Appeasement doesn't work. Tyrants will want more and more until there's nothing left to take. We have NO BUSINESS telling Ukraine how to make peace with Russia. Ukraine is a sovereign country and the fact that they let Russia dictate their level of armaments in the 1990s has a lot to do with why Russia invaded in 2014 and 2022. Under no circumstances do I think the current administration will negotiate anything in good faith. If the deal isn't good for Ukraine, then it isn't good for anyone except the idiot that started this mess. Even if a deal started out good for the US, it would eventual turn because you can't appease tyrants. France/England, WWII?
Trump's bid for a Nobel Prize hopelessly is vain- in many ways. A malignant narcissist has an over-expressed vanity gene, and Trump is the poster-boy for malignant narcissism. But Donald has significant psychopathy. He has evidence of paranoia which he reacts to with a sadistic desire to hurt others. So, how pathetic can he or anyone be that proposes Trump for a peace prize. The only "peace" prize that Trump has even shown interest in is a piece of ass.
If you want a psychiatric discussion of Trump then listen to:
The above YouTube also points out Trump's signs of dementia. Yes, we have a demented POTUS. It's not just that the Emperor wears no clothes, but the emperor also falls asleep during ceremonies (in Japan), he's flatulent in courtroom hearings, and his vocabulary, never great, is surpassed now by most fourth graders.
I fly a Ukrainian flag in front of my house. I wanted to use my medical skills in Ukraine, but with my age 83 and some serious medical issues, I decided this would be foolish. With another POTUS, we would not have abandoned Ukraine. With another POTUS, we would not have wined and dined, had a red carpet rolled out, and likely $3-8 million dollars spent to entertain Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman - known for his murder of Jamal Khashoggi. A declassified U.S. intelligence report released in 2021 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) concluded that MBS approved the operation to capture or kill Khashoggi. The ODNI stated that such an operation could not have occurred without the Crown Prince's direct authorization.
In November 2017, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) initiated a sweeping anti-corruption purge that involved the detention of hundreds of wealthy princes, government officials, and business leaders at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh. The New York Times and Human Rights Watch described the detentions as forced disappearances and alleged that some detainees were physically abused, tortured, and forced to relinquish billions of dollars in assets before their release. Critics viewed this as a politically motivated power grab to neutralize rivals and consolidate MBS’s financial control.
So we have Donald yearning for the Nobel Peace Prize while he entertains MBS, lauds dictators and talks about love letters from them, murders people on ships in the Caribbean and Pacific with no disclosure regarding who they are and what was on the ship; is an accomplice to bodily harm and apparently to murder of people in the US (some citizens, some without criminal records) all without due process.
The American Public went along with the Senate's dismissal of Al Franken for sexual misconduct from eight different women involving unwanted kissing or touching, but is not screaming from the highest hills about Trump's murders, imprisonments without due process and his entertaining a murderer like the Crown Prince.
What we have here, folks, is a USDA Grade A Shit show. And, we are eating it. America is sleeping. I personally do not think it knows the difference between woke and woken.
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” Thomas Jefferson
"If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon’s, but between patriotism and intelligence on one side and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other." -President Ulysses S. Grant
With respect, you don’t seem to understand realism. I suggest reading The Tragedy of great power politics. Realists don’t universally advocate surrender, rather the response is framed in terms of balance of power. They would NOT have negotiated with hitler, because a regional hegemony, to realists, is to be prevented at all costs. It is the same reason why even today, Mearsheimer is hawkish on China even as he is dovish on Ukraine.
Russia is not a regional hegemone, and whether or not it takes some percentage of Ukraine will not significantly alter the balance of power in Europe. That is why realists oppose the war.
Realists have a much better track record than the internationalist foreign policy blob, who have advocated for 50 years of disastrous and unnecessary wars and interventions. They are not pacifist or isolationist, they are just selective about when and where to fight.
When you say “Russia isn’t a regional hegemon, and taking part of Ukraine won’t alter the balance of power, therefore realists oppose the war,” you’re admitting that realism only counts what happens to great powers. Everything that happens to Ukraine itself—its sovereignty, its democracy, its right to align with the West, its capacity for self-defense, its territorial integrity, its culture, its citizens—gets treated as strategically irrelevant.
That’s not a misunderstanding of realism. That is realism. It centers the preferences of empires and treats smaller nations as negotiable space on a board. It defines “what matters” in a way that erases the moral and political agency of the people being invaded. And it’s exactly why realist prescriptions so often collapse into a doctrine of submission: if a country isn’t powerful enough to disrupt the balance, its suffering simply doesn’t register.
You’re not refuting my point—you’re illustrating it. A worldview that says “this doesn’t affect the balance of power, therefore Ukraine should concede” is precisely the logic I’m criticizing. If the only lives and rights that count are those of great powers, then yes, realism will always recommend surrender for smaller democracies. But that’s not wisdom. It’s just geopolitics stripped of any moral horizon.
That may be realism.
But let’s not pretend it’s justice, prudence, or anything morally admirable.
Reward aggressors and they’ll keep aggressing! Rewards are an aggressor’s aphrodisiac!
Magnificent, Mike. Your words are an inspiration.
