The liberal ideology is based on hubris, not humility, and therein lays the embryo of its own defeat.

Join us on Telegram, Twitter, and VK.

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

One thing is clear. We must appreciate Trump’s high comedy. It almost never fails. After the conclusion of the UNGA meeting, U.S. President Donald Trump took to his ‘Truth Social’ account and stunned the unwatchful, unthinking parts of the world with his apparent 180 degree reversal on Russia-Ukraine. This came after a supposedly ‘important’ meeting between himself and the struggling Ukrainian President Zelensky.

But Trump and Zelensky met for barely seven minutes, which shows there wasn’t much to actually discuss. Trump’s hilarious Truth post afterward serves several purposes which work, in short, to the opposite of what might be textually understood from it. He is concerned, among other things, to continue shaping the image that he isn’t tied to Moscow, loyal to Russian President Putin’s agenda, or that the two men aren’t acting synergistically.

Trump has already made the case to his watchful and thinking constituency (which is not most of them, human condition sort of thing); a good relationship between the U.S. and Russia is good for both countries, and also the world. This is not based on feelings or idealism, but the real geoeconomic reality and towards a new geopolitical architecture based on multipolarity, and similar – but also starkly different – from older ideas relating to spheres of influence. The author argues in other publications that this is best described as neo-realism.

In either case, Ukraine is properly within Moscow’s sphere of influence, or, if you will, Moscow is the relevant pole of human, capital, and political gravity which in a stable world, Kiev is drawn to naturally. After all, Ukrainian people understood this fact in their own way, as seen in many elections. It took two, yes two, color-revolutions over the past several decades to derail Ukraine from its natural course as a fraternal country to Russia. Now Russia is using what it has, when it can, in a way that works, to undo the mess created by the Atlanticists. These Atlanticists are no friends of Trump, ideologically. Breaking them off from the group-think, one by one, hitting them with unique tariffs, or by appealing to their own voters or their own national interests, on the other hand, does create some very real possibilities and has perhaps already delivered some tangible fruits.

But again, there are a few reasons for the inverted reality seen here from Trump in the above. For one, there are anti-Russia threads prevalent among neocon Republican constituencies in the U.S. Trump doesn’t need Graham and whatever remains of the McCain faction to push this ‘never Trump’ angle that can hurt in domestic matters, legislation getting through, and upcoming midterm elections next year. This collides with Israel-first pundits like Ben Shapiro who also try to find where they can say that Trump is soft on Russia or soft on China.

It is unlikely that the Russian SMO in Ukraine will be done by the time of midterm elections, and Trump cannot be seen as effectively part of the SMO. This has little to do with actual rigorous analysis. Anyone operating at the level of Trump, Zelensky, Yermak, Graham, and McCain’s spawns et al, see the writing on the wall. They are struggling with the difficult reality that global security and peace between nuclear powers is better for business than war-hedging grifts that have for too long defined Western politics, of which Zelensky is their bastard child. This also defies typical Western left-wing analysis. It may ring true within the context of post-Cold War U.S. monopolar hegemony. But that world is gone. It doesn’t mean that people need to experience a mass die-off event either through a manufactured pandemic or through a contrived world war. No – we just need win-win game theory to be practiced, as discussed in my recent report Are Trump and Maduro secretly friends? which shows a Nash-Axelrod (also Schelling point related) type non-zero sum game that encourages cooperation.

Trump’s theatrics are meant for media echo chambers, voters with a superficial read on events, and makes him generally immune from criticism from more sophisticated counterparties trying to work against Trump, who would use the media talking points to erode his voting base and as importantly, other American and Western power elites, and their verticals. It is these who conditionally support Trump provided that his trajectory appears to bear the most guarantees.

