A bifurcated tale this week which bounces off the disposition of Tony Abbott. First on budgeting and second on Ukraine.

I like Tony Abbott. He is a traditionalist and a great supporter of Christendom. But I am not sure of the soundness of his political and strategic nous. His post-election budget after winning a resounding victory in 2013 was akin to a political suicide note. He was my local federal member. I wrote to him on June 14, 2014, in part saying:

“My biggest problem is with the prospective changes to the old age pension. Increasing the age of eligibility to 70 years is bad enough (why the heck announce it at this juncture) but the indexation policy [against the CPI rather than against male AWEs] is quite disastrous.”

I went on to explain carefully why, with supporting numbers which a child could understand, ending with:

“You must back out of this quickly…otherwise I fear you will lose the next election.”

Back came the usually back-office fob-off, failing to address any of my substantive points. No doubt group think applied among his staffers. Abbott did add a handwritten sentence some of which I still can’t decipher. But it contained the words, “we must take the pressure off the budget.” Not only in retrospect was this a very short-sighted point to make in view of the splurge in government expenditure to come, but it failed to appreciate the main economic task of a Liberal government which was, and is, to free-up the private sector in order to grow the economy.

The age pension makes up about 2 percent of GDP. Thus, each extra 1 percent in the growth of GDP is half of all pension payments. Grow that extra 1 percent for ten years and pension payments become insignificantly burdensome on the economy. Abbott simply could not see the woods for the trees. I fear that this shortcoming applies to his analysis of Ukraine (The Australian, March 26).

He argues that “the only truly just result,” the expulsion of Russia “from every inch of Ukraine territory” is unlikely to happen. He says this is because allies won’t supply sufficient quantities of sophisticated weapons for fear of nuclear escalation. That is a bodgy premise to begin with. All the weapons in the world are very unlikely to defeat Russia. But let us accept the premise because it effectively means, if the war is to be ended, that Ukraine must give up territory.

How, you might ask, is any of this Trump’s fault? Apparently, he is at fault because, according to Abbott, “craving a deal, any deal,” he looks like conceding territory already lost, and to concede that Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO and that European troops will be barred from Ukrainian land.

We will need to wait and see what any peace agreement looks like. But I am struggling to imagine Russia, which is winning however slowly, giving up territory it has already annexed with the blood of thousands upon thousands of its soldiers, or of allowing troops, whether NATO or European, patrolling up against its long border with Ukraine. The character of any possible peace deal is not something designed by Trump. He simply recognises realpolitik on the battlefield. And because of his realism he has some prospect of brokering a peace, while the jingoists by proxy, many of whom occupy the conservative side of the fence, engage in useless hand flapping.

Abbott goes on to insist that Ukrainian post war must have security guarantees. India might supply peacekeeping troops he proffers. Sounds bizarre, but what do I know? Except, that is, that a battalion or two of peacekeeping Indian troops won’t provide much of a barrier come any Russian blitzkrieg.

What I also think I know is that the only worthwhile security guarantees a nation has lies in its own industrial and military strength and in building commercial partnerships. I reckon Trump thinks that too. Why, because he sees the woods beyond the trees. It seems clear that he wants to build a strong commercial relationship with Ukraine and also to bring Russia in from the economic cold. Strong interconnecting trading relationship among the US, Ukraine, and Russia might possible be the best security guarantee for future peace.

While those gung-ho for Ukraine see the solution as throwing more weapons at Ukraine and, in any parlous truce, using foreign troops, Trump has much bigger picture in his mind of a prosperous trading alliance within which war becomes unthinkable. He is truly a giant among minnows and nincompoops.