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Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

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961–970 of 1001 posts

Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#961
While this meeting went really bad, and US leadership was pathetic, US could have been the adults in the room.

Let’s look at the other side for a minute,

1/ Zelensky rejects the idea of stepping down after White House spat - Is Zelensky the right leader from here on ?

2/ Zelensky needs a bench to deal with different personalities, he showed up in his usual style hoping for compassion. Trump was clearly unkind but he should have chosen his words carefully , practiced what works for this president

3/ What is the end game for Ukraine? No one is winning this war in fact Russia has support of both China and India. They can’t expect US to go into direct conflict with Russia

Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#963

If European leaders don't watch this and realise they need to take control of their own destiny they're idiots. Several European leaders visited this week bending the knee to try and stave off tariffs. Time to stand up, realise the US is no longer a reliable ally, and start building (on all fronts - military, manufacturing, tech, etc). Given the American people voted for this guy twice - the second time in spite of J…

Similarly to the U.S., European countries are also democracies and it is a fact of life for us that administrations and leadership change. Today it’s the U.S. that’s not a reliable partner, yesterday it was Poland or someone else. Authoritarian regimes like to criticize this as unstable, but it’s worth noting that this surface level lack of stability also means frequent recalibration and stress testing. In consequence there is a deeper stability and fitness.

The point of a democracy is to also have guardrails by splitting up executive, legislative and judicial powers - the U.S. is still not a dictatorship. European leaders know this, and professional politicians know that you can go hot and cold very fast. Today there is drama - tomorrow might rapidly turn over and flip.

Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#964

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 reality of the matter is that world was going that way anyway, as a result of weakness and mistakes past admins couldn't remedy (including Trump's).

The Russian army is IMHO not anywhere near collapse, it's suffering many casualties in a useless war (for Russia), but ultimately they have x4 people and industrial advantage (!). Trump is being very crass, but any US admin would seek to close this up since simply put Ukr is losing - yet Putin cannot take Kyiv either. What's left is everyone wasting a lot of blood for a some land in Donbass.

The pressure is applied too much on Ukraine though - Putin needs to made to climb down a bit, which is difficult given his advances but maybe doable (I think a threat of unilateral EU forces deployment could do it).

Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#967
post #966

My hot take on this is that Zelensky knew going in that Trump was never going to back him after the secret Russian peace talks. So he went in hard looking for the live fight they had in order to wake up European leaders for additional support.

My hot take on this

The last thing the world needs now are "hot takes."

Save the hot takes for Reddit.

Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#968

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…

I have a different take on this situation: I have felt for about a decade that it was time for my country (USA) to slowly ease away from being the sole dominate super power and figure out how to live in a multi-polar world. I am not a fan of President Trump but I wish him good luck in moving us in the direction of coexisting with Russia and China because I think it is in the best interests of most people in most countries. I was disappointed by Zelensky yesterday and I don’t believe he acted in the best interests of his people. I like Ukraine, wonderful country to visit and nice friendly people. I would like to visit again when the war has ended.

Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#970
post #661

This place has become a real echo chamber lately. I'm seeing radically unexamined opinions stream past like a firehose and can't respond to all of them. But to the anti-peace "pro-Ukranian" people here: 1. Do you see a path to victory? If so, how many Ukranians have will have to die before Crimea is retaken? Conditioned on your answer - do you really care about Ukrainians? 2. Do you really believe that the West stand…

Funny to see how all the commenters just ignored point 2.
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