The recent news about a Ukrainian counteroffensive liberating several hundred square kilometres of territory around Lyman in eastern Ukraine has come as a pleasant surprise in the midst of the ongoing Russian missile barrages against Ukrainian cities, and the appalling spectacle of American negotiators discussing good memories with the Russian president in Moscow. The Ukrainian gains have been documented by a variety of sources, including drone videos, soldier accounts and media organisations that have held off reporting the operation. The Institute for the Study of War has stated in its latest update that “ISW’s mapping methodology is likely underestimating the extent of Ukrainian gains in the ongoing counterattacks in the Lyman direction.”
[…]
Thus, over the space of two months, Ukraine has executed two quiet yet successful counteroffensive operations in different parts of the country. Not only does this challenge the popular (and lazy) narrative of a stalemate along the frontline, but it also means that the Ukrainians have been investing in the hard intellectual work of finding new methods of conducting successful offensive action at the tactical and operational levels.
Regarding the “appalling spectacle of American negotiators” remark… having businessmen do diplomacy is a bit like having a heart surgeon fix your roof. Even if he is a great surgeon, he is going to fuck up your roof.
That would be a very expensive way to fix your roof.
Leaving aside the sarcasm: isn’t Steve Witkoff the twit who publicly said that he told Zelenskyy that there is no way that Ukraine is going to get back the Crimea?
If he is, then i must question Trump’s judgement in keeping him on his team.
Snorri got in first but, Perry, I’m having the line:
Sort of a watershed moment, as Samizdata ridicules using businessmen instead of state department careerists to accomplish something!
Not such a watershed really 🤣 Whilst I am a partisan for Ukraine, I think it is hard to look at US diplomatic efforts & see a slick professional operation nudging anyone in any direction, other than perhaps convincing Putin he can safely ignore the Americans in his calculations. Hell, I am *very* much on the USA’s side in the war against the Iranian government, but the diplomatic aspects leave me even more flummoxed than those in Russia & Ukraine
“having businessmen do diplomacy is a bit like having a heart surgeon fix your roof. Even if he is a great surgeon, he is going to fuck up your roof.”
Nonsense. Having a roofer do your heart surgery is guaranteed to f*ck you up, having a heart surgeon mend your roof carries no similar assurance of failure. A heart surgeon is undoubtedly a clever person, and probably a reasonably practical one too, as heart surgery is a hands on occupation. I see no reason why one shouldn’t be able to make a decent fist of roof repair, perhaps with judicious use of research first. I’m not a professional roofer either, but I could probably fix one, indeed I have on occasions, with a decent success rate.
In that case I would not ever buy a house you had owned 🤣
It must be said that Trump and his team accomplished a lot on the diplomatic front: the Abraham accords and Serbia/Kosovo in his first term; India/Pakistan and Congo/Rwanda (and i must have forgotten a few) in the current term.
Credit also goes to Jared Kushner for the Abraham Accords.
Now, Trump, Kushner, and Witkoff all have a background in real estate (as i learned today from the Fount of All Knowledge) but only Witkoff seems to belong to the American school of diplomacy, in which you make concessions to the other side before the negotiations begin.
In THIS sense (to go back to bobby’s comment) Witkoff looks more like a State Department careerist than like a businessman.
Maybe i can explain myself better by also commenting on this remark by Perry:
I broadly agree — but were things any better when US diplomatic efforts were not carried out by businessmen??
I’ve been watching slick professionals all my life. They run our parties, they devised and run the EU, right now they control the UK . . .
One of the main strengths of the current USA federal gov is that Trump is anything BUT a slick professional politician.
And I would only add to your formulation that you would have to specify WHO things were better for.
Well… the heart surgeon would indeed be able to fix the roof because they tend to be both smart enough to know what they are specifically good at and well paid enough to employ a good roofer. It’s all about division of labour. I mean you could get a top data analysis programmer to cut the grass and they’d probably do about as good a job as a gardener but… Do I have to explain this any further?
Anyway! Roofing can be a very specific skill. I had some work done recently and had to get specialists in because I live in a 320 year old listed building.
