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Trump holds the cards to end this war but he has to find the fortitude to stand up to the Europeans and the neocons he appointed.

Donald Trump made some revealing remarks to the media as he flew to Florida for Thanksgiving on Wednesday. Asked if he thought Ukraine is being asked to give too much land to Russia in his proposal to end the war, Trump responded:

“It’s clearly up to the Russians. It’s moving in one direction. … That’s land that over the next couple of months might be gotten by Russia anyway. So, do you want to fight and loose another 50,000 or 60,000 people? Or do something now? They are negotiating; they are trying to get it done.”

That’s the same realistic approach Trump’s new special envoy to Ukraine, U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, took with the Ukrainians and Europe’s so-called “coalition of the willing” during a visit to Kiev earlier this week.

Driscoll reportedly threw in yet one more reason for Ukraine to end the war – the fact that the Russians have ever-growing stockpiles of missiles they can deploy.

In other words, the undeniable Russian advances all along the contact line in Ukraine are no longer deniable to anyone tuned into reality.

But not everyone is tuned in. U.S. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who unrealistically claimed that Ukraine could still win, has been removed as special envoy to Ukraine, but there are other neocons lurking near the White House, for instance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio who also as national security adviser can control the flow of intelligence and policy proposals to the president.

Rubio was in Geneva last Sunday with the Ukrainians and Europeans to undermine Trump’s 28-point plan, trying to replace it with one of just 19 points that unrealistically gives an advantage to Ukraine. Unrealistic because this war has already ended on the battlefield and Trump has virtually acknowledged it.

What’s next is an official agreement, endorsed, ideally by the United Nations Security Council, where France or Britain, however, could veto it, as the Europeans continue their efforts to thwart such a peace agreement.

Britain, France and Germany, for example, are still pushing the fantasy that Russia is poised to attack Europe.

So we are at the threshold on Ukraine, at the beginning of a consequential battle between the neo-cons and Europeans on one side, and Donald Trump and the realists on the other. Will Trump show the fortitude to see this through and overcome his secretary of state?

For now you can dismiss the idea that the so-called “Peace Plan” is “dead on delivery.” It hasn’t even officially been delivered to Russia yet.

Russian President Vladimir Putin awaits hand delivery from U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff probably on Monday – Washington’s recent unorthodox conduct of diplomacy notwithstanding.

My sense is that Witkoff, like Driscoll, will dis the Europeans and go to Moscow with the 28-point draft plan for discussion and that it will adhere to one of the main provisions of Anchorage — namely that Trump will not let Zelinski sabotage movement toward an agreement. Putin told Hungarian President Viktor Orban today in Moscow that he remained open to meeting Trump in Budapest at a future date.

With the hawkish Kellogg now in the doghouse, it is clear that both sides are fully aware that Putin holds the high cards, the U.S. low ones, and Zelinsky none. Trump has indicated that if Zelinsky remains obdurate, his alternative is to “continue to fight his little heart out.”

For his part, Putin seems ready to do business. An important backdrop is his priority objective of preventing relations with the U.S. from falling into a state of complete disrepair. As for Ukraine, Putin has reiterated that the 28-point Trump plan could form the basis for future agreements.

Taking questions from the press yesterday in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Putin gave clarity to a number of key issues. He said there was “no ‘draft agreement’ per se,” but rather “a set of issues proposed for discussion and finalization.”

Putin went on:

“We discussed this with American negotiators, and subsequently, a list of 28 potential points for an agreement was formulated.

Thereafter, negotiations were held in Geneva between the American and Ukrainian delegations. They decided among themselves that all these 28 points should be divided into four separate components. All of this was passed on to us.

In general, we agree that this could form the basis for future agreements. However, it would be inappropriate for me to speak now of any final versions, as these do not exist.”

Putin noted that the U.S.  — this would be Trump, not Rubio — is “taking our position into account – the position that was discussed before Anchorage and after Alaska. We are certainly prepared for this serious discussion.”

On the question of land, Putin  made certain that Russia will not be denied. He said, “I think it will be clear at once what it is all about. When the Ukrainian troops leave the territories they occupy, then the hostilities will cease. If they do not leave, we will achieve it militarily. That’s that.”

Of course, in 2022 Russia entered the Ukrainian civil war that had begun after the 2014 U.S.-backed coup that lead to the U.S.-installed government attacking the ethnic Russian Donbass region, which had rejected the unconstitutional change of government and declared independence.

After eight years of indirectly aiding Donbass, Russia intervened directly after the Minsk agreements to end the civil war were sabotaged by Ukraine and the Europeans.  Russia’s war demands have remained demilitarizing and denazifying a neutral Ukraine. In the course of its intervention it has absorbed four Ukrainian oblasts into the Russian Federation, which remains non-negotiable to Moscow.

“Those in the West who understand what [recent Ukrainian defeats on the battlefield] could lead to are pushing for an end to the fighting as soon as possible,” Putin said, referring to the realists in Washington.

“They understand that if the front lines are drawn back in certain areas, the Ukrainian armed forces will lose their combat effectiveness and their most combat-ready units,” he said. “‘Enough is enough, preserve the core of your armed forces and your statehood, that’s what you need to focus on,’ say those who hold this view.”

But he said “others,” referring to the Europeans and neocons, “insist on continuing the hostilities until the last Ukrainian. That’s the difference in approaches.”

Putin tried to put to rest the fear-mongering in Europe about a planned Russian attack on the continent. “Russia does not intend to attack Europe. To us, that sounds ridiculous, does it not?” he said. “We never had any such intentions. But if they want to have it formalised, let’s do it, no problem.”

Putin also reiterated that Russia could only sign a peace agreement with a legitimate government in Ukraine after a new election, another obstacle to overcome.

“I believe that the Ukrainian leadership made a fundamental, strategic mistake when it was afraid to hold presidential elections, and as a result, the president lost his legitimate status,” Putin said. “As soon as any kind of peace agreement is reached, the fighting will stop, and the state of emergency will be lifted, elections will be announced.”

Which is another incentive for Zelensky and those who back him inside and outside of Ukraine to keep on fighting.

“So, basically, we want to reach an agreement with Ukraine in the end, but it’s almost impossible right now, legally impossible. We need our decisions to be internationally recognized by the major international players. That’s it,” said Putin.

He added:

“And so, of course, we need recognition, but not from Ukraine today. I hope that in the future we will be able to come to an agreement with Ukraine: there are many healthy people there who want to build relations with Russia for a long-term historical perspective.”

Peace then will require the complete negation of the neocons and the Europeans and a new government in Kiev — a tall order indeed.

It comes down to whether Trump can finally stand up to them — people whom he appointed, like Rubio, and whom he golfs with, like Sen. Lindsey Graham. He seems to have less respect for the Europeans, who practically sat at his feet around the Oval Office desk earlier this year pleading their case on Ukraine.

Trump may be motivated in part by the vain desire to end the war to win the Nobel Peace Prize. But he can get it done. Trump can ignore the Europeans and be serious this time about cutting off military aid and intelligence to Ukraine as he threatened to do if Zelensky did not accept his 28 points by Thanksgiving.

When it comes to Ukraine, Trump really does hold the cards. Will he play them?

Original article:  consortiumnews.com

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The Helsinki Accords of 1975 show that an acceptable compromise to end the Russia-Ukraine War is possible.

Talks to end the Russia-Ukraine war are now advancing at a frenetic pace following the August 15 summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska. Discussions continue this week as members of the “coalition of the willing” meet in Paris to deliberate on so-called “security guarantees” for Ukraine. However, it remains uncertain whether agreed-upon measures will prove acceptable to Russia. There also remains the major sticking point of Putin’s demand that Ukraine withdraw from the rest of the heavily fortified Donetsk region as a precondition for agreeing to a ceasefire.

The Trump-Putin summit occurred, unintentionally but symbolically, just two weeks after the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Helsinki Final Act (also known as the Helsinki Accords). This document marked the high point of détente between the United States and the Soviet Union and played a major role in eventually ending the Cold War. Finland hosted a conference earlier this summer to mark the anniversary, in its role as chair-in-office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) for 2025. In Washington, this significant milestone passed without much fanfare.

The lack of celebration is understandable. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which followed decades of declining trust in relations between Russia and the West, offers a visual reminder of just how far away we are from operating a shared security system based on common tools and principles in the wider Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian space. Still, the adoption of the Helsinki Accords in 1975 offers lessons that remain pertinent to the task of achieving peace in Ukraine and stability in Europe today.

First, and most famously, the Helsinki Final Act resulted in mutual recognition between the two Cold War-era blocs and the acceptance of the post-Second World War territorial status quo. Today, we are confronted with a similar challenge: Russia’s revision of the post-Soviet territorial status quo and annexation of parts of Ukraine’s sovereign territory.

De jure recognition of these annexations should be out of the question, as they contravene the cardinal norm of territorial integrity (although US recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea has been mooted by Trump). That said, the principle remains the same: can Ukraine and Russia agree to disagree for now and defer this issue to future negotiations?

Neither Russia nor Ukraine has succeeded in realizing its territorial claims. Ukraine cannot realistically retake all of its sovereign territory by force. Meanwhile, Putin has made an initial move in the direction of compromise by dropping his previous position, outlined in June 2024, that Ukrainian forces must vacate the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions that Moscow claims to have annexed. However, his insistence on a Ukrainian withdrawal from Donetsk remains.

