Rod - well researched and well written! Thanks for the clarity and information. Even at the international level, the non-tangibles of honor / shame, resentment / forgiveness, and long term reasonableness are vital to peace and a better future. Here's a quote from Gods and Men by Henry Bamford Parkes: "The Byzantine spirit was translated directly to modern Greece, and, through the medium of the Greek Orthodox church, to other Balkan countries and to Russia. In all these countries religion remained mystical, rather than ethical and practical, and served as a support for secular political institutions and ambitions. Some of the MISUNDERSTANDINGS that have always marked Russo-Western relations can be traced back to the original differences between Greek and Latin Christianity." I remember reading Putin courting the favor of the Russian Orthodox Clergy for the Ukraine war. What do you think?
My argument is simpler, though. We can fight to the last man, or we can come to a peace everyone can live with. There's no in between. If Ukraine wants to fight to the death, so be it, and maybe it will "get lucky" and Russia will collapse before every Ukrainian dies. But I suspect that's a bad bet.
Excellent piece. I read it twice to make sure I didn’t miss what I was looking for. And my eyes are blurry from an infection. So if a correction is in order, I’ll take it.
You mention the ‘color revolution’ in 2014. But you fail to attribute the blame for this where it belongs. On the Obama Administration. And the CIA. Who deposed a duly elected government because they didn’t like that the elected leader was aligned with Russia. The direct meddling of the US, as has happened so many times, laid the groundwork for the war.
In addition, 20+ years of unnecessary NATO expansion provided the underlying fuel for the conflict. This war was set up by the US. It has been funded by the US. And the US has provided technology and (unacknowledge) boots on the ground.
Putin may have lobbed the first mortar. But the reality is the US did everything to initiate this conflict, except fire the first shot.
I've written a good bit about all those points, and you're right. Russia is still in the wrong. But that doesn't mean we have clean hands.
In Obama's case, he was wrong in two different ways on the same issue. The 2014 color revolution was a needless provocation (probably driven as much by opportunities for money laundering as anything else). At the same time, once Russia was provoked, we had a duty to defend Ukraine's territorial integrity. That may have been a stupid duty that we shouldn't have taken on, but we did, in the 90s, to get Ukraine to hand over its nuclear weapons to Russia.
So in typical fashion, Obama was bold until he wasn't.
This is exactly why Russia took a chunk of Ukraine in the Obama years, and then waited until the Biden years to attempt more. They'd have never challenged Trump, not in a million years.
Analytics cannot be built on such a number of factual errors. This is either the result of poor preparation by the expert or it is their political statement, presented as an analytical article.
But. For the most part, the article directly quotes Putin's political statements, including his Munich speech, in which he, de facto, declared war on the West and NATO.
There's not much to comment on here. Simply because Trump has no tools to influence Putin. Except to ask, roughly like children ask to go outside for ice cream. Unfortunately, no tools of influence have been demonstrated by the US administration.
And there are also no ways to both conclude a treaty and maintain the conditions of the treaty in an acceptable state. Any agreement will be violated by Putin in the first hours. Putin's multimodal approach to preparing and formalizing agreements almost always leaves him the opportunity not to fully implement the agreement, in any point that is disadvantageous to himself.
For what reasons the new US government puts itself in such a worthless legal, political and moral position is a big mystery. Probably these are the current problems of the US budget, maybe the consequences of old relationships with the 'new Russian nobility'. It's hard to say why people do stupid things.
Please, there's no need to manipulate so obviously. My family and I are in Kyiv right now, and unlike wishful thinkers, I very clearly understand that the recent activities of the American administration do not protect me in any way and cannot prevent the inevitable. The only thing Trump is capable of is showing an imitation of some possible freeze of hostilities for a very short time (a week, maybe two). This is the ceiling of possibilities.
Whether you like it or not, we now have or will have to deal with a joint ultimatum from Russia and the US, Putin and Trump, to Ukraine. Putin will emerge as the winner, Trump will be humiliated. For Ukraine, nothing will change.
Let me just remind you how this works. A few days ago, a random American was exchanged for an international criminal. The next day, another random American was arrested at the airport. If for some reason US refuse to exchange him for another international criminal, he will be tortured, tormented, maybe russians will cut off his legs (anything sufficiently media-convincing for the average American). That's how agreements work. This series of humiliations for Trump will be endless unless he starts acting as he should have.
Right up until December 7 or September 11, the US had no intentions of deploying forces anywhere. Unfortunately, there are other players in the world with their own agendas. On February 10, 2007, Putin declared war on NATO and the USA. This fact can be ignored, but his goal is to inflict a defeat of irreversible magnitude on his enemy.
Whether the US decides to deploy forces anywhere is completely irrelevant. We can see that the US is incapable of projecting power. This is precisely why agreements are meaningless when parties cannot compel other participants to honor their commitments.
I can assure you, America's sons will never again participate in any wars. This is simply impossible.
P.S. The DEA could have gone and arrested two or three dozen sanctioned Russian warmongers' relatives with normal, honest drugs, but instead, Russians will endlessly humiliate Trump with these endless hostages as they did with Biden. Honestly, I imagined "great again" differently.
I love you too, Rod, these four stupid paragraphs were written without the slightest hope of understanding and without the slightest illusions. The role of the 'watchdog of common sense' demands its due. Someone has to talk about the emperor's new clothes.
Much of your argument in favor of the Russian position -- or Putin's position -- rests on historical invasions of its territory, and for this claim you cite the attacks by Hitler and Napoleon. (I might add the 7 Swedish-Russian wars, the most recent of which occurred in 1808.) On this evidence you seem to sympathize with Putin's alleged craving for "buffer" territories, needed for protecting the Motherland. The logical end point of this reasoning is an assumption that at some unspecified time, western European powers will invade Russia again ...
