Yves here. I must confess to taking my eye off the Russia ball, save for taking some note of the insanely belligerent noises and plans coming from European states, along with escalatory moves like threatening Russian shipping. But Trump is now doubling down on failure. He is retying himself to the Europe he dismissed as losers and de-prioritized in his National Security Strategy. His initial impulse, to end the conflict in Ukraine and improve relations with China, may not have been enough to pry Russia away from China but could have lead to Russia to pursue a complex balancing act, giving some consideration to US interests. But Trump was unable to deliver on his “Spirit of Alaska” plan. A logical guess is that Trump made promises about Ukraine action that Zelensky rejected.
So Trump is back to supporting Ukraine to weaken Russia….the old Biden plan. And with the US over-extended and particularly short of weapons, this also weakens the US ability to harass its claimed #1 enemy, China. Yet another instance of Trump ignoring the saying attributed to Sun Tsu, “All tactics and no strategy is the noise before the defeat.”
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.
Trump’s decision to sign the “G7 leaders’ joint statement on geopolitical issues” calling for more arms to Ukraine and sanctions on Russia signaled that he’ll now “escalate to de-escalate” (E2DE) through a “war of attrition” waged by Ukraine. The EU will back this campaign to the hilt and Trump 2.0 will seek to obtain control over Russia’s natural resources companies as its top goal via the coercive selling of shares under pain of continued NATO-backed Ukrainian strikes against associated infrastructure if Putin refuses.
The contours of his administration’s E2DE strategy are now starting to take shape. Nearly two weeks before he signed the abovementioned joint statement, the House passed a bill that would “provid[e] more than $1 billion in security and reconstruction aid. It would make another $8 billion available for Ukraine’s defense through loans.” On the sidelines of the G7 Summit, Trump then said that he’ll soon reimpose oil sanctions against Russia, which would disrupt Putin’s Sino-Indo balancing act.
Around the same time, “A group of US senators has introduced legislation that would amend existing law to allow Ukraine to use assets confiscated from the Central Bank of Russia and other Russian sovereign assets to purchase military equipment.” All of this coincided with reports that the Senate also introduced language into the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) calling for continued intelligence support to Ukraine across all of next year to aid its quest to reconquer its lost land (and possibly more).
To top it all off, Zelensky then expressed confidence shortly thereafter that Trump will follow through on his explicitly conveyed interest in allowing US companies to manufacture air defense missiles (and likely also other arms) in Ukraine, thus tremendously raising the stakes if Russia strikes these facilities. Of course, it’ll take time for the US to replenish its own missile stockpile after the Third Gulf War, but the writing is on the wall and it reads that Trump 2.0 is preparing to radically intensify the Ukrainian Conflict.
Specifically, its E2DE strategy is expected to closely follow what the Wall Street Journal outlined last fall and which was analyzed here at the time, namely helping Ukraine surpass Russia’s drone capabilities, more secondary sanctions, and provoking unrest inside of Russia. To that end, the House and Senate initiatives will bolster Ukraine’s strike capabilities (including long-range missile ones), while Trump’s sanctions threat will deal with the second part. This combination might lead to unrest inside of Russia.
To be clear, that final phase is unlikely to materialize since the diverse Russian people remain united due to keenly understanding the existential stakes of this conflict as regards its grand strategic goal of “Balkanizing” their civilization-state, plus they’re not prone to protest much either. Nevertheless, the US is still preparing to try anyhow, hoping to at least generate enough disapproval of the status quo that the ruling United Russia party is forced to enter into a coalition after September’s next Duma elections.
Looking forward, the groundwork is rapidly being established for Trump 2.0 to make next year all about Russia, and the Democrats’ possible recapture of Congress or at least one of its chambers after November’s midterms could facilitate this. If Russia doesn’t achieve its goals before that happens or cut a reasonably fair deal by that time, then there’ll be no realistic chance of any such deal till 2029 at the earliest, thus meaning that only victory or defeat would be possible before that date. The clock is ticking.
