What Trump responds to is very telling. He has less curiosity about the world than a geriatric house cat but then suddenly comes out with strong, focused opinions that he acts like the thing he's brought up is revalatory and was previously unknowable. Healthcare was difficult - who knew? Can you inject sunlight and bleach into the body to kill covid? Why not? Why can't we just nuke a hurricance? Suddenly, Ukraine - who had no cards this time last year - is impacting the global diesel market. This is one of those "no shit, sherlock" perk ups.
Here's the well-traveled MO: He only chases things he's personally motivated in, and is given brief, simple instructions on what to care about today from his handlers. And then he just wings it lazily trying to ham-fistedly extort somebody somewhere to do the work for him. Or to be the scapegoat to take blame for whatever he's mad at today. Why did he bring this up today? Because someone told him to. Why and who is the important thing to know. And if whoever asked him to say this could do ANYTHING to stop it, they wouldn't be asking him to impotently plead for relief.
Yes, Donald. Ukraine has attacked Russia's oil & gas capacity. They said they were going to, and they have been for a year now. And it appears to affect you personally, enough to make a statement about it. Maybe that reveals the simple money train from Russian gas to your pocket. You tried to strong arm Ukraine, you cut support, you tried to create global instability by wrecking economies and threatening to invade your allies - but it hasn't helped to restore the money train from Russia to your syndicate. This isn't 4D chess. It isn't even checkers. He tried last week to assign all blame to high diesel prices on zelensky, and surely none to his moronic boogaloo in Iran. What good is that? Only his audience of smooth brain racist goblins is even pretending to listen to him anymore, and what would you like them to do about Ukraine attacking Russian diesel production?
And you should have known this all, dummy. This was very knowable for anyone paying close attention. What feels a bit odd is that this lacks his usual sptittle-flinging bluster and threats against Zelensky. This relative restraint very much smells like desperation. The meekness is what's notable.
Debating his conduct is pointless. He always tries to use leverage he doesn't actually have to push people around. But that's probably not the story here. The story is that he, and Putin, are very, very, very desperately weak right now. Trump wants the money train to resume. He has nothing left to try and blackmail Ukraine into a bad peace. Putin is trying to find a way to stay alive during a failing war that he caused that hasn't given him anywhere near the kind of return that he can call any kind of worthwhile victory.
The point? Ukraine is doing EXACTLY what they should. As expected, they are bringing their Pelican domestic ballsitic missile program online, and Russia probably has no effective defense against it.
They're squealing like stuck pigs. Russia ONLY responds to pain. This is how Ukraine gets them to stop.
This isn't a competition of what american presidency was more virtous in it's support of ukraine. Since Trump has done nothing to help Ukraine and much to harm it, that wouldn't be much of a contest anyways.
It's not that simple to just suggest 'both sides chose poorly', even though Biden's team was nowhere as near as aggressive as they should have been IMO. But let's play devil's avocado for a minute here - you can only make decisions with what was known at the time. Let's say you're a Western intelligence analyst during 2022-23, here's what you know and have to respond to:
So what do you do?
Make Russia to lose just enough, long enough, to really regret it and maybe not even be ABLE to do this again. And have it show China that it's a bad idea to get into a protracted war with an untested military.
If you accept those terms, then supporting Ukraine incrementally with just enough to keep the Russian war machine bleeding until it dies makes perfect sense. It's a salami-slice strategy where the U.S. can say, credibly, .... we TOLD you not to do this. Is it horrible? Yes. Ukrainians have suffered and died as a result - but guess what? Whose fault is that? Not NATO's.
The bastard black-hearted ghouls in the Russian petromafia were ALWAYS going to do this. Always. This is a 1,000 year project of abuse and brutality, and it's in it's final act of convulsive divorce. There is no empire without the crown jewel colony of Ukraine. It acts as a buffer state AND launch pad for the next phase of their conquest of Europe, which was also ALWAYS going to happen while these sick 20th-century aggrieved demons were in charge.