Accepting this demand would be exceedingly difficult for Kyiv, especially given its strategic significance and the amount of blood that has been spilled in its defense. Given that a pullback from Donetsk would significantly increase Ukraine’s vulnerability to another Russian attack, Kyiv wants Western security “guarantees” in exchange for any territorial concessions.

Original article:  nationalinterest.org

di Lucio LEANTE

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Il vertice dell’Alaska Trump-Putin è stato il ferragosto del discontento europeo. Molti leader e commentatori europei sono apparsi freddi ed alcuni di essi addirittura in gramaglie. “È stata una sconfitta. Trump non ha ottenuto il cessate il fuoco immediato. L’unico vincitore è stato Putin, sono stati i commenti più diffusi in Europa.

Alcuni tra i maggiori leader europei sono sembrati persino volere mettere in anticipo dei paletti di principio al futuro negoziato di pace: “Non dovrebbero essere imposte limitazioni alle forze armate ucraine o alla loro cooperazione con paesi terzi. La Russia non può avere diritto di veto sul percorso dell’Ucraina verso l’Ue e la Nato. Spetterà all’Ucraina prendere decisioni sul proprio territorio. I confini internazionali non devono essere modificati con la forza.”- hanno tuonato in una dichiarazione congiunta Macron, Meloni, Merz, Starmer, Stubb, Tusk, Costa e von der Leyen subito dopo essere stati informati, insieme a Zelensky, per telefono da Trump sul vertice stesso. E hanno concluso: “Il nostro sostegno all’Ucraina continuerà. Siamo determinati a fare di più per mantenere forte l’Ucraina al fine di porre fine ai combattimenti e raggiungere una pace giusta e duratura”.

Quella prima reazione europea a caldo è stata come dire no a tutte le richieste della controparte russa ed una malcelata sconfessione della mediazione di Trump. Come a opporre un “altolà” al presidente americano. Solo Giorgia Meloni si è parzialmente distinta manifestando una certa soddisfazione: “Si apre finalmente uno spiraglio per discutere di pace”.

Ufficialmente le motivazioni addotte dagli europei sono tra le più nobili: il rispetto delle norme del diritto internazionale, la difesa del piccolo aggredito dalle prepotenzze del grande aggressore, l’integrità territoriale, la sovranità nazionale, il diritto dell’Ucraina di entrare nella Nato. E come negare quei nobili principi universali? E, infine, ciliegina sulla torta: “una pace giusta e duratura”. Come non condividere quella speranza (anche se tutti sanno che volere una pace giusta è un miraggio che di solito ha l’unico effetto pratico di prolungare le guerre)?

Tutto lascia pensare che le vere motivazioni del discontento europeo siano tutt’altre.

La principale è che quel vertice rischia di sottrarre agli europei il “nemico”: Vladimir Putin, da almeno tre anni presentato da leader e giornalisti europei come “autocrate demoniaco, sanguinario e criminale”. Biden lo aveva definito addirittura “un macellaio” che non poteva “restare al potere a Mosca”. E Trump si permette di accoglierlo su un tappeto rosso addirittura applaudendolo e chiamandolo confidenzialmente “Vladimir”? Roba da matti! E dove finisce la narrazione della guerra russo-ucraina sulla falsariga della favola del “lupo cattivo e dei tre porcellini”?

Per alcuni leader euopei se cade l’immagine demonizzata di Putin e cioè se viene meno la presunta “minaccia russa” all’Europa stessa, cade tutto il castello della loro politica estera (e interna) degli ultimi anni. La difesa dell’integrità territoriale e della sovranità dell’Ucraina è stata presentata come una difesa dell’Europa dalla minaccia russa e putiniana. Sull’incombere imminente di una “minaccia russa” sulla stessa Europa, quei leader europei contavano (e contano tuttora) per presentare come necessaria una continuazione ad oltranza della guerra in Ucraìna (nella quale ambivano e ambiscono a giocare finalmente un ruolo di primo livello).

Non è solo questione di Ucraina. Anzi non è affatto quella la questione centrale.

Con quella minaccia alcuni paesi europei intendevano (ed intendono tuttora) giustificare i loro piani di riarmo. E questi ultimi vengono presentati come la condizione necessaria ai fini della costruzione futura di una difesa comune europea finalizzata a sua volta al nobile obbiettivo di compiere un deciso “passo avanti” nel processo di unificazione politica dell’Europa (in forma federale o confederale). Ma questa dinamica rischia di favorire solo un riarmo tedesco e l’egemomia aassoluta della Germania in Europa.

Il sogno europeo necessita di una minaccia e di un nemico comune. Se non esiste in realtà occorre costruirlo. La Russia di Putin è il candidato perfetto perché si presta benissimo, per varie ragioni, alla bisogna.

Per un lungo periodo di tempo anche gli americani, dopo la fine della guerra fredda, hanno sentito la necessità di costruire un nemico e identificarlo nella Russia post-sovietica. Il nemico russo era utile non solo a mantenere in piedi la Nato (subordinando gli europei), ma anche a giustificare una espansione della Nato, e cioè dell’influenza americana, nei paesi europei ex satelliti dell’Urss e nella stessa area ex sovietica dell’Asia centrale, del Caucaso, dei paesi baltici e perfino in Ucraina ed in Georgia (considerate tabù da Mosca). L’obbiettivo era non solo l’umiliazione, ma anche il soffocamento e persino la disgregazione della Federazione russa. Era il progetto neocon condiviso in pieno da Barack Obama e sopratutto dal suo vice, Joe Biden, poi insediatosi egli stesso alla Casa Bianca.

Per l’intera fase Obama-Biden il progetto neocon e quello “europeista” sono stati grosso modo coincidenti o per lo meno non conflittuali. Fino a Biden gli americani hanno contato sulla loro capacità di controllare e subordinare gli europei ed in particolare la Germania attraverso la Nato.

La Germania dopo l’unificazione è stata un gigante economico ed un nano politico che si contentava di prosperare sotto l’ombrello nucleare americano, di dominare economicamente i paesi dell’Europa centrale e di orientare l’UE in condominio con i francesi.

Ma la guerra russo-ucraina sta fornendo alla Germania una possibilità insperata di riscatto totale dalle limitazioni alla sua sovranità.

La Germania, nel suo complesso, aspira dalla fine della II guerra mondiale soprattutto ad un suo completo “riscatto” etico-politico e ad un riacquisto completo della sua sovranità sopratuttto in campo militare finora auto-limitata e compensata dalla partecipazione alla Nato.

Ed è proprio l’ingigantimento artificioso della presunta minaccia russa e del nemico putiniano, che le fornisce il carburante per questa operazione di riscatto nazionale. Ma questo rischia di fare saltare gli equilibri europei a favore della Germania e fa venire meno la certezza americana di potere tenere sotto controllo la Germania anche in futuro.

Sulla base della presunta minaccia russa la Germania nel marzo scorso ha già approvato un suo piano nazionale di consistente riarmo convenzionale. L’attuale cancelliere Merz, allora non ancora in funzione, pur di eliminare il vincolo costituzionale dell’1% alla spesa militare tedesca ha fatto votare al parlamento uscente un emendamento costituzionale. Il suo piano di riarmo tedesco è stato avallato dalla Commissione dell’UE presieduta dall’ex ministro della difesa tedesca, Ursula von der Leyen. In nome del riarmo la Germania ha sorvolato sul suo sacro principio del rigore finanziario mentre l’Ue della tedesca von der Leyen sorvolava sull’analogo patto di stabilità. C’è da riflettere.

L’agitazione artificiosa della minaccia russa è utile ai fini del riarmo tedesco e viene perciò considerata dal cancelliere Merz prioritaria rispetto al tradizionale interesse di riallacciare i legami economici con la Russia, finora considerati una costante dell’interesse nazionale tedesco. Non a caso Merz ha dichiarato di non desiderare la riattivazione dei gasdotti North Stream I e II (che gli ucraini con l’assenso di Biden hanno fatto saltare).

In questo quadro lo stesso progetto di unificazione politica europea, che è sempre stato un progetto di egemonia politica franco-tedesca sugli altri paesi dell’Unione europea, sembra destinato nei fatti, per la debolezza francese, a generare un’egemonia tedesca sui paesi europei.

Una Germania che, agitando un’improbabile minaccia russa, si riarmi oggi con armi convenzionali (domani forse anche con armi nucleari) potrebbe diventare un paese troppo potente anche militarmente e proporsi come il paese in grado di federare l’Europa, subordinando tutti gli altri paesi europei. Essa potrebbe così tornare ad essere una minaccia per l’intera Europa, oltre che per il mondo intero.

Decisamente gli altri leader europei farebbero bene a seguire Trump nella cancellazione della retorica del nemico russo (e a quella dei sacri principi) che rischia di favorire solo un pericolosissimo riarmo tedesco. E a mettere fine al conflitto ucraino con un realistico compromesso.

