Conrad Black : The Geopolitics Behind Trump’s Energy Ceasefire
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The
issue of American sanctions on Russia weighs heavily not only on the midterm
elections in the United States on Nov. 3, but also on the Ukraine war and on
the status of direct relations
between the United States, Russia, and China. There is no reason to believe that Donald Trump foresaw all these intricacies when he took it upon himself to announce an energy ceasefire in the Ukraine war and arrange for a large Russian release of diesel fuel to the world market. On its face, this was not a wise move. It could only affect the price of diesel fuel in the United States for a couple of weeks and it was not clear that that would occur prior to the midterms. It has also been widely construed, including by the president of Ukraine, as favoring Russia and helping to finance its aggressive war in Ukraine—an apparently clear reversal of U.S. policy in that war, which has now lasted for more than four years. The general appearance, somewhat amplified by the president’s practice of constantly varying his preceding statements on the same subject, and the media cacophony—further magnified by the jubilation of the great preponderance of anti-Trump sentiment in the American national political media—has been confusing. Most of the media loves to represent any comments from the president as at best incoherent, and preferably diabolical. It is a comparatively small item in the general range of issues in the minds of American voters, and the impact of the declaration of the energy ceasefire has been small, especially as it was immediately violated first by the Russians and then with redoubled enthusiasm by the Ukrainians. After the midterm election results are known, the subject will be absorbed into Trump’s often misunderstood attitude to Russia. He has expressed respect for Putin’s political longevity, more durable than any post-Romanoff Russian leader except Stalin. Trump has also firmly dissented from Putin’s effort to replicate Peter the Great and Stalin in extending Russian influence back into Central Europe. Peter the Great was able to do that in the early 18th century when Sweden was the only serious bar to Russia’s westward expansion, 150 years before the unification of Germany. Stalin was able to do it because President Roosevelt devised the strategy whereby the Western Allies regained 66 percent of Germany and all of France and Italy (as well as Japan) from the war, and Russia occupied strategically less important countries in Eastern Europe, which they were sworn to evacuate. They reneged on that promise and provoked the Cold War, which they could not win. For this temporary oppression of the former satellite countries, Russia endured, as between the USSR, the USA, and the British Commonwealth and Empire, 90 percent of the casualties and 95 percent of the physical damage in subduing Nazi Germany. None of the conditions that permitted Peter the Great or Stalin to extend their influence into Central Europe exist now, and the dream of a greater Russia has died. |
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The
Ukraine war has been a disaster for Putin, as Russia has sustained more than
a million casualties, over 300,000 draft evasions, scores of thousands of
desertions, and has unsuccessfully tried to conduct it with its male prison
population and mercenaries. The unsuspected talents at improvisation of the
Ukrainians and the raw courage of that people, despite more than 250 years of
absorption by the Russian state, has inflicted severe damage on Russia and
compromised its ability to export oil and gas, which is practically its only
worthwhile source of hard, foreign currency. Trump has not received the credit he deserves for recognizing that strategically, the orientation of Russia is more important than the status of Ukraine. It was absolutely essential that the West assist Ukraine in order to prevent Russia from regaining the largest single element of its bloodless defeat in the Cold War, and proving to the world that the Western Alliance was not a paper tiger, which it certainly would have been had Russia been able simply to reoccupy Ukraine in a few weeks, as President Biden and his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, believed at the outset. Trump has had to balance his determination to help prevent a decisive Russian victory in Ukraine against his determination to avoid such a humiliation of Russia that it becomes a vassal state of China. The nightmare scenario from Trump’s perspective has been that Russia would effectively lease large parts of Siberia to China, which would then populate that area with millions of its surplus population and exploit its bountiful natural resources—which, apart from oil and gas, Russia has never been able to do. This would make China unquestionably the preeminent power in the entire Eurasian landmass, and for the first time in its very long history would make China a resource-rich country. To avoid this, Trump has been prepared to accept Russia’s reoccupation of Crimea and also of some of the Russian-speaking areas in eastern Ukraine. Polls now indicate that the majority of Ukrainians would accept this peace, and that the majority of Ukrainians also have serious reservations about President Zelenskyy, whose regime has been, like all Ukrainian governments, heavily tarred with the brush of gross corruption. Trump appears to be correct in saying that Putin is more amenable to a compromise peace than Zelenskyy. This is being widely interpreted by Trump’s critics and by those who rightly admire Ukrainian resistance, but ignore the greater context of the Great Power correlation of forces, as abandonment of the gallant Ukrainian people. Trump has no intention of doing anything of the kind. These points will be resolved after the midterm elections. The importance of the midterm elections has been grossly exaggerated. It is unlikely Trump will lose the Senate, although since Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in 1875, every twice-elected president except Franklin D. Roosevelt has had to deal with an opposition Congress in both houses in the last two years of his second term. If the Democrats attempt excessively hostile committee hearings and spurious impeachment votes, the Justice Department may be expected to indict a great many prominent Democrats. Nothing that the Democrats can do in the Congress under any scenario will seriously restrict the president’s ability to conduct foreign policy and to act effectively as commander-in-chief. He will devote the last two years of his presidency to defeating the Iranian regime and winning the war on terror, and bringing the Ukrainian war to a satisfactory end. It would be a mistake to underestimate his ability to
achieve these goals. |
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