But why would they do such a thing? How many West-Europeans would wan t to live in that dreadful place with a horrible climate? Given the tenor of today's political discourse in Europe, it's hard to imagine. Besides, it's been 70 years since Hitler shot himself, and 190 years since Napoleon was banished, way back in 1814.
And don't lose sight of the fact that way back in the Middle Ages, England and France conducted a 100-years War, which saw many mutual atrocities, and a brief revival of hostilities in Napoleon's time. But ever since then, nothing but peace.
So it doesn't seem unreasonable to conclude that time heals all wounds -- except, apparently, for Russia. Might this not qualify as paranoia, or worse, as a dictator's poor excuse for his own aggressive nature? Doesn't seem unlikely ...
I do not sympathize with Russia’s position at all. But if we do not understand Russia’s point of view, we are not going to be able to make a deal.
If I persistently ignore my wife’s point of view, even if I think she’s entirely wrong, I’m going to end up divorced.
Likewise here, the alternative to acknowledging what motivates Russia is to continue fighting Russia.
If that’s our choice, there are two ways we can go about it: 1. we can leave the Ukrainians to do the fighting until they run out of men; or 2. we can send US forces to do their fighting.
Neither of these options seems palatable.
Therefore, if peace is the goal, we are going to have to at least acknowledge why the other side is fighting. We don’t have to agree.
But having said that, 10 years before Operation Barbarosa, there wasn’t a person on earth who would’ve said a new German invasion was vaguely realistic. Russia lost 27 million people in that war which people are still alive to remember, and it’s hard to see why Russia would just trust us.
I suppose there is such a thing as "understanding" Russia's point of view. In case I was not clear, I should explain that I won't buy a proven liar's phony baloney. Although "Naïveté" may be a more polite word, because it's French.
And your alternatives 1. and 2. are nonsense because they are too limited. There is an alternative 3, which is to provide Ukraine with the advanced weapons it needs, faster than has been the case in the past, and to let Ukraine use them in whichever way it sees fit.
Finally, the point of the 27 million Russian dead in WWII may lose some steam by pointing out: (1) that this was one consequence of Russia's complicity in starting WWII in cahoots with the Nazis' invasion of Poland; and (2) that its armies used some of the same casualty-intensive tactics observed more recently in Ukraine. One such tactic was to have officers follow the massive "meat-wave" attacks by conscripts; and those officers would shoot anybody who hesitated to advance. Another such life-destroying tactic may be illustrated by this story of an allied officer who was explaining the Allies' latest method of dealing with minefields, which consisted of the "flailing" tanks that swung heavy chains across the fields to set off the mines.
"Oh, we don't bother with that", the Russian said. "We just march a penalty company over it."
All the weapons in the world won't matter if they're all dead. How many troops do you think they have, or could have? Let this drag on longer and Russia may just roll over their corpse.
Even Zelensky is ready for a deal on the terms I outline. Why are you more "pro-Ukrainian" than the Ukrainians? (If you can call wanting them to keep dying while capturing no territory "pro".)
As to the evils of the Soviets, I have never minced words. But to pretend Russia isn't a bit concerned about invasion -- after having been invaded and nearly defeated twice in the last century -- is whistling past the graveyard.
You seem to think you can win if you just bleed out Ukraine. But what exactly will you have won?
This war needs to be settled, on terms everyone can live with, now. And if the Democrats hadn't stolen the 2020 election, this war never would have happened, Ukraine would be Finlandized, and a million or so people would still be alive.
Actually, I agree that Putin ought to worry about being invaded. But more likely on his eastern flank, by China grabbing parts of Siberia that they could lay claim to.
I should recognize that your description of me being more Ukrainian than the Ukrainians has merit -- not that I think that is a bad thing.
Several years ago I was asked to translate some letters and postcards written by German Mennonites from the Soviet Union, in the early 1930s. They had written them to a relative then living in LA, who himself had emigrated from Ukraine to the US about 10 years earlier -- when that was still possible.
Doing that turned out to be an eye-opening experience. Those people's ancestors had emigrated from East Prussia -- now part of Poland -- around 1800, at the invitation of Catherine the Great, herself German, who was eager to see her newly conquered lands in Ukraine developed; and she rightly judged that those farmers had what it would take; and she granted them tax exemptions, freedom of religion, and freedom to keep their language. And after very primitive beginnings -- much like the pioneers on the American plains, initially living in sod huts -- for several generations they did very well. But then the Communists took over, and suddenly they had been demoted to Kulaks, who could be robbed -- of their property and their religion, imprisoned, killed, starved, and deported to wherever Stalin wanted to use them to perform slave labor, like working in the Donbass mines or logging in the Urals, in the snow with hardly any food and no heat to ever dry their clothes. It was pitiful. They were basically subsisting on money orders that their relative was sending them -- 5 or 10 dollars bought a lot, there and then, even after the Communists had skimmed off some of the money, which they had to spend in government stores.
To wrap this up, if I ever had a fleeting sympathy for the Left, that experience took care of it. Mind you, I'm fully aware that the same horrible treatment was given to non-Mennonite Ukrainians -- and this is why I may sound more Ukranian than Thou.
