RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://stevehayward.substack.com/p/munich-1938-versus-munich-2025

EXCERPTS…..LONG READ VALUABLE HISTORY AND OPINION

Trump’s critics across the political spectrum are charging that his seeming deference to Putin and pressure on Ukraine amounts to the worst Western betrayal or moral failure since the infamous Munich Agreement of 1938, in which Britain and France sold out Czechoslovakia to Hitler without the Czechs being at the table. The lesson from Munich was simple: never again embrace appeasement. The specter of Munich loomed over Western statesmen ever since. Lyndon Johnson, for example, openly told his advisers that if he failed to stand firm in Vietnam it would be “another Munich.” George H.W. Bush thought much the same thing in 1991 in pursuing the first Iraq War.

One person who offers a dissent of sorts from the conventional lesson is Winston Churchill. Churchill’s speech in the House of Commons debate on October 5 blasting the Munich agreement is well known, and rightly celebrated as perhaps his greatest speech ever. It ended with the memorable peroration:

“We have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat. . . [W]e have sustained a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will travel far with us along our road; [the people] should know that we have passed an awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of Europe has been deranged, and that the terrible words have for the time being been pronounced against the Western democracies: ‘Thou art weighed in the balance, and found wanting.’ And do not suppose this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year, unless, by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.”

Perhaps something like this will yet be said of Trump’s startling about-face in American policy toward Ukraine and Russia. Already Churchill’s famous remark that “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else” is making the rounds.

And yet Churchill strikes a different note when he evaluated the Munich disaster in his World War II memoir, The Gathering Storm. As Churchill often did in his grand narratives, he paused to offer extended reflections on the wider meaning and applicability of the spectacle:

“It may be well here to set down some principles of morals and action which may be a guide in the future. No case of this kind can be judged apart from its circumstances. The facts may be unknown at the time, and estimates of them must be largely guesswork, coloured by the general feelings and aims of whoever is trying to pronounce. Those who are prone by temperament and character to seek sharp and clear-cut solutions of difficult and obscure problems, who are ready to fight whenever some challenges come from a foreign Power, have not always been right. On the other hand, those whose inclination is to bow their heads, to seek patiently and faithfully for peaceful compromise, are not always wrong. On the contrary, in the majority of instances they may be right, not only morally but from a practical standpoint. How many wars have been averted by patience and persisting good will! Religion and virtue alike lend their sanctions to meekness and humility, not only between men but between nations. How many wars have been precipitated by firebrands! How many misunderstandings which led to wars could have been removed by temporizing! . . . Final judgment upon [the choice for war or peace] can only be recorded by history in relation to the facts of the case as known to the parties at the time, and also as subsequently proved.”

Churchill goes on from here to argue that in the face of uncertainties, the decisive factor that should have tipped Britain and France against appeasement was not fear of weakness or rewarding threats of aggression, but honor; Britain and France should have honored their treaty commitments to Czechoslovakia: “Here, however, the moment came when Honour pointed the path of Duty, and when also the right judgment of the facts at the time would have reinforced its dictates.”

And here, we must say, America’s foreign policy leaders have not held up America’s honor as a factor in foreign policy decisions for decades. How honorable was it for America to encourage the Hungarians to revolt against Soviet rule in 1956, and then not lift a finger to help? Of course, President Eisenhower rightly feared any tangible assistance to the Hungarian rebels risked a nuclear confrontation with the USSR—just as President Trump says that further warfare in Ukraine steadily raises the risk of World War III today.

Needless to say, the word honor doesn’t belong in the same continent with President Biden’s disgraceful exit from Afghanistan in 2021—a dishonorable display that surely played a role in Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine fully in 2022.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/03/06/five-ukrainian-fables/

Fable One: Donald Trump Is Appeasing Russia?

Who wiped out the Wagner group in Syria? Who sold offensive weapons to Ukraine first? Who warned Germany not to become dependent on the Russian Nord Stream II deal?

Who withdrew from an unfair missile deal with the Russians? Who cajoled and berated NATO members to meet their military investment promises made following the 2014 invasion of Ukraine?

In contrast, who originally conceived a Russian “reset” in 2009? Who publicly virtue-signaled pushing the red “reset” button in Geneva with the current Russian Minister Sergey Lavrov?

Which ex-European leader got a million euros a year working for Russian energy companies?

Of the last four presidents, under whose watch did Putin not invade another country?

