Yves here. Trump, showing his long-established tendency to believe the last person who spoke to him, has gone from accepting Vladimir Putin’s report that Ukraine attempted to assassinate him via over 90 drones targeting his residence near Valdai to buying the CIA’s denial, that there was a Ukraine attack, but of a military objective not near the Putin lodging.
Frankly, Russia feeling the need to provide evidence to Trump through attaches (charitably assuming it will get to him unmolested and that he has the cognitive chops to interpret it) shows that they’ve gone too far in indulging the negotiation-to-end-the-war charade. Putin like felt it was necessary to enhance Russia’s image with its economic allies, who weren’t happy with the fact of the invasion. He may even have harbored some hope of improving relations and restoring at least some commercial ties. But the Administration has been unwilling or unable to take even the baby step of returning diplomatic property seized from Russia. And Trump has repeatedly retraded his deals, first retrading Alaska, now apparently retreating from the 28 point plan to some new version yet to be finalized.
Russia would be better served to stop dignifying this distraction, particularly since the CIA is now using it to try to discredit Putin personally. They need to prosecute the war and see if and when the US or Ukraine reopens talks of perceived necessity.
By Andrew Korybko, a Moscow-based American political analyst who specializes in the global systemic transition to multipolarity in the New Cold War. He has a PhD from MGIMO, which is under the umbrella of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Originally published at his website
Tensions risk spiraling out of control if Trump isn’t disabused of the CIA’s false narrative that Ukraine’s recent large-scale drone attack against Novgorod Region wasn’t an attempt to assassinate Putin.
Trump retweeted an editorial from the New York Post on New Year’s Eve about how “Putin ‘attack’ bluster shows Russia is the one standing in the way of peace”, which followed CIA chief John Ratcliffe briefing him about the agency’s assessment that Ukraine supposedly didn’t attempt to assassinate Putin. Several days prior, Putin informed Trump during their latest call that nearly 100 Ukrainian attack drones were intercepted near his residence in Northern Russia on the day that Trump hosted Zelensky.
Trump expressed anger when asked about this by the press and reminded everyone how he decided against giving Ukraine Tomahawks, seemingly implying that this might have saved Putin’s life. Ukraine predictably denied that it targeted Putin, with Zelensky lashing out at India and other countries whose officials condemned the attack that he insisted didn’t happen. Trump is now evidently of the same mind after Ratcliffe’s briefing, which convinced him that Ukraine didn’t attempt to assassinate Putin.
According to the CIA chief, an attack did indeed take place at the time that Russia claimed and in the same region as Putin’s residence in Northern Russia, but it supposedly only targeted a nearby military site. If Trump disagreed with this assessment, then he wouldn’t have retweeted the New York Post’s editorial condemning Putin of all people over this incident, conspiratorially speculating that the Russian leader made it all up “as an excuse to reject Trump’s progress on peace” and “spit in America’s eye.”
In the interests of transparency and wanting to prevent the CIA from manipulating Trump into once again escalatingagainst Putin, Russia’s military intelligence chief handed over to a representative of the US military attaché materials containing the downed drones’ decoded route data. He also said that this evidence “unequivocally and accurately confirmed that the target of the attack was the complex of buildings of the residence of the President of the Russian Federation in the Novgorod region.”
Nevertheless, this evidence might not disabuse Trump of Ratcliffe’s false narrative since he’s still dependent on the CIA’s assessment of the downed drones’ decoded route data. Seeing as how they lied about the attack’s target to misportray Putin as trying to manipulate Trump, they’re unlikely to reverse their narrative, especially after publicly receiving evidence from Russia. They’re therefore expected to stick to the script and misportray this evidence as yet another attempt by Putin to manipulate Trump.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that Russia’s response “will not be diplomatic”, but if Trump doesn’t believe its side of the story, then he can be manipulated by the CIA into perceiving this as “unprovoked aggression” and thus misled into escalating further. The New York Times’ recent report on Trump’s Ukraine policy revealed that the CIA earlier convinced him to authorize them to aid Ukrainian attacks against Russian refineries and its “shadow fleet” so the escalation risk is very real.
