The View from Right Field

Donald Trump and the Failure of Policy in Ukraine

As Donald Trump’s presidency continues, I get more and more worried, perhaps especially about foreign policy.  He is bad domestically, but I am hopeful we can overcome the problems he is causing here.  The damage he is causing in foreign affairs seems greater.  I don’t know why he is doing what he is doing, but here are some possibilities:

1. He a zero-sum kind of guy. 
2. He thinks almost everybody has played us for suckers and has taken advantage of us. 
3. He is very thin-skinned, and he thinks people are out to get him.¹  Also, he seems to take it personally when people disagree with him (especially on a deal he wants to get done).
4. I am not sure how much history he knows, but I fear it is not enough.  History does not repeat, but knowledge of history does inform.
5. Government is different than business; making agreements between countries is different than making agreements between companies.  I don’t think President Trump understands this.  He thinks deals are deals.  They aren’t.²

Trump Is an Embarrassment on Ukraine – And Potentially Dangerous Beyond That

I don’t know what Donald Trump is doing with respect to Ukraine.  This afternoon, in the United Nations General Assembly, the United States voted with Russia, Belarus, North Korea, and Nicaragua against a resolution condemning Moscow's invasion of Ukraine and supporting Ukraine's territorial integrity.

Then, this evening, the United States sided with Russia to get the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution that called for an end to the war in Ukraine but without any criticism of Russia for starting the war.

Is Trump Trying To Do a “Reverse Nixon” With Putin?

In trying to explain why Donald Trump is sudden ripping on Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and siding with Vladimir Putin and Russia, some people are asking whether President Trump and his people might be trying to do a “reverse Nixon”, i.e., trying to separate Russia and China, though in this case befriending Russia, as opposed to China as Richard Nixon did.

The Wall Street Journal‘s chief foreign correspondent, Yaroslav Trofimov, does an excellent job here of explaining why the two situations, Russia and Ukraine today as opposed to the Soviet Union and China back then, are very different.  There is no need for me to repeat what he says, though I do note there is another article, also in yesterday’s Journal, that talks about the increasing number of joint military exercises between Russia and China.  Which is different than the late 1960s/early 1970s, when the only joint military exercise the Soviets and the Chinese held was a border war between each other in 1969.

The West’s Race to the Bottom in Ukraine – For Worst Policy

We have what looks like a race to the bottom for worst Ukraine policy among Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.  After almost 1,000 days of war, President Biden finally gave Ukraine permission to use US weapons, including ATACMS, to actually attack Russian targets in Russia.  The story is that Biden was worried about Putin escalating (how about worrying about Putin winning) and about the US not having enough ATACMS for ourselves (how about ordering a lot more of them on an emergency basis, starting like almost 1,000 days ago).¹

Trump people are saying the Russians pushing the Ukrainians back might be good because it would make the Ukrainians more willing to negotiate.¹  Huh?  The problem is not the Ukrainians being willing to negotiate.  The problem is Putin being willing to negotiate when he is winning.  Why should he? 

Harris? Trump? A Depressing Foreign Policy Election

We’re back from a trip to Berlin and Hamburg, and the Presidential race is as bad as when we left.  Actually, I think it may be worse because the Biden administration is doing even worse in foreign policy now than before we left – and there is no reason to think Kamala Harris will be any different than the Biden administration. 

But first, Donald Trump still doesn’t have the character to be President and that is not going to change. 

On the other side, Joe Biden, and the Biden administration, is still getting it wrong.  In 2014, Robert Gates wrote, of Joe Biden, “I think he's been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades."  He reaffirmed that statement in 2019.  Since Joe Biden became President, he has continued to get these things wrong on foreign policy and national security.

Who Is President? – Ukraine Edition

Ukraine’s strike into Russia has been amazing – not just for its success but also for its surprise.  What was particularly interesting, however, was not that the Russians were surprised, but that the Americans were apparently surprised, too.  Obviously, things like this need to be kept as secret as possible in order to work.

But I wonder if the reason the Ukrainians apparently did not tell the Americans was to maintain the element of surprise – or because they figured that, if they told us, we would have told them not to do it – for fear, once again, of provoking Putin.  Putin invaded Ukraine, and yet the Biden administration seems more worried about the Ukrainians somehow provoking Putin than what Russia does

Which makes you wonder, as I asked in this post, who is running American foreign policy?  And whether anybody really cares that much about what the people running American foreign policy say or think?

The Coming Constitutional Crisis of 2024 – And American Foreign Policy

In a recent news review,¹ one of the commentators said that, because Trump has made the world part of our political fracas, the political rhetoric now, during the campaign. may be more dangerous for America, and foreign relations. than what comes after November, when the election is over.

I disagree.  I’m afraid the result won’t be known – or, perhaps more accurately, won’t be accepted by the “losing” side – and the things will heat up even more after November 7.  I worry that the election will result in a constitutional crisis greater than any we have seen since 1860-61 – because, no matter who wins, the other side won’t accept it.² 

If Trump loses, he and his supporters will say the election was stolen.  Former President Trump is already saying the election will be rigged.  We know what some Trump supporters did on January 6, 2021.  Who knows what they may do this time.  I understand that last time Mr. Trump was President and that gave him things he could try to do.  But this time, his people may be more upset.

Joe Biden’s Priorities: Gasoline Prices > Ukraine

The Financial Times reported on Friday:

“The US has urged Ukraine to halt attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure, warming that the drone strikes risk driving up global oil prices and provoking retaliation, according to three people familiar with the discussions. …

Washington is also concerned that if Ukraine keeps hitting Russian facilities, including many that are hundreds of miles from the border, Russia could retaliate by lashing out at infrastructure relied on by the west. …

Joe Biden: Getting Foreign Policy Wrong for 50 Years

In 2014, a former cabinet official from both the Obama and George W. Bush administrations wrote that Joe Biden had "been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades."¹  Even though this official likes President Biden as a person and has said President Biden “a man of integrity,” he reaffirmed his statement in an interview in May of 2019. 

And President Biden has continued his string of mistakes and bad decisions since he got into office.  The withdrawal from Afghanistan was a disaster.  President Biden was left with a terrible situation by Donald Trump.  The Trump administration signed what was basically a surrender agreement with the Taliban on February 29, 2020.  While President Biden has said the Trump agreement left him no choice but to go forward with the withdrawal/surrender, that’s not true.  President Biden reversed all kinds of Trump administration decisions.  He could have changed this one, too, but he didn’t want to.  He wanted to get out of Afghanistan, and so we did.  It was the Biden administration that organized, or rather didn’t organize, the withdrawal.  If the withdrawal was a disaster, and if it has damaged the United States’ reputation for reliability and competence abroad, then that was on President Biden and his administration.

“A Trump win would change the world” – and Not for the Better.

Martin Wolf wrote in Wednesday’s Financial Times about his concerns, both for U.S. domestic policy and for the world as a whole, with respect to a second Donald Trump administration.¹  For example:

“[E]mbrace by the US of a man … that [has] repudiated the central norm of liberal democracy would dishearten those who believe in it and encourage despots and their lackeys everywhere. …

The mixture of this despair with Trumps’s avowedly transactional approach would weaken, if not destroy, the trust on which current US alliances are based.”

 I understand Mr. Wolf’s concerns.²  He is right that, in his first term, former President Trump initially picked traditional Republicans as advisers for foreign policy and defense, which slowed former President Trump down.  A Trump 2.0 administration would start with Trumpian true-believers, a scary thought.