Comments by "Emir" (@irongron) on "John Sweeney - Trump, Ukraine, Russia in 2025 - The Outcome is Unpredictable and May be Unexpected" video.

  1. At 20:43 min mark, Mr Sweeney says, regarding foreign troops in Ukraine for logistics, training and support roles "...it becomes harder for the Russian to bomb Ukraine willy-nilly...", in the Cold War days this was called a "trip-wire force", most notable stationed in West Berlin (an island in the middle of Soviet East Germany - the GDR) and they essentially prevented the Soviets attacking and over-running West-Berlin for fear of killing French, or British or American troops and dragging those countries into a potential war (hence trip-wire). These "trip-wire" forces deterred the Soviets. They can do the same for us in Ukraine as Mr Sweeney (and Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges at the Chatham House event) pointed out.
    9
  2. When it comes to Ukraine's nukes, t's unfair to just single out President Clinton, it was George Bush senior who started that process and it was completed under the next administration. Interestingly Bush Senior's then SecDef Dick Cheney opposed removing the nukes from here. from the article - Deceit, Dread, and Disbelief: The Story of How Ukraine Lost Its Nuclear Arsenal - "In his memoirs and later interviews, Brent Scowcroft noted that then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney vigorously opposed the removal of nuclear weapons from the newly independent states at Russia’s periphery. Though most of their personal papers on the subject remain classified, a memo to the National Security Advisor from March 1992 demonstrated that these disputes did not disappear. National Security Council staffer David Gompert titled it “Why We Must be Adamant about De-nuclearizing Ukraine.” He noted three major counterarguments: Ukrainian nuclear weapons will not threaten the U.S. as Russian nuclear weapons do, for the simple reason that Ukraine, unlike Russia, is not a serious potential adversary. It might even prove advantageous to us to see Russian power checked—and Russian nuclear weapons deterred—by a Ukraine with a minimal deterrent. In any case, we hurt ourselves with the Ukrainians by insisting that they be stripped of nuclear weapons while we legitimize those of their powerful neighbor."
    1