Therein lies the importance of convincing Trump that Ratcliffe lied to him. If that can be achieved, then the US likely won’t overreact to Russia’s retaliation, and perhaps Trump might finally force Zelensky to withdraw from the rest of Donbass as a concession for averting Russia’s retaliation. If Trump remains under Ratcliffe’s influence and Russia’s promised retaliation is more than symbolic, however, then he might be manipulated by him into being the one who reverses his own hard-earned progress on peace.
Korybko does not offer arguments as to why RU shouldn´t be able to or advised to pursuing multiple trajectories and strategies at the same. To keep open channels is no big loss. To quote Martyanov´s – although childish use of movie citations – you own what you can destroy – is the essential truth. Unless RU won´t take their foot off that everything else is secondary.
Why does Korybko not address the lack of trusted people in the Trump administration? IMHO that´s a huge and influential issue in all this.
After all we have an apparatus of I don´t know how many intelligence and secret agencies in the US for 25 years zooming in on Russia. How should we expect those to be changed in 10 months???
By a guy who is despised by many files and ranks of the upper echelons of that very same deep state?
I dunno – almost nothing written in the West really ever seems to be up to the task of assessing this clusterfuck.
No wonder the populace has zero clue (I see it in Germany all over – whether Russia-haters or “peacenicks”). So why should POTUS have a clue beyond his “gut feeling”. Wherever that gut is lingering.
25 years? to quibble, Peter Hopkirk’s The Great Game pegs Russophobia as starting in 1840, so more like 185 years!
Russophobia carried on through the Great Game period, which ended around 1910. From there, other books mark the British Russophobia’s impact in starting WWI and WWII.
The logical conclusion is the USA inherited the gene from Britain, but I’ve not seen a serious attempt to lay out that causality.
Did the CIA/MI6 provide assistance for the attack? What role did the Ukrainians actually play? My knee-jerk reaction to the attack was that it was planned and facilitated by the west and the Ukrainians used as a front.
The provocations just get more desperate, reckless and dangerous. Just imagine if an attack was launched on a western head of govt. or the emperor himself. We have been here before, but it sure seems they are itching for a nuclear war.
It appears that Putin is still trying, to no avail, to appeal to DT’s rational faculties.
The emperor lacks the cognitive chops to evaluate anything that requires more than 10 seconds attention. He also lacks a basic moral compass. He boasts about taking bribes from foreign nationals and selling US policy to the highest bidder. He surrounded himself with corrupt and incompetent cabinet members (GIGO)
The cognitive decline appears to be progressing slowly but steadily. Some of his statements are nonsensical and amount to gibberish. A mentally deficient, reckless, POTUS with his hands on the nuclear football does not bode well for national security.
First, Ukraine basically gets all its targeting and – in the case of long-range drones – pathing data from the Americans. The Ukrainians themselves simply haven’t either satellite or reconnaissance aircraft/drone capabilities, and the Europeans lag far behind the US. Now, which specific agency is giving this info to the Ukrainians – the CIA? the DIA? the NGIA? – I do not know, and do not much care. Someone is. By the by, some Russian bloggers have taken to reporting any time a NATO recon drone or aircraft shows up in the Black Sea, as a Ukrainian drone or missile strike is likely in the offing…
Second, there is the matter of the drones geolocating themselves while in flight, to know where they are. There are multiple technical ways to do this, from using local SIM cards to ping the local wireless network, to using a modem to connect to Wi-Fi hotspots (for a time, the Russians combatted Ukrainian drone attacks by literally switching off local wireless Internet), to basic but expensive satellite geolocation. I have no idea what these specific drones utilized, but clearly, the Americans could potentially have helped in this department also, for example, by supplying or procuring the physical tech. Though it seems the Europeans have been more the actual “builders” of these weapons, so perhaps the CIA isn’t directly involved.
