Donald Trump in Paris on December 7. (Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images)
One of the more remarkable attributes of our president-elect is his preternatural luck. It’s not every candidate who gets to run against Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris. And it isn’t every president who gets to pick three Supreme Court Justices, whose prosecutors are fantastically corrupt or inept, and who will return to power just as the huge infrastructure investment by his predecessor is beginning to filter through the economy, and as disinflation continues.
But in foreign affairs, Trump has in some ways hit the jackpot. As he contemplates regaining power, the two most devoted adversaries of the US — Russia and Iran — are in crisis. The sudden collapse of the hideous Alawite dictatorship in Syria has crippled Russia’s interests in the Middle East and beyond, especially in Africa. Meanwhile, Israel’s decimation of Hamas and Hezbollah in the wake of October 7 has pushed Iran into a humiliating and increasingly isolated defensive crouch.
But it’s with Russia that an opportunity now beckons. Yes, it’s the economy, stupid. Militarily, the Kremlin has been sustaining minor momentum in the Donetsk region, and will likely consolidate some territorial gains before Trump’s inauguration. But for the first time, after the disappointment of the last two years, the “crippling” economic consequences of Western sanctions are beginning to limit Putin’s ability to keep fighting indefinitely.
Russian inflation, fueled by massive war spending, is now 8.9 percent and rising. To counter this, interest rates are now over 20 percent and may go higher before too long — a death spiral for almost any business. Economic growth, which held up remarkably well until now, is forecast to plunge to a meager 0.5 percent in 2025. Far from reducing military spending by 21 percent for 2025 as they had planned, the Russians are now having to raise it by 25 percent, to a full 6 percent of GDP.
Conscription — along with more than 600,000 casualties — has made labor shortages intense in Russia. The labor crisis has even hit the militarily critical arms industry:
Sergei Chemezov, the close Putin ally who heads Russia’s state arms conglomerate RosTec, warned at the end of October that if rates remained at current levels, “practically a majority of our enterprises will go bankrupt,” and he said Russia could be forced to curtail arms exports. [...] Andrey Gartung, head of the Chelyabinsk Forge and Press Plant, said in early November at an economic forum that key branches of mechanical engineering could “collapse.”
In other words, the idea that Russia always wins wars of attrition may have exceeded its expiration date. It’s increasingly a question of math, as Fareed noted this morning:
Two scholars, Marc DeVore and Alexander Mertens, note in Foreign Policy that “Russia is losing around 320 tank and artillery cannon barrels a month and producing only 20.” Citing open sources, they note that Russia has lost almost 5,000 infantry fighting vehicles since its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russian defense contractors can make only around 200 a year.
How to handle this sudden collapse of Russian economic resilience? With nimbleness and pragmatism, it seems to me.
I’ve long been more in line with Trump’s instincts here than I am with the Biden neocons’, and I’d like to see a settlement of the Ukraine border and an end to the gruesome slaughter before too long. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take advantage of Russia’s new weakness to get the best deal for Ukraine that we can. There may be a way, in fact, to intensify the sanctions that have begun to bite:
In recent months, more than 90 percent of Russian crude oil exports have been transported to China and India via a shadow fleet of more than 400 tankers. [...] The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) could take this fleet offline by sanctioning individual ships, as it already has with 53 oil tankers. [...] Together, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union have sanctioned 118 tankers, and officials have enough information on the rest to take quick action.
With Orbán set to be replaced as EU president by Poland’s Donald Tusk next month, the last restraints protecting Putin’s economy will go. And there’s another way to weaken Russia. If the Saudis were to use this moment to increase oil production and drive gas prices down — and they’ve made some noises to that effect — Moscow would really be in the shitter. And we could drive a much harder bargain for Ukraine.
Can Trump pivot a little? In a Truth Social post, he seemed to get it:
There was no reason for Russia to be [in Syria] in the first place. They lost all interest in Syria because of Ukraine, where close to 600,000 Russian soldiers lay wounded or dead, in a war that should never have started, and could go on forever. Russia and Iran are in a weakened state right now, one because of Ukraine and a bad economy, the other because of Israel and its fighting success … There should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin … I know Vladimir well. This is his time to act.
Two good things: he understands that Russia needs an end to the war in the near future; and that Putin is the one who has to make the move. Who knows what a final border deal could look like? A partition on current armistice lines, with Western security guarantees for Ukraine, or EU membership, is the obvious and inevitable endpoint. But the tougher the sanctions and the worse the Russian economy gets, the better the deal we will get.
Trump has huge leeway to reach a settlement. I just hope he understands that at this point, we have no need to be magnanimous. Or to rush.
