A Dire Warning: The Supplement to Spaniel — And How to Actually Understand Alaska to Washington

john raymond
Aug 18
4 min read

Step One: Pillar One — Regime Security

To begin, we must put aside the tonal distractions that William Spaniel and others dwell on and return to the foundation of analysis: regime security. Putin is under real pressure because Ukraine’s deep strike campaign is working. Russia’s fuel depots, command centers, and logistics chains are burning at a tempo that bleeds capacity faster than Russia can replenish.

The “salient” meat-wave attacks Russia staged in the week leading up to Alaska were not battlefield breakthroughs but narrative ploys—bloody theatrics designed to create the impression of Ukrainian weakness.

Figures like Adam Kinzinger and Paul Warburg have attacked the “Ukraine is losing” narrative. Yet they have not explained why the Kremlin pushes it so relentlessly. The answer is simple: it serves Putin’s need to pressure Ukraine into halting its deep strikes by convincing Western capitals that Ukraine is exhausted.

In power terms—P = H/T—Ukraine is accelerating harm over time against Russian strategic depth, while Russia substitutes lives for illusions. Putin’s survival depends on stopping the strikes. That is why he needed Alaska.

Step Two: Pillar Two — Asymmetric Warfare

The Alaska summit was never about “fact-finding,” as Trump’s people absurdly claimed. Presidents do not convene summits with hostile autocrats to “gather facts.” They have intelligence services for that.

The purpose of Alaska was narrative inversion: to paint Ukraine as the obstacle to peace, to cast Zelenskyy as unreasonable, and to shift the frame so that halting deep strikes looks like a concession for peace rather than a concession to Putin.

Asymmetric warfare is not tank versus tank. It is war waged through deception, narrative, propaganda, and trap diplomacy. The dropping of a ceasefire in favor of Trump-Putin’s manufactured “peace deal” language was not an oversight. It was the point.

Without a ceasefire, there is no peace—only surrender. By skipping that step, Trump and Putin exposed the asymmetric nature of their gambit.

Step Three: Pillar Three — The Traitor-General

This is where Spaniel and the rest collapse. They describe Trump as an incompetent or buffoonish negotiator. That is a category error. Trump is a traitor-general.

For decades he was cultivated, compromised, and deployed by the Kremlin. His role is not to broker peace but to disable NATO, shield Putin, and invert the moral frame.

Everything about Alaska and Washington flows from that. To see Trump as anything other than an asset serving Russian aims is to misinterpret his delays, his empty flattery, and his tonal games. Yes, he plays the clown. Yes, he flatters and blusters. But he is acting the role Russia wrote for him.

Step Four: From Alaska to Washington

Monday’s bilateral between Trump and Zelenskyy was in fact a trap. Zelenskyy knew it. That is why NATO and EU leaders scrambled to Washington. Their presence was not decorative. It was existential.

Had Zelenskyy been left alone in the Oval Office with the traitor-general, Ukraine would have borne the full inversion: cast as the barrier to peace, cornered into curtailing its deep strikes, and blamed for prolonging the war.

By showing up en masse, European leaders blunted—not destroyed—the gambit. They turned a bilateral trap into a multilateral shield. This is why Trump’s tone shifted. His fear was audible. He was failing his master.

Step Five: The Looming Trilateral

If the bilateral was so dangerous, imagine the trilateral. Trump, Putin, and Zelenskyy alone in a room would be catastrophic. The entire purpose is to strip away allies, isolate Ukraine, and orchestrate a “settlement” that is nothing more than capitulation in disguise.

Spaniel, in his meandering commentary, calls this “maybe promising” if enforcement is clarified. This is folly. Without NATO and EU at the table, there is no enforcement—only entrapment. To treat the trilateral as anything less than a Kremlin-designed kill box is to misunderstand asymmetric warfare entirely.

Step Six: What NATO and EU Must Do

The lesson from Alaska and Washington is simple: presence blunts inversion. Absence invites disaster.

Ceasefire First — EU/NATO must insist that no trilateral or “peace” talks proceed without an actual ceasefire. Anything else is an asymmetric trap.
No Exclusion — NATO and EU must declare that they too are parties to any trilateral. If shut out, the gambit succeeds by default.
Escalate Support — More sanctions, more cash, more weapons—and the credible preparation to send troops if necessary. Russia has lost this war strategically. The only thing that can rescue Putin is Western cowardice.
Narrative Control — Crush inversion at every turn. Do not let Trump and Putin sell “Ukraine as the problem.” Keep the frame where it belongs: Russia is the aggressor, Ukraine is the defender.

Tone Versus Fear

Spaniel and others look at tone and see “progress.” They mistake cordiality for movement, banter for breakthroughs, and “concepts of a plan” for actual strategy. The reality is that Trump’s tone masks fear. He is failing Putin. Their gambit was blunted. Ukrainian deep strikes continue.

What we witnessed in Washington was not progress but stalling—and that stalling favors Ukraine now, not Russia. The EU and NATO must seize that advantage. They must recognize Trump’s role as a traitor-general, Putin’s desperation to stop deep strikes, and the asymmetric warfare being waged through narrative traps.

If they do, then Trump’s tone becomes irrelevant. If they don’t, they and Ukraine will all pay the price.

And that price will be death. Real death, not the metaphorical kind.

https://bsky.app/profile/johnrraymond.bsky.social