Trump is destroying the foundations of the unprecedented peace, security, and prosperity that the United States essentially built 80 years ago, and has enjoyed ever since.
Succinct summary from the always trenchant keyboard of Stefan Korshak in Kiev:
"I am not making a bit of this up nor am I exaggerating. The past week saw the US foreign policy leadership:
- Blame Ukraine for starting the war with Russia
- Call President Volydymyr Zelensky “a dictator”
- Question Zelensky’s legitimacy
- Demand Ukraine ignore its constitution and hold wartime elections
- Lie about Zelensky’s popularity (Trump said 4 percent, the actual number is 50–57 percent)
- Offer Ukraine a minerals development contract so punitive in its terms, that the Versailles Treaty signed by Germany at the end of WWI was less exploitative
- Accuse Zelensky of sabotaging the peace plan because he didn’t sign a colonialist deal that would have impressed Leopold II of Belgium
- Opine that Russia could have defeated Ukraine any time it wanted to
- Refuse to condemn Russian aggression in a 3-year-invasion anniversary statement by G7 nations
- Refuse to allow language about Ukrainian territorial integrity into a UN declaration about the same thing
- Announce 40 percent cuts to Pentagon spending over the next five years with forces in Europe squarely targeted for RIF
- Declare the Republican-led Congress won’t even consider more military aid to Ukraine
- State that, really, there is no reason for Ukraine to be present at peace talks with Russia
The result of such an avalanche of thunderous foreign policy pronouncements was predictable."
Jonathan Turley in “The Hill” explains the absurdity of illiberal Europeans, especially the British, French and Germans, claiming to revere the liberal world order while emulating the most authoritarian regimes. See,
Oh yes, moral equivalence. "We execute children, true -- but you have racism!" There is no difference between laws disallowing the existence Nazi political parties and laws disallowing the existence of gays and dissidents. Russia is the same as we are; were it not for the CIA, we would all be brothers!
I read quickly, anxious to share the all important my take. Did you mention that the U.S. blocked the G7 from declaring RU the aggressor? Clearing path for G8.
I've seen several highly respected former diplomats and pundits say in harsh terms that Trump is an unhinged child tyrant pursuing disastrous policy. Followed by, "we must get him on Ukraine's side by pursuing this clever manipulation..."
Fucking eh, pardon my French. We have no time for such stupidity. Did they not hear Vance & Trump throw-in with the AfD!? It's over. Yes it is a daunting challenge for the EU to fly a plane and build it at the same time. There's no choice. Get moving! Western states need to send a symbolic military presence to UKR now.
I would just note that the unprecedented peace and prosperity that Trump is alleged to be destroying have been dwindling away for some twenty years now. He may, perhaps, be their gravedigger, but plenty of pallbearers have have carried those corpses to the cemetery.
What, for instance, did Obama do when V. Putin swallowed up Crimea? He tut-tutted and wrung his hands. What did Biden do when Russia invaded Ukraine proper? He talked tough, then hemmed and hawed and second-guessed himself and dribbled out just enough aid to Ukraine to prolong the war. Oh, and Obama abandoned Iraq. Biden abandoned Afghanistan. And must I really get into the Biden Administration’s utterly despicable behavior over 10/7 and the Gaza War?
Trump’s responsible for what he does, going forward. But let’s not forget who set the table for the world situation he inherited: a cabal of utterly incompetent fools.
“The United States has a pretty good track record at winning wars…” (Robert Zubrin)
No we don’t. The United States hasn’t won a shooting war in 80 years. Maybe what Mr. Zubrin had in mind was our victory in extracting a hundred or so medical students from Granada or arresting Manuel Noriega in Panama. Or maybe what Mr. Zubrin has in mind is redefining the twin defeats in Iraq as successes. If he does, his opinion is a minority opinion. Most intelligent Americans understand that American policy in Iraq was a catastrophic failure engineered by two morons with the surname Bush.
Like Claire Berlinski, Mr. Zubrin fails to understand why the Pax Americana or the rules based liberal order is collapsing before our eyes. The authors of its demise are all Europeans not Americans.
It’s our European “allies” who are so pathetically weak that they can’t even measure up as bit players in sustaining the liberal world order. They expect the United States to single-handedly bear every burden and spare no expense in sustaining that order while they live the life of languid sybarites calling balls and strikes from the sidelines. Yet our European “friends” like Claire and Mr. Zubrin can’t understand why millions of Americans are fed-up with Europe.
