It would be one thing if there was a clear policy and adherence to it. In that case, you could discuss and reason in good faith. However there is no such indication that this decision is based on a considered policy.
Trump's supporters would say that this is a result of not wanting the US being involved in foreign conflicts. That is a laudable goal, however that is not what is happening here. From the article
> On Friday, the administration said it was sending Israel nearly $3 billion in new weapons, including more than 35,000 new 2,000 pound bombs, invoking an emergency rule under U.S. arms control laws.
This just makes it look like a petty tantrum at best and a wilful desire to cleave our relationship with Europe at worst.
Yes, we can all argue that Europe needs to be less dependent on the US, however what's on the other side of that is not pretty for the United States. Our ability to have the world's de facto reserve currency and hence our ability to sustain debt loads way in excess of usual is largely dependent on the US being the world's cop and sole superpower.
A truly multipolar world might be good for the world, but it's certainly not going to be good for the United States.
It's one thing to stop all aid to Ukraine. That makes you an asshole in a world full of assholes. But it's another thing to do that while simultaneously working to restore relations with Russia. There is only one word for that: evil.
Back in the late 90s to late 2000s, people in Western Europe generally had pretty negative views of the US. It was the country that refused to fight against climate change, launched an invasion of another country based on obvious lies, and so on. People were genuinely debating whether Bush was a bigger villain than Putin. And it wasn't just about the young and the left. Our elites hated Bush so much that they gave the next guy a Nobel Peace Prize for not being him.
Since then, Putin has worked hard to raise the bar for being a bigger villain. But Trump seems to be genuinely trying to compete.
Why do people think it is so far fetched that Trump is a Russian asset given his behavior in his last term (trying to blackmail Zelenskyy on an official call) and his credit problems in the past (no banks would lend to him given his failure to pay back any loan, with the exception of an obscure channel through a German bank)? Perhaps Trump is just in debt to Putin and this is payback, he was intentionally crass to Zelenskyy because he wanted to provoke him and find an excuse to revoke US aid. If it barks like a dog, often it’s really a dog.
What could they have on him that would matter? Honestly?
I don't really buy this kompromat argument, even if it was some horrific sex tape it would just be "fake" or "fake news".
I think it's likely just the flattery and importance they give him, the strongman image he desires and he likes the way Russia is a dictatorship. I just think he likes their system.
Would Russian oil, which I seem to remember is heavy in grade, replace Canadian oil, which I hear is similarly heavy, in US refineries, explaining the 25% tariff on Canada which is implausibly supposed to be about fentanyl controls?
Yeah, this is where I'm at. Nothing sticks to him, and anything he does seems to get excused, so what kind of kompromat could even be severe enough to influence him?
The trouble is that his behavior vis a vis Russia is so difficult to explain otherwise. We've been at this long enough to know that if you just assume Russia has a relationship with him, you have a fairly good idea of how things are going to play out.
Imagine having fun with animals, men, children, bsdm and so on. That's not even bottom of the pit.
I mean he was a good friend with epstein and there are numerous videos of their friendly encounters (so did clinton, gates and so on just to be clear). Go figure.
But I think he is just a small insecure emotional boy at the core, and thats enough if you know which buttons in which order to push. ruskies somehow figured that out, it seems israelis too during his first term.
> Imagine having fun with animals, men, children, bsdm and so on. That's not even bottom of the pit.
Other than children/minors, I don’t think the others are likely. Possible, but not likely.
Whatever kompromat they have was almost certainly came during the 2013 miss universe pageant in Russia. It would have been trivially easy to get an old enough-looking minor in the room with him.
> It would come as no surprise if Russian intelligence has some juicy blackmail material.
I’m pretty sure the only blackmail that could be bad enough to motivate Trump would be if he had relations with a minor. I’m pretty sure that’s the only thing that could make the core of his base alienate him.
Whatever kinks people speculate about, none of that will matter. In fact, I bet whatever kink he is into would instantly become more popular amongst his core constituents.
