Ring Fencing the Nuclear Warriors

Jun 05, 2025

One of the most promising political encounters in recent memory has just wrapped up in front of the fireplace in the Oval Office.

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For the first time since taking office, Germany’s new Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, met personally with Donald J. Trump.

The two men went to great lengths to appear capable and upbeat.

Both are under mounting pressure at home and abroad to deliver peace and prosperity.

In America, MAGA is deeply disappointed in Trump’s performance: he’s has been missing in action as crises mount. And he’s failed to come through on two key promises:

1.) Ending the war in Ukraine

2.) Keeping America out of Israel’s preparation for an attack on Iran.

In Germany, Merz’s majority in parliament is wafer thin, and he’s drawing flak for proposing arming Ukraine with Berlin’s hypersonic Taurus missiles. They are capable of striking deep into Russia.

The German Chancellor nudged Trump on Ukraine by pointing out that June 6 was the anniversary of D-Day. The invasion marked America’s push to end World War II in Europe.

Merz indicated his hope that America would would show the same resolve to end the war in Ukraine. Germany, he addded, wanted to help achieve that goal.

Merz did not mention, however, how that might be done.

So far, Germany has chosen the road to ever more death and destruction, providing Ukraine with plenty of weapons and cash to keep the war going.

Russia, so the mantra goes, “cannot be awarded for aggression.”

And so the world, as the late Pope Fancis posited, is already experiencing a “piecemeal World War III” from Ukraine to the Mideast.

The grim shadow of war was the backdrop for the Oval Office talks.

Astute observers have noted the Russo-Ukraine War is likely to expand further, especially given Merz’s longtime service in the world of finance, where profits famously come before people. Or peace.

The Long War certainly took an unprecedented step in that direction with Ukraine’s “Pearl Harbor Attack.”

Without warning, Kiev bombed Russian airfields protected explicitly by the SALT II Nuclear Treaty obligations.

As a result of Kiev’s action, the Rules of War are different: a new precedent has been set for violating treaties and for the use of drones.

And it’s brought us all closer to a world of war with no borders:

AI-enhanced drones can take their payloads to targets anywhere, anytime, without legal constraints.

We appear to have entered the “Age of No War, No Peace.”

The hellish landcape where war is not declared, but detected. (The India-Pakistan Conflict is perhaps the most salient example.)

It’s a nightmarish prospect that Trump and Merz can end. If they only wanted to.

The Russian people’s frustration with the Long War and its human and material toll has now been mixed with rage at Moscow’s impotence to thwart the attack.

“Operation Spiderweb” appears to have involved several nations over a long period under a hermetic op-sec that Russian intel failed to crack.

To gain insight into how the Russian people and leaders are responding to this, let’s conduct a guided imagery exercise.

Close your eyes.

Scene One: Imagine Canadian operatives in the US wearing red checkered shirts acting like Americans as they spend one and a half years kitting out James Bond trucks to transport hundreds of drones to blow up America’s security infrastructure.

Scene Two: These operatives are driving around your country’s highways, having a grand old time, as they leisurely surveil their targets at three strategic B-52 bases in Alaska, Utah, and Florida. Russia finances the deadly drones. They are made with Iranian parts. The entire operation has the complete foreknowledge, if not outright support, of Russia and its allies.

Scene Three: For days on end, you look on helplessly as every device in the country constantly replays the drone attacks and the blazing bombers you thought kept you safe – the ones Russians solemnly promised never to attack in multiple arms treaties with your top leaders for generations.

Would your rage be satisfied with blistering missile and air attacks on Canada and Iran, or would you want to give as well as you got from Russia itself?

The Terrifying Crossroads We Inhabit.

Will Merz and Trump begin talks to remove us from the Highway of Death?

Will they choose bread, or will they choose bombs?

The stakes are not just high for Ukraine. Or Germany. Or Russia.

The Trump-Merz meeting was about all of us.

About our world and the one our children will inherit.

The World Needs a New Trump

The world doesn’t need another tweet from Donald Trump.

It does need his statesmanship.

And MAGA voters are noticing.

Trump now risks becoming the breed of politician he ridicules a man full of big words, empty results, and endless distractions.

So what’s left?

There’s still one move—one real move—that could flip the global script in his favor:

Persuade German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to halt the transfer of Taurus missiles to Ukraine.

The Strategic German-American Road Map for Peace

Sure, it sounds like a fairy tale: two money men craft an immediate halt to arms deliveries to Ukraine, beginning with Germany and America.

