Ukraine was already doomed. It is almost a certainty that it will have to give up the fifth of its territory that Russia occupied as part of a brutal war of aggression. Prospects for NATO membership are most likely to be, yet again, kicked into the future indefinitely. It may continue to exist as an independent country, but the promise of Ukraine being a fully fledged member of the liberal democratic West is dimming.
The return of Donald Trump may hasten Ukraine’s doom, but the U.S. president elect will not be the architect of its demise. No, that honour belongs to current President Joe Biden, and his failed approach to the war.
The suggestion from the more hysterical corners of the media, which is to say all of them, that Trump would just allow Russian President Vladimir Putin free rein in Europe, that he would encourage Moscow’s imperial aims, or, even, ally with him in some sort of anti-Western super alliance, are based on half truths, faulty reasoning, and a refusal to listen to the things Trump has actually said.
Post election accounts of what Trump’s win means for Ukraine tend to emphasize the fact he has said he would end the war in 24 hours, or that he would pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into a deal. Less often included is the full context of Trump’s comments last July, which included a threat to Putin.
Here’s the full quote:
“I know Zelensky very well, and I know Putin very well, even better. And I had a good relationship, very good with both of them. I would tell Zelensky: No more. You got to make a deal. I would tell Putin: If you don’t make a deal, we’re going to give them a lot. We’re going to give them more than they ever got, if we have to. I will have the deal done in one day. One day.”
The moral and correct thing to do would be to give Ukraine everything it needs to win the war, and allow it to enter negotiations on its own terms. It would also be in American interests. Containing Russia is necessary to deter aggression in Europe, but also in the arctic, as well as to deter and disrupt its cooperation with Iran and China. This isn’t simply a foreign war in a foreign land. The new authoritarian alliance is a direct threat to the West.
But, as inadequate as Trump’s approach appears to be, dismissing him as a Putin stooge has always been shallow analysis, highlighting the tendency of pundits to interpret and speculate well beyond what the facts actually suggest.
That said, how Trump’s plan would play out in practice is not yet known, as different factions within his team jockey for position. Most options would involve, according to reporting in the Wall Street Journal, “cementing Russia’s seizure of roughly 20 per cent of Ukraine.” One possibility, according to the paper, “would involve Kyiv promising not to join NATO for at least 20 years,” while the Americans continued “to pump Ukraine full of weapons to deter a future Russian attack.”
The plan would further involve a demilitarized zone policed by European troops. “We can do training and other support but the barrel of the gun is going to be European,” a source from Trump’s transition team told the Journal. “We are not sending American men and women to uphold peace in Ukraine. And we are not paying for it. Get the Poles, Germans, British and French to do it.”
Such a plan could provide a durable peace, where Ukraine trades land for security, but runs the risk of repeating the Budapest accord, where it gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees that ultimately failed. Unless the Americans kept the promise to keep Ukraine stocked with weapons (possibly at European expense), another Russian invasion would be all but inevitable.
The arrangement, however, if all sides kept their promises could work, even it is an unsatisfying deal for anyone who was hoping the Ukrainians could push Russia back.
But more importantly, it is hard to see how Kyiv would fare better under the current Biden policy of indefinite stalemate. Since the invasion, which the current U.S. President practically invited Putin to do, the Americans have committed to a bipartisan program of dither and delay, giving Ukraine only ever enough to stay in the fight, but never enough to actually win.
Democrats may point to the obstructionism of House Republicans who have periodically stalled military aid to Ukraine, but the Biden administration habit of withholding the equipment Ukraine needs was well formed by the time the GOP retook the House in the midterms.
On tanks, on anti-aircraft missiles, on fighter jets, on ammunition, the Biden administration repeatedly delayed to avoid risking wider conflict with Russia, relenting only in time to ensure that Moscow never spent too much time on the defensive. The Democrats so-called “as long as it takes” commitment to Ukraine is playing out more like “as long as it takes for Russia to outlast Ukraine.”
As for the prospect of demanding Ukraine postpone its bid to join NATO, it was only last year that Biden refused to commit to a timeline for Ukraine’s membership in the alliance. It was a continuation of a 2008 agreement that supposedly opened the door for Kyiv joining NATO, but in reality ensured it did not join.
Whatever Trump decides, Ukraine’s doom has already been sealed.
National Post