Ukraine and Russia with Trump Still at the Helm

Politics & Elections
1

Preemptive summary:
If Trump was still President, what would have happened in Ukraine, and would happen in the future?

The wordy version:
Based upon a profound and sincere belief that Donald J. Trump can take any situation and somehow make it worse, I have to believe that Eastern Europe is just one more reason we genuinely dodged a bullet concerning the 2020 election.

I am not thrilled with how Biden handled the Afghanistan pull out, but put a good deal of the blame on intelligence sources which he actually listened to and trusted. I also believe Biden and the Military Airlift Command did some remarkable things, perhaps the very best that could have been hoped for once the shit hit the fan. I further think Biden has handled Putin and this situation as well as anyone could have so far, and I realize the future in Ukraine is out of our hands-- Putin will do whatever Putin chooses to do.

I can imagine many scenarios that might have already played out with regard to Ukraine, Russia and the leaders of those and other interested nations. I can imagine many dystopian futures – but they are all worse when Trump is involved (in fact, I think he could even cause trouble as a private citizen). I am only a casual observer of history and military matters, and know almost nothing of foreign policy.

I am sure there are plenty of well informed posters here who can make some profound and interesting predictions. Being the Straight Dope, they are very likely to be well informed and insightful-- which would be great!! But also feel free to be sarcastic and snarky which I consider to be a co-equal appeal of this message board (and the original columns). If Trump was still President, what would have happened in Ukraine, and would happen in the future?

2

I despise DJT as much as the next guy. He’s a bit too old to become a dictator, but is the type.

However, I don’t believe in the great man theory of war causation. And the world doesn’t revolve around one country in the middle of North America. So — no predictable difference.

3

It’s too early to tell in my view.

The unanswered (and perhaps unanswerable) issues are (a) whether the US’s reaction would have been different under Biden vs Trump, and if so (b) whether it will/would have made any difference to whether or not Putin invades.

IMHO Trump would have reacted differently:

  • as I understand it, Biden both personally and as a matter of good policy abhors the idea of Russian territorial aggression

  • Trump is widely thought to have a soft spot for Putin and dictators in general. He would not have seen an invasion as threatening to him which is all he cares about. He wouldn’t have given a shit if Ukraine got invaded. Indeed, he might well have been of the view that it would advantage him personally if he did nothing much to deter a Ukrainian invasion. Much as his ego doesn’t let him admit it, he knows Russia helped him in 2016, and would help him again.

Consequently in my view the answer to (a) is likely “Yes”. But I have no clue about whether Putin’s actions will or would have been any different, so I can’t answer (b).

4

I do not want to make any additional substantial contributions to this thread until others have had a chance to chime in. (I know what I think, but I want to know what others think.)

That being said, I thought post forty in this thread addresses this matter very well:

5

I will refrain from offering snark so I don’t get modded for it.

In my view, the whole reason Putin helped Trump win in 2016 – and it is well established that he did – was for this attempt to land-grab more of Ukraine in furtherance of Putin’s long term goal of restoring as much of the Soviet Union to Russian control as he possibly can.

It is always in Putin’s best interest to create chaos and division in the countries of his enemies. He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams with his backing of Trump.

Of course, that was an easy call for Putin. I have no doubt that Trump is as compromised as a person can be in service to Putin. “Putin’s Puppet” is the most accurate a way to describe Trump, and it was long before Trump captured the presidency.

Putin, with Trump’s help, planted hundreds of poison pills for the new Biden administration to cope with in furtherance of Putin’s goals. This included radicalizing the Republican Party; weakening our institutions; propagating muscular propaganda aided by Fox “News” and other media outlets; helping Trump hollow out our intelligence agencies as well as gaining access to sensitive intelligence; driving wedges wherever he could in our NATO alliances. The list is depressingly long. It’s the same playbook Putin uses in his own country.

It’s also why Biden was the only reasonable choice for a post-Trump presidency. While it’s easy to lampoon his age and gouge him for missteps made over a very lengthy political career, he was the only candidate who had the chops to pull us through the myriad of crises we faced post Trump. This included taking on a pandemic, the fallen economy due to the uncontrolled pandemic, fixing our institutions and agencies as fast as possible (all the while being hobbled by Republicans/misinformation at every turn), and perhaps most importantly, restoring some semblance of unity among our NATO allies.

Putin has made the calculation that this is the best moment he may ever have to strike. It would only have been made better if Trump were reelected. If that had happened, we – and the rest of the Western world – would have had no chance against Putin and his fellow rising authoritarians. Trump would have happily cleared the way for Putin in Ukraine in one of his classic transactional moves, hoping for more assistance from Putin to further Trump’s own twisted autocratic goals.

