The Imaginary Peace President

“During his first term, Trump became the ultimate causal agent for every one of the current conflicts with Russia, China, Iran, and Venezuela.”

By William Schryver at imetatronink.

One of the most common claims about the Trump 45 administration is that “He didn’t start any new wars.”

This is demonstrably FALSE.

During his first term, Trump became the ultimate causal agent for every one of the current conflicts with Russia, China, Iran, and Venezuela.

He not only maintained the trajectory of these conflicts as established by previous US administrations, but he dramatically raised the stakes and quickened the pace of the march to war.

Ukraine

“I was the one that gave the Javelins. Remember the famous Javelins? That was me. It wasn’t Obama. It wasn’t Biden. It wasn’t anybody else. It was me. And they wiped out a lot of tanks with those Javelins. The expression was, ‘Obama gave sheets’. And I gave Javelins. That was a big deal at the time. That was at the beginning, when people said, ‘Wow, that’s something!’ Well, that was American equipment. Without American equipment, this war would have been over very quickly.”

President Donald J. Trump, Oval Office News Conference, February 26, 2025

Here is the full video clip from which the quote above is taken:

This is the irrefutable fact: the Trump 45 administration both hastened and made inevitable the war whose final fuse was lit in early February 2022 when the Ukrainians commenced a broad-front artillery escalation against what they claimed to be Donbass militia positions, but which were indistinguishable from random civilian targets.

All of these factors combined compelled the Russians to move decisively (and sooner than they wanted) to extend their strategic depth in the region.

All those who claim Trump has no culpability for the war in Ukraine are either ignorant of the abundant objective facts, or in denial thereof.

Several prominent geopolitical voices were raising the alarm about war in Ukraine even before Victoria Nuland, John McCain, Lindsey Graham et al. goose-stepped through the streets of conquered Kiev in 2014.

And all during the civil war that then ensued, until the Russians intervened in late February 2022, US/NATO intelligence and special forces operatives were active in Ukraine, in support of the Kiev government’s military movements in the Donbass.

The crisis became increasingly acute over the course of the first Trump administration, even as the twin objectives of subduing the Donbass and retaking Crimea became increasingly apparent.

As I posted on Twitter in April of 2021:

Ukraine has two options: accept its role as a buffer state, or be dismembered. If the US goads them into an attempt to subjugate the Donbass, Russia will slice away eastern Ukraine and assimilate it — and there is *nothing* the US can do to prevent it.

Fact is, the big geostrategic nation-state wars are always decades in the making. So it was in the case of the war in Ukraine.

But the unavoidable trajectory of war was set in stone during Donald Trump’s FIRST rodeo in the White House. Trump owns the Ukraine War more than Joe Biden’s Autopen. At least Trump laid claim to a modest degree of cogency in his first term.

The apparition of Joe Biden, dazed and confused, simply watched dumbfounded as long-fated events flashed before his empty eyes.

China

And, in what is arguably his most strategically ill-advised move of all, Trump 45 started the trade and rhetoric war with China that continues to the present day.

There are now even widespread rumors that the US Department of War is preparing a naval blockade of energy imports into China — an act of utter madness.

IRAN

In what I consider to have been the most brazen act of war in his first administration, Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, on January 3, 2020, at the Baghdad airport.

Soleimani was on a diplomatic mission to Baghdad at the invitation of Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi, who had been acting as the intermediary between the Saudis and the Iranians, who were working to de-escalate drone and missile attacks by Iraqi militias against American bases in Iraq, and the Green Zone in Baghdad.

Soleimani was traveling to deliver Iran’s official response to a Saudi Arabian mediation proposal.

On December 31, 2019, ostensibly in support of these Saudi-Iranian moves to defuse the situation in Iraq, President Trump made a personal call to Iraqi Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi. The Iraqi leader then called Soleimani to arrange a meeting in the Green Zone in Baghdad, scheduled for the morning of January 3, 2020.

Soleimani and his small entourage traveled openly on a commercial flight, and were met at the airport by Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and a few other Iraqis. As Soleimani, al-Muhandis, and eight others were traveling from the airport to the Green Zone in two vehicles, an American MQ-9 Reaper drone fired Hellfire missiles and blew them all to smithereens.

President Trump directly ordered the attack, and afterwards publicly gloried in his perfidy.

