TRUMP UNDER PRESSURE DOES THE MINIMUM

So after a weekend of revelations that Trump was indeed changing tack on Russia, largely based on a passing chat with Melania, who apparently noted that despite his ‘nice calls’ with Putin, he’d just hit Ukraine with another record drone strike. This cause Trump to finally comprehend that Putin was taking him for a ride and meant none of what he said. Even Trump realized he’d been had.

Yet even so US politics, not least the literal sobbing tears of senior Magaverse pundits over the ‘betrayal’ of Trump in respect of the Epstein files being fully released, un-redacted, showing the full ‘List’ of people named as his associates, has complicated matters. The fact is Trump was involved with Epstein up to his neck until they fell out over a property deal in 2006, and stopped speaking. He doesn’t want that report published because he will be implicated. The Magaverse already loves conspiracies, Epstein is just that, but a real one, and by blocking publication Trump has joined ‘the deep state’ and is feeding the conspiracy. A congressional committee voted to block its publication just yesterday, even the parts already made public. It’s seriously affecting what he can do and it’s not going away, and it has had a direct impact on what he might otherwise have been willing to do for Ukraine.

In order to calm down the Magaverse which cares only about two really important issues right now – Epstein Files and not supplying Ukraine with weapons for any reason whatsoever, he had to tread carefully.

Yet the pressure was on. Mark Rutte of NATO had a telephone conversation with Trump on Thursday, where German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius was also involved. It was agreed NATO would buy weapons through a consortium of nations for Ukraine. In fact the position would be the purchasing nations would supply the equipment they had, because Ukraine needs it now, and then replace it with new from the US. Initially this would include at least a pair of Patriot batteries and their missiles. These help with keeping glide bombers as far from the front as possible, keep Ukraine’s air bases relatively safe from missile strikes and help take down Kinzhal and Iskander’s when used. To do this they really need the latest PAC-3 missile for Patriot. The PAC-2 is not as capable or effective against missiles. Public discussion over what is or is not available is not happening for obvious reasons, but it doesn’t take much knowledge to tell you PAC-3 is in very short supply.

Originally Boris Pistorius was to have taken centre stage but it was agreed that it needed to be Mark Rutte to make it clear this was a NATO proposal, coordinated by NATO with Ukraine and the buyers, and that the alliance as a whole is working together to aid Ukraine from Europe.

Trumps acceptance of the need for the aid (finally) was tempered by his adding that while it was good Europe was doing so much more, America wasn’t going to supply anything for free because its done enough and can’t afford it. That was a direct sop to the Magaverse. By making the Europeans pay, ‘because there are many wealthy nations in Europe’, Trump at least keeps the faith with some of the deeply upset ‘base’. It hasn’t stopped the crowing over the Epstein Files though. And it won’t.

Mark Rutte, the inveterate diplomat has learnt how to keep Trump’s ego inflated and also how to get things done with him, and for that he deserves huge credit. By focusing on NATO it also keeps the organisation relevant, underlines the fact that America is still, after all, its primary member, even as a clear decoupling between Europe+ and the US is taking place.

That decoupling, as I said on BlueSky, is something Russia has been trying to achieve since the early 1960’s. It tried again, spending a fortune to do so, in the 1980’s, funding the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. That spread over the continent, so much so that it infected British politics, temporarily creating the mildly ridiculous Michael Foot as Labour Leader in opposition, on a platform of decommissioning the nuclear deterrent. That didn’t last as ‘the tramp with a walking stick’ was defeated decisively at the polls by Margaret Thatcher. The Putin regime resuscitated the scheme – Brexit, right wing parties in Europe, the election of Trump himself, all part of a very long campaign to neutralize the American element in the alliance, and breakdown the liberal order, decouple Europe.

