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Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

bbc.com

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Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#951

Post by vanviegen »

GMoromisato wrote: post #270

I would like to know what the alternatives are. None that I can think of are palatable: 1. Support Ukraine enough so that Russia doesn't take too much more territory, but not enough for Russia to feel threatened and escalate the war. This was the Biden plan and it sounds like what Europe wants. I just don't see how this ends the war. Is this just buying time for someone to depose Putin? 2. Support Ukraine enough so i…

I'm not sure if Putin/Russia can sustain option 1 for much longer, given the huge economical, military and political drain, especially in combination with effective sanctions.

So keeping it up might destabilize Putin, without further escalating the conflict. Seems like the sanest of bad options to me.

Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#952

Post by shipscode »

jmward01 wrote: post #506

US policy is now one of forcing the world into a zero sum game and it is a shame because the world isn't zero sum. This means the world will loose the gains from friendship and cooperation that increase the overall outcome for everyone. It is like living in a city where crime is expected so everyone puts up iron bars on their windows and the parks are all locked-down nightmares. When there is trust and cooperation yo…

[flagged]

Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#953

Post by svara »

jmward01 wrote: post #506

US policy is now one of forcing the world into a zero sum game and it is a shame because the world isn't zero sum. This means the world will loose the gains from friendship and cooperation that increase the overall outcome for everyone. It is like living in a city where crime is expected so everyone puts up iron bars on their windows and the parks are all locked-down nightmares. When there is trust and cooperation yo…

Yes, exactly, and that's the one huge issue with overt Machiavellianism as a strategy.

The big question I've been asking myself for a while now is, why isn't that plainly obvious to everyone in the US? Why isn't it plainly obvious to Trump himself and to his fans?

I think the reason is American Exceptionalism, and the cultural power it has in the US.

If you start from the premise that you play in a completely different league than everyone else, there isn't much to gain from building cooperative structures.

Interestingly, I remember even Peter Thiel saying in a podcast I listened to many years ago that he thought American Exceptionalism was the biggest cultural weakness in the US.

Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#954

Post by mycall »

iamEAP wrote: post #871

Think a lot of people here are missing the forest for the trees. We are witnessing the collapse of the unipolar world order that has brought relative freedom and prosperity to most of the world for the last three and a half decades. I don’t know what comes next. No one does. But Europe needs a deep-rethink of a lot more than just defense if it wants to have any say in what the next world order is going to look like.…

> last three and a half decades.

That is laughably tiny in the grand scheme of things.

Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#955

Post by perrygeo »

jmward01 wrote: post #506

US policy is now one of forcing the world into a zero sum game and it is a shame because the world isn't zero sum. This means the world will loose the gains from friendship and cooperation that increase the overall outcome for everyone. It is like living in a city where crime is expected so everyone puts up iron bars on their windows and the parks are all locked-down nightmares. When there is trust and cooperation yo…

The world _wasn't_ zero sum when we had limitless economic growth. But growth has effectively ended for the majority of people. And resource constraints look they will define the future.

Extracting resources has always been the central tenant of industrial society, and there was always somewhere new to pillage. With literally nowhere on earth left to expand this global juggernaut, it's not clear that our zero sum utopia can continue.

I'm not defending Trump's actions by any means; spitting in the face of your friends is the last thing you want to do when times are lean. But at least this administration sees the writing on the wall: business as usual is dead and we're entering an era of zero sum contraction. Their response is insane but at least they acknowledge the problem (unlike traditional liberals and conservatives who think we can keep tweaking the current system forever)

Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#957

Post by nlitened »

j_timberlake wrote: post #758

Could all of this have been avoided if USA voters had been given a slice of USA's GDP growth over the years? Rising wages, lower taxes, or 35 hour work weeks, instead of stagnation and inflation. So they wouldn't turn to a populist outsider.

Anybody can get a slice of USA’s GDP growth — just buy S&P500. Too many people instead prefer to spend that money on Uber Eats and new iPhone every year.

Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#958

Post by LastTrain »

iamEAP wrote: post #871

Think a lot of people here are missing the forest for the trees. We are witnessing the collapse of the unipolar world order that has brought relative freedom and prosperity to most of the world for the last three and a half decades. I don’t know what comes next. No one does. But Europe needs a deep-rethink of a lot more than just defense if it wants to have any say in what the next world order is going to look like.…

On the contrary, I think pretty much everyone is aware of it but doesn’t want to think about it.

Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#959

Post by tim333 »

asnyder wrote: post #511

Honestly, after watching the full press conference twice, I suspect this meeting will go down in history as a canonical example of "what not to do as a politician". It seems Zelensky was unaware he's dealing with Trump, his demeanor, and his presidency. Historical this or that is not applicable when dealing with someone like him. Trump will be Trump, and nobody should expect otherwise. Always best to understand and k…

People trivialize what went on as "needed to vent" and the like but if you look at the disagreement it was basically Trump was proposing give us a load of minerals, give your lands to Putin and in return I'll get a bit of paper from Putin saying he won't invade more. But no military guarantee to enforce that.

Zelensky says that's not good because Putin breaks all the agreements. Trump says he breaks other peoples agreements that won't happen with me. Zelensky points out the December 2019 Ukraine and Russia agreed to implement a "full and comprehensive ceasefire" happened under Trump and Putin broke it.

It was at that point Vance and Trump went all shouty because they'd been called out. If Zelesky had gone for Trump's agreement probably Trump would take the minerals, Putin would ignore the agreement and invade further and take over Ukraine in a similar way to how the Taliban made an agreement with Trump to be nice then they took over Afghanistan.

Dunno if you've seen the 2 min freeonis cartoon on the Trump deal. Quite close to the truth perhaps https://x.com/freeonis_/status/1893646996948337031

Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#960

Post by maratc »

iamEAP wrote: post #871

Think a lot of people here are missing the forest for the trees. We are witnessing the collapse of the unipolar world order that has brought relative freedom and prosperity to most of the world for the last three and a half decades. I don’t know what comes next. No one does. But Europe needs a deep-rethink of a lot more than just defense if it wants to have any say in what the next world order is going to look like.…

I agree, however the unipolar world ceased to exist a while ago. My take on what we are witnessing is that the US finally acknowledges that what has worked in the unipolar world won’t work in the one we have.
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