Tag: perpetual war

US Resumes Military Aid, Intelligence Sharing for Ukraine

The Trump administration has lifted its pause on military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine following talks between US and Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

US officials said the move came after Ukraine signaled it was open to a 30-day ceasefire if Russia agreed.

“Ukraine expressed readiness to accept the US proposal to enact an immediate, interim 30-day ceasefire, which can be extended by mutual agreement of the parties, and which is subject to acceptance and concurrent implementation by the Russian Federation,” the US and Ukraine said in a joint statement.

“The United States will communicate to Russia that Russian reciprocity is the key to achieving peace. The United States will immediately lift the pause on intelligence sharing and resume security assistance to Ukraine,” the statement added.

The joint statement also said that “both countries’ presidents agreed to conclude as soon as possible a comprehensive agreement for developing Ukraine’s critical mineral resources to expand Ukraine’s economy and guarantee Ukraine’s long-term prosperity and security.”

So far, there’s been no reaction from Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously rejected the idea of a temporary ceasefire, saying in January that he wouldn’t accept “some kind of respite for regrouping forces and rearmament with the aim of subsequently continuing the conflict” and that he wanted a “long-term peace based on respect for the legitimate interests of all people, all nations living in this region.”

Moscow also has the momentum on the battlefield on its side as its forces continue to make gains in eastern Ukraine and are pushing Ukrainian troops out of Russia’s Kursk Oblast.

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What happens if the robot army is defeated?

Many of the national security establishment’s leading voices say America’s military needs to rapidly modernize by embracing the digital future through adopting Artificial Intelligence, network-centric warfare, and uncrewed weapons.

Some even claim that such technology has already fundamentally changed the nature of war. The Pentagon’s technologists and the leaders of the tech industry envision a future of an AI-enabled military force wielding swarms of autonomous weapons on land, at sea, and in the skies.

However, before the United States fully mortgages its security to software code and integrated circuits, several questions must be addressed. Assuming the military does one day build a force with an uncrewed front rank, what happens if the robot army is defeated? Will the nation’s leaders surrender at that point, or do they then send in the humans?

The next major question is, what weapons will the humans wield? It is difficult to imagine the services will maintain parallel fleets of digital and analog weapons. Judging by current trends, Pentagon leaders are much more likely to invest the bulk of their procurement budgets in purchasing autonomous or “optionally manned” systems like the XM30 Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle.

Those promoting such a future appear ignorant of a very simple truth: war is a human endeavor. Wars are fought to serve human ends. The weapons used are only the means to achieve those ends.

The humans on both sides of a conflict will seek every advantage possible to secure a victory. When a weapon system is connected to the network, the means to remotely defeat it is already built into the design. The humans on the other side would be foolish not to unleash their cyber warriors to find any way to penetrate the network to disrupt cyber-physical systems.

The United States may find that the future military force may not even cross the line of departure because it has been remotely disabled in a digital Pearl Harbor-style attack.

Technology certainly has its place in the military. Uncrewed aerial vehicles fill many of the roles traditionally performed by pilots flying expensive aircraft to take just one example. In certain circumstances, troops on the front lines should have the ability to employ technology directly.

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Europe has gone mad

The EU’s obstinacy regarding the Ukraine issue is striking and demonstrates a profound disconnect from reality. The war is lost, yet Europe appears oblivious to this fact. Instead of acknowledging defeat, EU politicians, in their deluded state, seem to be plotting a second phase of the conflict. They claim they can win this war without U.S. support, but what if they fail? Will they then beg for a ceasefire?

Let us revisit history. The Minsk 1 and 2 agreements, signed between Germany, France, Ukraine, and Russia (2014-2015), were meant to halt the fighting and grant the Donbass region some form of autonomy within Ukraine. However, Zelensky, despite his election promises of rapprochement with Russia, had other plans. He aimed to reclaim Crimea and bring the Donbass under his control, escalating the bombing campaigns. By January 2022, the bombardment of Donbass intensified, resulting in numerous civilian casualties, particularly in Donetsk.

