Russia's War Against Ukraine

[Jarhead0331]

This is most likely behind Trumps messaging on Ukraine, and it seems to have worked. Never underestimate the Don. Once the agreement is signed, it will be interesting to see if the messaging on Russia shifts.

https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-us-minerals-deal-volodymyr-zelenskyy-donald-trump/ 

[Con]

This is most likely behind Trumps messaging on Ukraine, and it seems to have worked. Never underestimate the Don. Once the agreement is signed, it will be interesting to see if the messaging on Russia shifts.

https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-us-minerals-deal-volodymyr-zelenskyy-donald-trump/ 

If you follow Peter Zehian he broke down some of the issues of a mineral deal about two weeks ago
In summary
1 . No real exploration has been done in Ukraine for minerals esp by western companies and technology in 30years
2 Geology suggests that most likely deposits are in the occupied sections
3 land drilling rigs require a lot of support infrastructure (I know this first hand as my wife's farm in northern MN has struggled to repair roads because all the gravel gets sold to drilling companies in North Dakota due to the insane amounts of roads that has to be built for them)
4 rigs by necessity are easy military targets and hard to defend
5 if even found it will still be from a economic perspective cheaper to extract rare minerals from deposits being opened in the US and less dangerous regions
6 insurance costs for these rigs will be cost prohibitive
7 Trump likes real estate type deals so this appeals to him but Trump is a developer not a explorator and miner  details will be unlikely explained to him in a way he will grasp

[Jarhead0331]

This is most likely behind Trumps messaging on Ukraine, and it seems to have worked. Never underestimate the Don. Once the agreement is signed, it will be interesting to see if the messaging on Russia shifts.

https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-us-minerals-deal-volodymyr-zelenskyy-donald-trump/ 

If you follow Peter Zehian he broke down some of the issues of a mineral deal about two weeks ago
In summary
1 . No real exploration has been done in Ukraine for minerals esp by western companies and technology in 30years
2 Geology suggests that most likely deposits are in the occupied sections
3 land drilling rigs require a lot of support infrastructure (I know this first hand as my wife's farm in northern MN has struggled to repair roads because all the gravel gets sold to drilling companies in North Dakota due to the insane amounts of roads that has to be built for them)
4 rigs by necessity are easy military targets and hard to defend
5 if even found it will still be from a economic perspective cheaper to extract rare minerals from deposits being opened in the US and less dangerous regions
6 insurance costs for these rigs will be cost prohibitive
7 Trump likes real estate type deals so this appeals to him but Trump is a developer not a explorator and miner  details will be unlikely explained to him in a way he will grasp

...and is Peter Zehian an expert geologist or rare earth mineralist? Serious question, I've never heard of him. What makes him more of an expert than the people advising the President of the United States?

[al_infierno]

This is most likely behind Trumps messaging on Ukraine, and it seems to have worked. Never underestimate the Don. Once the agreement is signed, it will be interesting to see if the messaging on Russia shifts.

https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-us-minerals-deal-volodymyr-zelenskyy-donald-trump/ 

If you follow Peter Zehian he broke down some of the issues of a mineral deal about two weeks ago
In summary
1 . No real exploration has been done in Ukraine for minerals esp by western companies and technology in 30years
2 Geology suggests that most likely deposits are in the occupied sections
3 land drilling rigs require a lot of support infrastructure (I know this first hand as my wife's farm in northern MN has struggled to repair roads because all the gravel gets sold to drilling companies in North Dakota due to the insane amounts of roads that has to be built for them)
4 rigs by necessity are easy military targets and hard to defend
5 if even found it will still be from a economic perspective cheaper to extract rare minerals from deposits being opened in the US and less dangerous regions
6 insurance costs for these rigs will be cost prohibitive
7 Trump likes real estate type deals so this appeals to him but Trump is a developer not a explorator and miner  details will be unlikely explained to him in a way he will grasp

...and is Peter Zehian an expert geologist or rare earth mineralist? Serious question, I've never heard of him. What makes him more of an expert than the people advising the President of the United States?

I think the problem is not the expertise of those advising the POTUS, but rather the POTUS's ability to comprehend said advice.  This may be getting away from the topic, but he has a storied history of making statements that, as you put it, are confusing and frustrating at best.

