I'm a little concerned after the DefSec said...well those borders, we just need to be ok with them changing
but not too surprising given it's the administration's position that lines on maps can and in fact should change, RE: greenland, canada, panama, etc.
the post-WW2 rules-based world order is collapsing, or already has. IMO it's the curse of being born on third base: the benefits of the current system, centered on US hegemony, are assumed and the US is focusing solely on the costs. trump believes, or has been convinced, that america will be greatest by going it alone and bullying other countries. allies are liabilities in his mind. we are back in the age of empires.
but Trump seems to be putting his focus on it. I just hope he doesn't give Vlad everything and say 'this is a perfect deal for the people of Ukraine"
i believe that imposing peace on the russian invasion of ukraine is a vanity project for trump. he wants the photo op of standing between zelensky and putin as they shake hands. he wants a nobel peace prize. he wants to be able to say that he stopped a war that obama and biden are "responsible for". a smaller motivation is economic: get exclusive rights to exploit ukraine's rare earth minerals and hydrocarbons.
i don't believe that he's actually interested in peace, in stopping the carnage, etc. he's shown callous indifference to american lives (ex: covid) - does anyone seriously think he cares about how many ukrainians and russians are dying?
my prediction is that trump's peace plan will be fruitless. there will be summits, there will be talk, but RU and UA's demands are mutually incompatible and neither will back down. the US cannot impose a peace plan on russia and ukraine. the US can withdraw all military support which will make the fight much harder for ukraine, but they can't make them stop fighting. ukraine is currently producing about 40% of the weapons it uses, and Europe said it will fill in the gap as best it can - so things would get worse for ukraine, but it wouldn't stop the war. this war is existential for ukrainians. rightly or wrongly, they believe that since they resisted the initial invasion and successfully defended Kyiv without much help, they can continue without US help. the US also can't force russia to stop, and russia isn't motivated to stop at the moment. putin thinks the war is going well for him. if the war truly stops, his economy will collapse (it's collapsing anyways, but sudden end of war = sudden collapse). at least half a million soldiers would be demobilized - trained killers who will return to missing benefits and few economic prospects. so when the negotiations drag on for month and month and no progress is in sight, trump will move on to the next shiny thing.
I'm not sure why this bothers me, but he keeps saying Millions of people have died in this war
when I'm seeing estimates in the 2-300k (mostly Russian)
(not an insignificant number, but quite shy of a million)
now if he was to say causalities (including both killed and wounded), well that's getting close to 1 mill or more
currently-accepted numbers for russian casualties are somewhere in the 800K range. add in ukrainian casualties, which are lower but more than half, and yeah you're over a million.