Soleimani was considered a national hero in Iran, and was arguably the second-most powerful and influential political figure in Iran at the time, behind only the Ayatollah Khamenei.

The Iranians were justifiably outraged.

On January 8, 2020, Iran launched a ballistic missile attack against the American Ayn al-Asad airbase in Iraq. About 15 Iranian ballistic missiles targeted the base with shockingly impressive accuracy, although it was clear the strike was mostly demonstrative in nature, and the Iranians deliberately avoided killing US troops.

Even so, the potency of the strike clearly astounded both the Americans and the Israelis, and resulted in a diminution of both US and Israeli strikes against Iranian targets until April 1, 2024, when the Israelis killed seven Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers in a missile strike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus.

Two weeks later (April 13-14, 2024), the Iranians launched a massive and unprecedented missile strike against Israel. This then led directly to the series of exchanges between Israel and Iran which took place over the course of the ensuing months, culminating in the so-called 12-Day War between the US/Israel and Iran from June 13-24, 2025.

Of course, it must be understood that this war between the US/Israel and Iran is NOT over yet. It is just on a brief hiatus, and there are indications in recent days that Israel is planning new strikes against Iran.

But make no mistake, the catalyzing event for this greatly escalated war with Iran was Trump’s treacherous murder of Qasem Soleimani on January 3, 2020.

VENEZUELA

Trump is quoted as saying:

“I don’t understand why we’re not looking at Venezuela. Why are we not at war with Venezuela?”

“That’s the country we should be going to war with. They have all that oil and they’re right on our back door.”

Trump’s bellicose language towards Venezuela continued all through his first term, and as a result, Venezuela’s longstanding friends Russia, China, and Iran began to more aggressively strengthen Venezuela’s military capabilities in anticipation of an eventual US attack and potential invasion of the South American country that holds the largest proven oil reserves in the world.

Now, as I write here on Thanksgiving Day 2025, the United States has positioned a massive naval fleet and Marine landing force off the coast of Venezuela, and it appears almost certain that military operations against the Maduro regime will commence imminently, with the overt aim of installing a new puppet government whose putative leader, CIA-groomed Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, has explicitly called for an American invasion of the Bolivarian Republic, and pledged to permit the US to take control of Venezuela’s oil, gold, and other mineral wealth.

SOUTHCOM has even provided a slick promotional video for the upcoming war against Venezuela:

Peace through strength:
Carrier Strike Group Twelve is making a powerful impact in the #SOUTHCOM region—standing strong to deter illicit networks, disrupt transnational threats, protect the Caribbean, and defend our homeland with purpose and presence. @CVN78_GRFord @USNavy pic.twitter.com/LTEt3iFB1v

— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) November 17, 2025

The Imaginary Peace President

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The Delicate Exit

“Now let them seek a delicate exit from the mess they’ve gotten themselves into — but we will achieve our objectives.” — VVP

By William Schryver at imetatronink.

My coalescing sense of the underwhelming Alaska Chats is that Russia has not materially varied from its longstanding terms.

Trump rolled into town with his “stealth” flyover, imagining he was the one giving an audience to Putin.

From start to finish it was perfectly evident to any discerning observer that it was just the opposite, and that Putin was there to repeat and to emphasize Russia’s apparently inviolable terms.

As I understand it, the Russians have said they will implement a conditional temporary ceasefire in the south while NATO/AFU forces withdraw from Donetsk.

No one has said anything about ending the Special Military Operation, nor of the disposition of territories.

In essence, the Russians are saying:

“We’ll temporarily stop destroying you on the southern part of the line of contact while you retreat from the northern part, and then we’ll demand you also withdraw from the southern part, and lay down your arms.”

I cannot understand how so many people seem to doubt the resolve of the Russians to continue fighting western forces for years to come pursuant to their clearly enunciated objectives.

In each successive year of this war, Russian strength has augmented across the spectrum. Russia is not only outproducing the combined west by several multiples, but their military hardware is now indisputably superior in most key categories.

The only exit route for the US/NATO is capitulation, which in this instance entails withdrawing NATO military presence to the 1997 borders, as stipulated in the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997.

How they opt to frame that capitulation is up to them.

As I noted in my February 2024 analysis of the Tucker Carlson interview of Vladimir Putin:

Tucker Carlson: “Do you think it is too humiliating at this point for NATO to accept Russian control of what was two years ago Ukrainian territory?