I voted for Trump both times, the alternatives were unthinkable. The Abraham accords and Serbia-Kosovo happened because all sides saw it was in their interests, and they needed a broker to facilitate the process. Trump’s dealmaker businessman style was well suited because, like a commercial deal, all side want a deal to happen & saw mutual advantages.
Ukraine-Russia & US-Iran are completely different, because all the parties don’t want a “deal”, they want to win (and think they can), and don’t believe there’s any possible outcome that gives mutual advantage to both sides. And frankly, that’s hard to argue with. This is a very different paradigm to a business deal: it’s absolute zero-sum international geopolitics. It’s pretty clear these just aren’t the kind of games Trump understands.
So, the heart surgeon would would only not fuck up your roof if he hired a professional roofer, which is exactly the point I was making. Do I have to explain this any further, FFS?
I’m with bobbyb on this. The “professionals” at our state department have been fucking up diplomatic relations for fifty years at least. After all, the US military is unsurpassed in their ability to fight wars, and yet the US has, to all intents and purposes, lost almost every war since WWII. Not because our brave uniformed services didn’t do their job but because the politicians screwed up everything they touched.
Trump and his team of businessmen has done a lot better, but the two big wars right now in Ukraine and Iran are both complete diplomatic disasters. But just because businessmen sometimes don’t do well at diplomacy doesn’t mean that they can’t — the evidence shows that isn’t true. Moreover the idea that professional diplomats would do better; the evidence also shows that is not true because they have a consistent, reliable record, of ballsing up everything the touch.
FWIW, everyone seems to love Marco Rubio — sorry, I wasn’t a fan of that appointment and he has just been a consistent disappointment. The solution to American diplomacy is simply to stop doing it, stop interfering in every god forsaken corner of the world, and rather deal for mutual benefits — something that businessmen specialize in.
I was remembering back to the now mostly forgotten Gaza conflict. Who remembers Trump’s plan to build it into a beautiful tourist resort? How glorious would that have been. Currently, from what I hear, it continues to be an utter hellscape.
Heart surgeons are good at what they do — their success is easily measurable in how many lives they save. Would you go to a heart surgeon if all his patients had died? Diplomats like economists, global warming prognosticators and weathermen can somehow be wrong every single time and somehow still keep their jobs.
I mean may I quote Jefferson on this as I always do: “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none”. Would that they add that to the oath of office for appointees at the state department. Trump had a good track record on diplomacy, but, as seems to be consistent with his record so far, his promises have been empty, and it has been a consistent, unmitigated disappointment.
I am mostly with bobby b and Fraser here. Though for somewhat different reasons. The point of diplomats is to advance the government’s foreign policy. If you use diplomats who disagree with the government’s policy, you need them to be honest men (or even honest women) who understand their proper place. bobby b and Fraser major on the long record of incompetence by US diplomats, but I think the other point is more significant – if you leave it to career diplomats, they will not advance Trump’s policy but their own. The only chance of them advancing Trump’s policy is by mistake – if their incompetence magically defeats their preference to defeat Trump’s policies.
You may say very reasonably that Trump’s policy – insofar as there is one – is a bad one, and shouldn’t be advanced. But that really has nothing to do with businessmen.
I’m not at all sure that businessmen-diplomats giving Putin the impression that the US government would prefer Ukraine and Russia to settle on Russia getting half a loaf is contrary to the US government’s policy. Insofar as it has one.
IMHO Trump’s Ukraine policy is pretty easy to follow. He regards Zelenskyy as a personal enemy and deserves to get what’s coming to him. That’s all folks. I would advise the Ukrainians to get rid of Mr Z. If they do, Trump may become a little less hostile.
Contra Fraser, I’m not sure Ukraine or Iran is going badly from Trump’s point of view. Iran in particular, if it be a quagmire, is a very different sort of quagmire from Afghanistan. More like one of those old fashioned British blockades.
You know, Trump’s style as a diplomatic reminds me of some of Terry Pratchett’s examples of Sam Vimes as a diplomat in the later Discworld novels. They both worked better and were more attractive in Pratchett’s accounts.
