Is Sinful if We Made a Peace, Truce Commitment to End Russia - Ukraine War?

Writer facing 12 years attack-simultaneously by (ex) friend in IR UGM / HI UGM. 2 times, my mom got assassinated by my friend with “komplotan” / weird syndicate. I push myself to be (keep) dovish

Reno Nevada 11.24pm July 17 / Los Alamos 0.24am July 18

Everyone wants peace. And everyone wants freedom from Russian terror. The question is, how do you get the former without the latter? Not one advocate of negotiations has even attempted to answer that question. Talking about peace isn't a weakness. Talking about peace bought by abandoning Ukrainians in occupied territories is. Peace means a lasting peace in accord with Europe's postwar norms, not the one just giving the aggressor a respite to prepare for a new attack several years down the line. Then how without conceding parts of Ukraine?

And why the West has still not provided all the equipment Ukraine needs for the victory. It's like, "I won't help you and without my help you can do nothing, hence I control you.” 

Bad look for Zelensky to bash the (NATO) alliance when that very same alliance has sent worth of $78 billion to support Ukraine militarily (more than $44.5 billion from the U.S. alone, and new US$ 500 million from U.S. — context: after Russia pulled out of the Black Sea grain deal, the US announced US$500 million in humanitarian aid for Ukraine.).

What happens when: you feel you must say something; you want politics to be just about willpower, not capacity or constraint; when you wish away the resistance of a determined adversary; when you think a nuclear armed aggressor will magically agree to disarm because of World War 2 reasons. Today (July 18th) is the premier OPPENHEIMER across the world. Julius Robert Oppenheimer, known as the 'father of the atomic bomb' for his role in the Manhattan Project, recalling the reaction to the Trinity test, which was the first successful detonation of a nuclear weapon.

“Oppenheimer” explores concerns about the horrifying power of nuclear weapons. Having nuclear weapons can serve as a powerful deterrent, managed prudently. But it doesn't confer other coercive leverage to that extent. Consider how hard it was for the U.S. with a much larger nuclear arsenal to coerce weaker, non-nuclear adversaries like (earlier) North Korea or Cuba. the import of air defense for destroying the main nuclear delivery system, bombers, is key to understanding the threat that the US nuclear monopoly did & did not represent to the USSR in the early Cold War (Korean War, Cuba Crisis, etc).

Flipflops issue on counteroffensive: Read any news source: same message: is it’s bogged down, too slow, unimpressive, etc. 

But Ukraine's counteroffensive began barely a month ago. What do people expect? For Ukraine to hurl their troops masse against the layered lines of.

Fortifications RUS built over the past months, disregarding the vast number of mines it has dispersed? Ukraine has hit Russia artillery repeatedly in the south to the point that General Ivan Popov publicly complained recently about insufficient counter-battery fire, recon, and intel. I can’t predict how this war will end and when, but I’ve never met anyone in the know in Ukraine who thinks victory is around the corner. So let’s put things in perspective & not set standards for success that no Ukraine commander has.

Let’s also have the humility to accept that Ukraine mil leaders know a thing or two about war and certainly more than distant pundits do. When the war began, how many people thought Ukraine would still be in the fight nearly 17 months later and that the Russian army would perform as badly as it has? I did not. There’s a lesson there for all of us. Does NATO need Ukraine to boost its deterrent?

Criticism of US citizens (Richard Nathan Haass) for meeting Lavrov is not a new backchannel attempt. Track 2 diplomacy with Russia. Bottom line: a pretty normal occurrence. But the controversy surrounding it is revelatory. Sensationalism and reflexive outrage rule the day. Yes: Richard Nathan Haass Council of Foreign Relations meets Chinese Ambassador for U.S. Xie Fang in DC (May 30), and looks like “wind change”, a lot/major change of analysis by CFR about China - US and about future of Ukraine - Russia. 