OP: Of course, it’ll take time for the US to replenish its own missile stockpile after the Third Gulf War
How likely is that to happen at all, when China’s military end-use prohibition on RE exports is the one measure China has kept going continuously since 2024?
To the extent that Beijing has now targeted two specific firms the Pentagon is funding to build around the chokehold, MP Materials and USA Rare Earth ….
China targets US rare earth and other firms with export controls
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/china-targets-us-rare-earth-other-firms-with-export-controls-2026-06-22/
I’ve noticed various footnotes like this taking over the narrative all over the place: no army to reopen the Syrian front for BB, the delta between a spot & future barrel, they all have true hypersonics field tested on our proxies while we have a real good plan for some, and the fact you point out.
Imperial free fall, off the cliff but inertia is still dominating gravity.
China isn’t the only producer of rare earth (it “only” produces two thirds). The embargo will likely “only” cause higher prices for ever other product needing the same rare earth elements as the ‘merkin weapons.
Which might be bad – but we don’t know, because transparency is zero.
That is mined rare earths in total. 80% to 90% of processing is in Chinese hands. The remainder is locked down with long term contracts.
And there are some rare earths that are only produced by China in the quantities needed for the production of US weaponry. Gallium is a good example, it was considered completely unprofitable to extract even as byproduct from extracting aluminum from bauxite. China forced the extractors to also extract gallium. And now the US has a problem that they can’t produce some of the gold plated toys masquerading as weaponry since these toys need relatively large amounts of gallium to function.
Higher prices for other products are only happening due to the onerous requirements China has implemented for anyone not producing US weaponry or components for said weaponry. Even a trace amount (0.1%) of rare earths refined in China used in a product requires the documentation of the entire production stream up to and including the final product(s) that the rare earths are used for.
Ever since Putin met Trump in Alaska, Putin has depended on some sort of agreements that were made between the two back then as a way to resolve this war. Trump has now had Rubio burning this final bridge down-
‘Institute for the Study of War
@TheStudyofWar
NEW: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that Russia and the United States did not reach any agreement to end Russia’s war in Ukraine during the August 2025 Alaska Summit. ⬇️
Rubio stated on June 25 that there was only a “proposal” in Anchorage, but that parties did not come to an agreement during the Summit. Rubio noted that the Russian proposal included Russian control of Donbas among other demands.
Rubio himself was part of the US diplomatic delegation in Anchorage and attended the high-level meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Putin claimed on June 23 that Russia will only negotiate on the basis of the alleged agreements from the Alaska Summit with the United States, which Rubio rejected exist.
Russian officials routinely invoke the alleged “Anchorage agreements” to advance narratives about Russia’s willingness to negotiate, despite the lack of public statements following the summit.’
https://xcancel.com/TheStudyofWar/status/2070318048905470083
“not agreement capable” comes to mind again.
Moon looks at what is really going on in Ukraine.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2026/06/ukraine-isnt-winning.html
And with so many to choose from can we say that Rubio was Trump’s worst personnel decision? Kirn reported back during the convention that the establishment Repubs wanted Rubio for Vice, and he almost was but Trump impulsively chose Vance instead. If Trump departs the scene, for whatever reason, then we may have dodged a bullet by not having Little Marco as president.
Please help me understand why Vance is somehow better?
Of course he will. He’s doubling down on war, to achieve his legacy.
I interpret ‘escalate to de-escalate’ as ‘f***ing for virginity’ (sorry – i didn’t find am equally clear family friendly term). It will not achieve its goal, but can cause strange unexpected consequences.
it might, or it might not.
Its a plan based on too many assumptions (basically everything in that plan is an assumption), and on information of questionable validity (contributed by dis-information from both side, and a self-inflicted castration of the intelligence services). Its also been produced before the lessons from the iran war have been learned.
