Russia-Ukraine war: Can Trump finally end it?

Biden’s recent decision to authorise the use of long-range missiles against Russian territory raises questions about Nato’s larger goals

One of the first crucial testing grounds of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy will probably be the US relationship with Europe, and in particular, the new administration’s position on the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.

During his campaign, Trump claimed he could end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours. It is curious, then, that in his first call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after winning the November election, he was assisted by Elon Musk, better known now as the “First Buddy”.

Due to his strong business interests in Tesla manufacturing, it would have been understandable if Musk had been involved in Trump’s first discussions with China, but not the Russia-Ukraine file; Trump never stops surprising.

The incoming president has not, however, provided specific details as to how he would accomplish the complex task of ending the war in Ukraine and, as far as is known, no details emerged from the trilateral meeting arranged by French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukraine President Vladimir Zelensky, aside the solemn re-opening of Notre-Dame Cathedral.

There have been rumours of an internationally monitored ceasefire plan along the current battleground lines, which, in principle, would seem to accept Russian annexations. But as with every ceasefire agreement (the recent Lebanon example proves it), the devil would be in the details.

Not only would it be unusually difficult to agree on the final track of an eventual ceasefire line in Ukraine, but it is also foreseeable that the mere selection of monitoring nations would be highly controversial, amid a total lack of trust among the parties involved.

This is not even to mention the bigger question mark: why would Russian President Vladimir Putin accept a deal now, when he is apparently winning on the ground, and the incoming US president – who has done nothing to conceal his intentions to throw Ukraine under the bus – is less than two months away from taking office?

Losing ground

Unsurprisingly, among European and Ukrainian leaders, and throughout the US foreign policy and security establishment, there are fears that the new administration in Washington will hand the Ukrainian “hot potato” over to Europe, in order to better focus its own attention on more relevant theatres, such as East Asia (the alleged China threat) and the Middle East (achieving peace in Gaza and Lebanon on Israel’s terms, with a possible further fatal blow inflicted on Iran).

The Europeans, after all, are in Trump’s view unforgivably responsible for not paying enough for their own defence.

Such fears are reinforced by an almost exhausted Ukrainian army, which is in the process of being slowly rolled back from the Kursk region and progressively losing ground in the Donbas.

This is occurring as Europe continues its slow and agonising descent into a dystopian perception of the world around it, and by consequence, into sheer irrelevance, or forced compliance to all the new US administration’s diktats.

It is not helpful, then, that the old continent is also characterised by France’s political and debt crisis, with the Barnier government falling after a negative confidence vote, and evocative words like “Greece” used in the political discourse in relation to France; by the meltdown of Germany’s political coalition leading to early elections next February, amid terrifying data on the country’s crucial automotive sector; and by the foreign policy and defence portfolios of the new European Commission being assigned to two Russophobes from the Baltic states.

After having established a long list of red lines on the use of some of its own weapons systems against Russia because of the inherent risks, and seeing them crossed one after another, the Biden administration recently crossed the last one by authorising the use of its Army Tactical Missile System (Atacms) against Russian territory.

President Joe Biden took this decision in the last weeks of his administration, after the American people had already voted Trump back into the White House. This is quite an unusual move for an exiting president during a transitional period. There are many possible explanations for such a choice, but a couple are most likely.

Firstly, this could be part of a “counter-insurgency” against Trump, aiming to corner him into continuing the war in eastern Europe, thus diverting the incoming president from his war on US institutions. The armchair warriors who are part of what Trump’s supporters call the “deep state” may even welcome an overreaction from Putin (a mini-nuclear strike, or reprisals beyond Ukraine’s western border?) to escalate and lock in the conflict for years to come, irrespective of Trump’s wishes.

Secondly, it might have instead been agreed with Trump – who has remained curiously silent on Biden’s apparently reckless move – to give him better leverage ahead of possible forthcoming negotiations with Putin.

Neocon warmongers

There is not enough evidence yet to tip the scales in favour of one hypothesis or another. But if the composition of Trump’s foreign policy team is an index of what may come next, the markers are all highly concerning – because, with the notable exception of Tulsi Gabbard as his pick for director of national intelligence, Trump is stacking his team with declared neocon warmongers.

Trump’s real challenge in executing his foreign policy, in Ukraine and elsewhere, will hinge on whether he can finally dismantle decades of groupthink-shaped foreign policy decisions, built upon on the US systematically projecting its own mindset onto its foes by assuming they would play according to Washington’s script.

The damage that this approach has caused to the interests of the US and its unfortunate allies in recent decades will never be sufficiently appreciated.

In the case of Russia, the Atacms move could be a textbook case of mistakenly assuming that this added pressure will coerce Putin into caving in to some western demands, or push him towards a reckless reaction similarly functional to the western narrative.

Putin, who is not new to this type of game, has thus far not taken the bait. Instead, he has shown that he possesses further tools, short of the mini-nuclear strike imagined by some western planners, to deal with what in Moscow’s perception are stupid and dangerous western provocations. For the first time, Russia used a hypersonic medium-range missile against a facility in Ukraine, showing that it can accomplish devastating, targeted destruction without risking significant escalation.

If Nato had counted on a cornered Putin, it would do well to reconsider its options. In other words, as far as the Ukrainian file is concerned, the ball seems to be back in the West’s court.

As a final cherry on the cake, it should not be forgotten that, notwithstanding their huge military budgets, most Nato members have not yet grasped or developed hypersonic missile technology. Unsurprisingly, the incoming US administration might also be preparing a major audit of how the Pentagon has spent – or wasted – trillions of dollars in weapons procurement in recent decades.

It is probably time that everyone finally understands – and the hope is that Trump gets this notion, and awakens European sleepwalkers too – that the war in Ukraine will either be won by Russia, or lost by everybody.

Never has a quick and realistic negotiated solution been so direly needed, although – at the same time – it is highly uncertain if and how much the Syrian debacle will affect Vladimir Putin’s calculus and Donald Trump’s negotiating approach.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/russia-ukraine-war-trump-finally-end-it