Trump and Ukraine.

 One of my readers recently commented that “The deal Trump is reaching with Moscow represents a complete capitulation and an unprecedented self-humiliation for the United States. Trump of course has no sense of a shared idea of “The West” which would bind us to Western Europe. Rather he sees international relations as transactions, with the goal of self-enrichment. He will lift sanctions on Russia in return for favorable treatment for his -and Musk’s - business interests. The remaining Ukrainian rump state will be given over to be raped by US mining companies.” While much of this comment is unadulterated Trump hate, some of it is valid, particularly the statement that Trump “sees international relations as transactions, with the goal of self-enrichment.” The implication that he is trying to increase his own business interests is overblown anti-Trump rhetoric, but twisting it just slightly from self-enrichment to national enrichment would, I think, be a valid observation.

The vast majority of Americans, I believe, support Ukraine in its effort to be free of undue Russian influence and control. I confess that I share this feeling. I spent thirty years of my life engaged in dealing with Soviet expansionism and aggression. There is absolutely no question in my mind, but that Putin is bent on reestablishing the Soviet Union, and I vehemently oppose that objective. As always, the question before us is how to accomplish our objective without actually triggering a war that would inevitably escalate to the use of massive numbers of accurately targeted nuclear weapons. When I was still in harness, we had a significant military edge in both conventional and nuclear capabilities. WOKE and complacency has badly eroded that edge. Trump is dealing with the result in a radically different way than Biden did, and it is understandably frightening us as well as our European friends. I am not an ardent fan of either of these two people, but when faced with the choice I continue to choose Trump, even as I dislike much of his style of operation.

Much is said about Putin’s evil objectives and Trump haters are quick to charge that our president is accommodating the evil dictator when he should be vigorously standing up to him. These very same people demand that we castrate our military and reduce our financial support for it while systematically avoiding military service themselves. Ladies, gentlemen, and confused, WOKE men pretending to be women will not deter Vladimir Putin, Xi Jin Peng, or the Ayatollahs no mater how loud their whining. Trump is far from a perfect leader, but he is vastly preferable to the people that permitted Ukraine and Russia to kill each other for three long years while simultaneously destroying much of the world economy and stimulating other ridiculously stupid conflicts in other parts of the world.

Vladimir Putin is an evil man. His policies are detrimental to our interests - short term and long term alike. Zelensky is a gutsy Ukrainian leader that leads a country, much of which wants to distance itself from Moscow and move toward Western Europe. It was not in America’s interest to permit this disagreement to tip into a shooting war. Nor is it possible for us to do much about how the basic disagreement plays out in the future. That is going to be determined by Ukrainians and Russians. What is in our interest is to end the shooting and turn the argument back to the negotiating table. Biden did not understand this. Trump does. Now the president is engaged in breaking the eggs for the omelet. If I knew enough, I may not agree with how he is going about it, but I don't, and I am very glad that he is. I wish him well. Having said that, I would caution him against unnecessarily diminishing Zelensky’s leadership at this critical stage of the tragedy and I would also caution him with regard to his personal relationship with Putin. It is a fine line that he is walking and an important one with implications everywhere you look.