America First, Russia, and Ukraine

America First Policy Institute ^ | Lt. General (Ret.) Keith Kellogg, Fred Fleitz

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HOW AN AMERICA FIRST FOREIGN POLICY REDUCED RISKS FROM RUSSIA DURING THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

We believe the most important way the America First approach to national security could have affected the Ukraine War was to prevent it. A strong and decisive president who stood up to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a tough and coherent U.S. foreign policy for Russia, Ukraine, and NATO could have prevented Putin from ordering the February 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In our view, tough and coherent policies implemented by President Donald Trump are why Russia refrained from invading its neighbors during his presidency but felt no such constraints during the administrations of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden.

Trump dissuaded Putin from invading neighboring states because his leadership and foreign policies promoted deterrence and peace through strength. Putin saw in Trump a strong and decisive president who was prepared to use all tools of American power—peaceful and coercive—to defend U.S. interests. Similar to other U.S. adversaries, Putin also viewed Trump as unpredictable and unconventional. In light of Trump’s threat to destroy North Korea if it threatened U.S. allies in the Asia-Pacific, Trump’s summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, bombing Syria for using chemical weapons on civilians, dropping America’s largest bunker buster bomb on an ISIS redoubt in Afghanistan, imposing strong economic sanctions on China while keeping dialogue open with Beijing, Putin could not be sure how Trump would respond to Russian belligerence. This unpredictability played an important role during the Trump presidency in impeding hostile actions by U.S. adversaries.

Trump also had a Russia policy that demonstrated American strength. For example, in 2018, after the Russian mercenary Wagner Group advanced on U.S. bases in Syria, they were met with immediate and decisive action when President Trump authorized punitive airstrikes against them. Those airstrikes set back Russia’s operations and influence in the region. Russia never retaliated against the United States over that attack—which reportedly killed hundreds of Russian mercenaries—likely because Putin did not know how Trump would respond.

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On Ukraine, the Trump Administration promoted a strong deterrent approach by authorizing the first-ever lethal military aid package to Ukraine, equipping its armed forces with advanced Javelin anti-armor missiles, naval vessels, and Mark VI patrol boats. This was a major break from the Obama Administration, which agreed only to provide nonlethal military assistance despite passionate appeals by Ukrainian officials for U.S. arms to fight pro-Russian separatist rebels in the Donbas.[i] President Obama refused to send weapons to Ukraine because he feared it would provoke Putin. President Trump disagreed and sent weapons to Ukraine as a sign of American strength and support for a friendly state.

At the same time, Trump was open to cooperation with Russia and dialogue with Putin. Trump expressed respect for Putin as a world leader and did not demonize him in public statements. Trump’s political opponents criticized him for this, but Trump’s approach was no different from how multiple U.S. presidents dealt with Soviet leaders during the Cold War. This was a transactional approach to U.S.-Russia relations in which Trump used his experience as a dealmaker to find ways to coexist and lower tensions with Putin while standing firm on American security interests. Trump spoke with Putin many times during his presidency, including at least five times in person and over 17 phone calls.

BIDEN MISJUDGED PUTIN BEFORE HE ORDERED RUSSIAN TROOPS TO INVADE UKRAINE

Ukraine’s potential admission to NATO was a sensitive issue for Vladimir Putin even before Joe Biden took the oath of office in January 2021. Although Putin was momentarily open to the idea in the early 2000s, he began to speak out against it after the 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit, which confirmed that NATO one day planned to admit Ukraine as a member.

Putin has long argued that Ukraine could never leave Russia’s sphere of influence by claiming Russians and Ukrainians are one people, denying that Ukrainians are a separate people, and opposing the idea of an independent Ukrainian state. During a one-on-one meeting with President George W. Bush in 2008, Putin said, “You have to understand, George. Ukraine is not even a country.”[i] During a visit to Kyiv in 2013, Putin said, “God wanted the two countries to be together,” and their union was based upon “the authority of the Lord,” unalterable by any earthly force.[ii] Putin underscored and highlighted this idea in a July 2021 essay, “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” in which he argued Ukraine could only be sovereign in partnership with Russia and asserted that present-day Ukraine occupies historically Russian lands.[iii]

During a February 2024 interview with Putin by journalist Tucker Carlson, Putin provided a long, nonsensical account of Russian and Ukrainian history in which he disputed Ukraine’s nationality and history and repeated his ridiculous claims that Russia invaded Ukraine in part to fight Nazism in the country.[iv]

The Biden Administration’s approach to national security rejected Trump’s transactional approach to Russia, under which Trump established a working relationship with a U.S. adversary. Biden replaced the Trump approach with a liberal internationalist one that promoted Western values, human rights, and democracy. Contrary to the Trump Administration’s America First stance on national security, the Biden approach put the idealistic agendas of the global elite ahead of a working relationship with Russia. Biden was not interested in working with Putin. He wanted to lecture and isolate him.