I know this is an intentional strategy to a certain extent, but has there been any indication in this case that he actually has a cogent strategy for getting something out of this deal other than a promise for stuff in the future? Or is this another of his shoot first and ask questions later situations?

[Jarhead0331]

This is most likely behind Trumps messaging on Ukraine, and it seems to have worked. Never underestimate the Don. Once the agreement is signed, it will be interesting to see if the messaging on Russia shifts.

https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-us-minerals-deal-volodymyr-zelenskyy-donald-trump/ 

If you follow Peter Zehian he broke down some of the issues of a mineral deal about two weeks ago
In summary
1 . No real exploration has been done in Ukraine for minerals esp by western companies and technology in 30years
2 Geology suggests that most likely deposits are in the occupied sections
3 land drilling rigs require a lot of support infrastructure (I know this first hand as my wife's farm in northern MN has struggled to repair roads because all the gravel gets sold to drilling companies in North Dakota due to the insane amounts of roads that has to be built for them)
4 rigs by necessity are easy military targets and hard to defend
5 if even found it will still be from a economic perspective cheaper to extract rare minerals from deposits being opened in the US and less dangerous regions
6 insurance costs for these rigs will be cost prohibitive
7 Trump likes real estate type deals so this appeals to him but Trump is a developer not a explorator and miner  details will be unlikely explained to him in a way he will grasp

...and is Peter Zehian an expert geologist or rare earth mineralist? Serious question, I've never heard of him. What makes him more of an expert than the people advising the President of the United States?

I think the problem is not the expertise of those advising the POTUS, but rather the POTUS's ability to comprehend said advice.  This may be getting away from the topic, but he has a storied history of making statements that, as you put it, are confusing and frustrating at best.

I know this is an intentional strategy to a certain extent, but has there been any indication in this case that he actually has a cogent strategy for getting something out of this deal other than a promise for stuff in the future? Or is this another of his shoot first and ask questions later situations?

Trump is consistently underestimated by those who despise him. He is constantly under attack and despite being assaulted non-stop over the last 8 years by nearly the entire weight of the political and judicial establishment, he won and won decisively. I think he has proven time and time again that his instincts are more accurate than those of the people around him and even of some of the so-called "experts". He makes decisions often times against advice and I think more often than not, he is proven correct at the end of the day.

His strategies are only predictable insofar as their unpredictability and the mistake of his enemies in simply writing him off as an <insert preferred pejorative> has not only led to his survival, but to him thriving in what was probably the most partisan openly hostile political environment in the history of the nation. If God forbid there was a nuclear war, I suspect the survivors would be cock roaches, lawyers and Donald Trump.

While I do not like him, I do agree with many (not all) of his policies and I respect his fortitude and constitution, which I'm hard pressed to find any equal comparison. This makes him, in some ways, a uniquely effective and accomplished leader, regardless of whether or not one cares for those accomplishments. He undeniably gets stuff done and despite what the mainstream media may be reporting, I think most of his initiatives this term have widespread support from a not so inconsequential majority of Americans.

I hate sounding like a Trump fanboy, because outside of simply supporting my president, I swear I am not. I just think the constant attacks, some of which are not based in fact or logic, really lower the level of discussion, particularly when it comes to analysis and understanding of the strategic approach to achieve an objective. Why analyze with deep thought, when its much easier to just call him an idiot who doesn't understand concepts?

In any event, I know reading this is going to piss a lot of you off. That isn't my intention at all.

Peace, brothers .

[al_infierno]

Trump is consistently underestimated by those who despise him. He is constantly under attack and despite being assaulted non-stop over the last 8 years by nearly the entire weight of the political and judicial establishment, he won and won decisively. I think he has proven time and time again that his instincts are more accurate than those of the people around him and even of some of the so-called "experts". He makes decisions often times against advice and I think more often than not, he is proven correct at the end of the day.

Eh, personally I'd attribute Trump's political survival and overwhelming election victory moreso to the mistakes of his opponents than some exceptional political instinct he possesses. But that's a topic for another thread!

I actually don't disagree with a lot of what you said -- Trump sure has gotten a lot done in his first month as president, though I dislike a huge, huge amount of it. I'm really not trying to lobby personal attacks any more than people were personally attacking Biden by questioning his competency. Not that I was a fan of Biden, by the way. But I won't go further into the topic since I don't want to derail this any more into a Trump thread.

