By Wayne Allensworth
President Donald Trump has wasted no time in his attempt to right the globalist course taken by Washington during previous administrations. His barrage of executive orders attests to that. Despite all of Trump’s American exceptionalism talk, his actions thus far, as well as his inaugural speech, point the nation in a different direction than some might expect. Trump isn’t trying to run the world or imitate the would-be Masters of the Universe in the globalist bureaucracy. His intentions largely run counter to their airy utopianism. Trump’s actions and recent statements indicate that he has an instinctual understanding of limits. In his inaugural address, he spoke of Americans doing the impossible. But his rhetoric reflects an old American can-do spirit, not the fantasies of ideological fanatics.
As noted in my previous piece, Trump has taken steps to ensure the security of the country and prevent it being overwhelmed by a mass invasion of illegal aliens. His intention to secure the southern border and deport illegal aliens, beginning with criminals, indicates that he believes something that the globalists don’t, that is, that America is an actual country with borders and discrete interests. America is not an idea manufactured by abstract ideologies, imperfect though his understanding of that may be. His apparent belief that America cannot subsidize the entire world and act as a global policeman in all places at all times — as stated in his inaugural address, America should end wars, and not get into them in the first place — whether he is fully aware of it, rejects the post-World War II/Cold War consensus of worldwide American intervention. Technology, especially the development of the Internet and safe international air travel, helped build a globalist Tower of Babel on the foundation laid by the Cold War ideological competition with the Soviet Union. Trump understands that era is in the past, and his readiness to talk to foreign leaders like Vladimir Putin show that he has a common sense understanding of balance-of-power politics. His trade policies indicate that he understands the American government’s first priority should be the wellbeing of its citizenry. And Trump, as written in this space previously, is not a managerial technocrat. He is an old-fashioned proprietor with a personal stake in the enterprise — in this case, the country — in the manner of James Burnham’s old business class. That class was replaced by the bureaucratic “managers” in what Burnham called “The Managerial Revolution.” Trump is an American, not a “citizen of the world.” The globalist establishment’s visceral disdain for him is based on that. In the establishment view, Trump is an interloper invading their space. He is disrupting their great game, and they hate him for it. Add to that Trump’s questioning their competence, his mocking them, as well as his rejection of their ideological tropes. Their hubris, fed by unbounded arrogance, can’t abide such disrespect.
On the international scene, one of Trump’s most important tasks is to settle the Ukraine war and put an end to the clash with Russia that could, as he has reminded us, potentially spark World War III. His aim is to involve the Europeans as a guarantor of a peace agreement, as their stake in that part of the world is much greater than ours. The Russians will not accept a ceasefire at this time. They see such a step as a potential ruse to buy time to rearm Ukraine and somehow — for Ukraine is exhausted, her manpower resources largely depleted — carry on the war at a later date. They have plenty of reason to distrust the West’s intentions, Trump’s taking office notwithstanding.
With that in mind, some advice for the new administration:
Neither the Americans nor the Ukrainians have much leverage to immediately force the Russians to the negotiating table. The Russian army is slowly but steadily gaining on the battlefield. But the U.S. holds two cards that could prompt Moscow to negotiate sooner rather than later. Both will mean pressing the Europeans to get involved. The first is obvious: the possible lifting of international sanctions on Russia. The second gets very little attention in the West but is very likely Moscow’s most important aim. It is more than 30 years past the time when a new security architecture for Europe that involves accounting for Russian interests could have been negotiated. That should have been done following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
NATO as it is presently constituted is obsolete. It was created to counter the Soviet threat, which no longer exists. With Trump in charge, and the globalists at least officially out of power, there is no ideological crusade to fight. Both Trump and his Russian counterpart are pragmatists and realists. Russia’s strategic aim is not further expansion, but long-term security. The old “Soviet space” as the Russians put it, is their sphere of influence. President Trump has made it clear in his intention to drive the Chinese out of the Panama Canal zone, that he, like American presidents before him, sees the Monroe doctrine as a lodestar of American foreign policy. The two presidents understand each other.
The Russians will want talks on the deployment of medium-range missiles and on missile-defense systems. They aim for a new European security arrangement, and Washington should be, too. It goes without saying that Ukraine will be a neutral state. A demilitarized zone with limitations on troop deployments and the types of weapons systems on either side of it, will be part of the talks. Complicated details remain to be settled. Who, for instance, will oversee the DMZ? Trump’s people have suggested the Europeans, but European troops equal NATO troops. Perhaps UN Peacekeepers would be in order. Negotiating a new European security arrangement would be the key to guaranteeing Europe’s, Ukraine’s, and Russia’s long-term security. And the United States of America could go about the very difficult task of setting its own house in order. Putin has indicated that he welcomes Trump’s willingness to talk. It will be no betrayal of Ukraine to do that. The betrayal took place when the globalists helped provoke this war, and when they prevented its early ending.
Chronicles contributor Wayne Allensworth is the author of The Russian Question: Nationalism, Modernization, and Post-Communist Russia, and a novel, Field of Blood. For thirty-two years, he worked as an analyst and Russia area expert in the US intelligence community.
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