We're still not quite grateful enough to the Ukrainians for their courage and feorcity in de-fanging the worst project in the universe. Russia is completely dedicated to sowing corrosive bullshit and spreading death around the globe just for the LOLz. While there might have been things that NATO could have done that would alter portions of the plan and it's timeline - to assume that they could have prevented Russia from invading Ukraine at all is just revisionist delusions. This war was ALWAYS happening in Putin's lifetime. It was supposed to be his legacy defining master stroke.
What if Biden had enacted beefy measures? Would it ever include ground forces? Or would it be limited to an attempt at a no-fly zone and missile strikes? Probably the latter. The current Iran experience for Trump shows you CLEARLY the hard limits of air power only, and that's in a country 1/50th the size of Russia. A half-assed air power only war doesn't work against a sizable nation state, period. It wouldn't have worked against Russia and you' be forgiven for saying that it was right and wise not to.
Would we ALL have liked Tom Cruise leading a squadron of F-14's and A-10's come flying over the horizon and strafe the Russians to the cracking soundtrack of Rock You Like A Hurricane causing the orcs to scurry back to Mordor shaking their grimy little fists about being thwarted? Sure. But that's movie stuff.
I'm not excusing any of the limp dick decisions that Biden made - but his strategy was a hell of a lot better than Trump's. History may show it was a pretty damn good one. Each small incremental step the west took made the war harder for Russia without any single step being large enough for Russia to go on tilt and massively over-react to. The Rammstein Conference & PURL initiative had a long term increemental roadmap. First Javelins & NLAWs. Then Artillery ammo. Then HIMARS. Then IFV's and APCs. Then Tanks. Then Storm Shadows & Scalps. Then Patriots & NASAMS. Then F-16's & Mirages. Increasing financial aid and intelligence throughout. Easy to debate it's morality, but it's at least a plan.
BTW - the war Trump insisted he would end in "one day, 24 hours" has lasted longer under his watch than it did under Biden's.
Thank you for your wholehearted support for Ukraine ππ» The painful transformation of the world order is still far from over, yet it seems we are doing our humble parts rather well.
Sensationally well. I'm a Ukrainian-Canadian myself with 7 great uncles who fought in the Polish Army. Through all of this filth, I STILL am at heart optimistic, as a viable, european-aligned Ukrainian state seems more likely to survive than the petromafia gangster ghoul brutality project in Moscow.
It didn't seem likely to serious thinkers that this would be the case four and a half years on from Feb 2022. I don't deserve to feel proud, sitting behind a keyboard, but I am proud of Ukraine. We have always been proud and noble people used to having our dickhead neighbors try and push us around. And here in our lifetime, Ukraine is standing up to the Beasts in the East and saying - No More. Slava Ukraini.
Heroyam Slava!
Yes, we will break away from the empire and prosper, like Poland did.
The outdated empires will go extinct like dinosaurs have, with a healthy international order of sovereign nations emerging.
I'm not a tough guy, in any war I'd be grateful if my imminent death was at least clean. I would not be a hero. But I do recognise that everyone who is put in a position to take arms against evil and manages at least to show up and try, that person is heroic in my book. It burns me how much of that burden has been borne by Ukrainians.
Thank you for your compassion ππ»
The Ukraine is situated at the open crossroads of imperial conquests, with its people slaughtered en masse or deceived many times. Being deceived, we even participated in imperial conquests, with a heavy price to pay. Hence war is one of the things Ukrainians are highly experienced in.
So it appears that the history decided that we are hardened enough, and gave us a chance to show up and try to build and defend a free Ukraine, with the first ever strong international support, that we never had previously.
I've donated to the war fund before, but it's been a while. Is there one you like?
Thank you for your kind support ππ» When I donate, I do it directly to people I know personally. So I trust your own judgement in donating.