Once again, Trump discussed Ukraine in a very public forum, prefacing his remarks with the usual attempt to excuse his not being able to end the conflict on day one. It is always: he is always claiming that if he, Trump, were president at the time, there would never have been a war. The rest of that sentence should be: it was because Ukraine was absorbed into Russia with his blessing.. The message to Putin would have been from Trump: it is ok, Vladimir, to keep on going to reassemble the boundaries of the old USSR influence, Putin's publicly stated goal, and we would not help stop you.
We would now have been in a hot war within countries, Poland and the Baltics, which Russia wanted to grab..but who were NATO members...and the fighting would now be in Poland and the Baltics instead, destabilizing all of Europe. and the US would be directly involved. So when you hear Trump say there never would have been a war if he had been president, one reason the war has dragged on is his failure to come to the full aid of Ukraine sooner. Let us hope that Trump has learned a lesson: The only response to Putin's flattery and manipulation is the language of military force.
Update: 10/21/25 TACO again. Trump and Zelensky met/ Trump demanded Ukraine give up territory in a land swap that did not recognize the current battle lines.. Now Trump is claiming Ukraine will lose...and the way Trump is acting (doing nothing, just words), he is once again siding with Putin. In the meantime, Turkey, a NATO member, stepped up to the plate to ward off Russian probes into the Baltics. Russia Tests NATO Nerves — Turkey Responds
Continuing with the original post:
The fallout of Trump's waffling and playing footsy with Putin was very succinctly summed up by my Facebook friend, Andy Gold. No truer words were ever put in a comment:
Per Gold: "Trump is incapable of learning lessons, and even if he could his greed and ego would prevail. With that, Putin's war has yielded 3 outcomes. Europe has strengthened, the United States has lost relevance, and the economic basis of Russia is near collapse; none of these things being reversible."
The miscalculations of both Trump and Putin were that Europe would fail to increase its military strength and would not understand that Putin's takeover of Ukraine would endanger NATO members' own national interests, nuclear blackmail with Putin threatening use of nukes and WWIII would keep Europe out of the fray, and that Europe would not find a way to live without importing Russian gas and oil. Both Trump and Putin were wrong on all counts. None of that has happened, and in fact, it is backfiring particularly on Putin. However, Trump's ability to influence what Europe does is much diminished.
Europe and even Germany are rearming with an average commitment of over 5% of their GDP (from once under 2%), pledging EU funds for the purchase of US armaments and committing billions in aid to Ukraine. They have found and are finding more replacement of natural gas from other sources and are in the process of finding more. In the meantime, even Germany has 46% of its electricity coming from green and alternative sources. I predict that nuclear energy will have a revival. Russia has lost its most important market: Europe. Russia's economy relies on petro dollars, and that loss hurts.. The US had lost much of its influence with Europe as Trump played word games with Russia. However, that may improve with the US direct aid of technology and missile defenses, and intelligence assistance that Europe cannot produce itself, and which will be requested, accepted, and appreciated. Finally, Trump has realized that Putin had been taking him for a ride.
MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: Trump drags his feet on Ukraine again and deceptively invents an excuse This post includes evidence of how Europe is weaning itself off of Russian oil and gas.
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