In the eyes of the Irish media – and therefore, a great many Irish people – the re-election of Donald Trump to the powerful office of President of the United States was an unmitigated disaster and a portent of terrible, disruptive, developments which would bring further harm to a world increasingly caught up in war and chaos.
Most of this seems to be based on what’s increasingly known as Trump Derangement Syndrome, because the hypocrisy and deliberate avoidance of the facts when comparing Trump to the Biden administration in terms of a whole-hearted embrace of wars is simply ridiculous.
We rolled out the red carpet for Joe here in Ireland, like welcoming home our favourite – though slightly doddery uncle – and sang his praises to the rafters. And even though Biden decided to pump tens of billions into the business of war, much of the current commentary in this country seems to be now about the (supposed) certainty that Donald Trump will unleash hell on the world – as if Biden had never sent a missile anywhere, or as if his actions hadn’t filled the coffers of the Military Industrial Complex. I’ve have innumerable conversations with people in the last months where the horrendous situation in Gaza is bizarrely being talked about in terms of what Trump might do instead of what Biden, being the actual President in the period, has actually done ie provided funds and ammunition to Israel.
Similarly, in all the angst around the ongoing war in Ukraine and the devastating loss of life as the months and then years have gone by, it’s rare to hear anyone wonder if the tens of billions Biden has poured into the war might not have happened under Trump, or that maybe, just maybe, involving the U.S. in a series of wars might be a little more disconcerting and dangerous than sending mean tweets.
My issue here isn’t so much about either of the major conflicts currently unleashing hell on ordinary people: though its my opinion that, while every county has a right to its sovereignty, many of those who want the world to stand up to Putin’s invasion aren’t sending their own sons to bleed and die on the battlefield. If war can be avoided, it should be, although an occupied country can always seek allies in rising for freedom. In the same vein, the relentless bombing of civilians in Gaza should give even those who feel Israel is justified in striking against is enemies some pause. Hospitals and schools are now fair game, it seems. It is horrendous.
The US administration has pumped a whopping 62 billion dollars into providing military aid to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Last week, a last-minute package of nearly a billion US dollars to provide longer-term weapons support to the war-torn country was pushed through, with Associated Press reporting that “the Biden administration is rushing to spend all the congressionally approved money it has left to bolster Kyiv before President-elect Donald Trump takes office next month”.
In the same vein, in a move made once it was evident that the Democrats would no longer hold the reins of power, Biden on November 18th authorised Ukraine to use US-supplied missiles to strike deeper inside Russia. Sources said it was response to Russia deploying “thousands of North Korean troops to reinforce its war” and AP noted that the move was taken amid uncertainty about whether Trump’s administration would continue the United States’ “vital military support for Ukraine”.
In other words, they believed Trump might pressure Ukraine and Russia to negotiate for peace. And from what the President said in his interview with Time this week, that may well be the case.
“I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia,” Mr Trump told Time , who named him their person of the year for a second time. “Why are we doing that? ” he asked.
Trump said that the policy switch by Biden’s administration, which authorised the use of Atacms rockets within Russia by Ukrainian forces, was “just escalating this war and making it worse”.
“That should not have been allowed to be done,” he said.
What was even more interesting was what Trump said about the horrifying casualties of war – on both sides of the conflict. In the fog of war, and the reality-distorting jingoism both from Sassoon’s ‘scarlet majors at the base” and the cheerleaders of conflict sitting comfortable on their sofas, the sheer numbers losing their lives or being maimed on the battlefield is not always known, and is often deliberately concealed.
“The level, the number of people dying is number one, not sustainable, and I’m talking on both sides. It’s really an advantage to both sides to get this thing done,” Trump told Time magazine.
“[I] had a meeting recently with a group of people from the government, where they come in and brief me, and I’m not speaking out of turn, the numbers of dead soldiers that have been killed in the last month are numbers that are staggering, both Russians and Ukrainians, and the amounts are fairly equal.”
“You know, I know they like to say they weren’t, but they’re fairly equal, but the numbers of dead young soldiers lying on fields all over the place are staggering. It’s crazy what’s taking place. It’s crazy,” he said.
