By Danko Maleski
One hope and one fear loom over America and the world. The hope is that the newly elected President of America will bring an end to the war in Ukraine. The fear is of his authoritarian ambitions.
It’s evident to everyone that the war cannot be ended in 24 hours. It’s equally clear that achieving this within six months, as Trump suggested, remains to be seen. What is possible, however, is halting the killing on a battlefield reminiscent of the trench warfare of World War I, where hundreds of thousands have lost their lives on both sides of the conflict.
Without American financial and military support, the war machinery will grind to a halt. After that, the path to peace is a long one.
The most that can currently be hoped for is a “frozen conflict,” similar to the division of Korea in the 1950s. The U.S. and its European allies might be content with splitting Ukraine into two spheres of influence, with the rest of Ukraine joining NATO and the EU. However, Russia insists that this part of the country be demilitarized and rendered neutral. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov has stated that Russia rejects the idea of a “frozen conflict,” demanding a comprehensive resolution that includes international recognition of the four occupied regions as part of the Russian Federation. One thing is certain: Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has poisoned Europe’s political climate for decades to come. It’s equally certain that there is no quick or easy exit from a crisis that has brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Now, all hopes rest on Donald Trump to end the war—or more precisely, to stop the killing by “freezing” the conflict.
Ukraine is a devastated nation. This war serves as a lesson in how weak states must avoid being crushed in the power struggle between great powers. This holds true not only now, when they are practically at war, but also tomorrow when peace is brokered. At a meeting at the UN, Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere once shared his insights on the topic of “big and small powers.” “You’ve all heard the African proverb that when elephants fight, it’s the grass that suffers,” he said. “Now, let me tell you this: the grass suffers even when the elephants make love.”
“I’ll be a dictator for just one day,” Trump declared during his campaign. The great fear in America is that this day could see the new President deploy the military onto the streets and embark on a perilous mission: the roundup and deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants. This act, tantamount to declaring martial law, would be justified under the 1807 Insurrection Act, a loosely defined federal law empowering the U.S. President to deploy the military and National Guard in cases of civil unrest, rebellion, or insurrection. Little is known about how such a state of martial law would unfold or how long it would last.
But if, during his first term, Trump reportedly asked security if they could shoot protesters in the legs during an unpleasant encounter with a small group outside the White House, one can only imagine what might happen in an operation targeting millions across America, herded into camps for deportation.
In my memoirs, I compared Milošević and Tuđman—whom I had the opportunity to observe closely at the Yugoslavia Conference table in the early 1990s—to volcanoes ready to erupt, their necks and faces tense and flushed. Trump feels like their replica: unpleasant, unpredictable, and explosive—a “volcano” red in the neck and face, just as I remember the two “Yugoslav” dictators. The newly elected U.S. President, who boldly faced an assassin’s bullet and defiantly shouted, “Fight, fight, fight!”, who still refuses to acknowledge his defeat to Biden as legitimate, who promises pardons for Capitol rioters, claims he has lists of enemies to settle scores with, desires Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Canada, and is considered “out of control” by many in America and the world, has now become the most powerful person on Earth.
A terrifying blend of authoritarianism, nationalism, and vulgarity in the personality of the new U.S. President, combined with the potential massive use of military power in the internal affairs of a democratic nation, poses a daunting question. Will Trump exercise such power, and if so, how? This question leaves many Americans and the world trembling. “I fear a ‘Reichstag moment,’” General Milley reportedly said five years ago.
Meanwhile, Trump’s supporters, rallying under the slogan “This victory is our mandate,” are gathering at the gates of the conquered bastion of power. Right-wing groups, armed with the 900-page Project 2025, authored by the conservative Heritage Foundation, demand the fulfillment of a conservative agenda. They claim, “America must awaken, as lawlessness and chaos reign. Conservatives must seize power immediately and hold it for as long as possible to steer this sinking ship to safety.”
Politically, an alarmingly combustible mixture, akin to the crowds that stormed the Capitol, is pouring into America’s streets. Let us trust in the strength of American democracy and hope that this is not the same Trump from his first term. As someone once said, even adults can “grow up.”