The latest news regarding the Trump Peace Plan, is that Zelensky rejected it out of hand. The British newspaper ‘Independent’ published the story, which claimed that today the Americans, Rubio and Witkoff, were to present the plan to the representatives of the ‘Coalition of the Willing’, the UK and France, and to the Ukrainians, at a meeting in London. But since Zelensky announced that he wouldn’t even consider some of the most fundamental proposals without further debate, the Americans cancelled their trip. At the same time the Financial Times published an article which suggested that the Russians had been on board. We’ll leave it to historians to figure out the details, but let me share my thoughts on what we know from the media.
In my essay from yesterday I described why I felt it was not unlikely that Putin would sign off on the deal leaked to the press, despite the fact that it contained proposals which ran counter to what Putin had said the Russians wanted to achieve in a Peace Deal. With various commentators noting that since Russia was winning on the battlefield, it was likely they would reject compromises which would make them abandon their claim to territory they say is belonging to Russia, after consulting the people of those Oblasts, or accept the presence of British and French forces in what would be left of Ukraine. Or forget about other demands related to the protection of culturally Russian people remaining in Ukraine, the formal denazification of Ukraine, and the size of its military. Although we must be careful not to judge the plan by its cover. All we ever learned about it up till now, is what was leaked to the press. Which may have been reliable, but still out of context, or not representing the plan, or positions of key-players correctly to begin with.
In my own assessment I tried to explain why changes within NATO mattered to the Russians, and how Trump’s eagerness to return to the Russian market, while buying all of Ukraine, changed the playing field beyond recognition. It is in Russia’s interest to uphold that momentum, rather than risk a return to having to deal with the Warparty again. If they convinced themselves that Trump is ‘for real’, and not another lying SOB, helping him achieve his goals of Making America Great Again serves their agenda of advancing a new ‘World Order’ of sovereign nations competing fair and square on the marketplace, in a multipolar world. Obviously those who hate Trump with a vengeance do so because he brought a wrecking ball to this idea of a unipolar world, rejecting the expansion of the US as the seat of the ‘Royals’ policing the world. In Trump’s perception that is leaving the US extremely vulnerable, and I agree. Feudalism based on who has the right to ‘print’ the world’s currency will generate resistance among the ‘common people’ sooner or later, and countries serving American, and European consumers, without getting anything in return but printed money, will eventually start to look for an alternative.
Before the SMO was launched, I described Putin’s drive on my Dutch blog as a desire to work *with* Ukraine as a bridge between ‘BRICS’ and the EU. Let me remind you that Putin asked both NATO and the EU if Russia could become a member. Not once either. These organizations rejecting this concept ‘informed’ him that they saw Russia as something that didn’t sit at the table, but was on the menu, as the saying goes. He kept calling those leaders rejecting Russia ‘friends’ and ‘colleagues’, while they saw him and his country as prey. No lack of essays on this blog emphasizing this, and why being seen as prey correctly leads to an assessment that these ‘hunter-gatherers’ are a security threat. Which Russia eventually *had* to face head-on in February of 2022, before Ukraine became a NATO-member. No, NATO never was an answer to an existing threat. It preceded the Warsaw Pact by several years, and let’s not forget this cynical plan Churchill had to stab their Soviet allies during the war in the back, and make the best of the nukes the West developed before the Russians would have them too. The threat the Soviets posed, was ideologically, and not militarily.
How sad that when the West finally won the ideological struggle, it immediately lost its bearings. Replacing ‘classic’ capitalism by ‘vulture’ capitalism, while it had been the ‘classic’ version which sealed that ideological battle during the ‘Cold War’. What is generally called the ‘Rheinland-model’, where a relatively modest state works with the industry and other businesses producing the goods and profitable services, seeking opportunities for those producing companies to trade unhindered with other countries. Which created the European Economic Community, which was *not* a political entity, or even a federation, but an open market for sovereign countries, very much what ‘BRICS’ is emulating. Because it was a successful concept. Europe as the birthplace of this wealth-creating concept went off the rails. Not merely because it no longer wants wealth for the people, in order to save the Climate, or Planet, but also because it ‘discovered’ NATO as a police force which could be used to ‘liberate’ people all around the world, whether they wanted to be as ‘Woke’ as the Europeans, or not.
Trump is pushing back against ‘Woke’, while Europe is doubling down, insisting that it is a necessary next step in the evolution of mankind, with truckloads of supporters elsewhere in the West, and within the ‘Davos-crowd’. That latter elitist roundtable has just lost its ‘Holy See’ as Klaus Schwab left the sinking ship which served him well. I may be shortsighted in the eyes of my ‘Woke’ countrymen, but I do not see how their ideals of dumbing down the people with entertainment, and prepping them for war to cull the herd is the best option we have. Will we wake up in time from this stupor to save Europe? Or will we allow ourselves to be sucked into this giant black hole we created in Ukraine? Led by a clown who plays the piano with his dick.