Which American president, in hot-mic style, offered to (and did) dismantle US-Eastern Europe missile defense plans in exchange for temporary Putin quietude (“space”) to aid his 2012 reelection?

Fable Two: A Trade War?

Donald Trump is not wildly slapping tariffs on Europeans.

He is simply saying that 1945 is now 80 years past and that the asymmetrical tariffs that Europe imposes on U.S. imports should be corrected. The massive trade surpluses Europe accumulates each year should give way to fairer, more balanced trade.

If Europe does not want tariffs, then simply calibrate its own tariffs on what America places on European imported goods, and work down jointly to zero tariffs on both sides.

Fable Three: America Is Bullying Europe?

The U.S. does not actively interfere in European elections and politics.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21451/ukraine-trump-marshall-plan

Trump did not rule out considering US assistance to a European military force should that eventuality become necessary.

Trump clearly believes that it is important for him to take a tough line with Zelensky, to demonstrate to Moscow that he is acting as an “honest broker” to end the war and bring Putin to the table for a serious negotiation. If the US leader is seen to be too accommodating to Ukraine, then this will simply confirm Putin’s long-held suspicion that the US and its allies — including Ukraine — are working to undermine the Russian state.

Such a move should send a clear signal to Moscow that, despite the very public spat between Zelensky and Trump in the Oval Office, the Trump administration remains committed to Ukraine remaining a free and sovereign state that is not constantly subjected to acts of Russian aggression.

Certainly, any deal that does not send a clear message to Moscow that the US will not tolerate any further provocative acts by Moscow will simply be seen as Washington punishing the victim in the Ukraine conflict — Zelensky — while rewarding the aggressor — Putin.

After the unedifying spectacle of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s meeting at the White House with US President Donald J. Trump, the Ukrainian leader agreed to sign the vital minerals deal with the Trump administration as an important step to ending three years of bloodshed.

One of the main purposes of Zelensky’s visit to the White House — his first since Trump began his second term as president — was to sign a deal allowing the US greater access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, which the Trump administration believes is an important first step in its efforts to end the Ukraine conflict.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21452/trump-redrawing-the-future

The true analogy [of Trump’s deal with Zelenskyy] is with the assistance granted by the United States to the United Kingdom during World War II: the Lend-Lease Act of 1941. Under Lend-Lease, the US provided Britain with goods and services… over the course of the war…. Adjusted for inflation to today’s dollars (as of February 2025), this amount equates to roughly $550 billion.

What, however, happens once the debt is repaid? Without a lasting strategic framework, financial leverage alone might not be enough to guarantee long-term security. The case of Hong Kong is a sobering precedent: the West was deeply invested in the city’s economy, but when communist China asserted control, international businesses largely packed up and left rather than confront Beijing.

At the moment, Trump’s unconventional proposal is probably the best offer for Ukraine — and the only realistic one. It gives the US “skin in the game,” enables Trump to have leverage when he approaches Russia, and prevents Putin, at least for a while, from retaking that part of the former Soviet Union.

Russia already has hundreds of miles of peaceful borders with NATO countries, including the Baltic states, and did not kick up a fuss when Finland joined NATO last year. The only country where joining NATO ostensibly appears to be a problem is Ukraine. Perhaps this exception should be regarded as a flashing red light, warning that Putin still might have his eye on Ukraine for its minerals, agricultural land and outlet on the Black Sea.

Trump has been a supporter of NATO but not as its guarantor. His worldview at the moment is that he rejects war, except as a last resort. To him, it seems, America’s true rival in the 21st century is not Europe, or Russia, and certainly not the amorphous, inconsistent entity known as the BRICs. It is China.

Although Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky finally agreed to the “Golden Parachute” US President Donald J. Trump offered him as a first step to have Russian President Vladimir Putin negotiate a ceasefire to the war he began three years ago, the meeting on February 28 between Trump and Zelensky — as the world, to its shock, saw on television — collapsed.

Trump seems to have been anticipating a signing ceremony; Zelensky seems to have been anticipating receiving assurances of greater security. Trump’s ultimate message apparently was: a Trump final offer is a Trump final offer.

https://www.thefp.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

On Friday the world witnessed one of the most astonishing spectacles in White House history.

American presidents have surely dressed down besieged allies behind closed doors; never before has it happened on live television. This break with any prior presidential diplomacy must be seen to be believed.

What unfolded between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance turned into a political Rorschach test.