Putin is hesitating now only because Biden has been so successful at what was an Herculean undertaking. Not that most Americans will recognize or appreciate it. Putin knows that taking/holding Ukraine will be very costly in the face of a strong NATO response. I also don’t think Putin got the response from Xi he was hoping for in their meeting last week.

If Putin invades, I don’t expect him to bite off all of Ukraine. He’ll take the piece with the most sympathetic Ukrainians and settle for that for now. Meantime, I think he hopes to create enough of a diversion that he can also finalize his take-back of Belarus in a bloodless coup. He virtually has it under his control now. He hopes no one will notice as he finalizes placement of Russian-backed leaders in that country. We can’t stop these things if Putin makes that calculated move. But we will make it very painful for him if he does. Much more so than if Trump were still in charge. Thank fuck.

6

Give the devil his due, Trump was not a warmonger

7

No he wasn’t - but he also thought diplomacy and statecraft was a wank that could be improved by treating international relations like they were business deals.

If Putin invaded Ukraine I think he’d publicly tut-tut, say its a European thing and none of America’s business, Trumpsplain to NATO that its their fault for relying on the US and sitting on their own wallets, and may do a half-hearted series of embargoes.

With that there would be a private side deal with Putin. What Putin can do for Trump is shift military pressure onto China, which I think is unfinished business for DJT and make US investment into Russia and its newly acquired territories easier and safer so he gets his international trade boost. I don’t think Trump would have a problem dealing with Putin as head of a resurgent all-but-USSR, because he thinks international relations is all about men of equal stature making deals. Putin will absolutely hope that Trump approaches this like he did with the triumph of solving North Korea.

8

I agree with the basic points that since Trump couldn’t care less about the welfare and sovereignty of Ukraine (or any other issue of basic morality), but does care very much about Putin’s approval, that therefore regardless of what he did he would undoubtedly have made the situation much worse.

Remember the Orange Peril’s performance at the cringe-worthy Helsinki Summit, where he sided with Putin’s denial of election interference and tried to discredit his own government’s intelligence agencies? I could see him doing the same thing here and supporting Putin’s fiction of Ukrainian aggression. Perhaps not, but the sure thing is that his totally ruthless self-serving nature that extends to the point of treason – and his general clueless idiocy – would definitely have made things worse, and would certainly have emboldened Putin’s expansionist ambitions. I have no doubt that Putin regarded Trump as the finest possible example of a “useful idiot” and was sorry to lose him in 2021.

9

He would also throw in something about how Ukraine isn’t paying us to defend them and how they’ve been “very ungrateful”.

10

The pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych was deposed in early 2014. Russia took over Crimea soon after that. If Putin had Trump as an enabler of any sort, then he had the entire Trump administration to take over Ukraine. Instead, Putin waits until a year into Biden’s administration? That doesn’t make any sense. The most opportune time would have been when Trump was making noise about taking the US out of NATO, especially in Putin had some sort of behind the scenes support from Trump.

Blaming Trump for actively encouraging the 2022 Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s border is a poorly thought out conspiracy theory. And then presenting Biden as the hero riding in to save the day turns the idea into a poorly thought out fairy tale.

11

I think there are three big differences in how Biden has handled the Russian/Ukraine crisis versus how Trump would have handled it. First, Biden has shown a lot of willingness to work with European leaders, and even let them take the lead in talks with Russia and Ukraine. Macron, Scholz and Johnson and their ministers have all had talks with their Russian and Ukrainian counterparts, and have indicated that their would be collective actions to sanction Russia and its leaders, harm its economic interests, and strengthen NATO if he invaded Ukraine. I don’t think Trump would have anywhere nearly as collaborative, and probably would have caused problems with allies by shooting his mouth off.

Second, Biden hasn’t alienated his advisors including his cabinet, the military, and the intelligence agencies. I’m a Biden critic, but I will acknowledge that consensus building is one of his strengths. And it does seems like he’s established a collaborative, team-driven approach within the US administration and with allies in dealing with the crisis. Trump’s disruptive tendencies, and the fact that he had run out of strong, experienced professionals to advise him would have made him much less effective.

Third, Biden, his team, and his counterparts have actually been pretty quiet on what they’ve been telling Russia and Ukraine. Carrots offered to Russia probably include Ukraine not joining NATO, the completion of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, and eventual removal of existing sanctions. Sticks would probably have included mothballing the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, the creation of a US-Europe gas trading deal, freezing of Russian bank accounts and trade sanctions. Ukraine’s probably been told they won’t be joining NATO, but will receive behind-the-scenes military and economic assistance. That kind of diplomacy works best when everyone’s talking privately and not making announcements or public threats. Trump would probably have displayed a lot of bluster and tried to tell others what to do via Twitter and harmed the diplomatic effort.

