Trump – The Gift That Keeps Giving to Putin

Watching Trump “perform” on Russia–Ukraine this week, I am left thinking, does this guy actually have any clue what he is doing, or is there an agenda here to basically go back to business as usual with Russia, sell Ukraine down the river, because Trump and his friends just want to do big business deals with Russia?

I am left shifting between the total incompetence angle and that this is just about his desire to do business.

Maybe it’s both.

Perhaps Trump thinks that Putin is just like him, and is driven by money, and the deal. And hence, by offering Putin the prospect of a big deal, sanctions moderation, and huge personal enrichment, this will encourage him to cut a deal over Ukraine.

I would argue that this is a fundamental misunderstanding of Putin. Putin already has extraordinary wealth, beyond perhaps what even Trump can imagine. Putin owns the commanding heights of the Russian economy. No big business deal goes down in Russia without Putin’s nod, or slice. Putin is already a trillionaire. So what possible deal could Trump offer Putin that would be interesting?

For Putin, it’s not about the money but more about historical legacy – his place in history. He invaded Ukraine in 2022, and before that annexed Crimea in 2014, because he could; the opportunity was there (because of the weak response of the West); because he saw this as providing an opportunity to rectify the “wrongs of the past,” and therein the collapse of the USSR.

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That is why he launched a full-scale invasion, and that is why he is waging this war, and he will stop at nothing less until he achieves his goals, or gets carried out trying.

So Trump does not understand Putin if he thinks the solution is for Ukraine just to surrender the remaining territory it controls in Donbas, and then Putin will move on. No, no, no, absolutely wrong. If Ukraine, under duress from Trump, surrenders the remaining territory in Donbas that it controls, Putin will take that and move on, attacking further.

Actually, for Putin, it is beyond Ukraine, and it is also about breaking NATO itself. It is about driving a knife into the heart of NATO, as he sees the Western alliance and its prior adherence (pre-Trump) to a rules-based order, with values (democracy, human rights, rule of law) that are at odds with the fundamental basis of Putin’s fascist Russia.

And therein Trump is the gift that keeps giving to Putin – as Trump has fundamentally undermined the core of the NATO alliance, its Article 5 defense, through his actions on Greenland, but also on Ukraine. No one in European NATO seriously thinks that the U.S., under Trump, would come to Europe’s defense if attacked by Russia. And Putin thinks the same, which may encourage him to take risks and push and test that Article 5 defense.

Now Ukraine knows the above if Trump does not.

Ukraine knows that once it surrenders its front-line defenses in Donbas, its defenses will be fatally flawed, and Russia will drive on to take more territory.

The problem for Ukraine still is that, while it understands that Trump has no clue what he is doing, and does not understand Putin, it is still somewhat dependent on the US for munitions and intelligence. So it kind of must be nice to Trump, even though they generally view him as having zero clue what he is doing, to keep the supply of those munitions and intelligence.

The angle is to play Trump as long as possible, to draw down supplies and intelligence as long as possible, to buy Ukraine time, to develop as much autonomy from the US, until the point that the US is no longer there – and they know that point is approaching.

And it is also understanding that there is a nightmare scenario where Trump totally gets into bed with Putin, signs big business deals, pulls Western sanctions, and forces its allies also in Europe to pull their support from Ukraine. There is a scenario where Ukraine is left totally alone against Russia. So Ukraine must play along as far as possible with Trump to try and stall or delay that worst-case scenario.

But there is a limit here.

And I think here that Ukraine is still prepared to walk away from Trump’s efforts to impose a peace agreement, which would leave Ukraine unsustainable as a sovereign state, and its population at risk of genocide.

And given its deep strike drone capability now, Ukraine has an ability to fight on for a considerable amount of time, and to impose high costs still on the Russian economy, and with it the global economy through its ability to hit Russia’s energy and commodity export sector.

So when pushed, as Trump is doing, Ukraine will eventually be forced to escalate.

I noted above that there is a scenario where Trump tries to bully Europe to pull its support for Ukraine to force it to agree to Trump’s bad peace deal. I think Europe will reject those demands from Trump and eventually bite the bullet, understanding that it will ultimately have to walk away from the US.

It will make this choice as it increasingly understands it faces an existential threat from Russia, with the US backstop no longer there, and its future depends on its ability to build an autonomous defense capability.

Building that capability will take time, and Ukraine is key to buying Europe time. So Europe needs Ukraine to hold out against Russia as long as possible to buy Europe time. So when push comes to shove, I think Europe will have to choose between the US and Ukraine and given that the latter might now be more critical to Europe’s existential security threat (Russia), it will choose it over the former.

Perhaps European politicians will find some balls and pitch the line to Trump that, in asking Europe to surrender Ukraine to Russia, Trump will, in effect, be the US President who kills NATO, the most successful defensive alliance in history. Will Trump really want to go down in history as that President? The president that killed NATO.

What is Putin thinking here?

I don’t think he can believe his luck in having Trump as President.

As noted above, Putin will take whatever concessions Trump offers, and demand more. He sees Trump as weakening NATO and undermining European support for Ukraine. He will assume Trump continues this path and will hold out on any deal, expecting more concessions from Trump further down the line. He views Trump as weak, and having gotten involved in a war in Iran that has proven disastrous. He views Trump as desperate for a deal. So he will play hard ball to secure more concessions.

Putin thinks Trump fears him and is unwilling to hold him to account –Trump has done little to tighten sanctions on Russia and actually has softened sanctions and has offered sanctions moderation.

And Putin likely sees politics in Europe as suggesting division and fracture, as the far right rises, and eventually looks to cut deals also with Moscow. The French elections there in May are a highlight for Putin, and I think he will look to delay any deal over Ukraine until after those elections, as he will think Europe will then be weakened, and with it its support for Ukraine, and that he will get an even better deal the longer he leaves it.

His strategy this winter will be to escalate against Ukraine, to try to wreck its economy, increase its financing needs, and hence the burden on Europe, until the point at which Le Pen wins in France and then pressures Europe to pull support for Ukraine.

So there is little chance that Putin will cut any deal over Ukraine any time soon. And both sides have an interest here to escalate.

See the original in the author’s @tashecon blog here.