I reckon guy who said no one is looking for a diplomatic solution except us is right. No one in those wars is looking for a deal and it makes us look like complete rubes pretending they do.
Ukraine can’t do a deal because Russia never operates in good faith, and Ukraine of all people know that. And Zelensky isn’t losing, so listening to that cringe mofo Witkoff blow smoke up Putin’s ass just tells him any future American guarantees won’t be worth spit (I’m guessing he already knew that) and they need to listen to Trump politely then ignore him as he’s not on their side even slightly. That’s why they’re getting their satellite feeds from Japan & AWACS from Sweden rather than us. It also means Ukraine is gonna keep smoking Russian oil infrastructure no matter what Trump wants. Trump is just confirming what Zelensky already knows: what Ukraine is doing is working.
Iran doesn’t want a deal because even if 80% of their military is blown to shit, they still have enough to block Hormuz most of the time, and now they have the Houthis block Bab-el-Mandeb strait too for extra juicy goodness.
Iran reckons they can outlast us, and they probably can. Ukraine reckons they can outlast Russia, and if ISW numbers are even close to correct, they probably can. So what exactly do our businessmen diplomats think they can achieve, other than making us look like clueless dicks?
Its a shitshow.
I agree there is not a “stalemate across the front line” – but I suspect the military situation is very different (indeed the opposite) to what the post implies.
However, let us hope that the post is correct – as Mr Putin is a thief and a murderer, who has sold out the Russian people, and everyone else, by his alliance with the forces of the Crescent Moon.
Upon what do you base that notion? Are you saying Ukraine did not collapse the Lyman salient? Because a great many Russian milbloggers on Telegram certainly think that is what happened & they are pissed off bigtime.
@Karl Hoff
No one in those wars is looking for a deal and it makes us look like complete rubes pretending they do.
That is completely wrong. The only people who don’t want wars to end are psychopaths and military contractors.
Everyone is looking for a deal, it is just a matter of whether the two sides idea of what a “deal” would look like are anywhere close to each other. Not even asking, not even trying to find a deal while blood runs in the streets, is just irresponsible.
Not even asking, not even trying to find a deal while blood runs in the streets, is just irresponsible.
Churchill’s opinion, as disaster loomed at Dunkirk, was that Halifax’s suggestion to put out feelers to still neutral Italy about the possibility of a deal with Germany would cause British popular support for pursuing the war to collapse. He won that political argument. I’m glad he did.
“Not even asking, not even trying to find a deal while blood runs in the streets, is just irresponsible.”
Or, it’s simply the first step of a negotiation strategy. “We’re not showing up until they get more realistic.”
That makes no sense. The people in question, Russian, Ukrainian, Iranian, want the war to end… with them having won. And because all three can see scenario in which that can be achieved.
Unless by a deal you mean “we win, you lose”, in which case yes that is true… otherwise, no, not everyone is looking for a deal.
That said, I am sure Ukraine will abandon demands for reparations from Russia in return to Russia just returning to the 1991 border. I’m sure Russia will accept a ‘deal’ that gives them all of Ukraine east of the Dnepr, so they can spend the next few years rebuilding & recovering before finishing Ukraine off completely. I’m sure Iran will accept a ‘deal’ that has the US leave the Gulf provided Iran pinky-promises to not build nukes, but no you can’t come into our facilities to check.
Those kind of deals?
Those kind of deals?
Nope. As I said: “Everyone is looking for a deal, it is just a matter of whether the two sides idea of what a “deal” would look like are anywhere close to each other.”
All wars end in deals, whether it is a capitulatory deal like Appomattox or a holding deal like the Korean stalemate. The sooner a deal can be found where both sides think it is the best they can get, or will be able to get the sooner the horrendous destructiveness of war can end. The war in Ukraine will end in a deal, the war in Iran will end in a deal.
And finding deals that work for two hostile parties is, indeed, what business men are good at. Politicians, on the other hand, couldn’t organize a bunch of teenage girls for a dance party with Taylor Swift.
