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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   1572 thread views

Transnational Thursday for February 27, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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What the hell is going on with Ukraine? Zelensky seems to be in Washington to sign something, but there are very scant details. What is US getting, what is Ukraine getting?

Looks like nothing is being signed now. The biggest public political fuckup I can remember in my lifetime. I sympathize with Ukrainians a lot, but it looks like they are up for some very tough times now. Utter disaster.

Who the hell thought it was a good idea for Zelensky to fly to DC to talk with Trump face to face? Or to spat with him online? Trump's supermassive ego responds well only to buttering up. The correct response to "you owe us 500 billion" should've been "I've dispatched my best people to hammer out the details to make sure it's the best possible deal for both countries" and then a bunch of platitudes that insinuate that Putin listens to nobody, but surely he will obey the bestest president of the bigliest country.

Who the hell thought it was a good idea for Zelensky to fly to DC to talk with Trump face to face?

Macron, apparently.

Which, given his timely response after the meeting failed, and Zelensky's setup for the European summit next week, has me raising an eyebrow on how spontaneous any of this breakdown was. Kabuki theater is a metaphor for American politics for a reason.

AFAICT all of the facially-retarded diplomacy that Canadian politicians have been doing on the Trump issue has in fact been pretty effective for their internal political fortunes -- not sure I see an angle here for Zelensky/Macron, but that'd be the way to bet.

For Macron, it's easy- not only internal French politics, but the general French geopolitical ambition to be the leader of Europe vis-a-vis the US. Pay no mind that five years ago France was generally more pro-Russia than the US; Trump is reliable, strategic autonomy, and that means buy more French military stuff and deference to French attempts to define the European strategic interest and concern to be concerned about. (Which- until a few years ago- was distinctly southward rather than eastward, if you listened to French diplomats.)

For Zelensky, my views are a bit more speculative, but the very short version is I see a strategic gamble being made here, that there will be enough of a weapon supply line open (particularly via the Europeans, both directly and via the Europeans buying American weapons) to push through 2025. While the loss of American support in its entirety would be significant, the Russians are having some undisguisable issues of their own which are expected to get considerably worse later this year and into next. If you believe that Trump won't close off everything permanently, or can be transactionally negotiated with to keep the lines open, then pushing into 2026 would likely have Putin, being closer to economic and manpower-political limits and even less of the Soviet stockpiles remaining, further reduce demands of long-term requirements.

Interesting about Macron -- Zelensky, I think he just doesn't get the joke TBH. Too much getting high on... if not his own supply, that of the social media egregore which turns out not to have much actual power.

That said I didn't really seem much in the deal for him, so he hasn't really lost anything. Does Trump even have the power to unilaterally cut off aid? I thought that was mostly a Congress thing.

I thought that was mostly a Congress thing.

That depends a lot on what Congress actually authorized. If they said "X dollars must be spent on Y" then there may be claims that if the president refuses to spend on Y, he's going too far. Even then it's not entirely clear how to make him do that, given that he owns the executive branch and is effectively immune to any court decisions while in executive capacity, but there might be ways, maybe. However, in fact the Congress rarely says anything but "up to X dollars are allocated to spend on Y", and then it's up to the executive to decide how much is spent and what exactly is bought. The reverse is easier - if the Congress doesn't give money, the President can't spend it, so it's relatively easy for the Congress to defund. But if the Congress authorized the President to spend money, they usually can't really do much to actually spend it if the President doesn't want to. And, as correctly noted in other comments, most of Ukraine aid is not even money per se - it's military equipment that already exists somewhere in storage and then being sent to Ukraine, and the Congress just controls how much of this can be done. If the President wants none of that, Congress can'd do much here I think. And especially when we're talking about foreign country, I'm not sure Congress would even want to get in fight with Trump over this.

I'm thinking of stuff like this:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/5692

Granted it doesn't say "send Ukraine X tanks and Y artillery shells", but doesn't Trump get into impoundment issues if he just sits on the allocation?

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