allies and trading partners on the basis of his economic illiteracy. He’s been a “tariff man” since long before public office. He means what he says. The whole “but it is a ploy” does not work as an excuse any more.
Putin is not Trump’s “pal”.
So why does he act like he is? He certainly seems more at ease with him than Z. In his self-pitying comments next to Z a fortnight ago, Trump went on about how, like Putin, he had suffered for being persecuted by liars. You got the sense of a sort of comradeship in experience. It was nauseating to watch.
Uro-peons would do well to listen to JD Vance as well
The man who a few years ago denounced Trump as akin to Hitler. OK, cheap shot maybe but Vance has been, as they say, on a “journey”. Where it leads, goodness knows.
Belief in the reality of free will is not, specifically, a male trait. It is universal to human beings as a function of consciousness.
I don’t think that the Russian soldiers who have abused Ukrainian women seem to be very big on a “Judeo-Christian” worldview.
“Europe” does not exist as a political or military enity – even if one excludes Russia (and neither geographically or historically, culturally, should one do that).
But even if it did exist as such an entity (which it does not) it would not have “more people” or “more heavy industry” than the People’s Republic of China which is an ally of Mr Putin.
So the post is based on false information.
As for “the rules based international order” and “international law” – it is astonishing that Noah Smith does not know that these terms (whatever they may have meant in the past) now mean the effort by the “international community” (international governmental and corporate) to impose totalitarianism in line with Agenda 2030 and other such plans.
The “rules based international order” and its “international law” are the ENEMY of freedom supporting people – and if Mr Smith does not yet know that, it is high time that he did.
If the goal was to prevent Russia from taking territory by force in Eastern Europe, then why didn’t Europe and USA welcome Russia into the Western family of nations by adding Russia to EU, G7, and NATO many years ago? This is a genuine question.
By welcoming Russia into these organizations instead of constantly seeking to isolate and spit on Russia, Russia would enjoy the benefits of military collaboration, economic growth, business investments, cultural acceptance, and much more. Like Turkey, Russia would have to meet certain requirements of western legal standards in order to join these organizations. So it kills two birds with one stone – makes Russia a better place in the eyes of westerners AND virtually eliminates any motivation on the part of Putin to cause problems by invading countries by offering the carrots of cooperation and economic growth and inclusivity and warmth and respect instead of spitting on Russia, isolating Russia, and ostracizing Russia as the west has been doing since the early 1990s.
My understanding is that Putin has asked to join these organizations multiple times mostly in the early 2000s. He was told to fuck off by the USA and Europe, which was not a smart move in my opinion.
Johnathan Pearce – I watched the conversation with President Trump and President Zelensky (although other people spoke rather a lot – which was in-its-self a problem), and at no point did President say that Mr Putin has been persecuted by liars, some of your other claims also appear to be odd.
Go back and watch a full recording of he hour long event again – nor do you even mention the pre-meeting 40 minutes before the meeting with President Trump, where President Zelensky agreed with leading Democrats (for example Senator Murphy – who boasted about it afterwards) that he would make trouble at the meeting with President Trump – that rather shows who went into that meeting with President Trump intending (having pre planned) to be the “tough guy” and go back on what had previously been agreed. President Zelensky got very bad advice (I would argue deliberately bad advice – from “friends” who are not really friends of President Zelensky at all) and it would have been much better if that pre-meeting with the Democrats had-not-occurred.
The last thing someone should do in a meeting with DJT (who really was viciously persecuted for years – as was his family and many of his closest friends) let alone J.D. Vance (who had a horrible life in his earliest years – and is known to have a short temper) is act like a tough guy. And anyone who gives that advice “be tough – go back on what you have agreed, and ……” is deliberately trying to get you into trouble. Designer stubble and dressing up in paramilitary gear is not going to help you if someone like J.D. Vance really does lose his temper with you – which, by the way, he did NOT (he managed to restrain himself). Although there was some unfairness in relation to President Zelensky as well – for example J.D. Vance believed (and still believes) that Zelensky was pulling faces at him, but I have seen President Zelensky do that before, even when he is not facing anyone, it is just something he does – I do not believe he knows he is doing it (he is NOT intentionally trying to provoke a physical response).