It later emerged that the former British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and the U.S. (under the Biden Administration) had instructed Zelensky not to make peace with Russia. We recall the negotiations in Turkey that led to the Istanbul Communiqué, which proposed that Ukraine abandon its NATO aspirations, impose military restrictions, and secure Western support in case of aggression. The talks nearly reached an agreement, with both sides considering significant concessions, but abruptly halted in May 2022. The West, uninterested in peace, sought Russia’s downfall, and the process was derailed following the alleged “false flag” incident in Bucha.

With the arrival of the new administration under the leadership of Donald Trump, efforts are underway to broker a sustainable peace treaty between Ukraine and Russia – not merely a ceasefire, but lasting peace. However, Ukraine’s stance has stalled progress. While the U.S. claims it doesn’t need Ukraine or Europe for peace, this is, of course, nonsensical. The resolution must come from Ukraine and Russia, even if the U.S. (under the Biden Administration) instigated the conflict. A peace treaty or capitulation is essential.

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Is Russia At War With Ukraine, Or With The West?

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock this week, on entering a “new era of nefariousness”:

I say clearly and across the Atlantic, what is right and what is wrong shall never be irrelevant to us. No one wants and no one needs peace more than the Ukrainians and Ukraine. The diplomatic efforts of the U.S. are of course important here. But such a peace must be just and lasting and not just a pause until the next attack… We will never accept a perpetrator-victim reversal. A perpetrator-victim reversal would be… the end of security for the vast majority of countries. And it would be fatal for the future of the United States.

Baerbock’s declaration that a “perpetrator-victim reversal” (a Täteropferumkehr, I’m reliably informed) would be “fatal” to the U.S. was historic. It was accompanied by a promise that “as transatlantacists,” Europeans must “stand up for our own interests, our own values, and our own security.” Although new leaders are ready to take the reins in Germany, she said, there can be no waiting for the transfer of power. Immediately, “Germany must take the lead at this historic milestone.”

A few years ago Baerbock pleaded for patience with a British conservative who demanded to know why Germany wasn’t providing Leopard tanks to Ukraine.

Now, with Donald Trump cutting off weapons deliveries and shutting down access to ATACMS missiles, Baerbock’s speech is an expression of more enthusiastic European support for continued fighting.

The war in Ukraine is often called a proxy conflict between Russia and the West or Russia and the U.S., but it increasingly looks more like a fight between Baerbock’s “transatlanticists” and those who believe in “spheres of influence.” In preparing Racket’s accompanying “Timeline: The War in Ukraine,” I found both sides articulated this idea repeatedly.

In January, 2017, as he was preparing to relinquish his seat to Mike Pence, Joe Biden alluded to the recent election of Donald Trump in a speech at Davos. Describing the “dangerous willingness to revert to political small-mindedness” of “popular movements on both the left and right,” Biden explained:

We hear these voices in the West—but the greatest threats on this front spring from the distinct illiberalism of external actors who equate their success with a fracturing of the liberal international order. We see this in Asia and the Middle East… But I will not mince words. This movement is principally led by Russia.

Biden even then lumped Trump and Putin together, as enemies of the “liberal international order.” Russian counterparts like Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, meanwhile, spoke of a “post-West world order” where diplomatic relations would be based on “sovereignty” and the “national interests of partners.” These are two fundamentally irreconcilable worldviews. Was conflict inevitable, or could peace have held if Russia didn’t strike in 2022?

There’s no question who invaded whom. Hostilities began in February, 2022 with an angry speech by Vladimir Putin and bombs that landed minutes later in Ukraine. Little discussion of the “why” of the war took place in the West, however.

Phrases like “unprovoked aggression” became almost mandatory in Western coverage. Politico interviewed a range of experts and concluded that what Putin wanted was “a revanchist imperialist remaking of the globe to take control of the entire former Soviet space.” This diagnosis of Putin’s invasion as part of a Hitlerian quest for Lebensraum and a broader return to national glory might have merit, but it was also conspicuously uncontested. A differing article by University of Chicago professor John Mearshimer declaring the crisis “the West’s fault” made him, as The New Statesman just put it, “the world’s most hated thinker.” Few went there after.

