Is It Time for Trump to Lose Patience with Putin and Rewrite America's Russia Policy?

2:20 AM Thursday.

Has the time come for President Trump to realize that Russia has gotten much too big for its britches? Perhaps, instead of rewarding Russia with territorial gains in Ukraine, Trump needs to start talking about the division, demilitarization and denuclearization of Russia under a final settlement. Perhaps Siberia should be developed independently of the truncated and chastened European Russia that remains at the end of the day. Russia is not an economic superpower. Its economy is about the same size as Japan's. The EU is 9.6 times larger than Russia economically. Russia is behaving like a pretentious nuclear bully. Has the time come for Trump to decide that the only way forward is a total Russian loss of territory in both Ukraine and Asia?

Maybe Trump should be proposing full Russian withdrawal from Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine's neutrality. Everyone on the planet should also expect Russia to pay reparations to Ukraine for damages. Both a loss of Russian territory in Asia and total Russian denuclearization are not too much to expect, either. Russian bluster in defiance of the UN Charter has gotten so extreme it simply cannot be tolerated. America and NATO are far from perfect. Biden definitely screwed up. So did the EU and Obama in 2014. But what Russia is doing is completely beyond the pale. It is starting to look like time for Trump to put his foot down and liberate both Ukraine and Siberia. The world cannot afford to endure Russia's continued flagrant aggression. There is too much else that needs to be done on the way to 2030 and 2050.

What do NATO and the UN General Assembly think of that? What makes Russia a "superpower" other than reprehensible nuclear bullying? Is it time to deflate Russia's ego back into the realm of reality?

End 3:04 AM.