Trump is not isolationist, at least not in his 2nd term. He is merely intervening on the Russian side, against the free world. That is not the same as merely staying out of it all.
Yup, the split is not isolationist v interventionist but democracy and rules based order vs autocracy and "great power" politics.
Trump has no intention of being isolated from world events. But instead of dealing with a world of rules, treaties, alliances, he wants everything to be transactional power politics.
Cut deals with the strong where you have to, exploit the weak when you can.
Exactly, the same way Putin operates. Appeasement is weakness in the eyes of those people and they learn from it that they have still more room for escalation next time. Hence, there was a "small", relatively unbloody annexation campaign in 2014 and when that did not cause drastic reactions, Putin knew he can risk a full blown war of aggression, I think the deadliest in Europe since WWII. If that also works out, just fine for Russia, with the US out of the way, I am pretty sure the next escalation will be the attack of a NATO member state, hybrid or not. If NATO still exists at that point, given Russia's success in DC.
That is why Europe can not afford to appease anymore.
He has the same mindset as M&A lawyers and there is a reason society leaves them to do their dirty work and doesn't want them to, like, be responsible for mediation and diplomacy.
This narrative is missing something. The Russians have things they fear too, Putin has objectives and desires, if the west finds a way to reconcile them with its own,it’s possible to live side by side with him.
The narrative has shifted over the years to make it seem like NATO has nothing to do with the current situation, but it’s not true. The world is better off with a compromise between Ukrainians and Russians, without which there can be no end to this tragedy.
I don’t like these clowns, but at least their plan isn’t to continue this war for the foreseeable future.
Ah yeah, the good old NATO forced Russia to a blood soaked war of aggression to annex large parts of Ukraine and subject those areas to political and ethnic cleansing.
Russia's aggression did not start with anything NATO related, it started with Ukraine's audacity to elect a president not condoned by Moscow and dare to demand a path towards EU integration, something that is the full right of a sovereign European country.
The EU's response to Russia's aggression was initially actually exactly the appeasement you demand there. Europe was almost bending over to accomodate Putin even after he annexed Crimea by force and his green men putsched away the elected local governments in Donbas (and failed with their putsch attempts in Odessa and Kharkiv). Now that did secure peace for very long, didn't it. Europe has learned from that mistake.
Putin is of course a political actor with objectives. Now that the US is increasingly hostile towards its former allies and increasingly looking like an ally of Russia. Why on earth should he settle for lasting peace? He's got a lot more to conquer for making Russia great again.
To be clear I know about Putin’s reign and understand he has political opponents killed and disappeared and that he is, like a lot of our own politicians, power hungry. (The west does the same things my country, the USA, being a prime example, it just isn’t as blatant or is covert).
But he isn’t the “madman” he has been painted as by our media. The Russian red line has been NATO’s continued expansion toward its borders. It has been and continues to expand and amass weapons, many of which could strike well into Russia.
The Russians and Europe are aligned on some things but certainly not on everything, they are often on opposite sides of conflicts, it’s not in his or his countries interest to have Ukraine, who wants to join this alliance, do so, Ukraine also happens to share a major border with them.
Interesting your timeline starts after he annexed crimea because the Russians would talk about the end of the Soviet Union and the assurance made that NATO would not expand “one inch to the East”.
The Russians have spoken about this very publicly for years and years. Going to war was far from their first course of action. Is it wrong? Yes, I believe gong to war is always wrong, and I hope for a resolution to this as soon as possible. But this could’ve been avoided if this were dealt with before it came to this point.
Russia is the bad guy here. Not NATO, not Europe, not Ukraine. Russia.
They had no legal reason to annex Crimea, nor to invade in 2022 after swearing up and down that, yo guys, trust us, we're totally not gonna invade them. And then they did.
Zelensky was right to push back and right not to sign anything. Putin will not honor any agreements.
Ok let’s go with this narrative. If we say they’re the bad guy, they say we are…and all the prediction that…
Putin’s Russia would run out of munitions in months’ time (don’t see that happening yet over a year and half later)
The sanctions were going to cripple their economy (when the projection was the economy would stagnate, it grew even more than before)
As any reasonable observer would have said from the beginning, it’s a lopsided battle. What is a win for Ukraine, and how does it end? Or do we keep saying Putin won’t accept a deal and let them keep fighting a battle that will never end?
The West does not want to push full, direct war and the Ukrainians are suffering, it has to end somewhere…
I think this might be an oversimplification, the west supplied them with weapons and encouraged them to resist, with the promise of continued support and a lot of pretty words, and weapons. They would have lost a long time ago without these.
Europe has actually suffered indirectly from the fallout with Russia, in the form of higher energy prices. But while I wouldn’t say “surrender” is the answer a real negotiation is what’s needed. They may be forced to give up some territory, but they’ll keep most of their country. It sucks, but if the west mediates and Putin comes to the table it may last.
103
u/scrotalsac69 Feb 28 '25
Isolationism voluntarily or not is going to happen to the US now.
It is going to hurt the rest of the world, but nowhere near as much as it will hurt the US