On the bus, off the bus, under the bus? It’s difficult to know what is next for Ukraine with all the mixed messages coming out of the White House and from its stooges at the moment. All this ambiguity and indecision may be good practice when trying to do a business deal but it’s the worst possible scenario when trying to make military judgements and decisions.
All the hot air and bravado may go down well with a government seemingly run on social media, but it is no doubt being lapped up in the Kremlin and giving Putin breathing space to realign his battered army as Russian casualties pass the horrific one million mark. The Russian army is down and out but Trump seems determined to give them more than a ‘ten’ count to get back on their feet – why? Not even this can be sound business practice surely? Certainly not what a decent military commander would do.
May be there is method in this madness, and us mortals are going to be bamboozled by the magnificence of the new emperor in the White House. He tells us he can sort out America’s and the world’s ills in a trice and let’s hope he is good for this lofty claim.
We must, I expect not be too reactive to the demon duo’s outpourings, especially at first take, because if social media does not like what they say, they almost immediately change their tune to the one which X is singing.
I am as guilty as anyone, as an old soldier taking umbridge at JD Vance telling me and my like that we haven’t fought a war in 40 years, as I polish my six campaign medals which remind me I did! Apparently, he did not like us Brits, so beloved of his leader.
President Zelensky, having taken a good spanking from the White House for the sake of “good television” according to the President, the only war time leader and gentleman in the room, has realised that he must worship at the Trumpian temple to get a reasonable peace settlement, and sell the family’s mineral jewels to secure patronage of USA military power to keep the Russian bear at bay for the foreseeable future.
This time however, Trump is not going to put US boots on the ground and it is going to be troops from some “random country who has not fought a war for 30 or 40 years” who will stump up the peace enforcement force. And so we should, as perhaps it has taken too long for us Europeans to realise that we can no longer rely on Trump and the US taxpayer to underwrite our defence.
The best-case scenario is for a Franco-British ground force supported probably by the Nordic states to put enough military ‘grunt’ on the ground to deter any further Russian ambitions westwards in Ukraine.
Ideally Uncle Don will trump up US airpower and intelligence to provide enough heft to deter Putin’s fighter jets and drones from reengaging in combat. If not, all of the European coalition, most especially Germany, Italy and Greece must join the RAF and others to secure the air, and this is doable.
Trump and Putin need to know that Europe has fully woken up to our defensive duties and will no longer take the US for granted or turn a blind eye to Russian expansionism most especially if it’s heading west.
If the war in Ukraine was not so important, I’m sure even the most determined hack would run out of patience and steam. The message from Washington is clear that it’s very important to Europe but not so to the new MAGA team in the White House, who clearly want to drop this expensive financial ball as quickly as possible.
I think we now understand that Trump is an unreliable and petulant ally, who we do not want to be beholden to in anyway any longer.
Perhaps we should allow the state visit to go head and allow a true gentleman, the King, to tell him a few home truths? If my mailbox is anything to go by from US service people, they are highly embarrassed by his and Vance’s cheap jibes towards us and it would seem most decent Americans are still steadfast in their support for the old country and would definitely march to the sound of the British guns if we required their help in future again.
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon was a British Army soldier for 23 years