Forcing an unconditional surrender is really stretching the definition of “deal” beyond breaking point.
No, that really is not what businessmen do, because the parties in a business deal actually want a deal that everyone can live with. Wars work differently.
Or they end with extermination a la Carthage or Tangut Empire or Khwarazm Empire or the Pechenegs… or complete subjugation like the Third Partition of Poland or the Biafra War. Wars have ended in a great many different ways that did not feature a deal in any meaningful sense of the word “deal”.
a deal can be found where both sides think it is the best they can get
That goes for rational people. But people are, mostly, irrational.
I venture to predict there will never be a deal as long as Putin is alive.
Same with Iran, as long as the Mullahs are in power.
Witkoff and Kushner are as good diplomats as any (businessmen or not). Diplomacy has a poor record at ending conflicts or anything else. As for State Department professional diplomats – they are worse than no-good. They usually work for the enemy.
Indeed. And as delightful as it was to see mullah after mullah get JDAM’ed, each time making the world slightly better place, sadly nothing less than a popular uprising (which will likely only happen if enabled by external supply of weapons) is going to end the ghastly Islamic regime.
And for Russia, it rather depends on what happens after Putin as an entirely plausible scenario is his replacement taking power on a promise to actually win in Ukraine. But there are also other more hopeful & equally plausible scenarios, so who knows?
For Ukraine – to cede (temporarily) the Crimea and the Donbas might be a reasonable compromise. Especially taking into account Putin’s age (74). He might not be around when Russia regroups and is ready to take on the rest of Ukraine. Nobody knows who comes after Putin, but, by the law of reverting to the mean, his successor will be better.
You must be joking. All that achieves is surrendering more territory that Russia has not been able to take, including the Fortress Belt, which would work as well as giving Nazi Germany the fortified Sudetenland.
Moreover, any post-Putin leader would then find himself holding parts of Ukraine that Ukraine would have officially ceded, meaning even if said leader was inclined to withdraw & allow Donbas/Crimea to once again become Ukrainian, that would be politically hard to sell if Ukraine had formally accepted it was part of Russia.
The Russia-Ukraine border is not something carved in stone. Ukraine was never an independent entity, the borderlands are always inhabited by mixed populations. If they both (Russia and Ukraine) wish to continue the war forever, suffering hundreds of thousands of casualties and hundreds of billions of expenses per year (both), that is fine with me.
That seems to be the case and the reality for now. That does not fall into the category of “rational behavior” in my book.
What happens after Putin passes away only Allah knows.
Nor are most borders, but it was set by treaty…just like most borders.
Except of course briefly in 1918, and much more importantly, you know, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
It would be insane to have someone invade, for example, India, on the justification that it was “never an independent entity” prior to its current independence. What part of the treaties signed to create an independent India make it any more valid a state than Ukraine? Or is it the extra less-than-half-a-century lifespan?
As has been repeatedly pointed out, if Russia stops fighting, there is no more war; if Ukraine stops fighting, there is no more Ukraine. To suggest equivalence between their desires to carry on the conflict is either very stupid or very disingenuous. It is perfectly rational for Ukraine to fight on if they view their cessation as an independent nation, and the ensuing vengeance of Moscow upon them, to be a worse outcome than continuing the fight.
Prompted by Perry’s comment, i looked up the Fortress Belt and found a short article in the Institue for the Study of War site.
What the article does not fully explain is why Russia could not more easily invade north or south of the Fortress Belt.
PS: what anon said.
but it was set by treaty…just like most borders.
Most borders are set by war, not by treaty. That is, the treaty is concluded after the parties had a war and wished to end the war. In war, one or the other party is beaten and decides to end the war. Only after the war comes the treaty. These treaties are usually violated the moment one of the parties thinks it can get a better deal after another war.
I don’t think so. This is just a slogan. Ukraine will always be under threat from Russia as are all other neighbors, like Poland, Romania, Finland or the Baltic states. This is a matter of geography, not an immediate threat.
The Russians are under threat too, by American bases in Romania and Poland, for instance. At least, they feel so.