OPINION: Bumbling Diplos, Figs for America, Deutsche Qualitaet

I’ll save the three-year-anniversary stuff until next review. But thank you. This blog is a two way deal and I promise you I get a lot more out of it than I put into it.

This week, like last week, “ceasefire” talks and US-Russia-Europe diplomacy dominated the news.

Art of the Deal? Not convinced. I think I know dumb diplomacy when I see it.

OK, over the past seven days the United States of America, primarily in the person of Donald J. Trump himself, but also his entourage, have moved to demolish US geopolitical positioning as a supporter of Ukraine and democracy, and as an inveterate opponent of an aggressive and militaristic Russia.

I am not making a bit of this up nor am I exaggerating. The past week saw the US foreign policy leadership:

- Blame Ukraine for starting the war with Russia

- Call President Volodymyr Zelensky “a dictator”

- Question Zelensky’s legitimacy

- Demand Ukraine ignore its constitution and hold wartime elections

- Lie about Zelensky’s popularity (Trump said 4%, the actual number is 50–57%)

- Offer Ukraine a minerals development contract so punitive in its terms, that the Versailles Treaty signed by Germany at the end of WWI was less exploitative

- Accuse Zelensky of sabotaging the peace plan because he didn’t sign a colonialist deal that would have impressed Leopold II of Belgium

- Opine that Russia could have defeated Ukraine any time it wanted to

- Refuse to condemn Russian aggression in a three-year-invasion anniversary statement by G7 nations

Other Topics of Interest

Quebec Gov’t Expresses Support for Ukraine

In a motion, the National Assembly of Quebec expressed solidarity with Ukraine

- Refuse to allow language about Ukrainian territorial integrity into a UN declaration about the same thing

- Announce 40% cuts to Pentagon spending over the next five years with forces in Europe squarely targeted for Reductions in Force (RIF)

- Declare the Republican-led Congress won’t even consider more military aid to Ukraine

- State that, really, there is no reason for Ukraine to be present at peace talks with Russia

The result of such an avalanche of thunderous foreign policy pronouncements was predictable.

All manner of Trump appointees and allies (Waltz, Rubio, Wirtkoff, Vance, Thune) wound up, in 24–72 hours, in front of a reporter or press pack and under fire with humiliating Q&A asking them to explain how all that possibly made sense.

Probably the most-repeated question was about Trump’s statement that Ukraine started the Russo-Ukraine War and was responsible for it. Over and over Trump’s men repeated “Donald Trump is the greatest deal-maker in the world.” More generally, the defense tactic adopted was to evade unpleasant questions about what Trump said and switch subjects, which is never a good look.

Equally unsurprisingly, the American messaging chaos roared across the Ukrainian media spectrum like a bad taco through a Midwesterner’s stomach. Zelensky went on TV and explained to voters he wasn’t going to sign away national mineral rights to anyone for a song and that, like he said before a bunch of times, Ukraine must be at the peace table and Ukraine must get iron-clad security guarantees. Absent either of those two things, no peace, not even a ceasefire.

As even an indifferently-read policy maker might expect from a nation invaded and at war, Ukrainian society closed ranks. In the wake of the Trump administration assault, Zelensky’s popularity soared. The most recent poll I saw was 57%, which is pretty good after three years of war in a country with a free and pretty aggressive media.

Trump, after a month in office, and running a government that, as a matter of state policy, cuts out mainstream media the administration doesn’t like, is at about 43% and falling, I read.

On the mineral rights deal, Zelensky did the standard lateral and said sure, great idea, Ukraine would definitely think about it and get back to the US after a detailed study. This how adult diplomats conduct business.

A pretty reliable source told me Zelensky was locked and loaded and ready for the Americans to stick a rip-off contract under his nose, and that the only real surprise of the exchange was that the American envoy with the piece of paper in his briefcase (Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent) actually seemed seriously to expect Ukraine’s President would sign away national mineral rights without reading the contract.

America’s top diplomat Marc Rubio, in a subsequent interview by a freelance reporter hand-picked by the State Department (i.e., this was not by mainstream media), said Zelensky was causing problems, but that was either American weaseling or incompetence. Seriously? Sign away national mineral rights on terms worse than the Versailles treaty? Rubio actually expected America could trick Zelensky into doing that.

