I have negotiated hundreds of negotiations over the years. I learned a great deal in the 70s with various negotiations where I was a mere observer. By the 80s I was now negotiating, at Warner and then when I started to do investments with "turn arounds". I always wanted something as did the other side. By the early 2000s I became a "dream merchant" in that I saw what the other side wanted and managed to align my needs with theirs. Always give and take and always non-confrontational.
In the late 90s when dealing with my Eastern European partners I learned to sense their un-sensed concerns. Russian a different negotiators. I had a Ukrainian General, interesting but not as strong as Russians.
I was at times exposed to the Press and once made a comment that got to my European investors in less than 12 hours, and I was pummeled by saying something that was not well received. Simply I compared Silicon Valley VCs with Zurich banks. It was true but I learned that Zurich banks do not like ever being mentioned, especially in public. I learned, I recovered, and the lesson is never ever speak of your potential partners even making what one thinks of as a truism.
Now this gets to Zelensky. One wonders why he did what he did. Some thoughts:
1. He is just a bumbling idiot. Possible, but unlikely.
2. He was told that this was the way to deal with the President? Very possible. He may have been "advised" that to get what he wanted he should have the Press intervene.
3. He did not expect anything from the President but wanted to raise support from Europeans who saw him standing up to the President. Likely, but the idea most likely came from elsewhere. The problem is that the only strong player in Europe is Poland, the rest have old decaying military and crumbling economies. Just look at the UK, France, Germany.
4. He feared a peace settlement wherein he lost territory and just wants the war to continue with him as head. Possible, but the war is unwinnable.
We can continue but we should return to the question; why did Putin start this whole thing in the first place? Did Putin want to take over Ukraine, did he have bad intelligence, was there an assumption that the Ukrainian President would fold, that the US would not respond and so forth. Did the CIA have a clue? If so what did the White House do?
In a sense this seems to have been a combined Intel failure and Executive failure. But what was it really? Still an open question.
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