War is the extension of politics with other means. And politics is often dirty, with players who are after power for themselves, hardened in the ‘art’ of ‘dirty tricks’, especially in our part of the world. Kicks to the head, and below the belt to take an opponent down are not merely common, but they have become the essence of politics in our part of the world. Integrity and being brutally honest will kill your career as a politician before you even managed to get your name on the ballot. Even though an individual may pop up from nowhere to mesmerize the voters with a vision of fundamental changes, he or she will be facing the need to cement alliances with the venomous crowd ‘in office’ at the lower echelons, because these people will otherwise block you at every step down the road ahead.
In many European democracies the people do not elect their head of state, but they vote for this or that party, which will nominate an ‘approved’ individual to form a government, and thus head the country, often with a coalition government. That coalition consists of parties forming a majority in parliament, though not necessarily in another ‘house’, or regions and cities, which may throw a wrench in the engine to frustrate the government, and make that government look impotent, so as to set the stage for the rematch at the next round of elections.
If someone elected, or selected to be ‘Head of State’ dominates the political scene in a country, ‘commentators’ are prone to list that country as ‘authoritarian’, because it is their bread and butter to ‘comment’, and there is nothing left to ‘comment’ on if the sailing is smooth. But everyone with a functioning brain understands that avoiding treacherous weather, tricky waters, and unforgiving icebergs is not merely required to increase the comfort of the passengers/voters, but it will actually improve progress made towards destinations worth visiting. A ‘Head of State’, and his or her government which doesn’t need to watch out for political predators 24/7 may actually get things done.
The raging criticism targeting the American president from all sides is understandable, because Trump is ‘all over the place’, hopping from one extreme to another, which is hurting his standing. One ‘commentator’ offering his impression of Trump against the backdrop of recent developments, insisted that Trump was the most ‘Post Modern’ president the US has had up till now. And most of the ‘realists’ I associate with insist that Trump cannot be trusted to deliver on his campaign promises. They blame his ‘vanity’, his lack of understanding the subjects, and his desire to serve certain extremists in the Republican Party and in Israel. They correctly point out that he regularly pays lip-service to blatant propaganda in the service of those who hate Russia and want to see it destroyed. Even as those haters insist that Trump is actually Putin’s ‘Manchurian Candidate’. Which cannot both be true.
As stated before, the crowd which supports him insists that Trump is playing ‘Five Dimensional Chess’. They trust him. Even as he does things which rub them the wrong way. Although he is losing support among the ‘MAGA’-crowd, and there is a huge risk that he will fail to satisfy them in the end, especially if the end is near. The end of what? Good question, because it is complicated. But not because Trump is playing ‘Five Dimensional Chess’, but because he is playing ‘Poker’ with a losing hand from where I’m sitting. He did try to secure funding for his ‘MAGA’-project through bullying countries with a ‘trade surplus’, and he tried to put the ‘Fear of God’ into his counterparts on a geostrategical level, but that failed to impress them sufficiently. The ‘deal’ he got with Europe looks good on paper, but it will drag the US further down into the abyss. It might have worked if he would have managed to isolate Russia from China, India and the other ‘BRICS’ countries, but the opposite happened.
If you want to get the hang of ‘Five Dimensional Chess’, look at Russia, China and India. Europe is playing ’Two Dimensional Checkers’, and Trump’s ‘Poker Game’ added to the mix is turning foreign policy of the NATO-alliance into ‘Russian Roulette’. We now have this meeting between Trump and Putin where they will see eye to eye for the first time in Trump’s second term. Contrary to what was expected, that meeting will not be in the UAE, or one of the other countries seen as ‘neutral territory’, but in Alaska. With a second meeting scheduled to be somewhere in Russia. The subject will be a ‘deal’ to end the war between NATO and Russia on Ukrainian soil, and everybody who understood how that war came about, and that it always was a proxy-war run by NATO (‘Biden’s War’), using Ukrainians as cannon fodder, can see the logic of a meeting between the two 'Super-Powers', without Ukraine or Europeans present. But those in Europe and in Ukraine who desperately want to believe that their leaders were totally innocent, and that this war took them by surprise, are caught wrong-footed and lost in translation.
It is unclear which proposal is on the table, but the consensus among ‘realists’ is that it is an American proposal, which will effectively hand victory to Russia. More than a few ‘realists’ speculate about why Russia would want to end the war at this stage. Especially if that proposal is still less than Russia’s ‘maximalist’ demands, because they are winning. Why would they even *consider* any kind of compromise? First, we don’t *know* what the American proposal entails at this stage, but according to Ushakov it was a good offer. Good enough for talks anyway. And in negotiations there is still room for improvement, right? Second, the final deal will have to be enforceable, and that is going to be a headache for Trump. But the Russians will be satisfied with the recognition of this war as a war between the two ‘Super Powers’ first and foremost, and not some localized scrimmage between Russia and Ukraine with the US in a position of referee, and the European NATO-states as linesmen. Third, some of the demands Russia has are difficult to put in writing in some kind of settlement. Even the topic of NATO-membership. It can be put in writing, but when did NATO honor written settlements?
If you agree with my reading of what this war has been about, and how it was planned and executed by Russia, you will have no difficulty understanding that this was a war of attrition after the ‘Istanbul Accord’ was shredded, and that NATO is now exhausted, with no way to keep up with Russia. That is security enough in real terms, and better than empty promises which were made in the Nineties, or any signature of this or that lying ‘SOB’, while Ukraine has reached the end of the line on the manpower-front. A British ‘Air-Head’ signed up with the Ukrainian forces in June, and was dead in July. The man had no military background, and obviously did not receive any training before they sent him off to die in the trenches. A Ukrainian MP claims 400.000 soldiers simply deserted, and in addition to forced recruitment by thugs haunting for men on the streets, Ukraine is now calling on the elderly to report for conscription. NATO and Ukraine are attrited, not just in a material sense. And conquest by Russia is right around the corner, and happening, but Russia has no appetite whatsoever to rule over Ukraine. Moreover, continuing this war until Russia obtained all the territory it said it wanted to take as a security buffer, and safe haven for culturally Russian Ukrainians in their own land, and no doubt to exploit the mines in that part of the country to grow Russia’s economy even further, would encourage the undesirable next stage NATO is planning.
That next stage envisions the use of what is remaining of Ukraine as a launchpad for attacks on Russia with both ‘Special Military Units’, missiles and drones, prolonging the war into perpetuity since the Russians won’t expand their ground war, because that would expose them to an ‘Afghanistan-in-the-Eighties’ scenario, which exhausted the already brittle Soviet Union back then. That form of terrorism, with acts of piracy and sabotage by European NATO-countries in support, would deny Russia the ability to recoup from this senseless war. Yes, it would drag all of NATO down with it, first and foremost Europe, and it would expose Europe to a direct military confrontation with Russia in the end, but our brutally dishonest leaders actually crave that outcome. Smooth sailing would kill their ‘Gig’. Likewise with all the ‘commentators’ who would be without a job without the ‘exciting’ war.