Thursday, 02 January 2025 22:25

Why Trump may not end the war in Ukraine

The EU is worried that Donald Trump returning to the White House will mean peace in Ukraine, as Trump has claimed that he can achieve peace on his first day in office. That is unlikely to happen. The reason is that Trump will have to show that he has made a bargain which favours the US, but Russia is unlikely to deliver that. So the war is more likely to continue in 2025, and may even escalate before it ends. Unfortunately. I sincerely hope I am wrong.

As it is often stated, all wars must eventually end, and that is also valid for the Ukraine war. War fatigue is now clearly observable in Ukraine and among some of Ukraine’s Western backers, despite repeated insistence on continuing ‘as long as it takes’. There has up to now been a tacit agreement within NATO not to discuss the option of a negotiated peace openly, so the mantra is still that Putin is the new Hitler and anything but a Russian defeat is unacceptable. But rumours are that discussions are now ongoing in the corridors.

Sunday, 25 August 2024 23:38

The President in his labyrinth

The President of Ukraine, Volodymir Zelensky, has taken advantage of the state of emergency in the country to concentrate all powers in his hands, including deciding how the war shall be conducted. Before winning the elections in 2019 he was an actor (and comedian). Perhaps this is why he is so obsessed with the media, and this may explain his many weird, and apparently self-defeating, decisions. Striving for short-term media successes when leading a country in war, does not bother well.

NATO has a deal with the Ukrainian government: ‘we provide money and weapons, and you provide the soldiers’. The Ukrainian government is now using increasingly harsh and violent methods to capture its unwilling citizens and send them to an almost secure death in the trenches. This effort is applauded by the NATO countries. The politicians, right and left, couldn’t care less about the fate of the Ukrainian men who against their will are sent to the killing fields. This is a necessary sacrifice for the good cause.

General Mark Milley, chairman of the US’ joint chiefs of staff, said in February 2023 that Russia has already lost ‘strategically, operationally and tactically’. The war in Ukraine is in the US seen as 'a remarkably cost-effective way to degrade Russia’s military capabilities without risking a single (American) life'. So then everything is going according to plan. Or is it?

Saturday, 06 May 2023 17:32

And what if Ukraine loses the war?

The mainstream thinking in the West is that Ukraine and NATO are winning the war. So the main discussions is how a desperate, defeated Russia will act. You know, wounded animals are dangerous. But what if – hypothetically, of course, against all the clever military expert opinions – it is the other way around? How will NATO react to being defeated in Ukraine? Will it be total war?

Friday, 13 January 2023 23:26

Oh, what a lovely war!

The war in Ukraine is a Godsend for the US, and the best we can hope for is that it will continue for as long as possible, as it will ruin Russia. This is the opinion of an associate fellow from Chatham House, a think tank closely related to the UK Government, and frequent contributor to NATO related institutions as the Atlantic Council. Unfortunately, he probably reflects the thinking of influential circles in the US, UK and NATO. If that is the case, it may indeed end up being a very long war.

Friday, 19 August 2022 21:50

Comical Ali gets the last laugh

For sincere journalists in the West, Ukraine presents a dilemma. There is no doubt where the sympathy lies. The war in Ukraine is seen as the good guys against the bad guys and public opinion is strongly against Russia. What then to do with news putting the good guys in a bad light, for example Ukraine losing in the battlefield, their armed forces bombing a nuclear plant in Russian controlled territory, their use of residential areas for shelling the Russians and so on? Ignore them, deny them or tell the facts as they are?

Sometimes you wish you were wrong. In an article on this website around two months before Russia invaded Ukraine, I predicted that war was the most likely outcome, as US and NATO had clearly stated they didn’t accept Russia’s “red line”: the demand that NATO stop its eastward expansion. I asked whether NATO believed the Russians were bluffing, or whether they had decided to throw Ukraine under the bus. Unfortunately, it seems the decision was to sacrifice Ukraine.

To Russia’s demand for a stop for NATO’s eastward expansion, NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg has answered that Russia has no say in which countries are becoming members of NATO, a viewpoint that has been repeated by the G7 countries, warning that there will be “massive consequences” for Russia if it intervenes in Ukraine. So Russia’s “red lines” have been rejected, well knowing that this may mean military conflict. What is contradictory is that by defending Ukraine’s right to NATO membership, NATO actually risks throwing Ukraine under the bus. So has NATO decided to sacrifice Ukraine? Or are the Russians bluffing and NATO calling the bluff?

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