By Bill Collier, Publisher
Originally published March 14, 2025 for our Mid-Month Issue of Mindful Intelligence Advisor. Subscribe to get semi-monthly issues.
“I look at the Ukraine situation and I say, so Ukraine is a country that affects us far less than it affects other countries in NATO, and yet we are doing all of the lifting, they’re not doing anything. And I say, why is it that Germany is not dealing with NATO on Ukraine? Why is it that other countries that are in the vicinity of the Ukraine not dealing with – why are we always the one that’s leading, potentially the Third World War, okay, with Russia? Why are we always the ones that are doing it?”
“I think NATO as a concept is good, but it is not as good as it was when it first evolved. And I think we bear the, you know, not only financially, we bear the biggest brunt of it. Obama has been stronger on the Ukraine than all the other countries put together, and those other countries right next door to the Ukraine. And I just say we have, I’m not even knocking it, I’m just saying I don’t think it’s fair, we’re not treated fair. I don’t think we’re treated fair, Charles, anywhere.” –Donald Trump to the Washington Post Editorial Board in 2016 during his first Presidential campaign
If European countries rearm and support Ukraine directly, I applaud putting words into action. I believe Ukraine needs to win on the battlefield, then sue for peace. But the U.S. now has other priorities and, though I disagree, I wanted Biden to succeed, and I hope Trump’s moves work out.
The U.S. and NATO were miserly in sending stuff piecemeal. They also had no plans to prevent theft and corruption; rather, they may have gotten kickbacks. They never sent a lot of resources at once to tip the scales.
They also didn’t directly enable strategy with Ukraine. Finally, they restricted the weapons usage, which enabled Russia to have safe havens while Ukraine had none.
Western powers urged Ukraine to surrender their nuclear arsenal, and they did, believing all the powers involved, including Russia, would respect their territorial sovereignty. Russia used the unrest among the Russian minority while Ukraine’s government was ham-fisted about it.
I don’t buy Russia’s justifications, e.g. NATO expansion and the abuse of the Russian minorities, but I can say that poking a bear who already wants to eat you isn’t smart, even if the bear is also wrong in his true ambitions, which are hegemonic and imperialistic.
Kiev has become infected with the leftist mantras and anti-Trumpism, which is NOT a basis for a reasonable foreign policy. Just as Trump has to talk to leaders he doesn’t agree with to make a deal, so too must Ukraine. I fear that ship has sailed.
I don’t care if Ukraine breaks with the USA and is backed by the EU on how to end this, and I mostly prefer the European approach as described; I just doubt they will do it.
Unfortunately, Trump’s calculus seems to be that China and our own hemisphere need to be our focus; therefore, he wants to divide Russia from China, as I think India has been at least partially divided from China.
China is the greatest threat in terms of economic and military capacity, and unlike Russia, whose “Mir Russiya,” Russia World, is limited to a region in the world, China’s ideology is world dominion under Communist control. China is the new USSR and Russia is the new China.
Trump believes rapprochement with Russia is possible, like Nixon going to China, though I think Russia is as big a threat as China.
Zelensky has to go back 500 years to see the kind of relationships countries will have in the future. If or when we find a way to neutralize the nuclear threat, we will see a world that looks more like the 1300s, a multi-polar and disconnected world (we see this with censorship and national intrawebs like in China, where “God is on the side with the bigger battalions.”) If Europe can rearm while arming Ukraine, force and force alone will win.
The USA has almost all the economic and military power advantages, while our interests do not align with the rules based arcane order, according to Trump himself. He campaigned on that and won a mandate to do so, with a slim majority supporting him still.
When/if Europeans rearm like Poland has and when they supply enough kit for Ukraine to win enough on the ground to bring peace with honor, then their policies will win, and we, the USA, will remain friends but mind our own business.
The acrimonious rhetoric between leaders is killing relationships that must endure past this war. The U.S. does need Europe as a friend and trading partner, even if we mostly all came from there. We have shifted our strategic focus, and demonizing Trump over this will drive wedges and ruin other areas of collaboration that could be mutually beneficial.