(Note to readers: This is an excerpt of The Weekly Dish. If you’re already a paid subscriber, click here to read the full version. This week’s issue also includes: my take on the CEO murder and defending Jesse Singal; my chat with Christine Rosen on the pros and cons of the digital world; reader dissents over the Hunter pardon; stories of grief prompted by the Anderson pod; eight notable quotes from the week in news; 20 pieces on Substack we recommend on a variety of topics; a Mental Health Break of Die Muppet Show; an MHB window from Aruba; and, of course, the results of the View From Your Window contest — with a new challenge. Subscribe for the full Dish experience!)
From a longtime reader and new subscriber:
I used to read The New Republic faithfully when you edited it, as I wanted to keep up with the worldview of others different than me. I am a conservative, and you changed my position on gay marriage.
From a subscriber who just re-upped:
In the subscription renewal email is a wonderful pic of you and the pup. I’ve probably said this before, but the Dish was instrumental in helping me get my head out of my ass over left-wing stupidity. I did not vote for Donald, but I sure wasn’t going to vote for the Democrats. It’s not a big deal in the scheme of things, but I feel very fortunate to have found the Dish, all those years ago. (Even though I disagree with you on Ukraine.)
New On The Dishcast: Christine Rosen
Christine is a columnist for Commentary and a co-host of The Commentary Magazine Podcast. She’s also a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a fellow at UVA’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. The author of many books, her new one is The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World.
Listen to the episode here. There you can find two clips of our convo — on algorithms killing serendipity, and smartphones killing quiet moments. That link also takes you to a lot more commentary on the popular episode with Anderson Cooper on grief, complete with dog pics. And readers continue the discussions over Ukraine, Biden’s pardon, and transgender topics.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Aaron Zelin on the fall of Assad, Brianna Wu and Kelly Cadigan on trans lives, Mary Matalin on our sick culture, Adam Kirsch on his book On Settler Colonialism, Nick Denton, and John Gray on the state of liberal democracy. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
Like everyone else, I was glued to the news about the shooting of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, Brian Thompson. But as it all shook out, the greater meaning of the story seemed to me to evaporate.
(Read the rest of the piece here, for paid subscribers.)
Dissents Of The Week
A reader writes:
While I appreciate your piece on the Hunter pardon as a thought piece set in the olden times, I feel like what you’re saying isn’t relevant for our times now. You are right about the use and abuse of pardons, but what Biden did will not change anything with Trump. Sure, Trump will say, “Well Biden did it” — but he will do with the pardon what he wants to regardless of what Biden did or didn’t do.
Trump has flat-out said he is out for revenge, and his picks for Justice and the FBI support that. Just because he didn’t go after Hilary Clinton doesn’t mean he won’t go after others now. So I think Biden did need to protect his son.
Read four more dissents here, along with my response. Another sends a correction: “Velleius Paterculus — the historian you quoted — was Roman, not Greek.” More reader debate is on the pod page. As always, please keep the dissents coming: dish@andrewsullivan.com.
This is a feature in the paid version of the Dish spotlighting about 20 of our favorite pieces from other Substackers every week. This week’s selection covers subjects such as the surprise in Syria, the CEO killer, and MDMA for vets. Below is one example, followed by a brand new substack:
“Insurance companies aren’t the main villain of the U.S. health system,” explains Noah Smith.
Here’s a list of the substacks we recommend in general — call it a blogroll. If you have any suggestions for “In the ‘Stacks,” especially ones from emerging writers, please let us know: dish@andrewsullivan.com.
The View From Your Window Contest
Where do you think it’s located? Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The deadline for entries is Wednesday night at midnight (PST). The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that status in your entry and we will give you a free month subscription if we select your entry for the contest results (example here if you’re new to the VFYW). Contest archive is here. Happy sleuthing!
The results for this week’s window are coming in a separate email to paid subscribers later today. Here’s a followup on last week’s contest:
I was tormented with an earworm for two days after reading last week’s results and the featured song, “Funiculì, Funiculà.” It was the theme to an advertisement from my childhood that was triggered, but I could only recall part of the words and not the critical subject of the ad. After 48 hours of playing it over and over again in my head, it finally came to me: Burger King veal parmigiana!
Here’s a sneak peek of the upcoming results:
I initially thought that Tim Hortons restaurants were located only in Canada and didn’t realize that there are 1,000+ in other countries, including more than 500 here in the US. Who knew?
A previous winner pleads, “Can we go back to looking for Sinclair gas stations, like in contest #442? There were only 1,700 or so of those.”