Articolo originale:  www.notiziegeopolitiche.net

Lo principal es esencial a los ojos, Trump felicitó a Zelensky por su traje (El Tábano Economista)

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El infierno estratégico, se podría argumentar, no es necesariamente un lugar de llamas y agonía explícita, sino más bien una sala de espejos donde cada decisión se refleja invertida, distorsionada hasta convertirse en su propia derrota. Es la siniestra habilidad de tener la verdad frente a los ojos, desnuda y cruda, y persistir en interpretarla al revés, confundiendo la arrogancia con la fortaleza, la sumisión con la unidad y, el más grave de todos los errores, un alto al fuego temporal con la frágil paz duradera. Esta disonancia cognitiva, este abismo entre la narrativa fabricada y la realidad material, encuentra su expresión más pura y costosa en el pantano de Ucrania.

Existe un guion, meticulosamente elaborado, cuya narrativa insiste, con una terquedad cercana al fervor religioso, en que la operación especial rusa comenzó como un acto de agresión no provocada un día de febrero de 2022. Algo horrible de decir o espantoso de contar, que como era de esperar, surgió de la mente revanchista de un solo hombre, desconectado de cualquier contexto histórico de seguridad previa.

Cualquier mención a las causas profundas, a la secuencia de eventos será tachada de «propaganda del Kremlin». Sin embargo, para comprender el callejón sin salida actual y la férrea posición de Moscú, es imperativo, por incómodo que resulte, trazar esa línea histórica, que nunca modificó su narrativa. La expansión constante de la Organización del Tratado del Atlántico Norte (OTAN) hacia el este, desde la disolución de la Unión Soviética en 1991, no es un detalle anecdótico; es la herida abierta, la grieta tectónica que incubó este conflicto.

Avanzó aproximadamente 1.600 kilómetros hacia las fronteras rusas, incorporando a una decena de países que antes integraban el Pacto de Varsovia; no fue un acto geopolítico neutral. Fue, en la percepción rusa —y no sin una base de razón—, el desmembramiento deliberado y progresivo de cualquier arquitectura de seguridad colectiva euroasiática que pudiera incluir a Moscú como un socio en pie de igualdad. Ignorar esta lógica fundamental, este casus belli estructural, es condenarse a no comprender absolutamente nada del conflicto y menos aún, su discusión.

Fuentes: El tábano economista

La prueba más dolorosa de esta obstinación occidental yace en un documento fantasma, un camino no tomado que condenó a cientos de miles a una muerte evitable. En la primavera de 2022, el mundo estuvo al borde de una solución. Según revelaciones del Wall Street Journal, que han sido corroboradas por diversas fuentes, existió un borrador de tratado de paz entre Rusia y Ucrania, un texto de 17 páginas que delineaba el fin del conflicto.

Sus cláusulas, ahora vistas desde el presente, parecen provenir de una realidad alterna donde la sensibilidad prevaleció sobre la arrogancia. Ucrania se comprometía a restaurar su neutralidad constitucional, abandonando toda aspiración de ingresar a la OTAN; otorgaba estatus oficial al idioma ruso; aceptaba límites concretos al tamaño y capacidades de sus fuerzas armadas, renunciando a albergar armas extranjeras ofensivas, y, lo crucial, reconocía la influencia rusa en Crimea, a cambio de recibir garantías de seguridad de los miembros permanentes del Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU, un mecanismo multilateral que incluía a Rusia, pero también a potencias occidentales.

Sobre los territorios de Donetsk, Lugansk, Jersón y Zaporiyia, el documento preveía un mecanismo de consulta popular, un referéndum bajo supervisión internacional para decidir su estatus futuro, un proceso que, de todos modos, Moscú impondría meses después, en septiembre de 2022. Este acuerdo, por imperfecto que fuera, hubiera congelado el conflicto, salvado innumerables vidas y preservado la integridad territorial ucraniana en mucha mayor medida que la catástrofe actual.

¿Por qué no se firmó? La respuesta es el núcleo de la tragedia occidental: la creencia fanática en su propia propaganda. La narrativa de una Rusia al borde del colapso, estrangulada por sanciones económicas «sin precedentes» y derrotada en el campo de batalla por un David ucraniano armado por Occidente, se impuso sobre la realidad. El entonces primer ministro británico, Boris Johnson, fue enviado a Kiev con un mensaje claro, según múltiples reportes: no se firmará ningún acuerdo; Occidente proveería todo lo necesario para la victoria.

Era una apuesta basada en una ilusión, una que el propio New York Times y otros medios del establishment se vieron forzados a admitir que había fracasado estrepitosamente tras la contraofensiva ucraniana del verano de 2023, un esfuerzo monumental que se estrelló contra las profundas líneas defensivas rusas con un coste humano y material inaceptable, un desgaste que continuó hasta septiembre de 2024, sellando el destino del conflicto. La guerra se prolongó no porque Ucrania pudiera ganar, sino porque Occidente no podía admitir que su estrategia de derrotar a Rusia era un espejismo. Prefirieron sacrificar la paz posible en el altar de una victoria imposible.

El 14 de junio de 2024, en un discurso fundamental ante los ejecutivos de su Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, el presidente Vladímir Putin enumeró las condiciones para poner fin a la guerra. Sus condiciones eran, en esencia, las mismas de 2022, pero ahora endurecidas por el hierro y la sangre de dos años más de guerra: 1) la desmilitarización de Ucrania, reduciendo drásticamente su potencial ofensivo; su «desnazificación», un término propagandístico que en la práctica se traduce en un cambio de élite política en Kiev mediante elecciones; 2) el restablecimiento permanente de la neutralidad constitucional, enterrando cualquier aspiración a la OTAN, y, el punto crucial, el reconocimiento internacional de la «nueva realidad sobre el terreno», es decir, la anexión rusa de las cuatro regiones de Donetsk, Lugansk, Jersón y Zaporiyia en sus fronteras completas, aunque no las controle totalmente.

Solo una vez aceptados estos hechos Moscú estaría dispuesto a sentarse a hablar de lo que Putin llama la «reorganización de la arquitectura de seguridad euroasiática», es decir, abordar la causa raíz que ellos identifican: la expansión de la OTAN. ¿Algo ha cambiado? En absoluto. La única diferencia es que ahora Rusia no negocia desde una posición de buscar un compromiso, sino desde la posición de una potencia victoriosa que busca la rendición de su adversario y la formalización de sus ganancias. Occidente, que en 2022 despreció un acuerdo que hubiera salvado mucho de lo que ahora está perdido, se encuentra ante unas exigencias mucho más severas.

La intrínseca y brutal relación entre el avance en el campo de batalla y la mesa de negociaciones quedó expuesta de manera obscena con la reciente intervención del presidente Trump reduciendo los 50 días para alcanzar una tregua con Ucrania. Era el reconocimiento tácito de un hecho incontrovertible para cualquier analista militar serio: la línea del frente ucraniano se está desintegrando. Los avances rusos están quebrando la resistencia enemiga, que sufre de una escasez crítica de soldados, artillería, municiones y defensas aéreas. La propuesta de Trump de una reunión en Alaska, por surrealista que pareciera, era un síntoma de desesperación, un intento de Washington de crear una rampa de salida gestionada antes de que el colapso militar en el teatro europeo se volviera total e incontestable, arrastrando consigo el prestigio y la credibilidad de Estados Unidos.

La cumbre de Alaska, en este sentido, fue una jugada maestra de Putin, una maniobra de soft power ejecutada con precisión quirúrgica. Le permitió presentarse ante el mundo no como un paria, sino como un actor global legítimo e indispensable, recibido en suelo estadounidense para discutir los términos de la paz, términos que él mismo dictaba. Le otorgó una legitimidad diplomática que Occidente le había negado durante años y, lo que es más crucial, le regaló un tiempo invaluable para continuar sus operaciones militares de desgaste, consolidando sus ganancias territoriales mientras sus oponentes se distraían con el teatro de la diplomacia. Alaska, como era previsible, no produjo un avance concreto, pero su mera celebración fue una victoria propagandística y estratégica para Moscú.

Demostró que, después de tres años de conflicto y de una retórica belicista sin cuartel, era la OTAN —o más precisamente— su líder, Estados Unidos, quien, reconociendo su derrota indirecta, se veía forzada a mendigar una conversación. La pregunta crucial que flota en el aire es: ¿por qué Rusia, desde su posición de fuerza abrumadora, extendería este salvoconducto a Washington? ¿A cambio de qué concedería a Estados Unidos una retirada medianamente digna de este pantano?

La respuesta parece tejerse en una compleja red de cálculos de largo plazo. Es posible que el Kremlin vea en Trump a un interlocutor más pragmático, menos ideologizado y más susceptible de entablar una relación transaccional basada en intereses mutuos, lejos del moralismo de la administración Biden. Existe la posibilidad de un gran quid pro quo que trascienda Ucrania: un entendimiento tácito sobre esferas de influencia que podría abarcar desde la gestión del Ártico y los recursos energéticos, hasta acuerdos sobre la no proliferación de cierto tipo de armamentos o incluso una relajación coordinada de sanciones.

La audaz teoría de un «Kissinger inverso» —donde Estados Unidos intentaría separar a Rusia de su alianza estratégica con China— es, aunque extremadamente difícil, un objetivo lo suficientemente tentador para Washington como para ofrecer concesiones sustanciales a Moscú. Para Rusia, incluso el simple hecho de flirtear con esta posibilidad le otorga una ventaja en su relación con Beijing, permitiéndole negociar desde una posición de mayor fuerza con su poderoso socio oriental, evitando convertirse en un mero satélite de China. Es un juego de equilibrios geopolíticos de alto riesgo donde Rusia, astutamente, se posiciona como el pivote entre dos gigantes enfrentados.

