Another round of popcorn, please—the plot thickens.
After Friday’s tantrum in the White House, Zelensky has decided to toe the line.
Start quoting Zelensky (https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1896948147085049916
<https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1896948147085049916>)
I would like to reiterate Ukraine’s commitment to peace.
None of us wants an endless war. Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating
table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. Nobody wants peace
more than Ukrainians. My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s
strong leadership to get a peace that lasts.
We are ready to work fast to end the war, and the first stages could be the
release of prisoners and a truce in the sky—a ban on missiles, long-range
drones, and bombs on energy and other civilian infrastructure—as well as an
immediate truce at sea, if Russia does the same. Then we want to move very fast
through all the next stages and work with the US to agree on a strong final
deal.
We truly value how much America has done to help Ukraine maintain its
sovereignty and independence. And we remember the moment when things
changed—when President Trump provided Ukraine with Javelins. We are grateful
for this.
Our meeting in Washington, at the White House on Friday, did not go the way it
was supposed to. It is regrettable that it happened this way. It is time to
make things right. We would like future cooperation and communication to be
constructive.
Regarding the agreement on minerals and security, Ukraine is ready to sign it
anytime and in any convenient format. We see this agreement as a step toward
greater security and solid security guarantees, and I truly hope it will work
effectively.
End quote
I’m particularly pleased about this because I believe Trump’s peace deal could
lead to a very good outcome. Here’s why:
- The war continues to exact a heavy toll on both Ukraine and Russia, in both
human lives and economic impact.
- The risk of escalation into a catastrophic scenario—such as nuclear conflict
or even World War III—is significantly reduced.
- In many ways, Russia has already lost. Their goal was to capture Kyiv and
control all of Ukraine, but that is now completely unrealistic. Their economy
is in ruins, they’ve lost thousands of soldiers, and Putin has broken the
social contract with Russian citizens. Another invasion? All but impossible.
- Putin’s global standing is in shambles. Before the invasion, he and Xi were
the two key leaders of BRICS. Now, Xi stands alone—one less adversary to worry
about.
Take a minute to think about it. Until now, Zelensky seemed determined to
continue the war with no clear end in sight. How long did he think it could go
on? At what cost? Now, he’s backing Trump’s peace initiative. Maybe it will
fail, and the war will continue—but surely, it’s worth a shot. Right?
On Wed, 5 Mar 2025 at 04:16, Marcus Daniels <mar...@snoutfarm.com
<mailto:mar...@snoutfarm.com>> wrote:
You’ve got one job Deep State. One Job.____
__ __
*From: *Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com <mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> on behalf
of steve smith <sasm...@swcp.com <mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>>
*Date: *Tuesday, March 4, 2025 at 5:03 PM
*To: *friam@redfish.com <mailto:friam@redfish.com> <friam@redfish.com
<mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
*Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] Back at the ranch, I'm enjoying the popcorn.____
__ __
On 3/4/25 10:15 AM, Tom Johnson wrote:____
You're assuming the ongoing presence of Trump and Putin.____
I don't know about Putin, but Trump is a cult leader. If something
happens to him, Vance etc al. can't carry the water.____
I agree, nobody able to carry Trump's nor Putin's water (as it were)... a bit of a red=herring
at that point... some wild card might appear out of nowhere and (mis)fill the void in some
unexpected way (e.g. Asimov's "Mule" of "theFoundation"?)____
One tiny anueurism or a dose of pollonium in the diet coke or some Ioicane
Powder and the modern world diffracts off into some strange new basin of
attraction we haven't even imagined?____
/Viva la punctuated equllibrium!/____
__ __
T____
__ __
__ __
=======================
Tom Johnson
Inst. for Analytic Journalism
Santa Fe, New Mexico
505-577-6482
=======================____
__ __
On Mon, Mar 3, 2025, 9:44 PM steve smith <sasm...@swcp.com
<mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>> wrote:____
Friday afternoon the simple term "WWIII" took on a whole new
understanding/context for me.____
Before that it was some variation on a nuclear exchange between any
2-3 of the major nuclear powers (US/USSR/China) which was held at bay mostly by
variations on MAD. Not only did the possibility of retaliation (before
first-strike lands, or soon after) make it unthinkable, but so did the
challenges of regional and global nuclear contamination and a likely nuclear
winter (minimum of northern hemisphere, but global consequences).____
Now I see it being something more like a new European War similar to
WWI & WWII, not involving North America directly (we don't pitch nor catch
any)____
1. Europe sends in air and ground troops (and more equipment) to
Ukraine to squash Putin's vestigal army. Marcus' no-fly-zone.____
1. Ukraine continues to punish Russia (e.g. destroying
military assets inside Russia)____
2. The European coalition masses conventional forces on Russian borders
with a "ready posture"____
3. Russia is humiliated.____
4. Putin (not Russia) in his humiliation decides to use his
nukes... craters half the major cities or capitols in UK/EU.____
5. France and UK have a *handful* of nukes. I'm out of date,
most or all are on nuclear subs which Russia may or may not know the location
of.____
6. Moscow and a few 'grads become craters.____
7. Nuclear Winter____
8. Misery across Eurasia, the likes of which Russians are more
accustomed____
2. Europe can't agree enough to give Ukraine decisive support (as
in 1 above).____
1. Russia grinds Ukraine down, while using up yet more of it's
own dwindling military and human capital.____
2. Europe and Russia rattle sabers for months or years but
Russia is too depleted to continue a conventional war.____
3. Russia (Putin) gets impatient or arrogant and decides to
nuke European powers.____
4. Again, the handful of non-US nukes targeted on Russia are
enough to make a bad mess and maybe even win but only if used pre-emptively.____
5. (Western) Eurasia is a mess for a century.____
3. In either case MAGA (with/without Trump alive/vital/engaged)
sits back and eats popcorn.____
1. If MAGA holds US power, they grind away at European and
possibly Russian resources, stealing and war profiteering boldly.____
2. Maybe anti-MAGA backlashes MAGA out of power (probably has
to be a strong political win followed by some minor but decisive bloodshed).
