Yesterday I was at an event at the American Heritage Museum in Hudson MA. They had a parade of World War 2 Tanks: Stewarts, Shermans and a Jackson. For those with money to burn you could actually ride in said tanks and if you had a LOT of dough to burn you could even getting a driving lesson or two.
Their collection of items from a Russian T-34 to a German Panther and a British Matilda and lots more. It was like a living exhibit of the book Great Weapons of World War II, they also has tanks and planes from later eras as well as other exhibits.
But the real prize of a 103 year old gentleman who served in the Pacific both in New Guinea and in the Philippines at the same time as my father. My sons born in the 1990’s have known few such men while in my youth I was surrounded by those like him who had seen combat in World War 2. I met plenty when my dad took me to the local VFW and such events. I found myself very moved when I realized that this was likely the last such man I would ever meet.
And that, in a round about way brings me to Russia, the talks between Trump and Putin and the attempt to end this war.
Before anything considers this one must look at Russia honestly, for all the efforts of Peter the Great and all the perceptions of elites, Russia is not a western country, it’s people are not western people and it does not think like a western people.
Russia is a country that suffered defeats. They lost small wars to Japan and Poland in the last 150 years and had massive defeats both in Europe and in Russia proper to the armies of Napoleon and Hitler before their armies eventually marched to victory in bringing down both Napoleon with the help of the Brits and Prussians and Hitler with the help of America and England.
No Russian leader will forget that in each of the previous two centuries they were invaded by the single greatest war machine in the world of the time and both had to be repelled at great cost. In us the Russians face the greatest war machine in the history of history. No amount of assurances, deals or negotiation is going to convince any Russian leader that the west does not have designs on their territory and or their vast resources.
Furthermore they remember that at one time the Ukraine was the bread basket of Russia and that the Baltic states and Poland once flew their flag.
Their misadventure in Ukraine (which they see internally as protecting a Russian minority as well as reclaiming a chunk of “historical” Russia) is in many ways a way to create a larger buffer between Russia proper and western armies.
When I say “misadventure” I’m referring to their reverses. The Ukrainians who have no business beating a world power who dwarfs them in population and arms have been stubborn, creative and have managed quite a few moves to set a complacent Russia on their heels but the reality is this:
Ukraine can not win a war of attrition: Eventually they will run out of manpower while Russia can bring not only their own troops but North Korean troops to the fight. Basically they’re in the same position as Lee being driven towards the siege of Petersburg. They can make some impressive moves but It’s only a matter of time.
The only way that Lee could have been saved would have been massive intervention by a foreign power but England was not going to war to save the Southern Confederacy and France was not going to war without England.
In the same way the only way Putin can be defeated militarily would be if west decided on open war.
Europe will not go to war without America and the bottom line is America is not going to risk a war that at best would cost tens of thousands of lives and at worst will result in a nuclear exchange that would not spare the American mainland not to mention what would happen to eastern Europe when the scourge of the last World War is still in living memory.
There are plenty of self righteous keyboard warriors who have no problem with hundreds of thousands of Americans and others sent to Ukraine to risk death as they sit far away imagining themselves immune to the costs but to those of us who live in the real world and understand how many men like the old gentlemen I met yesterday didn’t come back think twice before committing our young men to the risk of death in a fight that frankly isn’t ours.
That being said a deal must be made, such a deal has to take into account the realities on the ground plus understanding that you don’t want Putin to be in a situation where a more belligerent rival will replace him on the promise of winning a war he lost.
Thus Trump will negotiate with a goal of preserving as much of Ukraine as possible as an independent state with the ability to defend itself while taking into account both what the Russians currently hold and the ethnic issues of Russians in said area.
It’s not going to be easy anything short of Putin begging for forgiveness will be painted as a defeat by the left and anything that doesn’t give Putin sovereignty over most if not all of Donbas will likely cause grief to the Russian hawks, but only quietly as Putin is still Putin.
Let’s hope Trump can pull it off, if anyone can it’s him.
A final thought, all of this was made possible by Joe Biden & Co who signaled to Putin that he had no issue with him going to take the Donbass (the media might have forgotten Biden’s words before and at the start of the invasion but I haven’t). Putin seeing Biden for what he was, a weak horse not actually in charge, decided to go all in and try to take the lot rather than grabbing the piece old Joe’s team thought he was going for. For all his faults (and he has PLENTY) if Zelenskyy doesn’t very publicly turn down Biden offer of escape and declared he would stay and fight we might be talking about Russia threatening Moldovia or even Belarus, assuming he didn’t gobble them up while the weak Biden admin was his only threat.
If Trump adds peace in Ukraine via a deal that preserves Ukrainian independence to his already impressive case for the Nobel based on his peace efforts worldwide, the prize will likely be automatic. If it happens we must remember that whatever else I might think and whatever else he has done the reason why there will be a Ukraine still there for Trump to save was because of Zelenskyy.
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