In my view, the tirania elitei in vassal Romania is likely to see its grip on power become ever more slippery over the course of 2025 and beyond.
For the US/NATO masters of empire, Romania remains a geostrategic imperative. And the imperial suzerains are plainly willing to defy the voice of the people in order to secure Romania as a base of operations against Russia.
And herein lies the problem going forward (a situation I am convinced was always inevitable in any case):
Romania as an imperial base of operations against Russia is (as the Russians have long made perfectly clear) an intolerable state of affairs. Consequently, it effectively guarantees that Russia will reassimilate Odessa to the Danube, annex Transnistria, and (at the very least) impose neutrality upon Moldova.
Then they will demand that the Americans remove their offensive-capable missile systems from both Romania and Poland (as well as any that may be present in the Baltics, Finland, and Sweden).
I'm not suggesting that all these developments will occur at once, or in rapid succession, but I strongly believe they will happen over the course of the next few years — before the end of this decade.
And, at many points along the way, there will arise moments of great tension as the empire wrestles with the temptation to do something extraordinarily stupid in a futile attempt to arrest Russia's momentum — most likely airstrikes against some high-value Russian targets — you know, to “send a message”.
This, of course, would be madness. But it is by no means outside the realm of possibilities for the current regime in Washington.
Trump and his entourage of devotees to the gospel of American Exceptionalism and indomitable US military might will find it well nigh impossible to swallow the strong medicine of decisive strategic defeat at the hands of the Russians.
Maybe sober reality and saner heads will ultimately prevail if and when it comes down to actually ordering military strikes ... but I wouldn't bet the farm on it.
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— Will Schryver
Agreed. The blatant dirty trick of the proposed ceasefire and coordinated messaging about "the ball being in Russia's court", it just shows how duplicitous and disingenuous the Trump admin is. By the way, of course Ukraine suddenly went along with this ceasefire proposal, it's a win-win for them: They either get a 30-day reprieve to restock and reinforce at a critical moment, or they get to spin the narrative from being about Zelensky being belligerent to Putin not actually wanting peace. All the while Trump gets to look like the peacemaker.
Yes. In the long run this has all been inevitable since December 2021.
Europe & US & Nato let themselves get weaker and weaker militaryily, while Russia learnt the lesson of 2014 - that it could take on Ukraine but could not risk full conflict with Nato - yet.
By 2021 it could. And by 2025 the President of the US was smart enough to realise he couldn't face Russia and China at the same time. Mind he may still be dumb enough to think he can face China alone.
The reason so many analsyts predicted Russia would not invade Ukraine was of course that no one believed Nato would provoke them that much because it would surely lead to the break up of Nato and likely hypersonics of some kind on Redzikowo and Delesevu.
Romanians have worked this out for themselves.