Salvē, listener!
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Germanicus and I spend most of our time talking about the 21st century. Occasionally, as we will today, we address some aspect of our century.
We're also going to speak of the 4th century A.D., which is arguably the last successful century of the Roman Empire.
Last week, Germanicus and I were able to speak (in our unusual fashion) from the 1st century A.D. about the 21st century A.D., and we were on the eve of a promised phone call between President Trump and the president of the Russian Federation, Mr. Putin.
Well, that phone call did go forward. We were told by the readouts in both camps that it lasted two hours, that it was generally jovial, and that it involved talk about investment in Russia, post-Ukraine war. There was no resolution about the conflict, and afterwards Mr. Trump said, Europe, this is your problem. You settle it, speaking of course to London, to Paris, to Berlin, to Rome, to other capitals of the European Union and NATO.
That was the last Mr. Trump had to say about it so far. Where it is a week later, new things could come up. But we've got headlines out of Europe. Germanicus has been very confident in his measure of the Ukrainian-Russian war for some months (or rather, years) and there's no reason to change on the basis of these headlines.
Reuters: “Russia launches wars largest air attack on Ukraine, kills at least 12 people.” And then: “Russia and Ukraine swap 307 soldiers on second day of POW exchange.” And then: “German minister. More sanctions against Russia needed.” And then: “Ex-army chief of Ukraine Army says Ukraine cannot hope for a miracle to restore ‘91 borders.” And then finally, well, we're looking at right now is a large, large plume of smoke rising from Kyiv after the Russian attack.
So, Kyiv is burning according to the Reuters report in these last hours. I turn to Germanicus, because the inability of Europe to settle this very much reminds us of the troubles of the 20th century, which we thought at the end of the 20th century we had escaped, at least in terms of ideology.
Russia was capitalist, East Europe was capitalist. Yes, there were exceptions. But at that point it looked very much like the People's Republic of China was moving in a capitalist fashion. Therefore, we presumed that the markets would settle it.
But here we are, watching Europe one more time, unable to answer its own troubles, its own problems that it has known about for at least two or three hundred years, which is the factionalism around the Russian Empire.
So right now, how do you measure a week after that phone call where Mr. Trump said, You guys do it? How do you measure the Ukraine conflict?
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