For Trump’s base, the 50-minute exchange was proof positive of America First foreign policy—an ungrateful freeloader gets upbraided by the populist tribune.

For Americans who still cling to the now unfashionable notion that the international system should be ruled by rules and not might, Friday’s incident was a horror.

From the perspective of Europe, it’s the beginning of the end of the Trans-Atlantic alliance.

To recap, after agreeing under pressure from the White House to sign a rare earth mineral deal, Zelensky came to Washington with the intention of repairing his strained relationship with Trump, inking the deal, and convincing the U.S. to keep the weapons flowing to his war effort.

The meeting was intended to be a photo-op before the real discussions behind closed doors—and it began on a cordial note. Trump praised Ukraine’s soldiers. Zelensky politely showed Trump photographs of Russian atrocities.

But then Vance laid a trap. Or at least deviated from the diplomatic niceties. He explained that Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, thumped his chest and talked tough but never engaged in diplomacy with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. “The path to peace and the path to prosperity is maybe engaging in diplomacy,” he said.

Vance, in this case, was not a reliable narrator of recent history. Biden hosted a virtual summit with the Russian leader at the end of 2021. Biden also waived sanctions on the construction of a second gas pipeline between Russia and Europe in the months leading up to the war. Before Putin invaded, Biden tried for nearly a year to dissuade him from doing it.

Nevertheless, the smart thing to do at this point would have been for Zelensky—who desperately needs America’s military support—to nod politely and let it go.

https://www.commentary.org/issues/march-2025/

I was three-quarters done with today’s newsletter when an unprecedented disaster at the White House made my day’s work superfluous. So we recorded an emergency podcast (link below), and I’ll just say a few things about the president’s and vice president’s treatment of Volodymyr Zelenskyy a few hours ago.

This public ambush of America’s ally was truly unprecedented and truly disastrous. Trump invited Zelenskyy to the White House for…well, for what? 

If it was to bring Ukraine closer to some sort of cease-fire deal with Russia, why blow it up (or let your vice president blow it up) by provoking a fight about Zelenskyy’s invented ingratitude toward the U.S.? If it was to just get Zelenskyy to sign the mineral-rights deal, the same applies. Why let him leave without a guarantee of signing, to say nothing of kicking him out of the White House?

The only thing that’s clear about Trump’s supposed peace plan is that he doesn’t care at all about Ukraine’s position after the missiles and rockets cease. He wants to end the war and end it quickly. The quickest route to doing that is ending it on Vladimir Putin’s terms, without any pushback on Ukraine’s behalf. If that’s clear to me, it’s a lot clearer to Zelenskyy. 

So while Zelenskyy didn’t help his cause by being goaded into a yelling match, what difference would it have made if he responded differently to Vance’s instigation? Had he just sucked it up and endured the abuse with a polite smile or some form of assuagement, would Trump be less inclined to come to a deal on Putin’s terms? Doubt it. Trump’s made up his mind about what he wants. Zelenskyy would have looked, before the whole world—including Ukraine and Russia, obsequious in accepting his country’s defeat. No one can say how best to handle an unprecedented disaster.

The unprecedented nature of the meeting is self-evident. The disaster part is manifold. Before long, Ukraine will have to keep fighting without any U.S. assistance. U.S.-Europe relations might be strained to the breaking point as Ukraine’s neighbors deal with an advancing Putin’s increasing good fortune. To the U.S.’s friends, we look unreliable, immoral, and weak. To its enemies, we look like dupes. They won’t miss the opportunity to take further advantage. Zelenskyy was right in saying that if Putin is left unchecked, even Americans would feel the consequences. That feeling of shame is the first one.  

https://www.frontpagemag.com/trump-vance-berate-zelensky-in-jaw-dropping-white-house-confrontation/

In an astounding public exchange between world leaders in the White House, President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance gave Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky a dressing-down that demonstrated American resolve to end business-as-usual for the Ukraine money pit and bring the war with Russia to an end.

Things got off to an awkward start from the very moment Zelensky arrived dressed in his usual  performative, combat-ready green sweatshirt, cargo pants and boots, as if he might have to rush back to the front lines against Russia at any moment. As the Ukrainian leader exited his motorcade, Trump shook his hand and wise-cracked to the press, “He’s all dressed up today.”