I'm not even convinced him doing things witch a minor would make his base hate him. More likely is they'll just call it a lie or excuse it as something like "well she looked old enough. What was he supposed to do, ask for her ID card?"
It's almost like he was once investigated for being a Russian agent motivated by Kompromat. I'm sure it has nothing to do with being a friend of Epstein and showing up in the manifests or Russian prostitutes with water sports or the 13 year old who sued him for raping her, not dissimilar from the civil lawsuit where he was found guilty for raping another woman, not dissimilar from him bragging he can just sexual assault any woman he wants.
They (the GOP, Democrats, national and intl intelligence agencies) all have blackmail on each other. It hasn't made sense to think about these issues purely on national lines for a long time - try thinking in terms of a large international mafia with various families and factions; held together by unspeakable secrets.
Sarah Kendzior and Whitney Webb produce great writing about this, thoroughly sourced. For example, here's a piece from Sarah's latest newsletter Q and A:
> What is the hold that Trump has over the Republicans? It has to be more than simply the threat of a primary. Do you think it involves threats of violence? It's a mystery to me what could be so frightening that this large group of people would forsake their country.
> SK: Trump has leverage over the GOP due to 1) lifelong connections with organized crime and willingness to deploy violence 2) blackmail obtained long before 2016 via his mentor, mafia lawyer and GOP advisor Roy Cohn, and Cohn’s networks 3) blackmail and state secrets Trump obtained during his first term 4) court packing that creates the potential of legal consequences for anyone who challenges him 5) bribery and/or shared evil goals with the GOP, though for many this incentive fades over time when they realize they will never be more than a disposable hired hand. Many Republicans were lured by corrupt ambition, but they stay due to fear.
Lmao, this is the dumbest conspiracy theory I’ve read in a while. National politicians are afraid of being murdered by the Mafia on Trump’s orders? Good grief.
Even if you put the absurdity of that kind of thing aside, look at the actual facts. Trump burns through advisors and cabinet members on a nearly weekly basis, and many of those have gone on to become scathing critics of his. He has tons of vocal enemies from within the Republican Party, who are quickly sidelined or ousted but never harmed.
The reason Republicans have all fallen in line behind Trump is because they ultimately want nothing more than power and wealth. Once it became clear that Trump has tapped into an indestructible movement of American populist stupidity that isn’t going anywhere, anyone who wanted to have a job in Republican politics quickly figured out that there was only one way to do so: join the never ending Trump pep-rally.
> National politicians are afraid of being murdered by the Mafia on Trump’s orders? Good grief.
Not what I said, or what Sarah said. But yes, politicians are getting threatened because of Trump. Politicians themselves report receiving hundreds of death threats; some of them seriously credible [0].
All Trump has to do is tweet, and people have their lives "turned upside down". They start getting death threats; even their boss gets threatened. And votes get changed around real quick. This is documented, on record - like Trump's connections... You might ask yourself why you never heard about it, and what else you never hear about.
> He has tons of vocal enemies from within the Republican Party, who are quickly sidelined or ousted but never harmed.
Drama which doesn't affect votes, or anything material, is best ignored as theater. Threats and theater - they do exist pal. They're very much part of politics, especially in the US, and have been for a long long time.
> Even if you put the absurdity of that kind of thing aside
It's not absurd at all. If you believe US politicians - and international politicians - don't get threatened, then you don't understand the stakes, or the amount of money involved, or the characters of these people.
> Once it became clear that Trump has tapped into an indestructible movement of American populist stupidity that isn’t going anywhere, anyone who wanted to have a job in Republican politics quickly figured out that there was only one way to do so: join the never ending Trump pep-rally.
And so Trump doesn't need or use blackmail, or threats of violence? Buddy. My guy.
An ally that has broken pretty much any agreement he has ever made, invades neighbouring countries and spins alternative facts around to justify it, suppresses and fights just about any values that the USA used to hold, and played a key role in the KGB, a hostile secret service? An ally that is ever more dependent on China economically?
I refuse to believe you can be so dense to actually think that!
