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Notes -
Trump pauses aid to Ukraine after fiery meeting with Zelenskyy:
I guess that settles the question of his authority over this matter!
One analysis I've heard is that everything -- both the reduction in US aid and the increase in European defense spending -- is part of an elaborate pre-constructed kayfabe to facilitate the transfer of US military resources from Europe to the Pacific. These types of "actually everything is under control, it's just nation-states acting in their own rational self-interest" stories always strike me as just a bit too convenient. Certainly many would like to believe that the adults actually have everything under control at all times -- but that doesn't make it reality. I have no trouble believing that this was a genuinely impulsive decision on Trump's part, and that he's not following any particular ideological roadmap. I mean, he might be. But he also might not be.
This is a profoundly embarrassing action IMO regardless of whether or not he's secretly pro Russian (as many internet accusations are saying) or if he's just being reactionary about Zelenskyy.
And that's because US foreign policy decisions seemingly being driven not by wider strategic objectives or alliances but by the personal feelings and sentiments of a president upset about if you wear a suit or only say thank you X amount of times and not Y is a terrible way to go about any sort of long term planning. This of all things seemingly being the excuse to pull such a major trigger, an argument that happened in public is just saddening. He's been building it up to a while but what a lame reasoning to finally start turning.
Even if it's not the actual reason, such a strong appearance is just another point in the slowly growing "Don't trust the US to not change on an impulse" concern for business and international decisionmaking. Risk is one thing, instability is another and these types of actions like "Oh we're definitely doing tariffs for real guys nope never mind oh wait we are nope never mind" or "oh he didn't say thank you enough, ok pulling out of support" and other back and forth unpredictable actions do add up.
The strategic objective is the war to end. The US doesn't give a fuck if Putin will take 30-40-50 percent of ukraine as long as there is a thin sliver of land left between poland and russia as a buffer. US has bigger leverage over Zelensky than Putin, so this is where they push.
You know US is getting serious when they cut off starlink, not missiles.
Or, to cut the crap, the US goal is a quick Ukrainian surrender and Russian victory. This will get the dead bodies off Trump's TV set. (There will still be dead bodies as Russia genocides the Ukrainian population of the territory they occupy, but the Russians won't allow the media to report on them).
If that is a US goal (or even if it isn't), they won't get it. A core Russian war aim is to turn Ukraine into a client state. Belarus doesn't work as a buffer between Russia and Poland, and a Putin-controlled Ukraine won't work either for the same reason. A neutral buffer state (pre-WW1 Belgium is the classic example) works because both sides understand that violating it's neutrality is kicking off the big one. Trump is committed to the idea that Russian violations of future-Ukraine's neutrality should not be a casus belli for the US.
Where is your evidence that Russia is interested in genociding Ukraine? They’re a bog standard tinpot dictatorship which will persecute dissidents but not butcher the civilian population.
I think @Dean might argue that, if Russia were to nab Ukraine and get hungry for seconds, the Ukrainians will be the first wave of cannon fodder sent against the next unlucky bastards.
That was certainly their strategy with the LNR/DNR.
However, conscripting in the extreme is (usually) not considered genocide. The reasons why Russia would merit genocide under international law is on the basis of expansionist parts of the genocide definition that I've in the past noted I feel are improperly used to over-use the term.
This is a very fair point to raise, I'm just wanting to point out that the "what about the Ukrainians?" line of argument ignores all the ways that Russia can keep reducing the Ukrainian population even in the event of capitulation and surrender.
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