Beyond the Lines | Never a dull day: Trump and the chance of peace – Firstpost
As Donald Trump begins office in his second coming, it surprises no one that the presidency arrived ahead of the president. Trump laid out his plans in the weeks preceding the inauguration of his term as President. However, more amusingly, just when many people thought Trump would continue in the same vein as his earlier tenure, he found a new gear. In fact, he unleashed the kind of conversations people were unprepared for.
In January, at the start of every year, Xi Jinping’s speech has a mention about Taiwan, in which he indicates its growing embrace with each successive year, into China’s aspirational orbit. This year, Xi’s incremental assertions about China’s expansionist plans faded before the trumpeting of the President elect’s plans to annex Canada and Greenland and seize the Panama Canal by overturning an existing US Panama Treaty. Suddenly, we are talking about Trump, not Taiwan.
Typically, Xi Jinping’s speech is dissected in terms of the degree of change in his expansionist plans on Taiwan. China has pursued a route of making incremental additions to their plans and continues to keep the world on tenterhooks about its plans of execution. American politicians such as Nancy Pelosi occasionally have stirred a hornet’s nest by taking a ride to Taiwan. There are reams of print outpourings each year and frequent diplomatic manoeuvres induced each season to explore China’s possible belligerent routes towards fulfilling its revanchist claims on Taiwan. The western world has been consumed by the conversation on China.
With one fell stroke, Trump has turned the conversation on its head, bringing into question the larger expansionist tendencies of autocratic leaders. If Xi and China feel its right to annex Taiwan, if Russia has claims on Ukraine, it may not be entirely incorrect for the US to declare its claims on Greenland or the Panama Canal. Or even Canada, goes the logic.
Let’s take the example of Greenland. During World War II, the US invoked the Monroe Doctrine to occupy Greenland and prevent invasion by Hitler’s Germany. For over 600 years, Greenland has been part of Denmark but is self-governed and aims to attain complete independence. “We fully recognise that Greenland has its own ambitions. If they materialise, Greenland will become independent, though hardly with an ambition to become a federal state in the United States,” Danish foreign minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen asserted.
Knives were swiftly brought out in response to Trump’s claims. However, closer evaluation indicates that Trump’s claims are likely to have the opposite effect. For years, Greenland has been awaiting its independence. Marc Jacobsen of the Royal Danish Defence College believes that Trump is “positioning himself before entering office”. More pertinently, he is setting himself up as a leader who will push and shove meandering, vain political movements towards settlements. In that context, he may have just catapulted onto the table the case for Greenland’s long wait for independence.
His stances are sure to appear brash and he could cause exasperation with an unabashedly vainglorious form, while dealing with sticky issues, but they could throw up positive outcomes to such pressing issues. Issues such as Greenland might not form the core of his policy but it means much for Greenland to be on the international discussion table over autonomy and independence.
What Trump might end up doing is prove his point that politicking, tactless discussions and endless manoeuvring on international relations are futile if the means don’t have an end. The Biden administration, for all its touted diplomatic pedigree, oversaw the breakout of more wars than the last few presidencies. What can we expect in Trump’s world?
Let us briefly examine the two pressing wars and their chances of peace under Trump.
The peace negotiation process in the Middle East was initiated in the previous Trump era. President Joe Biden wanted to continue the Arab-Israel normalisation process begun through the 2020 Abraham Accords. When Biden took over, he was expected to have a sound line on west Asia. Instead, the democrats flattered to deceive. The Biden government lost control over the region and let the war drag down the region with no hope in sight.
The US and Qatar announced a ceasefire recently but Netanyahu and the Hamas will have areas of dissent from within their ranks. Fighting has continued despite the attempts being made to arrive at a ceasefire. Under the peace deal, 33 from over a hundred hostages are to be released over six weeks in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. In a second phase later, more hostages are to be freed, based on the terms of the peace deal. The complexity of the deal is exacerbated when this takes into account the various stakeholders. Israel has gained an advantage in the region with Iran — a major stakeholder — on the back foot with the dismantling of proxies and the Assad regime in Syria. “All the dominoes have been falling,” says James Jeffrey, a former US diplomat and deputy national security advisor.
