TIOL - COB( WEB) - 961
FEBRUARY 27, 2025

By Shailendra Kumar, Founder Editor

IN the last whirlwind 30 days, the Trump Administration has been swirling from one turf to another at a lightning-fast pace, in a madcap fashion. Of course, never seen before NOT only in the US but also governments all over the world! Mr Donald Trump, in his second avatar, looks hell bent to pulverise whatever his predecessors in the past 75 years have built, nourished, enriched and stood for, right from meaningful global institutions and democratic values to staunch allies. One logical question, which may pop up, is - If all the existing institutions and values are being relentlessly sledgehammered, what do they have up their sleeves to substitute American liberalism? That is, thus far, not very clear except the fact that democratic liberalism is being replaced by pentagonal pillars of Trump's outlandish philosophy or one may call it 'gibberish'! And the five legs are neo-imperialism, transactionalism, whataboutism, short-termism and wolf-warriorism! In simple words, his foreign policy philosophy is hemmed in by adhocism. It is more in the nature of being episodic, anecdotal and transactional. Many of these carrying the genomes of 19th century, are predictably misfit for the 21st century world, and have come to be greeted with jeers, mocks and catcalls across the world. This also amounts to disastrous loss of American influence worldwide. In other words, Mr Trump has ceded grounds to China and Russia!

How has China consumed all these developments stemming from the Oval Office? In brief, Beijing is having a chortle of a century! China has never shied away from calling out American liberalism as hypocrisy and cravings for hegemony on the world stage. China has consistently been mouthing its stand that liberal democracy is certainly not the proven driver for prosperity and happiness in society. It has always stressed that their party-based centralised system is superior, and the world should adopt the same! Now that Mr Trump has begun trampling all the principles such as territorial fences ought not to be redrawn by coercion, Beijing propagandists with an eye on Taiwan, seem to be smirking in triumph! One need not be obfuscated if Mr Trump's strategy emboldens China to embrace more bellicose policies towards its neighbours. Holy Trump! Meanwhile, Beijing has been bankrolling high-value global projects to expand its soft power. It has made gargantuan investments in digital as well as physical infrastructure around the world. And its wolf warrior diplomats have been telling the world that 'Be more like us'! Voila! Enter the Dragon! China has also been geopolitically re-positioning itself by forging rapprochement with Asian and European countries in the hope that if they get alienated by the US, Beijing could entice them to join its grid of influence!

Let's now swing away from America's main rival to its allies. Like Canada and Australia, Europe happens to be one of the most stable and staunch allies of the US. In fact, it represents the backbone of the celebrated romanticism of Atlanticism. It sits in the eye of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), which stabilised the geopolitical security in Europe under the canopy of the American guarantee. Under the Biden Administration, NATO grew from strength to strength and also brought many non-EU and non-NATO countries under its umbrella. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Europe breathed a fresh breeze of unity and harmony and whole-heartedly backed Ukraine with missiles, tanks, warplanes and other modern weapons. Having deployed heavy armaments coupled with deadlier improvised drones, Ukraine has not only survived the Russian plus North Korean blizzards of onslaughts but also put Russia on the backfoot. Then pops up on the horizon the Republican colossus bigfooting the White House and giving a statement that America's allies are worse than its foes as they have survived and thrived at the cost of America. He issued myriad tariff threats to the EU and the latest is against all those which levy digital services tax. In addition, his reciprocal tariff policy hangs like a sword on the EU, which runs trade surpluses in its bilateral trade with the US.

If we brush the tariff issues under the carpet for the time being, what has come as a frightening nightmare for Europe are the twin issues of Trump's threat to walk out of NATO and the stunningly unilateral policy move of the White House to negotiate with Russia for the endgame of the on-going Ukraine War. America has snubbed its European allies and unilaterally broached the Ukrainian issue with Russia at a dizzying pace. Forget about Europe, even the victim of the Russian aggression was neither consulted nor invited to the negotiation table. This has not only humiliated Europe which has unitedly been arming Ukraine under the American tutelage but also triggered a rupture in the entire Western tent. More astounding was the development that the Trumpian cabal went ahead with the initial round of talks in Saudi Arabia which seems to be playing the role of détente-architect. Though the British PM and the French President have taken initiatives to visit White House and discuss these spurning demeanours straight with Trump but Brussels is sinking in disappointment. In fact, after meeting Mr Trump late last week, Mr Macron has said that the Ukrainian conflict may end within weeks. However, the New German Chancellor-in-waiting has publicly stated that Europe can no longer hinge on American guarantee to wall off existential threats from Russia. He has commented that it is five minutes to midnight for Europe and has favoured consensus to make Europe Trump-proof.