This is definitely one of the best and most in-depth articles I’ve read during my time on Substack! You did a phenomenal job covering this timely and complex topic, Dr. Martin! I learned so much about the war I never knew before. The war in Ukraine was the fault of both the Russia and the West. Both sides did things that pushed the situation to where war broke out. Russia under its psychotic dictator Vladimir Putin has been going around invading other countries again and again and again in order to fulfill his dreams on building a new Russian Empire with him as Tsar. Russia invaded Chechnya, Georgia and Crimea and illegally annexed Crimea which the United States and the West didn’t take any substantive steps to respond to. Putin broke international law time and again and the West never made any real attempt to check his aggression. But the West also must share the blame that this war broke out. The first Bush administration and the then-German government both promised Russia that NATO wouldn’t expand eastward. A desire I can understand from Russia given the brutal invasion of their country by Nazi Germany and the horrific atrocities they committed during WWII. So many prominent statesmen also advised against NATO expansion including George Kennan, Henry Kissinger and Mikhail Gorbachev. But those promises were broken and NATO did expand eastward right up to Russia’s doorstep. Then in 2013, the Maidan Uprising broke out as mass protests and demonstrations broke out against the administration of Ukraine’s corrupt Pro-Russian dictator Viktor Yanukovych. The CIA assisted the anti-government forces in toppling him from power. They were assisted this endeavor by Neo-Nazis who they made an alliance with for their mutual goal of getting rid of Yanukovych. They would later go on to arm these Neo-Nazi groups, who while not possessing any power and never getting more than five percent of the vote, are nonetheless and loud, violent and dangerous minority. On a side note, it’s not just the U.S. and the West who worked with Nazis as Russia itself is a country where prejudicial beliefs about a number of different groups are widespread and Russian ethic superiority is trumpeted not to mention the Wagner Group many of whom’s members are far-rights extremists and Neo-Nazis. In any case, the CIA’s direct involvement in helping the Maidan Uprising only sacred Russia even more as did the building of biolabs in Ukraine and the flooding of the country with foreign weaponry. Not to mention the United States and the West helped in undermining the Minsk Accords, the only real shot at preventing this cataclysm there really ever was. You are definitely right that the West pushed Ukraine and China pushed Russia into this war. At this point, it’s a bloody stalemate neither side can win. Its been a strategic disaster for Russia who thought it just be a few months they’d have Ukraine conquered. Oh no! Not at all! Ukraine fought harder and smarter than anyone could’ve imagined and prevented Russia’s attempted conquest and inflicted massive casualties on them. This war was indeed a strategic disaster for them and has had devastating consequences for them economically as well as in terms of military strength. The war in Ukraine has also irrevocably harmed their demographic future. For Ukraine the losses were also great as hundreds of thousands of their people either were killed or fled the country as refugees. Both countries had and have plummeting birth rates. Their losses in this war will not help their demographic situation any. The U.S. and our European allies have also expended much in treasure to assist Ukraine. We sent Ukraine in total $500 billion most of which was stolen due to Ukraine’s political corruption and the fact there was no oversight over the aid we sent them and half the weapons we sent them were sold to enemy nations and the Mexican drug cartels. Ukraine definitely must never be a member of NATO and become a neutral nation. It would cause World War III if Ukraine did become a NATO member and became alighted with the West. So Ukraine must become like Sweden, Finland or Switzerland. I think the terms the United States has laid out for a Russo-Ukrainian peace accords are excellent and the best way to obtain a peace everyone can live with and will last. That’s the most important thing. Land swaps will be necessary as will getting both sides to make compromises on things they both really want. I agree that the European countries need to take they lead on securing Ukraine’s national security. The U.S. and NATO can’t be involved in any way for Russia to feel safe and like their border with Ukraine is a secure buffer zone. I applaud Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth for all the amazing work they’ve done on this! I throughly enjoyed this article, for!
"Instead, Russia has captured only a fraction of Ukraine, suffered staggering casualties, and found itself in a war of attrition that has sapped its economy, military strength, and demographic future. Sanctions have weakened Russia’s economic leverage, while military setbacks have exposed the limits of its conventional forces."
Most observers agree that Russia has at least a 5:1 advantage over Ukraine in artillery. Ever since WW1, artillery inflicts 80% of the casualties in a ground war. Russia's economy has no trouble sustaining the production of artillery shells at a far higher rate than the whole of NATO. So, the idea that Russia has lost more men than Ukraine defies the logic of war.
Moreover, Russia has control of the air which it uses to launch glide bombs at targets too hardened for artillery. Ukraine cannot defend against these bombs. Nor can it defend against Russia's hypersonic missiles, the Iskander and Kinzhal. On the other side of the ledger, the British Storm Shadow and US ATACMS have difficulty penetrating Russian AD systems.
Russia has indeed only captured a fraction of Ukraine. The stated aim of the SMO was to destroy Ukraine's military; not to conquer all its territory. Russia has dug in on strong defensive lines and the Ukrainians continue to launch fruitless attacks. The logic of war says attackers always sustain heavier losses than defenders unless they have overwhelming superiority. Once again, the idea that Russia has lost more men than Ukraine defies logic. Russia is fighting a cautious war of attrition, not a territorial war. Remember that Germany lost WW1 yet no allied soldiers set foot in Germany.
It doesn't appear the war has sapped Russia's economy much. True, it is on a war footing, and is churning out tanks, missiles, artillery and aircraft at a rate that the whole of NATO can't match. The US military has run down its supplies of artillery and missiles to dangerously low levels.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has lost a generation of young men to the war, and to emigration, as people fled before they could be conscripted. Its economy is in tatters. Much of its infrastructure, especially its electricity grid, has been destroyed.
Putin is holding all the cards and has no need to give away much in any negotiations. If he doesn't like the deal, he can continue grinding the Ukrainian military down until there is nothing left of the 1.7 million men, 1462 tanks, 5739 armored vehicles, and 3636 artillery pieces that it started with.