It's so heavily being pushed on social media right now, I suspect it's coming from the same forces who tried to make people believe that Trump would deliver more weapons to Ukraine and that Trump would be the better option for Palestine.
Putin ally against China? He's the one who signed a "no limits" friendship deal with Xi Xinping. China and Russia are intimate trading partners and they have shared geopolitical interests. Why would he object if China wants to take over Taiwan or something?
> If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible.
This is, unfortunately about one thing only: The Nobel Peace Prize.
As Trump sees it, Zelenskyy is blocking Trump's peace prize by not agreeing to his (very bad) terms that are designed with one purpose in mind: Quickly freezing the conflict so that he can declare himself peacemaker and get his prize (because Obama got his 9 months into his term).
The Russians have been grooming him since the 80s (along with many others of that era - standard Soviet practice), flattering him and selling him on dreams of being president, and then after Obama got a peace prize, of getting his own Nobel prize.
Watch what his aides are saying about the Nobel prize. He wants it BAD.
This is why he told Zelenskyy: “You’re either going to make a deal or we’re out. And if we’re out, you’ll fight it out. I don’t think that it’s going to be pretty, but you’ll fight it out. But you don’t have the cards.” This is why he said “Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me.” This is why he booted Zenelskyy out of the White House and banned him until he's “ready for peace”
This is why he's going to end the sanctions against Russia, and if Europe continues to support Ukraine, sanction them instead. Anyone who blocks his Nobel Peace Prize is the enemy.
Trump: “They probably will never give it to me, even what I’m doing in Korea, and in Idlib province and all of these places. They probably will never give it to me. You know why? Because they don’t want to.”
Trump: “They will never give me a Nobel Peace Prize. It’s too bad. I deserve it, but they will never give it to me.”
But why wouldn’t it? It seems sensible that Norwegians are more concerned with Russian aggression than the average westerner, so they would also disapprove more of trump, no?
The committee selecting the winner is formed of Norwegians. Norwegians "average worldview" and sources of information therefore affects who gets the prize.
Dude 'nobel' peace prize has nothing to do with actual scientific Nobel prices as they were originally intended, its highly political medal for various political stances and activism dobe by very different people.
The list of its recipients with properly shameful past ain't short neither and I don't recall a single one recently which wasn't somehow controversial to put it mildly.
This is quite inconsistent because Trump conditioned the rare earths deal. If he wanted peace that badly, he wouldn’t be imposing that. Also, you don’t win a Peace Nobel by being a system spoiler like he is, creating instability left and right and branding a stick. That’s completely delusional, even for him. He goes around talking about annexing Canada, taking Greenland, and displacing Palestinians -- where’s the peace in that? Obama got his without doing shit, guess why: the Nobel Peace Prize is about who you upset, and I very much doubt the committee is fond of Trump, especially since they gave the prize to Obama.
Bold of you to assume that the goal of the current administration is to maintain USD hegemony. They've stated explicitly several times that they feel the dollar is too expensive and gone on at length about the trade "deficit". Even going so far with Trump and Musk hinting that they will renig on US foreign debt obligations ("lots of fraud in treasuries"), which would destroy the value of the USD overnight if they followed through.
It seems clear to me one
goal of the current admin is to transform the US into an export economy, and the strong currency is one major roadblock in reaching their objective.
Would love to see more analysis on this, as their trial balloons around tanking USD seem to have gotten lost in the noise.
The weiderst part is that the us is now allied in a self conflicting alliance collection . They are friendly to russia who is hostile towards israel by supporting iran.
The difference is Israel's enemies are easy to defeat. Russia, not so much. Europe made the same mistake as in world war II. Believing their own propaganda and convincing themselves that Russia would be easy to defeat. Trump talks to the military and knows what's reality.
I wasn’t around for WWII, but now don’t think you have this quite right. The US fought against Germany and its allies (and Japan, which had directly attacked the US and continued to fight after Germany surrendered). The war was never against Russia.
