I’m very happy about Trump’s statements on the Crimea. Now I will finally see fewer starry-eyed Ukrainians babble how Trump will be a great help to Ukraine against Russia. I hope he keeps talking.
Trump and the Crimea
Opinions, art, debate
Clarissa's Blog 
I agree with you wholeheartedly ! Hope hastag #ТрампНаш takes off . I really like the way Trump translates to Tramp in Russian. ha ha
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Great hash tag. 😍😍😍
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what would you like done on crimea? 0% chance putin will ever give it up..its core strategic asset for a warm water port.
If he traded crimea for:
1) unconditional support to destory isis and replace assad
2) strict agreement to end all forces and support to rest of ukraine rebels in the east (enforced by UN like body)
3) closer economic integration with EU and NATO to de-escelate long-term hostilities.
Would you take the deal?
Likely a multi-year negotiation but Icould see russia / putin agreeing to something like this, and i think it serves pretty much everyone’s interest. this is the type of stuff / deals i thinkk many beliver are POSSIBLE (not guaranteed by any stretch) with trump as the leader.
I envision a shrill, insult riddled response, but if you have by chance want to address the serious policy questions i mentioned i would be curious of your objection to such a proposal
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What the Obama administration is doing is working very well.
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What is the Obama administration doing regarding Ukraine (or ANY foreign policy issue) that isn’t a total failure of leadership?
Putin is supporting Trump because Putin knows that Hillary is lying when she claims that she wants to continue Obama’s disastrous “leading from behind” foreign policy. If she’s elected — and I think she will be, baring some major external factor like a significant terrorist attack before the election — at least she’ll restore American leadership on the world stage.
(This is NOT an endorsement of Hillary!! But at least she understands the use of international power.)
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I can’t tell if you are being sarcastic?
Clinton was a huge part of obama’s strategy in syria and libya, complete disasters. It is impossible to know who gave what counsel exactly, but here is hillary (and obama’s partly) record:
1) hillary endorses iraq, not in itself 100% bad, but sure bad in hindsight
2) she then opposed surge (some reports due to politics.. shudder at that) which worked
3) she then did not advocate / persuade obama to keep meaningful status of forces agreement in iraq, lleading to isis conditions (combined with 4)
4) let assad terrorize country, then obama fails to enforce red line
5) isis grows and they do not do enough to defeat it
6) advocated for libya invasion, wihtout committing long-term stability forces, leaving power vaccuum
I just don’t think this lends itself to sound policy judgement in the least
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“It is impossible to know who gave what counsel exactly, but here is hillary (and obama’s partly) record”
They’re called Neo-cons (aka “Worst people ever”) Neo-cons are not a strictly partisan affair and they’ve pretty much controlled the foreign policy of both parties for some time now. They’ve also been horribly, catastrophically wrong about almost everything.
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I wasn’t discussing Libya. I was answering a question about the Crimea. My answer was that the US strategy of sanctions against Russia is working.
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“If he traded crimea for:
1) unconditional support to destory isis and replace assad
2) strict agreement to end all forces and support to rest of ukraine rebels in the east (enforced by UN like body)
3) closer economic integration with EU and NATO to de-escelate long-term hostilities.”
What about if he traded it for some magic beans? Would you take that deal?
Also, you might want to go to wikipedia and look up Sudetenland (it’s German for “Crimea”).
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Any concession to Putin is seen by the Russians as a sign of weakness and makes them believe that further concessions will be possible. The strategy of “let’s give them this if they promise not to ask for more” is the worst possible one.
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Yep, Russia unfortunately ultimately didn’t end up being satisfied with Crimea and Donbass (hence its invasion of the rest of Ukraine last year). 😦 Just further proof that quenching an aggressor’s hunger isn’t always a good move. 😦
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Not at all comparable to sudetenland as balance of power is way different than hitller in 1938.. know a little more than you think buddy boy
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“this is the type of stuff / deals i think many believe are POSSIBLE (not guaranteed by any stretch) with trump as the leader.”
Out of curiosity, why would anyone think that Trump has the ability or the background necessary to negotiate complex political agreements?
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Because Trump says he’s great at making deals. And if he says so, it’s got to be true.
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Real estate is probably most political of all business deals..
Trump least ideological president in modern history (not worried about party reputation), allowing him to focus on rational solution that is m, utually beneficial
He has few / limited / no ties to military industrial complex so will not instigate meaningless war, particularly against russia who has little reason to want to attack us
Those are possible reasons. Is it guaranteed it will work no, but there is certainly plausible reasons that trump hillary’s dubious foreign war conduct that i highlighted in another comment
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“Trump least ideological president in modern history (not worried about party reputation), allowing him to focus on rational solution that is m, utually beneficial”
Let’s not jump the gun, he’s not president yet (and hopefully won’t be, his biggest service wouldn’t come from winning).
