The European Press Are Having a Big Stroppy Sad Following the Trump-Putin Summit in Alaska
For a whole week after August 8th, the Alaska summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin loomed over the European commentariat like an appointment with the oncologist.
“There is a high risk that Donald Trump could betray Ukraine on Friday,” Steffen Lüdke warned in Der Spiegel, as his colleague Ann-Dorit Boy desperately outlined “How Zelensky is resisting a Trump-Putin agreement.” The Süddeutsche Zeitung screamed that “Two horror clowns are meeting,” while deploying in another piece a bizarre maritime metaphor likening “diplomacy in the era of Donald Trump” to a leaking boat from which “one must constantly bail large amounts of water” because “one of the captains” may be “deliberately drilling holes in the hull”. Only by continually presenting a united front of unwavering resolve, they wrote, could Europe hope to scoop all of the water out of our Trump-sabotaged vessel, because by “speaking to Trump’s conscience” in this way we might avoid that most catastrophic of outcomes, namely any kind of peace deal.
European elites believe that it is not the ability to project power that determines geopolitical outcomes, but rather the repeated liturgical rehearsal of the highest-minded principles after elaborate public assurances of mutual solidarity. If we just believe the right things and say them loud enough all together one more time, we’ll get what we want.
For some reason, these futile exercises frequently culminate in numbered lists of The Way Things Should Be, even though none of our governments are in any position to make things be that way. Thus as the clock ticked down on Friday’s meeting, Friedrich Merz outlined on behalf of the entire Continent “five points that he considered the most important” – foremost among them that “Ukraine must be at the table as soon as follow-up meetings take place.” In the second place, Merz demanded a cease-fire; in the third place, he insisted “that borders cannot be changed by force” and bafflingly at the same time conceded “that Ukraine is prepared to negotiate on territorial issues”; in the fourth place, he called for “robust security guarantees” and in the fifth place he dreamed “of a joint transatlantic strategy”. Then Merz gave all five of his points the kiss of death by assuring everyone that “President Trump is aware of this position and shares it ‘very broadly.’”
What makes European elites meaningless in matters like these is not only their total provincial subjugation to the American empire, but also their completely naive geopolitical conceptions. Ukraine is losing the war, which is why the Ukrainians want a cease-fire. As long as the Russians are advancing on the battlefield, they have no reason to cede to Merz’s or anybody else’s demands, and the Americans have no real leverage over them anyway. Lofty demands will only condemn Ukraine to a worse deal in the end, as the Russians take ever more territory by force and the Ukrainians lose ever more of what they have to give.
Yesterday’s summit therefore accomplished very little, beyond yet again humiliating the silly children who run the European Union. Trump has now abandoned his prior insistence on “a mere ceasefire agreement” in favour of a comprehensive “peace agreement”, in this way aligning himself with the Russian position – not that it matters very much.
At the press conference afterwards, Trump explained that “there’s no deal until there’s a deal,” after speaking of “a very productive meeting” with “many, many points” of agreement, despite “a couple of big ones” where he and Putin have merely “made some headway”. Putin, meanwhile, delivered remarks about the Lend-Lease Programme and Russian toponyms in Alaska, before cleverly trolling the Trump-critical American press by confirming that he is “quite sure” and “can confirm” the 47th President’s thesis that, had Trump been president in 2022, there would have been no war in Ukraine.
Today, European opinion-makers are having their preprepared and totally inconsequential sad:
As expected, the US-Russian summit in Alaska didn’t make any real progress toward peace in Ukraine. But that doesn’t mean it was a total bust – quite the opposite. From this unusual meeting far from the war zone… there’s a clear winner: Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Putin’s honourable reception in the United States, 18 years after his last comparable visit, is a huge prestige victory for him. The handshake in Alaska is the latest proof that the West’s attempt to diplomatically isolate Russia has failed. What’s more, US President Donald Trump is fulfilling one of the Kremlin’s greatest wishes, namely that Putin be treated as the leader of a major power on an equal footing. “We are number one and they are number two in the world,” Trump said afterwards…
…The sight of the leader of the free world smiling and applauding the greatest war criminal of our time as he walked down the red carpet rolled out for him was a moment of shame…
Putin is… returning home with a clear signal that the Americans do not intend to stop him on his warpath. There is certainly no longer any talk of the “serious consequences” that Trump had threatened in advance if Putin continued to refuse a ceasefire. The White House chief even said explicitly in Anchorage that he would not consider sanctions in the coming weeks. Instead, he increased pressure on Ukraine, saying that it was now up to Zelensky to agree to a deal …
This development is a fiasco for the Europeans and their very different policy toward Ukraine… The American President has now abruptly swung into line with Russia… Trump is going his own way, regardless of all European advice, and is thus preparing a triumph for Putin.