Vladimir Putin: I said let them think how to do it with dignity. There are options if there is a will.

Up until now there has been the uproar and screaming about inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield. Now they are apparently coming to realize that it is difficult to achieve, if possible at all. In my opinion, it is impossible by definition. It is never going to happen.

It seems to me that now those who are in power in the West have come to realize this as well. If so, if the realization has set in, they have to think what to do next. We are ready for this dialogue.”

That both Tucker Carlson and others have failed to correctly interpret Putin’s words is incomprehensible to me. So permit me to paraphrase them in language that is perhaps more understandable to the dimwitted and disingenuous people in the West who continue to misrepresent them:

“We offered them an early out, and they rejected it in favor of an appeal to arms in order to inflict what they imagined would be a severe strategic defeat against Russia on the field of battle. But their reach greatly exceeded their grasp. They cannot defeat us. Now let them seek a delicate exit from the mess they’ve gotten themselves into — but we will achieve our objectives.”

No matter how the would-be masters of empire try to spin defeat into victory, most everyone around the world will still know the score. And it is this disabused illusion of imperial military supremacy that will rapidly accelerate its inexorable decline.

A Bird’s Eye View of the Ukraine War

The whole world is watching these developments with great interest. 

By William Schryver at imetatronink.

They will endeavor to talk tough and “keep up appearances” for a while yet, but as a credible and capable military/political alliance, NATO is irreparably broken.

I’ve watched a LOT of drone footage from this war. I’ve seen, from a bird’s eye view, as it were, the design of the field fortifications Ukraine constructed, with NATO guidance, over the course of eight years.

The logic of these miles and miles of fortifications harkens back to the 1864-65 Battle of Petersburg (US Civil War), with a few World War I innovations thrown in for good measure.

It is a logic where victory largely depends on you not running out of men, heavy weaponry, and ammunition — and the enemy being comparatively stupid.

In many ways, the revealed logic of Ukraine’s long-prepared strategy for this war is a reflection of American military delusions and vanities, which multiplied and solidified over the course of the brief and fleeting “unipolar moment”.

Despite not having won a war since 1945, the US military is consumed with the vanity that it has always dominated opposing forces in every conflict.

There is a measure of truth in this perspective. But it is irrelevant. Because, since no later than the Korean War, the US has not faced a peer or near-peer adversary in a high-intensity conflict. The US military has not been, for almost three-quarters of a century, truly tested “under-fire”.

The US has measured its battlefield mettle, for decades, against brave sandal-shod men with AK-47s, RPGs, and a certain savoir faire for constructing IEDs.

But they have never faced anything like Russian artillery or missiles – not even in Hollywood movies or video games.

Consequently, the Pentagon’s self-perception of unquestioned supremacy has served to disinform and corrupt its doctrinal and procurement decisions for multiple generations of its officer corps. For most US generals and admirals, all putative opponents are underestimated.

That said, I believe a great many have now been awakened from their intellectual slumber by the manner in which the Russian armed forces quickly assessed the Ukrainian order of battle, and then professionally adapted their strengths and tactics to decisively defeat it.

The Battle of the Donbass

Here is a brief summation of the Russian tactical approach to the Battle of the Donbass:

Step #1: Advance reconnaissance units (often in force, with dozens or hundreds of drones overhead) to assess the situation; draw fire; relay to commanders raw video and geo-coordinates.

Step #2: With target-correcting drone swarms overhead, relaying real-time strike video, proceed to savage the fortifications with towed and mobile artillery, Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (in gradations of strength and precision), and even horrific thermobaric munitions for particularly suitable targets.

Let smoke clear.

Repeat Step #1.

Still something moving there?

Repeat Step #2.

Repeat Step #1.

Dead bodies everywhere?

Step #3: Send in tanks and infantry to mop up.

Move to next series of fortifications.

And so on and so forth …

This is why Ukraine now suffers hundreds of battle deaths every single day. And why, for months, the Russians have suffered very few casualties — likely as low as a 1:8 ratio, and quite possibly even lower.

Artillery, airstrikes, and precision guided munitions are doing almost all the fighting.

The Fatal Hubris of NATO War Strategy in Ukraine

But back to Ukraine’s apparent strategy for this war, and the apparent US influence on that strategy.