From “CFR’s Hawkish” to “CFR’s Dovish / Pacifist.” Not just Haass, of course. More like CFR. But regardless of who participated, I’ve been a bit surprised by the reactions, as if Track 1.5/2 diplomacy during a time of war is somehow verboten. 

Even dumber: claims that the CFR folks are traitors, which make absolutely no sense. Most of the time, you negotiate precisely with “someone who’s trying to kill you”. That’s the reason why you need to negotiate. You don’t negotiate with your best friend. Talking about peace is blasted as weakness; those doing the talking are typecast as insufficiently supportive of Kyiv. 10 Months ago, Progressive Democrats (Ro Khanna, Pramila, etc) also think about how to push Zelensky to negotiate again with Putin thanks to QUINCY institute initiative to analysis dire situation in Ukraine. 

(DOSA. SIN)

“Critically, such meetings are conversations, not negotiations,” Haass wrote. “Those involved speak for themselves, not for any institution they might be affiliated with although relevant government officials are kept informed about what is taking place.” Biden can’t very well ban Americans from having such discussions. At the same time, they have no negotiating authority and aren’t therefore in any position to cut deals with Russia (even assuming they want to do that) while excluding Ukraine. Ukraine's staunchest supporters in the US will likely be up in arms; but Kyiv should play it cool and not allow this incident to escalate into a quarrel with the Biden administration. That would be foolish. In the grand scheme of things, what happened will prove inconsequential. Lavrov’s American interlocutors would have had the wits to figure that out. 

Let’s stop pretending Track 1.5 or Track 2 talks are unprecedented. They are actually pretty regular, and they’re often done because official relations between the participating nations are poor or nonexistent. Sometimes these meetings aren’t useful; sometimes they are. A bunch of faux outrage and misplaced arguments. The reason these talks are awful is that they feed the Kremlin's hope of outlasting Western support for Ukraine — which prolongs the war. The Soviet Union's successors (Putin and Russia now) were never made to accept defeat precisely because they did not demilitarise. Same bunch of faux spraying around unserious, bar-room claims like it's a referendum.

The notion that Haass is stabbing Ukraine in the back by directly engaging with the Russians on various peace proposals is ludicrous. That may be the case if Haass had any power whatsoever to sign deals on Ukraine’s behalf. But he obviously doesn’t. Empty outrage. What Haass & Co are doing isn’t contrary to U.S. policy. Washington has stated more than once that the war will likely end in some kind of negotiated settlement (depending on facts on the ground at the time). An absolute military victory by either side is low probability. Those who are slamming these discussions are essentially saying the U.S. should just shut up, not have an independent thought on the war, and outsource its position to the Ukrainians. No country would be smart to do that. Pardon me for rolling my eyes at the critiques.

 A Russian official Sergey Naryshkin gave a sharply different account of a recent phone conversation with the CIA director Burns than U.S. officials had given - Spy vs Spy. 

Kennan knew all about it back in 1951. McCarthyism raged then, mind you. OK, the U.S. can keep stringing the Ukrainians along.

The U.S. has a multi-billion dollar outfit called the CIA that spends all day trying to figure out what the Russians are thinking, but when someone actually talks to the Russian foreign minister they lose their “credibility.” Nice work.

**** Writer actually facing 12 years attack-simultaneously by his (ex) friend in IR UGM / HI UGM (all of them actually indebted to me, at least get a very cheap book). 2 times, my mom nearly got assassinated by my friend with “komplotan” / weird syndicate. I push myself to be (keep) dovish, pacifist. A framing that myself propagated for years. *****

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-prada- Adi Mulia Pradana is a Helper. Former adviser (President Indonesia) Jokowi for mapping 2-times election. I used to get paid to catch all these blunders—now I do it for free. Trying to work out what's going on, what happens next. Arch enemies of the tobacco industry, (still) survive after getting doxed. Now figure out, or, prevent catastrophic situations in the Indonesian administration from outside the government. After his mom was nearly killed by a syndicate, now I do it (catch all these blunders, especially blunders by an asshole syndicates) for free.

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