Maybe we help them rebuild (similar to post-WWII) or maybe we just sit back on
our side of the Ocean.____
4. China waits patiently for the right moment to grab Mongolia for it's
"raw earth" (trump SIC) and/or Taiwan.... possibly are both worth their
effort... possibly the US uses the European distraction as an opportunity to treat China
as our only overt competitor.____
I don't see the world "a better place" for any of this except in the extreme
case of significant depopulation of both (sadly) third-world innocents and first-world belligerents
(military, political, economic), and even then it isn't clear to me just *when* or *how* the
"meek inherit the earth" but I'll be damned if it isn't an outcome I find myself rooting
for! Feels like if COVID had just been slightly more virulent, we might have gotten there by a
vaguely more graceful route?____
GAH!____
__ __
On 3/3/25 9:10 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:____
1. NATO creates a no-fly zone over Ukraine, and destroys any
Russian asset in Ukraine ____
2. The Ukranians continue to develop their drone programs for
targeted attacks in Russia____
3. Europe gives them long-range weapons, Storm Shadow and
Taurus for larger targets____
____
Biden should have just done this, knowing that Trump would
throw the world into chaos.____
____
*From:*Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com>
<mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Pieter Steenekamp
*Sent:* Monday, March 3, 2025 7:50 PM
*To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<friam@redfish.com> <mailto:friam@redfish.com>
*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Back at the ranch, I'm enjoying the
popcorn.____
____
A Case For and Against Trump in the Context of Ukraine
The Case Against Trump
Russia invaded Ukraine, and Ukraine has been fighting back
heroically for three years. It is crucial to take decisive action against
countries that invade others unprovoked. A good example is the First Gulf War,
when Iraq invaded Kuwait, and the U.S. led a coalition to push Iraq out. That
kind of response helps maintain international order.
However, Trump now portrays Ukraine as the aggressor and openly
aligns himself with Putin. His stance undermines the principle of standing
against aggression and emboldens authoritarian regimes. His willingness to cozy
up to Putin is simply wrong. Period.
The Case For Trump
Maintaining international order is important, but only if you
have the power to enforce it effectively. If you can't win a war, engaging in
it is a mistake. Consider how the U.S. aligned with Stalin in the later stages
of World War II—not because Stalin was good, but because confronting him
directly wasn’t a realistic option at the time. Putin may be an amateur
compared to Stalin, but the logic remains: if you can’t stop him, you may have
to find a way to work with him.
Looking at today's reality, there is no viable path to pushing
Russia out of Ukraine unless the U.S. commits fully—boots on the ground. But no
one in America supports that. Given this, there’s a case for engaging with
Russia pragmatically, much like how the U.S. dealt with Stalin, to bring the
war to an end.
Continuing to support Ukraine half-heartedly, without full
military commitment, has serious downsides. The war could drag on indefinitely,
and if Ukraine eventually wins, Russia would be humiliated. A humiliated
nuclear-armed Russia is a dangerous prospect. History offers a
warning—Germany’s humiliation after World War I directly contributed to the
rise of Hitler. The consequences of a humiliated Russia could be similarly
unpredictable and catastrophic.
My Take
In my lifetime, we had an almost perfect leader in South
Africa—Nelson Mandela. Unfortunately, he is no longer with us. But surely, with
today's AI, we could create a virtual Madiba, and he would know exactly what to
do. ____
____
On Mon, 3 Mar 2025 at 22:28, Tom Johnson <jtjohnson...@gmail.com
<mailto:jtjohnson...@gmail.com>> wrote:____
Image removed by sender.So as usual: Follow the Money.