Then of course, and not unrelated to this, are the Europeans. Or the EU, rather. Whatever we can call NATO on the European side of things. The same thing works on them, for the same purpose. Trump avoids being called-out in Europe or in the U.S. for being too distant from Europe, or even betraying Europe and by bizarre but really felt extension, Ukraine. The hostile press and punditry in the U.S. cannot echo complaints from Atlanticists in Europe if those complaints cannot be reasonably articulated.

Stunning, or not so stunning given the pattern now, after this author gave a short Telegram write-up which summarizes superficially most of what is contained herein, the Telegraph UK wrote an op-ed saying much the same: Zelensky actually suffered a huge defeat at the sideline meeting with Trump at the UNGA.

It looks like some of these Atlanticist scribblers are catching up with the real logic. But back to the Truth post, and the laugh-factor brilliance of Trump’s post aside, reality paints a much different picture: Putin and Trump have the course of the Ukraine war, its economics and its aftermath, well mapped out. Sure, there will be rough spots and disagreements, but the main point here is cooperation over confrontation. What we are witnessing is entirely subordinate to that quite clear reality.

Trump is letting everyone else carry on with their doomed agenda on Ukraine, while he keeps himself above the fight, finding ways to deflect negative press, invert reality perception, and pursue his own goals which are Russia-U.S. rapprochement. He knows Ukraine is in serious trouble, and really cannot win under any conditions, but his concern is avoiding the globalist line that he’ll be the one blamed if, or rather when, Kiev collapses. He’s setting it up so he can say he did what he could, and that the failure rests with Biden and the Europeans.

Trump is the best comedian. Up is down. Left is right. Black is white. The truth? It’s the British that want Zelensky out, elections held, and the whole effort rebranded. At least if Zelensky cannot serve the purpose of being the spokesperson and mascot for a never ending war on Russia, then it must be someone else. Or at least never ending rhetoric until the moment the Russian army once again surrounds Kiev.

But this time there will not be a withdrawal as a gesture of goodwill towards another Atlanticist betrayal. It will be the end of the regime, and the neutralization of Kiev; denazification and demilitarization. Only then, with the Russian nature, sentiment, formal cultural institutions, and Russian language of much of Ukraine now constitutionally restored, we can see fair and open elections. It is obvious that Ukrainians given the opportunity to vote, would elect someone somewhere between a Vucic and a Lukashenko (with Ukrainian characteristics) in his attitude towards Moscow and the Russian people as a whole.

Trump wants nothing to do with anyone who can drag the U.S. back in to the Biden dialectic with Kiev. This isn’t done by openly saying ‘not this path’, but rather to say ‘this is the path we are on, and no one has ever been on this path ever before like we have’. This is Trump’s magic, his trick. Pundits continue not to get this, or continue to receive salaries not to get this. Take your pick.

As we persuasively demonstrated previously in The revassalization of Europe: The real U.S. war aims in Ukraine, Biden was playing hard at the revassalization of Europe and a policy of reducing the number of future Russians in the form of present-day Ukrainians. Biden was playing to have Russia wreck Ukraine to such an extent that when Russia did indeed inevitably ‘acquire’ Ukraine, it would be a damaged property in need of so much investment to rehabilitate that the Russian gains would set back the clock by a decade or two. Zelensky has been told by Trump in that seven painful minute meeting, that the game is over. There shall be no more running between Europeans and Americans, and childish and transparent triangulation games that ‘smart for a Neanderthal’ types like Yermak are known for. They are used to being babied by Western powers, got way ahead of themselves during the Biden period, and misjudged themselves and even began to believe in the myth of their own brilliance, like Israel.

And Zelensky, we now see, has likely already buckled. Trump can now sit back, deflect, and wait while Russia finishes the SMO.

The messaging is inverted to the point of parody, and few dare to say otherwise. Trump has flipped this on its head. Zelensky has only a short while longer to prove his fantasy of turning it around, to show that Russian troops are really demoralized, and that the AFU can somehow achieve victory. To dream the impossible dream: Cervantes never goes out of style.