[Con]

Zeihan describes himself as a Geopolitical strategist - He is mostly concerned with GDP and population density impacting regions inflows and outflows of raw materials and either Work in Progress sub assemblies or finished goods.  Hence he takes a macro view and is quite reasonably well informed - though he does pull it up to a simplistic approach.
He is most well known for his views (controversial) on China and his hypothesis that China will implode within the next 10 years (variety of factors).  On this he has many detractors and followers.

While he does drive to a simplistic view I feel he is directionally correct as I run a team in China in Lifesciences and can independently correlate his views (real population growth, housing, job generation for the under 25 etc).

I have over 10 people directly reporting to me in China, have responsibility for two facilities including a manufacturing plant with 500 people and I travel there on average once a quarter where I have to work with both government and industry.
I also asked my father who is a world known subject matter expert on oil with 60 years of direct oil exploration for multiple huge oil companies and is a petroleum geologist to review his work on the oil industry.  He agrees with me his interpretations are generally on track but details can be lacking.

So on at least three independent vectors where I can say I have a deep knowledge and understanding China, Oil and Pharma.  I feel he has pretty good credibility which leads me to give him more validity in other areas where I am not as well versed (but like most of you probably better read than majority of people).

Con

[Sir Slash]

See now this is why I hang-out here, to rub elbows with the world's elites. Can't nobody say the Grogheads don't carry some serious weight on the world stage. We are kind of like the Luminary of the Luminary I reckon. 

Donald Trump has indeed been successful in a great many things. His greatest strength in my opinion is he cannot be shamed or intimidated by his opponents in any meaningful way and thus cannot be controlled by them. His instincts are not always the best but he recovers/changes the subject fast to cover his mistakes. And he always controls the narrative of any subject by his relentless aggressiveness. Though not a politician, none of his political opponents have ever found an effective way to defeat him. The only way to handle him is to either ignore him or be nice to him, which doesn't generally translate into election victories. He is however very predictable and sooner or later someone will probably find a way to turn that against him. Putin might be sly enough to pull that off.

[JasonPratt]

I think it's fair to be suspicious of the value of rare earth minerals in Ukraine if the only ones really known and exploitable right now are in occupied zones.

But what he mainly promised was $300+ million in aid to start with and unfettered weapon shipments. The rare earth mineral deal is a 50% share in produced value (iirc) for a limited time to pay back expenses, so that doesn't happen (for any practical purposes) unless or until Ukraine develops or recovers substantial r.e.m.s

That's why after this announcement Putin launched an emergency meeting offering the US access to r.e.m.s right now (since Russia has a major oversupply -- partly due to occupying Ukrainian r.e.m. sites!) Because in effect if the deal goes through (which preliminarily looks true), Trump has just backed Ukraine to win the war and GET THOSE OCCUPIED SITES BACK however long it takes (or until Trump and maybe any successor loses office). Which of course pushes Putin to find an offramp pronto. Which is probably why Russian media have started trumpeting in the past day that they won the war already -- that's a political preliminary to accepting an offramp deal between Putin and Trump which allows Ukraine to survive and flourish (and maybe Russia to flourish, too), which is definitely NOT a win for Putin's regime: they badly needed to steamroll (the rest of) Ukraine so they can loot and exploit it, not just keep the Donbas and Crimea.

This also explains why Trump was unwilling to denounce Putin as a dictator or badmouth him much recently: that would spike any negotiation to stop the war. The (current?) fact is that despite what Trump said about PresZ, Trump just showed where he's willing to put our money and military: on the side which needs to recover the territory with the resources we're willing to take 50% of until our expenses are repaid.

...I think I've covered the salient points that developed over the past day so far, but it's after 11pm and I badly need sleep. Corrections/amplifications welcome.

[JasonPratt]

The titles are usually clickbaity, but might not be this time (aside from Trump's own statements being often clickbaity so to speak {eyeroll})

[JasonPratt]

And now the EU counterbids to help Ukraine win the war (for those rare-earth minerals that currently only exist in occupied areas  )

Quick edit, Canada may be getting in on some of that action, too.

[Pete Dero]

'Did I say that? I can't believe I said that' 

[ArizonaTank]

Walk-wide o' the "Law of Unintended Consequence"

[Pete Dero]

[Anguille]

I am absolutely shattered by what I am seeing today. Never believed I would experience anything like that.