So, it’s pretty clear what’s ahead — Trump is reverting to his New York real-estate mode of negotiations. In the Art of the Deal, his 1987 book, ghost written by Tony Schwartz, the text advises the use of “extreme and unpredictable demands to create anxiety and force concessions from rivals”.
Thus, we are back to the General Kellogg playbook – – Kellogg advised Trump that the only thing that works with Putin or the Iranians is pressure — and then still more pressure.
Familiar Trumpian tactics. Show a little initial flexibility to tease out adversaries in order to pull them into negotiations; subsequent false claims of Iranian concessions and extreme demands are then used to increase pressure on Iran (whilst Trump appears tough to the angry neocon constituency and to his ‘base’ back home).
This style of pressure may work for New York real-estate deals, but will be ineffective with both Iran and Russia.
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The E3 leaders, Starmer, Merz and Macron, met on 7 June with Zelensky to promise both unwavering support and — in the context of pledging further pressure on Russia —
“underlining the urgent need to scale up the production of interceptors; deep strike capabilities and anti-ballistic missile co-development — and further to support the future sustainability of the Ukrainian Armed Forces”.
In short, the Europeans intend to ratchet up deep strikes into Moscow and St Petersburg, which will likely kill and unsettle their inhabitants.
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