I wouldn’t want to be responsible for whatever outcome this produces.
George Carlin came out with that saying a long time back: “Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.”
We’re always trying to cause unrest in the target population and encourage them to rise up and overthrow their rulers, but unless that population lives in a country that is economically dependent on the Anglosphere, that never seems to work right. And it’s so much easier to just bribe their leaders with suitcases of fiat dollars!
Unconvinced. Korybko is once again retailing Washington fantasies as though they could be turned into real life. Trump always has to threaten and bluster against someone: the Chinese options hasn’t worked, the Iranian option has failed, so it’s back to Plan A, which was threats and bluster against Russia. The G7 statement on Ukraine said what it said because saying anything else was politically impossible. But as I always say, to escalate you have to have somewhere to escalate to, and something to escalate with. Trump has neither.
Which probably means the USA will attempt something more feasible, against an adversary that does not have the military, economic, and demographic capacity to withstand an assault, preferably one which is already weakened, does not have any allies reasonably near by, is located closer to home so that the action does not require colossal logistical feats… Cuba ticks all the boxes.
In general, I find Korybko’s essays interesting, but highly speculative; plenty of “what if” scenarios, leaving readers to evaluate themselves their plausibility.
If Trump invades Cuba, count on the Cubans to wage a stiff guerilla defense that won’t make for a pretty “win” for the Trumpster, though he’ll try to spin it that way. I doubt Cuba has turncoats in its government who’d willingly turn over the country to Uncle Sam, as happened in Venezuela. Trump might be tempted to turn to the Gaza model of warfare–try to make a desert and call it peace. But that will work far less well in mountainous tropical forest. It would be a little Vietnam 2.0, one more conflict without end.
I’m sure the news from Verdun showed the French side winning for a while, then the Germans, then, and then.
I’m sure both sides announced major victories at the same time. Its a function of available information (a defeat is more likely to disrupt the flow of information), patriot duty to report positive, and the need to make money.
Today most news sources avoid (at all cost) to annoy their advertizers. Back then they had to avoid to annoy their readers, and the readers wanted positive news (especially since so many of them had welcome the way).
Good news are the lesser risk.
“The G7 statement on Ukraine said what it said because saying anything else was politically impossible”
yep. And that won´t change.
p.s. Germany: Of 300.000 written inquiries by Bundeswehr to young people to serve, 530 responded positively.
Which means – and I think that would contradict your latest Substack entry – Germans most likely will introduce classical conscription.
After all we already had it. As far as I can judge societal forces are strong enough to allow whatever parties in government to push it through.
The only two parties opposed are BSW and DIE LINKE.
well, they’ll consider it, at the very least.
Back then we had a much smaller inter-generational conflict.
relevant statistics: 59% of the Germans want a conscriptions. 61% percent of the relevant age group doesn’t.
I’m not sure how that will end. I would be very careful whom i teach how to use weapons.
“Back then we had a much smaller inter-generational conflict.”
true!
for once Gen Z mindset may make sense
I am sure you already saw this: since not enough soldiers volunteered to serve in the brigade to be stationed in Estonia (to protect the courageous Baltic allies against the barbarians from the East), the German ministry of defence will from now on order military personnel to go there.
I mean “gegen dessen Willen” – with all due respect dear service men and women – but military is about discipline. You can´t just vote over what to do next and where to be stationed.
(Could be a worthwhile subject for an NC-post by Haig Hovaness to look into anarchistic approaches to armies and how those fare against hierarchical top down organized forces. On the other hand at least within ongoing conflicts and involved professional armies today I assume there is some considerable freedom to how carry out operations best – or is there?).
The question of war or peace, of serving or not is a big one.
Does a voluntary professional soldiers have the right to deny orders unless they´re violating intern. law and rules of military conduct.
p.s. I am still convinced RU Armes Forces are acting illegally if they kill AFU/NATO-affiliates who committed war crimes when surrendering.