Third, as I keep insisting in my comments, yes, part of Putin’s motivations has to do with managing his BRICS and non-BRICS relationship. But there is also a significant internal angle, because to this day (per Lavrov, of all people) there is a chunk of Russian elites, both the billionaires and the state bureaucracy, that dreams of a rapprochement with the Americans at all costs. So they could go back to the way things were back in the 00s. Putin’s whole career as President or Prime Minister had been spent sitting between different groups of stakeholders, some more pro-Western, some much less, and balancing them all out, for lack of a better word. I am not suggesting he always did a smashing job of it, but trying to keep everyone, or nearly everyone, onsides to maintain internal stability is kind of his thing. Of course, that means that no-one is ever truly happy about it, see John Helmer’s endless conversations with anonymous sources in the military grousing about having their hands tied during a war – but also see Anatol Lieven’s periodic articles on Responsible Statecraft where it is more than clear he, Lieven, is talking to some anonymous pro-Western people in Moscow.
And on top of the Byzantine politics, there is also the simple matter of domestic public opinion. They are not so much counting in the Kremlin on Trump suddenly developing…competence. Rather, it’s so that the newspapers could once again barrage the Ivan and Olga in the street with headlines along the lines of, see, we tried, we play by the rules, it’s them over there that’s not being reasonable. Which creates an interesting feedback loop – first, you have state-adjacent media formations, from official TV channels to Solov’ev’s little empire, vociferously calling on the government to “do something”, and then the government “reluctantly acquiesces to the demands of the people”, or something to that effect.
It’s a complicated dance, in other words. Which makes me really, really wonder about how things are going to go when Putin finally steps away, willingly or not.
Thanks for that. We can add the divergent opinions of people like Doctorow on the one hand and many other analysts like Ritter, Martyanov, Johnson, Wilkerson, MacGregor, Crooke…Maybe somewhere in between lie Helmer and Sleboda. It’s all food for thought and, as always, “we’ll see”. This is all tragic “entertainment” to say the least.
Attacking the residence of the Russian president, whether he was present or not, is a serious provocation, among a long list of provocations. I wonder how public pressure to “do something” will play out. What can Russia do?
‘My knee-jerk reaction to the attack was that it was planned and facilitated by the west and the Ukrainians used as a front.’ —
For all we know, it was organized by an anti-Z cabal inside UKR which wants to discredit him in order to promote a peace deal with RU. Or by a pro-Z cabal inside UKR which wants to discredit his opponents in order to continue the war. Or by an anti-Z cabal that thinks he’s too conciliatory and wants to widen the war to include NATO. Or by a pro-Z cabal that thinks he’s too warlike and wants to prod him into cutting a deal with RU. Or by a Zionist Masonic anarchist accelerationist splitter group backed by neo-Maoist Zoroastrians with covert crypto financing from North Korea and Elon Musk and the Bilderberg Group…..
…..the fact is, we can only guess at what’s going on. At least RU and USA are talking to each other, which itself is a vast improvement over the Biden adminstration.
Trump has aged badly in 2025; from my distant perch, he is elderly and frail and no longer fit to serve. We watched Putin’s midnight TV address during our New Year’s late supper, and he too has aged noticeably this past year (even my RU mother-in-law commented on his appearance), although he remains mentally and physically spry for 73.
I have consistently underestimated Putin’s ability to resist UKR provocations, no matter how brazen, so I won’t make any predictions re how or if RU will retaliate this time. But I think the fighting in UKR will continue for much longer than most western analysts are predicting. I certainly don’t see peace on the horizon.
One thing I have had difficulty figuring out the last few years is if Tulsi Gabbard is for real or if she is just another establishment limited hangout. During moments of extreme cynicism I remember that she was a WEF young global leader, but in moments of optimism I think she agreed to be part of the administration because she saw an opportunity to actually contribute to peace.
