Such an agreement would include a Korean War style armistice agreement ending the war in Ukraine and would effectively neutralize Russia's military alliance with Communist China
My sense from Biden / Blinken / Nuland is that they are so caught up in their fantasy echo chamber that a rational discussion such as yours is lost on them.
They are part of the same group that used the Weapons of Mass Destruction lie to pulverize Iraq. And none of our NATO allies / vassals have the willpower to resist.
Yes, I fear you are correct. That is why it is imperative that we do everything possible to elect a rational foreign policy realist like Vivek Ramaswamy as President next fall!
Vivek has no traction sadly. I am not a Trump fan, but he has a record of not running around the world getting in conflicts. My read is that there are four viable candidates: Biden, Newsome, Trump, and DeSantis. Of these four, Trump is the most likely to find an exit from Ukraine, probably similar to Kissenger’s deal with North Vietnam.
This is a case of choosing between bad choices, since the good choices are long gone.
Vivek has surged to third place in recent polls with the latest poll showing him at 10%. DeSantis is my second choice and Trump is my third choice. Any one of them could save the US from an unnecessary nuclear war with the Sino-Russian military alliance.
David: I do not understand your high regard for the Yalta conference and “spheres of influence.” How can this be a consideration when Cuba is a communist bloc country well inside our sphere of influence? You apply a double standard against your own side. And you forget the Soviets freely admitted to violating the Yalta agreement, which turned out to be a disastrous concession to a dangerous enemy. See - https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-07-10-mn-9461-story.html
Jeff, I do not have high regard for the Yalta Conference. I actually think it was the greatest betrayal of freedom and greatest appeasement of evil dictators in human history. I always have. I have never stopped railing against America's unholy alliance with the Evil Soviet Empire. That said, I do admit that Churchill's sphere of influence proposal at the Fourth Moscow Conference and Yalta did succeed in preventing a nuclear war with the Soviet Union and as such could serve as a useful model on how to prevent a nuclear World War Three particularly with Russia. Yes, Stalin did violate the Yalta Agreement in promising free elections. It was extremely naive for Churchill and FDR to believe he would keep that promise or that he was a crusader for democracy as Churchill claimed. What I support is a Reaganesque policy of seeking reciprical concessions in any mutual security agreement with Moscow or Beijing. Any sphere of influence agreement would have to mandate an end to all Russian and Chinese military support, troops or bases anywhere in the Western Hemisphere most importantly Cuba and Panama. It would have to mandate returning the Panama Canal to US control. As Trump stated, the US could not defend Taiwan militarily. If we tried, all of our Pacific allies particularly Japan and South Korea would come under immediate attack and invasion and the US homeland would come under cyber/super EMP and likely nuclear attack. A Chinese invasion of Taiwan is undeterrable militarily. Its going to happen whether we want it to or not unless at minimum we can neutralize the Sino-Russian military alliance as I have been advocating for the past two decades. Doing so will require that we abandon our ill-advised proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and end our Cold War with Russia by returning to the pre-Warsaw Summit status quo in Eastern Europe.
If you have so little regard for Yalta, why did you write that “U.S. leaders have forgotten all the Cold War rules including the lessons of the the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 as well as the usefulness of spheres of influence to avoid unnecessary conflict such as the ones codified in the Yalta Agreement of 1945 which was adhered to by both sides until 1999”? The problem is that this agreement was not actually adhered to -- according to the Soviets themselves! And spheres of influence were not respected by the Soviet side.
It was adhered to in all material respects. Democratic elections under Red Army occupation would not have made any difference. We never intervened militarily in their sphere of influence in East Europe and they never intervened militarily in ours in West Europe. That may have made all the difference in adverting nuclear armageddon which would have destroyed the US, Russia and Europe.
PS -- The war in Ukraine is not a U.S. proxy war. The Ukrainians are fighting for themselves -- not as proxies for us. We can either watch passively as Russia crushes them, or we can help and befriend them, which is actually in our long-term interest. Furthermore, a Russia without Ukraine cannot effectively threaten Europe. And nuclear war is not a realistic option for them with a free Ukraine where the truth can be told in the Russian tongue.
