Trump Warns 'Interesting Times Ahead': Let Ukraine 'Fight Back'

Following that post, Trump provided historical context of the United States standing up to Moscow with a Truth Social post composed of a black-and-white photo of him sticking his finger into the chest of Putin and one of President Richard Nixon sticking his finger into the chest of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

Elliott Erwitt's 1959 "Kitchen Debate" photograph, showing Nixon jabbing a finger at Khrushchev, became an enduring Cold War symbol of America standing firm against Moscow. Taken at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, the impromptu exchange over communism and capitalism played out in a model kitchen — giving the confrontation its name.

My best guess is that Trump is suggesting aggressive U.S. sanctions on Russia are coming in the increasingly likely event that Putin walks away from a peace deal. Putin never should have offered concessions that he didn’t intend to honor. That’s less a show of disrespect to Ukraine than to President Trump.

Trump seems to be suggesting that, in response, he will start going on the offensive. I doubt that means direct military action from the U.S. but rather aggressive economic pressure. Besides an aggressive application of secondary sanctions, we apparently have the ability to significantly halt Russia’s international trade by shutting down their ability to receive payments through the SWIFT system, which is run jointly by the U.S. and Europe. There may be, and probably are, other sanctions he has in mind that I’m not aware of.

SWIFT isolation has been in place for years. It was evaded.

There are no sanctions that can do anything. Countries will always object to being coerced economically, bristle and consequences unfold much worse than before.

Iran has been sanctioned for decades. Impact on policy? None. Oil is rather more important than sanctions. In the final analysis, sanctions address that substance created whimsically from nothingness known as money.

Oil is joules. There is no whimsy about joules.

>>”Oil is joules. There is no whimsy about joules.”

Back to the “oil is joules” argument I see. The value of oil to Russia is not it’s joule content but its exchange value. They have enough oil to supply their own domestic needs, but you need more than oil to run an economy.

The money Russia makes from trading their oil on the international market is what allows their economy to survive, and the world, ultimately, doesn’t need their oil. There are plenty of other nations that supply energy.

>>”There are no sanctions that can do anything. Countries will always object to being coerced economically, bristle and consequences unfold much worse than before.”

There are no sanctions that can do anything? What a ridiculous statement. Tariff sanctions brought the world to Trump’s doorstep begging to make trade deals that would have seemed impossible 4 years ago. As far as countries always objecting to being coerced economically, they can object all they want. Europe bristled when Trump hiked their tariffs and when they were done bristling, they came to the table.

>>”SWIFT isolation has been in place for years. It was evaded.”

SWIFT isolation has been used in targeted situations, not across the board. Russia still trades using SWIFT and finding alternative payment methods is costly and takes time to implement.

>>”In the final analysis, sanctions address that substance created whimsically from nothingness known as money.”

What a ridiculous comment. Sanctions address trade, not money. And trade is anything but nothingness. It’s the lifeblood of a modern economy.

>>”Iran has been sanctioned for decades. Impact on policy? None.”

Really? It was the lifting of sanctions under Biden that allowed Iran to ramp up oil production again and fund Hamas and the Houthis which ultimately led to October 7th and Houthi aggression.

Iran oil production

1995 3.74 mbpd
2000 3.85 mbpd
2005 4.22 mbpd
2010 4.42 mbpd
2015 3.85 mbpd pre Trump 2018 4.74 mbpd Trump

2020 3.2 mbpd Covid hits the oil fields

2025 5 mbpd strong rebound from Covid

Iran policy changes during this sequence?

Think back to every Apocalypse scenario you have seen. Anything in those about money? World War Z? The Day After?

People need calories, not dollars. Hell, in Serbia during their upheaval, they rejected dollars and Euros both. No value. Cans of soup and 9 mm bullets.

President Trump is still holding his cards. The biggest one of all: pressuring the EU to stop doing business entirely with Putin’s regime. The “modern” Russian economy will collapse without even limited access to the $30 trillion dollar EU economy that it borders.

Recall Iran recently. Some thought “TACO” Trump was behaving weakly. Then BAM. We know what happened there. Putin regime and its duped fellow travellers best be careful what they wish for.

Well, all the Russian tools in here claim the Ukrainian attacks inside Russia are “pinpricks” (or similar), and, in fact, they ARE extremely limited by Ukraine’s weapons suppliers if Ukraine uses other than its own weapons. The Ukie made weapons to hit very far inside Russia are very limited in quantity, except for their drones, which are quite capable in some ways and quite lacking in others, partially again due to Ukraine’s supporters not supplying even 30 year old stealth, AI, and HARM capabilities.

It’d be interesting to try to run confirmed numbers, but, a reasonable guess, I think, is that Russia is conducting on average well over 50x the attacks in and into Ukraine that Ukraine conducts into Russia.

The one thing the Ukies have going for them is that their attacks are more, um, focused. But, at 50+ to 1 against them, they have to be.

In any event, attempting as you do to compare the Ukie actions to the vastly greater Russian actions is really a bit silly. As currently conducted, the Ukrainian attacks are nowhere near sufficient to cause Putin to rethink his goals. In addition, almost all are attempts to disrupt Russian logistics. Ending those attacks unilaterally would be suicide — which is your goal for the Ukrainians anyway, isn’t it?

What Trump is hinting at is that if Putin keeps stalling, he (Trump) will go back to what he said years ago: If Putin won’t negotiate in good faith, he (Trump) will abandon the Biden approach, and take the gloves off the Ukies.

This could come in many forms. One possibility would be to lend-lease the Euro’s actually significant numbers of F-16’s and sell them the munitions to go with them. These would then be transferred to Ukraine once pilots were trained. That last though, is the rub. This avenue of allowing the Ukrainians to fight back would likely take at least 2 years to reach fruition.

A better avenue, IMO, is to sell the Ukies the 30 year old tech (AI, stealth, and likely HARM) to equip the Ukies’ drones to take out Russia’s distillation towers. That’s the one target critical to Russia’s war effort, limited enough in numbers (and fairly easy for AI guidance to hit), and difficult to repair, that Ukraine would be able to take them out faster than Russia could get them back up.

No refined products = Russia grinds to a halt.

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