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's your current take on the ongoing Ukraine diplomatic drama? Are the Trump Talks likely to lead to the Trump Treaty? Or are they just ongoing comedy and flailing? What does a durable peace treaty look like these days?
Trump squandered hard won leverage for nothing in return.
Ceasefire is a good idea. But the terms hugely favor Russia. By freezing current boundaries, they give Russia full control over the Dniper river. For all intents and purposes, this will doom Ukraine to Russian control. Trump held all the cards, gave Russia everything they wanted, and asked for nothing in return. I don't get it.
The standard argument is that American resources can't be stuck in Europe. The next war will be in the Indo pacific, and resources need to be focused there. I agree on all points. But then, why not force Russia to economically decouple from China ? Post-Ukraine-war, Russia has become economically dependent on China, ending up as the clear junior partner in a fast developing 2nd front. Before the war, Russia was economically coupled to the EU. From an objective perspective and from the perspective of political maneuvering, this sudden ceasefire doesn't help him or his allies. The US might be able to refocus on China militarily, but I don't see them gaining economic leverage on China.
Everything from now is speculation and likely won't happen, but Trump's actions increase the possibility of the following events if nothing changes. Here goes: Ukraine is too dug in. Lot more Ukrainians will die before they formally concede. Now that Ukraine is caught with their pants down, Russia is free to mount a fresh offensive come spring. EU will have to choose between focusing their large capital expenditures on reindustrializing vs rearming. With the (arguably misplaced) paranoia of a hot-war with Russia, they will be forced to pick the latter. Therefore, they'll losing vital ground to China as it eats more of Europe's high-skill industry lunch. Ukraine's reliance on EU will make it bad optics for Europe to repair ties with Russia. As a result, Russia will build deeper ties with China formalizing the 2nd front for good. By creating strong incentives for an economically strengthened China, a concrete China-Russia block & a weakened EU, I fear that Trump might have kick started the end of the empire.
I don't believe that Trump is a Russian asset. But the man is following every step of the 'is a Russian asset' playbook.
P.S: My fanfic assumes that the publicly shared details of the deal are what the deal is.
Trump doesn’t have any leverage, because Biden and Zelensky spent the last three years pissing all the leverage away. The Kursk salient just got rolled, probably to the tune of 30,000 Ukrainian casualties. There are multiple Russian breakouts happening on the Pokrovsk, Kupyansk and Zaprozhia axes. Ukraine’s power and transport infrastructure has been destroyed along with much of their air defense. We are probably looking at the complete collapse of eastern Ukraine in the next four months. Belarus is mobilizing for an incursion into Western Ukraine this September. Short of rounding up NATO and sending half a million troops to directly enter the war, what exactly can Trump do here? Putin has zero incentive to agree to any kind of real ceasefire, because he’s about to win the war.
Let's assume that your rosy picture of Russian armed forces is accurate.
Just stay the course, few more months of grind to flatten the Ukraine and it is done. Ukraine army is broken, Zelensky dead or in Florida, Russian flags fly over Kiev and Odessa. It is over.
Now what? The sactions last, new Russian territory is not recognized by the "international community", frontier states are frantically rearming, including nuclear weapons. Hundreds of billions of Russian funds are never going back. Russia won ... patch of devastated land where anyone who could fled and only the elderly pensioners are left.
Putin can present it in TV to Z audience as glorious victory, but that's all.
As opposed to what? It's not like a ceasefire would result in frontier states not rearming, or sanctions being lifted. All that is gonna happen anyway, and Russia appears to be fine with it.
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