The bold move would be the most significant diplomatic victory for the West in years.

If Europe could de-escalate, maybe Israel could too.

Trump could demonstrate the gravitas necessary to shape a new NATO peace policy, defuse the war in Ukraine, and usher in a new era of strategic balance.

Merz, meanwhile, would benefit enormously. He could show Germany’s neighbors the country is still true to its post-war non-belligerent consensus of “Never Again!”

Merz could emerge from new strategic talks as the Peace Chancellor and Trump as the Peace President.

It’s the stuff that myths and legends are made of.

The fact that there is no Roadmap is a testament to our generation’s cowardice and dissolution.

It is also an unforgivable indictment of every single one of the West’s institutions.

Both leaders could begin staunching the bleeding in Europe.

And in a Europe increasingly skeptical of Washington’s open-ended war posturing, that message would resonate.

It would be a win-win crowned with white doves:

Two Western leaders reframing themselves not as provocateurs but as visionaries.

But there’s another level at play. It’s not Washington or Berlin. It’s in Moscow.

This is about Russia’s perception—and that of the Russian people. Let’s double down on our guided imagery.

The Ghosts of Minsk and Two World Wars

If Germany proceeds with Taurus missile deployment into Ukrainian territory, it will be read in Moscow not just as provocation—but as confirmation of betrayal.

In 2014, the Minsk Accords were intended to bring peace. Behind the scenes, it was another story.

As Angela Merkel later admitted, Minsk was never designed to succeed. It was a tactical maneuver meant to buy time for Ukraine to build up its military and dig defensive lines.

And now, eleven years later, Russia sees history repeating itself—this time, with Taurus cruise missiles capable of targeting its deep interior.

To Russia, the Taurus deployment will appear to be proof that NATO never had any intention of negotiating.

Just like Minsk, it will be seen as a stalling tactic, a cover for escalation, and a signal that the West is preparing for total war.

And let’s be blunt: many in the Russian military are waiting—even hoping—for such a signal.

This is not Russian paranoia. It is memory.

Some twenty-seven million Russians died at German hands from 1939 to 1945.

Eighteen million of them were civilians.

The SALT II Moment

Here’s where Trump could reach back to an earlier, wiser era: the SALT II agreements between the US and the USSR.

Among their many provisions, SALT II prohibited targeting strategic bombers. They were to remain visible, not hidden.

Revisiting this kind of doctrine now could stabilize the chaos.

Trump, as the “deal-maker,” could broker something fresh: a Taurus stand-down from Germany.

It could be met with a mirrored commitment from Russia not to deploy or activate similar systems inside Ukraine.

All sides could agree to a new pledge to respect the rules of engagement for strategic nuclear and WMD assets.

That’s not appeasement. That’s sanity.

It’s leadership rooted in historical memory and realism, not emotion or ideological blindness.

And it might even begin a return to internationally accepted Rules of War.

The Rise of the Gobal Anti-War Right

Here’s a homegrown threat Trump doesn’t yet fully grasp: his base is evolving.

The American Right is not what it was in 2016, 2020, or even 2024.

Today’s conservatives are not just weary of foreign wars—they’re angry.

They’re looking for a leader who knows when to say “no” to escalation—even when it comes from “allies.”

MAGA wants Trump to be the anti-war America Firster he claimed to be:

A man who defends America’s people first, who protects her widows and orphans, her aged and homeless, who remembers the forgotten, and who speaks with the strength of convictions.

The Clock Is Ticking

Trump’s time to reclaim the narrative and the moral high ground is running out.

The old refrains—tariffs, inflation, Joe Biden, “China bad”—are past their shelf dates.

The Doge bewonderment is over.

And the former friend who championed it, Elon Musk, has become Trump’s newest enemy. Critics claim their enmity puts national security at risk.

This political twist comes as Americans grow desperate for direction and leadership as economic and security threats mount.

Trump could turn that around by persuading Merz to press pause on the Taurus deployment.

The de-escalation would finally signal movement on a key presidential promise:

Ending the War in Ukraine.

It would show the world that Trump can lead— that he’s not just talking.

But if he fails? If he blusters while Merz delivers weapons?

Russia has clearly stated Taurus missiles in Ukraine will open Berlin to attack

The opportunity for a new strategic realignment towards peace may not arise again so quickly.

If Trump and Merz fail to beat the Taurus sword to a ploughshare in the weeks ahead, we may all regret it bitterly.