Sure, maybe the US could have invaded Russia afterwards, but that would have been a disaster, kind of like how Germany’s invasion of Russia was a disaster and a bit like how Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine has been a real mess for Russia.
If they're so easy to defeat why have we sent $30B+ to a country with a good economy and great quality of life for its own people to help them defeat them? Maybe they should pay for it all themselves since they keep prolonging all their wars?
Israel is using these bombs on Hamas and Hezbollah mostly, both of which it hasn't defeated after 1 1/2 years of complete material superiority. It's actually impossible to defeat an enemy that uses asymmetric warfare. Israel already knows this, but Netanjahu needs the war to continue to stay in power.
> Our ability to have the world's de facto reserve currency and hence our ability to sustain debt loads way in excess of usual is largely dependent on the US being the world's cop and sole superpower.
Dollar status as reserve currency started unravelling quite some time ago. It started with China's started becoming world's factory, more so after they got in to WTO and started using it to their advantage. My belief is that wallstreet believed that they could influence or coerce Chinese leadership into opening up Chinese economy and profit from that, all that G2 talk. China after 2008 crisis with ascension of Xi, belt road, challenges to foreign companies etc. acted completely against wallstreet expectations. Now, America can either try splitting world economy and be sole power in their sphere or start working towards multi polar world.
Yes, but it would have taken a decade or more with sensible US policy.
You were still benefiting from the setup, and were going to continue to benefit for a long time. Look at Boeing's valuation, for example. No profit, still higher market cap than Airbus.
It is not a petty tantrum though it might look like one. You have to consider that the incumbents have won the US elections, that's not a small feat. What many people are missing is that if the US main challenger is China and beating Russia is a far thing, then it makes sense for the US to ally with Russia against China. For that, the US might need to give Russia something (some EU countries?) for this hustle and also refund it for the earlier war (yep). But if the administration believes this is worth it to contain China then it's the right call.
This is why European countries are freaking out. They might be seeing the change as being more fundamental than a two guys liking/hating each other and that a trade might involve their territory in an unfortunate moment (though a part of this is their own negligence).
The US took Ukraine’s nukes in exchange for safety guarantees.
The true extent of US commitment to european security has been clear to everyone for at least ten years.
Hell, the French nuclear programme was premised on the fact that Paris didn’t trust the US to defend France. Do you think the easternmost NATO states have built their military doctrine on blind trust in Uncle Sam?
> The US took Ukraine’s nukes in exchange for safety guarantees.
Please read the actual text of the memorandum, so you don't spread any more baseless accusations. It's only 1 page, it'll just take you a minute and the language it is written in is very accessible.
The only point that even touches on any kind of guarantees is essentially a promise to "seek immediate United Nations Security Council action" in the case of an attack or a threat of attack IN WHICH NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARE USED. That last part is always conveniently left out whenever anyone tries to throw out the soundbite of "They gave up their nukes for security guarantees". And even if you assume that the nuclear weapon part only covers the "threat" part of the sentence and not the "attack", then you're still left with the only solid guarantee being the seeking of United Nations Security Council action.
The Budapest Memorandum on its own is not the only document that you should consult. We may debate the degree to which 'assurances' differ from 'guarantees', but considering the vagueness of international law I would leave interpretation of primary sources to scholars and statesmen.
In the eyes of the people in Europe, the US response to the war has been been lacklustre from the very beginning, only marginally improving after Russia's 2/2022 escalation.
There is not a single country in the world that has given more money and weapons to Ukraine than the United States.
If the people in Europe find that to be a lackluster response, then it is not surprising that Trump sent Vance over to humiliate them, because they need a wake-up call and they needed it yesterday.
How would Russia help “contain” China? China’s actual territorial ambitions have never been especially wide ranging, and I really doubt that Russia would make a credible deal to help keep China’s military out of Taiwan.
To the contrary, China’s increasing power is economic. They out-manufacture everyone. They appear to be beating the US at its own recent games (BYD seems to be ahead of Tesla!). They have plenty of software expertise these days. They are approximately caught up in AI. They also happen to lead in non-petroleum-dependent energy, and Russia’s main strength is in its oil and gas resources.
