The Beginning of the End of Trump 2.0
Wishcasting can't hide lies on Russian casualties in Ukraine
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
T.S. Eliot
The Russia-US Summit in Alaska wrapped early, and if Trump’s Hannity interview is any indication, nothing happened.
The Neo-Liberal-Conservative establishment has been harping on Putin’s desire to manipulate Trump subsequent intention to obtain an advantageous outcome to the war in order to justify to supposed 1 million casualties that Russia has suffered since 2022. While statistics are often misdirected from within the Russian establishment, the possibility of 1 million casualties is simply fanciful, for a few reasons:
There is no historical predicate for the continued support Putin experiences in Russia and those sorts of casualty figures, except in a war of survival.
Soviet casualty estimates for the war in Afghanistan at most reach 70,000, and the effects of that war offered a significant deterioration to establishment credibility at the time (in both a different time, on a larger population base).
Russia’s total military aged male population in 2020 was estimated at 14.25 million. Additionally, as many as 1 million Russians may have left Russia in the first year after the start of the war, mostly among that cohort, meaning that that segment of the population would have been effectively been decimated by as much as 15% (yes decimate implies a tenth, but bear with me), while maintaining full employment and inflation of at most 5-6%, on top of pre-existing military spending.
Casualty exchanges fail to prove fortuitous for Ukraine - the most recent body exchange was 1212 to 27.
Assuming that early conflict casualties for Russia approached 6,000 (dead, not injured), and Ukrainian casualties suppose to approach 700,000 with minimally 100,000 killed, applying such a ratio to the latter half of the war thus far would imply an additional 1-2000 Russian dead.
For academic reasons, let’s suppose Russian dead approach 10-12000, with injured approach 50-60000, similar figures to the Soviet-Afghan War, but directly on the Russian border hence a rallying effect takes place among the populace, along with a stabilizing recent effect of low casualties with continued gains.
In addition, the survivability and ability to work of those injured may be higher, as mines and other brutal aspects were more widespread in the Afghan conflict, while older males may predominate in military service (e.g. Moscow cab drivers aged 35-50) and many casualties may also be “prisoner-conscripts” which - with low pre-existing social status in Russian society - may not necessarily be “missed” (cruel to say but seems to be how things work over there).
Understanding Negotiation
Taking all of the above into account, Russia’s “Burn Rate” seems to be far below that of NATO and Ukraine, both financially, in materiel, and in manpower when taken all together.
We know that Ukraine has been ravaged by the war, and will not be the same as a country for generations to come. Russia, it seems, will be able to move on, and is at current pace expending so few casualties that it will simply accumulate gains as Ukraine becomes unable to find anyone left to move to the front.
Truly, the impression that Trump and his team have provided following the summit has not been positive. A team accustomed to strong message control has almost nothing to talk about, which would indicate that the real facts on the ground are simply so disadvantageous to NATO that there is no dressing it up. Russia would only appear to be allowing their contemporaries to save face by not pressing this case publicly, implying that they want to see the war come to an end, but their terms are strict and will not change (and likely will extend up to the Dnieper, out of pure geographic pragmatism).
What this means for Trump 2.0
There are a few implications for the Trump team as they head out of this summit, likely towards a deconflicted Ukraine but not a peaceful one:
The positivity is gone. Trump has seen the cost of war, the willingness of America’s adversaries to bear punishment but also to fight and furnish materiel with little profit to themselves. The wages of Empire become clear.
America’s fiscal solvency will be returned for a time thanks to economic policies adopted by Trump and his team, but the ability to outrun Russian regional military capabilities and Chinese leverage over critical supply chains is a capacity that needs years to be cultivated, and imposes new costs from other parts of society.
Trump capitalized on handwaving to a mythic rugged individualistic America which economic dislocation and consumerist avarice has been distorted beyond recognition. Entitlements and government largesse now mean too many live off the teat - the domestic population lacks the ruggedness to accomplish much at a large scale, while the immigrant population questions whether it should truly integrate at all.
This implies that Trump has returned to the store and found the coffers even more bare than before, and no matter how hard he tries, he is becoming more uncertain that he can stock them to last the winter. This is the natural end of a dying society.
The Empire has achieved short-term retrenchment, a fine and novel goal, but the game has been revealed to naive allies, and long term America’s culture must transform in order to maintain its productivity and self-sufficiency.
To be clear, there is currently no national-stage leader who is capable of leading this sort of transformation, not one member of the senate, the house, the administration or at the state and local level on either side of the aisle. This sort of transition requires a Roosevelt, a Reagan, a Lincoln, and only one who is plucked from obscurity will be able to ascend to towering heights in a sufficiently clean and dignified manner that permits them to become a totem of transformation.
The culture of rugged individualism is dead - the attitudes of resourcefulness and self-sufficiency that made America are gone - the Russians are tougher, the Chinese are quicker, and America is still formidable, but the idea that better days are ahead without new sacrifices spell the beginning of the end for Trump’s naive-but-admirable optimistic sensibilities. This last gasp may give way to new breath still, but only by hare’s breath, if people recognize the right kind of leadership when it appears.
The only hope now is one who promises sacrifice, and if they have ever won a vote before, they have probably not uttered a word of such things.