Ukraine war thread

[Dr Strangelove]

List of Russian officers eliminated in Korenevo, as established so far from Russian sources:
deputy commander of the Russian Navy - commander of the Russian Navy's coastal and ground forces, major general M. Gudkov;
deputy commander of the Russian Navy's coastal and ground forces, Colonel N. Shykhaliyev;
commander of the 155th Brigade, Colonel S. Ilyin;
chief of staff of the 155th Brigade, colonel L. Bashkadin;
commander of the 1st battalion of the 155th Brigade, lieutenant colonel I. Zakirov.

Gerasimov Leaked to Ukraine to take out his own rivals

[Dr Strangelove]

[Dr Strangelove]

[Dr Strangelove]

[Dr Strangelove]

[Dr Strangelove]

[Dr Strangelove]

[Dr Strangelove]

[Dr Strangelove]

Very rapid notes on a shifting moment. Trump wants to break Europe - but he is wrecking American power.

Mark Rutte’s visit to Washington gave the illusion that NATO had been steadied. Trump reinforced the illusion, telling the BBC that NATO was “the opposite of obsolete” and gesturing vaguely at common defence.

In reality, Trump despises Europe as a political project. He wants Europe to spend more on defence - while becoming poorer, more divided, and more dependent. Militarily stronger, but politically weaker.

This exposes Europe’s core dilemma.

EUROPE'S DILEMMA

To shield Europe from Putin, we must spend more on defence. But if that spending guts the welfare state, trust collapses faster - and defence budgets fall into the hands of authoritarian populists who admire Putin. Protection risks becoming submission by other means.

A MOMENT RIPE FOR WISHFUL THINKING

European leaders risk hearing what they want to hear from Trump, and Trump is doing just enough to help Europe not see what’s unfolding: That NATO, along with the liberal democracies it was built to protect, is in decline.

TRUMP'S DELUSIONS

Of course, the US is in decline too. Trump fails to see that he is hisself a manifestation of decline, and he fails to see that weakening Europe will not make thew US stronger. It will leave the U.S. surrounded by feeble allies.

But Trump is not wrong about everything - he has the instinct to see that Europe’s default politics through the 2030s will be the authoritarian right.

THE U.S. AS AN ILLIBERAL POWER

The US is no longer a reliable ally. Trump is not a glitch, but an historical tendency - a tendency for the US to move toward being an illiberal power. European politics must start with accepting this reality.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

Historical tendencies cannot be reversed by decision or willpower. But they can be inflected in a more hopeful direction.

Here's our task now.

We don’t abandon NATO. We don’t leap off the deck just because the vessel is taking on water.

We keep it afloat, for as long as it can carry us, while we attempt build a second vessel alongside it.

The task isn’t to abandon NATO. The task is to outgrow it.

That means proposing parallel security arrangements:

(a) Designed and led by Europeans

(b) Independent of American power and American political cycles

(c) Grounded in hard lessons from the West’s failures - both at home and abroad - since the Cold War.

This enterprise won't succeed spectacularly. It can't - because efficacy on the foreign stage requires democratic strength at home. And Europe’s democratic foundations are wobbling.

But new security arrangements aren’t an all-or-nothing project. They can be incremental, fragile, partial - and still matter.

The starting point must be this: NATO no longer offers reliable medium-term security to member states committed to liberal democracy.

If Europe succeeds even modestly, the U.S. may face a post-American world. It will find itself in a world in which ex-allies are forging paths without it.

[al_keda]