Some people watching things seem to see and hear what they want to see and hear – rather than what actually took place, for example I watched a friendly conversation between President Trump and the Prime Minister of Ireland – and straight afterwards watched journalists on “GB News” (supposedly a conservative television station – although it tends to force out people who actually are conservative) saying how President Trump “savaged” the Prime Minister of Ireland and was going to “destroy Ireland” and lot of other total rubbish that they, the people on GB News, were just making up – and had no connection to the friendly banter between the two men – the President and the Prime Minister. I kept waiting for the GB News people to declare that President Trump’s reference to J.D. Vance’s socks was a “veiled threat to launch a nuclear attack upon Ireland” – it would have been in line with how they “interpreted” everything else.
As for war between the United States and Russia – this would really would become a world wide thermonuclear war.
Direct American military intervention against Russia in Ukraine (in Ukraine – a Russian sphere of influence for hundreds of years) was never an option in an age of nuclear weapons. Johnathan Peace, you are an intelligent and experienced person – you know this. No one would be insane enough to do that – not the United States, not Germany, no one.
So we see the chopping off of penises of 9 year old boys to transition them to girls, putting them on horrific hormone replacement therapy preventing puberty from taking place, Sharia Law Courts popping up all over western cities including London, the demographic destruction of White Christians with below replacement fertility rates (and I say this as a Jew, not a Christian) wiping out thousands of years of western civilization and due process rights, literal MARXISM Woke Ideology hijacking their childrens educational systems throughout most of Western Europe, the en masse destruction of any semblance of free speech where Europeans are placed in prison for saying mean things on the internet.
All of this is happening. And so much more as well. Horrible things. Both in USA and Europe. In America we are fighting against these things.
It seems to me that most Europeans, not only Leftists but also most European Classical Liberals, most European Libertarians, most European Conservatives spend far more time rejecting Trump than they do rejecting the above catastrophic actions and trends. They are offended by Trumps mean tweets, mean words, gauche style, rough tone – and they spend a lot of time making a big fuss about it. Trump is what they spend their time rejecting and condemning as their own civilizations are being wiped from the face of the earth for the first time in thousands of years.
So I ask the same question as Ben David:
Johnathan Pearce:
“every time he says or tweets something appalling”
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Ohhh clutch your pearls more tightly dahling.
I think that Trump’s team had 4 years to plan this out.
I also think that Trump and Musk, as successful businessmen, are experts at improvisation, adaptation, mood-reading, and misdirection.
That’s not quite the same as a brainiac playing 4-D chess (which is partly what ticks off edumacated intellektuals) – but it works.
I have not seen ANYthing that undermines or contradicts the MAGA mandate.
I have seen lots of colorful attention-getting messaging – some of it obviously not intended to be taken literally, and some of it designed to misdirect. ALL of it designed to successfully breach the wall of hostile mainstream media.
Renegotiating the Atlantic Alliance – its lopsided military and financial arrangements.
Reforming and shrinking Federal government back to its original, pre-Wilsonian concept (those are the glory days Trump is yearning for, which Noah Smith completely misses).
Bringing jobs back from overseas – including good First World medical, bio, and high-end manufacturing.
Laser focus on China – the elephant that most Western leaders are either appeasing or ignoring.
I have not seen anything that contravenes those goals.
I see a lot of great political street theater that moves directly or obliquely towards them.
More Pearce-ing commentary:
“Look at the mess in the US equity market, with the worst relative performance for 25 years. Millions of folks’ 401(K) pension pots are getting drilled”
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It is simply unfair to level this accusation 50 days into the administration, knowing what we do about the debts, devaluations, and bailouts of recent Dem administrations.
The “Millions of folks” elected Trump to make fundamental changes that will have far-reaching positive impact on America’s economy and social fabric.
And he is doing it.
More Priceless Pearls from Pearce:
Belief in the reality of free will is not, specifically, a male trait.
