Curious why Taiwan would sign onto this, knowing how Ukraine is being treated vis a vis mineral rights. I realize Taiwan doesn't have any other options, but a "verbal offer" of future security guarantees from the Trump Admin aren't worth anything.
>a "verbal offer" of future security guarantees from the Trump Admin aren't worth anything.
They still think it's worth more than surrendering now to China.
While US is dependant of Taiwanese fabs, they will intervene if China tries to occupy Taiwan. But US is working towards not relying on Taiwan's fans, so US based security won't last long.
In the end, they'll either have to surrender or build nuclear deterrent fast and unnoticed.
I don't think there are any multi-trillion dollar deposits of any "minerals" there. If there were, Ukraine wouldn't be so poor. Even pre-war it was the poorest country in Europe per capita. One can argue that it was mostly due to their insane levels of corruption, but then again, if there were any multi-trillion dollar deposits of anything there, Western investors (including Hunter Biden, no doubt) would be all over them, and the country would be much richer than it was.
I think the whole "minerals" thing is a play. Trump gives Zelensky the "deal" he cannot accept even theoretically. Zelensky predictably plays the tough guy by telling him to pound sand. Trump throws Zelensky under the bus and negotiates repayment of loans with his (now scared) successor.
With respect to Taiwan, it is not really possible to "win" in any real sense against China in Taiwan. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a dimwit who can't even do cursory research on industrial capacities of the potential belligerents, not in terms of dollars, but in terms of units/tons/etc. That is where the comparison is very strongly not in our favor. Especially when it comes to shipbuilding.
Best case if things kick off (which I hope to god they do not) - only Taiwan gets destroyed, a-la Ukraine. Worst case - both US and China really go at it directly, full bore, and then we will lose due primarily to our weak industrial base, and far more extended logistics. Moreover, a lot of other countries will totally provide "lethal aid" and intelligence to China, if it needs it, in hopes of taking the hegemon down a few pegs. Nothing personal - just business, such alliances happen in every major war. The extreme case one of the sides feels they're gonna lose and presses the red button, in which case everyone dies in a fire.
All of these options are objectively extremely shitty and incompatible with prosperity, and in the extreme case, with survival. All of them mean millions of body bags for the parties involved, far more body bags than either country has ever seen.
Both Biden and Trump administrations understood this, hence the strong-arming the re-industrialization, especially in higher end fields, which started under Biden. The era where you could just get your stuff made elsewhere for pennies and then charge $$$ for it is coming to an end.
Zelensky predictably plays the tough guy by telling him to pound sand.
Zelensky flew to Washington to sign the agreement, and fully expected to--they waited an hour after the blown up press conference before being told to get out. Diplomatically, Zelensky wasn't even badly behaved in the press conference. Vance and Trump kept escalating the discussion. If there was a play, it was one constructed by Trump to give himself a reason to withdraw aid from Ukraine when he clearly wants to side with Putin.
Watch _the whole_ press conference, the entire 53 minutes, not the carefully selected morsels that CNN prepared for you in order to mislead. Zelensky failed to read the room, and 23 minutes or so into the conversation he started to self-immolate, something Trump and Vance gladly helped him with.
Big self immolate. Said that cease fire agreements wont work because they have evidently not worked so far as Russia keeps breaking them, they need security guarantees like NATO. I guess failing to read the room was not bootlicking enough and not surrendering to Putin as Trump already has.
I'd watched the whole thing live when it happened. I went back and watched from around 21min in to see what self-immolation you mean.
Sequence of events -
Trump downplays the need for security guarantees. "Security is maybe 2% of the problem, security is the easy part, I'm worried about getting the deal done."
A "reporter" from OAN asks a kiss-ass question that can be summarized as "President Trump, how amazing and courageous are you for negotiating with Putin?"
Trump gives a rambling answer including his usual vague statements of how the war wouldn't have existed if he'd been in power and then starts talking about Hamas for some reason.
There's a moment of levity where Trump says Zelensky's attire is fine.
Zelensky indicates he wants to respond to some of the earlier statements. He says Russia has broken many promises made in past negotiations and this is why security guarantees are actually critical to Ukraine.
"Reading the room" in this situation would mean "buying into the Putin-led narrative currently being peddled by the Trump administration."
Problem with this is a misunderstanding of what a press conference after a private discussion is supposed to be about. Zelensky was trying to negotiate and argue during the press conference, with the entire world watching. All the details about Trump not wanting security guarantees would presumably have been decided during the private meeting but Zelensky basically tried to argue his case with the media. That would irritate pretty much anyone.
