Quote from: LazerRazer on Today at 08:48:00 AM

I think Zelensky didn't swear, but simply put Trump and Vance in their place! And in general, according to the regulations, Vance should not have been sitting next to him and asking questions on a par with Trump! There should be interpreters in their places.

The chat in my view was very insighful, despite the posibility of it being staged. The key points are as follow:

1 - Trump needs to show he is in control. He is permanently trying to project the image of a strong leader and that is perfectly rational, because weak leaders put their countries at risk.

What I find wrong in that strategy is that appearing strong by using JD Clown to (try) humilliating you guests, in your office, before the press with highly biased arguments does not project strenght, but exactly the opposite. It was very wrong and a tactical mistake.

2 - Trump wants to show that he is "doing a favour" to Ukraine. Zelensky pointed out that, while that may be correct, Trump is mostly acting on the geostrategic interest of the US ("you will feel the presure" sent Trump into nuclear mode, because it is true).

Thus, there are no favours here. If Trump botches the Ukraine deal, there will be many countries out there watching it - yes, that is China and Iran.

3 - Ruzzia has similar if not bigger problems "showing strength". And Putin needs it even more that the US, because Georgia, Armenia and others are also watching.

Despite showing plenty of resilience and muscle, taking and defending the "land bridge to Crimea", the "Kiev in three" days failed and three years of war, regardless of taking a chunk of Ukraine, nobody can call this a display of overwhelming power in any sense. This includes some notorious big fails in the sea. You may debate about what Ruzzia has at the moment as victory or not, it is largely irrelevant and semantic. What it is certainly not is something that shows undisputed power.

Thus, the dilema is that Putin at this point needs to show a measure of unquestionable success... and cannot. The main strategy of Ruzzia on this war has been the Martingale AKA doubling down. Anyone who has played Roulette with that strategy knows that it cannot be played forever.

4 - Zelensky's dilema is to have a war, loose territory and still not being able to achieve a lasting peace. Right or wrong, the perception in Ukraine is that deals with Ruzzia are not even worth the ink in the paper. Anything that is not a pure display of force or a clear perception that any further attacks on Ukraine will only deal more and more pain cannot be accepted.

5 - Trump knows this and he does not have a solution. There is no magic. Ruzzia is not ready to negotiate, Ukraine cannot accept the current terms.

Trumps solution is what DJ Clown called "a chance for Diplomacy". I am not sure what he means. He should and probably knows that Ruzzia is not deterred by diplomacy. Last time Ukraine accepted diplomacy and trusted the promise of the US (Budapest Memorandum) they gave all their nukes and strategic bombers and Ruzzia still invaded Crimea (US did nothing), sent an irregular army to the Donbas (US did nothing).

Diplomacy is much much more effective when the person doing the talk has 10.000 tanks a mile from the location.

5 - JD Clown is simply licking Trump ass. He has no dilema and he is very good in making biased questions. Despite that, he still made an interesting revelation: Trump is extremely unhappy at the fact that Zelensky thanked Biden and displayed alignment with him.

All that "have you said thanks" looked very lame - Zelensky has said thanks many times, although one should reckon that is "thanks, but I would need more to finish this".

And I guess that is my final point. Ukraine cannot accept a peace without future safety, Ruzzia does not have enough reasons to stop and has not made sufficiently the point of being a "superpower".

One way of bringing them to the table would be to provide definitive power to Ukraine so that Ruzzia clearly sees that there is no more to gain and there is certainly clarity of loosing publicly and noticeably.

Another way would be to give in and get ready for a war in 2 or 3 years.

I am not sure all this at the WH was not fully staged by US to get Europe to go support Ukraine, which seems to be happening.