I don’t think that the Russian soldiers… seem to be very big on a “Judeo-Christian” worldview.
———————–
These are deliberate misreadings of my intent. Taking things literally instead of seriously.
The MAGA movement, and both Trump administrations, are the latest stations in the Reagan-Thatcher “Long March” through institutions corrupted by political and cultural Marxism.
Here’s my list again:
Personal responsibility as the flip side of freedom
Family-centered, non-exploitative sexual morality
Non-situational ethics based on Judeo-Christian personhood, and brotherhood.
Of course “direct”, in the line “direct military involvement”, is an important word – one can do a lot for Ukrainians without going into war, but one must be very careful not to go on a path that leads to war – President Trump from 2017 to 2021 did as much as could be done, both in terms of supplying the Ukrainians with weapons and supplying military training. And President Trump is again sending arms to Ukraine and again sharing intelligence information with them.
Shlomo Maistre.
Vice President Vance really does seem to have believed he could make an appeal to the European elite on the basis of shared principles – such as Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion.
In response he got patronizing abuse – including from some people on this site (thankfully I doubt he reads it).
Given that response the temptation to “walk away” must be strong.
All we can say is the elite (what Perry calls “the intelligentsia” – and perhaps he is correct to do so) do NOT represent the ordinary people of Europe – not farmers in Ukraine, or factory workers, and others, in Britain.
Our “leaders”, political and cultural, do NOT represent us – please do not abandon us.
Also we see the regime change operations of the EU AUTOCRATS in Romania’s recent election and the constant shaming, and ostracizing and other’ing of most of the European political parties that can actually bring real, practical, effective solutions to the catastrophic trends destroying Europe. For example National Rally in France and AFD in Germany. Most European Classical Liberals, most European Libertarians, most European Conservatives barely protest or object to the shaming of the AFD in Germany or the regime change operation against the legitimate election in Romania – in fact most of them are ACTIVE PARTICIPANTS in these self-destructive and immoral actions.
This is not the Europe that I learned about in grade school that gave us western civilization. It’s just not.
So I ask the same question as Ben David:
Do you think that your elections (in UK and other European countries as well) are rigged or fake? Because the political leaders do seem to more or less represent the people, unless there is some kind of systemic fraud going on with the elections in many European countries?
You personally, Paul Marks, are obviously an exception and a fairly rare exception it seems to me
Schomo – the snuffing out of democracy in Romania and other countries is indeed terrible, and it is shocking that it has not been more widely condemned. Nor is it a matter of the international forces behind this being against democracy but for individual liberty – because they hate liberty (such as Freedom of Speech) as well.
Ben David – we both know that once (a long time ago) the term “international law” meant something good, back in the days of Hugo Grontius and other great thinkers.
But there has gradually been a change – and you are correct to identify Woodrow Wilson as one of the people at the start of that change.
Once international law meant an effort (however difficult) to have some sort of just conduct between nations – but from President Wilson onwards it started to mean an effort to build “world governance”.
Leading, eventually, to the nightmare of Agenda 2030 and all-all-the-rest-of-it today.
Today – NOT in the 19th century or before, but today, “international law”, “the international community”, “the rules based international order” is exactly what pro liberty people are AGAINST – it is indeed astonishing that Mr Noah Smith appears to not know this.
Mr Noah Smith only allows subscribers to comment on his articles – but I have just had a quick look at his article.
The title is “Why America betrayed Europe” – America has not betrayed Europe, so the title is a lie.
And Mr Smith ends by talking about “European values” – if he means the values of the establishment elite, these would be “values” of crushing Freedom of Speech with threats of losing your job, or even of fines and imprisonment, plus the stuffing out of democracy by either ignoring what the people vote for in terms of a demand for a change of POLICY – or just cancelling elections and banning candidates the establishment elite do not like.
In short “values” that are evil and should be condemned.
I’ll only cite this one small comment, but I’m using it as a stand-in also for your entire parade of horribles.
It saddens me to say that, due to your increasing TDS, you are descending into willful dishonesty.
