February 28, 2025
The guessing game about President Donald Trump's real position on peace in Ukraine continues.
Some commentators, including yours truly, think that Trump has blown it by becoming too committed to Ukraine. Others believe that Trump is deceiving the public while working on peace in the backroom.
The last two blog post were part of the guessing game:
To recap the first piece:
Neither approach one might think Trump is taking - to use a Ukraine resource deal to keep the U.S. in Ukraine and the war going, or to use the Ukraine resource deal to finally break with Ukraine - is consistent with a realistic assessment of the facts on the ground. At least not if the aim of the game is to make peace.
...
The conclusion for me is that there is no Trump plan at all to make peace in Ukraine.
and the second:
By pressing for the agreement, instead of taking the Russian offer for access to minerals, Trump has committed himself to continue the war in Ukraine.
...
It will lead to the failure of his peace initiative.The war Ukraine is now destined to become Trump's Vietnam.
Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism is supportive of my last take. Citing a recent talk between Judge Napolitano and Col. Douglas MacGregor she writes:
This segment confirms what yours truly had warned about, yet quite a few members of the commentariat seem unwilling to accept: that the Ukraine minerals deal, if consummated, will commit the US to involvement in and therefore support of Ukraine.Put it another way, there’s no value to this arrangement, and high embarrassment to Trump, if peace negotiations fail (perhaps more accurately, fail even to get started).
During that segment Napolitano presented a quote from Trump:
Trump: President Zelensky’s coming to sign the deal, and it’s a great thing. It’s a great deal for Ukraine too because get us over there, we’re going to be working over there, we’ll be on the land, and that way, it’s sort of automatic security, because nobody is going to be messing around with our people while when we’re there. And so we’ll be there in that way. But Europe will be watching it very closely. I know that UK has said and France has said that they want to put, they volunteered to put so-called peacekeepers on the ground. And I think that’s a good thing.
Napolitano as well as Macgregor dislike Trump's position:
Napolitano: You know, we both respect him and applaud his willingness to talk with the Russians. But statements like that betray either gross ignorance or very very bad intel. Your thoughts, Colonel..Macgregor: No, I think that’s a polite way to put it. To be frank, President Trump needs to get out of this notion of putting anybody in Ukraine who’s not Ukrainian. And stay away from it. I heard this and I was genuinely disappointed, because there’s been a gross misinterpretation. ...
Others, however, reject the pessimistic interpretation.
Gilbert Doctorow comments on the Trump press conference with the British Premier Starmer:
Even some of the most astute and worldly-wise commentators on Trump in alternative media underappreciate him and persist in seeing him as a buffoon whose inconsistencies and contradictions in his public statements from one day to another are convincing proof that he cannot see an initiative through to successful conclusion. This is precisely what I saw and heard earlier today when listening to the ‘Judging Freedom’ interview with Colonel Larry Wilkerson, whom I otherwise greatly respect for his observations on U.S. relations with Israel or on the battlefield situation in the Russia-Ukraine war.
...
No, this fellow Trump is a master at deception. Today’s press conference with Keith Starmer was proof positive that the vague, nonspecific notion of America back-stopping the European peace keepers in Ukraine is, strictly speaking, a tactic to shut up the Europeans while Washington puts together a mutually acceptable end-game solution with Moscow that it imposes on Ukraine and Europe at the appropriate moment.
Wilkerson's remarks (@4min) as referred to by Doctorow:
Napolitano: Does [Trump] not understand Vladimir Putin's mentality?Wilkerson: Apparently not. These are very unwise remarks as a matter of fact because he's compromising his own ability to to negotiate a decent deal. It's just nonsense and it's increasing nonsense if he keeps talking that way. That's my problem with Donald Trump: he solves a problem at least preliminarily and then he moves on and screws the problem he solved himself with his mouth. I don't know how you do diplomacy that way.
Prof. John Mearsheimer does not believe that (@14min):
I think when you look at the administration and you look at what is going on in the foreign policy realm you have to distinguish between what is happening behind closed doors, the actual decision-making process, and what is happening out in public.Let us start with regard to what is happening behind closed doors:
Donald Trump and everybody at the top of his administration knows full well what the Russian demands are and the fact that Trump has said and others have said that a deal can be worked out means that we know what those demands are and we're going to meet those demands period end of story. And this includes this crazy idea of peacekeepers and security guarantees and so forth and so on. Putin has made it unequivocally clear that that is unacceptable and Trump has de facto accepted that now. That's the private discourse that takes place behind closed doors.
Then there's the public debate and the public debate is sort of a wild and crazy one in large part because Trump is free to say whatever he wants and because he likes to pontificate on a daily basis and he doesn't pay much attention to facts and he's not very careful with his language. We end up in all these debates about what he really means and is he contradicting himself and so forth and so on.
I've got to the point where I just don't pay that much attention to what he says in public. The question is what are they saying in private and I believe in private they know what has to be said. They have already said it at least once to the Russians and now the details have to be worked out.
I hope that Doctorow and Mearsheimer are more correct than Yves Smith, myself, Macgregor and Wilkerson. That the public play we see and hear is just a facade for a serious policy behind it.
I fear however, like Wilkerson does, that too much public talk, even if not meant seriously, has its own way to become reality.
But on a positive side we can see that Trump is getting the (European) ducks into a row.
President Macron of France as well as Prime Minister Starmer of Britain have failed to get U.S. backing for European forces in Ukraine. The warmongering and incompetent European Unions High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas came to Washington to be immediately dismissed. Her meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio was scuppered over 'scheduling issues'. (Rumor has it that Kallas had screamed 'appeasement' at Secretary of Defense Hegseth during the recent Munich Security Conference.)
President Putin's prediction that the Europeans will eventually be "at Trump’s feet wagging their tails" has become true:
"Trump, given his personality, his firmness, will establish order fairly quickly. And all of them, quickly, you will see, stand at the master’s feet, wagging their tails tenderly," he said in an interview with VGTRK journalist Pavel Zarubin.
They fall into line with whatever plans Trump might have.
The most difficult remaining barrier to peace in Ukraine is its president Zelenski. He has the most to lose from peace talks over Ukraine. Later today Trump will make him sign the rather worthless 'mineral deal'. But is that enough to put and keep him in line?
And what are the next steps is Trump willing to take? Russia will not allow for a ceasefire along the current lines but wants the big strategic package - an indivisible security structure in Europe - all in one go.
Is Trump really willing and capable enough to deliver on that?
Posted by b on February 28, 2025 at 16:43 UTC | Permalink