Trump's Ukraine Decision & The Bigger Picture
President Trump’s latest policy on the Russia-Ukraine war marks a shift in strategy. We break down the progress, challenges, and end-game goals of Trump’s approach.
President Trump made a significant announcement today regarding his policy on the Russia-Ukraine War. The policy has two basic components:
*The U.S. will sell (not give, but sell) weapons to NATO, who can then use them to help Ukraine, which has been besieged by increasingly aggressive drone attacks and bombings over the past several weeks.
*If the war is not settled in 50 days’ time, Trump will impose tariffs of 100 percent on Russia and any countries that supply Russia with military resources. The Senate is currently considering legislation that would authorize (but not require) Trump to go as high as 500 percent on the tariffs.
Let’s start by saying the tariff penalties are likely for show. In the first place, Trump--and Corned Beef Catholicism--supports tariffs under any circumstances. While 100 percent and 500 percent are higher than what I had in mind, it’s not something particularly alarming.
Furthermore, Russia has taken substantial steps over the last quarter-century to inoculate its economy from U.S. sanctions—a reason the array of penalties we’ve hit them with since the war started in 2022 have had zero impact. They don’t care if we sanction them and have already said as much regarding this latest round of potential “penalties.”
It's also quite likely that for any imports that the U.S. really needs—notably oil—Trump will quietly start giving tariff exemptions. The odds he’s willing to tolerate higher energy prices over this war is quite unlikely.
Therefore, let’s focus on the weapons component of the policy. What are we to make of it? To put it in context, I want to break it down thusly…
· Where we should be going—what’s the ideal end-game of U.S. foreign policy with Russia and Europe?
· Where we’ve been—the situation Trump inherited this past January.
· Where we are now—the changes in policy and direction that have taken place since Trump was inaugurated.
· The challenges and roadblocks that stand in the way of Trump’s efforts to get to my proposed ideal end-game—goals I think he more or less shares.
THE GOAL
*As regular readers know, this space interprets America First to mean exactly what it says, and what healthy majorities of voters think it means it says—these problems abroad are not our problems, and not something that American treasure and blood should be spilled for.
*In this specific case, I would further add that I’m not even sold that the Ukrainian government is the good guy. Volodymyr Zelensky’s regime is complicit in money laundering, human trafficking, has canceled elections, imprisoned journalists, and kidnapped old men and teenagers to force them onto the front lines. If you want to know something about his background, just know that in 2016, he took the stage, dropped his pants and played the piano with his manhood. Yet many of the same people who tell you that Trump is too crude for their refined taste, will hold this buffoon up as the bulwark of democracy.
*You will note that none of the above involves saying anything about Vladimir Putin. Regarding Putin, I’m not sure exactly what to make of him, but I’ll say this—the people in the United States who are telling me to hate him are the same ones that foisted the COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates on our own population. Sorry, but those people—and those that docilely went along—don’t get to now tell me that some guy in the Kremlin is really the problem.
So, the average U.S. citizen has no dog in this fight and certainly no security interests at stake. But that doesn’t necessarily put a white hat on Putin. What of the argument that Russia will move from here to conquer all of Europe?
Who knows what the future holds, but after three years of fighting, Russia holds about 20 percent of Ukraine. Moreover, as the map below shows, it’s on the eastern side, the heavily Russian speaking part of the country, a long way off from Europe.
Moving along at their current pace, Russia will get to Europe around 2050, if not later. How about we revisit this subject if it becomes imminent? For now, the “Putin will take over Europe” theory is simply the latest attempt to jam the analysis of every foreign conflict into the World War II template, where somebody must be Hitler.
That said, Russia and Europe eventually coming to blows again isn’t some huge reach, given the history. Wouldn’t it be better if Europe were in position to fight its own battles, instead of being basically a vassal state of the U.S.? The peace is best kept when there are Great Powers that balance each other off. Europe, Russia, and China can all serve that purpose, with the United States safely on the other side of the world.
