Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Ukraine will invite a far more terrifying nightmare – Stephen Border
Sadly, my efforts over the pond on behalf of the Democrat candidate for President received a resounding rebuff and, as we all now know, former President Trump is on his way back to the White House.
The world will have to live with him for four years, and global reactions have been interesting, to say the least!
There’s a certain school of thought that thinks a period of complete unpredictability might actually be a good thing.
If Trump stands for one thing it is to tear up the rule book and to strike off in new directions without warning and often without any logical progression.
Certainly, his cabinet appointments have caused many pearls to be clutched in Islington and where dinner parties are held the conversation turns to the perceived imminence of horror.
He has promised to end the Russian war on Ukraine on day one of his new term.
I don’t see how this is possible but can imagine him telling President Zelensky that all financial and military aid ends unless he enters talks with President Putin. These talks can only lead in one direction. The permanent transfer of the Donbas to Russia and the permanence of the occupation of Crimea.
Would Ukraine accept these terms? Certainly not but they may be forced into something along those lines.
Putin would lose nothing and be emboldened to turn the tattered remnants of his once vast army in the direction of Moldova and then northwest to the Baltic states.
Donald Trump may well end the war in Ukraine, but he would be greenlighting new wars all along the western Russian border.
Any person with a knowledge of diplomacy or military tactics knows that for any negotiation to succeed there must be gain on both sides and unless the conditions are those of abject and total surrender then each must have something to sell to the people at home.
I just cannot see what Putin could give – only what he could take.
To say that Trump in diplomat mode will be interesting is an understatement and his actions will have real consequences for all of Europe so let us fervently hope that his bull-in-a-China shop approach to negotiation can be reined in and not cause a conflagration that could spread far and western wide.
I appreciate that the most likely outcome of the Russian invasion is a bloody stalemate with the youth of both countries lost for a generation and the lifeblood of a nation poured away for no good reason.
President-elect Trump has also promised what many think to be the utterly impossible – peace between Israel and Palestine. You will have to give him a fair following wind but his highly provocative actions the first time around in moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem will not reassure those elements of Palestinian society who are not in thrall to Hamas, Hezbollah, and their Iranian paymasters.
He has not yet spoken on the subject of Sudan but that can only be a matter of time and again any humanitarian will wish him whatever success is possible in that civil war which is incomprehensible to the outside world and genocidal to the people of that tragic country.
Which brings us to the big one: China.
Forty per cent plus tariffs on all Chinese goods and services entering the USA will immediately spark retaliation and a trade war – as well as seeing vast amounts of Chinese products dumped on us here in the UK.
Maybe a trade war is preferable to a shooting war and the signs are positive with respect to Taiwan but
Chinese strategic advances across the Pacific and along the old Silk Road will surely force a reaction in the White House and that is when we will see if chaos theory works to anyone’s advantage.
It used to be said that power corrupts but what power does is reveal.
We will soon see what the reality of a Trump presidency reveals but I cannot help but recall the boasts of Dominic Cummings who promised creative destruction and demanded that “freaks and weirdos” be drafted into the civil service.
Madness didn’t turn out well then and it may well not do so for president-elect Trump, but he is way too big a player to ignore now and if the special relationship means anything at all then we are going to have to work with him and draw on the bank of shared ideals.
Harold Macmillan said that Britain was to the USA as the Greeks were to the Romans. I wouldn’t be so presumptuous or arrogant in echoing that sentiment, but we can use our diplomatic skills in our mutual interest and for the sake of the world I pray that some of the campaign bombast is just that.
As the old saying goes, politicians campaign in poetry but govern in prose.
Trump may be an old man in a hurry – he is 78 after all – but I cling to the hope that he will act with a little more caution than has been promised so far.
Over to you Nigel Farage!