Thank you, Rod, for this very excellent overview of what created the war in Ukraine and what is likely to happen to end it. Thank God for Trump and cooler heads. I’ve read that when the Soviet Union fell, Russia expected to be accepted into the “family” of nations but was rebuffed. They have, instead, been treated like an untrustworthy nation. Can you imagine how great it would be if Russia was an ally of the west? Additionally, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia dissolved the Warsaw Pact and expected the west to dissolve NATO. Why didn’t that happen and couldn’t it happen now if Russia became an ally? Am I being naive? Trump stated in his first campaign that it would be better if America and Russia were friendly. It’s time to stop portraying Russia as the boogeyman so military spending can keep flowing.
You will probably be surprised, but what you call the 'Soviet Union fell' happened because the then leader of the Russian Federation withdrew the declaration on the creation of the Soviet Union. After that, only within a year, the remaining republics formally left the already non-existent union. Throughout that year, George Bush Sr. and all of American diplomacy tried to restore the Soviet Union, but what is dead may never die. Yes, it was Russia that destroyed the Soviet Union
I don't think Russia could become an ally any time soon. But they could have in the 1990s, and possibly even later, which would have prevented all of this. Such a tragedy!
I'll intervene again. Russia would never have become an ally of the USA. You have a strange understanding of how Russia works internally. Both Vladimir Putin and his entire new nobility spent their conscious lives preparing for war, waging war, or wanting to defeat the USA and NATO. They all not only looked for ways to win but also actively fought, as is expected of high-ranking special services operatives. Their entire lives.
What kind of alliance with these people can you contemplate?
The second aspect: The entire system of social mobility, first in the USSR and now in Russia, was and is controlled by special services. No notable position could be occupied without the appropriate background check and approval.
Russia has built a system of new nobility that shapes the career roadmap for youth exclusively through interaction with special services. All somewhat notable Russians in the USA have, at most one degree of separation, either an operative in the family or significant experience working with intelligence service officers.
Vitalik Buterin, Durov, Guriev, Navalny. Just invite Alex Friedman's father and ask him to explain how the special supervision system worked in Soviet higher education. You'll find it interesting. Or let him interview him. It would be very interesting to listen to.
The very idea of an alliance with Russia guarantees nothing for the USA except a slow, painful death. (This is a quote from Arthur Clarke)
After Stalin's statement 'They will sell us the rope with which we will hang them,' nothing has changed for the better.
And you have an odd memory of the timeline. Putin did not become President until 2000.
Indeed, a close friend of mine was the political consultant who ran Boris Yeltsin's re-election campaign -- Dick Dresner, former partner of Dick Morris -- in which he went from a 50-point deficit against the candidate of the Communist Party to a 20-point victory. That was 1996.
Yeltsin was many things. But he wasn't Putin. So perhaps your analysis is a bit...off.
In any case, you elsewhere wrote:
"Whether the US decides to deploy forces anywhere is completely irrelevant. We can see that the US is incapable of projecting power. This is precisely why agreements are meaningless when parties cannot compel other participants to honor their commitments.
"I can assure you, America's sons will never again participate in any wars. This is simply impossible."
I don't think there are many people on Earth who believe that. But even if you were correct, it completely undercuts your argument. If you're right, Trump has no sway in these negotiations whatsoever, and you're on your own. Fight to the death: who care?
Oh wait: you care. You want our money, and if you could somehow guilt us into it, our troops. You do NOT believe we can't project power: you're just mad that we haven't.
No, I'm not mistaken about Yeltsin. Let me remind you that Yeltsin organized an unconstitutional coup, carried out by the security services. In photographs from that time, you can see many officers, including Putin's bodyguard and right-hand man Viktor Zolotov serving as Yeltsin's bodyguard. I'll remind you that under Yeltsin, the government was always headed by one of the Soviet security services leaders, and Primakov and Stepashin were, without irony, intelligence legends. I'll also remind you that Yeltsin conducted an extremely terrible genocidal war in Chechnya, both in terms of casualties and methods, expelled and killed more than three hundred thousand Georgians in Abkhazia, and organized and ensured numerous local conflicts in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Considering him a good-natured alcoholic, as was demonstrated during his re-election, is extremely naive.
The West needed to be convinced of Russia's democratic development))) Many beautiful words were said about democracy and movement toward the West. And in general, the information special operation succeeded. The West believed it.
When you get the chance, ask your friend about Philip Bobkov, about the war with bankers, Kerzhakov, about Yeltsin's attempt to create his own security service under the guise of the Presidential Security Service. Hollywood lacks good scripts, and there are plenty in this story.
I have studied quite carefully both the military conflicts in which the USA participated after 9/11 and the set of cultural phenomena associated with this, and I very clearly understand that American society not connected to the military is not ready to accept any human casualties. America has had enough of pointless military madness like Afghanistan, Northern Iraq, or Lebanon. Funny, but the army is actually ready. I read enough American military sources, and they speak very simply and clearly: 'This is the war we were created for and prepared for all our lives. We are prepared enough to wipe out this whole zoo in three days. But the media, but the politicians.'
And in the end, Trump and the new government are getting drawn into long negotiation tracks, where they have no tools or arguments. And most importantly, the pace he set will hardly sustain itself. Smart people have read the book about the art of the deal, and tricks from it will hardly work.
I certainly believe in Captain America, in American greatness, in the possibility of returning America to greatness, and of course in Trump having a plan.
Rod - well researched and well written! Thanks for the clarity and information. Even at the international level, the non-tangibles of honor / shame, resentment / forgiveness, and long term reasonableness are vital to peace and a better future. Here's a quote from Gods and Men by Henry Bamford Parkes: "The Byzantine spirit was translated directly to modern Greece, and, through the medium of the Greek Orthodox church, to other Balkan countries and to Russia. In all these countries religion remained mystical, rather than ethical and practical, and served as a support for secular political institutions and ambitions. Some of the MISUNDERSTANDINGS that have always marked Russo-Western relations can be traced back to the original differences between Greek and Latin Christianity." I remember reading Putin courting the favor of the Russian Orthodox Clergy for the Ukraine war. What do you think?