Once inside the White House room packed with reporters and cameras, there were 40 minutes of reasonable, calm discussion before Zelensky made what former US ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker called a “terrible, unforced error” by demanding security assurances before agreeing to a minerals deal with the U.S. He also argued that previous American Presidents including Trump 1.0 did nothing to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression against his country, and therefore the kind of diplomacy with Putin that Vance was urging was pointless.

This prompted an immediate and sharp rebuke from Vance, who upbraided him for “litigating” the war in front of the cameras: “Do you think that it’s respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?”

The conversation went off a cliff from there, as Zelensky went on to employ the blackmail tactic of claiming that the U.S. has the privilege of “nice oceans” between us and Russia, but that if we don’t help him defeat Putin now, Americans will “feel it in the future.”

Trump then sternly interjected, “Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel. We’re trying to solve a problem. Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel, because you’re in no position to dictate that.”

An increasingly angry Zelensky tried to talk over Trump, who continued, “You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War Three. And what you’re doing is very disrespectful to the country – this country – that’s backed you far more than a lot of people said they should have.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21433/neutralize-hamas-qatar-houthis-iran

“[Iran’s] Operation True Promise 3 will be carried out at the right time, with precision, and in a scale sufficient to destroy Israel and raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground.” — Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Major General Ibrahim Jabbari, February 2025.

A Trump decision to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization would go a long way toward making it difficult for its many offshoots to continue supporting it.

Even more urgent is for the Trump administration to neutralize Hamas, Qatar, Iran, Hezbollah and the Houthis — to limit their ability to keep on destabilizing the entire region, as well as to curtail the Houthis’ stranglehold on global shipping. The policy is certainly congruent with the long-held American principle of maintaining the international freedom of navigation.

The move would also send a warning to China not to continue its aggressive effort to gain control of the world’s critical sea lines near Taiwan, Australia, the Philippines and Japan.

Iran, reportedly weeks away from a nuclear weapons breakout, is still threatening the “total annihilation of Israel.” To that end, the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has announced “Operation True Promise 3” – another rocket and ballistic missile air assault on Israel. IRGC Major General Ibrahim Jabbari, according to Iranian media, stated that, “Operation True Promise 3 will be carried out at the right time, with precision, and in a scale sufficient to destroy Israel and raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground.”

Meanwhile, Qatar, possibly capitalizing on the reluctance of Egypt and Jordan to receive Gazans, seems to be trying to come up with its own peace plan to derail President Donald Trump’s. It most likely designed to keep its client, beneficiary and Muslim Brotherhood cohort, Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip. The invaluable website MEMRI reports:

“After World War II, tens of millions of refugees and displaced persons in Europe needed to be resettled, among them Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. The UN and the international community rushed to help them.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/whats-the-alternative-to-negotiating-with-putin/

Donald Trump’s bilateral effort to put an end to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has incited the usual NeverTrump Dems, along with other foreign policy commentators not necessarily hostile to the president. Some are criticizing Trump for freezing Ukraine and the NATO nations out of the negotiations, insulting Ukraine’s government as corrupt, and denigrating Zelensky. But the real issue is, so far, that there’s been no other plausible plan for ending the bloody meatgrinder stalemate.

The NATO West has not come off well in this crisis. First, the expansion of NATO to Russia’s borderlands after the collapse of the Soviet Union was ill advised, given that Putin as early as 2007 had called European NATO nations’ expansion to Russia’s near abroad a “serious provocation.” Even worse, many NATO members’ feckless neglect of their defense spending, and the sorry state of NATO’s military preparedness, meant that NATO was a paper tiger that couldn’t and wouldn’t backup its challenge to Russia’s ambitions.

Nor was the Biden puppeteers’ criminal negligence in their shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan helpful in concentrating Putin’s mind. Was there any reason why Vlad wouldn’t think it was a good time to start restoring the Soviet empire?

Putin’s confidence was also strengthened by the mostly performative assertions of NATO nations that they would not let his adventurism stand. But what credibility could NATO summon, given that his initial aggression against Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in 2014 was met with blustering rhetoric and flabby sanctions?

And hadn’t Barack Obama also encouraged Putin with his talk of a “reset” with Russia, promise of “flexibility” after his reelection, and cancellation of antimissile batteries for Russia’s Eastern European nations? There’s also Obama’s earlier flip mockery of Mitt Romney’s warning about Putin’s ambitions during the 2012 presidential debate––“the Eighties called, and they want their foreign policy back.” A mere two years later Putin took Crimea, and was met only with sanctions and a school-marmish scolding from Secretary of State John Kerry.