Biden’s hostile policy toward Russia not only needlessly made it an enemy of the United States, but it also drove Russia into the arms of China and led to the development of a new Russia-China-Iran-North Korea axis. China and Russia hope to use this axis to challenge the current U.S.-led world order and the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Russia has used this axis to obtain attack drones from Iran and missiles and artillery shells from North Korea for its invasion forces in Ukraine.

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Biden confused the situation further in a January 18, 2022 press conference when he said Russia will “move in” to Ukraine but that the United States and its allies might be divided on how to respond if a Russian invasion was a “minor incursion.” This gaffe shocked Ukrainian officials since it seemed to indicate Biden might tolerate Russia invading Ukrainian territory to some degree. More importantly, the gaffe telegraphed to Putin Biden’s fear of escalation and lack of resolve just as he was about to order the invasion.

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the United States and its allies should have sent substantial lethal aid to Ukraine in the fall of 2021 to deter a Russian invasion. Instead, as an invasion appeared likely in December 2021, Biden ignored urgent appeals from Zelenskyy for military aid—especially anti-tank Javelins and anti-air Stingers—and warned Putin that the United States would send lethal aid to Ukraine if Russia invaded. Biden’s message conveyed U.S. weakness to Putin, implying he could use military intimidation to manipulate U.S. policy toward Ukraine.

BIDEN’S ERRORS AT THE START OF THE WAR DOOMED UKRAINE

Russia reportedly began its February 2022 assault against Ukraine with a plan of invading over a 10-day period, quickly taking Kyiv, and annexing the country by August. It didn’t turn out that way.

Ukraine’s military learned from Russia’s 2014 invasions and was much better prepared. Ukraine’s army was well trained and had amassed billions of dollars in advanced weaponry from the West, including Javelin anti-tank missiles unblocked by President Trump that inflicted huge losses on Russian forces. Russia’s army performed poorly due to inadequate leadership and planning, deficient equipment, poor logistics, and ill-trained troops. The Russian military was also unprepared to defend against state-of-the-art advanced missiles and attack drones.

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There is a pathway forward in Ukraine in which America can keep its own interests prioritized while also playing a role in bringing the largest war in Europe since World War II to an end. That role must be through decisive, America First leadership where bold diplomacy paves the way to an end-state. What we should not continue to do is to send arms to a stalemate that Ukraine will eventually find difficult to win.

This should start with a formal U.S. policy to bring the war to a conclusion.

Specifically, it would mean a formal U.S. policy to seek a cease-fire and negotiated settlement of the Ukraine conflict. The United States would continue to arm Ukraine and strengthen its defenses to ensure Russia will make no further advances and will not attack again after a cease-fire or peace agreement. Future American military aid, however, will require Ukraine to participate in peace talks with Russia.

To convince Putin to join peace talks, President Biden and other NATO leaders should offer to put off NATO membership for Ukraine for an extended period in exchange for a comprehensive and verifiable peace deal with security guarantees.

In their April 2023 Foreign Affairs article, Richard Haass and Charles Kupchan proposed that in exchange for abiding by a cease-fire, a demilitarized zone, and participating in peace talks, Russia could be offered some limited sanctions relief. Ukraine would not be asked to relinquish the goal of regaining all its territory, but it would agree to use diplomacy, not force, with the understanding that this would require a future diplomatic breakthrough which probably will not occur before Putin leaves office. Until that happens, the United States and its allies would pledge to only fully lift sanctions against Russia and normalize relations after it signs a peace agreement acceptable to Ukraine. We also call for placing levies on Russian energy sales to pay for Ukrainian reconstruction.

By enabling Ukraine to negotiate from a position of strength while also communicating to Russia the consequences if it fails to abide by future peace talk conditions, the United States could implement a negotiated end-state with terms aligned with U.S. and Ukrainian interests. Part of this negotiated end-state should include provisions in which we establish a long-term security architecture for Ukraine’s defense that focuses on bilateral security defense.

[gleeaikin]

Rhe Falkland Islands near Argentina painted the future of SURFACE sea power. The changes at Sevastapol have confirmed the artistry.