Beat this

Vprašajte se, kakšna bi bila realna geopolitična teža Evrope, če bi Američani iz Evrope umaknili svoje jedrsko orožje oziroma vojaško zaščito in razumeli boste paniko kanclerja Merza in paniko med evropskimi politiki, ki je nastala zaradi Trumpove zunanje politike v zadnjem letu in nove ameriške varnostne strategije.

Ameriške varnostne garancije Ukrajini v stilu člena 5 so korak v pravo smer za končanje vojne v Ukrajini

Trump Signals Major Shift by Offering Ukraine NATO-Style Security Guarantees

Trump has now put something concrete on the table for Ukraine, and it is more serious than many expected. His administration says it is prepared to offer Ukraine legally binding security guarantees modeled on NATO’s Article 5. That is a major shift in tone and substance as negotiations to end the nearly four-year war move forward.

According to a senior US official speaking to Axios, the plan is not just talk. The administration is ready to send the security agreement to Congress for approval. The stated goal is balance. Strong guarantees that actually deter future aggression, without turning the arrangement into an open ended military commitment. In plain terms, this is meant to be credible protection without a blank check.

What stands out to me is that this is part of a much larger framework, not a one-off promise. The talks reportedly cover three separate agreements. One on peace terms, one on long term security guarantees, and one on post war reconstruction. For the first time, Ukraine is being presented with a full picture of what the day after the war could look like, politically, militarily, and economically.

Under the current proposal, the war would end with Ukraine retaining sovereignty over roughly 80 percent of its territory. In return, Kyiv would receive what US officials describe as the largest and strongest security guarantee Ukraine has ever had, combined with a substantial economic support package to rebuild the country.

Accepting certain losses won’t be a defeat for Ukraine.

History is replete with smart concessions that laid the foundations for future empires. True statecraft is not measured in square kilometers held, but in the long-term viability, prosperity, and sovereignty of the political entity.

1. Louis XI, the “Universal Spider” who forged modern France, began his reign not by crushing his feudal enemies on the battlefield, but by making humiliating concessions to them, buying time to consolidate the internal economy and administrative power that would eventually swallow them whole.
2. Consider England after the Hundred Years’ War: it was only after it was forcibly ejected from the continent—giving up the French territories it believed it was divinely entitled to—that it was forced to look inward, build its navy, and focus on commerce, eventually creating the greatest empire history has ever known.
3. Prussia forged its iron discipline and state capacity in the fires of submission, turning the humiliation of vassalage into the engine of its eventual dominance.

The lesson is clear: the obsession with “historical borders” is often a trap. Politically and demographically, Crimea and the Donbas have acted as a poison pill for the Ukrainian state since its inception.

These are areas that have overwhelmingly and consistently voted for pro-Russian candidates, dragging Kyiv’s geopolitical orientation eastward and paralyzing its integration into the West. By severing these territories, Ukraine inadvertently solves its most crippling internal contradiction.

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This is as close to a smoking gun as I’ve ever seen on Ukraine.

Amanda Sloat was Senior Director for Europe at the National Security Council under Biden, meaning she was the one directly running Ukraine policy from the White House.

And she now admits that, had Ukraine told Russia before the war or at the Istanbul talks “fine, we won’t go into NATO,” it “may well have [prevented/stopped the war]” but she (and by extension the White House) “was uncomfortable with the idea of… implicitly giving Russia some sort of sphere of influence or veto power on that.”

Now, almost 3 years on, she says “it certainly would have prevented the destruction and the loss of life.”

Think about how extraordinary this is.

First of all, she’s being dishonest: by definition, neutrality for Ukraine wouldn’t have given Russia “some sort of sphere of influence” but would have made it… neutral, i.e. in-between spheres of influence.

Ukraine in Russia’s sphere of influence would be Ukraine joining some sort of Warsaw Pact, which is in fact exactly the optionality she’s saying SHE wanted to preserve, only with NATO. She’s describing her own position and projecting it onto Russia.

Also think about the cost equation. Hundreds of thousands dead, a country in ruins, and the justification is America being “uncomfortable” about not preserving optionality. Not even an actual gain – just the theoretical possibility of one day pulling Ukraine into NATO.

The banality of evil.

Nedavno objavljena nova ameriška strategija nacionalne varnosti je v številnih evropskih političnih krogih sprožila val nejevere, kritike in strahu. A bolj kot razlog za paniko predstavlja ta dokument priložnost, da Evropa končno prevzame odgovornost za svojo prihodnost.

