Trump’s Peace Skyscrapers

I wrote before about how this whole peace process is Donald selling skyscrapers he doesn’t own. Then a jokey thing about FIFA demanding Donald returns his peace prize because of war breaking out in Thailand and Cambodia. I felt slightly guilty about that because it’s no laughing matter, but he did say he had solved it — apparently Ukraine.

Source: Pensées 123 (Substack podcast, December 2025)

The chances of any peace plan working are zero. Ukraine are masters at ensuring there’s something in any proposal that the Russians will never accept.

Source: Pensées 121 (Substack podcast, November 2025)

Druidey Don’s deployment of the Peace archetype is a borrowing from Russia’s strategy, filtered through a property developer’s instincts. He sells peace the way he sells buildings: with confidence, without ownership, and with no intention of delivery. The “peace process” he presides over is a skyscraper he does not own — a gleaming facade with nothing behind it.

The Orwellian equation operates in full: Trump models desire for peace while pursuing war. He pressures Ukraine to surrender while maintaining military cooperation with Russia. He demands ceasefires while ensuring the conditions for ceasefires cannot be met. Peace = War, enacted through the persona of a dealmaker who has never closed a deal that did not enrich himself at the counterparty’s expense.

The same pattern repeats with Iran. Ceasefires announced, “peace deals” floated, the world trolled into thinking resolution is imminent — while the underlying dynamics of conflict continue to escalate. The Peace archetype is infinitely portable: it works wherever there is a conflict that can be dressed in the language of resolution while the killing continues. See Istanbul Peace Talks for how the same pattern operates as a specific “character” within Russian Disinfolklore.

Ukraine’s dominant strategy — what its leaders are actually doing, aside from what they have to say they are doing — is to ensure there is always something in any proposal that Russia will never accept. Ukraine understands that Russia, like Napoleon, will exhaust itself. The peace skyscraper will never be built. But Ukraine has the capacity to tickle Russia whenever it gets close to believing it has won.

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