Key Points and Summary on Trump’s Ukraine Mistake – President Trump’s recent shift to a more hawkish stance on Ukraine, including a new round of arms sales and a vitriolic diatribe against Vladimir Putin, is seen by some as a “betrayal” of his “America First” rhetoric.
-This move is a de facto capitulation to the pro-war elements in Washington and Europe, who are pushing for an escalation of the conflict.
-This approach is a “pointless and horrifying strategy” that risks entangling the US in a reckless confrontation with a nuclear-armed Russia, while also pushing Moscow further into the arms of China, a far greater long-term threat.
Donald Trump and The Ukraine War Tragedy
Genuine advocates of a new U.S. foreign policy based on realism and restraint have never constituted more than one portion of the broad MAGA coalition that supports Donald Trump and returned him to the White House in the 2024 presidential election.
Unilateralist hawks (such as Sen. Tom Cotton) allegedly reformed neoconservatives (such as Sen. Marco Rubio) and unprincipled opportunists (such as Sen. Lindsey Graham) also were prominent members of that coalition, and they especially weighed in on foreign policy.
Most early actions that Trump has taken during his second term with respect to foreign affairs reflect the baleful influence of those hawkish elements. Trump’s knee-jerk endorsement of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s brutal policies toward Palestinians highlighted that orientation.
Washington’s reckless decision to join Israel’s armed crusade against Iran by bombing Iranian nuclear sites provided even more confirmation.
Cautious realists clearly were on the outside looking in with respect to key foreign policy decisions, especially those regarding the Middle East. Such behavior should not have come as a surprise, though. Trump’s record during his first term had demonstrated that he was no sincere proponent of realism and restraint.
Pro-Trump realists still hoped, though, that the president would at least hold firm to his condemnation of the U.S./NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. His boast that he would bring a prompt end to the Russia-Ukraine conflict reinforced those hopes.
Not only Trump, but a large faction within the Republican Party had condemned the NATO intervention as both needlessly costly and dangerous.
We Read Trump Wrong on Russia?
As I pointed out in previous articles, however, the notion that Trump favored a conciliatory policy toward Russia and was reluctant to back Ukraine was always a myth.
During his first term, overall U.S. policy toward Moscow was hardline and confrontational, not conciliatory. Moreover, with respect to Ukraine, the Trump administration initiated weapons sales to Kyiv, trained Ukrainian troops, and conducted joint military exercises with Kyiv’s forces.
In multiple ways, Trump paved the way for Joe Biden’s administration to use Ukraine as a proxy in NATO’s escalating war against Russia.
From the earliest weeks of his second term, President Trump has perpetuated rather than phased out the U.S. entanglement in Ukraine. Despite the much-publicized February session in the White House when both Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance berated Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, the substance of U.S. policy shifted very little. Moreover, Trump’s rhetoric toward Russian President Vladimir Putin gradually became less conciliatory and more demanding.
That trend toward an increasingly pro-Ukraine policy reached a climax on July 8, when Trump announced a new round of arms sales to Kyiv—accompanied by a vitriolic diatribe against Putin. Substantively, there is now little difference between the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy and the policy the Trump administration is now pursuing.
Proponents of realism and restraint have reason to regard Trump’s actions as a utter betrayal of his “America First” rhetoric. Apologists for his policy choices in the Middle East can make excuses (however weak) for his actions there.
But Trump’s de facto capitulation to pro-war elements in Europe and the United States with respect to Ukraine is a blatant repudiation of any commitment to realism and restraint.
Washington now risks becoming even more entangled in a reckless and unnecessary confrontation with a nuclear-armed Russia. Comments by hawks on both sides of the Atlantic confirm an intent not only to perpetuate but to escalate the West’s proxy war against Moscow. European leaders openly advocate boosting arms aid to Kyiv and cheer on dangerous, provocative actions by Ukraine, such as the drone attacks on Russia’s strategic bomber fleet. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz typifies the stance of his NATO compatriots when he says that diplomatic efforts to resolve the Ukraine conflict “have been exhausted.”