“You can´t just vote over what to do next and where to be stationed. ”
Generally true, but anarchist militias, e.g. in the Spanish Civil War, are exceptions. Orwell’s POUM militia of Trotskyites voted on matters according to Homage to Catalonia.
Not Estonia, Lithuania.
Lithuania, Once Occupied by Germany, Is Glad German Troops Are Back – The New York Times archive
This is a rundown on who-is-where in the Baltics
NATO to assign a new corps to defend Estonia and Latvia Estonian World
I’d suggest reading EventsInUkraine’s latest Substack on conditions in Ukraine’s training camps for the assault battalions. Representative I think of what is necessary to get any real fighting power out of a modern day conscription program. Short of measures like that, i.e. the utmost of brutality, I think most young Europeans would choose a spell in jail over fighting for “freedom” against the Russians.
I think it is incorrect to call this “escalate to de-escalate” (e2de). That phrase has always been used in a context of wanting to reduce active hostilities by using very short-term violence like a small nuke to signal that further hostilities could be very costly, and that everyone should back off now. But it’s a very short-term increase in violence with a clear goal of reduced violence afterwards (hoping that all sides respond to that signal as desired, which is unknown in advance).
In every instance I’ve heard of E2DE, it’s not about conquering the other side with escalation or totally defeating them, it’s about signaling. But this article describes increased attacks (kinetic and non-kinetic) against Russia over a long term with the goal of essentially completely and permanently defeating Russia (ie balkanization, which is potentially even more permanent than regime change).
So yeah, this isn’t escalate-to-de-escalate. This is escalate to completely defeat an adversary. Very different.
The sad truth is that America’s business is war. It never seems to get beyond that. Truly, it seems that that is how empires always die and by then it’s good riddance.
Trump is as he has been his entire public life but a more exaggerated version of bluster and bullshit. He acts only in his interest. Congress? What to say about Congress? It does not pay attention to the interests of the US and its people. It appears to be in the pay of foreign powers for all practical purposes. It actively ignores its responsibilities. It is obsessed with power, place and remaining in office. Collectively, it acts just like Trump. The performative posturing and speechifying are bad theater.
It seems that many people were fooled by Trump’s overture to Putin, being susceptible to the siren song of “deals” that are really coercion. It has been obvious that Putin wants a continuing relationship with Europe that is a fantasy, but an American deal is much sweeter, because Europe will follow like lap dogs, which makes any deal here beyond fantastical.Many opportunities arose here locally to tell people that the US has always been at war with Russia since 1917, through hot and cold phases. This country boasts continuity with the Atlanticist tradition of the UK wish to dominate Eastern Europe, so this is no surprise at all. Resources beckon, and total control of oil and gas is not only Trumps but the 2025 groups dream as well. Meanwhile, the tech bros have their option of total corporate government able to to the job better. Let’s see who’ll win.
The biggest problem is wishful thinking of the politicians advocating permanent war with Russia.
There is indeed unrest in Russia with regards to how the “not a war”-war with Ukraine is handled, there is indeed discontent with regards to how Putin is handling the war and his popularity (still at a level that any head of state of a NATO country can only dream of) is declining.
The wishful thinking part is that this unrest and discontent is due to Russians demanding the end of the war, admitting defeat and accept all demands from the West so that Russia can again ask if Russia might one day get a seat at the table.
The reality is that the unrest and discontent are because people in Russia think Putin is too soft on Ukraine and might need to swat around the Baltic states a bit to get NATO to back off instead of what he is setting up as policy right now.
One of the many baffling aspects of this conflict/SMO is China continuing to provide drone parts that are used to attack Russia.
