On January 15, 2025, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter and Russia’s highest level international affairs expert, Prof. Dmitri Trenin, gave lectures at a hybrid public forum in Los Alamos, New Mexico, sponsored by the Los Alamos Study Group. The 2 hour session was titled, “Peace in Ukraine—How Do We Get There?” The Los Alamos Study Group, founded in 1989, is an anti-war think tank and lobbying group of nuclear insiders, working for peace between the U.S. and Russia.
Even for those entirely familiar with the current hour-to-hour fight to defuse the current array marching us to nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia, watching this lecture is highly recommended for 2 reasons: 1) Russia’s Dr. Trenin is highly informed of the mode of thinking in Russia’s policy makers, and 2) Ritter provides an insider’s view—over the recent decades—of the lunacy of current U.S. strategic policy making, and the way in which both sanity and expertise—in all matters Russian—had been systematically expelled from the CIA, and the U.S. departments of State, Defense and all other agencies.
Dr. Trenin established that as long as the U.S. maintains its continuing stated policy of attempting the strategic defeat of Russia, no peace agreement is possible. He stated that the way to peace in Ukraine and eastern Europe is Russia’s victory achieved by its military efforts. The military defeat by the U.S. of the nuclear power Russia is “mission impossible.” We can possibly avert a head-on collision, but the situation will remain dangerous for years to come.
Ritter demanded that the U.S renege on its policy of the strategic defeat of Russia. Russia cannot be strategically defeated. If you pursue it, you force Russia to use nuclear weapons—that’s the end of humanity. Ritter said, “Now is the time for diplomacy.” When asked the question concerning the presumed immediate domestic war hawk attacks on President Trump were he to reach an agreement with President Putin, Ritter said that Trump will have to show absolutely no weakness, fire anyone who obstructs his agreements with Russia, and command the full personal powers of the President.
The final audience question was posed by this author, concerning the role of the peace initiatives of China, Brazil and the Global South, and the Schiller Institute’s proposed “10 Principles for a New International Security and Development Architecture.” Trenin stated that the nations of the World Majority have rejected the anti-Russia crusade and that the China-Brazil proposal demands that the true causes of the conflict must be addressed—this is in agreement with Russia’s view. In the Fall of 2024, Putin was put under immense pressure to use Russia’s nuclear arsenal, faced with the West’s constant escalation. Never has there been a more measured approach than that of Russia, this past Fall. To prevent general war, you cannot take the readiness of Russia’s nuclear weapons out of the equation.
In response to the same question, Ritter said that the proposals of Brazil, China, and South Africa were done in good faith, but that they were flawed in that they assume that “both sides” would negotiate in good faith. Rather, while Russia would make a good faith effort, the West would merely pick the proposals apart to their elimination. Ritter maintained that the duplicity of the West turns these proposals into a cover of further attempts to destroy Russia, and that peace will likely only be achieved at the tip of a Russian bayonet.