This is from the NZZ, but I’ve seen nearly identical pieces in all the major papers. What unites them all is the absence of any strategic vision specifically and a near-total withdrawal from reality in general. They want to humiliate Putler and isolate Russia, and they’re very angry that Trump is not doing either of these things. Otherwise they have things that they want but no conceivable path towards achieving those things, and so Ukraine will just continue to lose the war, and Russia will continue to win it, until the fighting has solved what diplomacy cannot.
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The European families are getting antsy.
And this article in the Mail, mentioned today on this site fits well with it: “We have lived peaceful lives because of squalid deals” Was a worthwhile read. Seems to be quite a good analysis, and he sums it up by “You and I may not like this, but millions of us have lived peaceful prosperous lives because of squalid, despicable deals made by men of power.”.
At the end of the day, Ukraine as it is now is not a stable nation – at least, it has not been since 2014.
It is not a land grab (the latest line that the press has been fed with). Russia has grabbed most of the land being discussed already, and normalised it into the Russian Federation. As far as they are concerned it is already part of Russia, as is Crimea.There is no information that the inhabitants are unhappy with their lot. Life continues as normal for the citizens and is far better than for their former countrymen to their west.
If this is not accepted then more will die and the end result will be worse for Zelensky. He will be surrendering not agreeing a peace deal.
And Europe will be even more irrelevant.
The Europeans, including the UK are living a fantasy dreamed up by the neocon and the industrial military complex. They are all deeply unpopular and all are hanging on by a thread as far as the public are concerned.
They’ve been fighting wars with weak enemies for years now, they have managed to keep the body count relatively low at home but monstrously high as far as the “enemies” are concerned. I think they must realise that the game is up and that any war in Europe would be a catastrophe of the worst kind. It’s bluster and they know that if there is a war they will be swept away when the body bags start arriving home and there will be many if it does unfortunately happen.
Trump knows this and hopefully the American people realise it too.
It’s the European Political Bubble that are living in a fantasy.
Many of their populations are oblivious of the History, and few really care about the future, apart from recoiling from the effects that war imposes, especially when imposed from outside.
Europe hasn’t recovered from the two world wars. I know my grandparents and parents didn’t.
Mearsheimer to Ukraine: surrender or collapse.
“If you continue to fight on… you give the Russians greater incentives to take more territory and make you a truly dysfunctional rump state.”
The best alternative?
Concede to Russia now, Mearsheimer says.
I think the European brave and courageous warrior leaders forgot to mention whether they would be sending their children of military age to Ukraine to fight the Russians in order to defeat the evil Putin.
Kumbayaa, my Lord. They are all failed hippies. Hippies morphed into Greenies after a brief spell of ban the bomb. Pearl clutching nothings.
All discussion on this subject needs to begin with how odious the rule of Putin has been since he broke the rules and continually voted himself into power as president, prime minister and then president again and his subjugation of any opposition is alien to those of us used to the democratic process (although for how much longer?). What we need to ask is why are we always getting involved into regional conflicts which should be settled locally. The Donetsk Coal Basin has bounced between Ukrainian and Russian control so many times over the centuries that it’s difficult to know who really has the rights to it. What is clear is the treatment of the Donbas people since the collapse of the Soviet Union has been abysmal by both sides. The destruction of their heavy industry under instruction by the WEF was always going to cause resentment of Kyiv and the west. Subsequent oppression of Russian language and culture heightened the problem. What should have happened was the separation of the Donbas as an independent country at the start, but sadly that didn’t happen. Equally, the EU and NATO also went back on their promises not to expand beyond Germany,… Read more »
And apart from heavy industry, remember that there is a rather large power station (which appears to be shut down for the time being) near Zaporizhzhia. An old Russian design with 6 reactors. Details here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaporizhzhia_Nuclear_Power_Plant
Of course, nuclear reactor snags are not new in Ukraine, given the location of Chernobyl.
