On the menu today: Don’t think that the Ukrainians agreeing to a U.S. proposal for a 30-day cease-fire represents some significant accomplishment. There’s still the unresolved question of whether Vladimir Putin and the Russians will agree, and even if they do agree, whether they will actually keep their word. The deal comes amidst a slew of U.S. policy changes that all strengthen the hand of Russia and weaken our own hand and the hands of our NATO partners. It is an absolute foreign-policy disaster that is getting the window dressing of so-called foreign-policy “realism” but that amounts to a wholesale surrender to Putin’s ambitions. Oh, and a tanker ship full of jet fuel for the U.S. military just got rammed and burned to a crisp because of a collision with a container ship steered by a Russian captain. Nothing to see here, people! Nothing to worry about!
This Isn’t a Cease-fire. It’s a Wholesale Surrender.
A cease-fire agreement with Russia — assuming it ever takes effect — is likely to be about as long-lasting and reliable as a cease-fire signed with Hamas.
As noted in the March 3 edition of this newsletter, the Russian government has broken its promises and assurances in peace treaties in Chechnya, Georgia, and Syria; the Budapest Memorandum that was supposed to guarantee Ukraine’s territorial integrity in exchange for giving up the nuclear weapons stationed on its soil; and the extension of the START treaty.
A promise to stop fighting doesn’t mean much from a regime whose whole modus operandi is “gray zone” warfare, or fighting wars without declaring wars. This whole conflict began with the “little green men,” or “the appearance in Crimea and eastern Ukraine of seemingly professional soldiers in Russia-style combat uniforms with Russian weapons but without identifying insignia”:
Russia continued to insist it hadn’t sent troops into Crimea, even after videos appeared of the troops saying to Ukrainian journalists, “we’re Russians.” This is the foreign policy equivalent of peeing on someone’s leg and insisting it’s raining.
The same day, Ukrainian journalists published a video on YouTube in which one of several commandos deployed in Crimea said of himself and his colleagues: “We’re Russians.”
Asked about videos in which the armed men in Crimea say they are Russian, Putin’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, said: “It’s complete nonsense,” Russia’s state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported at the time. Asked whether the men in unmarked uniforms in Crimea were Russian, Shoigu added, “Absolutely [not], are you kidding?” Russia’s state-run TASS news agency reported.
Then in March 2014, Putin and other Kremlin officials started making comments that admitted, yes, there had been some Russian forces involved:
Addressing senior security officials at the Kremlin 10 days later, Putin praised both the Black Sea Fleet “and other units stationed in Crimea” for avoiding bloodshed and ensuring “the referendum took place in a peaceful and free manner.”
The following month, Putin said for the first time publicly that Russian troops were active on the peninsula ahead of the referendum — though he suggested they were there only to provide backup for the locals.
My Washington Post columnist colleague Marc Thiessen writes that he has spent many hours talking to and interviewing Trump about Ukraine, and he concludes, “Trump wants to help Ukraine get the best deal possible.’
I’ll believe it when I see it; actions speak louder than words. So far, the Trump administration has conceded:
- Ukraine will not enter NATO.
- U.S. forces will not participate in any postwar peacekeeping force on Ukrainian soil.
- The White House asked the State and Treasury departments to “draft a list of sanctions that could be eased for U.S. officials to discuss with Russian representatives as part of the administration’s broad talks with Moscow on improving diplomatic and economic relations.”
- The Trump Department of Justice disbanded “a Biden-era program aimed at seizing the assets of Russian oligarchs as a means to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.”
- DOJ also disbanded “the Foreign Influence Task Force, which was established in the first Trump administration to police influence campaigns staged by Russia and other nations aimed at sowing discord, undermining democracy and spreading disinformation.”
- Attorney General Pam Bondi also ordered federal prosecutors to stop pursuing criminal prosecutions for Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) violations unless they involved “conduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors.” You may recall last autumn several prominent MAGA commentators getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars per month as part of “a $10 million scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging.” When the indictment describes “hidden Russian messaging,” they mean pounding the desk and shouting, “Ukraine is the enemy of this country! Ukraine is our enemy! Ukraine is the greatest threat to this nation, and the world!” The commentators were never charged with any crimes, but those who hid the source of the payments and failed to register as foreign agents did get charged with conspiracy and money laundering.
- Roughly 240,000 Ukrainian refugees in the United States will be sent back to Ukraine.
- The U.S. temporarily halted military aid to Ukraine.
- The U.S. temporarily halted intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
- U.S. officials have refused to state the obvious, that Russia started the war by invading Ukraine.