Therefore, a good end game for U.S. policy would be keeping our nose out of ancient ethnic quarrels while insisting Europe get back on its own two feet, manage its own defense and become a legitimately Great Power again that can assume its place in a balancing coalition. For me, that’s the ideal against which Trump’s policy should be measured.
WHERE WE WERE
Against this ideal, let’s consider the world Trump inherited from Biden, or whoever his actual predecessor was…
The United States and NATO refused to allow Ukraine to sign a peace agreement in Istanbul in March 2022 (less than a month after the war had started) which would have guaranteed Ukraine’s neutrality and security. This was a deal Zelensky and Putin had both agreed to.
The United States refused diplomacy at all, declining to even talk to Putin. In this, the U.S. followed the path the Soviet Union once took with Ronald Reagan during the early years of his presidency. It was this refusal that prompted Reagan to make his famous 1983 speech calling the USSR, “an Evil Empire.” For some reason, we decided that was worthy of imitation four decades later.
American leadership in both parties openly talked about “regime change” in Russia and the need to overthrow Putin—an outcome that would have almost certainly pushed Russia to the wall, with nothing to lose by going nuclear in a tight spot (something we now know that U.S. intelligence estimated as a 50/50 possibility).
In less extreme, but still unrealistic, moments, the U.S. said the goal of the war was to drive Russia out of the territories they were occupying, something that would have required a substantial American commitment.
That’s a long way from what I’d define as the ideal outcome. You might even say it was the polar opposite. It was this landscape that Donald Trump surveyed as he took the oath on January 20.
WHAT HAS HAPPENED
Over the nearly six months that Trump has been in office, the following changes have been made:
First and foremost, we’re talking with Russia again. Even amidst the current frustrations, Trump and Putin are in direct contact. Secretary of State Marco Rubio received a peace proposal from the Kremlin as recently as Sunday. There are obviously significant tensions still in place, but the possibility of a misunderstanding leading to the use of nuclear weapons—something that nearly happened during the period of Soviet silence in the early Reagan years and in the Cuban Missile Crisis—is being taken off the table.
Trump has forced Ukraine and NATO to accept reality—that any peace agreement will not involve Ukraine getting its territory back. That opportunity was lost when we refused peace in March 2022. There’s a price to be paid for hubris and defeat. Trump has acknowledged it. We aren’t expelling Russia from the eastern provinces of Ukraine.
Trump has also defused some of the tensions by acknowledging Russia’s longstanding security grievances. We’ve covered them extensively here, but they start with the fact that in 1990, President George Bush Senior and Secretary of State James Baker agreed that NATO would “not expand one inch to the east.” Instead, we expanded it about a thousand miles. Russian officials themselves have acknowledged publicly that Trump is the only U.S. president willing to talk about these root causes of the unnecessary post-Cold War strife between our countries.
Trump has demanded that Europe start contributing to its own defense. At the recent NATO summit, he secured commitments from the member nations to increase their own defense spending. And even the current weapons package to Ukraine will have to be paid for, so we’re no longer just giving it away.
In a use of language that’s subtle, but important, Trump is now talking about the U.S. and NATO as though they were different entities—by saying NATO will pay us for the weapons. For decades, the United States and NATO have been referred to interchangeably. By starting to draw distinctions, Trump is starting to pave the way for a world where NATO can be European run—hopefully fulfilling the goal of the Continent defending itself. And the U.S. can finally come home.
I think it’s important to consider this context, because for a lot of people who share my ultimate goals and measuring stick outlined above, there’s discouragement over Trump’s new policy announcement. I’ve even heard the words “it’s no different than Biden.”
