Trump’s Ukraine Position Starts to Emerge
It sounds the same in the original Russian.
Via the BBC: Trump adviser says Ukraine focus must be peace, not territory.
Bryan Lanza, a Republican party strategist, told the BBC the Trump administration would ask Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for his version of a “realistic vision for peace”.
[…]
Mr Lanza, Trump’s political adviser since his 2016 campaign, did not mention areas of eastern Ukraine, but he said regaining Crimea from Russia was unrealistic and “not the goal of the United States”.
“When Zelensky says we will only stop this fighting, there will only be peace once Crimea is returned, we’ve got news for President Zelensky: Crimea is gone,” he told the BBC World Service’s Weekend programme.
“And if that is your priority of getting Crimea back and having American soldiers fight to get Crimea back, you’re on your own.”
[…]
Mr Lanza said he had tremendous respect for the Ukrainian people, describing them as having the hearts of lions. But he said the US priority was “peace and to stop the killing”.
“What we’re going to say to Ukraine is, you know what you see? What do you see as a realistic vision for peace. It’s not a vision for winning, but it’s a vision for peace. And let’s start having the honest conversation,” he said.
To quote the title of a book I read as an undergraduate, Every War Must End, and I certainly understand that there are therefore compromises to get there. I will even go so far as to say that it never seemed likely that the Ukrainians would regain Crimea, even if I think that that would be a just outcome.
But, it is disconcerting for a spokesman for the president-elect to take the Russian position on this discussion. It is one thing to end up in a negotiated settlement that comes to a compromise. It is yet another to concede territory publicly and before any actual negotiations have taken place.
It is purely propagandistic, by the way, to make it sound like US troops would be involved. That is playing US domestic politics with all of this. No one of any consequence has suggested that the US would deploy troops to fight to regain Crimea.
The statements also play into Russia’s position. It is awfully passive voice to desire a cessation of the killing without acknowledging the reason that there is killing in the first place because Russia invaded. Russia could withdraw and stop the killing today. They could go home and there would be peace.
Ukraine is the victim and Russia is the aggressor. To talk about it as if it is just some dispute that needs to end without any regard to why these events are taking place is to side with Russia.
I don’t expect, for example, the incoming administration will talk about Israel, Hamas, Iran, and Hezbollah in such a fashion. Not even close.
As predicted, it looks like Trump is going to effectively side with the Russians.It is also unclear to me why Lanza is making these comments. He is not, as best as I can tell, a foreign policy expert or advisor. This is evidence we are moving back to amateur hour in the White House in terms of non-experts being involved in serious policy issues. While I understand experts come in varying degrees of competency and that even the best experts make mistakes, I also don’t accept arguments that non-experts are superior because of some populist sense that experts cause all the problems. I will only take that position from people who don’t use trained MDs for medicine, take their cars to non-mechanics to have them fixed, and let, say, comedians do their taxes.
Meanwhile, via the AP, the unseriouness of it all starts anew: Trump put Elon Musk on phone with Ukraine’s Zelenskyy during congratulatory call, official says.
The person, who was not authorized to comment on the matter publicly, confirmed that Zelenskyy and Musk spoke during the call with Trump, but that Musk did not appear to be on the line for the entire conversation on Wednesday. Trump seemingly handed his phone over to Musk, the person said, and the Ukrainian president thanked the SpaceX owner for assisting his country with access to the Starlink satellite internet platform.
The presence of Musk on the call highlights his influence in the president-elect’s circle. Trump has mused that Musk could have a formal role in his administration that focuses on government efficiency, raising questions about potential conflicts of interest given SpaceX’s lucrative government contracts.
Trump offered his 24-hour solution to the Ukraine-Russia war a few years ago: “Give Russia what it wants.”
His words.
As I have been saying for 10 years now, Trump is Putin’s bitch. I don’t believe it’s just personal affinity for another autocrat. I don’t believe it’s just that Putin flatters Trump. Putin has some hold on Trump. Money? Blackmail? I don’t know, but from Day One it has been crystal clear that Trump will always obey Putin’s wishes.
And not just in Ukraine. Trump will weaken if not abandon any alliance we have that requires US military action. NATO, the Quad, etc… He won’t fight for Europe, South Korea or Taiwan. The days of Pax Americana are over. Trump is not the Leader of the Free World. He is Putin’s asset and as such will also be North Korea’s.
ETA: Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Poland and Germany need to start building nukes. Quickly.