The clear implication is that he (and other European leaders) believe that further diplomacy with Moscow is pointless. The implications of that attitude are ominous indeed.
In the United States, congenital ultra-hawkish senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) are leading an effort to tighten, not loosen, existing economic sanctions on Russia. They favor intensifying an approach that has utterly failed to compel Moscow to capitulate regarding Ukraine.
It is a pointless and horrifying strategy that Trump also now seems to be embracing.
One must ask what Western leaders who advocate an utterly hostile, uncompromising stance toward Russia think they are accomplishing? What is their concept of an end game—especially one that doesn’t culminate in a disaster?
Russia Isn’t Backing Down
Russia shows no signs of capitulating or even compromising regarding its principal aims with respect to Ukraine. Indeed, the Kremlin has launched a new, ferocious military offensive that is already devouring some additional Ukrainian territory. No Russian government will comply with demands from Kyiv and its NATO sponsors to withdraw from Crimea or other territories that Moscow conquered earlier.
Likewise, there is virtually no possibility that Russia will tolerate Ukraine’s membership in NATO or the stationing of NATO forces in Ukraine. Such moves are widely regarded in Russia as an existential threat. Indeed, NATO’s failure to heed repeated warnings from the Kremlin about such arrogant, provocative goals was the principal reason for the outbreak of the current conflict.
Even worse, the United States has allowed Ukraine and its European backers to undermine America’s global strategic interests. A smart U.S. grand strategy based on realism and restraint would seek to maintain cordial relations with all major powers. But if choices had to be made, the highest priority should have been to court Russia as part of an international coalition to balance the rising economic, diplomatic, and military capabilities of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
The worst possible option was to drive a weakened, resentful Russia into the arms of the PRC. Yet that is precisely the policy that Washington has pursued. Unfortunately, President Trump seems determined to be the latest U.S. leader to perpetuate that folly.
About the Author: Ted Galen Carpenter
Ted Galen Carpenter, is a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute and a contributing editor at National Security Journal. He is the author of 13 books and more than 1,300 articles on national security, international affairs, and civil liberties. His latest book is Unreliable Watchdog: The News Media and U.S. Foreign Policy (2022).
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Yeah
July 11, 2025 at 12:03 pm
Donald trump is showing the world his true colors and like the american prairie wolf trump loves both fresh meat and carrion.
Alternates between hot and cold. Fresh and stale.
Hot and cold.
His stated opposition to the endless wars of longstanding US foreign policy and yet strong powerful support for erdogan, zelenskyy and netanyahu indicates he loves both kinds of dishes.
Peace and war. Chaos and bedlam and anti-wokeism.
A leader like that is like a captain who prides on his leadership but hires a bunch of crooks to be his crew.
Thus, it’s every man for himself.
So, in the case of ukraine, today, TIME TO UNLEASH the tactical nukes.
Let’s get it OVER, staightaway, for today, for 2025. For a world without trumpism.
Jim
July 11, 2025 at 12:15 pm
The history strongly suggests Trump’s pose against foreign intervention was a campaign tactic.
Trump is transactional, his eye always on the next deal. In negotiations, whatever consummates the deal is okay, if it takes lying or omitting facts, or slanting the facts his way, that’s okay too… it’s all about consummating the “deal.”
Then on to the next deal, transaction, or negotiation.
I’d also guess that when Trump was outside of power looking in, it was easy to criticize the various wars, the the power of the presidency is like the “ring of Mordor,” but he didn’t have the ring on his finger, yet.
But as in the novel and its descriptive metaphor suggests once Trump put on the ring of Mordor, he wanted to exercise its supposed power… not restrain it.
… although as the story also suggests, no one puts on the ring of Mordor and escapes its power to corrupt the person wearing it.