This could perhaps be a clarifying moment: Will she speak out and disabuse some of the public of the CIA narrative or will she remain silent?
I think it was Larry Johnson, and others, who suggested months ago, that she resign in protest after DT said he didn’t care what she says. Why has she not resigned in protest?
On the other hand, she would not be the first politician to deceive her supporters. Honesty and politics are oxymoronic
the idea that tulsi gabbard – a woman whose entire constituency seems to be about a dozen lonely commentors on niche horseshoe-y blogs – would stand up and speak truth to power is utterly risible. there’s no there there.
she is at least pleasing to look at.
im deep into ontological and epistemological confusion, at this point…i have no idea whats going on in DC.
I was wayyyyy more horny for Tulsi when she spoke like anti war populist.
Maybe she runs a Third Party America 🇺🇸 Campaign in 2028?
Also, after reading Safety First’s comment up above, I want to say that I think Putin is doing fucking fantastic.
The West controls the narrative online basically, but Putin controls the situation IRL.
The people want PEACE & UNITY, and by Jove he’s giving it to us.
The Imperial Army invaded Russia with what? 30,000 soldiers, and STILL Putin takes the blows knowing that he’s discrediting Imperial Stenographers who call him bloodthirsty or an Orc.
Fuck these CIA MOSSAD DEEP STATE MOTHERFUCKERS who are doing all of this. These A-HOLES have never stopped warring even after WWII ended.
They still have the weapons and firepower and soldiers domestically so it’s up to we the people to expose these fuckers and unify amongst ourselves.
Sorry I’m cursing. I just watched Transformers One and smoked a bowl after a nice long nap.
We caught a bunch of fish today down in Lafitte, Louisiana. We planned on catching Redfish but in the end settled for 34 Sheephead. We found a little hole by some oil pipelines, set a sinker on the hook 🪝 with shrimp 🍤 as the bait, dropped the line straight down the side of the boat, and POW 💥 POW 💥 we reeled them in one after another for a solid 2 hours. We caught a bunch of small ones but had to throw them back.
My dad turned 66, and he’s literally the fucking best dad ever for putting up with my bullshit and still taking care of his family while working for the man and not complaining. He’s a good Marine.
PEACE, LOVE, UNITY, & RESPECT, MY FELLOW NC GLOBAL PATRIOTS!
she was sidelined awhile, but did not resign (and did not get canned) as she worked a way to retain relevance. here is her public message from 21 dec:
“Deep State warmongers and their Propaganda Media are again trying to undermine President Trump’s efforts to bring peace to Ukraine—and indeed Europe—by falsely claiming that the ‘U.S. intelligence community’ agrees to and supports EU/NATO viewpoint that Russia’s aim is to invade/conquer Europe (in order to gin up support for their pro-war policies). The truth is that ‘US intelligence’ assesses that Russia does not even have the capability to conquer and occupy Ukraine, what to speak of ‘invading and occupying’ Europe.”
yeah, sure, we’d all like ‘more’, but we’re not privvy to every machination. let’s not forget she tried to take on the clinton machine and ended up unable to board a plane. such things tend to linger in and form memory.
I have increasingly come to believe that Gabbard is basically the beard, intentionally or not. Trump is a vain weakling, eager to be on the good side of the “important people,” ie people who are already on the “inside.” For all his wealth (or appearance thereof), he’s always been seen as a vulgar outsider in everything he’d been involved in and, I imagine, he is too eager to follow along when the “cool kids” promise to let him tag along. People like Gabbard, in this picture, is not one of the “cool kids,” but just someone whom Trump (or his apologists) can point to and say he’s not wholly sold.
i’m not sure that’s how the Don’s ego works; i’d say he exhibits behavior of the type to say ‘screw em, i’ll create my own ‘inside’, at least as far as he and susie wiles are capable. don’t forget, this is the man who endured pretty much everything that could be done to him by varying elements of the self-proclaimed ‘ruling party’, and defeated them handily.
