(AFP) – Donald Trump’s newfound if vague willingness to entertain security guarantees for Ukraine could be a game-changer, but the US president’s right-wing base is already warning him not to go too far. After a campaign last year spent bashing predecessor Joe Biden over billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, and Trump’s public upbraiding of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February, Trump has considered promises to Kyiv to end the Russian invasion.
He has ruled out ground troops as well as NATO membership, siding with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in blaming Ukraine’s aspirations for the Western alliance for the February 2022 invasion. But after Trump welcomed Putin to Alaska on Friday, Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said the Russian president had agreed to a “concession” of the United States offering “Article Five-like protection” for Ukraine, referring to NATO’s binding promise that an attack on one is an attack on all. Some observers doubted Witkoff’s understanding of Putin, noting that Moscow publicly has insisted on guarantees for Russia.
But Trump has said “we’ll give them very good protection” and has spoken of providing US airpower to enforce any agreement. Little is known about what US airpower would entail, but it could support a deployment of European troops to Ukraine mulled by France and Britain. If the United States agreed to enforce control of the Ukrainian skies, it would be an “incredible green light for greater ambition” by Europeans on security, said Kristine Berzina, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund. European leaders showed striking unity and solidarity by coming together to Washington on Monday to back Zelensky in talks with Trump, she said.
“For there to be a meaningful difference on the ground in Ukraine, it can’t just be diplomatic alignment. It can’t just be the heads of state being in lockstep for a few days at a time,” she said. “Instead, they have to be ready to actually move and to show to Trump, ‘We have everything ready; we just need x from you to make this work.'”
**- Vagueness on options -** Trump, however, could also authorize a much smaller air deployment, such as one focused on reconnaissance that would see limited numbers of US planes in the Ukrainian skies. “President Trump said some things in his meetings with the European leaders and Zelensky, and I am betting a huge sum of money that there are people around Trump who are going to spend a lot of time walking that back,” said Debra Cagan, a former senior US policymaker now at the Atlantic Council.
“What I mean by that is that they’re going to try a very de minimis approach to security guarantees, to do as little as possible to carry that out,” she said. She said that any successful strategy needed to have components on land and air as well as sea, including keeping the crucial Black Sea ports open for Ukraine.
**- Pushback from base -** Trump retains a strong hold on the Republican Party, but has already seen some dissent within his hard-right base, which backed him in part for his dismissive attitude to foreign involvement. Outspoken Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who earlier criticized Trump for bombing Iran, said she believed voters would be “appalled” by more support for Ukraine as they struggle with day-to-day concerns. “America is broke,” she told conservative host Megyn Kelly. “At some point we have to start saying no to the rest of the world.”
Trump-aligned Senator Tommy Tuberville said it would be an “impossible sell” to voters still shaken by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to start another long-term US military commitment, according to The Hill newspaper. Trump, however, has tried hard to portray the war as belonging to Biden and has spoken openly of his desire for the Nobel Peace Prize. “He could probably sell to his base that this is about America keeping peace and not about America making war,” Berzina said.
– Shaun TANDON
© 2024 AFP