Strategija dejansko razkriva resnico, ki jo je evropski politični razred desetletja potiskal ob stran: ZDA niso bile vedno samo benevolentni garant evropske varnosti, ampak velesila, ki je Evropo uporabljala kot poligon za svoje strateške interese napram Sovjetski zvezi oziroma Rusiji, na drugi strani pa so se evropske države po relativno nizki ceni skrivale v senci ameriškega jedrskega ščita in na tej osnovi izgradile mit svoje geopolitične moči, kar jim je hkrati zameglilo potrebo po strateški vojaški in politični osamosvojitvi od ZDA. Vprašajte se, kakšna bi bila realna geopolitična teža Evrope, če bi Američani iz Evrope umaknili svoje jedrsko orožje in razumeli boste paniko med evropskimi politiki, ki je nastala zaradi Trumpove zunanje politike v zadnjem letu in nove ameriške varnostne strategije.

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Izhodiščna pozicija:

• Politični realizem in treznost namesto moralizma in sanjarjenja;
• Jedrske velesile, kot je Rusija, ni mogoče poraziti na bojišču. Ni je bilo mogoče poraziti na konvencionalni način na bojišču na tujem ozemlju kljub angažmaju arzenala Natovega orožja. Ni je mogoče poraziti z neposrednim angažmajem sil Nata, ker lahko v tem primeru jedrska velesila uporabi nuklearno opcijo, kar vodi v obojestransko uničenje; 
• Rusije ni mogoče poraziti gospodarsko: (1) zaradi velikosti in samozadostnosti ter sposobnosti prehoda gospodarstva na vojaški režim; (2) ni je mogoče učinkovito sankcionirati zaradi velikosti in samozadostnosti, zaradi specifične narave njenega izvoza (energenti, hrana in ključne surovine) in zaradi spremenjene geoekonomske in geopolitične situacije, v kateri največji državi (Kitajska in Indija) sledita lastnim strateškim interesom in kjer ne obstaja vzvod, s katerim bi ju lahko prisilili v sodelovanje;
• V dolgotrajni vojni izčrpavanja v skladu s fizikalnimi zakonitostmi vedno zmaga država z več prebivalci, ker manjši državi zmanjka ljudi, ki bi lahko uporabljali (še tako sofisticirano) orožje;
• Edina realistična opcija za majhno napadeno državo v takšni situaciji je čimprejšnja sklenitev mirovnega dogovora, kajti zahtevane koncesije in povzročena (gospodarska in družbena) škoda so najmanjše ob začetku konflikta in eksponentno rastejo s podaljševanjem konflikta.

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Andrew Korybko

China would no longer occupy the central role therein, which would help the US and its Asian allies better compete with it, while Russia would move from the periphery of the existing architecture towards its core due to the importance of its strategic resources in this new paradigm.

It was explained in this analysis about “How A Rapprochement With Russia Helps The US Advance Its Goals Vis-à-vis China” that joint strategic resource investments after the end of the Ukrainian Conflict, particularly in energy and critical minerals, can assist the US in economically competing with China. This vision aligns with the new National Security Strategy’s (NSS) focus on securing critical resource supply chains and can prospectively be expanded to aid the US’ allies with this for further advancing its goals.

After all, the bulk of the NSS’ Asian section isn’t about the US’ military competition with China (though a subsection details efforts to deter it in Taiwan and the South China Sea), but their economic competition and the ways in which the US’ allies can help the West keep pace with the People’s Republic. It even proposes joint cooperation “with regard to critical minerals in Africa” for gradually reducing and ultimately eliminating their collective dependence on China’s associated supply chains.

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Težko je razumeti to norost, to preprosto pomanjkanje zdrave pameti in ignoriraanje podatkov: globalni delež emisij CO2 držav EU znaša 7.3 %, delež Kitajske 31 %, delež celotne Azije pa 59 %, kljub temu pa imajo evropski politiki fiksno idejo, da bodo z nadaljnjim zmanjšanjem evropskih emisij za odstotno točko ali dve (tako, da bodo deindustrializirali Evropo in proizvodnjo prenesli v Azijo, kjer se bodo izdelki proizvajali nekajkrat bolj ogljično intenzivno) rešili planet. Tole je popolna norost ideologov, ki so po nesrečni napaki zgodovine prevzeli oblast. Razglašajo, da Evropa lahko reši planet, če naredi kolektivni samomor.

Norost

Podatki:

This is a genuinely incredible story that really shows how much more China keeps its eye on the ball than the West.

So a European startup called IB2 announced in the US the invention of an amazing new technology to upgrade low-grade bauxite – previously discarded as waste – into high-grade, which makes it usable to make aluminum and extract critical minerals like gallium, lithium, and rare earths in the process.

In the current context you’d think either Europe or the US would be all over it, right? Wrong.

Somehow the first facility that startup ended up building is in Shanxi, China – built in 10 months flat (which, as you can guess, is almost impossibly fast).

How? Why? Speed and efficiency. According to the founder and CEO of IB2, Romain Girbal, they received “massive support” from the Shanxi government and were able to move at insane speed. As he puts it: “You could never go that quick anywhere else in the world – only in China. It is unique.”

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