A Dream Redux

The radical shift in US policy on the current Ukraine-Russia war has shocked the other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), and its ally Ukraine. The first month of Trump’s second term has delivered a radical American twist. The opening of US-Russia talks on February 18, in Saudi Arabia—intended to secure peace in Ukraine, but conducted without Kyiv’s involvement—and subsequent fraying of US-Ukrainian ties, poses a new crisis for a nation that has grown used to living with existential peril. Top US and Russian officials had their most extensive high-level engagement since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine almost three years ago, meeting for four hours Tuesday before President Donald Trump said that Kyiv was to blame for the conflict. The former US President Joe Biden’s commitment to involving Kyiv in any talks to end the war was embodied by the “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine” motto. That approach appears to have been replaced with Trumpian transnationalism.

Media reports suggest that Trump and his team are pushing hard for Ukraine to make territorial concessions to Russia and accept that some 20 per cent of Ukrainian lands under Russia’s illegal occupation are lost. In addition, Trump demands that Ukraine compensate the United States for past military support by handing over half of its mineral and rare earth resources. A Kyiv-based political analyst has described this development as “the most acute crisis in relations between the US and Ukraine in their entire history.”

The historic US-Russia meeting in Riyadh laid bare the Trump administration’s approach to Moscow. Two sides agreed to normalise diplomatic relations and continue talks aimed at ending Russia’s war, all without Ukraine’s involvement. In the meantime, Trump’s bid to win access to hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of Ukrainian mineral resources further unsettled Kyiv. “We’re going to get our money back,” the president said of the would-be deal, the first draft of which Zelenskyy rejected, declaring, “I can’t sell our state,” reports, ABC News.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was visiting Tehran on Tuesday for talks with Iranian officials. On Thursday (February 27), Russian and US teams held six hours of talks in Turkey to address diplomatic disputes and lay the groundwork for broader talks on ending the Ukraine war. Vladimir Putin said initial contacts with Donald Trump’s new administration had inspired hope, reports Reuters. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s parliament has overwhelmingly approved a resolution affirming the legitimacy of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s stay in office. The 268 parliament members present on Tuesday, February 25, voted unanimously to approve the resolution, The resolution was designed by the parliamentary leadership as a symbolic show of support for Zelenskyy, whose regular term in office ended in May.

Ukraine: Redefining the Geopolitics

In an interesting development, for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, the US voted with the Russians in an attempt to block a draft resolution by Ukraine at the UN that called for a “de-escalation, an early cessation of hostilities and a peaceful resolution” of the war against Ukraine. The resolution was passed with the Europeans and the G7 (minus the Americans) voting in favour of the draft resolution. India abstained along with China, one of Russia’s closest allies since the war broke out.

Countering the pro Ukraine resolution, the Trump administration pushed through a UN security council resolution on the war that included no criticism of Russia. Moscow backed the resolution, which was passed late on Monday (February 24), although European countries abstained, in a sign of a deepening rift with Washington. In a simple three-paragraph motion on the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion, the US took a neutral position on the war and called for a “swift end” to the conflict and “lasting peace”. The Kremlin welcomed a ‘more balanced’ US stance on Ukraine after the UN vote, reports the Guardian.

In the recently held German election, Ukraine has won big. Friedrich Merz — who has vowed to strengthen Germany’s support for Ukraine — will be at the helm of Germany’s next government, while sitting Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has faced criticism for his reluctance to step up aid, will be out of the picture. Merz said on Monday (February 24) that his conservative alliance will seek to form a two-party government with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD). He said he hoped the new coalition will be in place by the third week of April. The victory of Friedrich Merz has inspired the pro Ukraine lobby of the European Union who considers Russia as an unlawful invader of a sovereign state.

The president of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), in a strongly worded statement, issued on Thursday, February 27, said, “Today, we reaffirm our unwavering commitment to supporting Ukraine’s sovereignty, democracy, and European future, and we call on the European Union(EU) to sustain and strengthen its political, economic, humanitarian, and military support.” President Donald Trump’s administration has told allies in the UK and Europe that it wants them to buy American weapons and military equipment in order to maintain the NATO alliance.

