Tommorrow, our Prime Minister joins other world leaders in a Zoom meeting to form a ‘coalition of the willing‘ that could potentially lead to Western boots on the ground in Ukraine.
He had bilateral support, he thought, but then political opportunism reared its ugly head.
Our wannabe Prime Minister, Peter ‘Spud’ Dutton (explicating the qualifier I noted in my earlier post) has now made his position very clear.
Beyond political platitudes, he DOES NOT stand with Ukraine.
In chess terms, the new coalition threatens to take tempo from two players (Putin and Trump) and give the advantage to Europe and President Zelenskyy, where it always should have been.
If equilibrium returns, then the players with the most skin in the game call the shots, and in the process cut out a mendacious middle-man.
Zelenskyy, in retrospect, last week spent his ‘disastrous’ 139 minutes with Trump very wisely. We the world recoiled with disgust at the ambush and bullying he endured.
But he immediately flipped it by meeting with the Saudis and confirming he supports a ceasefire deal.
He not only unchecked himself, he found the only best move and stole tempo. Neither Trump nor Putin expected it, they were in fianchetto — lasering the Ukrainian to extort what they both personally want.
Putin arrogantly thought Zelenskyy had no good moves left — in chess, a zugwang — and so would get the “ceasefire” he needs to rebuild his shattered army before continuing the invasion.
Never forget. Nothing less than checkmate, the Maidan Nezalezhnosti draped in the Russian tricolour, will suffice for Emperor Putin.
A pocket calculator to Putin’s supercomputer, poor simple Donny Trump just wants Ukraine’s mineral riches and his name on a Nobel Peace prize. And maybe a little something else for his troubles…
By turning the US into a gun-for-hire, the orange man just wants money funneling into the US/Trump Inc., because “winning the deal” is all he understands.
But in doing so he deviates from the Russian playbook and may have delivered his boss into a back-rank mate.
Putin’s strategy of advancing a pawn to the White House blundered, a risky gambit, when Trump promoted himself back down to a pawn.
I guess GM Putin was hoping for a knight at least.