Paul Marks above sets out why this one comment is so off the mark. I’ll just add that many of the statements you made are the stuff of CNN. Not just wrong. You know they’re wrong.
I hope your efforts are worth your reputation as an honest chronicler.
bobby b – I come to Johnathan’s defense on this. I’m as strong a Trump supporter as there is on Samizdata’s comment threads (my main gripe with Trump is he is far too moderate and too compromising) and I disagree with most of Johnathan’s points regarding the situation with Trump, Zelensky, Ukraine.
With that said, I do not think any of Johnathan’s comments are “willfully dishonest” at all. While I think much of his perspective on this stuff is wrong (though he has made couple points I agree with as well) I think he clearly believes what he is saying. And, for better or worse, I think he speaks for a great number of Europeans generally.
Are you aware the current UK government was elected with the smallest share of the vote since the introduction of universal suffrage? No, of course you don’t know that, but since when has that ever stopped you?
2024 UK election: Labor 33.7%, Conservatives 23.7%, Reform UK 14.3%, Lib Dems 12.2%, Green Party 6.4%, SNP 2.5%
The Conservatives are basically no better than Labor. So by my count only about 15% of UK’s voters have what I would consider Western values. Why any British person who has Western values would vote for the Conservative Party boggles my mind, but maybe I could be persuaded that a small percentage of Brits who voted Tory also share my Western values. So optimistically at most 25% of the British people share my values, if that.
In any case, I was not talking about the UK exclusively. I was talking about European countries. Look at how few Germans even voted for the AFD. Look at how few French voted for the National Rally in the first round. Shameful. Absolutely dreadful.
Johnathan Pearce
I have long gone past playing the “4-D chess”
Me too. I think Trump is pretty straightforward. It is the art of the deal. Sometimes he says things that aren’t true to provoke a reaction or to position himself in a negotiation. Maybe you don’t like that, but that is what he does. Most people aren’t particularly logical, most people are emotional, and that is the angle he works. In fairness, sometimes he also says dumb stuff for no particularly good reason.
or after his comments in the White House and behaviour towards Zelensky.
Just to be clear, Zelenskyy was the one who behaved terribly, though, in fairness to him, I think he was clearly set up. However, it looks like he has performed the necessary genuflecting to get back in. Is that Trump’s big fat ego? Maybe? But I also think it is mainly about positioning himself as the alpha dog to control the negotiation.
Look at the mess in the US equity market, with the worst relative performance for 25 years. Millions of folks’ 401(K) pension pots are getting drilled
I mean surely you can’t be serious? The market is skittish for a few weeks and the President should change course? He is thinking long term not what next week’s NASDAQ says. There was a huge drop in the markets in Feb 2016 too, but his first term was a huge market success. And FWIW, don’t take my advice, but right now I am buying, in fact I’m buying triple leveraged. There is a huge upside opportunity right now. I guess it is a risk using this analogy in this place of all places, but it is like the climate and the weather. The president’s job is to focus on the climate, not the rain shower that is bothering people right now.
shake the world up by threatening allies and trading partners on the basis of his economic illiteracy. He’s been a “tariff man” since long before public office. He means what he says. The whole “but it is a ploy” does not work as an excuse any more.
It isn’t a ploy, it is a negotiation. Everything Trump does is a negotiation. His April 2 plan of equal tariffs on both sides is a negotiation also. Part of it is to create an impression of fairness in his dealings, and part of it is to expose the reality, so that the tarrifed country’s whining rings particularly hollow. But I think most of it is to get bilateral reductions. For sure I understand that a tariff hurts the American consumer regardless of who imposes it, but if it is a short term loss for a long term gain it is at least worth considering. I don’t like tariffs, but the reality is that the American economy hit is Zenith under Tariff Man Trump, so I think he deserves some slack to try to do it again. As with everything Trump does, it is a negotiation in an attempt to make a deal. And the deal is always designed to, in his opinion anyway, benefit America.
