The GEOFOR editorial board asked Paul Craig Roberts – Chairman of the Institute for Political Economy (USA), a PhD in Economics and US Undersecretary of Treasury in the Reagan administration – with a request to assess the course of negotiations between Russia and the United States, as well as their prospects.

 

– Despite numerous statements claiming that U.S.-Russia negotiations are progressing well – and the fact that Moscow has even sent its ambassador to Washington – it seems that there has been little real progress on the issue of Ukraine. At least, this is the impression given by the actions and statements of the Ukrainian side, as well as by the way European countries continue – and even attempt to increase – their military support for Kiev. Do you believe this to be the case? And how do you see the prospects for the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict?

 

The prospect for ending the conflict would be much better if President Putin had kept control of the process. Instead President Putin entered into an unknown process in search of an unspecified agreement. By doing so President Putin has allowed extraneous issues to clutter the process, such as President Trump’s demand for Ukraine’s rare earths as payment for US military and financial aid during the Biden regime. This is now an issue in the negotiations between Trump and Zelensky even thought it has no relevance to ending the conflict. What will be the next issue that will cloud the process?

 

According to the CIA confession recently published in the New York Times, the conflict in Ukraine from the very beginning was a war between the US and Russia, a war started and conducted by Washington. Ukraine merely provided the war dead. With the intention of initiating a conflict with Russia, the US overthrew the elected Ukrainian government and installed a US puppet. While President Putin attempted to dodge the reality with the Minsk Agreement, the US trained and equipped a large Ukrainian army. President Putin, who was unprepared, was forced to intervene in Donbas when the Biden regime, NATO, and the EU cold-shouldered President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov’s plea for a mutual security agreement, and the Ukraine army was poised to invade Donbas and subdue the two independent republics.

 

Therefore, as the conflict since its beginning has been between Washington and Russia, why is Zelensky a party to the negotiations? Indeed, why are there negotiations at all? President Putin’s job is to deliver a military victory and impose the terms of peace on the defeated, not to risk negotiating away a Russian victory. Why is Zelensky a party to a peace settlement when his term of office expired months ago? What does it mean for Trump and Putin to sign an agreement with a person who under the Ukraine constitution is not a member of the Ukraine government?

 

The claim that “negotiations are progressing well” is nonsense. How are negotiations going well when President Trump is treatening Putin with more punishments when it is Putin who is keeping Trump’s agreement and Zelensky? NATO? Washington? who is/are violating it? How does Trump’s outburst against Putin build confidence that the negotiations need?

 

It does not. So, is Trump serious, or is he just enjoying being a tough guy on the world scene?

 

The problem with ending the conflict is the way Putin conducted it. It was as if President Putin was afraid of obtaining a victory. To avoid a victory Putin paid a high price in Russian casualties. The war was conducted as if its objective was negotiations. Instead of a Russian victory, Putin seems to want a great party settlement, another Yalta agreement. This is my opinion of why Putin acted as he did. He saw the war as a means of coming to a broader settlement with the West.

 

The consequence of the never-ending war is that it has taken Putin months longer to remove Ukrainian forces from a few kilometers of Russian territory than it took Stalin’s Red Army to drive the German Wehrmacht out of thousands of miles of Russia, Eastern Europe, and enter the streets of Berlin, and in Ukraine Russian territory is still in Ukraine’s or Washington’s hands.

 

To the world, the way Putin has conducted the war looks like a failure of Russian arms, and this has been the message of the Western media during the entirety of the conflict. If this is the way Trump also sees it, it is bad news for the Ukraine negotiations. Trump will see himself dealing with a weak opponent who cannot win a war. So why make any concessions? Why not pile on demands? Trump is in a mortal conflict with the American Establishment. A victory over Putin boosts Trump’s status in his domestic conflict.

 

If Trump wants to end the war in Ukraine, it is a very simple step. All Trump has to do is to say that the war would not have happened if the Democrats had not stolen his 2020 reelection, that he has no stake in the conflict, and is withdrawing America’s participation. That leaves Zelensky facing Putin to resolve the issue. If Putin had quickly won the conflict, it would not be an issue today.

 

– In addition to the Ukrainian issue, the U.S.-Russia dialogue also includes questions of normalizing relations and restoring mutual trust. In this context, how do you assess the recent visit to Washington by the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Kirill Dmitriev, who reportedly held ten hours of high-level talks at the White House on a wide range of issues – from joint development of Russia’s rare earth deposits to restoring air services between our countries? In your opinion, how realistic is constructive dialogue in these areas, especially if the negotiations on Ukraine reach an impasse?

 

If Kirill Dmitriev is an Atlanticist Integrationist enamored of the West, he will be taken to the cleaners. Wall Street would love to again get their hands on Russia and its assets. The exploitation of Russia would keep Wall Street in plenty for decades. I regard this development as extremely in advance of any evidence that would support at this stage Russia opening its resources to the West. It would be an act of national suicide for Russia.

 

– As always, I can’t help but ask about domestic politics in the U.S. The  Republican majority in Congress is currently quite slim, and according to media reports and pundits, there also appears to be a lack of consensus within the party itself regarding the foreign policy direction of the new administration. To what extent do these factors limit President Trump’s ability to carry out his plans? And does he have the means to overcome them?

 

In recent articles, www.paulcraigroberts.org ^[2], I describe why the Trump regime does not understand all of the forces that are operating on the world. Trump is handicapped by this lack of understanding. He is also handicapped by the fact that the majority of Republicans both in House and Senate are not with him. The Republican Establishment–RINOs–Republicans In Name Only, enjoy life in the existing American Establishment in which their reelection is made secure by campaign donations from the Israel Lobby, the Military/Security complex which always needs an enemy, the pharmaceutical companies, agri-business, financial interests, and energy interests. It is the powerful private interests that rule America, not people voting. The winning political candidates owe their position to those who finance their campaign, not to those who vote for them.

 

The RINOs will support Trump to a degree, because the advaantage of being the ruling party is that you control the Congressional committees and subcommittees and get the rewards of being the whore for the American Establishment.

 

President Trump is up against an institutionalized Establishment, sophisticated in political warfare and accustomed to ruling. For Americans, this is the fight that counts, not a fight with Iran for Israel or a fight over Ukraine. But if Trump cannot win his domestic fight, he will have to seek victory abroad. Therefore, Russia, Iran, and China remain potential targets.