Sin embargo, la imagen más elocuente de la derrota estratégica europea y su humillante subordinación no se encontró en las estepas de Ucrania, sino en el Salón Oval de la Casa Blanca. Como astutamente expuso el analista Alfredo Jalife-Rahme, dos fotografías valen más que un millón de palabras para capturar el nuevo orden mundial en ciernes. La primera muestra a Donald Trump junto a un Volodymyr Zelensky visiblemente incomodo, posando frente a un mapa mural de Ucrania que, por su ubicación, resulta profundamente sugerente, casi como un presagio de la amputación territorial que se avecina (bit.ly/3V647wq). La segunda es aún más devastadora: un grupo de líderes europeos: el Canciller alemán, el presidente francés, el primer ministro británico, la presidenta de la Comisión Europea —sentados apretujados en sus sillas, con semblantes ceñudos y cuerpos encogidos, como colegiales regañados— frente a la imponente mesa de trabajo de Trump, flanqueada por los bustos vigilantes de Abraham Lincoln y Theodore Roosevelt, titanes de la unidad y el poder presidencial estadounidense (bit.ly/4oInf1d).

La imagen es perfecta: la vieja Europa, arrogante y presumida de su poder, reducida a un coro de suplicantes expectantes, aguardando mansamente la audiencia del nuevo emperador para ser informada de su destino. Habían acudido allí con una chispa de valentía. Creyeron que acompañar a Zelensky les daría peso colectivo. Fue un error catastrófico de cálculo. El objetivo real de convocarlos, según confesó un alto funcionario de la administración Trump a Politico, era precisamente el opuesto: decirles: “Estamos al mando; aprueben todo lo que digamos».

Esta torpeza europea no nace solo de la cobardía política; nace de una realidad material incontestable y aterradora. La capacidad de Europa para librar esta guerra —o cualquier guerra de alta intensidad contra una potencia como Rusia— sin el paraguas nuclear, logístico, de inteligencia y militar de Estados Unidos es simplemente inexistente. El proyecto de autonomía estratégica europea ha sido, hasta ahora, poco más que un eslogan bonito para discursos en conferencias. Una retirada abrupta de Estados Unidos, o incluso una reducción sustancial de su compromiso, dejaría al continente frente a un desastre estratégico de proporciones históricas. Carece de una fuerza disuasoria creíble por sí sola: sus stocks de armamento están agotados tras dos años de enviarlos a Ucrania, su industria militar es lenta, fragmentada e incapaz de escalar en una producción a la velocidad necesaria.

El movimiento de Trump al convocar a los europeos fue de una jugada maquiavélica. Tenía un objetivo dual perfecto. Por un lado, al forzar a los líderes europeos a presenciar y, por su silencio implícito, avalar la negociación directa con Zelensky, conviertiendolos en cómplices de cualquier acuerdo desfavorable que se alcanzara. Sin ellos la idea de que Zelensky, presionado por Trump, aceptar términos perjudiciales, y pudiera luego volver a Bruselas o Berlín en busca de refugio entre sus «socios belicistas», quedaba instantáneamente destruida.

Si Europa, representada por sus máximos líderes, guardó una dócil obediencia en el Salón Oval, no puede luego desvincularse del resultado. Por otro lado, proporciona a Estados Unidos la coartada perfecta para una retirada gestionada. Si el acuerdo finalmente se firma —aunque sea una capitulación encubierta— Washington podrá presentarlo como un éxito de su diplomacia, caso en contrario se atribuirá cualquier concesión dolorosa a la «debilidad» o «intransigencia» de los europeos y de Zelensky.

La narrativa ya está siendo preparada: «Hicimos lo posible, pero nuestros aliados no estuvieron a la altura», «Zelensky se aferró a un orgullo nacionalista irresponsable». Incluso se especula con la posibilidad de orquestar una «revolución de colores» en Kiev para derrocar a un Zelensky que, una vez firmada la paz, se convertiría en un recordatorio viviente de la derrota y cuyo alto nivel de corrupción —documentado por Transparencia International y otros— lo hace extremadamente vulnerable a ser usado como chivo expiatorio. Su principal motivación para mantenerse en el poder, más allá del patriotismo, podría ser muy pragmática: la inmunidad judicial. Sin la presidencia, podría enfrentar no solo el ostracismo político, sino la prisión.

El momento más surrealista y revelador de toda esta tragicomedia geopolítica ocurrió cuando, en medio de la reunión con los europeos y Zelensky presentes, Trump llamó por teléfono a Vladimir Putin y, en un alarde de teatro diplomático, le ofreció organizar una cumbre inmediata con Zelensky y él estar presente. La respuesta de Putin, transmitida a todos los presentes, fue una maestría del desdén: No tienes que venir. Quiero verlo personalmente.

Fue la confirmación final de que la guerra se terminará en los campos de batalla, mientras un presidente estadounidense negocia directamente con el Kremlin el futuro de Europa, con los líderes europeos reducidos a espectadores mudos y consentidos de su propia irrelevancia. Es el compendio de la pérdida de soberanía, el costo final de haber creído su propia propaganda y haber dilapidado, en una sucesión interminable de errores, cualquier oportunidad de forjar un destino estratégico propio.

El nuevo eje del mundo gira en torno a Moscú y Washington, las causas principales del conflicto no se han movido, por lo que la paz, parece bastante lejana.

Publicado originalmente por Rebeli

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Weapons non-proliferation treaties should be renewed to prevent nuclear war!

Some observers in the lead-up to last week’s meeting between President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage Alaska hoped that a dialogue might be established where the broader issue of creating a new European security model that would reduce tensions and make it unlikely that a conflict like Russia-Ukraine would be repeated. Both Trump and Putin came away from the three-hour plus meeting with positive remarks though little of substance, at least in terms of what they were prepared to reveal. Trump did indicate that the idea of a ceasefire had been sidelined in favor of further discussions for a comprehensive peace plan to end the war at the next bilateral talks in Moscow, but it has been suggested by critics that he was speaking only for himself personally. If he has come around to the view that a ceasefire will not work in the current context, he is probably correct.

If there is any hope for a peace deal a sine qua non would be territorial transfers demanded by Russia on the part of Ukraine. Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly rejected any such arrangement. Predictably, Zelensky and a group of supporting “European leaders” including the Netherlands Mark Rutte, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Keir Starmer, Germany’s Friedrich Merz and Finnish President Alexander Stubb are arriving at the White House on Monday to make their case for the continuation of the war. The European delegation is headed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is a near perfect, even enthusiastic, spokesperson for the hawk sentiments prevailing in parts of Europe.

Trump’s actual sentiments continue to be somewhat enigmatic and, as always, poorly articulated. It is widely understood that President Donald Trump is actively seeking to obtain the Nobel Peace Prize, even going so far as to boast falsely that he has already earned it “four or five times.” He has reportedly even called the Norwegian Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg to ask how the polling regarding his candidacy is going, a grotesque faux pas but characteristic of what comes out of Trump’s head. Trump clearly fails to understand that seeking a peace prize while the United States is simultaneously actively supporting two major avoidable armed conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine while also removing existing restraints on development and deployment of certain weapons that are designed for nuclear war might be viewed by some as contradictory.

Those who are inclined to look to make excuses for Trump’s behavior while in the US presidency might be compelled to argue that Donald Trump doesn’t know any better and is therefore always inclined to act both impulsively and aggressively when in doubt, but the systematic withdrawal from Cold War agreements designed to make nuclear war avoidable during Trump 1 rather suggests that it is now policy de facto to make a catastrophic war easier to engage in to establish and maintain American global military dominance over adversaries like China and Russia. Total US military supremacy maintained by 850 overseas military bases to assert the national will globally is an aspect of the so-called “Wolfowitz Doctrine,” the unofficial name given to the initial version of the Defense Planning Guidance drafted in 1992 under President Bill Clinton for the 1994–1999 fiscal years published by neocons US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz and his deputy Scooter Libby. The doctrine still dominates White House strategic thinking, particularly as Trump has surrounded himself with neocons and is taking direction from the Israel Lobby both regarding the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Based on the document, US defense strategy aimed to prevent the emergence of a global rival and asserted US primacy and unilateralism. One of it primary instruments to dominate in Europe was the expansion of NATO into the former Eastern European states that made up the Soviet Union, something that US negotiators had promised not to do during negotiations with Moscow during the Soviet collapse in 1991-2. This expansion has been the principal cause behind the current war between Russia and Ukraine as Moscow views Ukraine under NATO as a grave national security threat.

The corresponding dismantling of post-World War 2 agreements that sought to control limits on nuclear developments as well as the nature and distribution of new weapons and potential unmanned delivery systems have unfortunately dramatically increased the possibility of a devastating nuclear war taking place. The number of nuclear armed countries has grown in spite of Nuclear Non-Proliferation policies, with North Korea, China, Pakistan, India and Israel all now having nuclear arsenals. Israel even has a plan to use the nukes if it is seriously threatened called the “Samson Option.” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, located at the Keller Centre of the University of Chicago, monitors the movement of the minute and second hands on the so-called Doomsday Clock. It is now reporting that the second hand is closer to midnight than it has ever been, 89 seconds away, and moving in the “wrong” direction, towards inevitable armed conflict or even natural catastrophe. Reaching Midnight in this context could mean nuclear war, which could plausibly extinguish life on earth.

