Donald Trump likes to see himself as a winner. So why does he keep siding with Vladimir Putin, who is looking like a big loser in his war against Ukraine?
Sources that assess his battlefield report that Russia is losing between 35,000 and 40,000 soldiers per month. PER MONTH! That’s about three battalions per day. Even Russia, with a population of 146 million, can’t sustain those kinds of losses.
The battlefield, several miles wide, has become no man’s land. Individual enemy soldiers are being targeted with drones that give their exact coordinates. Then a second drone wipes him out. Can you imagine the morale of the frontline troops with that kind of a death sentence hanging over their heads?
One result is that recruiting replacements has become increasingly difficult for Putin. The same reports say that Russia hasn’t been able to match the personnel losses with new recruits. Recruiting mercenaries from other countries has also slowed down as word-of-mouth gets back from the front lines.
The same losses go for big hunks of metal on the battlefield or in the seas on the border of Ukraine. Tanks are almost a liability because they’re so easy to spot and attack. Movement is confined to dark hours.
One report said the Ukrainian autonomous weapons had taken out 100 Russian vessels in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.
Why then is President Trump promoting a new class of battleships? I did a midshipman training cruise on the Battleship Iowa, a sister ship to the Battleship Wisconsin, and it was a magnificent war machine. Its nine 16-inch guns could shoot 20 miles, beyond the reach of Japanese warships. They were a deciding factor in World War II. Now it’s a relic.
Flash forward: The Ukrainians took out the pride of the Russian Navy, the Moskva cruiser, with an autonomous, small boat explosive. Mr. President, the world has changed. Read your security briefings. Stop making loser decisions.
According to a recent report in The Atlantic, know also, Mr. President, that Ukraine is now making its own long-range attack missiles – 200 per day – and its own powerful cruise missiles, the Flamingo, three per day.
Ukraine has become a military super power, and it is partnering with Europe, not the United States.
Your war against Iran is another loser decision, Mr. President. We did not have to get into that war in the Middle East. The Strait of Hormuz was open before the war for free passage of ships carrying oil and other strategic goods.
Your seat-of-the-pants instinct to take out Iranian nuclear capacities in 2025 with sensational air strikes against Iran’s nuclear capabilities did make some sense. That’s what President George H.W. Bush did in 1990 when he went into Kuwait to preserve oil flows. He got in, got the job done in short order and got out. He avoided a forever war in the Middle East.
In contrast, you followed the 2025 strikes with another loser decision: to go to war in Iran without an exit plan. If you had gone to Congress, as the constitution requires, they would have advised you otherwise.
Who knows when we will get out? The only way to fully control the Strait is to send in the Marines and control the shorelines and ports. But no American wants that. Recent polls show that six in ten Americans oppose your Iranian war.
One more insight for your role as Commander-in-Chief: Putin knows he has been at least stalemated on the Ukrainian battlefield. He may even be an outright loser as Ukraine takes the war to his cities with missiles and rockets.
Putin’s fear of losing militarily shows clearly in his new strategy toward Ukraine. He has resorted to war crimes, targeting civilians in Ukrainian cities. His recent barrages of missiles and drones are a sharp escalation of his new mode of warfare.
If he can’t win against the Ukrainian military, then try instead to bring Ukrainian people to exhaustion. He has already leveled Mariupol and Bucha.
That new extension of the war may backfire. Prolonging the war may also exhaust the Russian people and its oligarchs. Russian leaders have a way of falling out of windows. (Putin is reportedly using doubles as a precaution.)
You made a gaffe recently when you said you had 59% approval rating in recent polls. You got your numbers backward. Your disapproval rating is now at 59%. And close to 50% strongly disapprove of your performance as president. Nearly a majority despise you.
Other than that, you are doing just fine. The polls must be wrong.
Now, let’s get real. Trump will never admit his war decisions were all wrong. He has gone around the bend to mental instability.
He has become incapable of logical thought and rational solutions. It’s time for Republicans to invoke Article 25 and put him out to pasture.
If Republicans lose badly enough in the November elections, they might face reality and do just that.
(Torinus is a retired U.S. Marine artillery officer and holds a Master degreed in International Relations from University of Stockholm. He was twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.)
