Sure, Trump makes no sense bigly regularly, but even a broken clock can be right twice a day.
Sure, like when he said and was mocked that is was strange that Russia was seen as enemy but at the same time they(european countries like Gemany) did gas deals with them.(think somewhere in 2016/17 during his first term)
Re Ukraine, think you have cause and effect backwards – hadn’t the prior administration shown the war can’t be won without starting WW3?
The general idea in western goverments including the ukranian leadership itself is that Russia would overran them, they just wouldn't go down without a fight. Trump is one of the first to table the WW3 threat but even with Russia on war footing with defense spending, and Europe in lay-backish mode, the joint defence budget triples Russia. Us is excluded from this picture, so who would really reasonably need to fear WW3? it isn't europe. And Russia know that that's why they repeat they have nukes so many times. Whilst the France, the UK and some other european countries have them too(albeit not officially) so even without US a nuke would be suicide.
Shouldn’t they have forestalled the bloodbath and destruction by telling Ukraine to remain neutral in the first place?
Yes it would have helped in terms of de-escalation but the point has been made before and you think that even you than come back later you just rinse and repeat your earlier point it changes the outcome, two things, even Gorbachev said right before his passing, Nato non-expansion which Putin continuedly claimed would have been an agreement on was never on the table, there was never an agreement that Nato would not expand to anywhere including the former sovjet countries. Nato in contrary ro for example the EU doesn't really have an need to expand that much, as the powers that Nato had after the second World war was already strong enough to be such a strong deterrent nobody would dare to challenge them. A country also joins Nato by asking the question ''can i jpin your club nato sir'' who then says ''let me ask all the other members'' and if all the other member say yes and they meet other conditions, the application is approved. But it requires countries to apply instead of them contacting countries to apply which on itself contradicts the expansionist agenda theory.
Secondly the invasion of Ukraine did not start in 2022 it did not even start in 2014 but long before that, and not only there ever since Putin grappled power, he has been trying to get the sovjet block back, that alone has lead to former sovjet countries wanting to join Nato and many of them succeeding their application. and or countries like Poland arming themselves to the teeth, not just the last few years but they have been at it for years, as they did see the threat, maybe because they are the closer target?
The Netherlands did the same albeit too little too late when they saw what an nutjob Hitler was before he invaded.
The consequence, is now Putin is the only one who has the cards - something you won’t hear in the West, because stating the obvious would mean political and credibility freefall for most European leaders, making continued self-arm and delaying the inevitable preferable – this is the wage of hubris and telling porkies for decades, including calling a rational counterparty Hitler incarnate. Putin’s position was no different to Kennedy’s in the Cuban missile crisis, the only difference is Khrushchev stepped back while Biden didn’t.
He claimed and was expected to take Ukraine within 3 days, he lost so many troops he flew in North koreans, poeple from colombia and many other countries, Military he has shown his army is an shitshow and primarily his previously highly ranked S300/400/600 air defense is pretty useless as are it's tanks and most of it's other military hardware. The only reason the man is still standing is that his ''opposition'' all dies, by falling out of a window or eating something with something in it that mysteriously kills them. And the fact that he has so many Russians to feet to the meat grinder.
So no he doesn't hold any cards but he is very good in playing poker and pretending his has the ace and the joker, it worked on you clearly.
What you consider propaganda, is actually timeless, universal truth in geopolitics - "If his state is small but he does not take a humble stance, if his power is slight but he does not fear the strong, if he is impolite and rude to his sizeable neighbours, if he is greedy and stubborn and inept at striking good relations, then his state is likely to be ruined." Han Feizi 280 BC (
hf 15.1.19, pg202)
Ukraine has good relations with the EU for example, hell Russia at some point was even in consideration to join Nato, but then Putin came to power and it all changed. and then you come with ''they should have been humbled and bent over for Putin...''
It is just realpolitik, the result of no higher authority above states, and has nothing to do with right or wrong, unlike what people come to expect in life, BUT which paradoxically makes it is a convenient, useful foil for Western leaders to whip up self-righteous, nationalistic sentiment (no matter how ironic and self-destructive) to shore up their own popularity, since their hold on power depends on it. If most people are still holding the conventional view on Ukraine after 3 years seeing what they can see, why should Joe Public be trusted in influencing political decisions?
Again you ignore Putin leadership did not start in ''22 but a hell of a lot earlier and looking away as if nothing really happended has already been tried tirelessly and was about to happen in ''22 up until the moment Ukraine with much lower resources fought back against Russia and forced them to re-treat. it was only after that they got more support. You continually make it sound like war-hungry Joe biden was ready with his abraham tanks, humvee's, 100k soldiers etc. but the fact is it started with small arms. and there are still no American or European solders on the ground, the US also before Trump didn't want this war and Europe sure as hell didn't want it either. But we did supply Ukranians with materials to give them a better chance.