CNN had a pretty excellent lede on it all, which I’ll paraphrase: “The US hoped to acquire major Ukrainian mineral rights, but President Volodymyr Zelensky knew a bad deal when he saw one.”

Meanwhile the supposedly weak Europeans the administration thought it had brow-beaten into passivity last week, pretty much all lined up on Ukraine’s side.

France, Germany, Britain – they all said what the Americans were doing is awful, Russia is an enemy and a menace, and even if the Americans want to cut and run on democracy, Europe sure the Hell won’t.

Then the French and the British announced they would send national leaders to DC to tell Trump their countries are on board with a security deal for Ukraine – but only with the US or NATO backing it.

This is identical to the Ukrainian position, and another solid example of how competent diplomats do diplomacy. Killing an initiative while pretending to be for it is a textbook move. The Americans really should pay attention. They might learn something.

In the Swedish parliament this week they passed a record Ukraine military aid bill and – it’s hard to communicate how extraordinary this is for Sweden – when the gavel came down and the bill became law, all the legislators applauded and enjoyed a common feeling of a job well done.

Obviously, getting a big group of Swedes to applaud anything spontaneously, well, it’s not easy and you need a pretty strong catalyst.

My contention: Donald Trump’s foreign policy and treatment of Ukraine is so odious to Swedish lawmakers, that an entire legislature of placid middle-aged Swedish politicians brought up not to show emotion in public, felt so stoked after passing a law cocking a snook at Donald Trump’s abandonment policy towards Europe and Ukraine, that they cheered it.

Me, I would say this is acid test proof of the effectiveness of modern American foreign policy. Screen grab of the Swedish parliament displaying emotion.

But if I am honest, the big kahuna unforced US foreign policy disaster, the one that Putin and his gang have been working towards for years, the really epic own of the Trump team, is that the Kremlin got some of their senior representatives into a room in Riyadh this week and afterward the Americans announced they had listened to the Russians, they understood the Russians had concerns, and that America takes Russia’s positions very seriously.

This is the Kremlin, three years into an unprovoked war that has killed or wounded, so far, about 1.5 million people, next to NATO. The old US stance was aggression will never stand and that Russia is a prime adversary not just of America, but America’s closest allies.

The new American position, obviously, is that the United States of America supports law of the jungle and abandoning the weak so that the big boys can get what they want. Russia is huge. America gets it. Freedom isn’t for everyone. Going forward, UN conventions and principles like the inviolability of international borders cannot necessarily expect US support. Rather, America’s foreign policy will be driven by situational ethics.

Cause and effect, if this isn’t President Trump and his merry men waving a green starting flag for more Chinese aggression against Taiwan, and heck, the entire South China Sea, and heck, the way the Chinese are building warships and missiles let’s throw in the Philippines and the Marianas, then I don’t know what is.

Historical implications, we are left with nothing less than the United States’ handing the Russian Federation the demolition of NATO on a plate, and tacit US approval of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the at-gunpoint theft of Ukrainian territory, and near-enslavement of millions of Ukrainians. These all have been Russian foreign policy goals for decades.

The Trump administration clearly thinks it’s clever. In fact, it just gifted the Kremlin a once-in-a-century victory. Image of a happy Stalin.

For the record, first, I’m fairly sure most of the US negotiators see themselves as American patriots with strong values and good morals. Many of them, probably, are honestly trying to do the right thing. This is certainly gross incompetence and in my view negligence. But I’m not calling them intentionally evil.

Second, the Biden administration missed a giant opportunity and could have prevented most if not all of this. All they had to do was position US troops inside Ukraine sometime prior to November 2024. Had they done so, then all the other calculations and negotiations being made now would be made with a US troop presence in Ukraine, and that would have been huge leverage. How much would that have coalesced NATO? What would Putin have given to reverse that? It’s not just Republicans that step on foreign policy rakes.

You know, by now, Ukrainian resiliency shouldn’t exactly be a secret to anyone

I think the average Ukrainian reaction to the Trump-led American betrayal of Ukraine – because that is how it is being seen inside Ukraine – is defiance. And a lot of humor. From the Ukrainian perspective, Russia and real war is a catastrophe and national disaster that will be resisted and defeated, but the cost is high. The US threatening Ukraine – actually, that’s kind of funny by comparison.