It’s human nature… and Trump is nothing, but a product of human nature, if on a bigger stage with bigger temptations… with a huge ego to boot (although, he never hit a home run, he was born on third base with a silver spoon in his mouth).
Trump has a Beta personality, not an Alpha personality like his deceased older brother, Frederic Trump, who originally was slated as his dad’s choice to take over the Trump Empire when Old Man Trump hung up his spurs.
Trump’s Beta personality drives him to want to co-opt people he sees as “powerful,” rather than take them on and defeat them, he wants to rhetorically one-up them, but is quick also to want their allegiance as a sign he belongs in the rarefied circles of power he aspires to.
This Beta personality also drives him to want to belong to the Washington circles… even though they detest him and hounded him his first term.
So, he’s critical of war, until he gets the reins of power then he wants to exercise that power, not change the — in this case — trajectory of American foreign policy… he doesn’t have the Alpha strength required to do it, just a Beta need to be accepted by the power elite.
Trump is a fraud, he never “ran” his businesses, he was the “brand” and promoter, others did the backroom work needed to make the businesses actually work and make money. His Apprentice show was fake. In real life he hardly ever did firing or hiring, that was left to his subordinates to do. He also never had to clean up the messes he left in his trail of business transactions… the lawyers did the clean up work afterwards, never Trump… he just moved on to the next “shiny object” deal on the horizon.
The American People are in a pickle for the next three and a half years.
I wish it wasn’t so, but the evidence is staring you in the face if you care to look.
You can’t make an Alpha (even with the help of Roy Cohn) and Trump is no Alpha just a rich boy who grew up with a craving for acceptance and the money to “fake it until you make it.”
He doesn’t care as long as they eventually accept him… Beta’s kiss up and kick down… Trump kisses up all the time… that’s actually his modus operandi, not the “tough guy” image that he so carefully crafted.
Too bad, American just might have to pay the price for Trump’s fakery.
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pagar
July 11, 2025 at 2:23 pm
Ukraine was, and today still is, the key or more correctly actually the trapdoor to catch and destroy russia.
Russia being the only opposing power with a nuke arsenal good enough to burn the west twice over. Still true today. Though this is fading, fading, fading very fast.
Ukraine – the key OR actually MASSIVE TRAP.
It all started in the beginnings or rise of gorbachev’s stupid stpidiy stuped leadership.
Gorby’s brazen cavorting and frolicking with western leaders was the beginning or birth of the US-NATO entrapment, no less. One that might eventually be fatal for russia and for the WORLD come tomorrow.
Thanks to gorby, US and NATO advanced very unspeakably lightning fast across germany, and then under the leadership of the notorious javier solana, in the late 1990s NATO advanced across eastern europe, banged and raoed and violayed the balkans and saw the successful return of paris to the fold.
Then came hussein obama. Under obama, the state dept prepared a plan to swallow ukraine, a state still not yet in NATO. A very sad situation as ukraine border is just mere km away from moscow.
Ukraine is literally a perfect witches brew for anyone wanting to whip up militant russophobia, and state dept choice was right on the nail.
In feb 2014, US and its cronies successfully hatched the coup that led to street clashes and imprompru bloodshed and then, wham-wham whammo, violent civil war. And the groundbreaking ‘anti-terrorist operation’ or ATO.
The ATO was spearheaded by ekements of the azov battalion (later azov brigade then azov corps) and right sector killer driller thugs.
It was almost right on the edge of achieving great unqualified success, actually reaching parts of the ukro-russo border, until around july-august 2014, separatist rebels with russian aid turned back the nazis-led attack.
Then came the ‘lull’ as the ukros retreatwd to lick their wounds which saw obama allowing the CIA to inflitrate the donbass and thereby aid the azov and nazist units still fighting the rebels.
The CIA helped them build a vast network of tunnels and trenches with which they were able to comtinue fighting and attacking the separatists.
Then along came the loud-mouthed trump. He was the president that started the pipeline moving US heavy weapons to ukraine. It was continued by joe biden. And today resumed by trump.
