If the peace plan of Donald Trump While Ukraine is still largely shrouded in mystery, some elements of its negotiating strategy are starting to emerge. First, his team did not distance itself from the authorization that Joe Biden gave Kiev to use Atacms missiles on Russian territory. Indeed, various members of the president’s entourage have confirmed that, on foreign policy issues, there is close collaboration with the Biden administration. On November 24, the National Security Advisor in pectore, Mike Waltzsaid he is working “closely” with the outgoing president’s team. Last Wednesday, the next special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kelloggcommented positively on the recent efforts of Biden aimed at strengthening Kiev’s position. “They are actually very positive for the president in pectore because they give him leverage.” TrumpFor his part, he has so far refrained from criticizing the approval for the use of Atacms missiles.
It is clear that, by doing so, the president in pectore aims to put pressure on the Kremlin. Contrary to those who have often accused him of wanting appeasement towards Moscow, the tycoon is aiming for peace, yes, but a peace strictly linked to the restoration of deterrence. On the other hand, diplomacy includes various elements: that of dialogue, yes, but also that of pressure and even threat. Trump in other words it wants to convey to Vladimir Putin a clear message: that of not being willing to reach an agreement at all costs. Furthermore, the tycoon knows that an appeasement would lead to a domino effect comparable to that triggered by the disastrous management of the Afghan withdrawal led by Biden in 2021. Simply put, Trump would pay the appeasement with Putin on other fronts, starting from the Indo-Pacific. This is a scenario that the tycoon absolutely cannot afford.
It is also from this perspective that the recent re-explosion of the Syrian crisis should be read. It is likely that, at least in part, the rebel offensive against Bashar al Assad arises from an underground backroom game between Washington and Ankara. It is clear that, if this were the case, Trump he could take advantage of this not only to further weaken Iran but, coming to the Ukrainian dossier, to have greater room for maneuver in negotiations with the Russian president. The weakening of Assad in fact, it indirectly weakens the Tsar’s negotiating position on Ukraine.
On the other hand, be careful. If he’s going to put Putin under pressure, Trump also aims to ensure that Volodymyr Zelensky sit at the negotiating table, abandoning its historic precondition: namely the unilateral withdrawal of Russian troops from the occupied Ukrainian territories. For Trumpthis precondition is not realistic. And it is no coincidence that, in recent months, Kellogg has theorized to make the sending of weapons to Kiev conditional on its willingness to sit at the negotiating table. In recent weeks, the Ukrainian president seems to have partially softened his positions (starting with Crimea). On the other hand, Trump he tried to put pressure on him too. When the Washington Post reported an alleged phone call between the tycoon and Putin after the US elections on November 5, the Tsar denied it, while the transition team of Trump he entrenched himself behind a “no comment”. A coded signal a Zelenskywith which the American president in pectore made him understand that, if he continued to oppose the start of negotiations, he would be ready to sign an agreement without him.
In short, both with Putin that with the Ukrainian leader, Trump is pursuing a complex line, not without strategic ambiguity. The objective is to put them both under pressure: the first, to reach the best possible agreement; the second, to convince him to start negotiations. And be careful: it cannot be excluded that, at the level of diplomatic strategy, Trump you are looking at two historical precedents. In 1953, Dwight Eisenhower he convinced China to give the go-ahead to negotiations to reach an armistice in Korea, after having threatened it with nuclear weapons. On the other hand, the then American president approved that agreement, despite the opposition of his South Korean ally, Syngman Rhee. Years later, Richard Nixon heavily bombed Cambodia to intimidate Hanoi and get the best possible deal on ending the war in Vietnam. On the other hand, it effectively forced the South Korean president Nguyan Van Thieu to accept the Paris Peace Agreements of 1973, in exchange for military reassurances if North Vietnam violated the agreement. In both cases, the American strategy was to combine threats towards adversaries with pressure towards allies.
Here, if you really want to understand how Trump is moving on the Ukrainian dossier, it is the precedents of 1953 and 1973 that we need to look at. The tycoon could, that is, resort to the so-called madman theorybasing its diplomatic strategy on the intimidation of its interlocutors in the name of threatening unpredictability. The American president in pectore is neither a pacifist nor pro-Russian, despite the equal and opposite ideological narratives that have been raging for some time. Trump if anything, he is a pragmatist with a sense of deterrence. And it is from this perspective that we must enter to understand his moves.