Not for the first time, Korybko is making a whole lot of bricks without much straw, and constructing conspiracies on the basis of unattributable and probably politically interested leaks.
The key to all this is the wording of the question that was put to the Intelligence Community (since it would not just have gone to the CIA.) If the question was “did the Ukrainians try to kill Putin?” then the answer is generally agreed to be “no,” because he was not in the target area at the time, and presumably was known not to be. Whatever the Ukrainians attempted therefore, does not appear to have been an assassination. Thus, “the agency’s assessment that Ukraine supposedly didn’t attempt to assassinate Putin,” is very probably true. Such an assessment would be based not only on technical data but on their reading of the current political situation in Kiev, and whether anyone there was mad enough to think that trying to assassinate Putin was a good idea. Therefore Ratcliffe did not lie to Trump. As regards the rest of the story, including the alleged real target, it depends on an anonymous “source with knowledge of the matter,” and we all know what that kind of thing means. A competent bureaucracy would also ask “if the intent wasn’t to kill Putin, then were there any other possible targets in the region?” and a search would have revealed that there were. Such a reply could have been accidentally, or more probably deliberately garbled, in being passed by an unidentified and perhaps marginally-informed source to a reporter who probably didn’t understand the nuances anyway. So the whole idea of the CIA trying to manipulate Trump is really no more than a hypothesis.
Very little of this makes sense as described. If the US was involved, and the guidance system was as damning a piece of evidence as is suggested, then the chances of one out of a hundred drones being shot down and captured intact are such that direct US involvement would almost certainly be revealed anyway. So why do that? How would they benefit, in the real world? Moreover, the Russian AD system is known to be very good, so the chances of the attack succeeding would have been remote. Yes, people play stupid political games in Washington, and yes, the CIA has a reputation for having its own foreign policy, but this isn’t Hollywood. The Russians clearly adjusted some time ago to the idea that the US is providing a lot of intelligence support to Ukraine, so, assuming the GRU’s allegations are true, this wouldn’t really change things very much. The Russians have evidently decided that they will tolerate a certain amount from the US in the interests of a better relationship later, and causing a split between the US and Europe now, so why are they so het up now about what can at worst only have been a symbolic attack on an empty Presidential residence?
Did you actually read the post with care?
Korybko cited NBC News, which said in the first para of its article:
So the CIA insinuated or said that Putin said Ukraine tried to assassinate him, when I would assume that the careful Russian leader said an attack was made on his residence. In other words, you pin the apparent misdirection about the Russian charge on Korybko getting it wrong, when it seems more plausible that the CIA indeed (as the headline suggests) manipulated Trump based on his over-reading of what Putin said on the call. There is plenty of history like that between Trump and Putin. Just look at Trump going off half-cocked after the Alaska summit.
Having said that, I agree that Korybko often constructs his arguments poorly in his selection and/or presentation of evidence. He really needs an editor. He is young and I have tried giving him editorial and general advice and he is totally resistant.
Korybko is insular, as should be expected. Sure, he may be viewed even by native colleagues as a bit, eh, lacking in depth – but why take editorial advice from an outside party? ’tis wise.
It seems awfully likely that you are not a professional writer. For starters, it is entirely reasonable for me to seek to provide input on a an article I will run on my site. You incorrectly act as if it’s some sort of affront
Second, pros generally consider advice from someone seasoned in their field. Mark Ames, for instance, is a great editor and I always appreciate his input. I sometimes give advice to peers on pieces I will run here and they usually incorporate it.
Ratcliffe is another important fifth columnist for the neocon/neolib Blob in the Trump administration, as is Little Marco Rubio (who holds the Kissinger Chair as both Sec of State and National Security Advisor). Like Rubio, Ratcliffe is portrayed by the mainstream media as one of the “adults in the room” for this reason. In yesterday’s Links there was a piece by liberal Blob commentator Ron Filipkowski on the “25 Worst Villains of the Trump Admin.” I noted in a comment that neocon Rubio was conspicuously left off this list completely. Guess who else was missing? Yet another example showing that the “US vs. Europe” narrative on Ukraine is bunk.