Thus ukraine is the trapdoor for russia, and this has never gotten away even with various change of presidents in the white house.
The only way to escape OR altogether miss the trapdoor now is to USE nukes. Against the ukros who are being supported directly by US and NATO. And donald trump.
No other way.
Swamplaw Yankee
July 11, 2025 at 4:54 pm
The Putin orc muscovite elite will Tolerate the membership of the USA MAGA Cabal in the Franchise of Putin’s “Lolita” Club.
Started in 2013 -14 by the POTUS Obama Democrat Cabal unilateral greenlighting of Putin’s “Little green groomers” the Muscovite elite were thrilled that the USA had zero objection to Epstein Club East running out of the Crimea. Once the first thousands of little Ukrainian Children were so successfully re-packaged, filtered and sent to very needy russian language teaching pedophiles in peasant russia, Putin demanded more Ukrainian “harvest” territory for his human child traffick operation. The POTUS Obama Democrat Cabal was too happy to oblige. After all, the Democrat elite rubbed “shoulders” with their hero Epstein all around the upper class hang outs. It’s not as if any documentary MSM can prove/document the Obama Democrat Cabal object to Epstein’s moral turpitude in 2013-18.
The shallow minded op-ed deflectors of this site, living inside the USA, still scream about their undying deep, unflinching love for the thousand year history of the peasant russian pedophile attacks on Ukrainian Families. Not 50, not 500 years but for countless generation’s of Putin’s orc ancesteral tree.
These op-ed defenders of rump russia ( russia having hundreds of Captive ethnic nations in their vicious grip), promote unknowing, uneducated Yankee Doodle Dandies from the basic facts of Putin’s muscovite human “harvesting” operation. Yes, Epstein had flights that “bartered” with Putin’s harvesters for “prime” cut kiddies. Oh, the op-ed gang refuses to push for 101% transparency on good ole boy, Jeffrey.
The real proof: zero farting, let alone typing from op-ed types, of demands that the MAGA POTUS Trump immediately demand that Putin deposit $10,000,000 in US gold Bullion for every and each victim as compensation and reparation for up to 11 years of Ukrainian child -torture victimization. Now. First item of all.
-30-
Jim
July 11, 2025 at 5:13 pm
Addendum: The Washington Elite know all about Trump’s real personality (being a Beta), they know he can be rolled…
… because he cravenly wants to be accepted into the Club.
Do they go around shouting, “Trump can be rolled!”
No. They just go and roll him, again, and again.
Come Monday, it looks like Trump is rolling over by announcing additional weapons, offensive & defensive, provided by Nato (with U. S. money behind the deal).
It’s Trump’s war come Monday, no claiming it’s Biden’s war anymore… although, in a way, it is, because Trump will be officially Biden 2.0 on Ukraine.
Meet the new boss… same as the old boss.
Swamplaw Yankee
July 12, 2025 at 1:16 am
Strange as a real fact, I used to roll into Washington on the am B+O train, and make straight for Congress. There, I just pulled open the doors and walked right into the cool chambres: unchallenged. Depending on the year, later one could button hole many elected luminaries, in the real air conditioned comfort of the halls.
Now, dzhimmmm, knows the Washington elite so well (wow) as to broadbrush with his poop the near invisible, gossamer reality of inner beltway power. Yeah: the inner beltway knows so very well the “REAL personality” of Trump. Let droll dzhimmm push for the rump muscovite ruskie elite with his rock imitation of “I will get fooled again”. The panic seems to be that MAGA POTUS Trump may suddenly realize that the restarted ancient ruskie human TRAFFICK needs Yankee punishment is just so evident.
