Ruy Teixeira has an interesting observation:

Take a look at this graphic from the recent New York Times/Ipsos poll. Quick quiz: what is the intersection of the two sets “most important issues for themselves personally” and “most important issues for the Democratic Party”?

Here’s the table to which he draws attention:

He continues:

That right: it’s health care! There’s no other overlap between the two sets. Health care is the #2 issue for the public and at least makes the leaderboard—at #5—on what respondents think is most important to the Democratic Party. The Republican Party, on other hand, is viewed as sharing three of the public’s top five priorities—the economy, immigration, and taxes—but not health care.

You may see where I’m going with this. High salience issues on which Democrats have a clear advantage are thin on the ground these days—but health care definitely qualifies and has stood out as a robust Democratic advantage for quite some time.

The majority of Americans want the healthcare system to remain private but, paradoxically, believe that ensuring that people can obtain some form of healthcare insurance is the responsibility of the federal government. However, a whopping 72% of Democrats would prefer a single-payer healthcare system.

For my part I see no way of squaring that circle. How would a single-payer system be sustainable without controlling costs? Or how would the federal government ensure that people had access to healthcare insurance without controlling costs.

That’s the difference between the U. S. and the UK or, say, France. The French and Brits are willing to control healthcare costs. We aren’t.

Another post that caught my eye this morning was this one by Andrew Latham at RealClearDefense:

Although I am not an across-the-board supporter of Trump—I have strong reservations about much of his domestic agenda and political style—I am a passionate advocate for a grand strategy of restraint. Not because Trump champions it, but because restraint is the only approach consistent with the post-unipolar, multipolar world we now inhabit.

Restraint should never be mistaken for isolationism. The critics’ lazy conflation of the two is a disservice to strategic debate. Restraint does not mean withdrawing from the world or abandoning allies. Rather, it requires strategic discipline – prioritizing vital interests, especially in the Western Hemisphere and key regions of Eurasia, while avoiding costly, unnecessary interventions. The Western Hemisphere, in particular, deserves renewed focus as the bedrock of U.S. security. Strengthening regional ties, stabilizing fragile states, and preventing external interference in the Americas would ensure a secure backyard from which the U.S. can project power when essential. Yet, this hemispheric emphasis does not mean ignoring revisionist powers in other regions. Balancing and blunting threats elsewhere remains crucial when regional hegemony would jeopardize core U.S. interests. As multipolarity replaces the fleeting moment of unipolarity, the reality is clear: the United States cannot – and should not – attempt to sustain a unipolar moment that has long since passed.

and

Some critics point to Trump’s so-called softness on Russia as proof of dangerous isolationism. This, too, misses the mark. As The Wall Street Journal recently noted, Trump’s approach to Russia is hardly unprecedented. Previous administrations, including Obama’s, sought pragmatic engagement with Moscow when U.S. interests aligned. Restraint here does not mean appeasement; it means realism. Recognizing that antagonizing Russia on its doorstep risks unnecessary confrontation is strategic wisdom, not weakness. Europe is economically and technologically equipped to handle its own security. Overcommitting U.S. resources in Europe, especially when strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific and hemispheric challenges loom large, is shortsighted.

As should be apparent I am a “restrainer” rather than a “primacist”. One quibble I have with Dr. Latham’s thesis is in this passage:

…it requires strategic discipline – prioritizing vital interests, especially in the Western Hemisphere and key regions of Eurasia, while avoiding costly, unnecessary interventions.

because it unnecessarily elides the distinct between restraint and primacy. What are our “vital interests”? How do you determine what is “unnecessary”? IMO that is the essential distinction between restraint and seeking primacy. For primacists retaining primacy is a vital interest and anything that furthers it is necessary.

My view to the contrary is that which preserves American peace, freedom, and prosperity in the near term is vital and necessary. Such a view is bound to alarm optimistic internationalists.

Most of the editorials and opinion pieces that have caught my eye recently have been devoted to the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I’m going to cite, quote, and comment on several of them here. The first is from former U. S. Ambassador and former US Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker at the Center for European Policy Analysis:

As Ukraine enters its fourth year of defending against a full-scale Russian invasion, there is a feeling of change in the air — hope that 2025 might bring an end to the fighting, but deep concern that a high price might be paid for a fleeting and unjust peace.