Appeasement doesn't work. Tyrants will want more and more until there's nothing left to take. We have NO BUSINESS telling Ukraine how to make peace with Russia. Ukraine is a sovereign country and the fact that they let Russia dictate their level of armaments in the 1990s has a lot to do with why Russia invaded in 2014 and 2022. Under no circumstances do I think the current administration will negotiate anything in good faith. If the deal isn't good for Ukraine, then it isn't good for anyone except the idiot that started this mess. Even if a deal started out good for the US, it would eventual turn because you can't appease tyrants. France/England, WWII?
Another outstanding commentary.
Trump's bid for a Nobel Prize hopelessly is vain- in many ways. A malignant narcissist has an over-expressed vanity gene, and Trump is the poster-boy for malignant narcissism. But Donald has significant psychopathy. He has evidence of paranoia which he reacts to with a sadistic desire to hurt others. So, how pathetic can he or anyone be that proposes Trump for a peace prize. The only "peace" prize that Trump has even shown interest in is a piece of ass.
If you want a psychiatric discussion of Trump then listen to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OtO-cypKmY
The above YouTube also points out Trump's signs of dementia. Yes, we have a demented POTUS. It's not just that the Emperor wears no clothes, but the emperor also falls asleep during ceremonies (in Japan), he's flatulent in courtroom hearings, and his vocabulary, never great, is surpassed now by most fourth graders.
I fly a Ukrainian flag in front of my house. I wanted to use my medical skills in Ukraine, but with my age 83 and some serious medical issues, I decided this would be foolish. With another POTUS, we would not have abandoned Ukraine. With another POTUS, we would not have wined and dined, had a red carpet rolled out, and likely $3-8 million dollars spent to entertain Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman - known for his murder of Jamal Khashoggi. A declassified U.S. intelligence report released in 2021 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) concluded that MBS approved the operation to capture or kill Khashoggi. The ODNI stated that such an operation could not have occurred without the Crown Prince's direct authorization.
In November 2017, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) initiated a sweeping anti-corruption purge that involved the detention of hundreds of wealthy princes, government officials, and business leaders at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh. The New York Times and Human Rights Watch described the detentions as forced disappearances and alleged that some detainees were physically abused, tortured, and forced to relinquish billions of dollars in assets before their release. Critics viewed this as a politically motivated power grab to neutralize rivals and consolidate MBS’s financial control.
So we have Donald yearning for the Nobel Peace Prize while he entertains MBS, lauds dictators and talks about love letters from them, murders people on ships in the Caribbean and Pacific with no disclosure regarding who they are and what was on the ship; is an accomplice to bodily harm and apparently to murder of people in the US (some citizens, some without criminal records) all without due process.
The American Public went along with the Senate's dismissal of Al Franken for sexual misconduct from eight different women involving unwanted kissing or touching, but is not screaming from the highest hills about Trump's murders, imprisonments without due process and his entertaining a murderer like the Crown Prince.
What we have here, folks, is a USDA Grade A Shit show. And, we are eating it. America is sleeping. I personally do not think it knows the difference between woke and woken.
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” Thomas Jefferson
"If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon’s, but between patriotism and intelligence on one side and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other." -President Ulysses S. Grant
With respect, you don’t seem to understand realism. I suggest reading The Tragedy of great power politics. Realists don’t universally advocate surrender, rather the response is framed in terms of balance of power. They would NOT have negotiated with hitler, because a regional hegemony, to realists, is to be prevented at all costs. It is the same reason why even today, Mearsheimer is hawkish on China even as he is dovish on Ukraine.
Russia is not a regional hegemone, and whether or not it takes some percentage of Ukraine will not significantly alter the balance of power in Europe. That is why realists oppose the war.
Realists have a much better track record than the internationalist foreign policy blob, who have advocated for 50 years of disastrous and unnecessary wars and interventions. They are not pacifist or isolationist, they are just selective about when and where to fight.
You’ve actually conceded my entire argument.
When you say “Russia isn’t a regional hegemon, and taking part of Ukraine won’t alter the balance of power, therefore realists oppose the war,” you’re admitting that realism only counts what happens to great powers. Everything that happens to Ukraine itself—its sovereignty, its democracy, its right to align with the West, its capacity for self-defense, its territorial integrity, its culture, its citizens—gets treated as strategically irrelevant.
That’s not a misunderstanding of realism. That is realism. It centers the preferences of empires and treats smaller nations as negotiable space on a board. It defines “what matters” in a way that erases the moral and political agency of the people being invaded. And it’s exactly why realist prescriptions so often collapse into a doctrine of submission: if a country isn’t powerful enough to disrupt the balance, its suffering simply doesn’t register.
You’re not refuting my point—you’re illustrating it. A worldview that says “this doesn’t affect the balance of power, therefore Ukraine should concede” is precisely the logic I’m criticizing. If the only lives and rights that count are those of great powers, then yes, realism will always recommend surrender for smaller democracies. But that’s not wisdom. It’s just geopolitics stripped of any moral horizon.
That may be realism.
But let’s not pretend it’s justice, prudence, or anything morally admirable.
Curtiss Yarvin is a BULL-SHITTER, and provocateur!
Best to ignore him till he goes away!
Anyone seriously arguing against democracy is corrupt!