Trump spells it out when he says the EU must carry the burden, while the U.S. plays arms dealer. Selling weapons, yes, but with this the line is drawn. Europe is slapped in the face and told to just keep buying, though with what money and from what stockpile is anyone’s guess. 15% tariffs on most things and 50% on steel and aluminum is the backdrop, as well as the uncompetitive nature of the EU economy based upon their own-goal sanctions on Russia.

In reality Zelensky has been handed one last roll of the dice before being pushed back toward negotiations, but what can those talks deliver? We have explained this hilarious take from Trump before. This isn’t the first time, even on Ukraine. The trick is not forgetting.

It goes like this: since Russia is so easy to beat, then America can step aside, and Ukraine and the EU can handle it on their own. But the truth is simpler because Trump has already walked away, leaving Europe try to manage their economic implosion and the futile Ukraine war, while Washington sells weapons it just cannot sufficiently produce in the needed quantities to a buyer who is also ridiculously lacking in sufficient quantities of cash.

Free entertainment, is the most prudent take on this community theatre from the American President. And not a good day for Zaluzhny, probably London’s favored replacement. Remember what’s already so clear and evidenced so many times: Both the U.S. and Russia want Zelensky in there until the end of this whole chapter of history. For different reasons in some details, yes, but not misaligned reasons.

Why should Kiev, under the EU’s tutelage, have a chance to rebrand? It would only result in another Zelensky, in both senses. One who says we want peace and says we want to de-escalate with Russia, but does so to build support for an ongoing campaign. Efforts have been made to show that Zelensky lacks legitimacy due to his having gone on beyond his constitutional term. Russia has focused on that point. If Ukraine holds ‘elections’ now while the SMO continues and with a Ukraine that is still held captive, then we get another Zelensky in different form. Fall one, arise another.

But the real problem is that Zelensky is the product of an unconstitutional post-coup government, controlled by the Atlanticists, going back to Poroshenko in 2015. Or even Yushchenko in 2005. If those structures are in power today in Kiev, and they are, then staging another election produces the same Zelenskyish outcomes. And for Westerners, this changes the argument. Militarily, it doesn’t change Russia’s situation or its very positive prospects in the SMO. In terms of global media and impressions, it becomes an unnecessary sticking point. A very large one, at that.

Yet as much as the British push to oust Zelensky is about a rebrand they could enjoy afterwards, most of it is done to keep Zelensky on a tight leash. Never compromise, never talk about territorial exchanges, and never, under any conditions, indicate that he will forever ‘give up’ Crimea, or the Donbas.

When the British press says, often in the Telegraph UK (who may read this author’s posts), that the ‘population’ would oppose Zelensky suing for peace on the basis of territorial concessions, they speak only a half-truth, at best. Yes, the population – the population of officers and intel trained by the British Army and coddled by the MI6. But the mass of people just want the war to end today, yesterday, with any territorial concessions; just end it already.

With Trump now having captured Zelensky, at least in this chapter of the story, 47 has indeed broken this British mechanism working on Zelensky. But there’s a trade-off for Zelensky. No more games, no more asking mom, if mom says no, go ask dad, if dad says no, go back to mom and lie that dad said yes. Trump is daddy, and mommy is on drugs, you cannot ask mommy anymore, we are done with the game.

In return, Zelensky is relieved of this British pressure to push forward forever. And if he stays good with Trump and doesn’t play games again, maybe he can retire to his own mansion in Florida once real elections take place in a truly liberated Kiev, post SMO.

To wit, the entire charade at work speaks to strategic messaging in high form, while Western liberal criticism, bent on portraying Trump as mentally retarded, cannot also articulate or even understand what is really at work. It brings to mind the old adage of not underestimating one’s opponent. But the liberal ideology is based on hubris, not humility, and therein lays the embryo of its own defeat.

Follow Joaquin on Telegram @NewResistance or on X/Twitter @XoaquinFlores