A question was asked about the end game in the war. I think the only endgame that is clear right now is that Russia goes home. Anything else, unless he kills every Ukrainian is going to be war. Ukraine may end up a pile of rubble, but they will not yield to Putin or Russia. Russia has already become a pariah nation except among other pariah nations and that cant be good. Russia's economy will be in a shambles. there military has already been exposed and their linkage with China is in question. NATO has strengthened their resolve and Germany is finally going to be a full participant in NATO. Russia's economy, now smaller than Canadas will shrink dramatically. Putin will be gone, one way or another. As for Ukraine, they will receive enormous support from the West to rebuild and in that rebuilding, they will be much better equipped with armaments to discourage any of this Russian BS in the future. No matter when it ends, this will be the outcome.
Why do pharmaceutical / chemical companies get a free pass in not boycotting Russia? They should immediately stop suppling all of their products to Russia. A total boycott is what is needed for the Russian people to feel the pain they are causing world wide.
Please don't try to tell me about the poor Russians that might die because of the lack of medicines( medicines that they are profit greatly from). Or how the lack of fertilizers will just make the the food shortage worst. News flash, the Russians aren't going to send any food to the poor starving Ukrainians. Just the opposite, the Russians are doing everything in there power to starve the Ukrainians to death.
Please stop chemical / big pharma from profiting from the death and destruction of Ukraine.
Just so we all know how deranged Biden and his fellow clowns are, I decided to read the Joint Communique they cooked up with Ukraine in November 2021. This one is a beaut -"Guided by the April 3, 2008 Bucharest Summit Declaration of the NATO North Atlantic Council and as reaffirmed in the June 14, 2021 Brussels Summit Communique of the NATO North Atlantic Council, the United States supports Ukraine’s right to decide its own future foreign policy course free from outside interference, including with respect to Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO." Nothing like poking the bear, morons. And to make it worse, we did it when Ukraine wasn't either fully armed or ready to repel an invasion. Sort of like egging your little brother into fighting the neighborhood bully, saying "I got yer back, bro" and they yelling boxing advice as he gets the stuffing beat out of him. There is a cost for electing senile imbeciles and the Ukrainian are paying it along with the rest of us.
Oh and here's another beaut from that communique. In fact, given Biden's refusal to protect our borders, it's an absolute howler: "The United States remains committed to enhancing Ukraine’s ability to secure and police its borders, and to pursuing greater information sharing and law enforcement cooperation to counter international criminal and terrorist activity, including the trafficking of people, weapons, and narcotics." You just can't make this shit up.
Take note: Biden is courting Venezuela for oil now. He’s literally going to support a murderous authoritarian whose starved his own people before allowing US O&G expansion.
It takes a special hatred of America to do that, especially atop conceding to Iran.
That Iranian softness can start a real war in the Middle East well beyond anything before, because Israel knows to take Iran seriously. They will destroy Iran and take heavy losses long before Iran has a bomb.
The panelists do not reach far enough back to find the historical roots of this disaster. No mention of the blame that accrues to the Clinton Administration and it Slavophobic (or maybe pravoslaniphobic) Secretary of State Madeline Albright, and their mishandling of the wars of the Yugoslav dissolution. Picking Serbia, traditionally Russia's "little brother" as the sole villains in a war combining all the nastiness of a war of religion and a civil war with atrocities committed by all sides, not inviting Russia to play an equal role in an even-handed peacekeeping operation, nearly starting a war with Russia when they did move in peacekeepers (thank you Sir Michael Jackson for overruling the Russophobe lunatic Wesley Clark), and in no way befriending post-Soviet Russia during the Yeltsin years laid the foundation for this, on which more trampling of Russia's national interests not only NATO expansion, but the "color revolutions" overthrowing legitimately elected but pro-Russian governments built.
Has no one else noticed how Putin's rhetoric purporting to justify the invasion is in large part is a parody and mirror image of the rhetoric used by NATO to justify detaching Kosovo from Serbia? Breathless accusations of "genocide" when none is taking place, the same as was used by NATO in regards to Kosovo. This is not an accident.
Going on the transcript, I think all three participants argued in good faith, in response to good questions from Bari. The result was a useful, thought-provoking discussion. On balance, I felt that Francis Fukuyama's argument was more cogent than Niall Ferguson's opposing one. However, I have a problem with this:
"I do think you can trust the U.S. ... I think the Biden administration has pretty much lived up to its promises."
The problem, as governments all over the world are aware, is that the US electorate can no longer be counted on to install one trustworthy administration after another. Betrayal can always come within a few years, and not so much from elites in the foreign-relations establishment as from demagogues, corrupt or otherwise, who gain power over it.
A country in which the gatekeepers of politics and policy have been overwhelmed is neither a trustworthy partner nor a formidable obstacle in the eyes of foreign leaders.
