What we learned yesterday: nothing we didn’t know, if we were paying attention.
What we’ll learn this weekend: whether European leaders have been paying attention.
(A 🧵)
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What we’ll learn this weekend: whether European leaders have been paying attention.
(A 🧵)
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Comments
Self-interested, exploitative, extortionate are better.
Otherwise this is still normalising, 'Trump is a businessman' stuff.
Why not both? And more? Extortion is a criminal transaction.
The bloated gangster does bribery, QPQ, transactions and extortion and has done so for his whole criminal life.
Some examples for the so inclined:
https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/blog/bribery...
May seem petty, but language choices are hugely important.
It looks like this is a small amount of money and could be fixed on an emergency basis, without a lot of effort by Canada, EU, UK, Jap, Saudi
so where are these countries ?
https://bsky.app/profile/gregsargent.bsky.social/post/3ljcvf5wsuc2i
ditto loss of PEPFAR and EBOLA money
is it because tax rates on the rich are to low ?
is it because you have an aging population and are not allowing in enough young immigrants to boost your economy ?
is it some temporary cyclical thing to do with Covid+Brexit + ??
Posts 6 and 9 the critical pieces for me.
US military threats to Europe shouldn't be underestimated. Via Greenland, in quiet or open collusion with Russia or worse.
Eur has to seize initiative with Ukr and Rus, if possible.
3 ways talks without the US may be productive.
Some of the most experienced geo poltical analysts agree that US actions led to this war.
There are opportunities for Europe to resolve a European war without US meddling.
But this US gov despise Euro liberalism and may not want that.
Their unwillingness to stand up to Putin when he invaded Crimea, when his irregulars took parts of the east of Ukraine with (im)plausible deniability.
This war was caused by Putin and his desire for empire, nothing more, nothing less.
Europe was vehemently against Ukraine joining NATO as we knew it would lead to war.
Bush forced the issue.
The US did much more in the Maidan revolution and more.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/apr/01/nato.georgia
The US outright rejected years of desperate European attempts to avoid what's happened.
Including flagrant examples as below.
The US working against Europe's interests did not start with Trump.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/f-the-eu-bugged-us-diplomat-makes-her-position-clear-9113380.html
I don't think enough would accept overt military action against Greenland or anywhere else in Europe yet, but I think that can change over time.
I do think they'd accept subtle US support for Russia to help them defeat Ukraine, if accompanied by heavy narrative orchestration.
By the end, 70% of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was partly responsible for 9/11.
Europe, or Canada, would be harder and 70% may be impossible, but a lower non trivial figure of ultra loyal advocates is likely enough.
Trump's plans will make it worse and anger will grow.
Careful manipulation of that sentiment along a general arc of the 'US vs othes who are responsible for this' should not be underestimated.
It's easy to forget from a European perspective that 10s of millions of Americans pledge allegiance to the flag every day at school.
We know the belief in the gun and power.
He's sacking all his top generals.
The ingredients for a very dark turn are more present than it may seem.
If it keeps on raining the levees going to break
if the levees break there'll be no place to hide
Russia 2.0tr
Italy 2.3tr
Real strength measuring, as far as I know, lies in more than just GDP. If you look at the whole package then Russia comes out much stronger
Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, South America, Latin America, Mexico, and Canada, to name a few.
1️⃣🇺🇸 transactional interests trump all others
2️⃣ The velocity of exit from 🇺🇦 trumps the quality of exit
3️⃣ Normalization with🇷🇺 is a priority
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Don't you think you underestimate the role of ideology?
And Trump isn't transactional, he doesn't keep any bargain
And has offered Ukraine nothing, so there's no proposed transactions here
1️⃣ 🇺🇸 is unperturbed by the geo-strategic consequences of its exit from 🇺🇦
2️⃣ 🇺🇸 feels it has greater leverage over 🇺🇦 than 🇷🇺
3️⃣ the only route to a rapid exit is thus for 🇺🇦 to make maximum concessions
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Offer Ukraine a better deal and, using Trumps language, give Zelensky some stronger cards to play and show that Europe has a larger stake in this game than USA maybe thought?
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4 years of Trump is better then a world with no American leadership
sorry
PS
to be clear, I HATE trump
Could you explain the "what we do" aspect a bit more?
It would be stupid to trust the US at this point, that ship has sailed.
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This is a Russian op, & the circumstantial public evidence is overwhelming.
My guess is they were all wanting to see how it turned out. I'm hoping this is the catalyst to get nations to act now to secure the new wests future.
I suspect the west will no longer include the US. Diaper felon makes that clear.