Donald Trump was going to end the Russo-Ukrainian war in 24 hours. Then it was two weeks, then 100 days, then two weeks again – several times – and now 50 days. Trump increasingly resembles Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland. Words mean whatever he wants them to mean – that is to say, nothing.
Trump reversed the announced suspension of weapons transfers to Ukraine on July 14th, when he promised to sell Patriot missiles and other weapons to Nato members, who could in turn pass them on to Ukraine. And if Vladimir Putin doesn’t accept peace with Ukraine in 50 days, Trump says he’ll slap 100 per cent tariffs on trade with Russia and countries including China and India which fund Putin’s war with purchases of Russian hydrocarbons.
Since his inauguration, Trump has punished Ukraine, the victim, repeatedly; Russia, the aggressor, not once. So what are we to make of the apparent change in policy?
Nothing, says Phillips Payson O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at University of St Andrews in Scotland. “Trump basically gave Putin 50 days’ protection from new sanctions,” O’Brien says. “Trump is allowing Putin to hit Ukrainian cities hard for the rest of the summer and take little pieces of land. Then Putin can ask for a ceasefire if he wants to, keeping everything he has. What Trump has done benefits Putin. The weapons will take months to reach Ukraine and are in any case significantly less than transfers before Trump took office.”
Trump’s threat of 100 per cent tariffs on Russia “is all fantasy”, O’Brien says. A Bill proposed by Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal would impose 500 per cent tariffs on Russia. “Trump was under pressure to allow a vote on Graham-Blumenthal by the end of July, and now he can put that off until September ... The White House wanted to create a narrative that Trump is standing by Ukraine, but it’s not true.”
In his book War and Power: Who Wins Wars and Why, to be published by Penguin Viking next month, O’Brien criticises those who predicted Ukraine would rapidly collapse, and who believe Ukraine will inevitably be defeated. They labour under the “great power paradigm” – a 19th century belief that powerful countries do what they please while weak countries suffer what they must.
The so-called experts “had a high school boys’ war game view of war: the Russians win and march to victory. But war doesn’t work that way. It’s unpredictable. War always goes off the rails”.
A “monoculture” comprised mostly of western Russia experts with a Russo-centric view, who saw Ukrainians as “almost-Russians”, badly misjudged the conflict, O’Brien says. The Ukrainians did not just roll over. Like the Vietnamese and Afghans before them, they have fought fiercely because they are fighting for their independence.
Ukraine still controls 80 per cent of its territory, despite Russia’s superior strength and numbers. Ukraine’s ability to “win the adaptation cycle” or “fight smart” is one reason, O’Brien says.
Former defence minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk last month defined “strategic neutralisation” as a strategy for Ukraine’s survival, based not on battlefield victory or negotiations, but on systematically denying Russia the ability to achieve its military goals.
Precedents are Ukraine’s destruction of much of Russia’s Black Sea fleet using unmanned sea drones. The Russian navy still exists, but it can no longer blockade Ukraine’s ports. Likewise, Ukraine’s use of kamikaze drones has created a frontline “kill zone” 20km to 40km deep which prevents Russian troops from advancing. The air war remains Ukraine’s greatest problem, with Russia firing hundreds of drones and missiles at Ukrainian cities nightly.
Europe’s failure to draw up a serious plan for Trump’s presidency was “a huge failure of European leadership”, says O’Brien. Europe has often let Ukraine down, but now it must try to compensate for lost US support.
The “Coalition of the willing” led by British prime minister Keir Starmer and French president Emmanuel Macron is “not very good but it’s all we’ve got”, O’Brien continues.
The British are desperate to preserve their “special relationship” with the US. “The French in many ways have been the great disappointment, because de Gaulle was saying this moment would arrive 60 years ago: ‘The US will go home. The US is unreliable. Europe needs to look after itself, have the capacity to be a power.’ This is the French narrative and this is their moment. They have bungled it until now.”
[ Republicans’ rush to shift stance on Ukraine shows Trump’s iron grip on partyOpens in new window ]
O’Brien is scathing about liberal American academics including Jeffrey Sachs, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, who claim that confrontational policies on the part of the US and Nato provoked Russia’s war on Ukraine.
“You cannot counter it, because they believe it. It’s like a religion, not actually fact. How does one counter the belief in papal infallibility?”
But why has Putin’s “Nato made me do it” excuse won such broad currency in the West? “People love lies,” O’Brien replies. “Look at Trump. We live in an era of lies. This is just another one.”
Lara Marlowe will interview Professor Phillips O’Brien at the Galway Arts Festival today, Saturday, July 19th, at 2pm in Bailey Allen Hall, University of Galway