If Trump gets a deal with Ukraine on those rare earth
minerals, upon leaving Ukraine, where does that ore go and to whom? My bet is
to some company(ies) that Trump et al. have interests in.____
TJ____
____
On Mon, Mar 3, 2025 at 12:33 PM Santafe <desm...@santafe.edu
<mailto:desm...@santafe.edu>> wrote:____
It’s such an encapsulation of that part of the society
(including t and v) to think that they could “humiliate” Zelenskyy. By
insisting, in a conversation with toxic scum, on the relevance of reality, he
was about the only clean thing in the room that could be heard.
There are people like Fareed Zakaria who think that
trump can be somehow managed by a canny player. That doesn’t ring correct to
me, unless the player has a lot of power and money, and it is the power and
money that are managing trump. No agreement with trump is worth the paper it
is written on. We all understand that he will do anything he is not stopped
from doing. The problem with the american presidency is that there become
fewer and fewer actors who can stop its occupant from doing things, in the era
of political parties as universalizing corrupting bodies. If this whole train
continues, they will eventually degrade the u.s. in wealth and power enough
that its ability to do damage declines. But there is so much accumulated right
now, that they can do enormous harm before they undercut themselves.
I am persuaded by those who opine that trump has no
intention of doing anything to aid Ukraine, and that the point of the
performance was to put up a front for not doing anything, for the same audience
who interprets any of that as a humiliation of Zelenskyy. If trump could
extort money or resource access, and then backstab in return for it, I expect
he would be interested in that opportunity. But not more than that.
I also think that people are living a little bit in the
past when they comment that, with trump, it’s always about money. That was
before the first presidency, when his possibilities to exercise abusive power
over other people in a country with some degree of rule of law was limited,
relative to the amount of spending he could do (whether solvent or insolvent).
But the access to abusive power in the presidency, for a sociopath, is on a
scale not available to anybody else. If money was heroin for that addiction,
the power of the presidency is fentanyl, and I don’t think trump is going back
now. Money: fine; but that’s now the second motive.
(I think there are elements of this for Musk as well,
but there is enough about him that is different that I wouldn’t put him in the
same category, or in the same post here.)
I, of course, don’t _know_ anything, and I don’t even
have any sophistication thinking in this sphere. But from my long distance
from it, I can imagine that the calculus is roughly this at the moment: It is
still possible that trump won’t direct the u.s. military to attack Ukraine
directly. The question whether it is possible comes back, entirely, to what
force is available to stop him from ordering it. I don’t doubt for a minute
that, if the EU starts to get scared, and if they have time to act
constructively, enough to start to give Ukraine meaningful ability to hold land
or push back a bit, the u.s. under trump would act as a saboteur of that effort.
If that is the correct vantage point, I would imagine
that Zelenskyy’s challenge is to try to orient the rest of the world into some
structure that will hem trump and the trumpers in as much as possible from
direct attack, and where possible against sabotage. (Sabotage is harder,
because to even find out that it is going on, you need somebody on the inside
to report.) If they can get some weapons out of the weapons contractors and
the congressmen, sure; try to do what you can. But any of that has meaning
only when it is in your hands and being used. Don’t put weight on anything
short of that.
(I don’t mean, in this, btw, to downplay the true
problem that the current condition is a WWI-type trench warfare with drones,
and the prospect of extending that to a point of collapse is already so bad,
that it takes something truly awful for that not to be the worst. I don’t see
indication that any good-faith actor anywhere is denying that, though I don’t
think saying it, alone, makes one a good-faith actor.)
I had a conversation with a friend over the weekend who
is a NASA program manager, and who interpreted a recent directive they had
received, to discontinue the use of paper straws, and replace them with plastic
straws, as a kickback to some petroleum company that had bribed trump. Given
that this is a smart person I am talking to, the quaintness of that
interpretation took my breath away. It seems clear beyond daylight, to me,
that the images of turtles with straws in their noses, and seabirds dead of
them, were the breakthrough that the environmental groups finally got with the
public, to get some action to ban that specific plastic item as one of the most
insidiously dangerous and cruel. The point of the paper-straw ban was the
point of everything with these people. Most directly, it was an intent to
deliver a “defeat” to the environmental groups, focusing on the image that had
succeeded for them precisely because it is so awful to have to see
more of. But more generally, this is the core of
meanness. It is a rage, by those who are defiled in their nature, against the
existence of anything that isn’t defiled.
This is again Hannah Arendt’s summary of the
last-century European political actors: that they didn’t understand the
distinction between the parties and the movements. The parties wanted to
control the government, whereas the movements wanted to destroy the government.