The United States is the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons against an enemy, which took place against Japan in early August 1945, destroying the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and killing at least 170,000 mostly civilians. My father was at that time an infantry sergeant on a troop ship located offshore of the Japanese mainland, part of a new Army corps, the Eighth Army, which was about to undertake an invasion of Japan’s main island. It promised to be bloody and the word among the troops was that Japan would put up a fierce last stand resistance. The American soldiers were consequently happy to hear that the bombs were used and the war had ended with an immediate Japanese surrender. More recently, however, historians have come around to the view that Japan was about to surrender anyway, which it did six days after the bombings, and it was a bad decision by President Harry Truman to authorize the use of the new and devastating weapon.

After World War 2, the Soviet Union, benefitting from the secrets stolen by the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg spies in the United States, also acquired nuclear secrets and used them to become a nuclear armed military power, joining the US and Britain. The deployment of nukes subsequently became part of the tit-for-tat maneuvering that characterized the Cold War. The crisis came when Russia declared its intention to base nuclear capable missiles in Cuba, 90 miles from the US and therefore capable of hitting targets anywhere in the US, as a deterrent of any possible moves by Washington to again invade Cuba. The move was also in response to US basing of nuclear missiles in NATO countries Italy and Turkey. It seemed that some kind of nuclear exchange was imminent when the leadership of the United States and the Soviet Union came to their senses. In 1962 President John F Kennedy and Chairman Nikita Khruschev agreed that playing nuclear risk was just not worth it and the Russians declared that their missiles would not be going to Havana and the US agreed that its Jupiter missiles would also be withdrawn from Turkey.

This led to other agreements to limit the likelihood that nuclear weapons might actually be used in a war. The most important agreement was the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which was signed by President Ronald Reagan and Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 but which the US withdrew from in October 2018 during the first Trump Administration. The INF banned both nuclear and conventional land-based missile systems and missile launchers with ranges of 620–3,420 miles (“intermediate-range”) and 310–620 miles (“shorter-range”), meaning that the mobile missile systems could not be developed for deployment and possible use close to a country’s border where they might be capable of a devastating surprise first strike against the “enemy.”

Prior to the US withdrawal, there were claims from both sides that there had been violations by the other side in terms of what the treaty allowed. When Trump ordered the government to withdraw from the INF treaty, it claimed Russia was in violation through its development of a new highly sophisticated ground-launched cruise missile. Russian officials responded that the missile had a maximum range of only 298 miles, making it legal. Russia replied that there was a possible US violation of the INF treaty through its establishing its own Aegis Ashore missile defense systems that were based in NATO members Romania and Poland, close to the Russian border. The US systems use highly mobile Mk-41 vertical launchers, which can accommodate Tomahawk missiles. The US under Trump would not negotiate with Russia and there was some speculation that the reason Washington had withdrawn from the INF treaty was so it would have a free hand to deploy its intermediate-range missiles near China. Russia responded by proposing that the over the limits INF missiles be banned in Europe only, but Washington never discussed and never accepted the compromise offer.

Russia has responded to what it sees as the continuing US provocations, like the development of the new highly mobile missile launcher named the “Typhon.” The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on August 4^th which declared that: “With our repeated warnings on that matter having gone ignored and the situation developing towards the de facto deployment of US-made intermediate-and shorter-range ground-based missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, the Russian Foreign Ministry has to declare that any conditions for the preservation of a unilateral moratorium on the deployment of similar arms no longer exist, and it is further authorized to state that the Russian Federation does not consider itself bound by relevant self-restrictions approved earlier.” The Ministry decried how the “formation and buildup of destabilizing missile potentials in regions adjacent to Russia, [is] creating a direct, strategic threat to the security of our country… Russia’s leadership [will respond] based on an interdepartmental analysis of the scale of deployment of US and other Western ground-based INF missiles.”

To avoid a war that might become nuclear with devastating consequences should rightly be a major issue up for discussion at the next bilateral meeting in Moscow and whatever develops thereafter. The Trump Administration’s inept moves in the past to increasing US national security by discarding agreements intended to remove or at least mitigate the threat of large scale or even nuclear war should be considered in its broader context beyond Ukraine and Russia to include the Middle East where Israel is “secretly” nuclear armed. The INF Treaty could be viewed in the same fashion as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement to monitor Iran’s nuclear enrichment program to keep it from becoming a path to the acquisition of a nuclear weapon. Developments since Trump withdrew from the program in 2019 in his first term in office suggest strongly that the subsequent attacks on Iran by both Israel and the US have if anything increased the likelihood that the next Iranian government will seek to weaponize nuclear capabilities through a hidden program, only this time they will not do so while under IAEA inspection status, they will do it in secret. Hardly a good outcome, but when one is considering developments with both Russia and Iran, it is unfortunately true that what has been broken without regard for the consequences can no longer be easily mended. It would nevertheless be a gift to the human race to attempt to do so and if Donald Trump truly wants his Nobel Peace Prize a good place to start would be by ignoring the Europeans and Zelensky in the lead up to the next bilateral meeting in Moscow. Peace in Eastern Europe to include limits of weapons, possibly to establish a model that could be copied in the Middle East, would be the best “deal” that America’s president could ever make.

Original article:  www.unz.com

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La geometria non è un’opinione

Praticamente non si parla d’altro: dopo il vertice tenutosi il 15 agosto 2025 ad Anchorage, Alaska, tra Donald Trump e Vladimir Putin — il primo incontro del genere nel territorio statunitense in anni — si è apertamente discusso della possibilità di organizzare un successivo summit trilaterale con la partecipazione del presidente ucraino Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump aveva dichiarato di aver avviato i preparativi per un simile incontro, sebbene il summit in Alaska non avesse portato a un accordo formale o a una tregua, nonostante i tentativi di mostrare sviluppo positivo. Contestualmente, il ministro degli esteri russo Sergej Lavrov aveva sottolineato la necessità di incontri preliminari per preparare il terreno diplomatico.

Ormai l’incontro era dato per scontato e da diverse parti del mondo stavano giungendo felicitazioni per questo storico evento. Poi, però, è successo qualcosa. Prima alcune indiscrezioni, poi la conferma ufficiale: Trump si ritira dai colloqui. Il triangolo USA-Ucraina-Russia è stato rotto.

La geometria non è un’opinione, come la matematica. Un triangolo ha bisogno di tre lati. Niente incontro trilaterale, ci saranno solo due componenti. Quindi?

Prima di ragionare sul significato di questa mossa compiuta da Trump, osserviamo la situazione europea.

Come noto, dopo il summit ad Anchorage, a Washington sono volati i leader europei, i cosiddetti “volenterosi”, vivendo uno dei momenti più bassi della storia della politica europea. È stato un momento di vera e propria ridefinizione geometrica, in cui gli equilibri di potere sono stati messi sul tavolo e riaffermati con proporzioni diverse da quelle che i leader europei avevano finora sostenuto.

No, l’Europa politica non è quella che ci raccontano i mass media europei. E no, le istituzioni europee non contano più niente. Hanno valore ed efficacia solo per i cittadini europei che ancora non hanno capito che abbiamo davanti l’occasione del secolo per liberarci di una classe politica inconsistente e corrotta, liquidando il mostro chiamato Unione Europea, vero strumento di controllo e dominio dell’asse di potere anglo-francese, sul piano politico, e di quello anglo-americano, sul piano strategico.

A Washington, infatti, sono andati i leader di quei Paesi che hanno degli interessi in gioco con l’Ucraina. Non tutti i leader della UE, solo quelli “che contano davvero” come ha scritto la stampa. Contano per cosa? Per gli investimenti bellici fatti, per le firme ai pacchetti di sanzioni contro la Russia, per la costante e morbosa retorica russofoba e per aver alimentato paura, terrore e guerra, nel mentre che migliaia di ucraini morivano, obbligati con la forza e il ricatto a combattere una guerra decisa da qualcun altro.

Infatti a Washington la figuraccia l’hanno fatta proprio quei leader, che hanno subito una umiliazione enorme, sentendosi dire che i loro piani sono destinati ad essere ridimensionati, che l’America non sosterrà più come prima la loro follia e che, in fin dei conti, ognuno dovrebbe pensare per sé.

Il colpo più grande l’hanno ricevuto la Francia, con Emmanuel Macron che è stato un grande promotore sia della corsa agli armamenti, sia dei falsi tentativi di diplomazia con Mosca. Ma anche il tedesco Friedrich Mertz, che a stento è riuscito a tenere in piedi il Paese grazie al lancio di una economia di guerra, facendo un salto indietro di cento anni nella storia. E poi ovviamente l’inglese Keir Starmer, il lucidascarpe della Corona, che rappresenta l’interesse della NATO, alleanza nord atlantica che, lo ricordiamo, politicamente è sempre stata a guida europea. A seguire tutti gli altri, compresa Ursula Von der Leyen, la medusa della Commissione Europea, che stavolta non ha potuto fare la strega sovrana che minaccia tutti di compiere le sue oscure magie, ma è dovuta restare seduta, in silenzio, a ricevere la cattiva notizia.