You're definitely on to something here. I agree.
My argument is simpler, though. We can fight to the last man, or we can come to a peace everyone can live with. There's no in between. If Ukraine wants to fight to the death, so be it, and maybe it will "get lucky" and Russia will collapse before every Ukrainian dies. But I suspect that's a bad bet.
Excellent piece. I read it twice to make sure I didn’t miss what I was looking for. And my eyes are blurry from an infection. So if a correction is in order, I’ll take it.
You mention the ‘color revolution’ in 2014. But you fail to attribute the blame for this where it belongs. On the Obama Administration. And the CIA. Who deposed a duly elected government because they didn’t like that the elected leader was aligned with Russia. The direct meddling of the US, as has happened so many times, laid the groundwork for the war.
In addition, 20+ years of unnecessary NATO expansion provided the underlying fuel for the conflict. This war was set up by the US. It has been funded by the US. And the US has provided technology and (unacknowledge) boots on the ground.
Putin may have lobbed the first mortar. But the reality is the US did everything to initiate this conflict, except fire the first shot.
I’ll leave the dozens of biolabs for another day.
I've written a good bit about all those points, and you're right. Russia is still in the wrong. But that doesn't mean we have clean hands.
In Obama's case, he was wrong in two different ways on the same issue. The 2014 color revolution was a needless provocation (probably driven as much by opportunities for money laundering as anything else). At the same time, once Russia was provoked, we had a duty to defend Ukraine's territorial integrity. That may have been a stupid duty that we shouldn't have taken on, but we did, in the 90s, to get Ukraine to hand over its nuclear weapons to Russia.
So in typical fashion, Obama was bold until he wasn't.
This is exactly why Russia took a chunk of Ukraine in the Obama years, and then waited until the Biden years to attempt more. They'd have never challenged Trump, not in a million years.
So well written! Thank you Rod!
Analytics cannot be built on such a number of factual errors. This is either the result of poor preparation by the expert or it is their political statement, presented as an analytical article.
But. For the most part, the article directly quotes Putin's political statements, including his Munich speech, in which he, de facto, declared war on the West and NATO.
There's not much to comment on here. Simply because Trump has no tools to influence Putin. Except to ask, roughly like children ask to go outside for ice cream. Unfortunately, no tools of influence have been demonstrated by the US administration.
And there are also no ways to both conclude a treaty and maintain the conditions of the treaty in an acceptable state. Any agreement will be violated by Putin in the first hours. Putin's multimodal approach to preparing and formalizing agreements almost always leaves him the opportunity not to fully implement the agreement, in any point that is disadvantageous to himself.
For what reasons the new US government puts itself in such a worthless legal, political and moral position is a big mystery. Probably these are the current problems of the US budget, maybe the consequences of old relationships with the 'new Russian nobility'. It's hard to say why people do stupid things.
Yes, Alex, I know you want Ukraine to bleed out. Good luck with that. Maybe you can talk Zelensky into it.
Please, there's no need to manipulate so obviously. My family and I are in Kyiv right now, and unlike wishful thinkers, I very clearly understand that the recent activities of the American administration do not protect me in any way and cannot prevent the inevitable. The only thing Trump is capable of is showing an imitation of some possible freeze of hostilities for a very short time (a week, maybe two). This is the ceiling of possibilities.
Whether you like it or not, we now have or will have to deal with a joint ultimatum from Russia and the US, Putin and Trump, to Ukraine. Putin will emerge as the winner, Trump will be humiliated. For Ukraine, nothing will change.
Let me just remind you how this works. A few days ago, a random American was exchanged for an international criminal. The next day, another random American was arrested at the airport. If for some reason US refuse to exchange him for another international criminal, he will be tortured, tormented, maybe russians will cut off his legs (anything sufficiently media-convincing for the average American). That's how agreements work. This series of humiliations for Trump will be endless unless he starts acting as he should have.
By which I suppose you mean send our sons to die for every square inch of territory Ukraine wants?
No thank you.
Right up until December 7 or September 11, the US had no intentions of deploying forces anywhere. Unfortunately, there are other players in the world with their own agendas. On February 10, 2007, Putin declared war on NATO and the USA. This fact can be ignored, but his goal is to inflict a defeat of irreversible magnitude on his enemy.
Whether the US decides to deploy forces anywhere is completely irrelevant. We can see that the US is incapable of projecting power. This is precisely why agreements are meaningless when parties cannot compel other participants to honor their commitments.
I can assure you, America's sons will never again participate in any wars. This is simply impossible.
P.S. The DEA could have gone and arrested two or three dozen sanctioned Russian warmongers' relatives with normal, honest drugs, but instead, Russians will endlessly humiliate Trump with these endless hostages as they did with Biden. Honestly, I imagined "great again" differently.
I love you, Alex, but this may be the dumbest four paragraphs I've read in my entire life.
I love you too, Rod, these four stupid paragraphs were written without the slightest hope of understanding and without the slightest illusions. The role of the 'watchdog of common sense' demands its due. Someone has to talk about the emperor's new clothes.
Thoughtful and thorough article. Excellent. Thank you.
Much of your argument in favor of the Russian position -- or Putin's position -- rests on historical invasions of its territory, and for this claim you cite the attacks by Hitler and Napoleon. (I might add the 7 Swedish-Russian wars, the most recent of which occurred in 1808.) On this evidence you seem to sympathize with Putin's alleged craving for "buffer" territories, needed for protecting the Motherland. The logical end point of this reasoning is an assumption that at some unspecified time, western European powers will invade Russia again ...