The logic of what follows ‘What we need to ask’ suggests we should ignore what went before it.
A friendly reminder: The American party of the former US president which forced all US allies to toe the line against Russia by threats of sanctions controls about half of the USA insofar state and territory governors go. It’s a pretty safe bet that they also still control most of the so-called European allies of the USA. I know this for certain from Germany where Republican presidents of the USA are always considered “somehow illegitimate” while presidents from the Democrats always “can do no wrong.”
The Merz government is certainly not free to make foreign policy decision. No so-called German government since 1949 ever was.
Depends on your definition of “free”. Unless you are omnipotent and without conscience, all your decisions have potential consequences. It’s just a question of degree as to how constraining those consequences are, for you.
The meaning of any word depends on a definition and communication in human languages even on mutually agreed definitions. Somewhat (in-)famously, at some time before the US civil war, some person from the South suggested that factory workers in the North should really be enslaved out of kindness as they’d then be free from a lot he considered a lot worse than that of enslaved agricultural workers in the South as their owners would then have to care for their physcial well-being instead of treating them as easily replacable commodities.
The so-called Federal Republic of Germany isn’t a sovereign country. The simple proof of that is the so-called “2 + 4” (2: FRG, GDR, 4: USA, Russia, France, Great Britain) treaty which limits Germany to never have an army large enough that it could inconvenience Greece, decrees that this army is under exclusive control of NATO and UNO and prohibits Germany “forever” from even seeking perfectly peaceful revisions of its eastern border. Most of the NATO members couldn’t really withdraw from it. Germany mustn’t.
I thought it strange the Conservative Party, after Blair, appeared to cosy up to the Democrats more than expected. But they still haven’t shaken off the label The Heir to Blair.
The MSM is now pushing the narrative that European “leaders” (don’t laugh) are joining Zelensky at the White House to stop Trump bullying him like last time when he got a well-deserved thrashing – as if that bunch of milquetoasts, grifters and losers could collectively knock tte top off a rice pudding.
That Trump gives a pig’s burp about European “leaders” seems lost on them, or that they could not stop him if he did, and that it’s his house, his rules.
He has told Zelensky to wear a suit or he won’t be let in. Good.
A suit? That really would speak volumes! European leaders should also discuss their dependence on Russian gas and oil, whether it is obtained via a middleman or not. Surely they wouldn’t want to look like hypocrites?
“ Surely they wouldn’t want to look like hypocrites?”
Do they know how not to?
The Duran suggests the narrative is that the Europeans are there to control Zelenski.
That’s much more likely.
My question to all the journalists, commentators, armchair warriors is this: what is the solution then?
If you think Ukraine should fight to the last man – well, in my native language there is an apt phrase for this: “you are whacking the nettle with somebody else’s d*ck”.
The answer is that’s for the Ukrainians to decide as it’s their country Russia is swalloing piece-by-piece. This is particularly applicable to the disingenious “Lifes of people will be saved!” argument as it’s up to Vladi Puti to start saving these lifes at any time by ending the Russian attacks.
While that’s not a phrase in my native language, I think the opposite idea could aptly be described as “Whacking someone else’s d*ck with a nettle.”
In April 2022 – one month after Russia’s invasion started – Russia and Ukraine had agreed, and initialed, a peace agreement. This ‘Istanbul agreement’,is still referred to by Russia as the basis for what they expect from any new peace agreement – the only change being that the longer Ukraine and the globalist west continue to fight the proxy war, the more Ukraine oblasts will be taken by Russia, and retained. The Istanbul agreement was sabotaged when Boris Johnson, on behalf of his globalist (NATO) masters, hurried to Kiev and instructed Zelenskyy to walk away from it. The rest is history with upwards of a million Ukrainians, and sizable (but lesser) numbers of Russians being killed. All supporters of continuation of this war (as you say, the thick journalists, lazy commentators and biased armchair warriors) must share responsibility for all of these – and future – deaths. Shame! Sadly, the globalist political class (NATO, US neocons, EU simpletons and the monstrosity that currently holds the title of ‘prime minister’ of the UK) all want this war to continue – until the death of the last Ukrainian if necessary. They just don’t care about lost lives. It’s all about their own… Read more »
I don’t know how the war will end but my guess is that both Ukraine and Russia will lose.