Russians and Ukrainians don’t have the typical profiles of ancient warring tribes. They have a deeply intertwined history, with citizens of both countries retaining many of the same customs, jokes, and home remedies, while living in the same crumbling Soviet buildings, with fondness for the same cabbage soup and moonshine. There are huge numbers of mixed/bilingual families and many famous cultural figures (including my hero Nikolai Gogol) are claimed by both countries. They’ve fought before, but what jumped out reviewing this “Timeline” is how much it seemed that these old Slavic neighbors mostly fall out now over attitudes toward the West.

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Zelensky Must Prepare Elections, Cede Territory To End The War: Trump Admin

The Trump White House wants Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to begin planning elections or else consider stepping down as a condition for the resumption of US military aid and intelligence sharing, a fresh NBC report reveals. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also said Monday that Ukraine must cede territory.

Ukraine “would have to make concessions over land that Russia had taken since 2014 as part of any agreement to end the war,” The NY Times reports. “The most important thing that we have to leave here with is a strong sense that Ukraine is prepared to do difficult things, like the Russians are going to have to do difficult things, to end this conflict or at least pause it in some way, shape or form,” Rubio told reporters as he flew from the US to Jeddah – as quoted in multiple outlets.

American and Ukrainian officials are meeting in Saudi Arabia. The question of elections in Ukraine, which have been canceled indefinitely under martial law, has moved to the forefront also as pressure is still on for Kiev to sign the minerals deal.

“As President Trump demonstrated by reading President Zelenskyy’s message at the joint session, the Ukrainians have made positive movement. With meetings in Saudi this coming week, we look forward to hearing more positive movement that will hopefully ultimately end this brutal war and bloodshed,” White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said this weekend when asked about Trump’s requirements.

Rubio in Riyadh has further explained, “The important point in this meeting is to establish clearly their intentions, their desire, as they’ve said publicly now numerous times, to reach a point where peace is possible,” Rubio said of Tuesday’s delegation meeting with the Ukrainians. “And then we’ll have to determine how far they are from the Russian position, which we don’t know yet either. And then once you understand where both sides truly are, it gives you a sense of how big the divide is and how hard it’s going to be.”

There’s widespread acknowledgement in Washington that Ukrainian forces will never be able to pry the four annexed territories in the east back from Russia.

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Is This the Beginning or the End of a New Cold War?

When European Union leaders met in Brussels on February 6th to discuss the war in Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron called this time “a turning point in history.” Western leaders agree that this is an historic moment when decisive action is needed, but what kind of action depends on their interpretation of the nature of this moment.

Is this the beginning of a new Cold War between the U.S., NATO and Russia or the end of one? Will Russia and the West remain implacable enemies for the foreseeable future, with a new iron curtain between them through what was once the heart of Ukraine? Or can the United States and Russia resolve the disputes and hostility that led to this war in the first place, so as to leave Ukraine with a stable and lasting peace?

Some European leaders see this moment as the beginning of a long struggle with Russia, akin to the beginning of the Cold War in 1946, when Winston Churchill warned that “an iron curtain has descended” across Europe.

On March 2nd, echoing Churchill, European Council President Ursula von der Leyen declared that Europe must turn Ukraine into a “steel porcupine.” President Zelenskyy has said he wants up to 200,000 European troops on the eventual ceasefire line between Russia and Ukraine to “guarantee” any peace agreement, and insists that the United States must provide a “backstop,” meaning a commitment to send U.S. forces to fight in Ukraine if war breaks out again.

Russia has repeatedly said it won’t agree to NATO forces being based in Ukraine under any guise. “We explained today that the appearance of armed forces from the same NATO countries, but under a false flag, under the flag of the European Union or under national flags, does not change anything in this regard,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on February 18. “Of course this is unacceptable to us.”

