Timothy Birdnow

I guess Zelensky thinks the West is full of suckers.

Zelensky told Sky News he would accept peace for Nato membership

Here's what he is proposing; immediate peace (since he's losing the war) but only for IMMEDIATE Nato membership. Oh, and Nato must "recognise Ukraine's internationally recognised borders" even if Russia won't immediately have to hand over the occupied territory.

In other words he's trying to drag NATO into the fight. If NATO recognizes the Ukraine's borders prior to the invasion it means Russia is an invading army and NATO will be obligated to go to war on her behalf.

That guy is one piece of work.

It was threats of Ukraine joining NATO that led to the invasion in the first place and Putin has stateed repeatedly he will withdraw from Ukrainian territory if he gets a guarantee the former Soviet Republic does not join the anti-Russian coalition (which is what NATO is and always was.) Granted, Mr. Putin is not scrupulous with his word, and he would find a loophole if it suits him.

I said it before and I'll say it again; Putin cannot be perceived to lose this war. If he loses he will be deposed - and killed. He will do anything in his power to win, or at least save face. Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese military philosopher, admonished generals to "leave a golden bridge of retreat" for an enemy les they fight to the death. Biden and his friends refused to offer such a bridge to Putin, and thus old Put has dug in his heels. Trump has read his Tzu and knows he needs to give Putin a way out. If he gets sucked into the "our way or the highway" mentality Putin will escalate. He could well use tactical nukes and dare America to respond in kind. A game of nuclear chicken is one we almost certainly will lose. How do you launch the Big One for a tactical strike on battlefield troops? It seems unlikely to happen.

This is, of course, the last thing Putin wants to do. But he will do it if his own survival is at stake. And the Russian People don't see things the way we do; they see a coalition of hated foreign powers allied against them, and backing up the upstart Ukraine, which they still view as a Russian province. They fear a Ukrainian victory in a way we cannot fully understand. It's more akin to fearing Soviet troops invading California back during the Cold War. We don't think that way towards Russia, which we now view as a rude kid on the playground, but to them we are still the great enemy, largely because we have aCTED like their great enemy, and also because they rightly understand we are trying to suck their country dry and bring it into the amorphous mass of Europe as a colonized region. The Russians are paranoid,but they aren't entirely wrong.

so this proposal by Zelensky is nothing but another effort to bring the U.S. into the war. Trump is going to have to impose peace on these two dimwitted autocrats through financial pressures and make it stick. It will not be an easy task.

But it won't be that hard either; all we need to do to get Zelensky on board is to threaten to cut off the money and arms. He'll fall in line if we do. Putin will fold when the price of oil and gas go down; he'll run out of money. We can help that along with an oil and gas embargo, one we make stick.

This situation was  avoidable and has been solvable all along. Mr. Biden and the War Hawks just never wanted  a peaceful solution.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 01:04 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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