It’s my belief that after Brexit, Putin thought he’d managed it. He’d finally achieved what Russia was aiming for. Trump’s first term was chaotic, the split with NATO over defence spending was becoming a chasm, Europe was hooked on Russian oil and especially gas – Germany was the most heavily addicted of all. The European reaction over Crimea and then the Donetsk campaign, even when a Malaysian airliner (MH-17) on its way from Amsterdam was shot down, remained tepid. Even so it did change the attitude in the Netherlands – whose Prime Minister at the time was no less than Mark Rutte, now Secretary General of NATO. He was perhaps the first to really try and wake Europe from its long sleep and the reality of Putin.

Putin misread the Europeans badly in 2022. He still does. He blames us for so much, yet we have only reacted to his actions.

Mark Rutte has Putin’s ‘number’, he knows what he is. Now we all do.

The question is what will Europe buy and donate to Ukraine? Ukraine itself is able to buy what it needs from America and has opted for 18 ATACMS in the first instance.

There’s still no word on the $3.8 billion of left over funds from last year’s aid bill, which expires in October if unused. Congress did just pass $500m for Ukraine support which was added to the National Defence Appropriations Act, but that’s largely for funding intelligence operations and data supplied by Maxar and others, via the National Reconnaissance Office and so on, as well as contracting Starlink services.

The real question is what will Ukraine get in the future? The Tomahawk on Typhon system was apparently high on the list but taken off at the last minute on Friday, though nobody is saying why exactly, my assessment is there’s a shortage of missiles. Japan has an order for the Tomahawk currently being fulfilled of 574, the US wants its own and production is maxed out. Tomahawk is the only missile that can attack all of the Shaheed production sites.

The JASSM – Joint Air To Surface Standoff Missile has a range of 370km and the JASSM-ER 926km, and these can be used from F-16’s. Its nearest allegory would be StormShadow but it is perhaps more flexible in its applications, with the option of a 450kg blast fragmentation or one for hardened targets. These have been in service since 2009 (ER version 2014). JASSM is used by US, Australia, Finland & Poland. The ER version is only used by the US.

The view from Moscow is demonstrably one of shoulder shrugging unconcern. Medvedev declared the whole Trump tariff threat pointless, the Foreign Ministry derided it as unconcerning, the Moscow stock exchange actually rose a few points because it wasn’t as bad as they had feared.

The worst element is the Trump Tariff scam. He’s given Putin 50 days, on top of the 14 days he gave him 28 days prior to that, to make peace. Allowing for oil sale and delivery times any sanctions won’t be effective for another 50+ days, dragging out to 100+ days, and sometime in late October before it has any effect. That’s if he even bothers to do anything.

No matter how you look at it, the Trump regime has made a big deal out of essentially nothing. Its given Putin ample time to carry on and push through his summer offensive, agreed to let Ukraine have a few tactical weapons that might assist in keeping the Russians back, and probably secured intelligence and data sharing for as long as Ukraine needs it.

Yet actually cripple Russia? Not anything like it. And to add to the insult, John Thune, senate majority leader killed off Lindsey Graham’s sanctions bill because Trump changed his mind and doesn’t now want it, not that he needed it in the first place. The original point was for Trump to get Congress to act, so that he could say it wasn’t his idea. Now he’s decided what to do he no longer needs Congress to act. I cannot recall any President in my lifetime (indeed ever), who had such dramatic and detailed control over his party in Congress. They jump when he says jump, and that is not how Congress or the constitution was designed to work. They are supposed to be a check on presidential authority, a balance, not a presidential rubber stamp.

While I commend NATO and Mark Rutte for handling Trump and getting some of the aid over the finish line and agreements to buy weapons, that’s where it stops. The rest of Trump’s words are meaningless slop that do nothing to help Ukraine, and give Putin plenty of time and opportunity to push his offensives. Ukraine has enough to hold them off and make them hugely costly, but it doesn’t have enough to drive Putin to the negotiating table any time soon. Only the domestic economic situation inside Russia will manage that.

The Analyst

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