This is not a zero sum game.
The reaction of the so-called mainstream media is Trump Derangement Syndrome at its most acute.
In response to merely questioning the wisdom of the war at this stage, and for attempting diplomacy – something both the USA and Russia did in the Cold War – Trump is met with this torrent of this hysteria.
What really gets under the skin of these Eurocrats and their media handmaidens is that Trump is a man of the establishment. He is not any different from them. Except that he has the habit of unexpectedly telling the truth. To them, he is a heretic. Nothing gets to the orthodox like heresy; an ever so slight deviation from the accepted creed.
In going to Washington to persuade Trump, these European ‘leaders’ are still performing the ritual of supplicating at the imperial capital as if it there were still there a government that was going to flatter their servitude.
I think we also need a Trump Rangement Syndrome to describe the opposite set of equally misguided beliefs. Trump is the current president of the USA and not some kind of Messiah sent to save the world. As he’s apparently incapable of taking on his domestic political enemies at home and then gain support of their foreign allies automatically, he seems to prefer “proxy beat-ups” of these foreign allies he believes to be weaker.
This means – insofar Trump is concerned – you’re either from the USA or from Israel or you’re f***ed because you deserve no better. As president of the USA, that’s obviously his prerogative. As German, I hope that he succeeds in his undertaking of undertaking America’s association with its semi-voluntary European allies. We don’t really need these guys and the more people realize that they’re certainly not out friends, the better.
U.S. Ukraine policy:
The Grand Old Duke of York etc etc
I agree with Boris on this: it is nauseating and it does want to make one vomit. It is a pity he is not still in charge. He found the right words to shame Europe into action and with Boris’ sophistry with Ben Wallace’s practical acumen Ukraine did well at the start. I think Boris would be better dealing with Trump. But it is not to be; we have got Starmer instead.
Russia are not doing well and it is doubtful that Putin can keep such a large army in the field for another 12 months. Ukraine is up for the fight and should be supported. Europe can do this.
‘Recent Russian advances northeast of Pokrovsk do not indicate that Russia can rapidly seize fortified or urban areas. Russian forces took open areas without any significantly fortified settlements during their recent penetration northeast of Pokrovsk near Dobropillya. Russian forces still have not demonstrated any capability to rapidly seize large, fortified positions, however, as the campaigns for Kupyansk, Chasiv Yar, Toretsk, and Pokrovsk have shown. Russian forces are struggling to supply and reinforce their tactical penetration near Dobropillya and defend against Ukrainian counterattacks on the flanks —suggesting that Russian forces may not be able to consolidate their positions and exploit this penetration. The Russian effort for Dobropillya is just one part of Russia’s broader 18-month effort to seize Pokrovsk, moreover. Russia’s efforts near Dobropillya result from the failure of Russia’s initial effort to encircle Pokrovsk from the southwest and northeast, causing the Russian command to try a deeper envelopment further northeast and north. None of these many-months-long efforts to take Kupyansk, Chasiv Yar, Toretsk, and Pokrovsk have been at the scale needed to seize all of Ukraine’s fortress belt – Ukraine’s highly fortified, main defensive line in Donetsk Oblast that consists of cities that are significantly larger in terms of… Read more »
Russia is winning, of that there is no doubt.
Boris is responsible for deaths in Ukraine since April 2022. He stopped the peace deal agreed between Russia and Ukraine – the ‘Instanbul Agreement’ – being signed. This grubby task was on behalf of NATO, USA and other sundry warmongers – not UK, for which he cares not one jot.
Ben Wallace is an irrelevance; as is Starmer.
Do your homework, rather than just taking propaganda on board! You will end up like Monro, who has to resort to quoting Ukrainian state propaganda/lies in his latest effort.
Europe quite obviously can’t “do this” … and if the EU tried to force them, they’d find out PDQ that the proposed cannon fodder won’t be volunteering and conscription will be a non-starter.
Trump humiliated the political pygmies of Europe yesterday, including the Chief Bureaucrat, elected by no-one, Fonda’ Lyin’.