[Goose]

Details of the Ukraine/Europe counterproposal…

https://www.reuters.com/world/documents-...025-04-25/

BC

It also appears Trump may no longer be a PutinFan;

subject to change every 20 minutes....

The real question is IMO that even assuming the US believes Putin does not want peace until he has a complete victory, what should we DO. One answer would be to continue providing material and intelligence support to Ukraine in the same manner we did previously. The problem with that approach is that it gives Ukraine no path to driving Russia out of Ukraine. Another path that the Administration has cited before as possible is to apply sanctions through a "secondary boycott" approach. Countries that buy Russian oil would be sanctioned by the US. That would certainly hurt Russia. However the pushback from countries like India might be quite significant. The US could also align more closely with Ukraine, give them 120 surplus F-16s and build an air force. Three years ago, that might have worked. Can Ukraine last long enough to take advantage of such a strategy in their current situation? The final possibility is to just wash our hands of the whole thing and leave Ukraine and the Europeans to work it out. The major problem with that approach is that the US will have to live with whatever happens. That may be very, very undesirable for the US going forward.

I have seen no evidence the US is prepared to deal with the decisions that need to be made. We apparently didn't do that in 2022 and have not done so subsequently. The question " What is the desired end state?" has not been answered, and the path to get there (wherever 'there' is) has not been articulated. Hard to succeed under those circumstances.

[Goose]

Details of the Ukraine/Europe counterproposal…

https://www.reuters.com/world/documents-...025-04-25/

BC

It also appears Trump may no longer be a PutinFan;

subject to change every 20 minutes....

The real question is IMO that even assuming the US believes Putin does not want peace until he has a complete victory, what should we DO. One answer would be to continue providing material and intelligence support to Ukraine in the same manner we did previously. The problem with that approach is that it gives Ukraine no path to driving Russia out of Ukraine. Another path that the Administration has cited before as possible is to apply sanctions through a "secondary boycott" approach. Countries that buy Russian oil would be sanctioned by the US. That would certainly hurt Russia. However the pushback from countries like India might be quite significant. The US could also align more closely with Ukraine, give them 120 surplus F-16s and build an air force. Three years ago, that might have worked. Can Ukraine last long enough to take advantage of such a strategy in their current situation? The final possibility is to just wash our hands of the whole thing and leave Ukraine and the Europeans to work it out. The major problem with that approach is that the US will have to live with whatever happens. That may be very, very undesirable for the US going forward.

I have seen no evidence the US is prepared to deal with the decisions that need to be made. We apparently didn't do that in 2022 and have not done so subsequently. The question " What is the desired end state?" has not been answered, and the path to get there (wherever 'there' is) has not been articulated. Hard to succeed under those circumstances.