Russia is at its weakest since February 2022: economically, militarily and politically. Inflation is running rampant, interest rates are pegged at a staggering 21%, there is both a manpower shortage for the army and a labor shortage in the civilian economy, the state budget is in deficit, and without access to global financial markets, it is burning through its remaining foreign exchange reserves. It is reliant on North Korea for ammunition and manpower, and Iran for drones.

Within six months to a year, Russia will need a pause in the war. But until then, the Kremlin’s overnight bombing offensive and front-line assaults continue.

Ukraine is also feeling the strains of war. The population is tired. Even though the casualty ratio is roughly 3:1 in Ukraine’s favor, the Ukrainians care more about that one soldier than Russia does for dozens of its own troops. The front line has scarcely moved in two years, but the costs to Ukraine are high.

He sees the four pillars of the present U. S. approach as:

• ceasefire
• reciprocity
• deterrence
• burden-sharing

which is thornier than it may sound. Somewhat contrary to that are the remarks of Jonathan Sweet and Mark Toth at The Hill:

Since Team Trump is set more on a deal benefiting the U.S. than on a fair and equitable solution that concludes the war, Zelensky should make this a quid pro quo arrangement — also known as a conditions-based contract, especially since NATO and the EU are hopelessly stuck in bureaucratic inroads.

This would put skin in the game for Team Trump.

So, let’s make a deal.

In exchange for a minerals contract with the U.S. to reimburse its investment in Ukraine’s war against Russian aggression, the U.S. sets conditions for the complete withdrawal of Russian forces from all of Ukraine, including Crimea. Those conditions, diplomatic or kinetic, depend on the Kremlin.

Call it what it is: diplomatic shock and awe, but it is long overdue. As Vice President JD Vance has stated, “there’s a new sheriff in town.” Only now the phrase is properly directed at the adversary — Moscow.

which sounds notably like what have been referred to as “Ukraine’s maximalist objectives”. Here are the observations of the editors of the Wall Street Journal:

Monday marks the third anniversary of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and the Kremlin marked the weekend with the largest drone attack of the war. President Trump says Vladimir Putin wants “peace,” but Ukrainians have hard experience about what such a promise means in practice. The anniversary is a good moment to recall the post-Cold War history of Russia’s broken promises.

They began with the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 amid the illusion of the “end of history.” Ukraine yielded its nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees from the U.S., U.K. and Russia. Moscow explicitly promised to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and refrain from economic coercion. So much for that, and here’s a trail of Russia’s other broken commitments…

One of the things notable about the commentary is that many of the parties want to start the clock, start history at different points. Some in February 2022. Some in December 2021. Some in 2014. Some, like the WSJ, in 1994. Some in 1991. Some in 1954, the 1930s, 1919, or even in the 18th or even 17th century.

Quite contrary to most of the above are the remarks of David P. Goldman at Asia Times:

From the howling in the war camp, you’d think it was the end of the world. But it’s not the end of the world: It’s just the end of them. Nothing fails like failure, and the twenty-year campaign to launch regime change in Russia from Ukraine failed miserably, as the Russian Federation built more weapons than the whole of NATO combined. Relentless Russian gains hollowed out the Ukraine Army.

The war party’s only hope is to blame their failure on Trump, and to spin out the conflict until it becomes a permanent state of war.

Somewhere in between is the lament of Marcus Stanley at Responsible Statecraft:

Today marks the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. With the war entering its fourth year and serious diplomatic moves toward peace finally underway, it’s an appropriate time to look back on the U.S. approach to the conflict.

The Ukraine war is the most devastating European conflict since WW2. While accurate casualty figures are difficult to come by, in September 2024, The Wall Street Journal estimated that the war had already resulted in more than one million casualties, with more than 250,000 dead and some 800,000 wounded.

The carnage has only increased since then. Estimates are that the war has caused some $1 trillion in damage to Ukraine’s infrastructure and capital stock. Even before the war Ukraine was already one of the poorest countries in Europe. As of late 2024, the U.S. government had allocated some $175 billion in military and non-military aid to support Ukraine’s war effort.