The US talking about picking up its marbles and going home, and cutting off military assistance the US has jerked Ukraine around for years on and cut off for five months during some of the worst fighting? I would say the Ukrainian view on that is that, compared to Putin and the Russians, Trump and the Americans are a tinpot joke, and the Americans can just get stuffed. I will spare you the hundreds of photo-shops of Donald J. Trump with a Hitler mustache.

Ukrainian combat veteran peels American flag patches from his helmet. (Note to self, I have similar patches on my flak vest, this may be problem…)

Trump with a Communist party card and in a snappy Red Army uniform.

Donald Trump dancing and singing with big yellow chickens in a fried chicken wing commercial, apropos of Trump needling Zelensky’s show business background.

Zelensky being told the Americans have double-crossed Ukraine, so he picks up a pair of machine pistols on rock and roll:

Snarky modifications of Trump’s appearance in the Home Alone movie:

Trump refusing repeatedly just to say Russia was responsible for death and destruction in Ukraine on a US radio interview (this was all over the internet, to Ukrainians Trump sounds exactly like a Kremlin spokesman):

This is from last year but it’s hilarious, it’s a cartoon imagining Trump’s Secret Service detail responding to the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, with the same logic Trump used to justify Russian aggression against Ukraine:

Thus, the inclusion into this review of the US President juxtaposed with the classic Ukrainian “Russian warship” meme. In my view it fairly accurately reflects Ukrainian public opinion response on US pressure right now: “Русский военный корабль — иди на хуй” (Russian warship, go f*ck yourself)

But as always the Ukrainian opinions that count, are on the front line. Denys Prokopenko, Azov Corps (!) commander (image) and the man who led Ukrainians during the epic Mariupol siege, made a rare appearance on the internet this week, he wanted to talk to civilians about how America seemed to be betraying Ukraine. Here’s a piece of what he said:

For eleven years, we have been waging a war with half-measures against a country that outnumbers us and has more resources. And for three years now, Ukraine has been holding back a full-scale invasion by one of the most combat-ready armies in the world. The daily feat of Ukrainian soldiers should inspire us, not allow us to fall into despair, regardless of the statements made by foreign politicians, analysts, and experts. The front has the last word.

Yes, we have not succeeded in everything yet, and there is still a lot of work ahead. Yes, we ourselves believed in empty promises, we gave up nuclear weapons, we critically weakened our country’s defenses. But Ukraine already has accomplished the impossible. Ukraine has already gone down in history thanks to its resistance to the Russian occupation, the courage and power of its army, the strength of horizontal public relations and skillful diplomacy.

This how modern Ukraine has been born. And it is exactly this that irritates those who are upset with the idea of a strong and independent Ukraine.

Everything that is happening in the information space today should not lead us astray from the path we have taken. Ukrainians should under no circumstances pay attention to (foreign) characters playing political games and talking about fake elections. Everything for the front!

Final note for this section: On Feb. 20 the Ukrainian government blocked Trump’s Truth Social information platform, treating it exactly the same as TASS, Pravda, Rossiya1 television, and Red Star television. So we can see Zelensky’s sense of humor is still sharp.

The case for German militarism. It’s good for Europe. There, I said it and I’m not sorry.

As noted in past reviews, I have no small affection for the Germans and Germany, where I lived for several years and whose language I speak. I point it out again, because in the following will argue that German rearmament is not only an excellent idea but inevitable, and it is basically impossible to write along those lines and resist making cracks about goose-stepping and panzers and excellent staff work and sausages and so forth.

So my dear German friends, if you read on and stumble over a Pickelhaube reference, please don’t be horrified. It’s just an Ami taking a cheap shot because he isn’t as disciplined as you are. As a matter of fact, probably it’s best to get the Pickelhaube out of the way ahead of time. 

OK, this week, noise has increased about a European “peacekeeper plan” for Ukraine. Supposedly it would place troops from France, Britain and some other NATO countries, and maybe even some non-NATO states, somewhere in Ukraine. The theory is that a ceasefire will take place and then the foreign troops will keep the peace, and America won’t have to pay for it. Somehow, apparently by magic, a giant NATO-standard air patrol operation, but not by NATO and even more not by the US, would cover Ukrainian air space and even more fantastically prevent drones from crossing the ceasefire line.