“He has few / limited / no ties to military industrial complex so will not instigate meaningless war, particularly against russia who has little reason to want to attack us”
Dude. Learn Russian or at least find a way to pay attention to what Russians are told in the media. There is no dumber approach to the policy of non-English speaking countries than to listen to what they say in English. The Russian public is clearly being primed for war, the question is against who?
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Cliff, do you really think Russian oligarchs and/or Putin’s group are dreaming of not Cold war with USA? They are not insane despite priming Russian public for the continuation of corruption, poverty and lack of civil liberties. I do not even think they’ll dare attack EU… unless Germany manages to completely weaken and destroy it.
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“Cliff, do you really think Russian oligarchs and/or Putin’s group are dreaming of not Cold war with USA? ”
I do not presume to know what’s going on in the mind of whoever’s running Russia, but the signs are that they are trying to inculcate some kind of wartime mindset among the population.
Whether this is just to distract them from the astronomical levels of corruption, poverty, violence and lack of civil liberties that seem endemic to Russian existence or whether they really are planning on invading someone I have no idea.
But pretending that it’s possible to negotiate in good faith with Putin (becasue Putin wants Russia to be peaceful and prosperous) is just not…. rational.
I think Matt’s problem is that he’s just not very…. worldly. Like a lot of Americans he seems to assume American values are some kind of default human values while most of the evidence shows….. that isn’t the case. Russian values (and the values of Russian leaders) are not much like American values at all.
This is one of the downsides of immigration – it tends to create illusion of similarity in the host population which leaves it vulnerable to certain…. unpleasantness.
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What Cliff is saying is crucial but, sadly, completely ignored by most people. Nothing is harder than making people understand that there are human beings who want and value different things. Americans think Russians are just like them and proceed based on this assumption. And Russians do the same. The result is that each group appeals to an imaginary opponent and ignores the real one.
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Since I am so not worldy (untrue.. but disparage away), pray tell what russia would gain from being destroyed in any semi-direct military conflict with us? (unless they want to go full nuclear which would be bad for all, and frankly who knows woould play out in detail.. but think we would have massive operationall advantages still) . Putin wants to remain in power, is pretty much the operating hypothesis that I am going on. The russian people’s wishes are even more unimportant than the american people’s are. He uses the threat of war to distract from failing economics is where i would put most of my stock in his realpolitik operating mindset. If presented with trade-offs that ensure his continued power and security, he is unlikely to take aggressive action. He sensed weakness in syria, and saw a chance to gain a power advantage in syria. If the west (especially US) had imposed no fly zone or other very tough action on syria when they “crossed the fabled obama red line” I doubt he would be involved. It was what.. two years later that he got involved in a meaningful way?
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Any attempt at “a trade off” is perceived by Putin as weakness and leads to further aggression. The US gave in on Georgia, he invaded Ukraine. The US allowed him to annex the Crimea, he invaded the Donbass. He was allowed to invade the Donbass, he sent troops to Syria. And so on.
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“what russia would gain from being destroyed in any semi-direct military conflict with us? ”
Please, the US military cannot even beat tiny, crapy military-less countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. What makes you think the Russians would be afraid of the US?
Russians (as a general rule) crave the idea of being feared (since so many of them live in fear in their daily lives they relish the idea of collectively scaring the crap out of the rest of the planet). You can’t negotiate with that….
“Putin wants to remain in power, is pretty much the operating hypothesis that I am going on.”
And he knows the way to do that is to convince the public that thanks to him Russia is feared as a great power.
“had imposed no fly zone or other very tough action”
A no-fly zone is meaningless unless you’re willing and able to blast violators out of the sky without exception or hesitation. I see no indication that the US is willing to do that (I’m not sure it should I think the less the US interferes in the middle east the better for all concerned but then I live in Europe which is bearing the secondary brunt of the last two administrations’ disastrous neo-con middle east policy.
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I wanted to respond but Cliff said exactly what I was going to say. It’s great to have somebody on the blog who understands how the Russian political mentality works.
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Why exactly is Syria a vital US interest? I can understand why Ukraine is (it’s a future EU member), but why Syria, exactly? At least so long as the remains of ISIS will remain under control there.
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No, Trump is not capable of being rational.
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Quite true. The no-fly zone imposed over Saddam’s Iraq after the first Gulf War worked well, keeping Saddam’s planes out of the sky.
A no-fly zone would have worked over Syria if the U.S. had established it when the only hostile aircraft in the area were Syrian. (One version of the plan had the operation beginning by destroying most of Syria’s air force while it was still on the ground.)
It’s too late to create a no-fly zone over Syria now, because the U.S. isn’t going to risk shooting down a Russian aircraft.
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