If the US wants to remain a dominant economic power, how is Russia going to help?
They have a giant land border. An adversarial Russia-China relationship is expensive for both powers, and is a major reason for the USSR going bankrupt in the cold war (also the USSR propping up Vietnam after China invaded in 79).
It seems more and more that if war between US and China starts it will be US-initiated. You just can’t stand not being the top dog anymore.
For context, EU+UK is over 500M people, Russia is 143M.
I think two weeks back many Europeans took for granted (at least I did) we would get involved in the Pacific theatre if needed on US side, but after what is happenning now… I am for not getting involved in any coflict in Pacific if US treats us this way.
Russia would never trust US. Russia would never ally itself with US against China. What makes you think they will suddenly turn on their ally China, to side with US (their always-enemy)?
Economically, allying with Russia is stupid, they're poor. The only way they are making it through this war economy is the fact that Russian people are patient and are used to bad economy. The average anual salary in Russia is below $10K.
$10K/year is not that bad, you won't die from hunger and can buy all necessary things. Also, it is more than in previous years (cannot believe, but it was somewhere around $1K/year in 2000 when Putin came into power).
This seems quite reasonable on the surface but it neglects the evidence of sheer incompetence from the first Trump term.
There's no 5d chess here. There's no scenario where ceding Poland and Ukraine to Russian authoritarians leads to a more free world and a victory over Chinese aithoritarianism. There's just rampant and opportunitistic corruption.
The US is being carved up from the inside and nothing about this process will help the impending conflict against China.
The sooner we all recognize this like the Europeans seem to be doing is the sooner we can coordinate to destroy authoritarians wherever they may call home.
> it makes sense for the US to ally with Russia against China
Economically and population wise Russia is tiny compared to the West (Canada, EU, etc) It makes no sense to trade our alliance with the West for alliance with much weaker and poorer Russia.
I think Russia has compromising info on Trump. That's the simplest explanation.
Russia advantage is its large border with China. The US is not allying because of their (non) existent economy. But they'll be a formidable ally in case of a war against China.
> But it looks much more like Russia dividing and conquering the USA from the rest of the democratic, human rights supporting West.
Yes, the famous human rights where people get visited by the cops for a Facebook post or an offensive tweet like in the UK.
Also, regarding the UK who just recently forced Apple to remove it's EtoE encryption because it wants access to all the data of it's citizens violating the fundamental right of privacy?
What about the UK terror law where they can detain you at the border without telling you why and for as long as they want, where you can't have a lawyer present with you in the room while they interrogate you and while they go through all your electronics + email + phone and you don't have the right to refuse giving them your passwords otherwise you will be jailed?
Russia is bad, terrible even but let's not pretend that some of the western countries haven't been sliding in proto-fascism either.
Lets also not forget that the UK took part in the illegal invasion of Afghanistan and Irak, which led to the disastrous consequences that we know today.
I think it would be best for the West to stop lecturing the world about democracy and human rights and the rule of law for a while and start by cleaning it's own house first because it doesn't have much credibility left on these matters.
No those are facts. Simple as that. What is your contention exactly with what I said?
> what the fuck is your point?
Why the aggressiveness? We are all here to have a peaceful conversation. You may disagree with me and that is fine but we don't have to get at each other's throat.
> Do you really think the UK is as bad or worse then Russia?
You must have missed part of my comment if you are asking this question.
> Russia is bad, terrible even
That's from my comment.
> Of course we can and should criticize other countries
Exactly my point. I am criticizing all the countries that infringe on human rights and that includes Russia and the UK an whoever else engages in these sorts of things.
My point was that simply asserting that the West respects human rights when we know that that is not always the case is the like the pot calling the kettle black.
You can go and give lessons of democracy and human rights when you stop detaining your own citizens for arbitrary reasons and without cause and without having the right to be represented by a lawyer.
Now, if you think that this is perfectly acceptable in a democracy, then I guess we don't have the same concept of human rights then.