12

On the contrary, it makes perfect sense to wait if Putin believed Trump was going to have a second term. This was basically what everyone believed was going to happen, including an awful lot of Republicans who, to this day, are unable to acknowledge that Biden won the election. The pandemic was the fly in that ointment. Remember that Putin was one of the last world leaders to congratulate Biden on his win.

As for the year delay, I think Putin hoped the Trump Republican plot to overturn the election would succeed. Putin simply gave himself the most room to decide which way to jump in light of Biden’s unanticipated win in 2020. He took advantage of the ensuing chaos as the validity of the election – aided generously by Russian propaganda channeled through social media and sympathetic Fox “News,” among others – was disputed.

And it would be, had I said this. I didn’t. You’re aiming at a straw man.

13

Only if he believed it with 100% certainty. It’s hard to imagine that this was the case.

14

Why? Many in this country believed it, especially if they were of the Republican persuasion. For that matter, they still believe it.

15

Go back and read what you wrote:

In my view, the whole reason Putin helped Trump win in 2016 – and it is well established that he did – was for this attempt to land-grab more of Ukraine in furtherance of Putin’s long term goal of restoring as much of the Soviet Union to Russian control as he possibly can.

It is always in Putin’s best interest to create chaos and division in the countries of his enemies. He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams with his backing of Trump.

Of course, that was an easy call for Putin. I have no doubt that Trump is as compromised as a person can be in service to Putin. “Putin’s Puppet” is the most accurate a way to describe Trump, and it was long before Trump captured the presidency.

Putin, with Trump’s help, planted hundreds of poison pills for the new Biden administration to cope with in furtherance of Putin’s goals.

You most certainly are blaming Trump for assisting Putin, and your first sentence indicates that you believe “the whole reason Putin helped Trump win in 2016 was for this attempt to land-grab more of Ukraine”. If you want to quibble that I shortened ‘actively assisted in creating an encouraging environment for the 2022 Russian military buildup’ to ‘actively encouraging the 2022 Russian military buildup’ then perhaps you can knock me for choosing brevity over clarity. But anything else and you’re just trying to deflect attention from the ridiculousness of your earlier post.

And you still haven’t explained why Putin didn’t act during Trump’s first term if a Ukraine invasion was his main goal for turning Trump into his puppet. (Not that I believe that speculation either.) Sure, if Putin was actually directing Trump (he wasn’t), then he wouldn’t want to sacrifice Trump as an asset. But that assumes that Trump would receive severe political harm from an Ukraine invasion. No western political leader suffered any significant setbacks from the 2014 takeover of Crimea. Why would Trump in, say, 2018? But instead Putin delays his main goal from the time when Trump could help him most to a future with the significant risk that Trump wouldn’t be reelected? That doesn’t make any sense.

*I snipped part of your quote and indicated so with the <> bounded snip indicator, but for some reason that’s not appearing.

16

He’d think Ukraine got what it deserved, because they didn’t go along with his scheme to create a fake investigation into Hunter Biden. Remember his “perfect phone call”, and how much trouble that caused him? He’s exactly the sort to blame Ukraine for all that trouble, even though it was actually his own fault.

Trump is one of the most petty people in history, there’s no way he wouldn’t be reveling in Ukraine getting invaded.

17

There is an ocean of difference between installing a useful idiot, as Putin did, and Trump “actively assisting.” I think this is where your understanding of my post fails.

Trump isn’t capable of “actively assisting” anything beyond his own self-interest. But Putin certainly understood how easy it was to influence Trump to do what was best for Putin over what was best for US interests by manipulating Trump’s self-interest. This is not a hard distinction to make, I hope.

As for Putin actively directing Trump, I remind you of the disgraceful Trump-Putin Helsinki summit in 2018. No notes. Nothing preserved to show what was discussed privately between the two of them. Trump slavishly trying to catch Putin’s eye at the 2017 G-20 dinner, where he actually got up and went over to Putin for another private discussion. No American translator. No notes. There were also quite a number of phone calls between the two. Again, undocumented. But sure; Trump wasn’t being influenced by Putin. Nuh-uh.

There were also the numerous ongoing contacts between Trump loyalists and Putin’s government as well as Putin himself. In short, there existed many ways for Putin to exert his influence on Trump throughout Trump’s term.

Again, I think Putin miscalculated about Trump winning in 2020. No way to know whether that’s true. But before Trump’s election, many of the things that Putin feared remained in place. They were the things he spent four years tearing down through his influence on Trump. Practically everything Trump did during his term benefited Putin and disadvantaged the US. Softening the ground for an invasion when Trump won a second term. Trump winning in 2020 was all but a foregone conclusion – except for his handling of the pandemic.

