Blogs
- Trump’s Odessa for Greenland deal!
- Confidential Letter to Trump on AUKUS
- Why Do People Serve a Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin?
- Putin and his Lieutenants compared to Mao, Napoleon, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Ataturk
- AUKUS, Nokia, Theranos & Dennis Richardson
- Albanese, Dutton, Trump & post-China/US War Dictatorship: Part 11
- Albanese and post-China/US War Dictatorship: Part 10
- Albanese and post-China/US War Dictatorship: Part 9
- Albanese and post-China/US War Dictatorship: Part 8
- Albanese and post-China/US War Dictatorship: Part 7
- Albanese and post-China/US War Dictatorship: Part 6
- Albanese and post-China/US War Dictatorship: Part 5
- Albanese and post-China/US War Dictatorship: Part 4
- Albanese and post-China/US War Dictatorship: Part 3
- Albanese and post-China/US War Dictatorship: PART 2
- Albanese and post-China/US War Dictatorship
- Russian Censorship Comes to Australia via Jews!
- Anne Applebaum writes like Trump talks
- Putin’s Successor if he is killed soon!
- Brittany Higgins false rape earned her $2m
- Lies of Mike Burgess, the Director General of ASIO
- Evan Gershkovitch and Krasikov is Bad Policy
- Beazley, Richardson, Dibb are old men pushing sexy, ignorant group thinks.
- Jewish women Yvonne Engelman and Nina Bassat are Russia-type PR pawns?
- Bad News for Ukraine
- Group Think psychology of AUKUS and Option 2
- Putin says he follows Israeli Gaza example
- Henry Ergas praises Nazi “Will”
- What did we learn from the Tucker Carlson interview of Putin?
- Russian-Ukraine lessons on China
- Me and Colin Rubenstein – an Australian “traitor”?
- Cardinal Pell and David McBride
- Air Chief Marshal Houston & Hitler
- Air Chief Marshal Houston & Stalin
- Albrechtsen plagiarises Goebbels
- Anatoly Chubais
- Assange and Defence
- Blair & Gadhafi
- Blair & Napoleon
- Brooks and Tett on policy psychology
- Cardinal Pell’s God
- Donald Rumsfeld
- Field-Marshal Keitel
- George Bush, Stalin, Mao
- Gillard & Duncan Lewis
- Gillard & Obama
- Gillard & Putin
- Gillard: psychological profile
- Gillard’s personal decision UN vote!
- Goering’s Wisdom
- History of anti-terrorist laws in dictatorships
- Howard & Sinodinos
- James Packer’s lieutenants
- Lateral Thinking
- Lawyer X, Huawei, National Security, Scott Morrison, Chinese in Australia!
- Major-General Cantwell & Matiullah Khan
- Medvedev & Obama
- Medvedev & Putin: “power corrupts”
- Morrison, Binskin and Napoleon
- National Security Myth
- Obama, Jefferson, slaves, murder, Nobel Prizes
- Obama’s Nobel Prize speech
- Paul Lodge (Family Court, Australia)
- Peta Credlin and Abbott, like Hitler-Bormann
- Peter FitzSimmons, George Pell, bias and group think.
- Psychologies of Putin and USA
- Psychology of Secret Courts / Military Tribunals
- Psychology of Supporters of Bush & Saddam
- Putin in 2000
- Putin Personality Cult
- Putin, Gillard, Abbott, Medvedev
- Putin: New Faces and Flaws in the Weave
- Putin’s dangerous reading
- Russia, NATO, Missile Defence
- Tony Abbott
- US Missile Defence
- Wendi (Wendy) Deng
- Why I support WikiLeaks
- Russian Adventures: Money, Sex, Violence & the Law
- Movie Script: Russia to Cambodia
Personal Links
Trump’s Odessa for Greenland deal!
In late February 2022 I was walking on a street in Irkutsk (in the middle of Russian Siberia) when I met a former female student of mine who had just come from her work office. She was upset by the invasion of Ukraine but even more so by the attitude of some women in the office. The main topic of discussion was speculation on “how many new provinces we will get”. In my own discussions on the invasion I managed to condemn it and often – but not always – found that people agreed with me that one country should not simply try to take over another. So, there was an element of guilt amongst many Russians. But, following Donald Trump’s demands on Greenland I doubt my own conversations would again go the same way!
While there is significant censorship in Russia, many individual Russians will simply not understand why Russia is being condemned for its invasion and annexation of Ukrainian land when the United States is making similar demands on Greenland and Panama. While some Westerners might claim that this is typical Trump negotiating rhetorics, Vladimir Putin and those around him will be giving thanks to Trump for assisting their propaganda about taking over the territory of another country in order to bolster security.
Historians may see Trumps comments as the almost final nail in the coffin for Odessa, the last significant city on the Black Sea that Ukraine still controls, with real access to that sea and its trade routes. Russians forces in southern Ukraine are still several hundred kilometers from Transnistria, the Russian orientated breakaway province from Moldova, and Odessa stands between Russian forces in Kherson province and Transnistria. As things currently stand in the fighting, Russian forces would not have the power to take control of Odessa and then go onto Transnistria to completely cut off the remainder of Ukraine from the Black Sea.
However, whatever the shorter-term results of Trump’s efforts to “end the war”, Russian nationalists and the women in the office of my former student will feel that in the longer-term Odessa should be taken – additionally because it is something that the United States would do if given the chance!
Trump may feel that he can cut-a-deal with Vladimir Putin to stop the fighting and save Odessa, but there are limits to Putin’s power. Putin was able to push his Security Council into accepting the “special military operation” against Ukraine because they saw a certain sense to it. It would have been a completely different matter if Putin had suggested returning Crimea to Ukraine — his time in power would ha been very limited because it would have been seen as a betrayal of Russian national interests!
What Trump, and many of those around him, do not understand is that successful – and I mean, long time in power – dictators like Putin, Mao Zedong, Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Josef Stalin and Kemal Ataturk are actually long-serving because they do take notice of the views of the population — including the sort expressed in the office of my former student – and their advisors. The do not simply do deals with foreign leaders because they have some “personal connection”.