Russia was not a major threat to Europe before they invaded Ukraine. Macron basically denounced NATO as obsolete and no one wanted to spend 2% of their GDP because they didn't view Russia as a threat. given that the war in the Donbass was killing a lot more ethnic Russians than ethnic Ukrainians and that Russia's takeover of Crimea was bloodless. We have already stopped Russia from taking over 88% of Ukraine's prewar controlled territory while Ukraine has retaken 40% of all territory occupied by the Russians since they invaded and Putin has made no major attempt outside of Bakmut to retake additional territory since last summer. That is a huge victory for the West and for Ukraine! And now we have the opportunity to get Russia to agree to recognize our victory with a Korean war style armistice proposal which if coupled with Ukrainian neutrality outside of NATO they would be guaranteed to accept. We should take the win now so we can refocus on the true threat which is the genocidal Communist Chinese terror regime. Of course, my whole point is that Putin has no territorial ambitions outside of eastern and southern Ukraine which is why he withdrew all Russian troops from the three northern Ukrainian oblasts including Kyiv in April 2022 when he didn;t have to which gives us an opportunity to establish a strategic partnership with Russia aimed against China. Unfortunately, nuclear war is a very real and I would say very appealing option for Putin. The more massive military aid we give to Ukraine and the more they attack Russian targets inside prewar Russia the greater the chances Putin will nuke Kyiv and force Ukraine to surrender.
I think Putin is a very rational actor who is risk averse. He knew that a limited Russian invasion of Ukraine would be a low-risk endeavor and likely doesn't see the need to use a few tactical nukes to end the war in a week with a major Russian victory given the fact as Russia stated in September they have achieved most of the objectives of the limited military operation both in terms of retaking the Donbass and a land bridge from Russia to Crimea and in terms of preventing NATO from using Ukraine as a forward operating nuclear bomber base with which to threaten Moscow. Russian victory in the ensuring war of attrition is all but inevitable given their massive advantages in military and economic resources including their vast nuclear arsenal which is 4.4 times larger than ours in terms of operational nuclear weapons. But if Biden were to go to war with China over Taiwan when they invade next year, I think Russia would likely join the war and join China in conducting unconventional attacks on US military bases and the US homeland.
That assessment is my own since April 2022. I have assessed that a Russian nuclear demonstration attack consisting of 1-3 tactical nuclear airbursts over major Ukrainian city would likely be sufficient to cause Ukraine's conditional surrender with little to no risk of a direct US military response. https://dpyne.substack.com/p/putins-nuclear-trump-card-to-win
Russia has plainly said that the only solution at this point is a military one. The US/NATO promises and agreements aren’t worth the paper they are written on (reference every one in history) and the won’t fall for another Minsk detente to allow NATO to regroup and resupply. Russia will also not allow Ukraines Nazi regime to have any amount of military weapons of any great number or import. This is another FOREVER war, unless Russia goes Shock and Awe in the near term. Which, I think is highly likely.
My sense from Biden / Blinken / Nuland is that they are so caught up in their fantasy echo chamber that a rational discussion such as yours is lost on them.
They are part of the same group that used the Weapons of Mass Destruction lie to pulverize Iraq. And none of our NATO allies / vassals have the willpower to resist.
Yes, I fear you are correct. That is why it is imperative that we do everything possible to elect a rational foreign policy realist like Vivek Ramaswamy as President next fall!
Vivek has no traction sadly. I am not a Trump fan, but he has a record of not running around the world getting in conflicts. My read is that there are four viable candidates: Biden, Newsome, Trump, and DeSantis. Of these four, Trump is the most likely to find an exit from Ukraine, probably similar to Kissenger’s deal with North Vietnam.
This is a case of choosing between bad choices, since the good choices are long gone.
Vivek has surged to third place in recent polls with the latest poll showing him at 10%. DeSantis is my second choice and Trump is my third choice. Any one of them could save the US from an unnecessary nuclear war with the Sino-Russian military alliance.
David: I do not understand your high regard for the Yalta conference and “spheres of influence.” How can this be a consideration when Cuba is a communist bloc country well inside our sphere of influence? You apply a double standard against your own side. And you forget the Soviets freely admitted to violating the Yalta agreement, which turned out to be a disastrous concession to a dangerous enemy. See - https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-07-10-mn-9461-story.html
Jeff, I do not have high regard for the Yalta Conference. I actually think it was the greatest betrayal of freedom and greatest appeasement of evil dictators in human history. I always have. I have never stopped railing against America's unholy alliance with the Evil Soviet Empire. That said, I do admit that Churchill's sphere of influence proposal at the Fourth Moscow Conference and Yalta did succeed in preventing a nuclear war with the Soviet Union and as such could serve as a useful model on how to prevent a nuclear World War Three particularly with Russia. Yes, Stalin did violate the Yalta Agreement in promising free elections. It was extremely naive for Churchill and FDR to believe he would keep that promise or that he was a crusader for democracy as Churchill claimed. What I support is a Reaganesque policy of seeking reciprical concessions in any mutual security agreement with Moscow or Beijing. Any sphere of influence agreement would have to mandate an end to all Russian and Chinese military support, troops or bases anywhere in the Western Hemisphere most importantly Cuba and Panama. It would have to mandate returning the Panama Canal to US control. As Trump stated, the US could not defend Taiwan militarily. If we tried, all of our Pacific allies particularly Japan and South Korea would come under immediate attack and invasion and the US homeland would come under cyber/super EMP and likely nuclear attack. A Chinese invasion of Taiwan is undeterrable militarily. Its going to happen whether we want it to or not unless at minimum we can neutralize the Sino-Russian military alliance as I have been advocating for the past two decades. Doing so will require that we abandon our ill-advised proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and end our Cold War with Russia by returning to the pre-Warsaw Summit status quo in Eastern Europe.
