By Denko Maleski
There’s a well-known metaphor for U.S. foreign policy, likening it to a massive tanker that takes time to halt and change course. The direction it takes, as recent decisions by President Biden show, depends greatly on the captain of the ship. Although the newly elected president has announced peace talks with Russian President Putin, Biden continues to deliver new contingents of weapons, along with authorizations to strike deep within Russian territory. Similarly, with a series of executive orders that Trump is expected to overturn—some even on his first day in office on January 20—the situation is complex.
However, not everything depends on the will of the U.S. president. The grand strategy adhered to by previous presidents, whether Democrats or Republicans, is hard to alter.
What interests global public opinion today is whether America’s strategy of interventions in support of a democratic world—though also ensuring U.S. dominance and involving the great power in “endless wars”—will be abandoned by Trump in favor of a “transactional” foreign policy. Rare critics, American intellectuals, doubt the new U.S. president’s intent to change the overarching strategy of dominating the world, by force if necessary. They cite the power of the “deep state,” referencing security agencies, particularly the CIA, and the military-industrial complex, which hold decisive influence in such matters.
Still, the newly elected U.S. president has already done the unthinkable. Donald Trump has broken a taboo in American politics, as well as among its allies, including NATO member North Macedonia: expressing understanding for the other side. Since the start of Russian aggression against Ukraine, no one in the West has dared to utter such heresy. By blindly following U.S. policy, European allies have lost their identity. The new EU Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas, even stated that if the U.S. withdraws, the EU would continue to supply Ukraine with weapons.
Critics of the war would add, “To the last Ukrainian.” Like her predecessor Borrell, Kallas competes to be “more Catholic than the Pope.” After February 22, 2022, when Russian troops invaded a sovereign state, we all united in loudly condemning an act that no one could justify. Yet something unacceptable occurred: all debate about the causes of this war, even from Moscow’s perspective, ceased.
Discussion of great powers’ struggles for security and the desire to weaken or destroy one another, as well as broken agreements with Russia and missed diplomatic opportunities that could have led to peace, became taboo. Diplomacy as a tool to stop the war, which continues to escalate toward the current “90 seconds to Armageddon,” was sidelined. Even revelations that the UK and the U.S. sabotaged a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul, at the very start of the war, didn’t dampen the West’s commitment to the conflict. Propaganda, not enlightened debate, now dominates America and Europe, and dissenting voices are silenced—even in the pages of The New York Times.
And suddenly, Trump arrives. The taboo broken by the new U.S. president is encapsulated in two statements about the war in Ukraine: that it’s all because of NATO and that he understands Putin’s position.
So, what now? Will Trump bring peace, or will he be defeated by the “deep state”? Time will tell. Even Putin remains skeptical and distrustful of Americans. He recounts an incident when he proposed Russia join NATO. President Clinton found the idea interesting but said he needed to consult his advisors. The next day, he told the Russian president the idea was unacceptable. Putin’s comment: Presidents come into office with ideas, but then men in dark suits and blue ties tell them what reality is.
Putin should know best—he was once one of those men in dark suits and blue ties in the USSR.
