Trump upends US policy on Ukraine

Donald Trump was right: Ukraine started the war. Again, Trump was right; if he had been in office, the Ukraine war would not have happened.

As the Ukraine war enters the fourth year in two days, International relations are witnessing a dramatic shakeup, with the United States sending a clear message to Europe that its security policy need not be compatible with that of Europe.

Trump has upended the US support for Ukraine and is doubling down on its criticism of European powers which the US has considered trusted allies since the end of World War II. As NATO members, they fought the US wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and several other theatres. Now Trump thinks they are a scum. 

European powers were apprehensive about a Trump presidency because of his closer ties to Russia, whom they wanted to contain.

Trump vowed to end the Ukraine-Russia war and he made it clear during the election campaign. The Europeans thought whatever the Trump formula to end the war would not come at the cost of Ukraine’s and Europe’s security. But their worst fears were confirmed when Trump this week pacified Russia and blamed Ukraine’s comedian-turned-President Volodymyr Zelensky for starting the war. 

Trump called Zelensky a dictator for ruling his country without an election. But Zelensky should be called a political dimwit. For he chose to ignore a basic tenet in security studies: that no major power will tolerate any challenge to its security. Zelensky favoured NATO’s eastward expansion, which Russia regarded as a red line. He failed to learn from what happened to Georgia when, in 2008, it sought NATO membership. Russia launched a war on Georgia and recognised Georgia’s two autonomous provinces, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as independent states.

Zelensky also failed to heed Russia’s advice of neutrality, but, on US bidding, the Ukrainian president dared to challenge the mighty Russia, which was smarting over the US-led regime-change revolution that ousted democratically elected pro-Russian Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych and installed a pro-US government in 2014. At the beginning of the war in 2022, Zelensky missed the opportunity to reach a peace deal with Russia. Instead, he latched onto US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who persuaded him to continue fighting the war, pledging continuous military support and economic aid.

Zelensky’s war was big-time corruption. The US military-industrial racketeers made billions of dollars in profit. The war made Ukrainian ministers and generals super rich, while people died in their tens of thousands. Trump on Wednesday accused Zelensky of wanting to “keep the gravy train” of foreign aid running.

Biden and his European allies used Zelensky to bring Russia to its knees. But Russia survived and bade its time until its man, Trump, was returned to the White House.

Russia apparently has a hold on Trump. Stories abound as to what it is. One such story points to a Moscow hotel Trump orgy, which the Russian intelligence secretly taped.

Last week, Trump sent his US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth on a European tour to explain the new administration’s policies.

Speaking at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, Hegseth told the European leaders that the Ukraine should not expect Russia to hand over the territory lost and ruled out Ukraine’s membership in NATO. Those who heard his speech were dumbstruck. There was a sense of abandonment.

Then came a bigger salvo. Trump announced he had a 90-minute phone call with Russian president Vladimir Putin. This was followed by an announcement that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio would meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Saudi Arabia for talks aimed at ending the Ukraine war. There was no invitation to Zelensky. There will be no more US military assistance to Ukraine if it does not fall in line with Trump policies.

The Biden administration sent more than US$ 100 billion to Ukraine in military and economic aid, while Germany, Britain, France, and other European nations pumped US$ 50 billion into Ukraine’s war machine.

Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine was to meet Zelensky yesterday, probably to deliver a tough message. Zelensky better move fast, or he is not going to have a country left, Trump wrote in his Truth Social post, ahead of the meeting.

It appears that Ukraine does not have the US back. It now depends on European powers. It is a big challenge for Europe to match US military assistance without facing economic strains at home.
Then came another blow to Europe from US Vice President J.D. Vance.

In a fiery speech at the Munich Security Conference, Vance lectured the European leaders on what they should and should not do. He told them that the biggest security threat facing Europe was not Russia or China, but the “threat from within.” He was referring to Europe’s liberal values.

Shocking as it may seem, the European nations scrambled to convene an emergency meeting in Paris, while a distraught Zelensky accused Trump of living in a “disinformation space,” drawing a lengthy retort from the US President.

Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform, “I love Ukraine, but Zelensky has done a terrible job, his country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died,” he wrote, and added Russia and the US are “successfully negotiating an end” to the war while Europe has “failed to bring peace.”

The Trump-Zelensky war of words aggravated with Trump expressing willingness to take over Ukraine’s mineral ores, while Zelensky, in response, said his country was not for sale.

Although slammed as an unpredictable president who is suffering from narcissistic personality disorder, Trump is on the right path when it comes to the Russia-Ukraine war. With regard to the Gaza and Palestinian issue, he is perceived to be as malicious as his predecessor, Biden.

Trump, like John F. Kennedy, is challenging the system. No wonder he was the target of two assassination attempts during the campaign for his second White House term. Kennedy, however, was not as fortunate as Trump in surviving the assassination attempt in Dallas, Texas.

At the time of his death, Kennedy had set a deadline for Israel to come clean with its nuclear bomb programme and was taking measures to declare American Zionist Council as an agent of Israel. 

On January 23, President Trump signed an executive order, directing the full and complete release of all records related to the assassination of President Kennedy within 15 days. The deadline has now passed, but the much-awaited release of the files is stuck in the office of the Director of National Intelligence. Many believe that only heavily redacted papers will be released, preventing researchers from solving the puzzle as to who played what role in the assassination.

If the files are released with redactions, it will only make the US a competitor to the most secretive state title, together with China, Russia, and North Korea. It may also add credence to the claims that the ‘system’ is bigger than the president. It is the system that decides the presidential parameters.

However, Trump has ventured to rewrite the rules of the system; he wants more presidential authority. He sees Europe as a security and economic burden while turning his focus on containing China.