Here’s where things get interesting, and how President Trump navigates this will be epic to watch.
Vladimir Putin has a weapon the “west” cannot defend against. It’s not part of his physical military armament, it’s far more powerful. Putin has the truth as a weapon.
The western group must pretend they didn’t carry out a color revolution in Ukraine. The western group must also pretend they didn’t install Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The western group must also pretend there was not a civil war happening inside Ukraine for a decade, and the western group must pretend they didn’t try to provoke Vladimir Putin with expansions of NATO and an intentional breaking of the Minsk accords. There are other pretenses that must be maintained, but those are the top ones.
Into this grand game of pretenses comes President Donald Trump, not exactly the best pretender (by choice) and Vladimir Putin not only knows this, but he also respects this Trump attribute of honesty in problem solving.
Keep in mind, President Putin watched how President Trump dealt with the “North Korea threat” problem that was left to him by President Obama. Putin watched how Trump negotiated an exit to escalating conflict by honesty confronting China, the true hand on the puppet strings of the DPRK.
Putin saw in that North Korea geopolitical dynamic that President Trump dealt with Kim Jong-un with a brutally honest strategy that encompassed the influence of China. While Putin is more allied currently with China, he knows President Trump cuts through the gordian knot woven by western interventionists. Trump cuts through the gordian knot with honest and pragmatic policy.
As a result of this dynamic, everyone around President Trump, including the National Security Council, his National Security Advisor (Waltz), his CIA Director (Ratcliffe), and his State Dept Secretary (Rubio), all have to maintain the “western” pretenses that were/are cemented by the people and silos they replace.
The larger American government, sans President Trump, have to maintain all the aforementioned pretenses, in part because the Intelligence Community and the USA media support it, and in part because it would weaken the USA on the global stage to ever make honest admissions about our control of Ukraine. And yes, that pretending dynamic includes Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg who President Trump appointed as special envoy for Russia and Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin’s strongest weapon is the truth. Vladimir Putin also knows the auto-setting on President Trump’s psyche of problem solving, ie ‘optimal solutions’, is also centered on truth.
The proverbial $64,000 question: How does truthful President Trump deal with truthful President Putin, while all around the office of the White House are people who only know how to maintain pretenses?
That my friends, is going to be a very interesting dynamic to watch.
One way President Trump could gain back the power of not pretending is to: (1) request an immediate ceasefire; then (2) tell the CIA (Ratcliffe) to immediately withdraw all CIA operatives from Ukraine; then (3) tell Secretary Marco Rubio to pull all USAID operatives out of Ukraine; then (4) tell Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy he must hold a national election within 60 days.
If the U.S and NATO pull all of the control agents out of Ukraine and hold an election, the result will highlight the will of the Ukranian people to retain Volodymyr Zelenskyy. If Zelenskyy wins, then he is in a stronger position. If he loses, then he was never strong to begin with, and he’s the wrong person to be negotiating with.
Calling for an election in Ukraine is a radical approach because I think we all know what the outcome would be. Then again, that’s the problem with pretending, when you stop you have to accept the transparently predictable forecast.
Posted in full with permission from Sundance. I would add, very strongly, that it appears Trump is pursuing a real alliance with Russia. He is going over the heads of Europe and the lies of US diplomacy. This makes sense for many reasons provided in other posts on this site and also because Trump is simultaneously looking to annex Greenland and join Canada with USA. These are all deep game-theory moves that will, if successful, provide the strongest alliance in the world, the strongest alliance possible in this world. Europe will have to follow and join this alliance between USA and Russia. Many other northern countries, Japan etc, will also join. This would entail a major break or revision of the geopolitical Grand Chessboard game which centers on controlling Central Asia while destroying Russia, which is precisely what has been happening in Ukraine and Georgia. If Trump is successful in forming this alliance, everyone benefits — USA, Russia, Europe, Canada, Japan, Korea, etc. Putin surely can see this. The logic is strong and others will have no reasonable grounds to reject it. ABN
American Buddhist Net 