Ukraine wasn't a real country until Putin invaded it last week? So Mykhailo Yalovy and the rest of the Ukrainian writers, artists and poets who were executed by Stalin decades ago weren't true Ukrainians, then?
The hold Trump has on the 'progressive' imagination is astonishing. I wouldn't vote for Trump for dogcatcher, but that doesn't prevent me from seeing he's a symptom, not the malady, and that leftist overreach contributes considerably to that malady. The left has never come to terms with the role it played in Trump's rise in the first place. If you look for 'deplorables' in the index of Hillary Clinton's post-2016 election book, What Happened, you'll find no entry. Ms. Clinton still has no clue what happened, and it's doubtful anybody at CNN or MSNBC does either.
Yes TDS is real and boring and pervasive. What I see on this blog forum is Trump Defense Syndrome. The roundtable podcast featured a diverse array of speakers and only 1/10 of the discussion was about Trump... yet he gets the headline in the forum because the right wants to loudly defend him.
That's dishonest... and silly. It's the "resistance" that's still obsessed with Trump, despite the fact that he's been out of office for a year, and defense is a natural enough reflex when you're constantly attacked. It doesn't require a 'syndrome.'
I agree the left is nuts and TDS is everywhere and it's incredibly boring. This is why I don't dance with lefists all day long. The people on this forum want to do nothing but dance with TDS obsessed leftists. The podcast was over 1 hour and less than 5 minutes dealt with Trump, yet here we are ignoring everything but Trump. It has always taken 2 to tango.
I don't know about the forum, but I have no interest in either attacking or defending Trump and it's my post to which you're replying, not a joint presentation from the forum. My concern is with a mode of cognition ideologues seem prone to, in which categorical classification ("right," "left," "sinner," "saved," etc.) replaces actual evaluation of arguments. It's an approach to sense-making straight out of the Middle Ages, when the only question that mattered was a classificatory one--"Are you Christian or pagan?"--as if the Enlightenment had never happened. Dismissing people whose views don't accord with one's own as 'phobic,' or suffering from a 'syndrome,' is a subset of this approach, and it's evasive whenever people resort to it no matter which part of the political spectrum they call home--an observation that has nothing to do with Trump.
Everything that has happened on the world's stage in the last 15 years appears to be a series of moves by two players on a large chess board. The game plan was agreed on and they execute accordingly, unwaivering and resolute in their final goals.
Yes, it sounds like another conspiracy theory, but it looks more and more probable given the events if you string them up in order.
So far, leaders of the free world have been bogged down with small stuff imposed on them by the cohort of useful idiots instead of preparing an adequate response and unified position.
People like me do not have solutions, but we need to be led by a leader whom we trust. In the this conversation, Niall was the only person I would cast my vote for.
The U.S. abrogration of the 1994 agreement to protect Ukraine independence (also signed by UK, Russia) weakens U.S. ability to sign any nuclear agreement with Iran (lack of trust now patent). Russia territorial expansion likely to escalate not only to Europe but also Latin America given recent visits of Bolsonaro, Fernandez to Moscow and contact between Putin and Maduro. This is likely to escalate and may threaten larger war. https://michaela34.substack.com/p/is-ukraine-violence-a-step-to-world?s=w
The United States abrogation of the 1994 agreement to protect the independence of Ukraine in return for Ukraine's dismantling of its nuclear arsenal (among the largest such nuclear arsenals on Earth) is an indicator of how weak the U.S. has become under Biden and how little other countries (I am thinking of Iran) can trust any agreement with the United States to limit its nuclear programs. Ukraine would almost certainly prefer to have kept its nuclear arms to being invaded by Russia, another signatory of the 1994 agreement who had no intention of abiding by it.
Thank you for seeing the elephant in the room. The U.S. , Russia and the U.K. promised to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity. We’re presently negotiating our defeat with Iran. We also gave Ghadafi guarantees to give up Libyan nukes. Much of this can be laid at the feet of Obama’s incompetence, but there is plenty of blame to go around. Some of my fellow readers overestimate Trump’s grasp of global affairs. We need to start electing grownups or we will continue to degrade a post WWII order that has advanced human dignity and freedom and reduced poverty unlike ANY period in history.
Very insightful!
A question was asked about the end game in the war. I think the only endgame that is clear right now is that Russia goes home. Anything else, unless he kills every Ukrainian is going to be war. Ukraine may end up a pile of rubble, but they will not yield to Putin or Russia. Russia has already become a pariah nation except among other pariah nations and that cant be good. Russia's economy will be in a shambles. there military has already been exposed and their linkage with China is in question. NATO has strengthened their resolve and Germany is finally going to be a full participant in NATO. Russia's economy, now smaller than Canadas will shrink dramatically. Putin will be gone, one way or another. As for Ukraine, they will receive enormous support from the West to rebuild and in that rebuilding, they will be much better equipped with armaments to discourage any of this Russian BS in the future. No matter when it ends, this will be the outcome.