But why would they do such a thing? How many West-Europeans would wan t to live in that dreadful place with a horrible climate? Given the tenor of today's political discourse in Europe, it's hard to imagine. Besides, it's been 70 years since Hitler shot himself, and 190 years since Napoleon was banished, way back in 1814.
And don't lose sight of the fact that way back in the Middle Ages, England and France conducted a 100-years War, which saw many mutual atrocities, and a brief revival of hostilities in Napoleon's time. But ever since then, nothing but peace.
So it doesn't seem unreasonable to conclude that time heals all wounds -- except, apparently, for Russia. Might this not qualify as paranoia, or worse, as a dictator's poor excuse for his own aggressive nature? Doesn't seem unlikely ...
I do not sympathize with Russia’s position at all. But if we do not understand Russia’s point of view, we are not going to be able to make a deal.
If I persistently ignore my wife’s point of view, even if I think she’s entirely wrong, I’m going to end up divorced.
Likewise here, the alternative to acknowledging what motivates Russia is to continue fighting Russia.
If that’s our choice, there are two ways we can go about it: 1. we can leave the Ukrainians to do the fighting until they run out of men; or 2. we can send US forces to do their fighting.
Neither of these options seems palatable.
Therefore, if peace is the goal, we are going to have to at least acknowledge why the other side is fighting. We don’t have to agree.
But having said that, 10 years before Operation Barbarosa, there wasn’t a person on earth who would’ve said a new German invasion was vaguely realistic. Russia lost 27 million people in that war which people are still alive to remember, and it’s hard to see why Russia would just trust us.
I suppose there is such a thing as "understanding" Russia's point of view. In case I was not clear, I should explain that I won't buy a proven liar's phony baloney. Although "Naïveté" may be a more polite word, because it's French.
And your alternatives 1. and 2. are nonsense because they are too limited. There is an alternative 3, which is to provide Ukraine with the advanced weapons it needs, faster than has been the case in the past, and to let Ukraine use them in whichever way it sees fit.
Finally, the point of the 27 million Russian dead in WWII may lose some steam by pointing out: (1) that this was one consequence of Russia's complicity in starting WWII in cahoots with the Nazis' invasion of Poland; and (2) that its armies used some of the same casualty-intensive tactics observed more recently in Ukraine. One such tactic was to have officers follow the massive "meat-wave" attacks by conscripts; and those officers would shoot anybody who hesitated to advance. Another such life-destroying tactic may be illustrated by this story of an allied officer who was explaining the Allies' latest method of dealing with minefields, which consisted of the "flailing" tanks that swung heavy chains across the fields to set off the mines.
"Oh, we don't bother with that", the Russian said. "We just march a penalty company over it."
All the weapons in the world won't matter if they're all dead. How many troops do you think they have, or could have? Let this drag on longer and Russia may just roll over their corpse.
Even Zelensky is ready for a deal on the terms I outline. Why are you more "pro-Ukrainian" than the Ukrainians? (If you can call wanting them to keep dying while capturing no territory "pro".)
As to the evils of the Soviets, I have never minced words. But to pretend Russia isn't a bit concerned about invasion -- after having been invaded and nearly defeated twice in the last century -- is whistling past the graveyard.
You seem to think you can win if you just bleed out Ukraine. But what exactly will you have won?
This war needs to be settled, on terms everyone can live with, now. And if the Democrats hadn't stolen the 2020 election, this war never would have happened, Ukraine would be Finlandized, and a million or so people would still be alive.
Actually, I agree that Putin ought to worry about being invaded. But more likely on his eastern flank, by China grabbing parts of Siberia that they could lay claim to.
I discuss that in this piece and elsewhere. There are a lot of people who want to carve up Russia. China tops the list.
I should recognize that your description of me being more Ukrainian than the Ukrainians has merit -- not that I think that is a bad thing.
Several years ago I was asked to translate some letters and postcards written by German Mennonites from the Soviet Union, in the early 1930s. They had written them to a relative then living in LA, who himself had emigrated from Ukraine to the US about 10 years earlier -- when that was still possible.
Doing that turned out to be an eye-opening experience. Those people's ancestors had emigrated from East Prussia -- now part of Poland -- around 1800, at the invitation of Catherine the Great, herself German, who was eager to see her newly conquered lands in Ukraine developed; and she rightly judged that those farmers had what it would take; and she granted them tax exemptions, freedom of religion, and freedom to keep their language. And after very primitive beginnings -- much like the pioneers on the American plains, initially living in sod huts -- for several generations they did very well. But then the Communists took over, and suddenly they had been demoted to Kulaks, who could be robbed -- of their property and their religion, imprisoned, killed, starved, and deported to wherever Stalin wanted to use them to perform slave labor, like working in the Donbass mines or logging in the Urals, in the snow with hardly any food and no heat to ever dry their clothes. It was pitiful. They were basically subsisting on money orders that their relative was sending them -- 5 or 10 dollars bought a lot, there and then, even after the Communists had skimmed off some of the money, which they had to spend in government stores.
To wrap this up, if I ever had a fleeting sympathy for the Left, that experience took care of it. Mind you, I'm fully aware that the same horrible treatment was given to non-Mennonite Ukrainians -- and this is why I may sound more Ukranian than Thou.