I understand that China providing even defensive weapons could be problematic since China is still reliant on Western chemicals and maintenance to keep its lithography machines functioning properly and cannot risk being cut off from Airbus and Boeing parts, but they must realize that they are next on the menu if Russia falls in some fashion;
Many drone parts – small electric motors, micro-controllers, polymers for 3D printing, GPS receivers, cameras – are multi-purpose, with plenty of civilian uses. I don’t think China can prevent Ukraine from getting their hands on them any more easily than the West can stop the Russians evading Western sanctions through the use of middlemen in friendlier countries.
The problem is neither Putin nor the arms manufacturers who profit from the Brzezinski Plan, nor even those cocaine-snorting Banderites in Kyiv. The real problem is these Russophobic fools who imagine they could run through walls with their empty heads. Russia has been preparing for 20 years, ever since the Kursk explosion. At some point, Putin will be gone. What then? Only a hardliner will be able to ensure the stability of the state and generate the necessary enthusiasm to die for Russia. What is already certain is that Putin’s successor will not have much patience with these unbelievable daydreamers in the EU; in the event of a ‘false flag’ operation, they will take radical and thorough measures to turn Europe into a Gaza in all strategically important locations
The West’s treatment of Russia will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The demonization of Putin, attacking the bomber wing of the nuclear triad, the assassination attempt on Putin at Valdai, the drone swarm attacks on oil infrastructure, and the attack on the college dorm in the Donbass guarantee that Putin’s successor will be a hardliner. Had the West been receptive to Putin’s initiatives for a new security framework to replace NATO, and the creation of a federation of sorts from Rotterdam to Vladivostok, how different the world would look today.
The media seem to be doing their part toward an E2DE narrative. This morning’s mainstream news echo-chamber is full of stories about Crimea declaring a “state of emergency” due to Ukrainian drone strikes. By the headlines one would think Crimea was about to collapse. So if Trump needs any convincing that this is a promising strategy he only has to turn on the TV.
I very much disagree with this analysis and Korybko is becoming increasingly difficult for me to stomach. His bottom line is that Russia should accelerate now because reasons. IMO acceleration would be a mistake for Putin, risking more casualties than needed, and Russia would do better following methodically their operations as usual until Ukraine’s military exhaustion which will come one day, in a not distant future, no matter how much Trump wants to spend in this war next year or the following one.
“…Trump 2.0 will seek to obtain control over Russia’s natural resources companies as its top goal…” Good luck with that. I’m unaware that any Russian natural resource companies have been bought by westerners since the turn of the century. Moreover, none that I am aware of are even partially owned by western corporations. Before the SMO a number of joint exploitation agreements existed between Russian and western oligarchs with the westerners in subordinated positions. Since the SMO western corps have been forced by their own governments to leave Russia and every one of them under materially losing circumstances. Putin personally oversees every decoupling.
IMO when Putin put Khodorkovsky in the can that signaled the end of oligarch extortion and exploitation of everything in sight in Russia. The Russian oligarchs all know how long their collective leashes are. Putin will not allow westerners to own oil, gas, minerals or any other significant Russian natural resources. The boy aimed to create a successful autarky after 2007 Munich. The handwriting was on the wall. They are welcome to sell beer and yogurt. Chances of westerners obtaining control over Russia’s natural resources are nill and none. More magical thinking by idiot western “think” tanks.
chuck roast: …when Putin put Khodorkovsky in the can…
That was a pitiful — but comic — moment of ‘We Have Always Been At War With Eurasia’-style rewriting of history, that was.
Prior to that moment, Putin was the Man We Could Do Business With, whose eyes George W. Bush had looked into and declared a kindred soul, and who MI6 and CIA had declared A Safe Pair of Hands.
After that, as soon as the US and its vassals realized they weren’t going to take control of Khodorkovsky’s Yukos and its 20 percent of Russia’s oil resources — and, indeed, that the 90s were over in Russia — was exactly when Putin became the Great Satan.
Sounds like more of the failed strategies to me.
Trump is probably trying to deflect attention from his dramatic failure in Iran back to his less dramatic failures in Ukraine.