He is not in a position to negotiate any "security agreement". The United States is unable to provide any real security agreement to a government that is quite obviously not interested in any real, lasting peace, one that sought repeatedly to drag us and Europe into WW3. Doing so is an open invitation to try and re-litigate the conflict (which the US/Nuland/USAID _created_ in 2013) a few years from now, this time with you and I in the trenches. "Soft" security guarantees, by establishing significant US interest in Ukraine's "minerals" (ephemeral though they may be), and therefore presence on the ground, was on the table, but Zelensky misread that as a robbery.
Emotional thinking and platitudes about "bullies" are not really applicable here. You have to think about the eventualities that we could be affected by if things go sideways, and with the current set of characters in Ukraine, they most definitely will, and soon.
There's that emotional thinking again. _We_ started that war when we funded a coup there in 2013 and hand-picked[1] their rabidly anti-Russian government. We also funded and condoned their neo-Nazis, without whom none of this would work [2]. Mostly Russian-speaking Eastern Ukraine disagreed with that kind of thing. After all, it was mostly them who elected the president that we overthrew. West Ukraine started shelling east trying to subdue them, calling it an "anti-terror operation". Russia provided "lethal aid". Things escalated. The conflict did not start in 2022. Suggesting that we can just go ahead and build tactical nuke bases right next to where ~70% of Russia's population lives, and Russia should just roll over and let it happen, is idiotic and reckless.
As if Trump and Vance's demand that Zelensky abase himself in front of them isn't "emotional thinking"; as if cutting off military aid because Zelensky didn't bow and scrape isn't "emotional thinking".
As if taking the hundreds of nuclear red lines Putin has laid down and allowed to be crossed without a nuclear response, isn't "emotional thinking".
"Reading the room" meant "prostrating himself and kissing the ring", which might have been worth it if it meant actual guarantees, but it didn't. You said you don't believe there are huge deposits to be exploited, so what then is the value of a US "soft" interest in Ukraine's security? Especially when Trump could make the same deal with Putin so that he wins either way.
No one in that room recognized more than Zelensky that worthlessness of American promises of security. What value then to humiliate oneself? Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal on American promises of security, and look where that got them.
On the contrary, the display in the press conference did do some good for Ukraine. There was an emergency summit in London that weekend where the heads of Europe agreed to step up their support for Ukraine, increase defence spending, and to work towards total independence from the US in 10 years. NATO is now a vestigial treaty that's a foreign policy option rather than a commitment. Who's responsible now for pushing us closer to WW3?
Living 200km from the Russian border, I worry that 10 years is far too long. If Putin “reads the room”, he knows his best bet is to push things forward before the midterms. In case Tramp doesn’t manage to rig the elections.
10 years is total independence. There's a lot of independence to be seized in the coming year (starting with not waiting for US decisions) and EU leaders seem to be quite enthusiastic about it.
From analysts I follow, the feeling is that EU support will sustain Ukraine at least through 2025, with the greatest weakness being ammunition for Patriot and GLMRS systems (though thankfully those have decreased in importance as drones take over). And 2026 is when the cumulative damage to Russia's economy really snowballs. If Ukraine makes it through 2025, I'm relatively optimistic.
My great fear in 2024 was the flagging support for Ukraine due to war-weariness and lack of a resolution, would push some parties towards a more passive, accommodationist outcome. We can thank Trump for this: the fire to see Ukraine win has been lit again.
"Moreover, a lot of other countries will totally provide "lethal aid" and intelligence to China, if it needs it, in hopes of taking the hegemon down a few pegs."
This seems...not true. The Phillipines especially would like a word. Most of China's neighbors are begging for more American Hegemony (America is just not good at it anymore). China's industrial prowess is clear, but it's also true that. China (esp the CCP) has a lot more to lose from a direct confrontation with America. America could lose a president, China will lose a whole regime.
Depending on what they get from China in return, it might not be as absurd as you think. We're not talking direct participation here after all - China has more than enough people. Just some "lethal aid" if e.g. artillery stocks start running low. Another clever and relatively cheap way to extend us would be to stir up trouble where our troops are stationed in the Middle East, for example. This trouble could also use the "lethal aid" from third parties, who would not be directly involved in any fighting.
See the comment above about the intellectual faculties of people who think like you do. We had to hightail out of Afghanistan. What on earth makes you believe that we could win against a peer adversary, let alone do so without a draft or millions of body bags?
America would have to do nothing like invade Mainland China to topple the CCP. War is the authoritarian achilles heel since time immemorial and China knows it (Russia doesn't), otherwise they would've taken Taiwan 10 years ago. China's best case scenario is if it could find a way to take Taiwan like they took Hong Kong, on a technicality and relatively quietly.
P.S: I especially question the mental faculties of someone who can't see other angles to a problem. China's hegemony is the mainstream opinion, it's obvious. Maybe try to question what you're not seeing now.
Not really a good comparison. Trying to build a coalition of people who didn't really care vs supporting countries in the region who are highly motivated by their own self interest.