- Trump has denounced Volodymyr Zelensky as a “dictator,” while explicitly ruling out that label for Vladimir Putin.
- When Liesyl Franz, deputy assistant secretary for international cybersecurity at the U.S. State Department addressed a United Nations working group on cybersecurity in February, she discussed the threats from China and Iran, notably omitting Russia, even though the U.S. Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency at the Department of Homeland Security has deemed Russia “an enduring global cyber threat.”
There have been multiple reports that the Pentagon has halted offensive cyberoperations against Russia; the Pentagon’s Rapid Response X account says Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth “neither canceled nor delayed any cyber operations directed against malicious Russian targets and there has been no stand-down order whatsoever from that priority.”
And in return . . . Russia hasn’t conceded anything. In fact, Russia has increased its demands, categorically rejecting any European peacekeeping forces on Ukrainian soil after the war.
That represents the United States giving up a whole lot of somethings in exchange for a whole lot of nothing. On every front, the Trump administration is changing U.S. policy to make it more conducive to the interests and operations of Russia and weakening our ability to defend ourselves. And I haven’t even gotten started on the Trump administration wanting to cut defense spending by $50 billion each year for the next five years. (China’s increasing its defense spending by about $245 billion this year, while Russia is increasing its defense spending by 14 percent, or $19.6 billion. (Remember that because of differences in purchasing power, China and Russia get more “bang for the buck” for their defense spending.)
Trump did threaten, once, that he was “strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia,” but as Monday’s edition of this newsletter noted, no one in the administration is willing to say what those sanctions and tariffs are.
And it’s more than fair to wonder what sanction options are left unused.
The U.S. has already banned the import of Russian energy products, cut off Russian banks from processing payments through the U.S. financial system, barred U.S. companies from working within the aerospace, marine, and electronics sectors of the Russian economy, enacted export controls that will cut off Russia’s access to vital technologies and components, suspended credit finance that encourages exports to Russia and financing for economic development projects in Russia, imposed sanctions on individuals and entities in Russia involved in hacking and cyberattacks, sanctioned the Wagner Group as a terrorist organization, sanctioned companies involved in Russia’s drone production, sanctioned third-country suppliers of Russia’s military and defense industrial base, put sanctions and travel restrictions on Russian oligarchs and elites, seized a superyacht, targeted non-cash trades between Russian financial institutions and international partners. . . . and they’ve done all the same to Belarusian institutions.
What’s left, sending Putin’s buddy Alex Ovechkin to the penalty box?
Every move that the Trump administration has made has treated Ukraine as the wrongful aggressor and Russia as the aggrieved victim. Our policy toward Russia is all carrots and no sticks, and our policy toward Ukraine is all sticks and no carrots.
We are witnessing a policy of wholesale American surrender to Vladimir Putin. A lot of folks who want to trust President Trump and his administration will insist that conclusion is hyperbolic. They won’t want it to be true, so they’ll insist it can’t be true. They’ll insist the president is playing seven-level chess that we mere mortals cannot understand.
But you don’t have to take my word for it. Check out all the links I’ve laid out above.
When you point out these disturbing facts, you get a lot of accusations of supporting “forever wars” or secret defense industry profiteering. People don’t like the facts I’m laying out, therefore I must have sinister motives. After all, if I’m just another “globalist,” everything I’m saying can be dismissed and ignored.
The only way you get Vladimir Putin and the Russian government to the negotiating table and willing to sign and honor a treaty that establishes a lasting peace is if everyone in Russia realizes that continuing the war will cost them far too much in blood and treasure for far too little annexed territory. If we wanted a serious and lasting peace, we needed to arm the Ukrainians to the teeth and make eastern Ukraine look like the bloodiest quagmire for the Russians (and North Koreans!) since Afghanistan. So far, Russia’s losing one Vietnam War’s worth of killed in action each calendar year. They’ll sign the treaty and honor it when they realize that could be upped to one and a half to two Vietnams per year.
ADDENDUM: On Monday, when news broke that the Portugal-flagged container ship Solong had rammed into the MV Stena Immaculate tanker off the coast of England, causing both vessels to explode, I wondered how the heck a captain could crash directly into another ship at port in broad daylight. There’s a ton of electronic equipment designed to help prevent collisions like this. What’s more, according to eyewitness reports, the container ship “didn’t immediately stop after smashing into the Stena, and that it felt like it continued to drive into the ship for about 10 minutes after the initial impact.” It almost seemed like one ship was deliberately trying to sink another.
Note that Stena Immaculate was carrying jet fuel in support of the U.S. Department of Defense.
Now we learn the captain of the Solong is . . . a Russian national.
Oh.