The early months of the war saw astounding Ukrainian success in resisting Russian aggression, as Ukraine mobilized to drive Russian forces back from the Kyiv region and the Black Sea coast. After an additional offensive in September 2022 gained some further ground, the war settled into a grinding stalemate in Ukraine’s Eastern regions.

Since the end of 2022, the front lines in Ukraine have barely moved, with Russia holding 18% of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territories in December 2022 and 18.6% of those territories today. But the costs of war continued to mount, with hundreds of thousands of additional dead and wounded and continued assaults on Ukraine’s infrastructure.

The military stalemate in Ukraine was predictable.

Not only was it predictable but it was predicted.

I don’t believe that either Russia is on the verge of economic, political, or strategic collapse. Indeed, I think it’s in a somewhat stronger position than it was in December 2021, IMO a perverse outcome. I also don’t believe that the Ukrainian government is on the brink of collapse, especially not if the U. S. continues to supply and fund it. I see no way the “maximalist objectives” AKA “not letting Putin win” can be accomplished without nuclear war. I also believe that U. S. repute in the world was entirely based on U. S. economic power, at least since our withdrawal in defeat from Vietnam.

I would suggest that we view the conflict strictly based on how we prioritize several values:

• hatred of Russia
• love of Ukraine
• love of the United States
• abstract principles like the rule of law in the international arena, spreading democracy, etc.

For me the highest priority among those above is love of the United States and those “abstract principles”. I don’t hate Russia and I don’t love Ukraine. I recognize that for some hatred of Russia or love of Ukraine are actual priorities and that making a buck is subsumed under “love of the United States”.

The results of the German election are coming in and as of this writing late Sunday afternoon Central Time they are represented by the graphic at the top of this post. Reuters reports:

For the first time since the Second World War, a far-right party has come second in a German national election.

All other parties have refused to build a coalition with it, under a ‘firewall’ pact against the far right, but the AfD could prove a fearsome opponent.

“The vote is clear. Germans want political change and they want a coalition between blue (AfD) and black (conservative),” party leader Alice Weidel told a televised debate between party leaders after first poll projections.

“The CDU conservatives copied our manifesto almost entirely, they can do that, but they can’t put it into practice with leftist parties. That is why our hand is stretched out. We can speak to each other. Herr Merz doesn’t want to do that, perhaps others from the CDU will.”

She predicted if the CDU builds a coalition with the SPD and Greens, it would be an unstable government that won’t last four years.

As of this writing it is unclear whether the CDU/CSU coalition will be able to form a government with just the Social Democrats (SPD) or whether they’ll need to invite the Greens to join their government as well. As noted above that is likely to be unwieldy, like herding cats. Whether the coalition will require two or more partners depends on the final results.

One of the things that is interesting about the results is how dependent on older voters the CDU/CSU are (see the link for a breakdown).

I can’t speculate on whether the Germans are voting for change. I can see how they might want change but whether that’s what they’re signaling is beyond my ken. I think that Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) is high on their own supply if they actually think they’ll be invited to form a coalition with the CDU/CSU and that a coalition of the CDU/CSU and SPD is very unlikely to produce change.

Just as I’m complaining how much of what we’re hearing about the war in Ukraine is propaganda, the Institute for the Study of War produces a useful factsheet on the war. Here’s a sample:

Key Takeaways

• Zelensky does not imminently risk losing all of Ukraine.
• Most Ukrainian cities have not been destroyed.
• Ukrainian law prohibits holding elections in wartime (unlike the US Constitution which requires it).
• Ukraine has not suffered millions of losses.
• Europe provides about as much direct aid to Ukraine as the US.
• European loans to Ukraine are backed by income from frozen Russian assets, not Ukraine.
• Ukraine did not misuse or lose half of the aid the United States has provided.
• Ukraine repeatedly invited Putin to negotiate in early 2022.

It is extensively footnoted which I appreciate.

In many ways it’s a very coy document—it is very carefully phrased. I’ll leave it to the reader to discern the ways in which that is the case.