But there’s a big difference between saying that a policy isn’t exactly what I would have done and saying that it takes us back to the terrible mess Trump inherited. There has been a sea change regarding our approach to Russia and Ukraine over the last six months. It’s not over, but I find it hard to look at this context and not conclude that Trump is making substantial progress. And doing so against very significant headwinds. Which brings us to…
THE CHALLENGES
For Trump to get from the place he started to our ideal end game, here are just a few of the hurdles he has to navigate:
A Washington D.C. environment that obsesses over our ability to intervene abroad, and specifically in Ukraine (due to the ease with which money can be laundered through their notoriously corrupt financial system). This is an obsession that afflicts both parties. It was poking the bear with Ukraine that triggered the first Trump impeachment in 2019. Trump does not have the support of his own party, at least its elected officials, on pulling out of Ukraine entirely.
Directly related to the point above is the obsession with Ukraine in worlds ranging from the Military-Industrial Complex to Wall Street to international centers of diplomacy and finance. All of these actors have their own ways to make the life of a president, and a country, miserable, if they’re not at least accommodated to some degree.
While the American public supports the idea of getting out of Ukraine in theory, I think it’s fair to ask how strong that support will remain if it completely collapses. The media headlines of “This Is Trump’s Afghanistan” are probably pre-written.
To understand public opinion on issues like these, consider what pollster Rich Baris found when polling on the Iran crisis. This poll was about the Middle East, but it doesn’t seem unreasonable to think its findings would apply to Russia-Ukraine.
There are about 25 percent of the people who share my view—that we should just get out. There are about 36 percent more who don’t want military intervention but believe we should use diplomacy and economic power to influence events abroad. Collectively, we make a majority that stands against foreign wars.
But how are those 36 percent going to react to the collapse of Kiev and those aforementioned media headlines? They may start to shift gears and join forces with the “Other 25 percent”, which supports military intervention to impose American will abroad. Without the pressure of public opinion to hold them back, you can expect bipartisan alliances in Congress to pass more aid to Ukraine with veto-proof majorities.
I’m just guessing, but I think avoiding this nightmare scenario is something Trump is trying desperately to avoid.
THE NEED FOR PATIENCE
A friend and subscriber recently asked me why the Russia-Ukraine situation is one I return to so frequently. The nuclear threat involved was reason enough—this has been the most dangerous situation the world has faced since the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the media, even by its own degraded standards, has done the public a terrible disservice in not acknowledging that.
But more than that, I’ve found the Russia-Ukraine War to be highly illuminating of deeper issues on our own domestic politics in the United States. It exposed how thoroughly so many on the political Right still live in the Cold War era. On the political Left, the zeal with which they hung out Ukraine flags showed how fraudulent their anti-war convictions apparently always were.
Today, Russia-Ukraine is becoming a symbol for something else, and it’s the impatience that Trump’s own voting base has for instant results.
Please note, I’m not talking about issues like Iran, where some of us sharply disagreed with the president on what constitutes a grave and imminent threat to our national security. I’m not talking about the Epstein files, where the president is just completely floundering. That’s just simple disagreement. I’m talking about impatience in achieving goals that the president is clearly working towards.
If you share the worldview of this space, you probably would—at least more or less—agree that Trump has to achieve the following:
Reset the security architecture of the Western world so that the United States is no longer the go-to policeman every time something goes wrong.
Reset the economic architecture under which we operate so our jobs don’t get shipped overseas.
These are highly consequential shifts, far beyond mere policy changes. They represent a shift into an entirely new epoch of history. Wars have been fought over change far less dramatic and we’re asking Trump to do it peacefully and without any major disruptions. And given the impatience that’s starting to boil over, we’re apparently also asking him to do it in less than six months.
So, given all that, let’s conclude where we began and consider Trump’s decision on Russia-Ukraine and selling weapons. It’s not where I want to be. But it’s a lot better than where we started. Given the circumstances, and the need for Europe to rehabilitate itself, maybe it’s even change being done at the right pace.
As much as I’d just like to see a headline that peace has been achieved and celebrate, maybe this is [policy good enough for today. Let’s all just breathe. And say a Hail Mary (or more) for the president because the job that we asked him to do won’t be achievable by man alone.
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