Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos.
Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. Last week, President Donald Trump completed his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska. They both gave, as I said earlier, brief statements for the press. No questions.
And then that meeting was met with a storm of criticism from the Left, from senators, congressman, and pundits. They said that he’d given in too much for Putin, Putin had dominated him, Putin was gonna do this to him and that. They kind of forgot the idea that Putin came to the United States soil, not vice versa.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt met with Josef Stalin, called him “Uncle Joe,” the greatest mass murderer in Russian history. President Richard Nixon met with Mao Zedong, who is the greatest mass murderer in all of history and civilization.
But in any case, within, I don’t know, 48 hours, he had arranged for the major heads of state of Europe to fly all the way—without much notice—to meet with him, along with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And they all were on the same page. They were all very complimentary. And they were, basically, sending a message to the world that a million and a half people have been dead, wounded, captured, missing on our European doorstep. And no one has an answer. And yet the Left still was angry about this.
And so, it begs the question, do you have any collective memory? The Ukraine war started when Vladimir Putin invaded the Crimea and Donbas under the presidency of Barack Obama. Remember the hot mic in Seoul, where he said, “Tell Vladimir that if he gives me space for my last election, I’ll be flexible on missile defense”? Do you remember that? He also invaded, as you remember, in President Joe Biden’s tenure. He tried to take Kyiv. He didn’t during Donald Trump’s four years.
So, I don’t know what they want. What does the Left want when they’re so critical of this rapprochement between Europe and the United States, and a collective front against Putin?
What do they want? Do they want more of the Biden policy? Just give them enough to keep fighting and dying with no end in sight? With no plan, either, for strategic victory or for a settlement or a negotiation. Do they have any compassion that—a million more? Do they want another three years of this Stalingrad?
So, they offer no constructive suggestions. No shadow government is saying, “This is what we would do.” This applies beyond, by the way, the Ukrainian war. It applies to illegal immigration, crime, and the tariffs. Just give us a constructive alternative. But instead, they don’t.
There was a point in this European delegation that met with Donald Trump where the president of Finland, Alexander Stubb, made a statement. And it was nonrecognized at the time, but it was very astute.
And he said, “I’m from a very small country. And we have an 800-mile-long border with Russia. And we were invaded by Russia.” He was referring to the Winter War of November 1939 that lasted until 1940. And what he was saying is, “We managed to survive by negotiations and deterrence. A mixture of the two.”
The message he was giving to Zelenskyy and the Europeans was his own country’s story. After Josef Stalin did what Vladimir Putin did and says, “I’m going to take over Finland,” and he invaded, the Finns, who were outnumbered 20-to-1, they put up a heroic defense. They probably inflicted half a million Russian casualties. They fought without parallel for November, December of ’39, January, February. And finally, they were slowly being ground down.
So then, the president of Finland said to Josef Stalin, “I will cut a deal with you. You can take and annex 10% of my country, but that’s it. We will fight you to the death if you try to take any more. We will lose, but we will inflict so much damage that you will be weakened with your partnership with Germany that might not last.”
And so, they did cut a deal.
What was the result? There was an independent Finland. It agreed not to join, in further years, the enemies of Russia and not to be an ally of Russia. It was like Austria or Switzerland. It retained 90% of its territory. Was it appeasing? No. It fought tooth and nail to get that deal. And it stopped Stalin from absorbing all of Finland.
So, President Stubb—who was a close friend of Donald Trump—said to this delegation, “We’ve found a solution.” And what he was really signaling to Mr. Zelenskyy is, if you can give up 10% to 15% of this disputed land that you have with Putin, however unjust it is, however unfair, however tyrannical Putin is, and then pledge to be a neutral country, with help from the West to deter further aggression, you can cut a deal and save your country.
And yet, given those negotiations, the Left was not sympathetic. And so, all I’m asking them is, please give us an alternative strategy. How long do you wanna fight? Who is gonna fight? How many deaths, wounded are you willing to incur to push Vladimir Putin all the way back to where he was prior to the invasion of 2014, when Barack Obama allowed him to come in? Just a question.
Otherwise, I think you should take the advice of Alexander Stubb, the president of Finland, who offers a valuable lesson in how to deal with Russian aggression against a smaller power.
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