But the U.K. is persisting in a campaign to recruit a “coalition of the willing,” the same term the U.S. and U.K. coined for the list of countries they persuaded to support the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. In that case, only Australia, Denmark and Poland took small parts in the invasion, Costa Rica publicly insisted on being removed from the list, and the term was widely lampooned as the “coalition of the billing” because the U.S. recruited so many countries to join it by promising them lucrative foreign aid deals.

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Here Are the Exposed Truths after the DC Dust-Up Settles

Our language provides a number of terms describing a conflict that arises because of misdirection or ill-guided feelings. Such is a brouhaha; dust-up; donnybrook; fracas; or row, among many other terms. All describe a heated conflict that prevents a rational understanding. But eventually the “dust-up” clears, the dust settles and the rational exposes the asininities that provoked the furor.

The “dust-up” of President Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Zelensky illustrate truths that the Democrats/RINOS/Deep State Bureaucrats are attempting to forever erase. They seek to make President Trump and his current Administration look like the baddest of the bad guys. The behavior of the “opposition” to President Trump is a lengthy list of dunderheaded lies, poisoned history, and delusional pipe dreams.

The dust has settled and truths are now clarified

FIRST, the Russo/Ukrainian disaster is owned by the Democrats!

This point has been buried. The D’s are incensed because of Russia’s actions. They willingly fail to admit that BHO was the cause of this conflict. Repeatedly stated, but ignored, is the truth that had President Trump been President of the USA, Russia would have never invaded Ukraine in 2014. How conveniently the open mike of BHO conversation been erased from the current discussion.

The D’s/RINOS delete this event prior to Russia’s invasion into Ukraine and the USA sitting complicitly. “This is my last election, and after my election I’ll have more flexibility,” Obama said to Medvedev after their bilateral meeting, according to audio picked up by television cameras that apparently was not intended to be heard by reporters. “I understand,” Medvedev replied. “I will transmit this information to Vladimir (Putin).”

President Trump’s administration has been tougher on Russia than either BHO or Biden. BHO allowed Russia to annex Crimea and only offered them “pillows and blankets.” President Trump stated, “I’m the one that gave Ukraine offensive weapons and tank killers. Obama didn’t. You know what he sent? He sent pillows and blankets. I’m the one — and he’s the one that gave away a part of Ukraine where Russia annexed it,” Trump said in a “60 Minutes” interview.

SECOND, the flagrant disrespect is appalling!

“House rules” is a common sense governing in behavior. Whether it is within one’s personal house, in the community mores, in personal visits outside of one’s country, or especially in the norms expected in official meetings. You will not be well-received if you come into my home and disrespect the basic boundaries. In fact, you will be shown the door with the greatest possible haste!

Disrespect has been exposed in the intention of the visit…Zelensky had already signed with the UK an agreement on January 16 regarding “nine key pillars” of cooperation for “100 years.” One key point in the announcement was the following: It also cements the UK as a preferred partner for Ukraine’s energy sector, critical minerals strategy and green steel production. As Joe Hoft notes, “Although still not to be confirmed, some believe that this entire agreement includes the fact that Ukraine gave the rights of its minerals to the UK.”

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Visualizing Washington’s Key Role In Military Aid To Ukraine

As doubts over future American support for Ukraine and the Trump administration’s commitment to NATO loom large, European leaders have rallied to assure Ukraine of its unwavering support and to become more independent of their transatlantic partner. 

On Thursday, leaders gathered for a special European Council meeting, where the future of Europe’s security and the bloc’s role in Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression was discussed.

“This is a watershed moment for Europe. And it is also a watershed moment for Ukraine, as part of our European family,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said in a statement. 

“Europe faces a clear and present danger. And therefore, Europe has to be able to protect itself, to defend itself, as we have to put Ukraine in a position to protect itself, and to push for a lasting and just peace.”

As Statista’s Felix Richter reports, to be able to negotiate a “peace through strength”, as von der Leyen put it, the EU must quickly ramp up its military aid to Ukraine after U.S. President Donald Trump paused U.S. military support earlier this week. 

