Carefully and Gracefully

“It’s funny they call [intel] a ‘community.’ That sounds so benign and beneficial. Everybody likes communities.” —Doug Casey

And so, now, in Alaska, Mr. Trump sits down with Vlad Putin to attempt a settling of Ukraine’s hash. This war has been a three-year bloody grind, millions killed, mostly Ukrainians, provoked underhandedly by US State Dept / CIA neocons, Britain’s MI6 apparatus, and the girl-bosses of the EU, for no good reason, namely, to weaken and possibly break-up Russia so as to get at its vast mineral and energy resources. This has been tried before in history, always to the grief of the triers.

From our country’s point of view, the dynamics in play at this moment are delicate to an extreme. In the background of the Trump-Putin meet-up, amid an eerie silence in the DOJ and FBI, an epic, sweeping prosecution of the RussiaGate hoaxers creeps forward. RussiaGate, of course, was born in the false charge (by America’s highest officials, derived from nonsense cooked up by Hillary Clinton) that Donald Trump was a Russian agent. It was preposterous and continually disproven, but the many-footed creatures of America’s deep state, which controlled so many levers of power, dragged it out for years. Altogether, that endeavor amounted to a campaign of sedition and arguably treason.

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The delicacy comes in as President Trump must now avoid at all costs any appearance of giving-in to Mr. Putin, of appearing to be any sort of a vassal — “Putin’s puppet,” as charged in RussiaGate. The raw truth is that Russia has likely already “won” the war in Ukraine, in the sense that it has finally gained control of the battlespace and worn out its opponent. It is fait accompli. What remains is the disposition of Ukraine’s future which, in another raw truth, is mostly Russia’s to determine.

Yet another raw truth is that this would probably be the best outcome for all concerned: a neutralized, disarmed Ukraine returned to its prior condition as a mostly agricultural sovereign backwater of Europe within Russia’s sphere-of-influence, resuming its longstanding status as not being a problem for anyone.

Still, yet another raw truth is that the USA would benefit hugely from normalized relations with Russia, no more sanctions, fair trade, a rebalance of the drift toward China, lessening the chance of nuclear war — and this would even benefit the knuckleheads of Europe whose economies are imploding due to a lack of affordable energy (and also because of, let’s face it, the EU’s terrifically stupid “green” policies).

All of which means there will necessarily be a lot of “pretend” played in Anchorage for show. Mr. Trump must pretend to be tough on Putin, and Mr. Putin must pretend, a little bit, to give-in to Mr. Trump’ proposals. That is, it will be something of a kabuki, a kafabe. Surely, many of the stickiest points have been pre-negotiated by Mr. Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, who quietly visited Moscow a week ago.

Mr. Trump must appear strong with Russia because his appointees are commencing to go medieval on the folks who called him “Putin’s Puppet” nine years ago — and subjected him to a series of epic torments including the subversion of his whole first term in office, nonstop obloquy from the media, impeachment (X 2), home invasion, and a grotesque set of malicious, nitwit prosecutions that have either failed completely (Fani Willis, Jack Smith) or will be subject to humiliating reversals in the higher courts. Not to mention two attempted assassinations.

You should assume that Mr. Putin well understands all this and intends to play along. He will appear to make some generous concessions to Ukraine, starting with the promise that it can go forward as a sovereign, self-governing nation. The big enchilada might be to grant that Ukraine can retain possession of Odessa, the port city on the Black Sea which is Ukraine’s depot for export to the world of its chief commodity, grains. In any case, both Russia and the USA intend to relieve Volodymyr Zelenskyy of his duties — notice he is conspicuously not invited to the Alaska meeting.

Mr. Trump well understands that one way or another, Russia is going to prevail in this conflict on-the-ground. He abhors all the killing. He has already expressed a disinclination to keep backing the war with money and weapons. He must be disgusted at how the Bidens (and the Deep State) used Ukraine as a money-laundry, as a site for bioweapons labs, and how it served as a nexus for human trafficking.

He also knows that Russia wants badly to be re-admitted to normal relations with the West, which is in everybody’s interest, except perhaps China’s. You should infer therefore that Russia wants the war to end in a way that does not humiliate the losers and backers — perhaps along the lines of how America managed our victory against our enemies in World War Two, carefully and gracefully.

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I’ve closed out the offer for advanced reader copies of my forthcoming novel, Look, I’m Gone, which was necessarily limited by the number of pre-publication books I could get. Thanks to all who applied. It will be available to the general public this fall.

Gallery 16 is UP! Paintings from the 2024 season

The Falls of Northumberland

JHK’s World Made By Hand four-book novel cycle. A small town in the remnant of the USA in the not-distant future. The community struggles to carry on. . . .

"I started my blog, Clusterfuck Nation, almost twenty years ago to chronicle the week-by-week process of our collapsing civilization… What I had not anticipated in The Long Emergency was how badly the process of collapse would disorder the minds of the whole American population and, with that, the consensus about reality." —James Howard Kunstler, CrazyLand