Donald Trump — The Ukraine War Peace Candidate? Let’s Hope Not
If past critics of America’s “Forever Wars” needed a prod to find their voice on the Ukraine War, Robert F Kennedy Jr. has certainly provided one. According to Kennedy, Donald Trump’s assertion that he could end that war is something that “alone would justify my support for his campaign.” With Kamala Harris making no such claims (and neither she nor Trump proposing any let up in support for the Israeli war effort) will Trump then by default wear the mantle of peace candidate in the presidential race?
The question isn’t particularly one of the sincerity or realism of Trump’s word — after all, in the past he said that if elected he’d end the Afghanistan War; failed to do so while in office; and is now claiming that although it actually ended on Joe Biden’s watch, he would have done a better job of ending it had he been reelected. He did not leave office with people saying, “There goes the peacemaker president.” As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, “If Trump knows how to finish this war, he should tell us today.” But while I very seriously doubt that he will do that, this raises a deeper question: Will anyone suggest a desirable or possible alternative to either war with no end in sight, or a secret Trump plan?
Absent one, Kennedy actually makes a rather good stalking horse for Trump because, whatever one makes of his positions on other issues, on this one Kennedy is actually quite good. The Ukraine entry in the “End the Forever Wars” section of his now suspended presidential campaign website read:
In Ukraine, the most important priority is to end the suffering of the Ukrainian people, victims of a brutal Russian invasion, and also victims of American geopolitical machinations going back at least to 2014. We must first get clear: Is our mission to help the brave Ukrainians defend their sovereignty? Or is it to use Ukraine as a pawn to weaken Russia? Kennedy will choose the first. He will find a diplomatic solution that brings peace to Ukraine and brings our resources back where they belong. We will offer to withdraw our troops and nuclear-capable missiles from Russia’s borders. Russia will withdraw its troops from Ukraine and guarantee its freedom and independence. UN peacekeepers will guarantee peace to the Russian-speaking eastern regions. We will put an end to this war. We will put an end to the suffering of the Ukrainian people. That will be the start of a broader program of demilitarization of all countries.
Two aspects of this statement stand out. The first is that it recognizes complexity. When it comes to foreign policy matters, there is a strong preference for avoiding “buts” — particularly in situations where the shooting and bombing has already begun; one side’s right — one side’s wrong — period. Reality, however, is generally riddled with “buts.” Yes, Russia’s invasion is indefensible — but, it is also the case that the US had itself meddled in Ukraine’s internal politics for some time — all the while denouncing Russian interference in American politics. No, American provocation does not justify the invasion, but, nor does the invasion erase the history of American provocation.
Probably the most blatant exemplar of this policy is former Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland. In announcing her retirement from the State Department earlier this year, Antony Blinken called her “indispensable to confronting Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.” But, what the Secretary of State did not mention was Nuland’s role in provoking Russian intervention. In February 2014, the duly elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown by a series of protests celebrated in Washington as the Maidan Revolution, events that Nuland was famously and directly involved in. A New York Times article on her departure reported the Russian take on the matter: “A coup against the government happened in Ukraine in 2014 after under secretary of state Victoria Nuland handed out cookies to terrorists,” the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said last year. (Ms. Nuland has said she passed out sandwiches, not cookies.)”
While Nuland may have disputed the menu, no one disputes her supportive presence at a demonstration in Ukraine calling for the ousting of that nation’s president. Understanding that one person’s “terrorist” may be another’s “revolutionary hero,” by way of comparison we might imagine the reaction in this country had a high ranking official of the Russian — or Ukrainian — foreign ministry been seen distributing blinis at the January 6, 2020 Trump rally prior to the march on the Capitol.
The second crucial complexity acknowledged in the Kennedy statement is that in referring to “the Russian-speaking eastern regions” it recognizes the divided allegiances of people in two nations that were once part of the same country — within the memory of many current residents. Yes, the unilateral seizure of the Crimea — which began five days after the ouster of Yanukovych — and the armed support of separatist movements in the Donbass region are not acceptable methods of international relations, but it is also true that there are many people in the border regions” of Ukraine who would prefer to be part of Russia (and vice versa on the other side of the border).