This is definitely one of the best and most in-depth articles I’ve read during my time on Substack! You did a phenomenal job covering this timely and complex topic, Dr. Martin! I learned so much about the war I never knew before. The war in Ukraine was the fault of both the Russia and the West. Both sides did things that pushed the situation to where war broke out. Russia under its psychotic dictator Vladimir Putin has been going around invading other countries again and again and again in order to fulfill his dreams on building a new Russian Empire with him as Tsar. Russia invaded Chechnya, Georgia and Crimea and illegally annexed Crimea which the United States and the West didn’t take any substantive steps to respond to. Putin broke international law time and again and the West never made any real attempt to check his aggression. But the West also must share the blame that this war broke out. The first Bush administration and the then-German government both promised Russia that NATO wouldn’t expand eastward. A desire I can understand from Russia given the brutal invasion of their country by Nazi Germany and the horrific atrocities they committed during WWII. So many prominent statesmen also advised against NATO expansion including George Kennan, Henry Kissinger and Mikhail Gorbachev. But those promises were broken and NATO did expand eastward right up to Russia’s doorstep. Then in 2013, the Maidan Uprising broke out as mass protests and demonstrations broke out against the administration of Ukraine’s corrupt Pro-Russian dictator Viktor Yanukovych. The CIA assisted the anti-government forces in toppling him from power. They were assisted this endeavor by Neo-Nazis who they made an alliance with for their mutual goal of getting rid of Yanukovych. They would later go on to arm these Neo-Nazi groups, who while not possessing any power and never getting more than five percent of the vote, are nonetheless and loud, violent and dangerous minority. On a side note, it’s not just the U.S. and the West who worked with Nazis as Russia itself is a country where prejudicial beliefs about a number of different groups are widespread and Russian ethic superiority is trumpeted not to mention the Wagner Group many of whom’s members are far-rights extremists and Neo-Nazis. In any case, the CIA’s direct involvement in helping the Maidan Uprising only sacred Russia even more as did the building of biolabs in Ukraine and the flooding of the country with foreign weaponry. Not to mention the United States and the West helped in undermining the Minsk Accords, the only real shot at preventing this cataclysm there really ever was. You are definitely right that the West pushed Ukraine and China pushed Russia into this war. At this point, it’s a bloody stalemate neither side can win. Its been a strategic disaster for Russia who thought it just be a few months they’d have Ukraine conquered. Oh no! Not at all! Ukraine fought harder and smarter than anyone could’ve imagined and prevented Russia’s attempted conquest and inflicted massive casualties on them. This war was indeed a strategic disaster for them and has had devastating consequences for them economically as well as in terms of military strength. The war in Ukraine has also irrevocably harmed their demographic future. For Ukraine the losses were also great as hundreds of thousands of their people either were killed or fled the country as refugees. Both countries had and have plummeting birth rates. Their losses in this war will not help their demographic situation any. The U.S. and our European allies have also expended much in treasure to assist Ukraine. We sent Ukraine in total $500 billion most of which was stolen due to Ukraine’s political corruption and the fact there was no oversight over the aid we sent them and half the weapons we sent them were sold to enemy nations and the Mexican drug cartels. Ukraine definitely must never be a member of NATO and become a neutral nation. It would cause World War III if Ukraine did become a NATO member and became alighted with the West. So Ukraine must become like Sweden, Finland or Switzerland. I think the terms the United States has laid out for a Russo-Ukrainian peace accords are excellent and the best way to obtain a peace everyone can live with and will last. That’s the most important thing. Land swaps will be necessary as will getting both sides to make compromises on things they both really want. I agree that the European countries need to take they lead on securing Ukraine’s national security. The U.S. and NATO can’t be involved in any way for Russia to feel safe and like their border with Ukraine is a secure buffer zone. I applaud Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth for all the amazing work they’ve done on this! I throughly enjoyed this article, for!
Thank you. I very much agree.
You write:
"Instead, Russia has captured only a fraction of Ukraine, suffered staggering casualties, and found itself in a war of attrition that has sapped its economy, military strength, and demographic future. Sanctions have weakened Russia’s economic leverage, while military setbacks have exposed the limits of its conventional forces."
Most observers agree that Russia has at least a 5:1 advantage over Ukraine in artillery. Ever since WW1, artillery inflicts 80% of the casualties in a ground war. Russia's economy has no trouble sustaining the production of artillery shells at a far higher rate than the whole of NATO. So, the idea that Russia has lost more men than Ukraine defies the logic of war.
Moreover, Russia has control of the air which it uses to launch glide bombs at targets too hardened for artillery. Ukraine cannot defend against these bombs. Nor can it defend against Russia's hypersonic missiles, the Iskander and Kinzhal. On the other side of the ledger, the British Storm Shadow and US ATACMS have difficulty penetrating Russian AD systems.
Russia has indeed only captured a fraction of Ukraine. The stated aim of the SMO was to destroy Ukraine's military; not to conquer all its territory. Russia has dug in on strong defensive lines and the Ukrainians continue to launch fruitless attacks. The logic of war says attackers always sustain heavier losses than defenders unless they have overwhelming superiority. Once again, the idea that Russia has lost more men than Ukraine defies logic. Russia is fighting a cautious war of attrition, not a territorial war. Remember that Germany lost WW1 yet no allied soldiers set foot in Germany.
It doesn't appear the war has sapped Russia's economy much. True, it is on a war footing, and is churning out tanks, missiles, artillery and aircraft at a rate that the whole of NATO can't match. The US military has run down its supplies of artillery and missiles to dangerously low levels.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has lost a generation of young men to the war, and to emigration, as people fled before they could be conscripted. Its economy is in tatters. Much of its infrastructure, especially its electricity grid, has been destroyed.
Many sources put Russian dead at 120,000 (https://meduza.io/en/feature/2024/07/05/a-new-estimate-from-meduza-and-mediazona-shows-the-rate-of-russian-military-deaths-in-ukraine-is-only-growing) and others put Ukrainian losses far higher at 500,000 or more.
Putin is holding all the cards and has no need to give away much in any negotiations. If he doesn't like the deal, he can continue grinding the Ukrainian military down until there is nothing left of the 1.7 million men, 1462 tanks, 5739 armored vehicles, and 3636 artillery pieces that it started with.
