Donald Trump isn’t going about it the way I would. But if it turns out that when a U.S. president says he wants the Ukraine war to end, that war then ends, it would be extremely useful information for global players to have.
This actually would make the world a safer place and strengthen deterrence.
I’m not ready to retreat from my prediction of a year ago. Though an out-of-left-field deal from Mr. Trump seemed possible, your main expectation, under either party’s then-presidential candidate, was half-baked drift unless or until Russia mounts a competent threat to capture Kyiv, and then a panicked, unpredictable response. And Mr. Trump himself miscalculates now if he thinks the U.S. could wash its hands in such a case.
Still, a decent chance exists that Mr. Trump will succeed in imposing a cease-fire.
On the weekend, Lord Peter Mandelson, the British ambassador to the U.S., publicly advised Volodymyr Zelensky to accept U.S. mediation as the “only show in town.”
He might have added: Mr. Trump is a freak of democracy, having concretely promised voters he would end the war. Any traditional politician (say Joe Biden) would have mumbled, kicked the can down the road—anything but lay out an intelligible endgame that voters could judge him by.
Many politicians may suspect Mr. Trump grasped these red-hot tongs out of ignorance and childishness. Maybe so. But his political capital and that of the U.S. is now engaged. Mr. Zelensky and the Europeans would be dolts not to jump in with their own oars and start paddling toward the opportunity that has been created. One outcome isn’t in the cards: Even Mr. Trump can’t redeem a misbegotten and costly error for Mr. Putin in starting the war.
So readers aren’t weighed down by misapplied analogies, Mr. Trump echoes Eisenhower who told South Korea’s Syngman Rhee that if he didn’t sign a cease-fire the U.S would cut off aid.
In pressuring the Zelensky government the last few days, Mr. Trump has gotten tough on military sharing. He has gotten tough on Ukrainian refugees. His government has reportedly reached out to Mr. Zelensky’s domestic political opponents. This isn’t very nice but it’s nicer than how President Kennedy dealt with a difficult ally, approving the coup that led to the murder of South Vietnam’s President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother.
But in treating with Mr. Putin, aren’t we treating with a killer and aggressor? In a period of 30 years, the U.S. managed to cuddle up with two of history’s three biggest mass murderers. At the start of World War II, Stalin was Hitler’s ally, enabling Hitler to overrun Europe. Two years later, FDR was finagling with Stalin over a deal to defer a Polish sellout (Poland was a U.S. ally) until FDR could wrap up the Polish vote in Chicago.
Mao still owns the record for killing his own people. Yet Nixon also saw that South Vietnam was no longer a strategic imperative after the Sino-Soviet split. Even in 1968, a few Nixon voters probably suspected “peace with honor” would become “cut and run.”
But who needs historical analogies? We have plenty to analyze without changing the subject to something somebody did or said in another time under different circumstances.
Last week’s White House blowup between the Trump administration and President Zelensky is an endless revelation. People, including Trump officials, in their seven-day-a-week jobs turn out not to be making decisions for the reasons that outside kibitzers imagine. The Ukraine war isn’t a sporting event. Mr. Trump says its continuation hurts U.S. interests. He wants to reduce America’s costs and risks. Like any U.S. leader he notices that Russia and China are among the few powers that can end the U.S.’s existence. Or as President Obama might put it, the U.S. will always care more about its relations with big players than small players. If Moldova invades Ukraine, that’s a headache for the State Department. A tenuously secure dictator with 5,800 warheads whose regime seeks internal stability by stirring up external conflict? That’s a presidential-level, 24/7 problem in deterrence. Ukraine is where that problem needs managing now.
Mr. Trump would perhaps like to do nothing for Ukraine and ask nothing of Mr. Putin and still get a deal. That’s the path of least resistance given his domestic MAGA constituency and U.S. budget constraints. Happily Ukraine and its European friends are pushing back. A bad deal would also be dangerous for America down the road. One especially useful outcome of Mr. Trump’s hard-hearted gamesmanship is that Europe is taking self-defense seriously.
Advertisement