Earlier, the French President Emmanuel Macron contradicted the US president’s description of Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “dictator,” saying the Ukrainian leader had been democratically elected, and defended Zelenskyy’s decision not to hold new elections in 2024 in the middle of a war with millions having fled abroad or on active combat duty. Macron accused Russia of bringing Europe to the precipice of a new world war. “The Russians have globalised the war in Ukraine,” Macron said in response to a question asking if Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine could lead to World War III.

Czechoslovakia to Ukraine: the Same Old Story

The pressure that Czechoslovakia experienced, in 1938, from Germany and its supposed allies France and Britain, can be drawn as an analogy to Ukraine—now under pressure from Russia on the battlefield, and the US—both diplomatically and economically.

It may be recalled that after his success in absorbing Austria into Germany proper in March 1938, Adolf Hitler looked at Czechoslovakia, where about three million people in the Sudetenland were of German origin. The Czechoslovaks were relying on military assistance from France, with which they had an alliance. The Soviet Union also had a treaty with Czechoslovakia, indicating willingness to cooperate with France and Great Britain if they decided to come to Czechoslovakia’s defence, but the Soviet Union and its potential services were ignored throughout the crisis. Czechoslovakia was informed by Britain and France that it could either resist Germany alone or submit to the prescribed annexations. The Czechoslovak government chose to submit.

In Munich, on September 30, 1938, Chamberlain, Daladier and Hitler signed an agreement declaring their mutual desire to resolve differences through consultation to assure peace. Both Daladier and Chamberlain returned home to jubilant, welcoming crowds relieved that the threat of war had passed, and Chamberlain told the British public that he had achieved “peace with honour”. But Chamberlain’s policies were discredited the following year, when Hitler annexed the remainder of Czechoslovakia in March and then precipitated World War II by invading Poland. The Second World War started eleven months after Neville Chamberlain thought he had secured “peace in our time.”

Method in Madness

It appears there is a method in the apparent madness of Trump’s recent disruptive policies which have shaken the world

The Trump Administration has already withdrawn from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Paris Climate Agreement — negotiated under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It is now anticipated that the USA might withdraw from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank also. It is reported that the finance chiefs from several leading economies, including the US, China, Japan, India, and Canada, skipped a recent gathering of the Group of 20 nations (G20) in Cape Town held against a backdrop of foreign aid cuts. The two-day meeting was hosted by South Africa after the Trump administration announced plans to cut its USAID arm and Britain slashed its aid budget by 40 per cent to divert funds towards defence spending. Absence of US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at G20 meetings triggered the alarm over Washington’s potential withdrawal from global institutions, reports Reuters.

Niccolò Machiavelli (1517) had argued that sometimes it is “a very wise thing to simulate madness”. Richard Nixon, according to his chief of staff HR Haldeman, apparently arrived at a similar conclusion, saying, “I call it the Madman Theory, I want the North Vietnamese to believe I’ve reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war”. It is believed that the madman theory had shaped the foreign policy of US president Richard Nixon and his administration, who tried to make the leaders of hostile communist bloc countries think he was irrational and volatile so that they would avoid provoking the US in fear of an unpredictable response. Analysts argue that the same political theory is shaping President Donald Trump’s foreign policy.

The three possible reasons behind such a strategy could be to:

• Retain US dollar’s hegemony on global economy: Analysts argue that Trump is trying to divide Russia from China, in an attempt to isolate Beijing, because “the United States sees China as the number one threat to its global dominance. Russian President Vladimir Putin closed the 16th annual BRICS plus summit in October 2024, praising BRICS’ role as a counterbalance to what he called the West’s “perverse methods.” A joint declaration adopted by BRICS member countries has called for the creation of an independent payment system based on national currencies, in response to what they deem “illegal” sanctions damaging the global economy. Trump considers China-led BRICS as a major threat to US hegemony.
• Rebuild America’s dwindling ‘military industrial complex’ (MIC): Media reports indicate that a new military industrial complex is being born, and it could have very different goals and profit-takers than the existing one. Last April, in a move generating scant media attention, the Air Force announced that it had chosen two little-known drone manufacturers — Anduril Industries of Costa Mesa, California, and General Atomics of San Diego — to build prototype versions of its proposed Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), a future unmanned plane intended to accompany piloted aircraft on high-risk combat missions. In winning the CCA contract, Anduril and General Atomics beat out three of the country’s largest and most powerful defence contractors — Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman — posing a severe threat to the continued dominance of the existing military-industrial complex, or MIC.