The other aspect of Kennedy’s position worth noting is the idea that the appropriate international organization for involvement in this situation is the United Nations, not NATO. Indeed, this is precisely the type of situation the U.N. was founded to address. However, the suggestion of the deployment of a UN peacekeeper mission to the region presupposes the existence of a peace agreement for the peacekeepers to enforce. So the more immediate questions are what the elements of such an agreement might be, and whether the UN might play a useful role in formulating or carrying out the terms of such an agreement.
National self-determination plebiscites occur very rarely — but not never. Pope Francis’s recent visit to East Timor was a reminder of one that did, and worked out reasonably well: the 1999 UN-organized vote in which 78 percent of East Timorese voted to resume their existence as an independent nation, a status previously briefly enjoyed between centuries as a Portugese colony and twenty five years of Indonesian invasion and occupation.
Is it conceivable that Ukraine and Russia might allow the residents of their border regions to determine their national identities by vote? It seems unlikely, but then so does every possible outcome other than indefinite continuation of the current war of attrition. To the extent that such an notion gets any attention at all, it will generally be brushed off as “naive.” . And, true enough, at the moment it seems hard to imagine either nation volunteering to defer to the actual wishes of the territories being fought over. But as for “naive,” might it not also be considered naive to think that Ukraine will militarily retake of all of the territory it controlled at the beginning of 2014, including Crimea? Or, from the other direction, does anyone really foresee Russia occupying Kyiv and eliminating Ukraine as a nation? Is it not more likely that what we are witnessing now is fighting — and deaths — serving little ultimate purpose but to strengthen the hand of one side or the other during negotiations that will inevitably occur?
Calling for negotiations to end this war sooner rather than later need not imply abandoning the call for punishment for its perpetrators — naive as a demand like that might be. But it is also the case that much as some of us might like to see Vladimir Putin stand trial for war crimes in the International Criminal Court in the Hague, chances are he will walk free the rest of his days — just as the Iraq War criminals George W. Bush and Tony Blair have thus far done (the latter subsequently appearing as a honored guest on the front cover of my high school’s alumni magazine). But if American policy simply comes down to providing the arms to pursue impossible goals — down to the last Ukrainian, if need be — then we are doing the Ukrainians no favor.
Those who normally make up this country’s antiwar movement have been wrong footed on the Ukraine War for the very obvious reason that they haven’t opposed it. And the argument here is not that they have been wrong in this judgement, but rather that it does not absolve those who generally regard military action as the last resort from the need for further thought — and, ideally, action — on the question of ending this war. Unfortunately, though, the American left’s current lack of interest on the question appears to be near total.
The situation is more complicated than we are accustomed too, yes. War is not necessarily just hell, it can also be complicated hell. But is the bind in which we find ourselves in regard to Ukraine really any more difficult than sorting out the Gaza situation? In that case, despite initial stumbles in some quarters, an antiwar movement has emerged that has not found it impossible to condemn both the initial Hamas attack on Israeli civilians and the subsequent Israel devastation of Gaza, while opposing the leadership of both the Democratic and Republican parties.
The difficulty or apparent improbability of success has never been cause for an antiwar movement not to say what it believed needed to be said. Nor should it be a reason not to develop an alternative to the prospect of “forever war” in Ukraine. And consider the consequences of continued abstention on the question. Republican Vice Presidential nominee US Senator J.D. Vance recently floated a notion of what Donald Trump would do to end the war — despite the fact that Vance is considered no particular authority on what Trump thinks, much less what he would do. And to whom did the mainstream turn for rebuttal? The Kyiv cookie (or sandwich) lady — Victoria Nuland. Trump, Vance, Nuland! Do we really want to leave all of the questions surrounding the Ukraine War to the likes of them?