One of the areas in which I have particular interest (bullet point seven) includes this passage from the document referenced in the footnote:

Despite the changes made to EEUM inventory processes and the improvement of delinquency rates in Ukraine since February 2022, the DoD did not fully comply with EEUM program requirements for defense article accountability in a hostile environment.

and

The DoD did not fully comply with EEUM program requirements in a hostile environment to ensure defense articles transferred to Ukraine are being stored, secured, and used in accordance with the terms and conditions of the relevant transfer agreements and Chapter 8 of the SAMM.

Consequently, a more objective phrasing of the bullet point might be that Ukraine did not misuse or lose half of the aid the United States has provided directly to Ukraine as far as we know.

Still it’s a very handy summary as far as it goes.

I strongly encourage you to read Marc Caputo’s detailed assessment of the exchanges between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Trump Administration at Axios. Here’s how he quotes the White House:

In the White House’s view, Zelensky grew too accustomed to former President Biden’s open-ended support for Ukraine’s war effort, the full-throated backing of NATO countries and the positive press that went with it. So he overstepped.

• “Zelensky is an actor who committed a common mistake of theater kids: He started to think he’s the character he plays on TV,” a White House official involved in the talks said. “Yes, he has been brave and stood up to Russia. But he would be six feet under if it wasn’t for the millions we spent, and he needs to exit stage right with all the drama.”
• “We created a monster with Zelensky,” another official involved in the negotiations said. “And these Trump-deranged Europeans who won’t send troops are giving him terrible advice.”
• “In the course of a week, Zelensky rebuffed President Trump’s treasury secretary, his secretary of state and his vice president, all before moving on to personally insulting President Trump in the press,” another administration official said.
• “What did Zelensky think was going to happen?”

Read the whole thing.

I wanted to add one more thing, via Holman Jenkins at Wall Street Journal:

Tweeted a former minister in the Zelensky government last week: “We just didn’t want to admit it. The difference between Biden and Trump is that Trump says out loud what Biden was thinking and doing.”

or, said another way, from the Ukrainian point-of-view the U. S. actions have been consistent from the Biden Administration to the Trump Administration. It’s their words that have been different.

I encourage you to read Francis Fukuyama’s harsh castigation of Trump’s having betrayed Ukraine at Persuasion. Here’s a sample:

What Trump has said over the past few days about Ukraine and Russia defies belief. He has accused Ukraine of having started the war by not preemptively surrendering to Russian territorial demands; he has said that Ukraine is not a democracy; and he has said that Ukrainians were wrong to resist Russian aggression. These ideas are likely not ones he thought up himself, but come straight from the mouth of Vladimir Putin, a man Trump has shown great admiration for. Meeting in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, the United States started a direct negotiation with Moscow that excludes both Ukraine and the Europeans, and has surrendered in advance two critical bargaining chips: acceptance of Russian territorial gains to date, and a commitment not to let Ukraine enter NATO. In return, Putin has not made a single concession.

I’ll try to summarize Dr. Fukuyama’s view:

• Ukraine is “a young, fragile, and imperfect liberal democracy”
• Russia is a “totalitarian dictatorship”
• The United States under Donald Trump’s leadership is “joining the authoritarian camp”

My view is somewhat different:

• Just about anything we think we know about what is going on in Ukraine is propaganda—either anti-Russian, pro-Russian, anti-Ukrainian, or pro-Ukrainian propaganda
• Russia is not a liberal democracy. It is an authoritarian oligarchy. Liberal democracies do not imprison people for expressing view (in print or online) contrary to the official one
• Ukraine is not a liberal democracy. See above. In Ukraine they’ve called such prosecutions “promoting Russian propaganda”.
• I do not know what President Trump is trying to do. I presume he’s trying to get the best possible deal but I have no insight into how he assesses that. That’s how I interpret the Ukrainian minerals stuff.

The question I would ask Dr. Fukuyama is whether he can cite an example of a “young, fragile, and imperfect liberal democracy” that become more liberal and more democratic as it matured? It certainly doesn’t describe the U. S. experience. I can think of dozens of examples of “young, fragile, and imperfect liberal democracies” that became dictatorships as they matured.

More on this subject in my next post.

After one month of the second Trump term, Peggy Noonan’s reaction expressed in her Wall Street Journal column is not dissimilar from mine:

When you think aloud for a living you’re lately getting a lot of wry comments like “It must be hard to come up with a topic with nothing going on.”

