It's not a serious plan, if the leaked draft is actually real. Setting aside the grammar issues, it doesn't concede much of anything (besides land Russia never controlled) and doesn't use language that explains the shape of it's security guarantees. Asking the EU to provide security without NATO support makes this peace deal a non-starter from Ukraine's end.
And the "European Fighter Jets will be Stationed In Poland" is memeworthy for years to come. It strains credibility to think this is seriously being considered - hopefully the final draft isn't as ridiculous.
I think the quote from the Polish Prime Minister refusing very similar German demands just before WW2 started is appropriated here:
“Peace is a precious and a desirable thing. Our generation, bloodied in wars, certainly deserves peace. But peace, like almost all things of this world, has its price, a high but a measurable one. We in Poland do not know the concept of peace at any price. There is only one thing in the lives of men, nations and countries that is without price. That thing is honor.”
As it turned out, Poland paid a very heavy price. But we're damn proud of it.
It is true, but it is not this plan that does it. It happened before, and was evident already at the disastrous meeting in the White House earlier this year, as well as at the Munich conference. This is just a repeat.
The correct EU response would be to cancel hundreds of F-35 orders across the board, and instead, five more Gripen factories being built across the continent.
That is the only signal that would make a difference. Carney's Canada knows what's up.
It depends on what you mean by "correct" here. It would piss off the United States, which might secure a short-term political goal for some people, but the Gripen is not a complete replacement for what the F-35 offers. The Gripen is a platform tailored around Sweden's need for survivable road-mobile air dominance; the F-35 fulfills a nearly-opposite role as a preemptive strike aircraft intended for fully-intact threat environments.
I'm a huge fan of the Gripen myself, and it's arguably the better fighter aircraft if you're in a WVR dogfight against a monster airframe like the Su-35. That being said, air dominance is not the only role the F-35 was evaluated on. There are lots of great European fighter aircraft, but pretty much nothing that rivals the F-35 in strike capacity.
According to your own analysis, does not the Gripen fit NATO's goals much more than than the F-35 A?
NATO, until it was first destroyed via Desert Storm, was just supposed to defend us all from the imperialist ambitions of Moscow.
The Gripen has a dispersed field capability that can be supported by only 2 trained men, and a few conscripts + 2 x 20 TU containers... vs. F-35 A... I feel like only one product is correct for the EU, which has only defensive ambitions.
Meanwhile, with F-35 A, not only is the supply chain a question, but it cannot be deployed unless the selling country, and selling company, feels like it on that given day. This is right to repair/right to save your own effing country. Can someone please explain to me how we are at this point, in 2025?
I'm absolutely empathetic to the European sentiment - the Gripen should be a mainstay in EU air forces on merit alone, F-35 be damned. But many of the nations buying the F-35 aren't being swindled into it, they're filling a capability gap that really does threaten Russia in a meaningful way. Both systems can work together to leverage their advantages, and are designed to cooperate using Link 16. It doesn't have to be one-or-the-other, and buying both systems hedges against the possibility of either side pulling support.
If Europe doesn't want a deep strike capability against Russia, don't buy the F-35. Fill the gap with a regional stealth-bomber program like China did, or pool the various European stealth fighter projects together in a serious joint project. As-is, the only competitor to the F-35 can be bought from China, who will be more capricious with the supply chain in the long run.
For those not paying attention, this reaffirms that USA/Trump is more than an appeaser but is an acolyte of Putin, and either doesn't care about or is actively working to destroy the rules-based order that has maintained rough peace since the end of world war 2. Welcome to the future.
100%. The first version of Trump as a president was a clown that was being managed by responsible people, mostly.
The second time however, he learned his lesson. He's still a clown but he put his people, ranked by loyalty above anything else, in all key position. They are all knee deep in probably the most obvious and manifest corruption we've ever seen in a Western country. They won't oppose him in any way unless they are sure he's dead or gone forever.
> Trump has been obscuring his own intentions in a blizzard of contradictory statements and gestures
I mean he even said this was his strategy to end the war on day one: threaten both sides with severe consequences until they compromise. Total 1D chess.
> Americans have a penchant for what I call half-court tennis, which is: they like to analyze international affairs and wars by focusing on Team America – what Americans did or didn't do – and then that explains causation in the world.
>strategy to end the war on day one: threaten both sides
There was some of that but a lot of blame the victim stuff "You don't start a war against someone 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles" etc.
That continues here with this basically Russian written proposal that they'll pause attacking if Ukraine will just stop defending itself.
The behaviour is more consistent with him being basically a Russian asset with them having bailed him out financially, probably have kompromat and helping him get elected president. He can't come out and say that because even the Republican party would probably object.
There was an interesting speculative theory the other day that the Russians are having him push this now because they are worried he'll lose some power after the Epstein info comes out.
And the "European Fighter Jets will be Stationed In Poland" is memeworthy for years to come. It strains credibility to think this is seriously being considered - hopefully the final draft isn't as ridiculous.