Sitrep: If Ukraine's not at the table its on the menu, and Putin will take Trump to the cleaners
The "complete amateurs" put forward by Donald Trump to negotiate a peace deal with Vladimir Putin will see the US President taken "to the cleaners", according to a defence anayalst.
Professor Michael Clarke, a former director general of think-tank Rusi, is the resident expert on BFBS Forces News' Sitrep Podcast – which analyses the top defence stories of the week and is available wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaking on the potential negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, Prof Clarke also said Ukraine had to be directly involved, because if was not "at the table, then [it's] on the menu".
It looks like that table will be in Saudi Arabia, with Presidents Trump and Putin are set to meet to discuss the potential end of the conflict.
But Prof Clarke warned it is not just the future of Ukraine that will be up for debate.
"So is the rest of Europe," he said. "We are now all on the menu for this meeting between the two big, really imperialist leaders."
He also said the negotiating team is really important.
Named are Mike Waltz, the national security adviser, Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, John Ratcliffe, the director of the CIA, and Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump's special envoy who was involved in Gaza ceasefire negotiations.
"That's his four-person negotiating team," Prof Clarke said.
"It does look as if he's going to roll over to Putin's demands because these people… are, in international political terms, complete amateurs.
"And to be honest, you know, in negotiating terms, Putin will just take Trump to the cleaners.
"Trump will be lucky to come out of that meeting in his underwear."
But it is just as important who is not on the negotiating team, with one name a glaring admission - Keith Kellogg, Mr Trump's special envoy to Ukraine.
Prof Clarke said Mr Kellogg had what most people would consider to be a "more realistic plan for safeguards for Ukraine and a more balanced approach", with his exclusion showing Mr Trump does not want to be involved in any follow-ups.
It comes after a Nato defence ministers meeting in Brussels, at which the US Secretary of Defence, former Fox and Friends host Pete Hegseth, said EU nations needed to provide the vast majority of the funding for Ukraine.
He also said it was unrealistic for Ukraine to join Nato, which Professor Clarke said had now deprived Ukraine of its largest bargaining chip.
Prof Clarke said this move will embolden the opinion of Sergey Karaganov, an advisor to the Kremlin, that Nato's Article 5 doesn't apply anymore.
This is the collective defence clause of the North Atlantic Treaty that says an armed attack against one or more member states is considered an attack against all members.
"He said 'look, you could hit the Europeans and the US won't react'," Prof Clarke explained.
"Article 5 doesn't apply anymore, not in reality, that's what he's been saying.
"I think as of today a lot of people in Moscow will start to say that because the Americans are detaching themselves from the European side of Nato."
The US demanding European nations increase their spend on Nato is not new, with Prof Clarke agreeing that "it's time to get back to realistic levels of defence spending".
But he said Washington was now "throwing out the baby with the bathwater" and effectively dismantling Nato for the sake of the money involved in defence expenditure.
"We are, in Europe alone, we are 12 times richer than Russia," he pointed out.
And that is without the United States.
"So what do we have to do to make that count in defence terms – to spend our money much more efficiently and in a less protectionist way in order to get what we want.
"We've already left it too late to rearm, but now we need to rearm as best we can with completely new thinking about innovation, new systems and war stocks."
You can listen to Sitrep wherever you get your podcasts, including on the Forces News YouTube channel.
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