Why do pharmaceutical / chemical companies get a free pass in not boycotting Russia? They should immediately stop suppling all of their products to Russia. A total boycott is what is needed for the Russian people to feel the pain they are causing world wide.
Please don't try to tell me about the poor Russians that might die because of the lack of medicines( medicines that they are profit greatly from). Or how the lack of fertilizers will just make the the food shortage worst. News flash, the Russians aren't going to send any food to the poor starving Ukrainians. Just the opposite, the Russians are doing everything in there power to starve the Ukrainians to death.
Please stop chemical / big pharma from profiting from the death and destruction of Ukraine.
Fukuyama seems as addlebrained as Biden. No wonder he admires him so much.
Just so we all know how deranged Biden and his fellow clowns are, I decided to read the Joint Communique they cooked up with Ukraine in November 2021. This one is a beaut -"Guided by the April 3, 2008 Bucharest Summit Declaration of the NATO North Atlantic Council and as reaffirmed in the June 14, 2021 Brussels Summit Communique of the NATO North Atlantic Council, the United States supports Ukraine’s right to decide its own future foreign policy course free from outside interference, including with respect to Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO." Nothing like poking the bear, morons. And to make it worse, we did it when Ukraine wasn't either fully armed or ready to repel an invasion. Sort of like egging your little brother into fighting the neighborhood bully, saying "I got yer back, bro" and they yelling boxing advice as he gets the stuffing beat out of him. There is a cost for electing senile imbeciles and the Ukrainian are paying it along with the rest of us.
Oh and here's another beaut from that communique. In fact, given Biden's refusal to protect our borders, it's an absolute howler: "The United States remains committed to enhancing Ukraine’s ability to secure and police its borders, and to pursuing greater information sharing and law enforcement cooperation to counter international criminal and terrorist activity, including the trafficking of people, weapons, and narcotics." You just can't make this shit up.
Fact: Russia invaded neighbors during three of the four US presidential admins of the 21st century so far. Bush, Obama, Biden
No we don’t have leaders up to the challenge.
Useful idiots, for the most part.
Take note: Biden is courting Venezuela for oil now. He’s literally going to support a murderous authoritarian whose starved his own people before allowing US O&G expansion.
It takes a special hatred of America to do that, especially atop conceding to Iran.
That Iranian softness can start a real war in the Middle East well beyond anything before, because Israel knows to take Iran seriously. They will destroy Iran and take heavy losses long before Iran has a bomb.
The panelists do not reach far enough back to find the historical roots of this disaster. No mention of the blame that accrues to the Clinton Administration and it Slavophobic (or maybe pravoslaniphobic) Secretary of State Madeline Albright, and their mishandling of the wars of the Yugoslav dissolution. Picking Serbia, traditionally Russia's "little brother" as the sole villains in a war combining all the nastiness of a war of religion and a civil war with atrocities committed by all sides, not inviting Russia to play an equal role in an even-handed peacekeeping operation, nearly starting a war with Russia when they did move in peacekeepers (thank you Sir Michael Jackson for overruling the Russophobe lunatic Wesley Clark), and in no way befriending post-Soviet Russia during the Yeltsin years laid the foundation for this, on which more trampling of Russia's national interests not only NATO expansion, but the "color revolutions" overthrowing legitimately elected but pro-Russian governments built.
Has no one else noticed how Putin's rhetoric purporting to justify the invasion is in large part is a parody and mirror image of the rhetoric used by NATO to justify detaching Kosovo from Serbia? Breathless accusations of "genocide" when none is taking place, the same as was used by NATO in regards to Kosovo. This is not an accident.
Putin also used the exact same reasons we went to Iraq, almost word-for-word.
And saying Putin is smart isn’t supporting the man. It is accurate.
Going on the transcript, I think all three participants argued in good faith, in response to good questions from Bari. The result was a useful, thought-provoking discussion. On balance, I felt that Francis Fukuyama's argument was more cogent than Niall Ferguson's opposing one. However, I have a problem with this:
"I do think you can trust the U.S. ... I think the Biden administration has pretty much lived up to its promises."
The problem, as governments all over the world are aware, is that the US electorate can no longer be counted on to install one trustworthy administration after another. Betrayal can always come within a few years, and not so much from elites in the foreign-relations establishment as from demagogues, corrupt or otherwise, who gain power over it.
A country in which the gatekeepers of politics and policy have been overwhelmed is neither a trustworthy partner nor a formidable obstacle in the eyes of foreign leaders.
Well said.
Bari, it would be great if you could interview someone who can chronicle the relationship between the Bidens and Ukraine. Show us the money.
I am really tired of people like FF who make a big deal about Trump’s comments and choice of words while ignoring the corruption of the Bidens.
