Dear Jake, I Told You the Senate Sanctions Package Was a Bluff. Now, I Am Telling You, NATO Procurement Is Going to Take Longer Than Three Months
- john raymond
- Jul 15
- 3 min read
Jake, let me start with a truth you already know but somehow never quite say: Donald Trump is not trying to win the war in Ukraine. He is trying to control the narrative around it—just enough to stall, just enough to fracture consensus, just enough to give Putin room to breathe. And you, once again, are falling for it.
I told you weeks ago that the Senate sanctions package was never going to move forward. It was a bluff. A pressure tactic designed to make it seem like Congress had the will to hold Russia accountable—when in fact, all it needed was a sharp pivot from Trump to derail it entirely. That’s exactly what happened. One 50-day delay, one hollow “weapons package” announcement, and now the Senate has shelved its sanctions. Russia has been granted a diplomatic ceasefire without ever agreeing to a battlefield one.
And now you're telling your audience that NATO’s $10 billion procurement will flood the Ukrainian front within three months.
Jake, that’s not how it works.
Weapons procurement—especially when done through multilateral frameworks like NATO and G7—is slow, complex, and bureaucratic. Contracts must be negotiated. Stockpiles assessed. Training coordinated. Logistics mapped. And most of the Patriot systems you reference either don’t exist yet or are already assigned to defend critical U.S. or allied infrastructure. The fantasy that 17 full Patriot systems will arrive “within days” is one even the Pentagon won’t entertain. Germany's defense minister has already contradicted that timeline. Sweden hasn’t confirmed its role. And the United States? Trump’s administration hasn’t committed a single dime.
You seem genuinely thrilled that Trump is finally doing something—anything—that appears to benefit Ukraine. But all he’s really done is remove his foot from the hose temporarily, after spending six months choking off aid, offering the Kremlin Crimea, and undermining Zelensky in private talks. He has not changed sides. He has changed tactics.
The real story here isn’t the volume of arms or even the symbolism of the announcements. It’s the asymmetric delay. Trump’s strategy is to control the rate of escalation. If Putin needs time—he gets it. If Congress threatens sanctions—Trump neutralizes them. If NATO wants to move faster—Trump injects confusion, bluster, and fantasy timelines to muddy expectations. And if the media starts to turn on him—he releases a feel-good weapons story for influencers like you to amplify.
What you celebrated as a “huge win” is, at best, a shift in messaging. At worst, it is pretextual cover for inaction. The $10 billion in weapons is not new U.S. assistance. It is a European purchase, announced under American branding. It is not rapid, and it is not enough to change the war’s trajectory unless it is followed by actual commitment from the White House—and there is no sign of that commitment.
You marveled that this was “almost double what Biden provided in his final months.” But that is meaningless if the procurement never arrives on time. What matters is what reaches the battlefield—not what appears in the press release. You know this. And yet you parrot the headline instead of interrogating the delay.
Let me be clear: I hope the equipment comes. I hope Ukraine gets the JASSMs, the additional ATACMS, the air defenses they so urgently need. But there is a difference between cheering for Ukraine and being used by Trump’s media strategy to make him look good. You’ve crossed into that second category, Jake. Not maliciously. Not even foolishly. But blindly.
It’s the same blindness that let you believe Congress would pass a tough sanctions package, with a GOP caucus that follows Trump’s cues. It’s the same blindness that lets you see a list of weapons on a slide deck and mistake it for delivery logistics. And it’s the same blindness that thinks MAGA influencers pivoting is a sign of strength rather than another proof point that they never had a position—only a script.
This is asymmetric warfare. The truth is always upstream of the narrative. And the narrative, Jake, is what Trump is feeding you—one baited headline at a time.
So let me say it again. The Senate sanctions package was a bluff. The NATO procurement will take longer than three months.
And unless you start asking why, not just what, you will continue to be a well-meaning narrator in someone else’s disinformation campaign.
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