Far too many people, and pretty much everyone in the media, are far too obsessed with the idea of political leaders “appearing strong” as opposed to actually being strong. Which tendency Simplicius notes, particularly in reference to Vladimir Putin:
Too many people view the world in black and white, and believe the slightest weakness condemns a leader to total incompetence or treachery. No, Putin has weaknesses like everyone else, but also big strengths—it’s just at times one over-shines the other in glaring ways. The Russian armed forces have now likely lost somewhere approaching 100,000 dead if not more, the least they deserve in their colossal sacrifice is to know they didn’t die in vain; a stronger message from the commander-in-chief ensuring that objectives will be met would go a long way here.
The other most important thing to mention vis-a-vis ceasefire talks that no one else is talking about is the following. Russia and the US appear to be at a kind of epistemic loggerheads when it comes to the order with which the conflict must come to an end. You see, Trump, Marco Rubio, and others from their camp hold the position that the conflict must be brought to a ceasefire first, and only then would the higher order normalizations and negotiations between the US and Russia take place. In short, the Trump administration is putting the cart before the horse in its impatience to put some big win on the scoreboard, particularly given that many other Trump campaign promises have already flopped, or similarly log-jammed.
But Russia insists on the opposite order of events: first the US must recognize all the causes of the conflict and fulfill Russia’s demands for long-term security guarantees, and only then will Russia entertain bringing the conflict to an end. How to reconcile these antipodal positions? Easy: Russia must simply continue plowing ahead until the US ‘comes around’ to realizing that it’s not the one in the driver’s seat.
Being strong does not consist of making vacuous statements completely at odds with reality, as the Ukrainian, European, and US leaders are extremely prone to doing. That’s a magickal belief in rhetoric, attempting to alter the material universe with nothing more than their words and willpower. By their definition of “strong leadership” there has been no stronger leadership than Hitler in the Berlin bunker, making bizarre proclamations about inevitable victory and issuing orders to nonexistent battalions.
Keir Starmer, Emmanual Macron, and whatever nonentity is heading up the German government can posture as they like, but their opinions count even less than yours or mine. As Simplicius points out, Russia will simply keep doing what it is doing until the entire retarderati finally realizes that Russia is not going to run out of ammunition in two weeks, the Kursk incursion no longer exists, and the Kiev regime flees to Paris, or, as is more likely the case in the end, Jerusalem.
Both Putin and Xi practice the sort of strong leadership articulated by Teddy Roosevelt. They speak softly, in the case of Xi, very, very softly, and they carry big sticks which they do not hesitate to utilize. Trump can certainly negotiate with them, and make deals with them, but no amount of wild rhetoric and posturing is going to impress them.
The Clown World Order is failing. Their fake and gay “democracies” have been exposed, as well as their inversive “freedom” and now the nationalist “autocracies” are, as I have long predicted, rising to replace Clown World’s globalist charade.
Today, not only are autocracies increasingly confident. The US is moving to their side. That is the lesson of the last two weeks. Freedom is not in as much danger as it was in 1942. Yet the dangers are very real.
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