If you have so little regard for Yalta, why did you write that “U.S. leaders have forgotten all the Cold War rules including the lessons of the the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 as well as the usefulness of spheres of influence to avoid unnecessary conflict such as the ones codified in the Yalta Agreement of 1945 which was adhered to by both sides until 1999”? The problem is that this agreement was not actually adhered to -- according to the Soviets themselves! And spheres of influence were not respected by the Soviet side.
It was adhered to in all material respects. Democratic elections under Red Army occupation would not have made any difference. We never intervened militarily in their sphere of influence in East Europe and they never intervened militarily in ours in West Europe. That may have made all the difference in adverting nuclear armageddon which would have destroyed the US, Russia and Europe.
PS -- The war in Ukraine is not a U.S. proxy war. The Ukrainians are fighting for themselves -- not as proxies for us. We can either watch passively as Russia crushes them, or we can help and befriend them, which is actually in our long-term interest. Furthermore, a Russia without Ukraine cannot effectively threaten Europe. And nuclear war is not a realistic option for them with a free Ukraine where the truth can be told in the Russian tongue.
Russia was not a major threat to Europe before they invaded Ukraine. Macron basically denounced NATO as obsolete and no one wanted to spend 2% of their GDP because they didn't view Russia as a threat. given that the war in the Donbass was killing a lot more ethnic Russians than ethnic Ukrainians and that Russia's takeover of Crimea was bloodless. We have already stopped Russia from taking over 88% of Ukraine's prewar controlled territory while Ukraine has retaken 40% of all territory occupied by the Russians since they invaded and Putin has made no major attempt outside of Bakmut to retake additional territory since last summer. That is a huge victory for the West and for Ukraine! And now we have the opportunity to get Russia to agree to recognize our victory with a Korean war style armistice proposal which if coupled with Ukrainian neutrality outside of NATO they would be guaranteed to accept. We should take the win now so we can refocus on the true threat which is the genocidal Communist Chinese terror regime. Of course, my whole point is that Putin has no territorial ambitions outside of eastern and southern Ukraine which is why he withdrew all Russian troops from the three northern Ukrainian oblasts including Kyiv in April 2022 when he didn;t have to which gives us an opportunity to establish a strategic partnership with Russia aimed against China. Unfortunately, nuclear war is a very real and I would say very appealing option for Putin. The more massive military aid we give to Ukraine and the more they attack Russian targets inside prewar Russia the greater the chances Putin will nuke Kyiv and force Ukraine to surrender.
Nuclear war is an attractive option for Putin? If that is true, then why hasn’t he already availed himself if it?
I think Putin is a very rational actor who is risk averse. He knew that a limited Russian invasion of Ukraine would be a low-risk endeavor and likely doesn't see the need to use a few tactical nukes to end the war in a week with a major Russian victory given the fact as Russia stated in September they have achieved most of the objectives of the limited military operation both in terms of retaking the Donbass and a land bridge from Russia to Crimea and in terms of preventing NATO from using Ukraine as a forward operating nuclear bomber base with which to threaten Moscow. Russian victory in the ensuring war of attrition is all but inevitable given their massive advantages in military and economic resources including their vast nuclear arsenal which is 4.4 times larger than ours in terms of operational nuclear weapons. But if Biden were to go to war with China over Taiwan when they invade next year, I think Russia would likely join the war and join China in conducting unconventional attacks on US military bases and the US homeland.
That assessment is my own since April 2022. I have assessed that a Russian nuclear demonstration attack consisting of 1-3 tactical nuclear airbursts over major Ukrainian city would likely be sufficient to cause Ukraine's conditional surrender with little to no risk of a direct US military response. https://dpyne.substack.com/p/putins-nuclear-trump-card-to-win
Russia has plainly said that the only solution at this point is a military one. The US/NATO promises and agreements aren’t worth the paper they are written on (reference every one in history) and the won’t fall for another Minsk detente to allow NATO to regroup and resupply. Russia will also not allow Ukraines Nazi regime to have any amount of military weapons of any great number or import. This is another FOREVER war, unless Russia goes Shock and Awe in the near term. Which, I think is highly likely.