For decades, a handful of giant firms like those three have garnered the lion’s share of Pentagon arms contracts, producing the same planes, ships, and missiles year after year while generating huge profits for their owners. But an assortment of new firms, born in Silicon Valley or incorporating its disruptive ethos, have begun to challenge the older ones for access to lucrative Pentagon awards. In the process, something ground-breaking is underway: a new MIC is being born, one that potentially will have very different goals and profit-takers than the existing ones.

Over time, the competition for billion-dollar Pentagon contracts has led to a winnowing of the MIC ecosystem, resulting in the dominance of a few major industrial behemoths. In 2024, just five companies — Lockheed Martin (with USD 64.7 billion in defence revenues), RTX (formerly Raytheon, with USD 40.6 billion), Northrop Grumman (USD 35.2 billion), General Dynamics (USD 33.7 billion), and Boeing (USD 32.7 billion) — claimed the vast bulk of Pentagon contracts. Typically, these companies are the lead, or “prime,” contractors for major weapons systems that the Pentagon keeps buying year after year. Lockheed Martin, for example, is the prime contractor for the Air Force’s top-priority F-35 stealth fighter (a plane that has often proved distinctly disappointing in operation).

Over the years, a few non-governmental organisations have tried to persuade lawmakers to resist the MIC’s lobbying efforts and reduce military spending, but without noticeable success. Now, however, a new force — Silicon Valley start-up culture — has entered the fray, and the military-industrial complex equation is suddenly changing dramatically. Elon Musk, Trump’s most trusted and controversial ally, represents this ‘new force’.

•  Re-order the international system in a way that fits his 19th-century view of the world: Stefan Wolff, professor of international security, University of Birmingham, in one of his recent articles in The Conversation, claims, Trump isn’t appeasing Putin on Ukraine but rather re-ordering the international system into 19th century-style spheres of influence. What seems to drive Trump is a more simplistic view of the world in which great powers carve out spheres of influence in which they do not interfere. For Trump, this isn’t really about Ukraine or Europe but about re-ordering the international system in a way that fits his 19th-century view of the world in which the US lives in splendid isolation and virtually unchallenged in the Western hemisphere. In this worldview, Ukraine is the symbol of what was wrong with the old order. Trump’s view is that the US has involved itself into too many different foreign adventures where none of its vital interests were at stake.

According to Wolf, if Trump makes a deal with Xi as well, over Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea and Taiwan, all he would achieve is further retrenchment of the US to the Western hemisphere. This would leave Putin and Xi to pursue their existing deal of a ‘no-limits partnership’ unimpeded by an American-led counterweight. He argues that Ukraine’s future is more in doubt than it has ever been since February 2022. Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping could be on the verge of a negotiated new world order. This is not because of a mistaken belief that Putin can be appeased but rather because great powers, once again, make decisions on the fate of weaker states and without them in the room.

Observation

It appears Donald Trump is obsessed with the glorious past of America which followed an autarkic policy to build its infant industries. During his campaign, Trump declared “tariff” his favourite word and the “most beautiful word in the dictionary”, and cited the protectionist policies of former President William McKinley, who governed from 1897 to 1901, as an inspiration.

In his inaugural speech, Trump’s reference to ‘Manifest Destiny’ — the belief in the 19th century that American settlers were destined to expand across North America — got more attention as Trump keeps floating the idea that Canada should join the United States as the 51st state, saying he would not use military force to invade the country, which is home to more than 40 million people and is a founding NATO partner. He also confirmed that he would change the name of Denali — the traditional Native Alaskan name of the highest mountain peak in North America — to Mount McKinley. He also confirmed to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and reiterated that his administration will seek to reassert control over the Panama Canal. Under pressure, Panama has relinquished its membership from the China-led Bridge and Road Initiative (BRI).

Trump’s primary strategy to ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) is aiming to re-order the international system in a way that fits his 19th-century view of the world in which the US lived in splendid isolation and virtually unchallenged in the Western hemisphere. The announcement of ‘Trump gold card’, as a route to getting US residency permits for immigrants, for a fee of USD 5 million, aims to attract super-wealthy investors to a dream land named America!

Views expressed are personal