Mick Hartley

Francis Fukuyama at Quillette:

Even though anyone with eyes could see this coming, Donald Trump’s recent moves with regard to Ukraine and Russia come as a huge blow. We are in the midst of a global fight between Western liberal democracy and authoritarian government, and in this fight, the United States has just switched sides and signed up with the authoritarian camp.

What Trump has said over the past few days about Ukraine and Russia defies belief. He has accused Ukraine of having started the war by not preemptively surrendering to Russian territorial demands; he has said that Ukraine is not a democracy; and he has said that Ukrainians were wrong to resist Russian aggression. These ideas are likely not ones he thought up himself, but come straight from the mouth of Vladimir Putin, a man Trump has shown great admiration for. Meeting in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, the United States started a direct negotiation with Moscow that excludes both Ukraine and the Europeans, and has surrendered in advance two critical bargaining chips: acceptance of Russian territorial gains to date, and a commitment not to let Ukraine enter NATO. In return, Putin has not made a single concession….

Any peace agreement “negotiated” by the Trump administration and Russia now will not bring peace. There may be a ceasefire for a while, but the Russians will rearm and reopen the war once they re-equip themselves. They have no reason to honour existing ceasefire lines, but will want to reabsorb the whole of Ukraine at the right time.

Less noticed in the current furor is the policy announced by Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth to cut the U.S. defence budget by 8 percent a year for the next five years. This is the opposite of what the United States should be doing. Down the road there will be new Russian threats to every country on its periphery—Georgia, Moldova, the Baltic states, and Poland. The United States does not have to formally pull out of the NATO alliance; Trump has already signalled clearly that he will not honour the Article 5 commitment to mutual defence. America will be weakened both in terms of intention, and in terms of capacity to meet future great power threats….

The United States under Donald Trump is not retreating into isolationism. It is actively joining the authoritarian camp, supporting right-wing authoritarians around the world…