What follows is informed fiction, in which Putin conveys to Trump an assessment and a persuasive alternative alignment of powers. Despite some missteps of U.S. policy post the 1991 breakup, and  of NATO immediately prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,  I am not in sympathy with any of it:

Putin:  Look at this brief, prepared by our general staff. The Ukraine manpower pool continues to decline. Their stockpiles continue to decline. According to this assessment, see these front lines. We will have Kherson by October, Kharkiv by December, Odessa by February. Once we cross the Dnieper, their lines will no longer be lines.

With your cooperation, we  will leave a small rump state  around Lviv. Maybe we will not hang Zelinksy in Maidan Nezalezhnosti — I’m joking, of course.

Trump: What about all the Russian casualties? With all the land you already have?

Putin: A mere speed bump. Our technology may not be quite your equal, but we know how to suffer for Mother Russia. We suffered much, much more in the Great Patriotic War. Do you know how to suffer, if war comes to you?

beat

The land is more than part of Russia. It is Russia.

Trump: Let’s keep the World safe between us.

Putin: Between us, not under American domination, where America imagines it runs the whole world. I would rather talk about business deals, where you and I run a part of it together.

Trump: We have partners. No one is excluding you. And from what I’ve been hearing lately, China wants a piece of you.

brief silence, as Trump enjoys the dig

Putin: Your main and worthless partner is NATO, who started this war to prepare the inclusion of Ukraine, who have this convenient fiction, dare I call it a lie, that they are not allied against Russia.

Trump:   Let’s not talk about who started this. Let’s finish it.

Putin:  It’s not too early to talk about what America needs. The only country that aligns with your need to secure raw materials  is Russia. Or do you consider Beenie Babies from China strategic raw materials?

Trump: We’re looking for other partners now. We’re looking for a balance.

Putin: Then why not Russia? Why do you necessitate our Navy’s participation with China against a nation we should not perceive as a threat?

Trump: What about guarantees, like boots from other countries on the ground to keep a peace?

Putin: NATO in disguise. We have a saying, Trust but verify. Trust comes first.

An attempt has been made to make this imagined conversation amenable to analysis. Your first tool is a lawyer joke:

How can you tell when a lawyer is lying?

Your answer?

 

 

 

 

 

You may wish to look at Crime Deterrence; Our Groundhog Day of Slaughter, Part 1.

(CNN) Trump holds news conference and announces mobilization of National Guard troops in DC. Quoting,

Despite Trump’s claims Monday that crime is “out of control,” data shows violent crime in Washington, DC, has been declining since its 2023 spike, with two years of sustained improvement.

The math is bolstered on the CNN mobile site by a short form video with unlabeled axes and pleasant music that does not allow the viewer to index along the time axis. CNN does better  with Fact check: Violent crime in DC has fallen in 2024 and 2025 after a 2023 spike. Quoting,

Of course, one homicide is too many, and it’s a matter of perspective whether one chooses to focus on the startling number of homicides or the decline in that number. But it’s just not true that the number is getting worse.

Unfortunately for our state of mind, humans do not measure hazard on a linear scale. It is more likely logarithmic, requiring a change of X10, or 1/10 to  register as twice as bad or twice as good. There might be eight perceptual categories of crime:

• Statistical; the victims are nameless.
• Victims are known through the media.
• Victims inhabit the same social structure. Ie., you’re a politician and the victim is a politician.
• The crime  is notorious.
• You can identify in some way with the victim; “It could have happened to me.”
• The victim is someone you know.
• It happened to someone you love.
• It happened to you.

This is the truth of  “One homicide is too many.” The political divide is largely along three issues:

• Trend of public perception. Democrats say things are getting better, while Republicans say things are intolerable. They are not talking the same language, because they are not feeling in the same way.
• Culture. Post World War II, the crime rate has fluctuated around a higher mean than prior, subject to random stresses in our society. Sadly, our culture breeds criminals.
• Remedy. Reform the criminal, or punish more harshly? The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, challenging the practicality of the traditional remedy for crime — punishment.

The two parties offer for our consideration approaches most in concert with their political philosophies. Republicans offer punishment. Democrats offer reform.  Republicans are concerned with the victim; Democrats are concerned about  the cycle of poverty that breeds crime. Neither approach has sustained long term political viability, which is limited  by the tenure of party dominance. Neither approach has reduced violent crime to levels typical of other First World countries.

The absence of a viable strategy to make the U.S. a low crime country is an opportunity for both parties. The potential for Republicans is limited, due to their inflexible devotion to the tradition of crime and punishment. The possibilities for Democrats are wide open, though possibly in conflict with their tradition of concern for the dignity of man.

To both, which will it be? Punishment, compromise of dignity, or something new and novel? Both sides must embrace aspects of the other. There is no logic in automatic release of violent offenders, or incarceration without prompt justice.

While you debate, someone is bleeding out.

 

 

 

 

 

Dear President Trump,

Don’t fall for it. Despite the fact that Vladimir Putin wears finely tailored business suits, there are no shared values. He is not a Western man in disguise; he is a traditional Russian potentate, the last Tsar. Points of difference:

• Putin does not value human life.
• He does not honor agreements, commitments, or promises, which he makes with intent to violate, as a fourth force additive to coercion, subversion, and military force/threat.
• Putin’s immutable goal is restoration of the Russian Empire, with a follow-on of turning the whole of Western Europe into a weak vassal state.
• With the loss of Western Europe we would lose the greatest concentration of brainpower the world has ever seen, the only counter to the rising intellectual dominance of China. The modern world was invented in Europe; the U.S. technological contribution is not historically proportionate. The manufacture of the most advanced computer chips depends worldwide upon equipment supplied by a single Dutch company.

Was Putin always this way? There is a spread of opinion. My own is that there was an evolution, partly a result of errors of  Western policy after the breakup of the Soviet Union, which does not diminish the current danger. These errors cannot be corrected by conciliation now.

The Russian Apartment Bombings of 1999 are thought by some as affecting him deeply.

Others may point to the gradual deterioration of his relationships with politicians, finalizing in the criminalization of dissent.

The ease with which Russia seized Crimea in 2014, with tepid reaction in the West, may have convinced him of loss in the West of “manly values” of  combat, leaving Russia as the only power capable of waging war. Perhaps he read H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, in which the degenerate Eloi are farmed and eaten by the subterranean Morlocks.

From the very start Putin’s  rule relied on co-opting corrupt elements, oligarchs blending into mafia. His reliance on skilled balancing of these forces made personal rule indispensable, and unlikely to survive without him. When Putin began to suffer from diseases that will eventually end his life,  he sought a replacement power structure, turning to Russian nationalism. This was marked by the (Aljazeera) firing of the entire “Russian government.” Some assert he actually became “religious”, seeing himself as “preserver of the realm”, the last Tsar. Or perhaps the religious element is a simple scheme to meld nationalism with the state religion.

This explains Putin’s indifference to loss of human life. He is God’s Russian messenger. It also explains why you can’t bargain with Putin. You can’t bargain with the Divine.