Public commentary on this drives me nuts, because it seems to exactly repeat
this error. People talk about the appointments of degraded morons to agency
heads as being about loyalty: take somebody who couldn’t earn anything in a
world of merit, and put him on a plush perch that he knows he will only retain
as long as he can continue to curry favor. But I believe that only to about a
30% level as the motive. And it is an inward-facing motive; how to keep
various functionaries on a leash. There is an outward-directed motive, and I
think that is about 70% of the drive. These people are put there, because he
couldn’t find anybody worse. It is again the effort to eliminate the notion
of legitimacy from the concept of society people will
adopt and live within.
The word I wanted to use for the latter, thinking over
the weekend, was “vesting”. It’s a bit of a bland word, but it wraps up
several things that otherwise I can’t encompass in one word. The cognitive
concept of truth; abstract notions such as justice; the society as an agreement
underpinned by legitimized institutions. What all these have in common is that
people accept restraint to uphold a prior commitment to these other things as
“higher” over the long run. And when the mob wants to destroy the state —
meaning, really to destroy that concept of society — it is this “higher” that
they can keep their attention fixed on, as all the other particular targets
(immigrants, academics, civil servants, black people, gay people, etc.) get
rotated in and out as opportunities arise.
So anyway: if every dealing with trump turns out to be,
over time, a loss for Zelenskyy — the reality behind the literary Faustian
Bargain — he may not be worse off having the break occur earlier. I don’t know
what it may buy him to have humiliated t and v, by having the dignity to not
accept those terms of conversation, in terms of coalition-building with other
heads of state.
I do continue to wonder what China’s play in this will
be. I imagine they think they will have no trouble “managing” Russia into some
kind of continuing subordinate status, when it is alone with a gigantic land
area but a limited economy and population. If it were even just Russia
swallowing Ukraine, China might still think of that as an okay outcome. I feel
pretty sure they want the rare earths, in view of their relations with Mongolia
up to now, and the fact that the only thing protecting Taiwan is that it holds
the entire world’s highest technology as a trust, and collapsing it would cause
such a large global implosion that it would destabilize China as well, for now.
But they probably figure they can get those from Russian control, where Russia
couldn’t develop them internally anyway. An actual coalition of Russia with
the U.S., however, could become more worrisome for China, even if the U.S. is
undergoing a process of self-degradation. So it
is not inconceivable to me that China could want some
stalemate to go on a while longer, which limits the coordination of the
trumpers with other large actors as much as feasible. Another Faustian bargain
for Zelenskyy if it is offered. But maybe more predictable in the short term.
But there, too, I don’t know anything.
Eric
> On Mar 3, 2025, at 11:34, steve smith <sasm...@swcp.com
<mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>> wrote:
>
>
>> It's way too generous to say "Trump has a case". Trump and Vance's "case" consists of "You should be grateful to us because we give you money". I.e. suck up to me and I'll deign to give you more money.
> I don't think Trump or Vance have backed any
significant support for Ukraine. The US people through our elected
representatives and tax dollars *HAVE* supported Ukraine (albeit a little slowly
an a little anemically and a little timidly sometimes?). Zelensky has been
extravagantly and eloquently thankful to all of the above. Trump and Vance were
spoiling for an opportunity to try to humiliate Zelensky in front of the cameras,
so they contrived it.
>> Maybe someone makes the case you say is Trump's. But
it's not Trump making that case. If he sporadically vomits words that sound like
that, it's because they were put into his mouth by someone else. The question is Who
put them there? Putin? Elno? Thiel?
>
> The "raw earth" (sic Trump) deal was extortion. Whether Ukraine's mineral resources could or should be mortgaged to secure the financial support is one thing, but the idea that the point of the West supporting Ukraine against the hyper-aggressive Putin-led Russia is about economics completely misses the point. Zelensky is right to avoid "doing business with" anyone who is not a clear staunch ally when in this situation.
>
> Trump & Allies are clearly "War Profiteers", a fine old tradition among the industrialists and financiers of the "free world".
>
>
>>
>> On 3/2/25 7:42 PM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
>>> Just watched a new episode where two toddlers threw
their toys out of the cot.
>>>
>>> Zelensky makes a strong case — Putin is unreliable, having broken numerous agreements in the past, so any peace deal would need ironclad security guarantees. But lecturing Trump is hardly the way to secure a favorable minerals trade agreement.
>>>
>>> Trump also has a valid case — the war is stagnating, there’s no realistic military path to driving Russia out of Ukraine, and pursuing peace makes sense. But losing your temper at an international press conference is not the way to get there.
>>>
>>> At the end of the day, they’re all human, and it makes for great real-life drama. I can't wait for the next episode!
>>>
>>