The attitude towards Ukraine on the felon’s side is: this is a vicious animal. when attacked, it defends itself.
What we’re seeing is Trump exhibiting a natural, bone-deep affinity for siding with the more powerful party in a conflict. This makes sense in business. It’s thought to be synergistic. Whether it makes sense in foreign policy, I can’t comment on because I don’t do FP. But I will say that, for me anyway, this current scenario shows why “he’ll bring business expertise to government” sounds smart but turns out not to be.
And Trump brings little “business expertise” to anything he does. The guy couldn’t even run casinos or sell liquor. And his primary “business” endeavor for most of 3 or 4 decades has been selling his name as a marketing tool.
@just nutha:
Since the government routinely operates at a loss, maybe Trump’s business experience is more relevant than you imagine.
@Michael Reynolds:
Attached is Philip Auerswald homepage with links to 5+ part Donald Trump’s Political Origin Story for a lot about the Russia connection:
“Substack“
@charontwo:
“Part1”
“Part2“
@Michael Reynolds:
Trump is easy to manipulate with praise. Child’s play for the trained counter espionage agent Putin. No need to compromise him, and Trump is unsuitable for a clandestine relationship. Trump is the sort of knucklehead who might impulsively babble about it, maybe even brag about it.
In Putin’s first comment congratulating Trump on his victory Putin labeled Trump a “brave man”.
Chef’s kiss.
@dazedandconfused:
Putin had Trump in his pocket back in 2016 when he called Trump “smart.” Trump has always secretly feared he’s stupid, so the “highly respected” (Trump’s own words) Vladimir Putin praising his intelligence won Trump’s slobbering devotion forever.
@dazedandconfused: @CSK:
Read my links. Trump has been tight with Russia going back to 1987, if not earlier, before Putin.
And, sure, he has lots of characteristics that make him a great KGB target for exploitation.
I heard Lanza’s comment on a radio report. While it’s hardly the most substantive issue, the comment was made with a full bro sneer. I am already exhausted with this administration.
@CSK: And with “brave” Putin, in this arena, goes nuclear.
@charontwo:
I’d like to read them, but they’re not accessible to me.
Utter idiocy.
It may be that Ukraine cannot retake Crimea, and that might therefore be traded off in negotiations.
It’s quite another thing to pre-emptively concede it prior to negotiations without even attempting to extract a price.
Lanza is quite obviously a fool.
If this is an example of Trump’s executive team capability, he’s going to be screwed so hard by every autocrat on the planet it’ll shake the walls to rubble.
What really concerns me now is the lack of effective preparation among the Allies for this.
I’d assumed there was contingency planning in place; it’s increasingly apparent there was not.
Further, apart from Poland, the European military re-boot has fizzled.
And the Poles were also deluded: refusing the French overtures for a European defence military/industrial strategy in favour of assuming the US would always be reliable.
Germany in general just wants to pull the bedclothes over its head and go back to sleep.
There are some CDU/CSU (and Greens, surprisingly) who are are aware of the stakes; but insufficient to overcome the massive inertia of “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well” complacency.
While the Med states are, for some reason, shrugging and thinking: “it’s all a long way away, in a country of which we know nothing.”
Even the UK is culpable: Johnson and Sunak provided aid to Ukraine out of military stocks; but its now plain they failed utterly to authorise the expenditure to replenish those stocks, or to increase production, in order to keep the budget on track for more tax cuts.
And Starmer has NOT altered this, and is following the Conservative plans for yet another idiotic “defence review” = kicking the can, yet again.
The Treasury continues to dominate, and to enforce “cheese paring” as per 1920’s/30’s
Also, UK failed to take up French overtures re. strategic industrial programs.
And now France is also stricken by political stasis and fiscal crisis.
I’ve recently been reading some histories of the inter-war period, and getting an increasingly sickening sense of similarity.
The one remaining hope seems to be that the Nordic/Baltic/Central bloc can marshal enough fiscal firepower to break the logjam, that a new CDU/CSU government in Germany will follow sheepishly), that France might just get the “deep state” back in the saddle, and that someone will dump a bucket of cold water over Whitehall and get the “domestic centric” government to wake up.
@CSK:
Try harder. For convenience, I moved my link to new Chrome profile and ran into various hassles, private site etc. from the new profile. But a bit of trying stuff and the access problems went away.
@JohnSF:
That is pretty much, historically, the way Trump negotiates. Art of the Deal indeed.
@charontwo:
You do need to subscribe with an email address, but you don’t need to pledge anything.