I personally think Trump is being shortsighted, but so are Kiev and Brussels, and even more so because at this moment their mouths are writing checks that their deeds may never cash. The ungratefulness for decades of U.S.-funded and manned protection should not be forgotten, even if you disagree with our President now. You don’t have to accuse him of being pro-Russia, as Ukraine is stupidly doing as an emotional response.
Ukraine needs to consider an approach that is transactional, and the good news is Trump is capable of changing course if he can get a good deal. You may be offended by that, and it may seem inappropriate to you, but we are in the resurging stage of regional empires, as old civilizations decline and devolve into depravity and totalitarianism, in degrees, and in diverse ways, with diverse justifications.
It is a time of transactional foreign policy and shifting alliances of convenience, with maximum competition, until only a few empires, but more than two, carve out their own zone of influence.
Trump sees Ukraine and asks, “What are we gaining?”
It’s not a moral crusade like many of us who support Ukraine might feel it is. The era of the battle of ideologies is ending. The left and the EU seem to not understand that Kiev is fighting Russia and Trump because they are a client state not of the U.S. but of America’s administrative state. This state is run by the hard left, whose aim is hegemonic, NOT for Americans but for their corporate backers over the whole world, per the WEF.
Americans see this and rebel. They aren’t interested in ideological crusades, not even against Communism. The idea is that the American empire has its spheres of influence with certain trusted allies and client states. Trump’s Mexico, Canada, Greenland, and Panama polices reflect an American imperialism that is long overdue as the age of decline and ruin of Western Civilization begins in earnest.
China could be communist and still have good relationships, but their hegemonic aims conflict with Trump’s aims (which are now America’s aims because he is the President). The U.S. has warm relationships with Vietnam, a former enemy and a communist state, because we have a “good deal” with them.
Kiev can do what it wishes. I have no right to lecture. I still want to see Ukraine win and yet their lack of understanding the reality of power in this age is causing them to essentially engage in 20th-century diplomacy rather than a diplomacy suited to the age of empires.
I fear if the EU arms and makes Ukraine a vassal state we will see an authoritarianism that turns it into everything NATO was formed to defend against. I do believe it is especially in Germany’s interest to have a presence in Ukraine and be closely allied, without the USA involved. But they will need to ramp up their war factories, and they CAN, but ONLY if they tend to the problem that only 18% of their citizens are willing to fight for Germany.
When I had the vision for a new Christian civilization back in 1982, then “history from the future written in 2147” showed that one day Germany and Russia will go to war over Ukraine! If Germany can beef Ukraine up and win by proxy, but also revert to a more Freedomist approach to civil liberties, then this could prevent that from happening.
I do not assess that Germany is serious about their support, and unless they can restore a patriotism that isn’t xenophobic, they will lack popular support and have to resort to more totalitarian measures than they have already enacted.
If Kiev wants to win against Russia, they too will need reform to build a more republican form of government, turning Ukraine into a decentralized federation. They will need the moral power of consent derived from a free electoral process that includes all Ukrainians in Ukrainian territory who pledge allegiance to Ukrainian independence.
I recognize that Russia will try to interfere, and measures should be taken to prevent that without becoming totalitarian like the Russians.
The U.S. gains nothing from Ukraine now. Most Americans now want the foreign wars and funding to stop. That’s sad, to me, but Kiev chose to align itself with the Party not in power and made it so that the war was now being used as a partisan football.
The White House meeting that was a disaster happened because Democrats meeting with Zelensky wanted to get him to sabotage the deal to make Trump look bad. He participated willingly and knowingly, and he is paying the price.
I will not stop rooting for Ukraine to win against Russia, but dragging this war out, because you give weapons and supplies piecemeal and limit weapons use, and through theft of foreign aid, especially U.S. aid, with kickbacks to the political class who secured the aid, was not smart at all. Zelensky and the Democrats tried to put the arm on Trump, and he walked away limping.
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