I will preface my commentary on this issue by stating that Ukraine’s fatal blunder was buying into NATO’s over-confident delusion that they (the Armed Forces of Ukraine) actually had a reasonable opportunity to defeat the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in a high-intensity conflict.

I initially believed NATO military leaders must have had a sober view, far in advance, that their half-million-strong, well-armed, trained-to-NATO-standards Ukrainian proxy army had almost no chance of prevailing on the field of battle against Russia.

But watching drone video of Ukrainian fortifications has convinced me the US military brain trust, in the course of their eight-year-long preparation of the eastern Ukrainian battlefield, effectively disdained the Russian military and its commanders.

Their vanity persuaded them the Russians would mindlessly smash themselves to pieces against an entrenched well-armed force.

Indeed, they were so confident of the genius of their plan that they persuasively encouraged many hundreds of now-killed or captured NATO veterans to “share in the glory” of humiliating the Russians and bringing down the Putin regime once and for all.

They deluded themselves into believing the Russians lacked strategic and logistical acumen, a sufficiently well-trained force, and – arguably the biggest miscalculation of all – sufficient stockpiles of ammo to conduct a protracted high-intensity conflict.

In short, I have come to believe US/NATO commanders actually persuaded themselves that this “Mother of All Proxy Armies” had an excellent chance to soundly whip the Russians in a battle situated in their own back yard.

In other words, they disregarded centuries of European history that they somehow convinced themselves had no relevance to their 21st century aspirations to defeat Russia militarily and take a great spoil of its resources.

But, as is now readily apparent to all objective, knowledgeable military analysts around the globe, the Ukrainian proxy army has been pulverized by a patient, methodical, and significantly outnumbered Russian force, using long-established Russian doctrines and tactics.

Even more revealing is that once-vaunted and universally feared US/UK weaponry – almost all of it actually rather antiquated – has proven to be far less “game-changing” than the pea-brained strategists in Washington and Whitehall mistakenly believed.

Javelins, NLAWs, and Stingers have been exposed as mostly ineffective against their intended targets (tanks, helicopters, and low-flying jets). M-777 howitzers break down after just a few fires. GPS-guided “precision” munitions are routinely jammed by Russian electronic warfare counter-measures.

Worse yet, the inculcation of NATO field doctrines in the minds of the Ukrainian officer cadre has resulted in pervasively inflexible responses to battlefield events that develop contrary to expectations. Consequently, discipline has disintegrated, and improvisation has been paralyzed.

To be sure, if one were to go by the laughable assessments of western think-tank propagandists and their dutiful lackeys in the media, “Ukraine is winning” and “the inept Russian military has been humiliated”.

But more discerning observers around the world know better.

Sober military men in potential adversary countries across the globe see with clarity that Russia has, with one hand tied behind its back, eviscerated the massive, relatively well-armed and well-trained Ukrainian military. The US/NATO intimidation factor has been forever compromised.

More geopolitically significant, at least in the near future, is that European NATO members can also read the scorecard of this war: they now understand as they never could previously that standing on the NATO side of the field is hardly a guarantee of security.

I am convinced NATO will not survive the results of this war in Ukraine. Sure, they’ll “keep up appearances” for the time being, but there can be no doubt most now understand that siding with a rapidly declining empire is fraught with great risk and minimal gain.

More concerningly, the Chinese have been watching all of these developments with great interest. They are almost certain to be emboldened to act decisively to secure their sphere of influence in the emerging multipolar world.

Great dangers now await in east Asia …

The United States Cannot Defeat Iran

Those whose calculus of a US/Iran war assumes overwhelming American air superiority will abruptly find the parameters of their equations altered.

By William Schryver at imetatronink.

How soon people have forgotten that, earlier this year, the US dispatched two carrier strike groups and a half-dozen B-2s (and other USAF assets) to disarm the Yemeni and open the selectively blockaded Red Sea.

They failed. Abysmally. For the second time!

First of all, in 2024, the USS Brave Sir Robin (CVN-69), USS Teddy Bear (CVN-71), and USS Fraidy Abe (CVN-72) gave it a try, only to eventually run away with their tail between their legs. The Brave Sir Robin left behind an F/A-18 at the bottom of the sea.

They were followed up by the USS Trembling Puppy (CVN-75) and the USS Timid Vinny (CVN-70). But they fared no better, with the Trembling Puppy losing two additional F/A-18 fighters over the course of its traumatic tour of the northern Red Sea.