While denying he would abandon Ukraine he said that he disagreed with the “whole thing” because, he said, “it should have never happened.”
And he added: “This is death that’s far greater than anyone knows. When the real numbers come out, you’re going to see numbers that you’re not going to believe.”
“Dead young soldiers lying on fields all over the place”. This is not generally how American politicians speak about war efforts – and in my opinion it may indicate a change of course for the better. The real cost of war is precisely that: the pile of corpses and the shattered lives, the homes bombed to pieces, whole regions and peoples traumatised. The billions pumped by every side into the war in Ukraine won’t bring back one of those soldiers – mostly young men – who have fought and died for a war that might have been resolved more than two years ago.
Those sympathetic to Putin say that this has always been a proxy war, with Western powers aligned against what they see as the growing power and influence from Moscow. They argue that was why NATO membership for Ukraine mattered; that Russians living in Donbas were badly treated and even killed; and that the West is funding and fueling the war.
Against that, Ukrainians and their allies argue that Russia had no right to invade and bombard a sovereign country; that a victory for Putin in Ukraine will encourage other attempted expansions from Moscow; and that the West, in arming Ukraine, is protecting democracy. Recently, Zelenskyy was scathing after Russia launched a massive drone and missile attack in response to the use of US missiles, saying: “And this is the answer to everyone who tried to achieve something with Putin through talks, phone calls, hugs and appeasement,” he said.
Yet, what Trump may be obliquely referring to when he says “it should never have happened”, may be the failed peace summits between Russia and Ukraine which took place in Istanbul in spring of 2022, just after the invasion. Then UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has frequently been accused of interfering in the negotiations, though a study by historian Sergey Radchenko and political scientist Samuel Charap said that while it was “technically wrong” to “claim that the west torpedoed a concrete peace agreement in spring 2022”, those making that accusation are “right in a broader philosophical sense, however, that the scepticism of western leaders about Russian intentions, their commitment to aid Ukraine and their encouragement to Kyiv to fight on all added to the decision of the government to continue to fight rather than negotiate.”
The position of the Western powers mattered, that is obvious. And it still does. Fatigue has set in, on both sides. Public opinion is turning. Too many have died.
Last Sunday, Trump posted on Truth Social that he believed Kyiv is ready to make a deal with Moscow to stop the war in Ukraine, and urged Putin to make efforts toward negotiating a truce.
“There should be an immediate cease-fire and negotiations should begin” in order to “stop the madness,” Trump said. “I know Vladimir well. This is his time to act. China can help. The World is waiting!”
Some of Zekenskyy’s public statements now suggest that Ukraine may now be resolved to the reality that peace can only be achieved through negotiations, though the Ukrainian leader has blamed what he saw as dawdling from the West on the failure to rebuff the invasion.
There are other areas of conflict, of course, in which the US is embroiled: spending $17.9 billion on military aid to Israel from October 2023 to October 2024. Although the Trump administration is packed with pro-Israeli hardliners, the President-elect says that he wants the war to end, telling Time: “I don’t want people from either side killed… whether it’s the Palestinians and the Israelis and all of the different entities that we have in the Middle East.”
The Biden administration has been busy this week, along with Israel, in bombing what it says are ISIS targets in Syria – even though US interference in the region directly led to the arming and growth of the Islamist terrorist group. In truth, the US and the major Western powers have an abysmal record in their endless war-making: Hillary Clinton’s distasteful triumphalism after the killing of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi did nothing to prevent the country descending into violent lawlessness, bloodletting, and Islamist insurgencies.
Might the foreign policy of the U.S. be steered towards a different path under Trump 2.0? As Robert Burke wrote on this platform at the end of the President elect’s first term: “Trump unlike almost all of his recent predecessors has not started a new war, yet this has not been achieved through appeasement of American enemies, he has achieved it through investing in US Military, demanding more of other NATO countries and exerting diplomatic and financial pressure on adversaries of the United States.”
I’m too long in the tooth to rely on the promises of politicians, but on the issue of ending two major conflicts which have taken so many innocent lives, perhaps Donald Trump, despite the media hysterics, might be the man to bring some sort of peace, some end to the slaughter. That’s would be an achievement that was clearly not prioritised by Joe Biden’s administration.