by Claudiu Secara

While people may think “US foreign policy forms like a cloud in the president’s head”, in reality it forms in think tanks arriving at consensus among powerful special interests, before being sent to Washington with lobbyists to attract support from BOTH sides of the aisle. Below is Project 2025 from the Heritage Foundation, a think tank comprised of reps of government/big-business. The table of contents: https://www.project2025.org/policy/

Now the intriguing question is the genuiness of Trump’s pivot to peace with Russia. The document below describes the priority of the US military on preventing the emergence of China as a rival, but it also regards Russia as a major threat alongside China. How to explain, then, Trump’s maverick move in appeasing Russia?

One explanation given by Brian Berletic is found in US Sec. of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in Brussels indicating that the US is far from seeking peace, but instead, a “division of labor” where Europe confronts Russia while the US pivots to China – as this was not just a random thought spoken out of turn.

And the matching part from the Project2025 PDF:

U.S. allies must also step up, with some joining the United States in taking on China in Asia while others take more of a lead in dealing with threats from Russia in Europe, Iran, the Middle East and North Korea.
The reality is that achieving these goals will require more spending on defense, both by the United States and by its allies, as well as active support for reindustrialization and more support for allies’ productive capacity so that we can scale our free-world efforts together.

Another signal, though, is the role played by Tucker Carlson in promoting Russia as a friendly country to the US. Why is that important? Because Tucker Carlson is the main spokesperson precisely for the Heritage Foundation. So while the document below, issued by the Heritage Foundation, doesn’t indicate any friendly gesture towards Russia, its star spokesperson promotes on the world stage exactly that position, which indicates that Trump’s peace offer over Ukraine is a very valid action supported by the main sponsor of Trump’s presidency.

Yes, Russia has to be confronted, be irritated by the Europeans, while the US can play the role of the good cop and even do favoritisms to Russia in exchange for a quid pro quo vs China. All very subtle, while smiling to both.

Let’s face it, the US is in a desperate situation and that is evident even to the top think tank, as it clearly spells it out: “Our disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, our impossibly muddled China strategy, the growing involvement of senior military officers in the political arena, and deep confusion about the purpose of our military are clear signals of a disturbing decay and markers of a dangerous decline in our nation’s capabilities and will.”

As for the immediate and practical steps to rejuvenate the US defense forces, every item in the Project is part of the text from which Trump’s speeches are written.

Under Section 2, part 4 “Department of Defense,” it specifically lays out the new US military strategy. See the entire chapter: https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_CHAPTER-04.pdf

By far the most significant danger to Americans’ security, freedoms, and prosperity is China. China is by any measure the most powerful state in the world other
than the United States itself. It apparently aspires to dominate Asia and then, from
that position, become globally preeminent. If Beijing could achieve this goal, it
could dramatically undermine America’s core interests, including by restricting U.S. access to the world’s most important market. Preventing this from happening
must be the top priority for American foreign and defense policy

[ …]

The FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act established the position of
Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering and assigned broad
responsibility for “all defense research and engineering, technology development, technology transition, prototyping, experimentation, and developmental
testing activities and programs, including the allocation of resources for defense
research and engineering, and unifying defense research and engineering e”orts
across the Department,” to the new Under Secretary, who also was tasked with
“serving as the principal advisor to the Secretary on all research, engineering,
and technology development activities and programs in the Department.”6 This
led to the single largest DOD structural change since the Goldwater–Nichols
act of 1986 and was organized effectively during President Donald Trump’s
Administration.

Every single item of Trump’s MAGA program can be found in the Project 2025 blueprint. Here are a few examples:

Restore standards of lethality and excellence. Entrance criteria for
military service and specific occupational career fields should be based on
the needs of those positions. Exceptions for individuals who are already
predisposed to require medical treatment (for example, HIV positive
or suffering from gender dysphoria) should be removed, and those with
gender dysphoria should be expelled from military service. Physical
fitness requirements should be based on the occupational field without
consideration of gender, race, ethnicity, or orientation.

