Thursday’s debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, their first showdown in a presidential campaign that hasn’t even reached peak season yet, is sure to include fireworks, angry barbs, and its fair share of passive-aggressive glares. Both men will also have to answer questions about their Ukraine policy.
The 2-1/2-year conflict has cost U.S. taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, a price tag that clearly gets on Trump’s nerves, and is now, in essence, a stalemate consisting of two armies throwing bodies into the meat grinder in the hope of coming out the other side with a few more kilometers under their control.
Ukraine hasn’t retaken strategically significant territory since the fall of 2022. The Russians have their problems, too. With the exception of Avdiivka, which lies in ruins, and a few small settlements along the northern Russia-Ukraine border, their troops are still nowhere near capturing the four provinces — Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk — that Putin annexed in September 2022.
In Washington, the debate on what to do about the war largely revolves around two conventional positions: Stick to the status quo or redouble U.S. support to Ukraine.
Biden is somewhere in between these two poles. He clearly wants Russia to lose — he wouldn’t have campaigned so vociferously for the latest $61 billion Ukraine aid legislation if he didn’t think the stakes were high. But he doesn’t seem to believe that Kyiv can actually win militarily.
Biden’s decision-making throughout is best described as piecemeal, where previous red lines are eventually stepped over months later. Look no further than last month’s decision to allow Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied weapons to hit targets within selected areas of Russia, a policy choice the Biden administration previously thought was too escalatory.
Biden also genuinely seems to think the war in Ukraine is a major inflection point in world history, where the outcome could determine whether the forces of evil triumph over the forces of civilization. This black-and-white view of the world is an effective argument because it’s compelling on an emotional level.
Putin, after all, is the epitome of the bad guy, a man who violated the most sacred tenet of international relations: the sovereignty of state borders. Zelensky, in contrast, is the valiant beacon of light and the dogged underdog seeking to save his people from the Russian menace. It’s a classic good-versus-evil story. The problem: This narrative dumbs down the entire war, disregards the facts, and ignores what is and isn’t possible militarily.
Trump’s take on the war is, shall we say, less detailed. The man sticks with sound bites and rants. We know he isn’t happy with Washington’s policy. If you need evidence, just take a look at one of his rallies earlier in the month, when he appeared to suggest U.S. aid to Ukraine would be over on his watch.
The former president continues to insist he will have the war settled in 24 hours. How he intends to do this, he hasn’t said — likely because it can’t be done. Getting Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table, the first step in what is sure to be a drawn-out and hardly guaranteed diplomatic process, is half the job.
How does Trump intend to do that? All we have are suppositions and anecdotes. Keith Kellogg and Fred Fleitz, two former Trump administration officials, have reportedly handed him a plan that would basically browbeat both Kyiv and Moscow into a discussion. Both sides would get U.S. ultimatums: If Ukraine didn’t join, U.S. aid would be cut off. If Russia didn’t join, U.S. aid to Ukraine would be accelerated. Trump, though, hasn’t said anything concrete himself.
At bottom, Biden and Trump have two different philosophies on how to end the war. Both want it to end, no doubt. The fundamental difference, though, is that Biden seems to believe ideologically that anything short of a peace deal in which Ukraine isn’t the indisputable winner is morally objectionable. Trump appears more interested in ending the war as soon as possible regardless of how a diplomatic settlement might look.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
One is willing to expend more U.S. resources and give the Ukrainians more time in pursuit of peace on their own terms. The other is unwilling to wait another two years and frankly views the entire conflict as a massive distraction.
The people deserve clear answers on both candidates’ Ukraine policy. Biden must give a convincing explanation of why he thinks Ukraine has the capacity to get more of its territory than it possesses. Trump must give an equally convincing explanation of why he thinks Russia or Ukraine would sign up for whatever peace framework he’s still trying to craft.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.