The American Vice President was right; there is no liberal world order when key allies who are supposed to help sustain it arrest citizens for praying silently in the vicinity of abortion clinics. There is no liberal world order when those same key allies imprison citizens for tweets the government doesn’t like. Shouldn’t it be obvious that the liberal world order is fraying when European factotums cancel elections they’re afraid they might lose? Can we celebrate a liberal world order when secular societies that were once Christian look down on all religions but happily tolerate Islamic extremism and too often, Jew-hated? As the Vice President aptly stated, it hardly seems like a defense of a liberal world order when self-righteous defenders of that order welcome tens of millions of immigrants from nations that despise all of the most important facets of liberalism.
Can anyone think of a bigger joke than the idea that the European nations might come together to defend the liberal world order on their own? As the Vice President mentioned, Europe’s big three, the UK, France and Germany, are increasingly illiberal. Their illiberality is approaching that of Claire’s favorite bagaboo, Hungary; in fact, they may have surpassed it.
Even if Europe wasn’t increasingly illiberal, how are Europe’s “big” three supposed to police the liberal world order? The UK’s battleships won’t float. The French Army hightailed it out of Africa like scared little school girls. Germany is so hopeless and pathetic that it has nothing to contribute. Frau Merkel’s famous claim, “yes we can” seems like a cruel joke. A better credo for the Germans would be “no we can’t.”
In light of Europe’s increasingly illiberality and the disastrous condition of its military readiness, why shouldn’t the United States look to its own affairs? Focusing on our hemisphere seems far more likely to enhance American power that a vain attempt at resurrecting the European corpse.
"The United States hasn’t won a shooting war in 80 years." When I was briefly adjacent to a Soviet "foreign friends" group many decades ago, we were taught to do exactly this: grab some peripheral but provocative point and hammer it at length, thus distracting from the main arguments being made.
Example: we still don't know exactly how many paratroopers descended on Hostomel three years ago this morning. We don't have a precise figure. So hey, what else don't we know about that event? Maybe it never even happened!
As your boss's boss's boss once said, truth does not exit but is merely an invention of the CIA to further American hegemony. That's probably a pretty good starting point.
Succinct summary from the always trenchant keyboard of Stefan Korshak in Kiev:
"I am not making a bit of this up nor am I exaggerating. The past week saw the US foreign policy leadership:
- Blame Ukraine for starting the war with Russia
- Call President Volydymyr Zelensky “a dictator”
- Question Zelensky’s legitimacy
- Demand Ukraine ignore its constitution and hold wartime elections
- Lie about Zelensky’s popularity (Trump said 4 percent, the actual number is 50–57 percent)
- Offer Ukraine a minerals development contract so punitive in its terms, that the Versailles Treaty signed by Germany at the end of WWI was less exploitative
- Accuse Zelensky of sabotaging the peace plan because he didn’t sign a colonialist deal that would have impressed Leopold II of Belgium
- Opine that Russia could have defeated Ukraine any time it wanted to
- Refuse to condemn Russian aggression in a 3-year-invasion anniversary statement by G7 nations
- Refuse to allow language about Ukrainian territorial integrity into a UN declaration about the same thing
- Announce 40 percent cuts to Pentagon spending over the next five years with forces in Europe squarely targeted for RIF
- Declare the Republican-led Congress won’t even consider more military aid to Ukraine
- State that, really, there is no reason for Ukraine to be present at peace talks with Russia
The result of such an avalanche of thunderous foreign policy pronouncements was predictable."
https://substack.com/home/post/p-157684965
Jonathan Turley in “The Hill” explains the absurdity of illiberal Europeans, especially the British, French and Germans, claiming to revere the liberal world order while emulating the most authoritarian regimes. See,
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/5158171-trump-election-censorship-industry/
Oh yes, moral equivalence. "We execute children, true -- but you have racism!" There is no difference between laws disallowing the existence Nazi political parties and laws disallowing the existence of gays and dissidents. Russia is the same as we are; were it not for the CIA, we would all be brothers!
I read quickly, anxious to share the all important my take. Did you mention that the U.S. blocked the G7 from declaring RU the aggressor? Clearing path for G8.
I've seen several highly respected former diplomats and pundits say in harsh terms that Trump is an unhinged child tyrant pursuing disastrous policy. Followed by, "we must get him on Ukraine's side by pursuing this clever manipulation..."
