Two days after Biden’s green light, Ukraine used US-supplied long-range missiles against Russia. But his attempt to stymie the president-elect’s peace plan may just speed up the end of war
Columnist based in Washington, DC
America’s belligerent, interventionist foreign policy establishment could not prevent Donald Trump’s return to the presidency. But the nation’s foreign policy elites are trying to pre-empt his second term’s first diplomatic victory. Exhibit A is President Biden’s ill-considered, arguably reckless, decision to authorise Ukraine’s use of American long-range missiles to strike far inside Russia. That too on the eve of the 1,000th day of the full-scale war. Two days later, Ukraine reportedly carried out its first long-range strike into Russia.
Elite’s cussedness | Trump promises to quickly end the Ukraine-Russia war upon his return to the White House. As America chiefly funds not only the Ukrainian war effort, but the entire Ukrainian govt, a threat to turn off Kyiv’s financial tap would produce a peace deal in double time. As I wrote 20 months ago, “Zelenskyy and his Western patrons waged an unwinnable war…In a more rational environment, such an unwinnable war would see diplomats racing to the negotiating table to strike an honourable peace deal with Moscow.”
America’s belligerent, interventionist foreign policy establishment could not prevent Donald Trump’s return to the presidency. But the nation’s foreign policy elites are trying to pre-empt his second term’s first diplomatic victory. Exhibit A is President Biden’s ill-considered, arguably reckless, decision to authorise Ukraine’s use of American long-range missiles to strike far inside Russia. That too on the eve of the 1,000th day of the full-scale war. Two days later, Ukraine reportedly carried out its first long-range strike into Russia.
Elite’s cussedness | Trump promises to quickly end the Ukraine-Russia war upon his return to the White House. As America chiefly funds not only the Ukrainian war effort, but the entire Ukrainian govt, a threat to turn off Kyiv’s financial tap would produce a peace deal in double time. As I wrote 20 months ago, “Zelenskyy and his Western patrons waged an unwinnable war…In a more rational environment, such an unwinnable war would see diplomats racing to the negotiating table to strike an honourable peace deal with Moscow.”