Putin’s War Proceeds | The American Spectator

Hillary Clinton was mocking President Trump when she promised to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize if he returned from his Alaskan summit with Russian President Putin with a promise of peace in Ukraine. For all her faults and felonies, Mrs. Clinton is pretty shrewd.

Trump had first set an August 8th deadline for a cease fire. Trump then threatened to impose “very severe” economic consequences on Russia if Putin continued to block the path to peace. We even had a preview of those consequences when Trump imposed 25 percent tariffs on India because it is one of the major purchasers of Russian oil. What Trump had in store for Putin’s Russia was something left to our imagination.

But then the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, checked into the hotel for the meeting wearing a sweatshirt that said “CCCP” on it. For those just joining us, that’s the Russian initials for the Soviet Union, the breakup of which Putin said in 2006 was the greatest tragedy of the 20th century.

As to the summit’s outcome the president said it was a very “successful” day. He plans to meet with Ukrainian President Zelensky at the White House today after which another meeting with Putin could be scheduled. European leaders may attend the Monday meeting as well.

Trump wants a peace agreement, not just a cease-fire, and apparently greater European involvement in the problem. He has also hinted at U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine, which he — and Vice President Vance — have said were unnecessary.

Where are the “severe” economic consequences to Russia? They’re as dead as dead can be. Trump apparently doesn’t realize that empty threats don’t work with Putin. Putin is not just Ukraine’s and Europe’s enemy but ours as well.

Trump probably realizes that as long as the European Union isn’t barring gas purchases from Russia — which they have promised to end by 2027, a promise that won’t be fulfilled — any further U.S. sanctions on Russia are pretty pointless. (That’s five years after Russia invaded Ukraine and thirteen years after Russia conquered Crimea which was part of Ukraine until Russia annexed it in 2014.) If our NATO allies — the members of which are virtually indistinguishable from the members of the EU — won’t back us up, no one will.

As this column has pointed out too often, Putin’s philosopher, Alexander Dugin, wrote in his major work, Foundations of Geopolitics, that Putin shouldn’t bother with trying to reassemble the Soviet empire if he can’t first conquer Ukraine.

What would U.S. guarantees of Ukrainian security look like? They could range from full NATO membership for Ukraine (which shouldn’t happen) to weaker promises of U.S. backing for Ukraine in the Russian war against it. They would, necessarily, include virtually unlimited arms shipments to Ukraine.

According to Agence France Presse, such guarantees would be short of NATO membership in all but name. Trump apparently suggested something like this to Zelensky in their Saturday telephone call as well as with EU leaders.

However U.S. security guarantees with Ukraine work out, if they do at all, Trump, in a Fox News interview, said that Putin still wants peace in Ukraine. He also said that Putin “respects” the U.S. now. None of that is correct.

Is Trump going to throw in the towel and make the Russian war Ukraine’s and Europe’s problem? There is little else he can do except to impose the “severe” economic problems on Russia that he promised. But to do so he would have to not only further sanction Russia but also put economic sanctions on Europe for continuing to buy Russian gas. That he won’t do.

In his book World Order Henry Kissinger wrote about the rhythm of Russian policy. He said,

(Russian) policy has pursued a rhythm of its own over the centuries, expanding over a land-mass spanning nearly every climate and civilization, interrupted occasionally for a time by the need to adjust its domestic structure to the vastness of the enterprise — only to return again, like a tide crossing a beach. From Peter the Great to Vladimir Putin, circumstances have changed, but the rhythm has remained extraordinarily consistent.

It is this rhythm that Trump has to confront. It is a constant in Russian history that cannot be answered by empty threats.

Trump is unpopular in Europe as demonstrated by the United Kingdom, France, and Canada threatening to recognize a Palestinian “state” at the September meeting of the UN. Trump cannot confront the rhythm of Russian-Soviet-Russian history without help from Europe. Which he cannot get.

Unless Trump is willing to sanction the EU for purchasing Russian gas, unless he is willing to create the “severe” economic problems for Russia that he promised earlier, Putin’s war will go on, continuing the intentional slaughter of Ukrainian civilians as part of its policy. That’s a war crime by the way.

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