Coincidentally, I had literally read this piece on MofA right before I read this Korybko article:
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2026/01/zelenskis-choice-as-new-head-of-office-moves-scale-towards-peace.html
It is interesting to compare the two. The MofA discussion notes that Zelinsky just appointed General Budanov, his current Intelligence chief, as his new chief of staff replacing the deposed Yermak. Bernhard paints this as a possible move toward peace because he sees Budanov as more of a CIA man as opposed to MI-6 man Zaluzhny or even Yermak himself. But this assumes that the CIA wants peace and Trump’s “peace” rhetoric (when he uses it) has value. This Korybko essay, and a number of other articles that have come out in recent days (including a couple in the NY Times), suggest that this hope is delusional.
Mercouris in his latest has an interesting take on Budanov. While he recognizes that Budanov, compared to others, is a bit more realistic about Ukraine’s prospects, he is no peacenik. Rather, Mercouris believes that Budanov likely is the sign that Ukraine will fold in the conventional sphere and instead go all in on the “dirty war,” ie terrorism, whether there is a Ukrainian state as such left or not. I think this interpretation fits with both Bernhard’s take in a way (although not his implicit conclusion) and the Korybko piece.
The thing about a dirty war is that it is potentially interminable, especially if the terrorists enjoy a huge sanctuary next door where they can’t be struck. I fear that it can only be wrapped up if EU collapses upon itself and is no longer capable of supporting it.
Ahem. Ukrainian “War of Independence” (Bolsheviks vs. UNA) was quite a dirty war and it ended in a few years (1920). The hunt of the UPA after the fall of Nazi Germany was about as dirty as it can get, and it ended in a few years (1948).
History does not repeat itself, but it’s usually a good predictor. In the end this is so much about whether Ukraine should use the constitution of 1995 or 2014, so most of the people would not support a dirty war for long – and according to Mao you need the support of population.
There are enough of political prisoners in Ukrainian prisons for the Belarusian KGB to (fraternally) train the “new security force” that will hate the Banderistas with a burning flame. This is, after all, also a civil war.
In 1920, there was no huge sanctuary openly supporting the UNA in Poland (Promethianism notwithstanding–after all, Ukrainians and Poles had, eh, issues.). NATO was not openly backing the remnants of Ukrainian ultranationalists in the aftermath of World War 2 (granted, there were CIA and other Western intel covert ops). My fear is that the current Ukrainian regime will openly operate in EU countries after they are expelled from Ukraine–a bit like how the PLO was running pratically a state within state, including a uniformed militia, in Lebanon circa 1970s, except with a lot more overt and enthusiastic support from their “hosts” for Ukraianians (many Lebanese factions openly hated the Palestinians, after all) We know that the overt operations of Palestinian guerillas in Lebanon led to Israeli intervention (on top of all manner of other issues).
And if Israel had offered Palestinians better pensions, less corruption, freedom of language and freedom of religion, would PLO have had the support to keep fighting?
In all the fights for the Ukrainian “heart and soul” there was also the carrot. Banderrorist really had, or have, nothing to offer but fairy tales and miserable deaths.
But people aren’t always rational, and they don’t always go for carrots, especially ideologically committed types. The hardcore banderites and neo-nazis could take the war underground and turn into a Nazi ISIS. Or they could outsource the work to ISIS like the Crocus city hall attack.
Money won’t be an issue. Even if all aid is cut off, there is the LTTE option. They raised funds via the Tamil diaspora (large populations in the UK and Canada). Plenty of Ukrainians in the UK and Canada who wouldn’t making life hell for Russia. Guns, drones and explosives aren’t that expensive.
i think Mercouris is correct in that estimation.
Big man of history is two-way, apparently infecting Korybkov for Trump and his ability (versus his courtesans) to effect policy.