This war of muscovite re-conquest of Ukraine started centuries ago! Trump has never “owned” the inner need of generations of russian peasant pedophiles to sex trade in little Ukrainian children. Ukrainian fathers have fought muscovite orc sex traders for centuries. A great reference is 1616, a year where Ukrainian fathers had to stop the muscovite GNP income in sex trade gold made by selling Ukrainian Children to their ole buddies, the muslim Ottaman sex traders. Putin’s fore fathers were always in the midst of satiating themselves + then selling the sexually abused children for muslim Ottoman gold.
The real tragedy is that the Yankee alphabet agencies all held their mouths shut in 2013-14 when the POTUS Obama Democrat Cabal unilaterally greenlighted the betrayal of the WEST to the prime vile enemy of the WEST: Putin’s fascists.
The same USA alphabet agencies held their mouths real shut when Putin’s “Little green groomer” military re-started the ancient wholesale sex trade in little Ukrainian Children. They all knew about the bulk filtering and repackaging by air-freight of Ukrainian children to very needy russian language teaching pedophiles in rump russia.
This mouth real shut reality was highlighted by Dan Bongino when he repeatedly demanded the FBI be totally dismantled because the FBI staff kept their group mouths shut. Today, Bongino has his hands full, as FBI of that 2014 period resign in mass. The memories of 2014-15 of POTUS Obama’s Democrat Cabal “rubbing” shoulders with the Jeffrey Epstein sex trade enterprise was just so OK. No moral turpitude there, FBI agents, just move along.
The eternal (historic) tragedy is zero of the POTUS Obama Democrat Cabal demanded in public that there be ZERO betrayal of the WEST by marxist Obama. Zero of the Democrat Cabal demanded that the Ukrainian soil and Ukrainian children be protected from genetically deviant russian peasants driven by ethnic urges to “Lolita” little Ukrainian girls bulk-mass like in their old Imperial Russian days.
Putin became a russian ethnic hero as local peasant russian deviants did not need to personally drive sex trade caravans into Ukraine to butcher parents so as to pedophile the children.
Putin got the POTUS Obama greenlight to trade military tanks/ammo to local russian traitors who brought in “Lolita’s” for the new ‘Epstein East’ human traffick business of Putin. That Crimean basements full of butchered Ukrainian parents were left by these orc russian butchers is now celebrated by ruskie trolls who scream that they can now speak “Russian”.
The MAGA rank and file just know that something is wrong, real bad. Once they connect that the MAGA POTUS is keeping the DOJ, etc., from fully investigating the 2014 POTUS Obama Democrat Cabal betrayal of the WEST and Ukrainian children, then the MAGA elite should be forced by the Rank and File MAGA to stop cuddling the Putin muscovite child molesters/torturers. No more gifts from the POTUS of 2 more weeks of free cuddling with the victims of 11 years of cultural genocide. And, then another gift from the POTUS of another 2 weeks of more child cuddling by moscow pedophiles. He has to self-stop his inner self!
On Monday, huge quantities of US arms shipments MUST immediately resume to Ukraine. The ancient ethnic need of Putin to re-start a “special” child molesting operation under a military cover can only be stopped by huge, immediate US missile shipments to Zelensky. US arms + missiles that continually whack the muscovite pedophile elite are the only “therapy” that these diseased ruskie criminals will slowly comprehend.
POTUS Trump must demand that Putin immediately deposit $10,000,000 in US gold bullion for every and each Ukrainian victim as reparation and compensation before any Putin attempt to code word “cease fire” or “peace” thru his orc flunkies. Trump must demand that from his own internal moral constitution.
Once the muscovite pedophiles pay in gold bullion to the first 10,000 Ukrainian war victims, the WEST will see a ” new” Putin as he forces muscovites to scramble to find the gold bullion to pay the next 20,000 Ukrainian war victims. That is certain. -30-
Love
July 12, 2025 at 7:05 pm
Ukrainians are corrupt, stupid cattle for slaughter, a dictatorial regime. Such a nation and country does not even exist, it is a part of Russia, they are exactly the same Russians. The West is a sponsor of death, war and terrorism. Damn you!