Ukraine wasn't a real country until Putin invaded it last week? So Mykhailo Yalovy and the rest of the Ukrainian writers, artists and poets who were executed by Stalin decades ago weren't true Ukrainians, then?
You are grotesque, Mr. Fukuyama.
Presumably, Mr. Fukuyama is part of the 1% who can, but it doesn't seem to have aided his judgment.
I'm here to marvel at how readers have turned the entire roundtable conversation into a referendum on Trump.
The hold Trump has on the 'progressive' imagination is astonishing. I wouldn't vote for Trump for dogcatcher, but that doesn't prevent me from seeing he's a symptom, not the malady, and that leftist overreach contributes considerably to that malady. The left has never come to terms with the role it played in Trump's rise in the first place. If you look for 'deplorables' in the index of Hillary Clinton's post-2016 election book, What Happened, you'll find no entry. Ms. Clinton still has no clue what happened, and it's doubtful anybody at CNN or MSNBC does either.
Yes TDS is real and boring and pervasive. What I see on this blog forum is Trump Defense Syndrome. The roundtable podcast featured a diverse array of speakers and only 1/10 of the discussion was about Trump... yet he gets the headline in the forum because the right wants to loudly defend him.
That's dishonest... and silly. It's the "resistance" that's still obsessed with Trump, despite the fact that he's been out of office for a year, and defense is a natural enough reflex when you're constantly attacked. It doesn't require a 'syndrome.'
I agree the left is nuts and TDS is everywhere and it's incredibly boring. This is why I don't dance with lefists all day long. The people on this forum want to do nothing but dance with TDS obsessed leftists. The podcast was over 1 hour and less than 5 minutes dealt with Trump, yet here we are ignoring everything but Trump. It has always taken 2 to tango.
I don't know about the forum, but I have no interest in either attacking or defending Trump and it's my post to which you're replying, not a joint presentation from the forum. My concern is with a mode of cognition ideologues seem prone to, in which categorical classification ("right," "left," "sinner," "saved," etc.) replaces actual evaluation of arguments. It's an approach to sense-making straight out of the Middle Ages, when the only question that mattered was a classificatory one--"Are you Christian or pagan?"--as if the Enlightenment had never happened. Dismissing people whose views don't accord with one's own as 'phobic,' or suffering from a 'syndrome,' is a subset of this approach, and it's evasive whenever people resort to it no matter which part of the political spectrum they call home--an observation that has nothing to do with Trump.
Everything that has happened on the world's stage in the last 15 years appears to be a series of moves by two players on a large chess board. The game plan was agreed on and they execute accordingly, unwaivering and resolute in their final goals.
Yes, it sounds like another conspiracy theory, but it looks more and more probable given the events if you string them up in order.
So far, leaders of the free world have been bogged down with small stuff imposed on them by the cohort of useful idiots instead of preparing an adequate response and unified position.
People like me do not have solutions, but we need to be led by a leader whom we trust. In the this conversation, Niall was the only person I would cast my vote for.
The U.S. abrogration of the 1994 agreement to protect Ukraine independence (also signed by UK, Russia) weakens U.S. ability to sign any nuclear agreement with Iran (lack of trust now patent). Russia territorial expansion likely to escalate not only to Europe but also Latin America given recent visits of Bolsonaro, Fernandez to Moscow and contact between Putin and Maduro. This is likely to escalate and may threaten larger war. https://michaela34.substack.com/p/is-ukraine-violence-a-step-to-world?s=w
The United States abrogation of the 1994 agreement to protect the independence of Ukraine in return for Ukraine's dismantling of its nuclear arsenal (among the largest such nuclear arsenals on Earth) is an indicator of how weak the U.S. has become under Biden and how little other countries (I am thinking of Iran) can trust any agreement with the United States to limit its nuclear programs. Ukraine would almost certainly prefer to have kept its nuclear arms to being invaded by Russia, another signatory of the 1994 agreement who had no intention of abiding by it.
The Ukraine may well be a first step in Russian territorial expansion not only in Europe but also in Latin America, and could be a step that will lead to a larger and more dangerous war. https://michaela34.substack.com/p/is-ukraine-violence-a-step-to-world?s=w
Thank you for seeing the elephant in the room. The U.S. , Russia and the U.K. promised to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity. We’re presently negotiating our defeat with Iran. We also gave Ghadafi guarantees to give up Libyan nukes. Much of this can be laid at the feet of Obama’s incompetence, but there is plenty of blame to go around. Some of my fellow readers overestimate Trump’s grasp of global affairs. We need to start electing grownups or we will continue to degrade a post WWII order that has advanced human dignity and freedom and reduced poverty unlike ANY period in history.
FF totally suffering from TDS he could not make a decent comment or sentence about President Trump very sad don’t rate him at all