Cattiva, sì, anzi pessima, perché Trump ha più o meno velatamente detto all’Europa che d’ora in poi le armi se le dovrà comprare, a prezzo pieno, e che l’assistenza militare non sarà più come prima, ma anche che i dazi in fin dei conti stanno bene lì dove sono e che delle politiche europee non gli importa tanto perché deve prima pensare gli USA.

Detto in altre parole: Europa, è arrivato il tuo momento. Quello di perire.

Non guardare il dito, guarda la luna

La maggioranza degli analisti si è soffermata sul dito, invece di guardare la luna. Trump ha fatto nuovamente la solita mossa all’americana: ha detto A ma ha fatto B. C’era da aspettarselo, gli americani sono dei furbacchioni.

Trump gioca a poker. Ha fatto un bluff.

Ma che significa?

Per comprendere questa mossa, bisogna provare a collegare il summit ad Anchorage con quello di Washington. Trump ha mollato Zelensky nelle mani di Putin. O, meglio, ha attratto Zelensky in una trappola a cui non poteva dire di no, altrimenti avrebbe fatto una terribile figuraccia; poi, una volta confermato, lo ha lasciato solo davanti a Putin e davanti al mondo intero, affinché esca fuori chi è Zelensky, quali responsabilità ha in questa assurda guerra e, soprattutto, quale è la regia dietro le quinte, la regia europea, chi sono i Paesi che hanno interessi e cosa faranno adesso che le carte sono allo scoperto.

Putin, invece, da buon russo, è un abile giocatore di scacchi.

Putin andando in Alaska sapeva che questa mossa sarebbe stata utile, perché permette di fare molte altre mosse più avanti nel tempo. Ha dimostrato che la Russia non è isolata, che anzi è al centro del mondo, che è aperta, dialoga e che i risultati oggettivi che ha conquistato sono innegabili persino dallo storico grande nemico.

Davanti ad una cosa del genere, l’Europa di oggi non può fare niente.

Trump ha fatto la mossa più utile anche per Putin, il quale adesso avrà carta bianca per fare ciò che è necessario.

Non sappiamo cosa si sono detti i due Presidenti duranti il loro incontro in Alaska, ma stiamo vedendo i primi effetti concreti di un cambiamento di quella geometria che dicevano. Lo scacchiere internazionale sta entrando in una fase di guerra ibrida di quinta e sesta generazione, integralmente. Le dottrine militari classiche, le dottrine delle relazioni internazionali e della geopolitica che conosciamo da anni, si scontrano con la trasformazione in atto, che è inarrestabile e innegabile.

Non si combatte più come in passato. E, soprattutto, le conquiste e le vittorie devono adesso essere lette in maniera differente.

Questo è un piccolo assaggio di qualcosa che potrebbe avere, nei prossimi mesi, soprattutto a ottobre e novembre, una serie di importanti effetti, anche per ciò che riguarda l’Asia Occidentale (Medio Oriente) e, ovviamente, le sorti nefaste dell’Europa.

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Now that the iconic Alaska summit between President Donald Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has concluded, where the world next goes in terms of both resolving the Ukraine War and stabilizing the wider U.S.–Russia relationship is coming more clearly into view. 

In terms of the Ukraine War, the end is coming. It will not be resolved by a ceasefire, as Putin has long told the Americans and as Trump now seems to agree. The only problem is that the Ukrainians and their European enablers absolutely disagree with this stance.

Ukraine is a broken state and, at this point, is not coming back from the abyss that it finds itself in after three years of brutal, inconclusive war with its much larger Russian neighbor. Once heralded as the symbol of modern democratic resistance to tyranny, the besieged Eastern European state hasn’t held presidential elections in more than six years. Indeed, before the disastrous Ukraine War occurred, the nation historically known as the borderlands between Europe and Russia was ranked as the most corrupt in Europe.

As the war has progressed, Kiev has lived up to this shameful ranking.

A veritable gravy train of U.S. (and European) tax dollars, weapons, and other forms of aid have flooded into Ukraine for more than a decade (since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 following the U.S.-backed coup against the purportedly pro-Russian Kiev government of Viktor Yanukovych). Awash with Western cash and aid, the Ukrainian elite have engorged themselves while sending increasing numbers of their young people to fight the invading Russians. The longer the war lasted, the more generous Western aid became—with far less oversight—and the more opportunities that some Ukrainian oligarchs and officials gained to enrich themselves.

Thus, a feedback loop of corruption fueled by war occurred until war was the only task the Ukrainian state could perform. All other functions of a normal, democratic state were contorted to serve the war machine, which itself was the byproduct of Western-fueled corruption. As Ukraine’s war effort reaches its predictable nadir in the face of massive Russian offensives along the bloody frontline, Zelensky has embraced a fanatical view of both the war and his own status in the country’s political system.

Once billed as Ukraine’s “everyman” president who came from the world of comedy and campaigned on fighting Ukraine’s legendary corruption, over the years, President Volodymyr Zelensky became an enabler of that corruption (along with his top government officials). He became what he beheld. And as the war deteriorated for Ukraine, at a time when any other rational and uncorrupted leader would have sought peace with the larger invader, Zelensky, fueled by the seemingly bottomless pit of Western aid, kept expanding the war and biting off more than Ukraine could chew.

Zelensky has pushed aside those he once trusted, such as the renowned Ukrainian general Valeriy Zaluzhny, because they no longer saw the point of fighting a Russia that possessed so many advantages over Ukraine. Rumors abound today that Zaluzhny is making moves to replace Zelensky as leader of whatever remains of Ukraine.

Zelensky has helped to scuttle previous peace attempts between his country and Russia based entirely on the fantastical notion that his smaller NATO-backed military could reclaim the Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine or the Crimean peninsula, which has been home to one of Russia’s most important naval bases—the Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol—since the time of Catherine the Great. Indeed, Zelensky and his government refuse to countenance any alternative strategy to their current one of somehow recapturing these lost regions, even if it means the prolongation of the war and eventual annihilation of Ukraine and its people.

Last year, the paragon of democracy in Kiev canceled Ukraine’s scheduled presidential elections. Zelensky’s term in office was coming to an end. Rather than do the democratic thing and let democracy in Ukraine, however imperfect, take its course, the Ukrainian president opted instead to indefinitely extend his term in office. With no new date for presidential elections set, and with Zelensky now fully ensconced in his dictatorial power, the Ukrainian leader terminated the last vestige of Ukraine’s proto-democracy. This year he moved to shut down anti-corruption watchdog groups that had been established with the help of the West years ago to better ensure that Ukraine became a more functional democracy.

Many analysts assess that Ukraine has suffered more than 500,000 casualties in the war, higher than official estimates from the corrupt Kiev regime, and with no end in sight (at least if Zelenskyy continues getting his way). In this morass, cracks have started to form in Ukraine’s otherwise airtight control over the narrative surrounding the war. Recent polling conducted by Gallup indicates that most Ukrainians want their government to “negotiate an ending to the war as soon as possible.” The longer the war drags on, the tighter the control that Zelensky’s regime takes of the beleaguered country, the less popular the Kiev government—specifically, the president—becomes. Moreover, as support for the war declines, Zelensky’s demands for ending it grow more intractable.

Take, for example, Zelensky’s sly obsession with getting a ceasefire over a peace deal with Russia. This is because Zelensky understands a peace deal is lasting and, under such a deal, he’d be required to give up the territories in the east and Crimea permanently. But a ceasefire is, by definition, temporary. The fighting would stop, and Zelensky could theoretically restore his country’s fighting capabilities while (he hopes) the Russians stood down and gave up the significant tactical and strategic advantages Moscow currently enjoys.

The Europeans, desperate to remain relevant amid today’s shifting geopolitics, are backing Ukraine to the hilt because they fear that, if Trump and Putin manage to get a real deal for ending the Ukraine war, Moscow and Washington would effectively leave Europe in the dust. This would likely result in Trump diminishing the importance of the NATO alliance within U.S. national security policy. Evidently, the Europeans are more than willing to court a third world war with Russia over Ukraine if it means forcing the Americans to surge—over the long-term—support for Ukraine and, by extension, NATO against Putin’s Russia.

Without NATO, as the European Union struggles with a chronically turgid economy and with euro-skeptical nationalist-populist movements tugging at the supposed post–Cold War consensus, the current ruling class in Europe would truly be consigned to the geopolitical dust bin of history—victims of their own shabby globalist ideology and short-sighted decisions. For Europe to remain relevant, therefore, war must be their cause. But they can’t fight a war on their own, certainly not against mighty Russia. The Europeans will preen and pretend to fund their own defenses, all while ensuring that it is the Americans who are on the hook.

Which brings us to the last part of this story. The most important part. It’s obvious that both Trump and Putin want a peace deal. What’s more, the Ukrainian people want a negotiated end to this infernal war. Neither Zelensky nor Europe does. In fact, Zelensky seems inclined, if Trump attempts to impose a peace deal that requires Ukraine to give up the Donbas in eastern Ukraine—a region it will lose eventually if the war continues—to go rogue and continue fighting anyway.

Washington has a madman on its hands—in Kiev, not in the Kremlin. Rather than risk giving up his power by negotiating a peaceful end to the war that has decimated Ukraine, Zelensky (at the urging of his European friends) refuses to stop the fighting. He understands that failing to negotiate will lead to the complete destruction of Ukraine. But Zelensky doesn’t care. He can’t care. The money he relies on and the power he enjoys are inextricably linked to the war’s continuation. That’s what Trump is up against right now.

