Originally Posted by
On Balance
Al, apologies as this may take some reading.
I will deal with each question, as I see it, in the order you put them. I know little about US politics to be fair. However, my point with Trump is, he says much about how he is going to resolve things but provides in detail on how he will achieve these objectives.
Unless the US wish to stand alone, I believe the continent of Europe is not as expendable as one might think. If the US walks away from Europe it will leave a door wide open for the power hungry aggressive nations to make a move on the European continent. If that did happen, perhaps not likely in yours or perhaps my lifetime, that would weaken the US greatly. United we stand divided we would fall.
It is a matter of the good standing up together against the dictator led powers.
Is the UK worse off than other European countries or the US, in my view that is hard to say. There are many down and out areas in Europe and the US. There are many thugs and evil lurking in every corner of the world. There is poor and homeless everywhere. Trump will not be able to clear these issues up in the US, no easier than we could over here or they can in any other country.
Trump says he will stop immigration, as I pointed out in para 1, he has not said how he will do this. So we will have to wait and see how he does it and how successful he is. He has always been a man of bluster and bull hooks.
My views on Ukraine were simple and nowhere near as strong as yours I would suggest. Trump says he will end the war straight away! Has he said how he intends to do this?
I suspect Trump will say that Ukraine must cede what Russia has unlawfully gained and that is it. Imagine Canada grabbing large swathes of the US, would Trump sit down and leave it be, if Ukraine as piece maker, said that is how you finish a war.
Imagine if France invaded the UK and took the whole of the south east of England and were making gains. Would we, could we accept leaving as it stood to stop the fighting. Not many Brits would leave it at that I am sure.
The problem is, where would Russia stop. If they can make war to grab land they would continent to do so.
You say that Biden has been inconsistent and soft. I would say he has been, like the West as a whole, slow to react perhaps wary of Putins talk. Putin, another like Trump, is full of bluster and bull hooks.
Where does all this leave us. Well I suggest very much weakened as we will have bowed down to the bully, the bully that you have so many times said we should stand up to. We need to be united against the bullies, lest we will be in peril for years to come. That is both Europe and the US.
You ask, will Trump make the situation in Ukraine worse. In the long term absolutely. The conditions are likely already written by the aggressor. Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO and Ukraine must cede roughly one third of its country. If that condition is agreed then where will the aggressor stop? He will see how weak the West is. He will smell the fear and let us make no mistake, he will take advantage of that like any bully would.