It is also worth pointing out that part of that deal is not purely pecuniary in nature. There are at least two other things he is measuring: improving the US job market by pushing for onshoring and domestic investment, and a defense ploy of onshoring industries vital to the national defense and security. There is an argument to be made that higher prices are a valid cost for achieving these non pecuniary goals. You might not agree, but he is the one who was elected president to bring about many of these specific ideas.
It isn’t 4-D chess. It is the art of the deal. It is a negotiation.
So why does he act like he is? He certainly seems more at ease with him than Z. In his self-pitying comments next to Z a fortnight ago, Trump went on about how, like Putin, he had suffered for being persecuted by liars. You got the sense of a sort of comradeship in experience. It was nauseating to watch.
It is a negotiation. He is trying to do a deal so he works both sides in the way he thinks is necessary. It isn’t 4-D chess. It is a negotiation to get the deal he wants. And in this case the deal he wants has absolutely nothing to do with fairness to Russia or fairness to Ukraine. It is what is the deal that will be best for America. Maybe you disagree, maybe you expect him to be more altruistic or cosmopolitan, but again, that is his policy, it is what he campaigned on, and he is working the deal just like he always does.
SM – The short vid clips were ubiquitous on the net, along with commentary telling us what a jerk Trump had been to Z.
Then, the full video became just as ubiquitous. The full vid clearly shows the dishonesty of the editing selections of the original MSM presentation.
Then the discussions of that dishonesty also became ubiquitous across the net.
No one who functions on the net could be unaware of that full vid. At that point, I don’t think of “Trump abused Z” as a good faith utterance.
Johnathan Pearce: “[S]peaking for myself, I have long gone past playing the ‘4-D chess’ spin that his apologists come up with every time he says or tweets something appalling, or after his comments in the White House and behaviour towards Zelensky.”
He was never playing “4-D chess”. Here and there he was certainly proving quite adept at draughts (checkers for the Americans). It has become clear since his inauguration that the current occupant of the White House is a complete loon and none of the fartcatchers he has surrounded himself with have the personal integrity or gumption to speak the truth to him.*
* Which more or less puts them in the same situation as their hapless Democrat predecessors in the White House: attempting to cover over a senile incumbent’s debilities. I wonder how long Marco Rubio can play this game before he accepts that he has signed on for a tour in Bedlam. He always has that haunted look in his eyes every time I see him on TV.
China is not, and never will be, an ally of Putin. They hate and fear each other. They have no mutual bond.
China would love Putin to fail and Russia to collapse into incoherence. That would be one long land border that it no longer has to guard. A border that they have skirmished over for 100 years. It would allow them to economically colonise the Russian Far East too.
If China is helping Russia it is to keep Russia in a war that is destroying it. China doesn’t care if Russia has or doesn’t have Ukraine, but it would love for Russia to have another 1917 and the edifice fall into civil war. That requires the war to be long and sapping.
@Chester,
I agree with you. Furthermore, it forces the West to devote treasure and resources to fighting Russia, also a win for China.
China wants to be top dog. Its rivals are, in no particular order: USA, Europe (as a whole), Russia. And for them to squabble amongst themselves?
Perfection.
Bloody Hell!
I take a day or so off doing other things and WWWIII appears to have started – on Samizdata.
I think JP is largely right. Right. said it. Duck and cover.
Yes, a properly orchestrated, kicking of Russia (which unilaterally tossed the Minsk agreement) would have worked. Instead we drip-fed Ukraine with stuff. Which is why we’ve had three bloody years of this.
And, no, Russia is not culturally European in any meaningful way.
I’d like to follow up on this question I posed. Any takers??
This is a great example of the kind of Russophobia plaguing the West that caused the circumstances that led the Russians to conclude they had no choice but to invade Ukraine.
Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs and John Mearsheimer the Distinguished Professor at University of Chicago have documented the Russophobic culture and foreign policy of the West’s establishment extensively. Professor Mearsheimer specifically predicted 9 years ago that Putin would have no choice but to invade Ukraine, due in large part to the America’s and Europe’s Russophobic foreign policy and Russophobic culture that Nick M exemplifies so shamelessly.