3. Reinstate servicemembers to active duty who were discharged for
not receiving the COVID vaccine, restore their appropriate rank, and
provide back pay.
4. Eliminate Marxist indoctrination and divisive critical race theory
programs and abolish newly established diversity, equity, and inclusion
offices and staff.
6. Audit the course offerings at military academies to remove Marxist
indoctrination, eliminate tenure for academic professionals, and
apply the same rules to instructors that are applied to other DOD
contracting personnel.
7. Reverse policies that allow transgender individuals to serve in the
military. Gender dysphoria is incompatible with the demands of military
service, and the use of public monies for transgender surgeries or to
facilitate abortion for servicemembers should be ended.

Moscow is hoping to get Washington to vacate nations that joined NATO after 1990, the tabloid claims, citing anonymous sources

Western security services and politicians are worried about a potential exit of US troops from NATO member states in Central and Eastern Europe, Bild has reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed sources. The tabloid suggests that Russia is trying to get the US to radically downgrade its military presence on the continent.

Bild claimed that European members of NATO “feared” that the high-level US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, could lead to such an outcome. The German media outlet quoted an anonymous Western European security official as saying, “according to our information, we’re talking about [Vladimir] Putin’s 2021 demands, that is, the withdrawal of US troops from all NATO states that joined the alliance after 1990.”

In December 2021, Russia presented the US and NATO with a list of proposals aimed at reshaping the security architecture in Europe, and to rule out Ukraine’s accession. The West rejected the Kremlin’s overture as an ultimatum at the time.

Bild also quoted former Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis who posted on X on Tuesday that “it seems much more than likely” that the Kremlin would renew its demands that “NATO must go back to its 1997 borders, retreating from everything except East Germany.” He noted that while Trump technically cannot unilaterally implement a “reversal of NATO enlargement,” he could still “withdraw US troops from the Eastern Flank, which would have almost the same effect.”

The nations that would theoretically be affected include Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden.

A Romanian official made similar allegations on Wednesday. Cristian Diaconescu, the president’s chief of staff and adviser for defense and national security, alleged that while the US team had rejected Moscow’s supposed demands in Riyadh, “the situation can change from hour to hour or from day to day,” and Washington could eventually cave in.

On Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the claims as “not true,” adding, however, that Moscow’s concerns regarding “NATO’s military infrastructure having inched toward our borders as part of several waves” are “no secret to anyone.”

via RT

by Claudiu Secara

A Geopolitical Earthquake on steroids.

One can actually speculate at this point as to how the shuffling of the cards in the deck is rearranging the new positions throughout the Trans Atlantic hemisphere. And when I say hemisphere, I mean from Vancouver to Vladivostok clockwise.

A new understanding is springing up between the US and Russia on the long-fought-over division of their spheres of influence. These two are emerging as the principal condominium supremo.

The losers? Israel. It is a big surprise but not entirely unexpected. Israel has been sacrificed and it is now neutralized. No more Greater Israel. Some new forms of accommodation with the Palestinians will follow. Meanwhile, Israel is on notice to scale back its military actions and its killings, and to release the long-suffering Palestinian prisoners. The rest is just hot-air rhetoric.

The next major tectonic split is over Europe. The Russians did not even accept to loosen their grip over the once Great Britain. The rupture is radical between the whole of Europe and the US. For now the EU will act as a standalone power. But for how long? In a not so distant future, it will merge with Russia. Tough negotiations ahead. How much they can still preserve of the old Europe is up for negotiation.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the US is taking everything from Greenland to Tierra del Fuego.

Now that explains why Putin did not defend Assad in Syria and that also explains some of the debacle in Romanian elections, or even the Transnistria losing its energy imports, for example. This new grand bargain has been long in the works but not to the knowledge of most of the characters on the big stage. Until the day when this is fully revealed, which is about now, some actors didn’t get the new memo and have been acting on the old instructions.

But this seems to be the new direction, like it or not.

via ZeroHedge

A fresh report in Financial Times has revealed that during US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, Moscow demanded that NATO and American forces are withdrawn from eastern Europe as a condition for “normalizing relations.”