Worse, during a verbal duel, Mr Trump vilified the Ukrainian President and ended up calling Mr Zelensky a 'dictator without elections'! Mr Trump also failed to bridle his tongue and called Ukraine the aggressor in the on-going war! Of course, he later retracted his statement by calling Russia the aggressor! What is more shocking for Brussels is that Mr Trump has virtually accepted most demands coming from Moscow - no negotiation over the annexed territory; no deployment of NATO troops as peacekeepers and a constructive role for Beijing in the on-going talks. Europe feels caught in raptor-like talons of two mega geopolitical powers as its fate is going to be sealed for the second time since post-WW-II and it has, pitiably, got no say in it! Brussels construes the latest round of US talks with Russia as Yalta 2.0. Netizens may recall that after the World War II had come to an end, the three Allied leaders - Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, had met at the Crimean Port of Yalta and had locked the final contours of the political map of Europe. If Yalta 2.0 is allowed to proceed, Europe fears that some sort of aggression from the East would always be lurking in the future. So, Brussels is of unanimous view that Mr Trump is flirting with catastrophe which may not be kryptonite for America but may drag entire Europe into permacrisis.

More serious existential crisis for Europe, which looms over its head, is the revocation of security umbrella by the US. America has been playing the avuncular role to provide security umbrella to Europe since 1949 - the birth year for NATO. If the US pulls back its forces from the forward areas of NATO countries in vicinity of Russia and also from Germany, Europe would turn defenceless against any Moscow-sponsored incursions. If Mr Trump retreats with the nuclear weapons deployed in Europe to neutralise any sort of nuclear threats coming from Moscow, the two nuclear powers of Europe - France and the UK, are presently not capable of filling the vacuum as they have not upgraded their nuclear arsenals for decades. The US pullback from the NATO would rob this guardrail forum of its real sinews, and small European nations, which have recently drawn their swords out of sheaths against Moscow, would be utterly vulnerable. Worse, against the extant reality of barely a few members of NATO meeting the defence spending target of 2% of their GDPs, they stand no chance to defend themselves unless they raise this ratio to above 4% sooner than later.

Given the volte-face of Mr Trump on the Ukrainian conflict, what could be his real intent? If I dare to surmise, it is nothing but the ghost of transactionalism and also perhaps vendetta as Kyiv had declined Mr Trump's request for a probe against Joe and Hunter Biden! Team Trump has deployed a popular military strategy called "hammer and anvil". This is to pin down the target by executing tight encirclement. Even before assuming powers, the Trumpian cabal had probably carved out a strategy to take over natural resources of Ukraine in exchange for the American assistance advanced during the previous regime. The US has officially asked war-ravaged Ukraine, with wanton cruelty, to sign a predatory deal bestowing ownership of 50% of its critical minerals to the US till its debt is squared off. When such a lop-sided agreement was spurned by Kyiv, the issue was raked up again by Vice-President J D Vance at Munich Security Conference. When the message was DMed to Mr Trump about Mr Zelensky's intransigence and effrontery, heavier pressure was dialled up by expediting talks with Russia minus Ukraine. Zelensky is on record that he is willing to sign any deal for peace provided Ukraine's security is guaranteed along with the membership to NATO. Since the US is behaving almost 'like-a-mercenary' and is offering a highly unfair mineral contract, it does not want Europe to be part of the on-going geopolitical acrobatics.

How unfair is this deal for Ukraine? First, the Trump administration has unilaterally pegged the entire basket of assistance as debt whereas Zelensky says that a large swathe was grant. Secondly, Team Trump has computed it to be close to USD 500 billion but is not willing to share its computation-sheets with Ukraine which finds faults with the American methodology to arrive at such a jaw-dropping total (EU pegs it close to USD 120 billion). Thirdly, the US wants Ukraine to create an investment fund and put all the revenue from half of its natural resources, ports and other industries in this account to be owned by the US. The sums parked in this fund would be allowed to accumulate till it grows fat enough to be close to USD 500 billion disputed debts. Zelensky has said that given the sparse revenue coming from its ports and other sources, it would take more than a century to accumulate such an eye-watering total! Moreover, Ukraine gets nothing back in terms of security guarantee from the US. Most Ukrainians see the proposed deal as betrayal by the US.

In a nutshell, the Trump Administration's proffer is extortionate and dragon-like, which threatens to eat away its mineral rights as well as its sovereignty. So, what would happen if Mr Trump unleashes his fury and fire against Ukraine. First, the US weapons and ammunition supply would stop. Second, Elon Musk's Starlink access would be denied - this is the life-blood for the forward line forces of Ukraine. Thirdly, Mr Trump may revoke all sanctions against Russia which would muscle up its economic recovery. Fourthly, Russia would be emboldened to go hammer-and-tongs to bombard more civilian areas in Ukraine. Fifthly, even with smart fighting, Ukraine may not survive for more than a year unless the EU comes forward to support it with modern technology, weapons and financial aid. With the European assistance, Ukraine which has its own army, may drag the war for some more years. But, given the frailness of the economic conditions of the leading European economies like Germany, France and even Britain, how long such assistance would be continued, remain a matter of intense speculation. However, I am of the view that though Ukraine is going to be caught in a gnarly quagmire but the NATO treaty would survive as Mr Trump is throwing tantrums only as his negotiating melodrama a la the latest UN Resolution! Gosh! The geopolitical 'plot' emerging on the horizon definitely goes beyond the hemline of the 'Madman Theory' of Machiavelli! International relations are now going to be determined, perhaps, only by strongmen and clumsy deals! Sacré bleu!