The Middle East conflict has other stakeholders. One of the prominent ones are the Houthis, who can go unnoticed in the peace process. Yemen plays a key role, given its geographic location on the Red Sea and its access to key trade and sea routes. The Houthis, a terrorist group in Yemen, have regularly posed risks to global supply and trade, besides threatening military bases in Djibouti and Eritrea. Houthis have targeted commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. India too has deployed warships east of the Red Sea to provide security against pirates. With Iran’s support, the Houthis have taken on many governments, including in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the American allies such as UAE and KSA.
Trump’s administration ought to view the Middle East conflict in its entirety and thus aim to resolve the issue in Yemen in order to obtain a lasting peace in the region. It is important to understand the role of the Houthis in the conflict in Gaza and also the disruption to global trade on the Red Sea. The Houthis will continue to snipe at peacemakers in the Middle East, and thus will need to be defeated. A strong, empowered Yemeni government needs to be enabled, which can address the threats from Houthis.
Despite the truce deal likely to be inked between Israel and Hamas, it is the challenge in evolving an enduring peace that will determine the future stability of the region. A comprehensive solution in the region consists of ensuring that the peace deal is a lasting one, which is possible with a defanged Iran and a dismantled Houthi group.
In eastern Europe, the democrats managed to look both manipulative and hapless. Clearly, they did not have an effective diplomatic line with Russia to call a halt to the war as they were not viewed as a neutral party by Russia. Russia and Putin was the invader but the US never looked like playing the role of a peacemaker in the region.
In eastern Europe, the opening advantage for Trump is that he begins the term by being on the same side of Vladimir Putin’s view that Ukraine’s entry into Nato threatens Russia. Thus Ukraine realises it is not likely to have an advantage with Trump at the helm. There isn’t much enthusiasm either among America’s allies France, Italy, Spain, Germany, the UK, Sweden and Denmark. A recent YouGov poll revealed an increased percentage among them preferring a negotiated settlement over a continuing supply of weapons to Ukraine to fight on. The discussion on continued supply of weapons to Ukraine could face stiff opposition in Congress, since its controlled by the Republicans now. In 2023, the aid for Ukraine faced delays because of Republican opposition. A recent Gallup poll indicates that a majority of Republicans feel that the US has already done more than enough on aid and thus want the war to end quickly.
Without continuing American aid, Ukraine would be amenable to come to the negotiating table. To ensure sustained peace, Trump might even consider creating a demilitarised zone between the two countries. However, Trump might still find Putin a difficult candidate to convince on the text of any deal, since the intransigent Russian leader is unlikely to agree to any fine print around peace terms. Getting Putin to end the war is Trump’s biggest challenge, more than the Middle East.
Trump tries hard to convey that traditional ways of resolving existing issues may not be enough. Which simply means that a festering issue cannot be resolved with old, unfeasible tools. He wrote a book on the art of deal-making sometime back and looks to bank on policies and approaches that use deal-making to resolve sticky global issues. While it could work in some areas such as unveiling a ceasefire between warring sides in the Middle East, he will find obstacles in eastern Europe. Trump will also realise that complex global conflicts cannot be fixed through a deal, and even if the warring parties are brought to the peace table, the simmering issues will ensure it’s a broken peace.
In his second innings, Donald Trump is set to adopt a different approach, guided by an entirely distinctive set of advisors. Despite the misgivings on the outcomes, there is no disputing the fact Trump will make an effort to give peace a chance. Between the claims on Canada, Panama Canal and Greenland, the bluster around China and playing peacemaker in Europe and Asia, Donald Trump will set his sights on the tariffs, trade and negotiated business deals — which is where he would prove to be a tougher customer to deal with. We can disagree on several issues Trump wades into. But we can be assured of one thing — the world will go around Donald Trump for the next four years.
The writer is the author of ‘Watershed 1967: India’s Forgotten Victory over China’ and ‘Camouflaged: Forgotten Stories From Battlefields’. His fortnightly column for Firstpost — ‘Beyond the Lines’ — covers military history, strategic issues, international affairs and policy-business challenges. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views. Tweets @iProbal
Post Comment