At this point, if a large language model were to replace him, would anyone notice? Of course, the answer is yes, because it would have better grammar. However, I am sure it could and would accurately reproduce the lack of coherence for more than a couple of minutes, and the constant hallucinations would be easy to convey. But pride says, IMHO, grammar is one step too far.
aye! the quality of “our leadership” of late is sorely lacking,lol…shockingly so.
while Russia(and China and random Sahel countries(!!) seem to have a much better back bench, going back a long time.)
this, alone, gives me the willies.
clown rodeo.
idiots on parade.
loud mouthed morons all over the place, in charge of everything, and we just accept it.
because we dont really have a say….or too many of us believe the puppet show nonsense.
i’m sure it will all work out,lol…
Maybe it’s true about the CIA I have no idea.
Am I supposed to believe that trump really wants peace but just can’t seem to do it. He hasn’t stopped the arms, the intelligence, the UN resolutions, sanctions, any control over Ukraine, or the CIA or you name the next 100 things.
Gee what could the president of the US do? Fire the head of the CIA and the next 15 people, stop all arms and intelligence today.
Or am I supposed to believe that this is all a rouse, that he’s just talking about peace but really wants it to go on. Or related is he fearing the fallout of a Russia win, and Ukraine loss will be blamed on him?
I listen to people like John Meirsheimer and others that keep saying Trumps wants peace. I am getting tired of hearing that. Bombings all over the world, saber rattling over Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Russia/ukraine. This just doesn’t sound like someone who is interested in peace at all.
Trump has now full ownership of the wars, the giant messes around the world.
He did have a window when he came into office to but thats long gone.
Unfortunately I don’t see anything changing in regards to the US involvement in Ukraine or anything else soon.
John Kirakou (ex CIA, was there IIRC 15 years, head of counterintelligence in Pakistan) says that some presidents direct the CIA and others are directed by the CIA. Trump is clearly the latter type. He bullies to cover for the fact that he is a coward. Look at TACO. Look at how he let Lindsay Graham and for way too long, Zelensky and European leaders push him around.
You say coward (I have no clue. Maybe you´re totally right.)
But were he acting like a hero, how would that work?
E.g. every member of his government had to be green-lit by the Senate. Several candidates failed the smell test.
So how much leverage does he have if he acts opposing The Swamp, MIC etc.
How do you fight Deep State if you really intend to? What tools, weapons are at your disposal?
Serious question.
p.s. from dreamland: You could of course attempt a rainbow-coalition-like force between left and right working-class and unite those. And try to undermine the forces of empire. But not if you are Trump.
Well, be careful on who you pick as your cabinet – which says more than all the words written by any pundit much less a normal (not self-contradicting in ten minutes) politician’s words.
Personnel is Politics.
– Lambert
Trump wants peace in a way beauty pageant contestants do*, and CIA is the one doing the grabbing by the *family-blog*.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1ZOWwW2agQ
P,S. I’ve stopped listening to John Meirsheimer (and some others) a while ago, after realizing that he doesn’t say anything I already don’t know.
Whenever I see “Ukraine” in a headline, I am filled with despair. It didn’t have to be this way, but Roosevelt and Churchill needed to cave to Stalin in order to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
The mess that was created in central Europe has been festering now for 80 years and the current generation has no clue about its origins in the 19th century geopolitics of Russian access to the Black Sea and the Baltic through Crimea and eventually Kaliningrad.
Generations who learned international relations from Hollywood have no conception of diplomacy. Putin was evidently fooled by the way that Lavrov and Kerry were able to defuse the Syrian crisis into hallucinating that diplomacy was still possible with half-wits like Biden and Trump and the unserious coteries that surrounded them.
The “tell” is the way that Putin continually tries to lecture his counterparts about history, a subject that western leaders abandoned long ago in favor of their delusion of “the end of history.” Without an understanding of history and diplomacy there is no realistic way to end the suffering in “Ukraine” and the attacks on Russia will escalate.
