Trump Moves to DEFCON 2 In War of Words With Putin
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Donald Trump really, really, REALLY wants to end the Russia-Ukraine War. His inability to do so clearly rankles him both personally and on a policy level. 

And you can’t fault the guy for not trying. He has expended a significant amount of political capital, to the point of straining relations with our European allies, publicly humiliating Volodymyr Zelensky, and flattering Putin in an attempt to bring him to the table. 





A lot of people misinterpreted those last two, assuming that Trump was abandoning Ukraine and aligning the United States with Russia. I never thought he was doing that — instead, he was doing what he always does: cajoling our friends to get in line and flattering our enemies in an attempt to get them to do the same. 

It works surprisingly often. Look at how Trump got NATO to up its commitment to the common defense, raising the target from 2% of GDP to 5%. That is nearly miraculous. Bush, Obama, and Biden all tried and failed to get Europe to fulfill its commitment to spend 2%; Trump makes them go to 5 and like it. 

But Putin is a different beast than any of these other guys. He will bask in the flattery and give nothing back, and Trump is done with the nice guy act. If Putin doesn’t want to play ball, Trump has decided to play hardball. 

Trump hates war, but he isn’t afraid of it. And, in a move that surprised a lot of people but not me, he has moved to the next stage in the negotiations now that Putin has rebuffed his efforts to end the war: hit Russia hard. 





Trump has resumed weapons shipments to Ukraine, and negotiated with Europe to allow them to buy massive amounts of American weaponry to supply to Ukraine–even longer-range weapons that the Biden administration chose not to provide. 

Trump famously likes to get the better end of the deal, and Europe’s willingness to pay for the weapons seems to make both sides happy. Trump always hated that the United States was paying for the war despite not having much of a stake in it. Now that NATO is stepping up, he is a lot more willing to help prosecute the war. 

Trump has given Putin a 50-day deadline to end the war or face even tougher sanctions, giving the lie to the idea that Trump is a Putin puppet. 





What Trump is and always was is transactional. He was willing to give Putin a lot of carrots–and praise–to come to the table and do what Trump wants. Putin rejected all those entreaties, so now comes the hammer. It is exactly what Trump did with Iran–giving them a deadline, and when they failed to come through, he hit them where it hurts. 

Trump still believes Moscow has the upper hand, according to a senior White House official. But as his frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin has grown, he is more willing to take part in a conflict he insisted he could settle quickly.

“The president’s view is Russia is going to win, it’s a matter of how long it takes,” said the senior White House official, granted anonymity to discuss the president’s thinking. “Russia has the bigger economy, has the bigger military, has more than enough bodies to throw into the meat grinder, and just doesn’t care. And although they are making slow progress, they are still making progress. The president just wants to stop the killing.”

Even as Trump wants to up the pressure on Moscow, bucking the isolationist wing of the MAGA movement, he is insisting that this latest move aligns with his “America First” strategy and fits into a decades-long view that America has been ripped off by allies and that Europe, in particular, has gotten a free ride on defense.

Of course, unlike Iran, Russia is a lot more difficult to bully, and according to a “White House official,” he thinks that Moscow has the upper hand. Presumably, he wants to balance the scales in order to get Putin to the table, because right now, Putin, too, thinks he has the upper hand. Trump wants to teach him that his willingness to play nice doesn’t mean he can’t play it for keeps. 





Trump critics, who criticized him for not following the Biden strategy and claimed he was a Putin puppet, are now claiming that Trump’s ego is bruised because Putin isn’t a Trump puppet. It is as if they are willfully blind to how Trump operates. 

Although, to be fair, some Trump supporters didn’t see this coming, thinking that his Ukraine strategy was simply to extricate the US from the war. That isn’t what Trump ever said–he always said his goal was ending the war, not abandoning Ukraine–and that still is his goal. 

Just as in Iran, he would have been happier to have the Ayatollah buckle and give up his nuclear program without a war, he would have been happy with a ceasefire and return to the status quo ante, Trump is willing to up the pressure on Russia to get the deal he always wanted. 

I am utterly unsurprised by Trump’s escalation here. It is consistent with how he thinks and operates–everything is transactional and a deal. He has a goal–in this case, ending the war as soon as possible–and if his first strategy isn’t getting results, he moves on to strategy number two. 





Trump is not going to send American troops to Ukraine. His goal is not to bleed Russia dry or even “win” the war. He wants it over. If it takes upping the ante to get there, upping the ante is what he will do. 





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