I didn't say they weren't facts. I said it's whatoboutism:
> Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in "what about ...?") is a pejorative for the strategy of responding to an accusation with a counter-accusation instead of a defense against the original accusation.
>
> The communication intent is often to distract from the content of a topic (red herring). The goal may also be to question the justification for criticism and the legitimacy, integrity, and fairness of the critic, which can take on the character of discrediting the criticism, which may or may not be justified
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
The topic is Russia dividing and conquering the USA from Europe and other nations. Not: are Europe perfectly living up to its stated humanist goals.
> Why the aggressiveness?
I guess it comes from this being a very common tactic to shut down any criticism and debate. Maybe you didn't mean to do that, in that case I'm sorry for assigning malignant intentions.
That border is either mountain ranges (Altai), or empty steppes (Zabaikalsk), or boreal forests (Amur and Vladivostok). Either way -- the area lacks infrastructure and even roads, for the most part. It doesn't provide any military advantage, especially given that the Chinese side of the border is much better developed.
If anything, the area is not defensible against even a half-ass incursion effort from the south (either economical or military-driven), which they're actually in the middle of (the economical one for now) without realizing that.
Russian lost hundreds of thousand men, I'm not sure they'll be willing to ally themselves with the US to contain China anytime soon, they'll pursue what's in their best interest and play every side.
It could be an advantage for the US, but it looks to me like a liability for Russia, since they don't have enough manpower to guard it.
In case of war between China and Russia I could easily see Chinese invading large swaths of lands without any meaningful opposition. Populations in eastern Russia are treated more like than colonial subjects than regular citizen, so I don't think they will mind too much a new overlord.
Assuming they had the troops to get there, they cannot move all of them to the border with China and leave the western front unguarded
a) be willing to join a US-led coalition against China, given that the US foreign policy stopped being consistent and the next administration may well make a sharp turn again;
b) be capable of joining a US-led coalition against China when they now spent 3 years slowly restructuring their infrastructure and industry from Western products to Chinese products and any break in the relations with China would mean a full stop for support, spare parts etc., which US alone, with its depleted industrial platform, is unable to compensate for.
Not to mention that Russian nationalists HATE the idea of Russia being a junior partner to anyone and especially to the Anglo-Saxons. That would be hard sell even from Putin.
> Not to mention that Russian nationalists HATE the idea of Russia being a junior partner to anyone and especially to the Anglo-Saxons. That would be hard sell even from Putin.
America would be the junior partner. I do not see Russia doing anything for America, it is just America giving Russia what they want.
Politically maybe, but as far as raw force goes, Russians have been reduced to deploying donkeys in battlefield logistics. That is a big capability gap, and won't be easily bridged.
The next POTUS may not be as prostrate to Russia as Trump is, even if a Republican.
So the plan is to burn all of our current allies who joined us under a framework we devised largely for our own benefit so that we could maybe gain the favor of someone who is even less trustworthy and reliable than we are at this point against China? You really think this is smart? Trump is delivering the Russians their number 1 strategic goal since World War 2 by destroying NATO and trading this for seemingly nothing, which at this point again raises serious questions about what his actual motivations are with regard to his otherwise unexplainable deference to Putin and Russia in all things.
Trump's supporters would say that this is a result of not wanting the US being involved in foreign conflicts. That is a laudable goal, however that is not what is happening here. From the article
> On Friday, the administration said it was sending Israel nearly $3 billion in new weapons, including more than 35,000 new 2,000 pound bombs, invoking an emergency rule under U.S. arms control laws.
This just makes it look like a petty tantrum at best and a wilful desire to cleave our relationship with Europe at worst.
Yes, we can all argue that Europe needs to be less dependent on the US, however what's on the other side of that is not pretty for the United States. Our ability to have the world's de facto reserve currency and hence our ability to sustain debt loads way in excess of usual is largely dependent on the US being the world's cop and sole superpower.
A truly multipolar world might be good for the world, but it's certainly not going to be good for the United States.