Further, I don’t believe Putin really intended for Trump to actually win as a result of his efforts in 2016. I think Putin hoped only to cripple Hillary Clinton’s presidency. Putin’s hatred of her is well documented. Trump winning meant implementing a different plan to take advantage of the situation as it unfolded. Putin is not infallible and he does miscalculate, as he did in 2016. He may have installed Trump, even unexpectedly, but he simultaneously revealed the extent of his influence campaigns here in the US. I don’t think he wanted to do that. But whether Trump won or lost, there was no down side for Putin.

If Putin had moved even within 2 years of Trump’s win, this country was not yet damaged enough nor NATO alliances weakened sufficiently for Americans to not notice and pull together to oppose the newest Ukrainian grab. You can argue that he got away with it with Crimea, but that’s not really true. Crimea was substantially under Russian control when Putin finished the job in 2014. He was and continues to be punished for it through sanctions and his expulsion from the G-7.

Moreover, Putin used the same tactics in 2014 that he’s attempting to use now. Biden recognizes this and is able to resist those tactics more effectively today than Obama did in 2014. Obama tried, but the world mostly shrugged. Putin hopes they will perhaps shrug again – but this is his mistake. NATO allies learned from 2014. Putin may still try it, but he will pay a far heavier price than if Trump were in charge.

18

Not necessarily disagreeing, but I want to add some salient points.

One of the people who worked very diligently (and illegally) to put Yanukovych into power and persecute his opponents was Trump’s campaign manager in 2016.

A faction of Russians, pro-Russian Ukrainians and American stooges successfully manipulated Trump into withholding military aid to Ukraine at a crucial time. I don’t believe Trump has any opinion at all regarding Ukrainian sovereignty, which is why the people that were playing him threw out a bunch of shade about Hunter Biden and Ukraine being in love with Hillary.

Now -hang on- I’m going to say something not bad about Trump. While he’s totally transactional, he’s not traditionally corrupt and a lot of people found this out the hard way. Let me explain.
Sure, he’s corrupt in the sense that if he wants something, he’ll lie, cheat and steal to get it. But if you do something for him today with an expectation that he’ll do something for you tomorrow, you’ve miscalculated Trump.
He lives in the now. If he’s already received his quid, you aren’t getting your quo.

A lot of people found this out the hard way. One of his buddies, Eliott Brody, a man who worked hard raising money for Trump’s campaign as well as giving Trump a bunch of his own money, thought Trump owed him something. He took millions of dollars from a client, promising him ( among other things) the chance to play a round of golf with Trump. He got arrested for this. But the funniest thing about this story was that he couldn’t get Trump to play a round of golf with the guy, because Trump already had everything he needed from Brody.

Other people learned the lesson. Tom Barack. Oh, and Putin.

My point is that although Trump was not a warmonger, and I don’t believe that there was a chance he would’ve helped Russia over Ukraine……there were people in his circle trying to lead him to do just that. And they succeeded- for a short amount of time, at least. But all in all, Putin got burned by investing in Trump. Just like everyone else.

19

A central contention of the Trump-Russia argument has always been that Putin has ongoing leverage over Trump, whether in the form of “kompromat”, secret debt obligations, or whatever else. It seems from your post that you’re disagreeing with that.

20

I wanted to read the entire thread and make comments on lots items that have been mentioned. But this strikes me as very short sighted.

For one thing, if Putin had moved before the election it would have certainly diminished the possibility of Trump being reelected. It would have given all the more reason to put someone with foreign experience back in the White House.

Also, use of the phrase 100% certainty suggests to me that you see things as either black or white and that you think everyone thinks and acts the way you would. That is patently absurd!! The world may have as many as two or three shades of grey (but no actual colors), and everyone- especially world leaders- think and act the way I [EYE] would, not the way YOU would. (Turns out it is hard to over emphasis the word I since it is always capitalized.)

Frankly the view that the best time has passed is too simplistic. This isn’t a game of Risk, there are many, many factors Putin must consider that have little to do with Trump. Even basic economics has to be factored and the cost of inaction (a delayed action is still an option- a failed attempt is a hard no for decades or generations). Having options is the whole point and (have not had the news on today) unless something new is happening – Putin STILL has options.

One military talking head said that Putin is actually saying: “Are you going to make me go through with this ruse to finally say you will not allow Ukraine to join NATO and push your influence to my very border?!?!?!?! Please, don’t do it! Tell me, even secretly, that NATO will not be in Ukraine and I will pull this shit out of here before it costs anything additional.”