Donald Trump and his options to end Russia-Ukraine war – Firstpost
One of the biggest challenges confronting the theatre of the Russia-Ukraine War is how things will unfold after Donald Trump becomes the President of the United States on January 20. Will he end the war, or was Trump’s claim to end the war instantly just a bluster and rhetoric devoid of any serious thinking? The entire world is sitting on an edge over what course Trump would take on major issues confronting the world. If the days preceding his ascension as the President are any indication. In that case, it will be one of the most happening presidencies for the US after the Second World War, and it could reshape America’s relationship with the world and vice versa.
President Trump: Representative of US’ hubris?
More than what President-elect Trump would like to do, it is essential to ascertain what the Ukrainians want. As for Trump, he does not have an inkling of how the war started, what implications it could have for European Security or even democracy and the European values much cherished by the Europeans and the recent converts to the European cause, the Ukrainians led by Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump appears to be merely interested in the economic implications of the war on the US economy. So far, it is estimated that the US committed $175 billion for Ukraine’s security and other financial requirements since the start of the war in 2022. Europe seems to be sleepwalking to a disaster that probably awaits after Trump comes to power, and it might make it more insecure, forcing them to look for alternatives to the security structure apart from the one offered by NATO. The umbilical cord, which connects Europe’s security with transatlantic security, is under severe stress. Russia-Ukraine war makes them understand the signs of things to come, real or perceived, if not with complete clairvoyance.
President Putin has not budged from the position and intention with which he led his country to the war, i.e. ‘denazification’, guarantees from the US and the West that Ukraine does not join NATO, Ukraine giving up the claim over the territory that Russia has already captured among many other things that he has on his wish list before concluding to a peace deal, if any, with Ukraine.
Conditions on the battlefield favour Russia, the aggressor state. The slow and steady Russian land aggression has been on the rise, with lots of territory captured by the Russian military during its offensive. The apparent demand for ending the conflict would be a ceasefire based on military frontiers controlled by ground troops of both forces, in which Ukraine would be a loser. Any quick deal would be detrimental to Ukraine’s demand for restoring the post-Soviet borders of Ukraine, which implies getting back Crimea, which it lost in 2014, besides the territory it has lost in the ongoing battles.
The Trump Card
What issues will likely be discussed during the much-talked Trump-Putin meeting, which will likely happen in the early days of Trump’s presidency? The opinion seems sharply divided on what that would likely be. Trump has repeatedly made statements that appear sympathetic to Putin’s position. Speaking on Trump’s call to end the war, Putin said Trump appears “sincere” to end the war.
Putin has also said, “We are ready to look at any proposals for peace negotiations based on the realities on the ground. We won’t accept anything else”. Needless to say, what the ‘realities on the ground’ are. Trump is also praiseworthy of President Putin; in an interview with Bloomberg, editor-in-chief John Micklethwait asked Trump in 2024, “Can you say yes or no whether you have talked to Vladimir Putin since you stopped being president?” “But I will tell you that if I did, it’s a smart thing. If I’m friendly with people, if I can have a relationship with people, that’s a good thing and not a bad thing in terms of a country,” Trump replied. Later, he added that “Russia has never had a president that they respect so much.” Leaving anyone to wonder about the opinion that Trump has of President Putin.
Given the ground realities, Trump has very little room to manoeuvre. Both Russia and Ukraine have taken maximalist positions. Ukraine wants its post-Soviet borders to be restored. Russia does not want to vacate the territory it has annexed, including Crimea, which Russia reintegrated as its territory in 2014. Trump’s former Chief of Staff of the National Security Council and Trump’s representative designate in Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellog, has come out with a plan to freeze the battle lines along the lines of control controlled by Russian and Ukrainian forces and force them to the negotiating table.
Under the proposed plan, Ukrainians will be offered more arms and support if they start talks with Moscow. At the same time, Americans will warn Moscow that if they don’t begin negotiations, the military support to Kyiv will be increased. If this happens, this would also entail that Kyiv’s NATO membership will be off the table, conceding to Putin’s one of the biggest pre-conditions. The catch is that Trump has not endorsed this and has not explicitly dismissed it.
Ukraine’s Take
This formula is in contrast to many other plans floated by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, one of which moots that Ukrainian and American soldiers swap their places in defence of Ukraine and Europe. Zelensky has also suggested grabbing the opportunity for Trump to become President by having a transactional relationship and offering the extraction of Ukrainian mineral resources to American companies and involving them in reconstructing post-war Ukraine. It also includes checking Russia through a non-nuclear strategic deterrent package deployed on Ukrainian soil. Above all, it wants to be ‘invited’ to join NATO.
As the world knows about Trump’s presidency in its first term, his idea of peace is ‘peace through strength’, and with that logic, Putin stands to gain. Putin’s Russia has the ‘size, salience and strength’ and military patience to achieve these objectives. Russia has used its strategic patience to turn the tide in its favour against the Biden administration’s aim of a strategic defeat of Russia by weakening its economy through sanctions, stopping exports of Russia’s enormous fossil fuel resources to Europe and eventually making it a second rate power which at the moment, has failed.
Dr Amitabh Singh teaches at the School of International Studies, JNU, New Delhi. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.
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