Sources in Romania’s government revealed the request, which was rejected by the team led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. But NATO countries along the alliance’s so-called Eastern flank are still worried: “Cristian Diaconescu, the Romanian president’s chief of staff and adviser for defense and national security, said on Wednesday that the US delegation had rejected Moscow’s demand, but that there were no guarantees that Washington would not eventually make this concession to Vladimir Putin,” FT reports.

This concern was expressed to FT as follows:

“As far as I understand, the situation can change from hour to hour or from day to day,” Diaconescu told Antena3 television, in a reference to US President Donald Trump’s scathing criticism of the Ukrainian leader and his concessions made to Russia even before talks began.
Diaconescu stressed that the Russian delegation to the talks in Riyadh earlier this week “failed to convince the Americans” on a Nato withdrawal and that further visits by the leaders of the UK and France to Washington next week would seek to persuade Trump not to give in to this demand.

No real details on specifically what the Russians requested as a condition for fully restoring and improving US relations has been revealed by the US side. However, staff at each of their respective embassies are being restored. Read more.

Michael McFaul on the negotiations between Russia and the US: Trump offered Russia a lot

1. Part of the territory of Ukraine.
2. Partial withdrawal of US troops from Europe.
3. Non-membership of Ukraine in NATO.
4. Lifting of sanctions.
5. No American soldiers in Ukraine.

And Putin offered nothing in return.

The Russians are saying that this is not the correct analysis. Russia offered a lot in return:

Russia ceases military actions and does not take Odessa, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Nikolaev, Sumy, Chernigov, Kirovograd, Kyiv, by military means. These are huge concessions, the Russians claim. Colossal.

On the other hand, French and British peace plan for Ukraine will be discussed in Washington during the visit of the leaders of France and Britain to the United States in a few days.

1. The deployment of 30 thousand NATO troops from Europe in the largest cities of Ukraine and its ports.
2. The deployment of an additional large batch of US aircraft in Ukraine.
3. The deployment of US missiles in Ukraine.
4. All this after the signing of a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia.

Based on this, will Russia sign a peace agreement?

But meanwhile Trump wants to cut Pentagon spending, perhaps by 40%. The Washington Post writes about it. This reflects the near bankruptcy of the US.

But European leaders will be against it. Watch the drama unfolding!

By Michael Every of Rabobank via ZeroHedge

The US-Russia Ukraine War ceasefire talks in the Saudi capital yesterday are causing a chain Riyadh-tion.

Russia made no concessions at all. Indeed, NBC news cites Western intelligence and congressional sources stating that President Vladimir Putin is not interested in a peace deal and instead seeks to gain full control of Ukraine, because “He thinks he’s winning.”

By contrast, rumors are flying of what the US may have conceded: Ukraine’s NATO membership is off the table; a potential Ukrainian election may be on it; and some fear the reduction of US forces in Europe, crystalising the latter’s sudden existential concern over who now defends it. It remains to be seen what is true.

Yet as pointed out in the Grand Macro Strategy report, realist US statecraft is hardly new. For example, in WW2 President F.D. Roosevelt forced UK PM Churchill to exchange British bases for mothballed WW1-era US destroyers, made the UK pay for US goods until it couldn’t continue, then switched to Lend-Lease with terms preventing Britain from ever re-emerging as an imperial power, reinforced by the US forcing sterling to become convertible again too soon post-WW2, and making it remove its Imperial Preference tariffs.

However, there is now an echo of Nixon going to China for some, and Molotov-Ribbentrop for others. Indeed, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov underlined “high interest” in lifting US-Russia economic barriers, while Secretary of State Rubio stated peace in Ukraine would “unlock” opportunities for cooperation and “some pretty unique, potentially historic economic partnerships.” Which grand strategy logic argues will not involve Europe, not even via cheaper Russian gas, as the market –understanding only macro strategy– prices for it regardless.

Europe is of course outraged, but both France’s Macron and Germany’s Scholz had meetings with Putin without Ukraine present as late as 2022, and Germany regularly worked round it before that. Moreover, it was Macron who told Politico in late 2023 that Europe must resist pressure to become “America’s followers” and the “great risk” Europe faces is getting “caught up in crises that are not ours.”