Fucking eh, pardon my French. We have no time for such stupidity. Did they not hear Vance & Trump throw-in with the AfD!? It's over. Yes it is a daunting challenge for the EU to fly a plane and build it at the same time. There's no choice. Get moving! Western states need to send a symbolic military presence to UKR now.
Ps. I meant vp Vance & president Musk on the AfD push
I would just note that the unprecedented peace and prosperity that Trump is alleged to be destroying have been dwindling away for some twenty years now. He may, perhaps, be their gravedigger, but plenty of pallbearers have have carried those corpses to the cemetery.
What, for instance, did Obama do when V. Putin swallowed up Crimea? He tut-tutted and wrung his hands. What did Biden do when Russia invaded Ukraine proper? He talked tough, then hemmed and hawed and second-guessed himself and dribbled out just enough aid to Ukraine to prolong the war. Oh, and Obama abandoned Iraq. Biden abandoned Afghanistan. And must I really get into the Biden Administration’s utterly despicable behavior over 10/7 and the Gaza War?
Trump’s responsible for what he does, going forward. But let’s not forget who set the table for the world situation he inherited: a cabal of utterly incompetent fools.
Yes, Robert and I have both been saying that for a very long time.
You have indeed.
“The United States has a pretty good track record at winning wars…” (Robert Zubrin)
No we don’t. The United States hasn’t won a shooting war in 80 years. Maybe what Mr. Zubrin had in mind was our victory in extracting a hundred or so medical students from Granada or arresting Manuel Noriega in Panama. Or maybe what Mr. Zubrin has in mind is redefining the twin defeats in Iraq as successes. If he does, his opinion is a minority opinion. Most intelligent Americans understand that American policy in Iraq was a catastrophic failure engineered by two morons with the surname Bush.
Like Claire Berlinski, Mr. Zubrin fails to understand why the Pax Americana or the rules based liberal order is collapsing before our eyes. The authors of its demise are all Europeans not Americans.
It’s our European “allies” who are so pathetically weak that they can’t even measure up as bit players in sustaining the liberal world order. They expect the United States to single-handedly bear every burden and spare no expense in sustaining that order while they live the life of languid sybarites calling balls and strikes from the sidelines. Yet our European “friends” like Claire and Mr. Zubrin can’t understand why millions of Americans are fed-up with Europe.
The American Vice President was right; there is no liberal world order when key allies who are supposed to help sustain it arrest citizens for praying silently in the vicinity of abortion clinics. There is no liberal world order when those same key allies imprison citizens for tweets the government doesn’t like. Shouldn’t it be obvious that the liberal world order is fraying when European factotums cancel elections they’re afraid they might lose? Can we celebrate a liberal world order when secular societies that were once Christian look down on all religions but happily tolerate Islamic extremism and too often, Jew-hated? As the Vice President aptly stated, it hardly seems like a defense of a liberal world order when self-righteous defenders of that order welcome tens of millions of immigrants from nations that despise all of the most important facets of liberalism.
Can anyone think of a bigger joke than the idea that the European nations might come together to defend the liberal world order on their own? As the Vice President mentioned, Europe’s big three, the UK, France and Germany, are increasingly illiberal. Their illiberality is approaching that of Claire’s favorite bagaboo, Hungary; in fact, they may have surpassed it.
Even if Europe wasn’t increasingly illiberal, how are Europe’s “big” three supposed to police the liberal world order? The UK’s battleships won’t float. The French Army hightailed it out of Africa like scared little school girls. Germany is so hopeless and pathetic that it has nothing to contribute. Frau Merkel’s famous claim, “yes we can” seems like a cruel joke. A better credo for the Germans would be “no we can’t.”
In light of Europe’s increasingly illiberality and the disastrous condition of its military readiness, why shouldn’t the United States look to its own affairs? Focusing on our hemisphere seems far more likely to enhance American power that a vain attempt at resurrecting the European corpse.
"The United States hasn’t won a shooting war in 80 years." When I was briefly adjacent to a Soviet "foreign friends" group many decades ago, we were taught to do exactly this: grab some peripheral but provocative point and hammer it at length, thus distracting from the main arguments being made.
Example: we still don't know exactly how many paratroopers descended on Hostomel three years ago this morning. We don't have a precise figure. So hey, what else don't we know about that event? Maybe it never even happened!
As your boss's boss's boss once said, truth does not exit but is merely an invention of the CIA to further American hegemony. That's probably a pretty good starting point.