Economics Without The B.S.**: 

[**  Double entendre intended.]

Article out today with the BBC: '

What key players want from Ukraine war talks

What key players want from Ukraine war talks

1. Not at the talks: Ukraine

1.a. Not at the talks when Trump's Secy of State "negotiated" with the Taliban (whose representative was released from jail in Pakistan so the Americans had somebody to "negotiate" with) -- the legitimate Afghan government, and Trump agreed with the Taliban request to force the Afghan government release 4,000 Taliban prisoners when Biden was president.

1.b. Not at the talks when Secy Kissinger negotiated with the North Vietnamese to end "The American War" -- the legitimate South Vietnamese government, which would collapse after the American military withdrawal.

2. So is there are lesson here? 

2.a. Vietnam would "recover" decades later. 

2.b. I don't know what you want to say about Afghanistan, except leave it up to them to settle their own problems. 

2.c What is the lesson for Ukraine, which may have been democratic before the Russian invasion in 2014, but was dysfunctional before the election of Zelensky in 2019?

3. If it is a European problem, and not an American problem, what is the lesson for Europe? They have been on a free ride to their own security guaranteed by the American military presence for decades. When do they step up, when you have an ambiguous Trump Administration representing what are supposed to be American/NATO national security interests? Is that the way Trump carries out national security strategy? Those are called negotiating skills?

4. Either way, I will go back to what I said a couple of years earlier:

4.a. I don't think the American military ever thought Ukraine could defeat Russian, and that the war would end with a negotiated settlement.

4.b. Whatever remains from Ukraine will get membership in the EU, and will lean toward Europe for its culture and not Russia.

4.c. And if Ukraine does not get NATO membership, it will get a security guarantee. This I am not so sure about. They need an American security guarantee, and better yet American troops stationed in Ukraine, just like we have troops in Estonia which is right on the Russian border.

4.d. So if Trump is unwilling to make an American security guarantee and with American troops, will Europe step up?

4.d.(1). Germany is the problem here. They are ambivalent (some Germans, not all, having mixed feelings in dealing with Putin/Russian since there is business they would give up; whereas Trump is ambiguous, you don't know what he will do with Putin/Russia.

4.d.(2). And China is watching all of this play out. What about Taiwan?

5. I thought Biden's unstated strategy in Ukraine was pretty good. He didn't think Ukraine could defeat Russia, but if they want to continue to fight, support them. 

5.a. That kept Putin tied down in Ukraine, so he couldn't operate elsewhere -- like Syria, or anywhere else. Ukraine was Putin's Vietnam.

5.b. And that put China at a disadvantage. They were supporting Putin. This antagonized the Europeans. Prior to the Russian invasion in 2022, China was trying to make strategic inroads in Europe; the Europeans put that on "hold" while the war in Ukraine continues.

5.c. If Trump is such a genius negotiator, how is he going to remake the map? Are we likely to have the world security arrangements split into three of four alignments rather than two? And is spreading democratic values, which has not been working now (in my opinion) since the 1990s, still part of our national security strategy? -- which was established under Truman after WWII and carried out successfully up till Reagan.