And, not only did the Yemeni increase their score of MQ-9 Reaper drones to 23, they also targeted and credibly threatened both F-35s and B-2s, such that both platforms were summarily withdrawn from the fight for fear of one getting shot down.

Remember, Yemen is absolutely the bottom rung on the escalatory ladder of formidable adversaries.

Anyone who seriously believes the US Navy can operate in Iranian waters is just plain delusional.

Even if no ships got damaged or sunk, they’d still run out of munitions in a couple weeks or less — and they sure as hell won’t be able to reload in Bahrain.

As for an air campaign … well, I have yet to see any persuasive evidence that US/Israeli aircraft penetrated Iranian airspace to any appreciable extent in Act I of this war. Consequently, I am dubious that Iranian medium- and long-range air defenses were even used.

There is also zero credible evidence of top-shelf Iranian air defenses being destroyed.

From all indications, the Iranians were shooting down Israel’s big strike drones with short-range AD. And they shot down several.

The Israeli long-range air-launched ballistic missiles were apparently effective, but they simply don’t have very many of them, and as the war progressed into its second week, we saw fewer and fewer of them with each passing day.

In any case, when Act II of this war gets started (and it won’t be long), it will almost certainly entail penetration of Iranian airspace. And we will see not only the emergence of Iranian long-range AD, but I strongly suspect Russian and/or Chinese mobile air defense systems will suddenly appear on the battlefield.

Those whose calculus of a US/Iran war assumes overwhelming American air superiority will abruptly find the parameters of their equations altered.

The Russians and Chinese are not going to stand idly by and watch the US smash up their important southwest Asia ally in the rapidly emerging multipolar world.

And keep in mind: the US simply cannot logistically sustain a high-intensity air campaign for more than 2-3 weeks. And if even a dozen or so manned US aircraft are shot down, and a couple ships severely damaged … well, that will cause such overwhelming consternation in Washington that it might even result in a coup d’état, or something closely approximating one.

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

The inexorable decline of the American Empire has arrived at an Imperial Paradox. It must either fight a war and die, or not fight a war and die.

By William Schryver at imetatronink.

The inexorable decline of the American Empire has arrived at an Imperial Paradox. It must either fight a war and die, or not fight a war and die.

Here are the options:

Neither South Korea nor Japan want anything to do with a war against China, leaving only the Philippines dumb enough to play along.

The US apparently pulled another brigade out of South Korea. They’ll pull out more in the future. They know damn well the North Koreans could easily conquer the entire peninsula if they chose to do so.

China and its local seas are a vast ocean away from America, and its capacity to defend its local seas is enormous and growing.

The Pentagon must understand it cannot sustain logistics in a war against China in the western Pacific. It simply cannot be done. Anyone who thinks otherwise must upgrade their proficiency in basic arithmetic.

In the context of a war against Iran, all the geography is against the US.

Iran is an exceedingly mountainous country that has, over the course of millennia, learned to use those mountains to defend itself against would-be conquerors.

They can field a satisfactorily well-equipped million-man army.

They have learned in the 21st century to burrow deep heavily fortified tunnels into their mountains.

Iran is also much more technologically advanced than most people understand. They have become impressively capable in terms of both offensive and defensive missiles. They pose a far greater challenge than the Yemeni have been over the past year and a half.

Indeed, they pose a “near-peer” challenge against US overseas power projection.

The US Navy could only operate at extreme risk in the southern Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Gulf of Oman, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Persian Gulf.

Every US base in the region is well within range of Iranian missile strikes.

The US Navy very demonstrably cannot secure seaborne logistics into the Persian Gulf. They lack both the sealift ships, and the ability to protect them.

They cannot even open the Bab-el-Mandeb!

From a geographic and logistical standpoint, the only remotely conceivable war is one in Ukraine against Russia.

The US at least has bases and forces already in place in the UK, Germany, Poland, Romania, Finland, and in Baltic chihuahua fantasy-land — and what has served until now as a reasonably secure logistics pathway into all those places.

Of course, whether or not such a condition persists long in a war scenario is another question altogether.

Because, you see, the Russians are now unquestionably the most formidable and battle-hardened military on the planet — at least in the context of a war fought on their doorstep.

So if you’re an empire that thinks it needs a war to reaffirm at least its short-term relevance and fading glory … well, these are your choices.

Sic transit gloria mundi.