I’m not sure if FDR and Churchill “caved in” to Stalin to defeat the Nazis (and Japan is a different question altogether.) The clash between Germany and USSR was considered increasingly likely throughout 1930s and, tbh, I think so called isolationists were not (at least analytically) wrong to think that UK getting in the way by guaranteeing Poland (an obstinate and arrogantly entitled mule of a country) without any plan to do anything useful was a big mistake. I can easily imagine an alternate universe where Germany dukes out with USSR with the Western powers standing aside mostly while US dukes it out with Japan by itself, possibly with even the Europeans not getting directly involved (does a Japanese invasion of DEI still take place even without the Netherlands being conquered as it was in 1940?)
PS. What should have been done to avoid creating the mess in Central Europe, and was it just 80 years ago that it should have been done? Should the Entente Powers have kept on fighting until total victory was achieved instead of coming to an armistice in 1918, like Foch (and Pershing) wanted to do and draw the borders in Central Europe as they pleased? Because, in the end, everything that went wrong before, during, and after WW2 come directly out of the first. (and, for reference, how well did things turn out where the Entente Powers did redraw borders at their pleasure, in the Middle East?) Should the powers of Europe have united behind Napoleon, defeat Russia, and create a Central Europe molded at the pleasure of the Enlightened Man? I don’t think there was a whole lot that could have been done in the aftermath of World War 2. If anything, the only person who understood what the seeds of the future conflict might be was Stalin: ethnic cleansing to match the borders, including the redrawn ones, for all its evil, did a lot to remove the potential for future conflict.
Our leaders abandoned it, but we are listening to Putin.
He speaks truth, while they speak lies.
He is kinda educating the masses on a global scale.
This is something I encounter in these political organizations I join. They don’t understand going after the membership and paint the debate with Guilt By Association insults.
related
Nicolai Petro´s latest appearance online, here with Glenn Diesen.
I often have the impression he is holding back on some insights due to their delicate quality as to not derail certain behind the curtain processes he is privy of.
However to draw comparison to the Peleponnesian War or British pre-WWI strategy re: continental Europe to “balance”, in the nuclear age is of questionable help beyond the philosophical.
Of course he tries to find principles in human nature that do not change. But how far will those take us?
But altogether always worthwhile in its entirety which I am thankful for from scholarly POV. Regardless of particular quibbles.
Nicolai Petro: Chaos After Ukraine Collapses
60 min.
https://glenndiesen.substack.com/p/nicolai-petro-chaos-after-ukraine
When you hand over something as evidence to persuade an opponent that you are telling the truth, you immediately put yourself into a subordinate position to your opponent. Surely some great Chinese tactician has said this somewhere.
It might be worth it if the opponent is operating in good faith.
The US govt, including Trump, never operates in good faith – so trying to convince it of anything it doesn’t want to know is like being in one of those catch the greasy pig competitions.
Russia should stop doing this. It looks weak, and has no chance of succeeding.
I agree, but we have to remember that this isn’t just to prove veracity, it is to maintain Russia’s integrity for the benefit of its allies. As soon as Russia stops bothering, its allies are going to start wondering, and even asking awkward questions.
Putin has always made a big effort to make sure Russia’s allies were fully briefed and informed about its position, and reasons for its actions. It is the best way to keep them on side, and has worked well.
The CIA officers and blobbers still pushing the war need to be permanently assigned to Poland. Put up in prefabs 2 meters from the Belarusian border with Soviet equipmented troops patrolling outside their windows. Or in a house overlooking Kaliningrad. Then we’d see how up for it they really are.
I don’t understand the premise that Russia’s commitment to a sort of rigid diplomatic formalism prevents it from continuing to resolve the military conflict to its satisfaction at the same time. These two things don’t strike me as impossible to conduct simultaneously.
As far as one can tell, it hasn’t stopped it from continuing to pursue its SMO objectives, if anything it seems to have accelerated the pace of its advances.