JD Vance's version of a Ukraine / Russia Peace Deal: Surrender Ukrainian Territory

[Hans Blaster]

To be clear, our discussion was about Russia's claimed argument for invading (the threat of NATO expansion) and the threat it posed to Russian security, not how NATO should proceed further once the invasion has begun. Anyway, let's look at your links.

NATO Should Not Accept Ukraine—for Ukraine’s Sake

The top five reasons that expanding the Western alliance would make Kyiv even worse off.

foreignpolicy.com

Showed only a few lines, but not the full article.

Why NATO Should Be Cautious About Admitting Ukraine

Members’ interests don’t outweigh the risks.

carnegieendowment.org

This author first excuses Russia's invasion (by implying that Russia had little choice when it couldn't control Ukraine's actoins by other means) and then wonders if membership would even be deterrence or stop a future war with Russia.

Why Are Analysts Still Debating Ukrainian Integration into NATO?

www.wilsoncenter.org

This author's position actually sounds pretty close to mine. The deed is done and Ukraine isn't going to go back to less close ties with the west, nor is Russia going to give up their conquests for a promise to do so.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/03/01/ukraine-join-nato-too-risky/

Paywalled, wouldn't open.

Letting Ukraine Join NATO Now Would Risk World War III

Those arguing for Ukraine’s instant admission to NATO are looking for easy, legalistic solutions to a hard political and military challenge.

slate.com

This author is largely just pointing out that Ukraine isn't actually going to join while in a hot war with NATO's primary security concern. I don't know that any realist disagrees, nor do I.

Ukraine Should Not Be in NATO

It's past time for NATO to close the proverbial open door, not keep it open in perpetuity.

www.newsweek.com

This one was a bit lightweight. Still managed to "understand" Russia's motivation to invade. At the end it gets rather cynical. (NATO can get what they want without taking in Ukraine, so don't.)

NATO’s Ukraine challenge | Brookings

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Brussels on June 4-5, where he met with the leadership of the European Union and NATO.

www.brookings.edu

This is a five year old article. It is a reasonable plan (Ukraine resumes action toward NATO cooperation, but puts off membership for now) from before the invasion, but even in 2019 it didn't put forth any way to unwind Russia's then already existing occupations of Ukrainian territory.

https://www.cato.org/commentary/dont-let-ukraine-join-nato

I'm not the only one with the opinions I've expressed... policy analysts/thinktanks/journalists from left/center/right have all expressed similar concerns, and outlined the reasons why a Ukrainian membership in NATO "hits different" than that of countries like Lithuania and Finland.


There are a few parallels to the Israel situation as well. Other nations intervening in various ways and saying "no, this plot of land that all involved parties see as having significance belongs to them, we're taking their side" (right or wrong) does create backlash, and it's not the "interveners" who bear the brunt of said backlash.

 

[7thKeeper]

Are you referring to the border that's densely populated forest? (and on the few roads they do have (Finland currently has the border closed), it'd be a near 13 hour drive over 900Km to a city of 5 million? The Topography and rough terrain up north already acts as a "quasi-deterrent" (The German's learned that lesson when trying to move to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg)

As opposed to the border of Ukraine which is only 470km from Moscow (a city of 13 million and their nation's capital?)

Referring to the border that's about 100 miles away from St. Petersburg. How did you not understand that from my post? I talked about Petersburg. And I didn't talk about drives. If Russia is so worried about strikes to Moscow from Ukraine, and as you posted

In terms of significant borders that have somwhat close proximity Moscow and the more densely populated parts of Russia

The second largest city in Russia isn't densely populated enough for you to consider? It's literally within strike range already and in Putin's words he has "no problems" with Finland and Sweden joining NATO (said around May 2022). So why is Ukraine so different? It's nothing to do with what you're talking about.

 

[7thKeeper]

I don't know. This is an agreement right? If Russia renegs on it, the agreement is off and Ukraine can join NATO.

All the agreement would do.at this point is not put NATO on Russias doorstep.

Renegades on it by invading Ukraine again and we are in the exact same situation and with Ukraine out of NATO and the EU? That's the bloody point, it keeps Ukraine vulnerable for further attacks.

 

[wing2000]

Today, Ukraine President Zelensky met with Trump at Trump Tower. They answered questions for just over 5 minutes. Trump, when he wasn't talking about his first impeachment, again asserted he could bring the parties together and resolve the conflict by the time he takes office.

What is he talking about?

Does he plan to bring Putin and Zelinsky to Trump Tower and make a real estate deal?

https://www.c-span.org/video/?538756-1/president-trump-meets-ukrainian-president-zelensky

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Today, Ukraine President Zelensky met with Trump at Trump Tower. They answered questions for just over 5 minutes. Trump, when he wasn't talking about his first impeachment, again asserted he could bring the parties together and resolve the conflict by the time he takes office.

What is he talking about?

Does he plan to bring Putin and Zelinsky to Trump Tower and make a real estate deal?

https://www.c-span.org/video/?538756-1/president-trump-meets-ukrainian-president-zelensky

I don't know that Trump has "a plan" as much as he benefits from the "loose cannon" perceptions about him.

