What does Trump’s victory in the US Presidential Election mean for the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza/Lebanon? The answer is that nobody is really quite sure.
For Ukraine, there is a feeling that he will want to try to bring the war there to an end as quickly as possible. He has said before that he could “end the war in a day” but that is just the usual Trump hyperbole and bluster.
He has, however, criticised the tens of billions of dollars spent by the US on supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia, so doing nothing doesn’t seem to be an option.
What he may well do is make future US aid to Kyiv conditional on Zelensky agreeing to start peace negotiations. This will be a worry for the Ukrainians, especially with so much of their territory currently occupied by the Russian invaders. They will want to return to at the very least the status quo ante bellum, and ideally to the borders before the illegal occupation of Crimea in 2014.
I can’t see either side giving up Crimea without a fight to be honest. It is the key strategic prize in the whole conflict, so if Trump wants to start peace negotiations straight away when he takes office then he’ll need to have something else up his sleeve.
But, on the other hand, he might not go down that path at all. What is almost certain, though, is that he will insist on his NATO allies pulling their weight more than they have done, which in turn might, for example, force Starmer’s hand in putting a timescale on UK defence spending reaching 2.5% and then 3% of GDP.
The same applies to other countries. This would be a major worry for Britain and the Labour administration. As has been well recorded elsewhere, the UK is probably at its weakest militarily speaking for some considerable time, and the recent Budget had little encouragement for the armed forces.
Starmer might have to find the money from somewhere, and other sectors might just have to do without.
As for the Middle East, it was very noticeable how enthusiastic Netanyahu was in his congratulations to Trump; his message was from him and his wife to the President elect and his wife, more of a family greeting than a communication between two heads of state.
I think it’s pretty clear which side(s) in the Gaza and Lebanon conflicts will get the Trump administration’s support, and it won’t be Hamas or Hezbollah. Israel will feel much more loved and secure with him in the White House.
As former MEP Alex Phillips stated; “Israel will finally have proper, overt support to fight against terrorists, keeping us all safe and pushing back against some of the audacity of the Hamas loving protesters.”
Whether this will lead to Trump grasping the nettle and confronting Tehran directly is another matter. The US is going to have to do it someday, and maybe the new President will come to regard the neutralisation of Iran as his major foreign policy legacy.
I think that generally Trump will try to disentangle the USA from foreign conflicts as far as is possible without losing its global influence. And he will be only too aware of the growing challenge from China, politically, economically, and ultimately militarily.
Whatever is decided, people like me think that the time is fast approaching for the USA to act decisively with regard to global conflicts rather than posture; quite how this might manifest itself over the coming Trump years we wait to see.
Lt Col Stuart Crawford is a political and defence commentator and former army officer. Sign up for his podcasts and newsletters at www.DefenceReview.uk