Regardless, as the talks ended yesterday, rumours flew that Europe would announce a €700bn aid package for Ukraine, which may occur at another emergency EU+UK summit to be held today. If so, we are talking serious money, but equally serious questions arise:

• How many years is this over? The time value of money is existential when geopolitics is this raw.
• How will the money be used? Ukraine is already producing as much war materiel as it can, and Europe has refused to shift to a war economy since February 2022.
• Is €700bn to flow to the EU to create a defence industrial base? If so, where? It needs economies of scale, but that does not allow the entire EU a windfall. And how will the EU not see higher inflation given physical constraints on its capital stock and human capital?
• Is €700bn to buy US arms and support the US defence industrial complex? The same bottleneck and inflation issues arise there, as well as EU-US trade/capital out/inflows.

These are huge issues of economic statecraft and Grand Macro Strategy for Europe (and the US). However, clearly the EU can back Ukraine fully if it chooses to: it will just have to reorder its political-economy, military, and financial markets to do so.

Indeed, the Financial Times op-ed page today is literally begging Europe to do exactly that. [ . . . ]

Others may: Turkey, NATO’s second-largest military force even if not invited to Monday’s EU summit, has announced it also supports Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Will it act on that with Europe? If so, how? And what’s the quid pro quo, if any?

Muddying the waters further, President Trump has reiterated he will impose 25% (or higher) tariffs on autos and chips from as soon as 2 April – the former hitting Germany in particular. The market is again taking the view that a week is a long time in politics, and April is a lifetime away. It is – things could be far worse by then.

Meanwhile, a US federal judge has given DOGE the greenlight to continue digging into the government’s systems and books – though how much money is actually being saved remains to be seen: one figure is just $50bn, which is a rounding error in the larger scheme of things.

And geopolitics: don’t think if Europe is being told to spend 5% of GDP on defence that Australia, and even New Zealand, won’t be told to do their bit to contribute towards the US defense of the Indo-Pacific too.

Rubio said it, so it must be true? We want to believe it, so it must be true?

What actual evidence is there the US intends to do this?

Even as Rubio lies through his teeth to buy time because the US is out of arms/ammo to send Ukraine, he and the rest of the Trump administration is talking about NATO members expanding funding up to 5% of GDP from 2% – NATO, a gun pressed to Russia’s head causing this conflict IN THE FIRST PLACE!

The US is also desperately trying to expand its military industrial base precisely so it can win the next time it wages proxy war against adversaries like Russia.

The US is also openly continuing to pursue an identical conflict with Russia’s ally, China.

Rubio offering peace and partnership with Russia? He can barely say it with a straight face.

Wake. Up.

Follow The New Atlas on Telegram: https://t.me/brianlovethailand

VID_20250218_165633_827.mp4

The first thing to remember is that the US is basically bankrupt. It cannot sustain the war in Ukraine anymore. The emperor has no clothes.

The US, in the name of Trump, is willing to sacrifice the European theater of confrontation in order to save itself, as it can afford to do. But for the Europeans living next to Russia the confrontation is close home. They remember the Soviet Union’s shadow over Europe for 70 years and see the present situation ominously resembling that past as well. And Europe is not bankrupt like the US. They want guarantees that Russia is not going to slice one piece after another, swallowing more territory.

It was the US who instigated the war in Ukraine (remember Nuland serving cookies while saying f’ the EU?). Now, as so often in the past, the US cuts it’s loses, wants its investment in Russia back and throws the UE under the bus, while Putin cheers (“they will wag their tails at the feet of Trump”). But surprise! For the first time since WWII, the EU stands its ground. They demand divorce.

Macron leads the Anti-Trump Coalition. He is convening a second summit. This time, countries that were not at the first meeting in Paris are invited. Including Canada. Formally, the Ukrainian crisis is discussed. But in fact, it is a confrontation with Trump.

Macron gives Trump an ultimatum: continue the war against Russia or else.

The question is: is this entire coalition weaker than the United States? But if Macron manages to organize everyone against Trump, then the price of confrontation may be so high for Trump that he may meet Macron and all of Europe halfway.

And this will block US-Russia negotiations on peace in Ukraine. And this is exactly what Macron and the European party are trying to achieve.