Putin (for as evil as he is, and for all of his flaws) isn't a dumb guy. He was the Russian equivalent of a CIA agent.

There's gotta be a reason why Russia was willing to get "froggy" during both the Obama and Biden administrations with regards to aggression towards the Ukraine, but opted to "ease up" a bit when Trump was in office.

If I had to guess, I'm assuming it's because Putin knows how to read people, and probably realizes that Trump would be more likely to make a hasty "from the gut" decision that would negatively impact Russia should Trump's self-perceived "alpha" status be challenged in his own mind.

Probably about the worst thing you could do to a narcissist (especially one wielding a disproportionate amount of power) is challenge their "status" in front of the people who they know revere them.


Put in much more plain terms. Russia would be afraid to do something that makes Trump look bad, because they know that making him look bad in front of the people who think he can do no wrong would be the kind of thing to push him over the edge and hastily use military force against them without so much as 15 minutes thought or any concern for input from military brass.

 

[wing2000]

I don't know that Trump has "a plan" as much as he benefits from the "loose cannon" perceptions about him.

Putin (for as evil as he is, and for all of his flaws) isn't a dumb guy. He was the Russian equivalent of a CIA agent.

There's gotta be a reason why Russia was willing to get "froggy" during both the Obama and Biden administrations with regards to aggression towards the Ukraine, but opted to "ease up" a bit when Trump was in office.

If I had to guess, I'm assuming it's because Putin knows how to read people, and probably realizes that Trump would be more likely to make a hasty "from the gut" decision that would negatively impact Russia should Trump's self-perceived "alpha" status be challenged in his own mind.

Probably about the worst thing you could do to a narcissist (especially one wielding a disproportionate amount of power) is challenge their "status" in front of the people who they know revere them.


Put in much more plain terms. Russia would be afraid to do something that makes Trump look bad, because they know that making him look bad in front of the people who think he can do no wrong would be the kind of thing to push him over the edge and hastily use military force against them without so much as 15 minutes thought or any concern for input from military brass.

I think your misreading Trump. First, Trump is adverse to involving US forces in foreign conflict. He was against the Iraq invasion and regularly re-enforces his views that America should not be spending it's resource to protect other countrys. So if Russia were to invade a country under Trump's watch, he would simply rationalize Russia's move just as he is now.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I think your misreading Trump. First, Trump is adverse to involving US forces in foreign conflict. He was against the Iraq invasion and regularly re-enforces his views that America should not be spending it's resource to protect other countrys. So if Russia were to invade a country under Trump's watch, he would simply rationalize Russia's move just as he is now.

Absent a catalyst that "challenges his status as top dog", you'd be right.

However, if he told Putin "leave Ukraine alone" and Putin didn't comply and people started saying or implying he was soft, we'd likely see some different behavior.

There's gotta be a reason why Russia decided to cool its jets for a few years while he was in office.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

There's gotta be a reason why Russia decided to cool its jets for a few years while he was in office.

First of all, I don't know that you can say that they "cooled their jets" - they continued the same occupation/shadow war in the Donbas that had been ongoing since 2014. The Minsk agreement was signed in February of 2015 (i.e. before Trump was considered a serious presidential candidate), and fighting flared up and died down multiple times between then and February of 2022 (including while Trump was in office).

As for why Russia didn't do anything major while Trump was in office? Most likely it was a combination of factors. However, Trump's contribution to the situation was that he was actively destabilizing NATO as an alliance and he was willing to talk to - and more importantly listen to - Putin and take his side on various issues. Broadly speaking, I believe Putin's goals at the time were to weaken (or even force the dissolution of) NATO and improve Russia's position within the global hegemony - both things that he was actively making progress in without launching a costly invasion as long as Trump was in power. Once Trump lost though, he had to abandon that plan, and started prepping for a full-scale invasion with the goal of quickly knocking out the Ukrainian government and demonstrating Russian military prowess (and we all know how that went).

 

[7thKeeper]

Absent a catalyst that "challenges his status as top dog", you'd be right.

However, if he told Putin "leave Ukraine alone" and Putin didn't comply and people started saying or implying he was soft, we'd likely see some different behavior.

There's gotta be a reason why Russia decided to cool its jets for a few years while he was in office.

That latter part I think is a mix of Trumps ego being easy to manipulate, just throw in some compliments his way and he is way more pliable to your wishes. Another was Trump's NATO rhetoric, which Putin clearly hoped to weaken it before whatever action he planned to take. More so, I'd suggest we take a closer look at if Putin actually is that "smart" anymore. While some stances before we could rationalize as simple rhetoric for domestic purposes, looking at the rantings with Tucker, it wouldn't be too farfetched to say that Putin has been sniffing his own glue for too long and has started to actually believe the things he says.

 

[wing2000]

Absent a catalyst that "challenges his status as top dog", you'd be right.

However, if he told Putin "leave Ukraine alone" and Putin didn't comply and people started saying or implying he was soft, we'd likely see some different behavior.

There's gotta be a reason why Russia decided to cool its jets for a few years while he was in office.

....there a lot of reasons starting with events inside Russia that are not on our radar.