What are the chances of Trump bringing the war to an end in Ukraine

A: Kompf. I want to speak plainly on this subject only because I happen to receive a ton of mail on this one question. To be frank. I don’t know why these people ask me such questions – maybe they feel. I have an oblique vantage that sees the hubris from a different perspective from the way they might have previously approached the subject….I say all this not to digress without a good cause, but only to illustrate there are so many different ways to approach this problem and my take is no different. Let me share with you Kompf. How I do the logic crunching. My assessment begins this way – what is the motivation of the actors? Trump in my view wants to bring the war to a close because he sees it as a money pit. He also doesn’t want any US defense equity in the EU. Zelensky wants the war to go on because its a means to siphon more money to perpetuate his class politics…I don’t think, he’s genuinely interested in what happens to either Ukraine or the millions of Ukrainians who have been killed and maimed in this terrible conflict. This I understand is a harsh assessment, but nonetheless it is one that holds a measure of truth, to me at least. As for the Europeans, some quarters there see the war as a means of buffering themselves against future Russian aggression. My take is this mentality is old hat and its essentially a throw back to the cold war method of how best to manage the Soviets. Another quarter in Europe do not seem to share this mentality only because this war has ravaged their economy and they much prefer to engage the Russians by integrating them into the commercial ecology of the EU. Again this is not a new belief, it goes back to the days of Willy Brandt and Ostpolitik. Then you have the rest of the world, who are really only interested in how best to get on with life without having to choose whether they should stand with or against Russia or vice versa the US. To further the complication, there’s also European historicism as well, the Europeans suffer from the collective guilt of the Yalta conference during WW2, when the allies failed to meet their legal, diplomatic, military and moral obligations to Cezchs and Poles….and the cherry that sits on top this psychological pudding is the whole idea of giving up Ukranian lands to the Russians stinks of appeasement and again this is a throw back to the Munich agreement before WW2. Then on a macro geopolitical scale there’s the question of whether all these machinations benefits China’s interest in the medium and long term if Russia and the US reach some form of political and military alignment. This is perhaps the most serious dinension although it is an underlying cocern for the time being. As you can see Kompf. There are alot of moving parts at play here and many of these features are not necessarily cold cut game theory calculations. If thats the case, its easy to crunch the numbers to derive at optimal solution, but since historicism plays a preponderant role, it has emotional heft here and this means if Trump bulldozes his way to end the war by marginalising any of these interest groups, especially the Ukranians. Then what is likely to happen is a parting of waves between the US and the EU and if that happens then whats likely to happen is NATO may even feature in ways and means never seen before in the Russo Ukraine war! I am serious Kompf, we may even see EU troops fighting alongside Ukranians. Kompf I don’t want to talk about things I don’t know about. Maybe people think that I am a farmer who is a savant who can foretell the future, but as I said, there are so many moving parts at play here and to be honest. I dont know what will happen. But this much I do know, whatever format of the US and Russian peace proposal, it is jugular that it should also include the interest of both the EU and especially the Ukrainians as well….otherwise it will just be a worthless piece of paper and even should Trump stand on a soap box and proclaim – peace in our time!

It will be nothing more than a short lived peace…war will certainly break out again and this time round it will be NATO against the Russians!