This is an absolutely unworkable, fantasy-driven idea and I could fill an entire review about how impossible it is and, were the troops actually deployed, how ineffective the peacekeeping mission would be. Those of you in Britain particularly will have seen how stressing and difficult even the British contribution to this phantom international force would be, and British papers and TV are talking about the tiny military and how to make it bigger without angering voters wanting lower taxes and better social benefits. Standard British democratic stuff.

Which brings me to Germany which, as most of you are aware, and if you aren’t, then I suggest you should be, is Europe’s biggest economy and most populous nation. Germany is poised for national elections and all polls absolut ausnahmslos are pointing to a victory by the center-right CDU and the installation of a pro-Ukraine, but more importantly pro-Germany Inc. politician named Friedrich Merz as the country’s next chancellor. It is widely expected he will wind up running a coalition government that, for the most part, will follow standard CDU policy platform planks.

It seems to me the planets are aligning for a re-assertion of not just German economic, but military leadership in Europe. The Americans visibly are quitting the continent. Russia is the worst threat to German sovereignty since the Red Army tore through East Prussia raping and looting. An unchecked Russia means more war refugees in Germany, which we should never forget is the country that hosts the most Ukrainian war refugees. France is in the process of doubling defense expenditures and the French will export arms if they can.

Already, Germany’s arms industry is tooling up. Rheinmetall has, since 2022, roughly quintupled its production of 155mm shells (a production achievement the Americans have failed to match), and already the company is doing vehicle repair and maintenance inside Ukraine.

I am told munitions manufacturing and combat vehicle manufacturing will kick off this year. The plan is to produce Lynx infantry fighting vehicles inside Ukraine. I know of at least four Lynxes that are in Ukraine right now doing combat tests. The Rheinmetall production line is in Hungary.

If the Bundeswehr needs more Lynxes in the future, and odds seem almost total that they will, then your last name doesn’t need to be Krupp to predict that eventually some of them will be Ukraine-built. Rheinmetall corporate isn’t saying it directly, but, the plan is certainly the same for artillery shells, we are going to see Ukraine integrating into European arms manufacturing via Rheinmetall subsidiaries.

In past German governments, and traditionally in Europe written large, processes like that automatically triggered fears of German war-mongering, jackboots, and slick tailored uniforms.

But a Merz-led government, I think, will look hard for options that would benefit corporate Germany and high-value production (like Lynx components), and with the Americans on the way out, the German economy is in an excellent position to replace them. No country in the world trains workers like Germany and few produce more engineers, shop workers and technicians for complex, vertically-integrated production.

It used to be NATO bought its most sophisticated weapons from the US. Now corporate Germany not only has an opportunity to step in, it will have a national government that would have excellent political reasons to support it.

I acknowledge that expanding German government commitments to arms production would face barriers because of deficit-control law. My argument here is, a corporate guy like Merz, married with a security threat like Putin, may well allow German finance more leeway when it comes to capitalizing companies like Rheinmetall to make more money. Another way to put it is, growing the (presently small and not very combat-capable) Bundeswehr is now not only probably politically acceptable in Germany, it would put Germans to work in decent-paying jobs.

I can remember a time when even suggesting that Germany put guns ahead of butter (get the reference?) was anathema, one never even hinted at such a thing in public. I’m a little surprised personally I’m writing it here, even now.

But then, I am from a generation that took American support of a people fighting for Democracy and Freedom as a given. Times change.

Six-month Rheinmetall stock performance graphic attached. You will doubtless note the spike coinciding exactly with the US declaration they are “sick” of Ukraine and want out of Europe now.

But then, I am from a generation that took American support of a people fighting for Democracy and Freedom as a given. Times change.

Six-month Rheinmetall stock performance graphic attached. You will doubtless note the spike coinciding exactly with the US declaration they are “sick” of Ukraine and want out of Europe now.

Reprinted from Kyiv Post’s Special Military Correspondent Stefan Korshak’s blog. You can find the original here.

The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.