I very much disagree. But if Putin makes peace, we'll know I was right, and if he doesn't, then perhaps you were.
A pragmatic, sensible discourse indeed! Loved it! Let there be end of the Russian Ukrainian war, and world peace be established!
Thank you, Rod, for this very excellent overview of what created the war in Ukraine and what is likely to happen to end it. Thank God for Trump and cooler heads. I’ve read that when the Soviet Union fell, Russia expected to be accepted into the “family” of nations but was rebuffed. They have, instead, been treated like an untrustworthy nation. Can you imagine how great it would be if Russia was an ally of the west? Additionally, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia dissolved the Warsaw Pact and expected the west to dissolve NATO. Why didn’t that happen and couldn’t it happen now if Russia became an ally? Am I being naive? Trump stated in his first campaign that it would be better if America and Russia were friendly. It’s time to stop portraying Russia as the boogeyman so military spending can keep flowing.
You will probably be surprised, but what you call the 'Soviet Union fell' happened because the then leader of the Russian Federation withdrew the declaration on the creation of the Soviet Union. After that, only within a year, the remaining republics formally left the already non-existent union. Throughout that year, George Bush Sr. and all of American diplomacy tried to restore the Soviet Union, but what is dead may never die. Yes, it was Russia that destroyed the Soviet Union
I don't think Russia could become an ally any time soon. But they could have in the 1990s, and possibly even later, which would have prevented all of this. Such a tragedy!
A missed opportunity!
I'll intervene again. Russia would never have become an ally of the USA. You have a strange understanding of how Russia works internally. Both Vladimir Putin and his entire new nobility spent their conscious lives preparing for war, waging war, or wanting to defeat the USA and NATO. They all not only looked for ways to win but also actively fought, as is expected of high-ranking special services operatives. Their entire lives.
What kind of alliance with these people can you contemplate?
The second aspect: The entire system of social mobility, first in the USSR and now in Russia, was and is controlled by special services. No notable position could be occupied without the appropriate background check and approval.
Russia has built a system of new nobility that shapes the career roadmap for youth exclusively through interaction with special services. All somewhat notable Russians in the USA have, at most one degree of separation, either an operative in the family or significant experience working with intelligence service officers.
Vitalik Buterin, Durov, Guriev, Navalny. Just invite Alex Friedman's father and ask him to explain how the special supervision system worked in Soviet higher education. You'll find it interesting. Or let him interview him. It would be very interesting to listen to.
The very idea of an alliance with Russia guarantees nothing for the USA except a slow, painful death. (This is a quote from Arthur Clarke)
After Stalin's statement 'They will sell us the rope with which we will hang them,' nothing has changed for the better.
And you have an odd memory of the timeline. Putin did not become President until 2000.
Indeed, a close friend of mine was the political consultant who ran Boris Yeltsin's re-election campaign -- Dick Dresner, former partner of Dick Morris -- in which he went from a 50-point deficit against the candidate of the Communist Party to a 20-point victory. That was 1996.
Yeltsin was many things. But he wasn't Putin. So perhaps your analysis is a bit...off.
In any case, you elsewhere wrote:
"Whether the US decides to deploy forces anywhere is completely irrelevant. We can see that the US is incapable of projecting power. This is precisely why agreements are meaningless when parties cannot compel other participants to honor their commitments.
"I can assure you, America's sons will never again participate in any wars. This is simply impossible."
I don't think there are many people on Earth who believe that. But even if you were correct, it completely undercuts your argument. If you're right, Trump has no sway in these negotiations whatsoever, and you're on your own. Fight to the death: who care?
Oh wait: you care. You want our money, and if you could somehow guilt us into it, our troops. You do NOT believe we can't project power: you're just mad that we haven't.
No, I'm not mistaken about Yeltsin. Let me remind you that Yeltsin organized an unconstitutional coup, carried out by the security services. In photographs from that time, you can see many officers, including Putin's bodyguard and right-hand man Viktor Zolotov serving as Yeltsin's bodyguard. I'll remind you that under Yeltsin, the government was always headed by one of the Soviet security services leaders, and Primakov and Stepashin were, without irony, intelligence legends. I'll also remind you that Yeltsin conducted an extremely terrible genocidal war in Chechnya, both in terms of casualties and methods, expelled and killed more than three hundred thousand Georgians in Abkhazia, and organized and ensured numerous local conflicts in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Considering him a good-natured alcoholic, as was demonstrated during his re-election, is extremely naive.
The West needed to be convinced of Russia's democratic development))) Many beautiful words were said about democracy and movement toward the West. And in general, the information special operation succeeded. The West believed it.
When you get the chance, ask your friend about Philip Bobkov, about the war with bankers, Kerzhakov, about Yeltsin's attempt to create his own security service under the guise of the Presidential Security Service. Hollywood lacks good scripts, and there are plenty in this story.
I have studied quite carefully both the military conflicts in which the USA participated after 9/11 and the set of cultural phenomena associated with this, and I very clearly understand that American society not connected to the military is not ready to accept any human casualties. America has had enough of pointless military madness like Afghanistan, Northern Iraq, or Lebanon. Funny, but the army is actually ready. I read enough American military sources, and they speak very simply and clearly: 'This is the war we were created for and prepared for all our lives. We are prepared enough to wipe out this whole zoo in three days. But the media, but the politicians.'
And in the end, Trump and the new government are getting drawn into long negotiation tracks, where they have no tools or arguments. And most importantly, the pace he set will hardly sustain itself. Smart people have read the book about the art of the deal, and tricks from it will hardly work.
I certainly believe in Captain America, in American greatness, in the possibility of returning America to greatness, and of course in Trump having a plan.
Excellent insight.
Thank you for this intelligent and principled essay!