Yesterday was the three year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. February 24, 2022. The Russians thought it would be a cakewalk, over in a matter of days. Of course, it has proven to be anything but.
Donald Trump has — no surprise — aligned himself with Putin. In a universe that he sees as completely transactional, he wants to divide the world between the three big powers, which is the USA, Russia, and China. Fuck all the rest. As former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said of him, “He wants to be the sole winner in any type of conflict, and he does not believe in any win-win situation where both sides benefit from a solution.”
Remarkably enough, not all of Trump’s ideas are crazy. Sometimes there is the germ of an interesting idea, although presented in a half-assed way.
Take, for example, the idea that Ukraine could pay for some of their support by allowing the United States access to their rare earth minerals. The way Trump presented it, it was unhinged: have Ukraine sign away 50% of their rights for past and continued United States support. Why not just straight out rape the country, Donald, like you fingerfucked E. Jean Carroll?
The rare earth minerals that Ukraine has — some of which are in territory now controlled by Russia — are estimated to be valued at between 3 and 12 trillion dollars. That’s a lot of money. However, allowing the United States to have access to mine some small portion of these rare earth minerals for a limited period of time might be a good way to compensate us for our support. And also to give conservatives in general (and Trump in particular) a stake in the outcome of the war. It’s a way that Trump could benefit at Putin’s expense, and counter the narrative that Trump is Putin’s lap dog.
Likewise, the notion that Europe should take more charge of its own defense isn’t a completely idiotic notion. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) currently has 32 members, with historically neutral Sweden and Finland having been added in the last few years to counterbalance Russia’s aggression. Lest we forget, NATO includes two nuclear powers aside from the United States, which are France and the United Kingdom. While their nuclear arsenals are much smaller than those of Russia and the United States, they have, in fact, plenty enough warheads to wipe Russia off of the map.
With Macron in France and newly-elected Frierich Merz in Germany, the alliance is likely to be strengthened, and to also be fully in support of Ukraine. And with the United States proving to be more and more of an unreliable partner, it may be a good thing for the Europeans to start relying more on themselves.
With 79 years, 10 months and 3 days since the end of the war in Europe, it might be time for the Europeans to become less dependent on the United States.
Of course we, under our Great Leader Donald Trump, may find ourselves more and more isolated and less and less consequential, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.
