Hitler and Putin tried the path of quick war… lightning fast even. And they failed.
Trump tried the path of quick peace… lightning fast even. And he failed.
All three have a big and broad things in common:
- A self-assurance without any awareness of their own real intellectual capacities, as well as little awareness of their own level of knowledge about the international context, geopolitics and military science.
- A self-assurance without awareness in the real capacities of their own country.
- A false self-assurance about the basic lessons of history and, in particular, historical precedents.
- Contempt for informed opinions and informed professionals.
- Low-grade populism, combined with strident authoritarian impulses which ignore both what can be anticipated and the fact that the unforeseen will come to the game at some point.
More than half a year after he won the elections and almost half a year since he actually started implementing his peace plan “to the minute” on the Ukraine file, Donald Trump has the following picture in front of him (different, unrecognizable from the initial one):
- Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian cities have not only not disappeared, not only have they multiplied, and recently they are breaking record after record day after record in terms of intensity and savagery.
- Vladimir Putin and his officials are making it known in every possible way that peace is not a higher priority for Moscow under Trump than it was in Biden’s time. Indeed, Moscow has made it clear that peace is not and will not be a priority for it if Trump himself does not put his hand to the dissolution of Ukraine and the disintegration of NATO’s architecture in Eastern Europe.
- And, the icing on the cake, the hard core of Ukraine’s allies (the US, Great Britain, France and Germany) gave the green light to Kyiv to hit Russian territory with long-range missiles. A great taboo in Biden’s time has therefore finally been shattered precisely under Trump, and another great taboo, the use of the German Taurus missiles, is likely to go the same way.
In short, the “peace in 24 hours”, promised by Trump, didn’t happen. Peace did not come even in six months. Until we get peace, the road remains as long, complicated and winding under Trump as it was in Biden’s time. And until peace, we are currently witnessing an escalation of fighting, with Russia bombing Ukrainian cities, including the capital, and, according to some informed voices, preparing a full-blown summer offensive.
The record of the “pacifist” Trump is therefore as bad as it can be in the war and – bonus – in its increase in intensity.
Moreover, despite the fairy tales about good and intelligent negotiations, uttered in recent months by the Trump-Witkoff tandem, Moscow today is as impertinent towards Washington as it was before January 20.
Indeed, a special note can even be observed in the behavior of the Russians under Trump, compared to their behavior under Biden: the ease, visibility, boldness, nonchalance and systematic character with which the Kremlin has led the White House by the nose.
The irony of fate is that, in the Russian-Ukrainian case, Trump reached this monumental (and at the same time as personal) failure only after Trump gave the Russians an unprecedented and, as can be seen at least today, without any meaning.
This unprecedented and meaningless gift in the more than three years of war consisted of the infernal pressure put by Trump on Ukraine (and in parallel on its European allies, precisely to streamline the pressure put on Ukraine), with the hope that this way it will obtain the coveted “deal”.
The fruit of this pressure, however, was a mixed one:
- Trump weakened – on the ground and at the discussion table – Ukraine’s position.
- It has led to an additional (unquantified) number of Ukrainian civilian and military casualties.
- He encouraged Putin to dream even more beautifully and to dare even more in terms of violence against Ukraine and in terms of threats to European states and especially to Eastern European states.
- But he strengthened Ukraine’s moral position, externally, as well as the internal and international cohesion around its leader.
- It irreversibly awakened Western Europe and thus stimulated it to get a taste for action.
- It shattered illusions about Donald Trump himself and the new America.
- It has led to the accumulation of a precious treasure trove of knowledge, in Kiev and in friendly capitals on the continent, about Trump’s limits and especially about how the distinguished incoherence in the White House should be addressed.
- Finally, he made it clear to the whole world, from the perspective of future conflicts, how not to proceed when it is necessary to initiate peaceful steps towards the belligerents.
Ignorant, impatient, distrusting, and defiant, Donald Trump today looks like a Shawarma with a bit of everything: he’s the architect of a resounding failure, and the unintentional teacher who, again unintentionally, has put everything out there that must be avoided when it comes to the management of international relations and especially the management of a large-scale war.
After six months with Trump in the White House and as an amateur peacemaker, Russia’s defeat on the front in Ukraine or the kneeling of the Putin regime on the “front” at home are back in force on the chessboard of realistic solutions to the misfortune caused by Russia in Ukraine.
How much precious time has been lost! How many lives that can no longer be brought back have been lost in this way! How vital the vote of every American citizen can be!
