Quote:
Originally Posted by jfman
These things can all be true at once. If the Trump administration decides he’s not legitimate, and he’s threatening to build a dirty bomb, that ends one way.  |
True, but you’re making assumptions about Trump’s likely response in Ukraine that are untethered from the things Trump has already said. He wants to decouple himself from expensive international distractions that cost America money (leave aside whether that’s a sound analysis on his part for the moment).
I agree that a rational US administration modelled on almost any one of those that has held power since WW2 might well attempt to remove Zelensky rather than allow nuclear proliferation in the dead zone between Nato and Russia, but your problem is right there in the word ‘rational’. Trump isn’t a 4D chess player. He’s a narcissist. He does the next thing that has something in it for Trump. If he asks someone to plan an intervention against Ukraine’s interests he will be confronted with more follow-up questions than he could ever be bothered to think about, starting with the explicit support for Ukraine across Europe and the presence of more than one western power’s special forces in-country.
And if they did decide to go for it, let’s not even get started on the logistics - Russia has had operatives infiltrated across Ukrainian society who look and talk like Ukrainians and yet they haven’t managed to whack him in more than 2 years. I can’t see the Americans getting anywhere near him.