Post by Severin Pleyer

“The reversal is one of analysis and not policy,” said Richard Fontaine, the chief executive of the Center for New American Security and a former aide to Senator John McCain. “Trump is oscillating between extreme views of the situation — previously, Ukraine couldn’t win because Kyiv didn’t have cards to play, and now it can win all of its territory back because Russia is merely ‘a paper tiger.’” “Either view seems to minimize America’s role in the war,” concluded Mr. Fontaine, who has written extensively about strategies to help Ukraine. “He suggests no change in U.S. policy. There is no new call for a cease-fire or peace agreement, no new sanctions, no new deadlines and no new military support for Ukraine, beyond the weapons NATO buys from the United States.” Like many policy declarations by Mr. Trump, it is hard to divine his true beliefs, and impossible to assure he will not change position again. He is nothing if not mercurial. His foreign policy views, former aides say, are more often driven by pique and a sense that he has been disrespected than by strategic analysis. https://lnkd.in/e2iggv54