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.

I haven’t actually weighed in on JD Vance’s scolding of our European allies yet. I disagree with one of his fundamental points—that the United States, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom share their regard for freedom of speech, religion, assembly, etc.

France, Germany, and the United Kingdom are ethnic states. We are not. Our greatest difference from our European allies is contained in this passage:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The reality is that our European allies think about things like freedom of speech, etc. differently than we do. Nowhere is freedom of speech so expansive and absolute as in the United States. The UK has its Official Secrets Act which allows the government to bar the media from publishing things it doesn’t care to have them publish. In the UK you can sue a newspaper for slander if it publishes something untrue about you; here you would need to show actual malice. We regard what is normal in the UK as an abridgement of freedom of the press. Germany suppresses certain speech. The UK and Germany still have established churches. The “freedom to cross the land” is secured by Magna Carta in the UK; here we call that “trespassing”. The UK and Germany do not have birthright citizenship. In Germany there are people who were born in Germany, whose parents were both born in Germany, and whose grandparents were all born in Germany who are not German citizens. The list goes on.

Our alliances with European countries are “marriages of convenience”. They are not based on shared values. That’s propaganda.

William Galston asks the right question in his Wall Street Journal column:

Is it unconstitutional for Congress to make government agencies such as the Federal Reserve independent by restricting the president’s authority to fire their heads? The Trump administration is behaving as though that’s the case.

He relies for his argument that “independent agencies” are constitutional on Humphrey’s Executor v. United States which in 1934 found that Franklin Roosevelt had improperly fired William Humphrey as a member of the Federal Trade Commission, rejecting the finding in the 1926 Myers v. United States. FDR thought that the SCOTUS decision was motivated by spite against him on the part of the SCOTUS. In 2020 the Roberts court found that Humphrey’s was not binding precedent today because no agencies with the powers of the FTC in 1935 now exist.

So, is Humphrey’s Executor v. United States a relevant precedent for firings of officials appointed by the president today?

My own view is that barring presidents from firing officials they appointed is a constitutional absurdity. I don’t care whether the sitting president is FDR or Trump in that regard. I also think that “independent agencies” are similarly absurd but that’s a matter for another post.

I materially agree with Filipp Piatov’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. Here’s the meat of it:

MAGA sees the AfD as a natural ally in Europe’s largest and most powerful economy. But figures such as Elon Musk and Mr. Vance may not realize that influencers within the AfD consider the U.S. to be Germany’s ideological and most dangerous adversary. They view MAGA as nothing more than a short-term, highly useful ally. Ms. Weidel recently wrote an op-ed referring to Germans as “slaves” of the U.S., offering a glimpse into the party’s deeply anti-Western ideology.

Most of the time Ms. Weidel treads carefully when indulging her party’s deep-seated anti-American sentiments. Her good relations with Mr. Musk are seen as so valuable in the current campaign that even the party’s radical right-wing faction remains conspicuously silent on the matter. Others are less discreet. Björn Höcke, an influential AfD politician, declared in a 2022 speech that the U.S. was an “extraneous power” deliberately driving a wedge between Germany and Russia. He didn’t warn of Germany’s dependence on Russian energy but of its reliance on American liquefied natural gas. He further claimed that America’s goal for the past century has been to prevent a German-Russian alliance because such a partnership could challenge U.S. global dominance.

concluding:

Superficial parallels exist between the Republican Party and the AfD, largely shaped by media. But the AfD isn’t Germany’s equivalent of MAGA. It’s becoming a “German Race First” party. Its ideologues fantasize about a rebirth of an ethnically pure German Volk. It is no coincidence that Mr. Höcke lamented the portrayal of Hitler as “absolutely evil,” or that Maximilian Krah, the party’s lead candidate for the EU elections, publicly declared that not all members of the SS—Hitler’s elite killing troops—should automatically be considered criminals.

It is no accident that AfD politicians have spent years forging ties with America’s greatest geopolitical adversaries, particularly Russia and China. AfD delegations have made obsequious pilgrimages to Moscow. Ms. Weidel has routinely held private meetings at the Chinese ambassador’s residence in Berlin. Last year, an assistant to Mr. Krah, the AfD’s most vocal advocate for a close relationship with the Chinese regime, was arrested in Leipzig on suspicion of espionage for China.

For the Trump administration, the AfD might prove a useful tool for stirring headlines and influencing debates within Germany. But an ally? That, it can never be.

My version would be that AfD is a German political party not an American political party. I think that Americans are generally wrong when they draw analogies between American political parties and foreign ones. We don’t understand the context. Tories are not Republicans. Labour is not the Democrats. No German political party is the natural ally of any American political party for the simple reason that it’s a German political party.

George Will’s latest Washington Post column, arguing for a more activist role for the U. S. vis-à-vis Ukraine can be summarized in two equations:

Russia 2025 = Germany 1938
Russia 2025 = Soviet Union 1945

He doesn’t actually present an argument but here are his major claims:

Putin is waging what Johns Hopkins scholar Hal Brands calls (in his new book, “The Eurasian Century”) “a quasi-genocidal war.” Barbarian regimes (see “‘Be Cruel’: Inside Russia’s Torture System for Ukrainian POWs,” the Wall Street Journal, Feb. 10) will be barbaric until stopped. But a revanchist and expansionist Russia worries Europeans more than it worries Donald Trump.

“Look,” he said on Feb. 3 regarding Europe, “we have an ocean in between. They don’t. It’s more important for them than it is for us.” But the ocean was there in 1941. And someone should explain to Trump the acronym “ICBM.”

I agree that Russia is revanchist. I don’t believe it is expansionist and I don’t believe either of the two equations above.

What I actually think is that Russia wants a materially demilitarized buffer between itself and countries that invaded Russia in the 20th century. To his discourse on 20th century history he might include that Germany, France, Britain, the United States, Poland, and even Italy invaded Russia in the 20th century.

I also think the following equations are false:

Europe 2025 = Europe 1918
Europe 2025 = Europe 1945

What I think our objective should be is to convince the Russians that they have no reason to fear invasion or even covert destabilizing activities from NATO countries. Is it even possible to do that with a country as paranoid from long experience as Russia? And do we actually want to do that?