Zelensky, not Putin or Trump, is the impediment to peace. Until he is gone from power, Ukraine’s days are numbered, and the world is drawn inextricably closer to world war between nuclear-armed Russia and America.

Original article:  www.theamericanconservative.com

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Too much of the talk about the recent Alaska summit meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin focuses on the wrong issue. 

The key question is not whether an eventual peace accord ending the fighting in Ukraine will require Kyiv to accept Moscow’s continued possession of Crimea and at least a portion of Ukraine’s Donbas region.  Anyone with a modicum of realism understands that such territorial concessions are unavoidable if the bloody war of attrition is to end.  The real issue involves the demand of Ukraine and of its fan club in NATO that Kyiv be given “security guarantees” in exchange for accepting that reality.  Agreeing to such an open-ended commitment could ultimately prove fatal to the United States.

Trump has attempted to steer a middle course to accommodate the competing demands and extricate Washington from its entanglement in NATO’s dangerous proxy war using Ukraine as a weapon against Russia.  He has told Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelensky repeatedly that his country must at least make some territorial concessions – especially Crimea.  Trump also has indicated that Ukraine must give up its aspirations for official NATO membership.  However, he has been receptive to endorsing vaguely conceived security commitments to shield Ukraine from any further coercion by Russia.

Extending a U.S. security guarantee to Kyiv could take two forms – both of them bad from the standpoint of America’s genuine interests and well-being.  One version could consist of pledges from individual European NATO powers – especially major players such as Great Britain, France, Germany, Poland, and Turkey–as well as the United States to enforce a peace accord between Kyiv and Moscow.  Another equally dangerous option would be to establish an explicit pledge from NATO as an alliance to come to Ukraine’s defense if it is the victim of renewed aggression from Russia.  In essence, that move would make Ukraine a de facto NATO member, even though Kyiv apparently would not have the right accorded to formal members to vote on Alliance decisions.  Any version of a security guarantee also is almost certain to include a peacekeeping contingent to enforce a ceasefire or a full-blown peace agreement.  However, Russian leaders insist that such a deployment must never take place without Moscow’s explicit consent.

Unfortunately, the Western powers may seek to implement the scheme of deploying peacekeeping troops along with a robust NATO security guarantee to Kyiv in defiance of Moscow’s wishes.  NATO countries have already blurred and expanded the security pledge contained in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty to consider an attack on any Alliance member to be an attack on all members and to provide aid to the victim.  Since Russia’s expanded military operations in Ukraine began in February 2022, the United States and other key NATO nations have treated Ukraine as though it were already an integral part of the alliance.

Article 5 does not require a member to launch retaliatory military strikes against the aggressor or even to provide weaponry to the alliance signatory under siege.  Yet, the United States and other NATO countries have provided sophisticated weapons to Kyiv, including missiles and drones that it has used to strike targets deep inside Russia.  NATO intelligence operatives also have assisted Ukrainian forces to conduct offensive operations against Russian targets.  Finally, although the evidence is not definitive, the United States, Britain, Norway, and possibly Poland are prime suspects in the destruction of Russia’s Nord Stream natural gas pipeline. 

Such actions were not only sufficient to fulfill any implied Article 5 obligation to an Alliance signatory, but also were outright acts of war against the Russian Federation.  A new formal NATO security guarantee to Ukraine would have more symbolic than substantive significance, since Kyiv already is being treated as a member of the Alliance in most important respects.  Nevertheless, Russian leaders and much of the world likely would view the move as an escalation of the West’s confrontation with Russia.  That perception would be even more intense if NATO sought to station “peacekeeping” forces in Ukraine.  Unfortunately, Trump reportedly has stated that if the European allies agree to deploy ground forces as peacekeepers in that country, Washington would be willing to protect those units with U.S. air power.

It would be hard to conceive of a more dangerous scenario than U.S. and Russian combat aircraft both operating in the skies over or near Ukraine.  Americans who wish to keep their country out of yet another unnecessary war – this one against a country that has over 6,000 nuclear weapons – need to pressure the Trump administration to reject the bait of giving any type of U.S. security guarantee to Kyiv. Nothing in Ukraine warrants incurring such a risk.  That country should not be regarded as even a secondary security or economic interest of the United States, much less a vital one.  Incurring existential risks must be reserved solely for the defense of vital U.S. interests that cannot be protected in any other way.

If European members of NATO, individually or collectively, decide to provide a security pledge to Kyiv, Washington should at least distance itself from that obligation. U.S. leaders must make it emphatically clear that Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty will not apply if such a new commitment entangles those countries in an armed conflict with Russia.  Better yet, U.S. leaders should use this episode as an opportunity to extricate the United States from NATO – an obsolete alliance designed nearly eight decades ago for a totally different geostrategic environment.  Let the European powers handle their own security affairs and decide what level of risk they’re willing to incur.  Prudent Americans should have no tolerance for any scheme that might cause their country to be dragged into the grave by a decaying Cold War era alliance trying to protect a third-rate authoritarian client.

Original article:  original.antiwar.com

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¿Está la Unión Europea y sus estados miembros colectivamente dirigiéndose hacia un abismo? Durante muchos años han estado atacando los titulares del tema del “Fin de la Unión Europea”—incluso yo mismo, debo admitirlo— pero en días recientes la misma Unión Europea que nunca se había ubicado  tan bajo en el mapa del mundo como lo fue en la denominada Reunión de Alaska. Unas cuantas semanas antes, muchos simpatizantes de la Unión Europea quedaron asombrados de cuan pusilánime fue el jefe de la Unión Europea cuando se enfrentó a Donald Trump y aceptó el 15 por ciento de arancel en general para todos los productos de la Unión Europea que ingresen a Estados Unidos –absolutamente asombroso dado que no hubo ningún anuncio sobre conversaciones comerciales entre los funcionarios de ambos lados sobre negociar un tema más apropiado. Esta sola maniobra reveló a la Unión Europea, como no otra cosa que de entera propiedad de las más grandes corporaciones del mundo como ser Pfizer, productora norteamericana de antibióticos a la cual Úrsula von der Leyen hizo partícipe de un fondo para producir vacunas de la Unión Europea por seiscientos mil millones de euros y por lo tanto, habría sido absurdo que ella se resistiera.

Y ahora es el turno de la Unión Europea de asimilar otro golpe haciendo un papel secundario en las negociaciones para un acuerdo pacífico de la guerra de Ucrania. Sin embargo, aunque muy pocos apuestan por un acuerdo de paz. Incluso el mismo Trump no parece tener muchas esperanzas, ya que Putin ha dejado en claro que él desea que las regiones de habla rusa al oriente de Ucrania sean entregadas como parte del acuerdo, más garantías que Ucrania nunca será miembro de la OTAN.

Si la OTAN todavía existe en los próximos meses es otra cuestión, ya que vale la pena notar que esta organización transatlántica que dirige Estados Unidos, está actualmente transitando por su más bajo nivel en su historia como Unión Europea. Lo que idiotizados periodistas norteamericanos que gritaron a Putin en la conferencia de prensa “¿Dejará usted de matar civiles?”. No preguntar sería más evidente. Por supuesto, que ellos no le gritan preguntas estúpidas a Netanyahu cuando este está de visita en Estados Unidos, quien es el arquitecto del más horrible genocidio en lo que va del siglo XXI, en que las mujeres y los niños que escapan de las bombas que llueven sobre sus carpas ahora mueren de hambre –todo eso apoyado por Estados Unidos. Pero los periodistas no le preguntan a Putin “¿Cómo va la guerra en Ucrania Señor?” o algo así “¿Qué piensa usted que le pasaría a la OTAN si sus fuerzas armadas obligan a Zelensky a rendirse?

La reunión nunca iba a ser productora de un acuerdo de paz en Ucrania según la acomodaticia posición de los periodistas, lo cual fue un indicador para eso. Lo que quedó sentado en la reunión de Alaska fue que los dos líderes mostraron mutuo respeto de manera que acuerdos mayores pudieran ser elaborados –quizás acuerdos energéticos y de infraestructura en la misma Alaska, o quizás de tierras raras y minerales en Rusia—y si usted escucha con cuidado las respuestas de Trump a los medios de prensa usted notará las insinuaciones.

Pero con las relaciones de Estados Unidos y Rusia desplazándose en una dirección más sobria y más desarrollada –madura en vez de la tonta posición de Biden existen muchas posibilidades sobre la mesa. Lo de Ucrania bien podría resolverse en algún momento, si unos de esos súper acuerdos alcanzan a ver la luz del día.

Para los europeos y la Unión Europea, ellos tendrán que bailar al ritmo de Putin y Trump lo cual los hace verse más inútiles e incongruentes con el cuadro mayor de la geopolítica que ellos ansían. Lo mismo va para la OTAN, ambas instituciones han echado leña al fuego en años recientes con ver solo la opción de guerra –o más específicamente escalar o desarrollar la opción que fracasó estrepitosamente y que ahora justifican las enormes sumas de dinero dedicadas al proyecto bélico que no puede beneficiar a Occidente, ahora sus líderes esgrimen solo una narrativa que es la repetir una y otra vez tratando de salvar su propia credibilidad y sus puestos de trabajo. Más guerra, más guerra, incluso más guerra.

