It has become a cliché today to claim the world is changing under Trump 2.0, since such truisms can now be deduced even by a child. One does not have to be a geopolitical analyst to see that the very pillars of the global order are shaking.
However, the recent diplomatic tiff between President Donald Trump and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, televised for the world to see, marks a truly unexpected and theatrical moment in world politics.
Never before has the Oval office seen such a disconcerting combination of sabre-rattling, strong leadership, peace enforcement, comedic roasting and schoolyard bullying, all at the same time.
But what are the factors underlying this belligerence against Ukraine? And does this transactional policy augur well for the Global South?
The Security Burden
In some ways, the exchange crystalizes President Trump’s vision for the world. If we were to describe his ambitions in a nutshell, it is to change the “values based” world order into a “transactional” world order.
For the last 75 years, US foreign policy decisions (vis-à-vis its allies but not always its enemies) have been based on “American values” and “Western values”, rather than a transactional mindset.
This meant that, since the end of World War 2, Western Europe was able to cruise on a defense budget of less than 2%, never having to worry about their security infrastructure, while the U.S. spent around 15% of its federal budget on defence every year to keep this system afloat, guaranteeing Europe its security without the European taxpayer doing much.
Many outside Washington (whose opinions went unrepresented in mainstream US politics until Trump cannonballed into the scene) found it blatantly unfair that the American taxpayer was burdened with safeguarding a transatlantic partnership, while NATO members like the Scandinavian nations often bragged about how lovely their own nations were with free healthcare, free education and a smooth welfare state. The American argument was that these nations would not have the luxuries they do, if they picked up their fair share of the bill for European security.
The Ukraine war has now become symbolic of this longstanding tension between the American idealists (who believe the U.S. should be a security guarantor to protect European values from evil Russia, even if it means the American taxpayer foots the bill) and the American realists (who believe Ukraine is a European problem and not an American one), over who bears the security burden.
Although key members of Trump’s team, such as Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz, are traditional Washington hawks belonging to the former group, Trump himself is a firm member of the latter, and this showed in his testy exchange with Zelenskyy.
Civilisation Clash
While there are strategic equations at play, one must not underestimate the civilizational aspect here. Alexander Dugin, arguably Russia’s most important geopolitical thinker, calls Ukraine a fundamental part of Russian civilizational identity, and claims any attempt to de-link Ukraine from Russia will be resisted by all means necessary. This mirrors President Vladimir Putin’s repeated assertions that Ukraine and Russia come from the same civilizational strand.
On the other hand, Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign chief, tweeted “Ukraine is Europe” right after the exchange between Trump and Zelenskyy, reiterating Europe’s mindset that Ukraine is a modern-day European nation-state which can choose its own destiny.
The impact of this dichotomy cannot be understated, as it goes to the very core of the conflict. Europe does not seem to realise just how important Ukraine is to the Russian psyche, and how the Europeanisation of Ukraine is seen as a civilizational threat by most Russians.
To the EU, Ukraine is a sovereign nation, established in 1991, which should now be treated on its own terms, rather than the historical context in which it was shaped. They claim Ukraine has the right to decide its own future, without having to worry about what Russia thinks. As is the case in most of world politics, both sides have justifiable reasons in their own way, neither of them being completely right or completely wrong.
What is clear though, is that there will never be long lasting peace for Ukraine unless this gap is bridged. As long as both sides have incompatible views over what constitutes a red line, it is inevitable that the line will be breached repeatedly. Barring a comprehensive military victory for either side, this conflict is simply a bottomless quicksand.
Southern Accent
The final factor fueling this belligerence towards Ukraine is the seeming apathy of the Global South on this matter. It is no coincidence that as developing nations like India, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and Turkey form their own niches in geopolitics, none of them have come forward in any meaningful way to support the Ukrainian or European cause. They do not see it as an issue which involves them, and despite tireless efforts by Western diplomats over the last three years to rally support for Ukraine outside of their own circle, nobody has been willing to come forward.
Even with the recent spat between Trump and Zelenskyy, it is noticeable that the ones expressing outrage publicly are Western leaders, with almost complete silence from the political elites of the South.
In fact, one could argue that the Global South would benefit greatly from Trump’s vision to turn the world order into a transactional one, since that is how the West has always dealt with the South on major strategic questions anyway. Nor does it seem likely that developing nations even care about Ukraine and Europe’s fate.
This was highlighted once again when the whole of Europe’s political class condemned JD Vance’s speech at Munich last month, while the South seemed to smirk over the fact that somebody was finally speaking to European leaders with the same tone European leaders adopted while speaking to the rest of us.
This gives the U.S. a green light to pursue their own global interests, treating Europe as just another region with its own strategic dynamics, like South Asia, the Middle East or Latin America. Although there are much closer institutional, historical and financial ties between America and Europe, the new Trump era will not be shaped by those ties, especially if this is how public diplomacy will be conducted in the future.
Diplomacy Vs Statesmanship
And while we analyze, dissect and discuss these issues, it is important to remember Henry Kissinger’s words on the nature of diplomacy:
“…there is a vast difference between the perspective of an analyst and that of a statesman. The analyst can choose which problem he wishes to study, whereas the statesman’s problems are imposed on him. The analyst can allot whatever time is necessary to come to a clear conclusion; the overwhelming challenge to the statesman is the pressure of time. The analyst runs no risk. If his conclusions prove wrong, he can write another treatise. The statesman is permitted only one guess; his mistakes are irretrievable. The analyst has available to him all the facts; he will be judged on his intellectual power. The statesman must act on assessments that cannot be proved at the time that he is making them; he will be judged by history on the basis of how wisely he managed the inevitable change and, above all, by how well he preserves the peace.”
It is easy for analysts to bemoan the state of modern diplomacy, but it will ultimately be the successes and failures of statesmen like Trump or Zelenskyy which determine the course of history.