According to the IfW Kiel’s Ukraine Support Tracker, the EU’s 27 member states have allocated a total of $53.8 billion in military aid to Ukraine between January 24, 2022 and December 31, 2024. 

That’s equivalent to 39 percent of total military aid supplied to Ukraine during that time and roughly $15 billion short of what the U.S. supplied. 

Adding contributions from European non-EU members Norway and the UK, Europe’s military aid to Ukraine was roughly on par with U.S. support so far, meaning it would have to double its investment if the U.S. were to withdraw its support permanently.

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Was October 7 Avoidable?

After the Hamas-led offensive of October 7, 2023, it was portrayed as “Israel’s 9/11,” which came out of the blue. Yet, this assumption is not supported by verified facts, including ignored intelligence, abandoned hostages and neglected Israeli communities around Gaza.

A day after October 7, Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer said that the “massive attacks by Hamas leadership into Israel… is no less than Israel’s 9/11.” By contrast, in the same interview for CNBC, I said that October 7 did not come out of the blue. “The Israeli-Hamas War is a logical result of 50 years of failed military policies.” Our views were diametrically opposed.

I had warned of the ticking time bomb in Gaza already in 2018, half a decade before. A day or two before October 7, I wrote an essay on the coming explosion in Gaza. It was not prophetic insight. October 7, 2023, was the 50-year anniversary of the Yom Kippur War and I fully expected a high-profile reaction.

After the brutal Hamas-led assault, Israeli authorities vehemently condemned what they called “our September 11” and a “surprise attack.” But the hard questions were conveniently ignored – and still are.

A week ago, the Israeli Defense Forces’ landmark investigations into the October 7 attack disclosed severe, deep-rooted intelligence miscalculations and fundamental misconceptions on the nature of Hamas and its intentions by both the Israeli government and military. Probing the same attack, Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, recently pointed fingers at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  Typically, the prime mistakes featured the political conception of Hamas as an Israeli asset, the intelligence misjudgment that it couldn’t launch a large-scale attack, and weak defensive deployment.

The intriguing part of the story is that these facts were pretty well known already in the first days after October 7, 2023 – that is, more than a year ago – as I argue in The Fall of Israel. And there is more to the story.

Why was the abundant intelligence on the impending Hamas attack deliberately ignored? Why were the Israeli hostages effectively abandoned? Why were the strategic border communities neglected? With all its might, backed up with U.S. military aid and financing, how did Israel fail to see the writing on the wall? 

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Pausing Aid to Ukraine: The World Should Have Seen It Coming

At the end of June, 2024, the world got its first glimpse at what Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Ukraine in one day might look like. Retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg and former CIA analyst Fred Fleitz submitted a plan to then candidate Trump. In an interview, Kellogg revealed that U.S. leverage would have two fronts. The first is you tell Putin, “He’s got to come to the table and if you don’t come to the table, then we’ll give Ukrainians everything they need to kill you in the field.” And the second is, “We tell the Ukrainians, ‘You’ve got to come to the table, and if you don’t come to the table, support from the United States will dry up.’”

Keith Kellogg now serves as Trump’s special presidential envoy for Ukraine and Russia.

The threat could not have been clearer: continued aid was conditional on Ukraine’s willingness to negotiate an end to the war, and if they were not, then U.S. aid would stop. Knowing that clear conditional, Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, sealed his fate with two sentences.

In the televised February 28 meeting at the White House, U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance repeated the Trump policy that “the path to peace” is not the path of war, but the path of “engaging in diplomacy.” Zelensky publicly attempted to refute him with the historically revisionist objection that negotiations with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, is impossible because Putin cannot be trusted not to break the agreements he signs in negotiations.  “What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about?” Zelensky objected. “What do you mean?”

Zelensky rejected negotiations as the path to peace. But willingness to travel that path was the condition for continued aid. “If you don’t come to the table,” the plan said, “support from the United States will dry up.’”

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