Resulta increíble: la alta diplomática de la Unión Europea Kaja Kallas, ex Primera ministra de Estonia, clave reciente en la visión que la Unión Europea y la OTAN tienen acerca de la guerra de Ucrania. Ellos la ven como la Unión Europea es primera prueba de la política de mano dura en política exterior antes de estar siendo apoyada por “Papito” Trump. Probablemente la más estúpida y engañosa declaración del mes fue la de Kallas quien dijo a los periodistas “Si Europa no puede derrotar a Rusia, ¿Cómo podría derrotar a China?”. Todo su pensamiento se basa en un conflicto más bien que en la prevención de un conflicto, lo cual también tiene que ver con salvar tanto a la OTAN como a la Unión Europea de su peor caída de credibilidad cuando Rusia finalmente derrote al ejercito ucraniano. Estos bufones de la Unión Europea han creado desde el año 2014 e incluso antes, una guerra que era casi inevitable pues ellos carecen de los medios, la capacidad militar o siquiera la voluntad de ganar y así es como ahora sus prioridades consisten en realizar un encubrimiento masivo del fracaso y protegen a sí mismas sus propias dinastías.

Europa no se está preparando para la guerra. Esa es una gran faramalla, se está preparando para una gran caída la cual será sin precedentes y bien podría ser una catálisis tanto para el deceso de la Unión Europea como de la OTAN tal como las conocemos.

Traducción desde el inglés por Sergio R. Anacona.

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Trump’s ascent to a portion of the ‘Mythic’ has become only too evident. As John Greer has observed:

“It’s becoming difficult even for the most dyed-in-the-wool rationalist to go on believing that Trump’s political career can be understood in the prosaic terms of ‘politics as usual’”.

Trump the man, of course, is in no way mythic. He’s an elderly, slightly infirm, American real estate oligarch, with lowbrow tastes and an unusually robust ego.

“The ancient Greek word muthos originally meant ‘story’. As the philosopher Sallust wrote, myths are things that never happen but always are”.

Later, myth came to mean stories hinting at a kernel of inner meaning. This doesn’t imply a requirement to be factual; yet it is this latter dimension that gives Trump “his extraordinary grip on the collective imagination of our time”, Greer suggests. He comes back literally from everything thrown to destroy him.

He becomes what Carl Jung called ‘the Shadow’. As Greer writes:

“Rationalists in Hitler’s day were consistently confounded by the way the latter brushed aside obstacles and followed his trajectory to the bitter end. Jung pointed out in his prescient 1936 essay Wotan, that much of Hitler’s power over the collective mind of Europe came boiling up out of the realms of myth and archetype”

Wotan in myth is a restless wanderer who creates unrest and stirs up strife – now here, now there – and works magic. Jung thought it piquant to a degree that an ancient God of storm and frenzy – the long quiescent Wotan – should come to life in the German Youth Movement.

What has this to do with the Alaska summit with President Putin?

Well, Putin seemingly paid due attention to the psychology underlying Trump’s sudden request to meet. The Russians treated Trump in a very respectful, courteous and friendly fashion. They implicitly acknowledged Trump’s sense of an inner mythic quality – which Steve Witkoff, his longstanding friend, has described as Trump’s deep conviction that his ‘commanding presence’ alone can bend people to his will (and to America’s interests). Witkoff added that he agreed with this assessment.

As just one example, the White House meeting with Zelensky and his European fans produced some of the most remarkable political optics perhaps in history. As Simplicius notes,

“Has there ever been anything like this? The entire pantheon of the European ruling class reduced to snivelling children in their school principal’s office. No one can deny that Trump has succeeded in veritably ‘breaking Europe over his knee’. There is no coming back from this turning point moment, the optics simply cannot be redeemed. The EU’s claim to being a geopolitical power is exposed as sham”.

Less noticed perhaps – but psychologically crucial – is that Trump seems to recognise in Putin a ‘mythic peer’. Despite the two being poles apart in character, nonetheless, Trump seemed to recognise a fellow from the pantheon of putative ‘mythic beings’. Watch again the scenes from Anchorage: Trump treats Putin with huge deference and respect. How unlike Trump’s disdainful treatment of the Euros.

In Anchorage however, it was Putin who displayed the calm, composed, dominating presence.

Yet what is plain is that Trump’s respectful conduct towards Putin has exploded the West’s radical demonisation of Russia and the cordon sanitaire erected versus all things Russian. There is no coming back from this other turning point moment – “the optics simply cannot be redeemed”. Russia was treated as a peer global power.

What was it all about? A pivot: Kellogg’s frozen conflict paradigm is out; the Putin long-term peace plan is in; and tariffs are nowhere mentioned.

What is clear is that Trump has decided – after some reluctance – that he has to do “do Ukraine”.

The cold reality is that Trump faces huge pressures: The Epstein Affair stubbornly refuses to fade away. It is set to rear up again after Labor Day in the U.S.

The western Security State narrative of “we are winning”, or at least, “they are losing”, has been so powerful – and so universally accepted for so long – that it, of itself, creates a huge dynamic, pressing for Trump to persist with the Ukraine war. Facts regularly are twisted to fit this narrative. This dynamic has not yet been broken.

And Trump is trapped too, into supporting the Israeli slaughter – with the images of massacred and starved women and children turning the stomach of the younger, under 35, electoral demographic in the U.S.

These dynamics – and the economic blowback from the ‘Shock and Awe’ tariff attack to fracture BRICS – together threaten Trump’s MAGA base more directly. It is becoming existential. Epstein; the Gaza massacre; the threat of ‘more war’, and job worries is roiling not just the MAGA faction, but American young voters more generally. They ask, is Trump still one of ‘us’, or was he always with ‘them’.

Without the base behind him, Trump likely will lose the Midterm Congressional elections. Ultra rich donors pay, but cannot substitute.

What emerged from Anchorage therefore is a meagre intellectual framework. Trump minimally decided to no longer stand in the way of a Russian-imposed solution for Ukraine, which is, in any case, really the only solution there can be.

This framework is not a road map to any ultimate solution. It is delusional therefore, as Aurelien outlines, to expect that Trump and Putin were going to ‘negotiate’ an end to the war in Ukraine, “as though Mr Putin were to pull out a text from his pocket and the two of the them were then to work through it”. Trump anyway is not strong on details, and is wont to meander discursively and inconclusively.

“As we get closer to the endgame, the important action is elsewhere, and much of it will be hidden from public view. The broad outlines of the end of the military part of the Ukraine crisis have been visible for a while, even if the details could still change. By contrast, the extremely complex political endgame has only just started, the players are not really sure of the rules, nobody is really sure how many players there are anyway, and the outcome is at the moment as clear as mud”, Aurelien opines.

Then why did Trump suddenly ‘pivot’? Well it was not because he has had some ‘Damascene conversion’. Trump remains a committed Israeli Firster; and secondly, he can’t resile from his pursuit of dollar hegemony because that aim, too, is becoming problematic – as the American ‘bubble economy’ begins to unravel, and the under-30s fidget, living in their parents’ basement.

It is to Trump’s advantage (for now) to let Russia to ‘bring’ the EU and Zelensky to some negotiated ‘peace’ – through force. The U.S. ‘China hawks’ are increasingly agitating that China is close to an exponential lift-off – both economically and in tech – after which, the U.S. will lose its ability to contain China from global pre-eminence. (It is however probably already too late to stop this).

Putin too, is taking a big risk in offering Trump an off-ramp, through accepting to work towards a stable long-term relationship with the U.S. It is not Finland of 1944, where the Soviet army did force an Armistice.

In Europe, the élite believe that Trump’s peace outreach to Putin will fail. Their plan is to ensure it fails by playing along, whilst ensuring through their conditionalities, that no such agreement materialises. Thus proving to Trump that ‘Putin is not serious about ending the war’. Thus impelling American escalation.

Trump’s part of the bargain with Putin clearly is that he will shoulder managing the European ruling strata (mainly by flooding the info-sphere with contradictory noise), and through containing the American hawks (by pretending he is wooing Russia away from China). Really? Yes, really.

Putin too, faces internal pressures: From Russians convinced that ultimately he will be forced to enter into some form of interim Minsk 3-type outcome (a series of limited ceasefires that would only exacerbate the conflict) rather than achieve ‘victory’. Some Russians fear that the blood that has been spent so far may prove to be but a down-payment on more blood to be expended in a few years ahead, as the West rearms Ukraine.

And Putin faces too, the hurdle of Trump viewing his relationship with him through narrow New York real estate ‘lense’. He still does not seem to understand that the key question is not so much Ukrainian territories as it is about geo-strategic security. His enthusiasm for a trilateral summit seems to rest on the image of two real estate tycoons playing the board at Monopoly and swapping properties. But it is not like that.

It seems however, that Putin has indeed succeeded in finding an exit out from the imposed western cordon sanitaire. Russia is acknowledged as a great power again, and Ukraine will be settled on the battlefield. The two great nuclear weapons powers are talking to each other. That is important, in itself. Will Trump be able to secure his base? Will ‘game over’ in Ukraine (if it happens) be enough for MAGA? Will Netanyahu’s next genocidal rampage in Gaza explode the Trump ‘cope’ vis-à-vis MAGA? Very possibly, yes.