President Donald Trump rightly seeks a negotiated peace that ends Russia’s war in Ukraine. Trump can secure this peace if he compels Russia to accept a European peacekeeping deployment that would preserve long-term peace. Trump is also right to demand greater support for European security from European nations.
But how does it help “Make America Great Again” by joining a who’s who of corrupt military juntas and dictatorships in order to excuse a brutal invasion of a sovereign democratic nation? That’s exactly what Trump did by directing his United Nations diplomats to vote on Monday against a U.N. resolution condemning Russia for its Feb. 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine. How does this assert America’s keystone virtue and its status as history’s greatest force for human freedom?
The answer is that this action does nothing to make America great again. Instead, the United States appears delusional about standing for U.S. interests in preserving democratic peace and security around the world. It also appears utterly submissive to Russia.
The U.S. didn’t simply fail to join 93 countries, including every major U.S. ally except for Israel, in voting to condemn Russia. The U.S. actually voted against the resolution, preferring to sidestep the obviously preferable, if still flawed, option of abstaining. Why?
Don’t tell me it’s because that vote was necessary to keep Russia engaged in diplomacy toward ending the war in Ukraine. That’s an absurd argument. If Russia cuts a deal to secure peace, it will be because Russia views that deal either as manifestly beneficial to its interests or necessary to prevent even deeper harm to its interests. In that sense, however, this vote shows that Trump’s sense of Vladimir Putin is deluded. The president evidently thinks this vote will earn him Putin’s gratitude and favor, and thus his greater sincerity to negotiate in good faith.
The opposite is true. Trump would understand this if he had read the history of the Ukraine war, even cursorily studied Russian and European history, or considered Putin’s modus operandi and his views toward the U.S. The reality is that Putin hates the U.S. because he laments the Soviet Union’s defeat in the Cold War. He hates the U.S.’s dominance of international affairs in a manner that has, until now, broadly obstructed Putin’s imperialist ambitions. And Putin’s ambitions in Ukraine are not about Russian security. Putin’s own words prove that they are about the dream of a greater Russian imperium.
Trump needs to reconsider who he is dealing with.
After all, so unrestrained is Putin’s anti-Americanism that he cannot resist insulting the machismo even of the American president who has shown the most respect to him. Recall how, at the two leaders’ Helsinki summit in 2018, Putin saw Trump state his trust in the former KGB officer over the reporting of the U.S. intelligence community. Putin gifted Trump a soccer ball, a very Shakespearean message that the Russian leader saw his interlocutor as a foolish pretender (unlike Shakespeare’s Henry V, however, Trump simply grinned inanely at the insult).
Making matters worse, Trump used a social media post on Monday to pledge that “Major Economic Development transactions” between Russia and the U.S. were underway. He further emphasized this message, and not the harder choices necessary for a just peace, in a later press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron.
The president’s message: invade democracies and cause the largest, bloodiest war in Europe since 1945, and you’ll be rewarded. Seeing, however, as Russia’s only exports of value are mercenaries and energy supplies, it is unclear what beneficial transactions Trump thinks he can secure even in the event of a detente with Russia. American corporations will be hesitant to invest in Russia, for example, recognizing the extreme corruption and personal risk that comes with engagement in the country. And sanctions relief on the Russian energy industry will benefit Russian exporters at the expense of their American competitors. Will this make America Great Again?
THE CHALLENGE AND NECESSITY OF PEACEKEEPING TROOPS FOR UKRAINE
Trump has done himself and his otherwise honorable cause of peace no favors here. An American president should never defend a country that attacked a sovereign democracy for the simple reason that it wanted that country as its own. Imagine FDR defending Germany after its invasion of Poland.
Trump has scared excellent U.S. allies such as Estonia and partners such as Taiwan, who fear they may one day share Ukraine’s fate. At the same time, he has undermined decades of American moral leadership in standing against those who would see the freedom of others stolen.