“It’s drinking from a fire hose,” the journalist will reply. Meanwhile, normal people are asking: He doesn’t really think he’s a king, right? I’ve grown tired of saying, “Well, that was insane,” and we’re barely a month in.

The question you really feel pressed to ask yourself is are these people crazy? Ms. Noonan reflects on that:

The most charitable gloss on the administration style—here we’re thinking of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s blithe announcement that he wants to cut defense spending 8% a year for the next five years—is that they’re simply riding high and have grown full of themselves, as opposed to clinically insane.

I think the most charitable gloss on the president’s remarks is that the president tends to speak rashly, off the cuff, and in superlatives. I frequently have no idea what he’s actually trying to express when you cut through the BS.

She turns to President Trump’s remarks about Ukraine:

The president’s remarks on Ukraine this week were wild and destructive. He isn’t wrong to wish to end that conflict—war is brutality and waste. Everyone knew that it would end on unsatisfying terms. But Ukraine didn’t start it, Russia did, in defiance of international law. The war isn’t Volodymyr Zelensky’s fault, he isn’t a dictator, he isn’t loathed by his people—all those things President Trump said were untrue. And the vast majority of those listening to these charges know they are untrue. Asking “Why does Trump do this?” is a decade-long cliché, but really—why does he do this?

Ukraine is a sovereign nation. Its citizens put everything they had on the field to defend themselves. Mr. Zelensky entered world history with spirit and guts, refusing to flee Kyiv: “I need ammo, not a ride.” After the Cold War Ukraine agreed to relinquish the nuclear weapons housed there for a promise the U.S. would always have its back. They trusted us. Must American presidents honor the honestly made vows of their predecessors? In this case surely yes, at pain of announcing to every friend we have, “You’re on your own, Uncle Sam has left the building.” Trump supporters think they want that message sent. It is a careless and destructive one.

Did everyone actually know Russia’s war against Ukraine would “end on unsatisfying terms”? I see very little evidence of that. Quite to the contrary what I have seen is persistence in holding overly optimistic views no one knew how to make into reality. Those few hardy souls who understood it would end on unsatisfying terms from the very outset have been castigated as either victims of or promoting Russian propaganda.

More on this in a later post.

The older I get the more I simply don’t understand things that are going on. Take the “war of words”, harsh exchanges between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky. Here’s a report by David L. Stern and Ellen Francis at the Washington Post:

KYIV — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with President Donald Trump’s envoy on Thursday, as barbed exchanges between the two leaders deepened uncertainty about the future of U.S. backing for Kyiv.

Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s envoy on the war in Ukraine, arrived in Kyiv soon after the spat erupted, with Trump describing the Ukrainian president as failing and blaming him for Russia’s 2022 invasion of the country. Zelensky countered that Trump was repeating misinformation about him and the war.

I don’t want to psychoanalyze President Trump’s remarks about Ukraine starting the war with Russia. Maybe that’s what he meant and maybe it isn’t. I’ve been saying for years that Donald Trump puzzles me. Maybe he’s just misinformed. Maybe he meant something else. Don’t ask me.

And I’m equally puzzled by President Zelensky’s rejoinders. If I were in his position I would be doing my level best not to alienate the president of my largest supporter. What audience was he addressing? A domestic one? The Democrats? The Europeans? What does he intend to accomplish by it? I have no idea.

Let’s do a quick little quiz. What should the U. S. posture with respect to Ukraine and support for Ukraine in its war with Russia be?

1. Anything that kills Russians and uses up Russian munitions is good for the U. S. If Ukrainians are killed in the process it’s just too bad.
2. We should do everything in our power to support Ukraine as it defends itself against Russia’s unjust and illegal invasion because of our shared values.
3. Ditto to above with the exception of committing U. S. troops.
4. We should provide military and humanitarian support to Ukraine because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a violation of its treaty obligations.
5. A conclusion to the war should be negotiated as soon as possible to preserve Ukrainian and Russian lives even if it means Ukraine’s surrendering some of the territory it held in 2022.
6. We don’t give a damn about Ukraine.

My view is roughly D. Something like E seems to be the Trump administration’s view. BTW I’m not just pulling those alternatives out of thin air. I’ve heard all of them expressed by somebody at one time or another.