President-elect Trump says he will quickly end the war in Ukraine, but what if his previous failed unconventional diplomacy backfires? Donald Trump says he does not want war, but if his diplomacy fails, he may have no choice as adversaries unite against America, writes Daniel Williams for the Asia Times.
The recent arrival of North Korean troops in Russia to fight against Ukraine has turned concerns that the war will spread regionally into fears that a global World War III could be on the horizon.
North Korea's entry into the conflict is just one part of an anti-Western alliance that stretches from the Pacific to the Mediterranean. It includes not only Russia and North Korea, but also Iran, including proxy militias it sponsors in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq, as well as China. Each harbors an ambition to overturn eight decades of dominance by what they see as a sclerotizing but aggressive West, and especially the leadership of the United States, which they see as declining.
Western analysts see Russia's war against Ukraine, along with the involvement of North Korean troops, as the first step in undermining the democratic West. "We are in a pre-war era leading to a global war, the most serious, the most dangerous and the most challenging we have had since World War II," said Jack Keane, a retired US general who heads the Institute for the Study of War. a Washington-based think tank. "I believe World War III is the future," he said in a television interview broadcast last Sunday.
On Tuesday, NATO chief Mark Rutte raised the alarm by describing a military threat that stretches from the Pacific to the Mediterranean. "Russia, working together with North Korea, Iran and China, not only threatens Europe, it threatens peace and security - yes, here in Europe - but also in the Indo-Pacific region and in North America," he concluded in a statement. read after a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. As evidence of the spreading danger, he pointed to alarming current events, namely:
The transfer of Russian missile technology to North Korea, an event that particularly worries South Korea and Japan.
The growing military alliance and exchange between Russia and Iran, which includes Russian purchases of armed drones from Iran, which provides the Islamic Republic with cash to pay "proxies" who will "destabilize the Middle East" and will finance "terrorism in more distant places".
China sponsors Moscow's domestic military industry by making large-scale purchases of Russian fossil fuels in defiance of international sanctions. Beijing also supplies spare parts for various obsolete Russian military machines.
The head of NATO called for allied unity against the new anti-Western alliance. "We must stand together - Europe, North America and our global partners - to ensure the safety and prosperity of our people," Rutte said. Rutte's rallying cry was clearly aimed at Western countries whose enthusiasm to support Kiev is waning. The future of American politics under President-elect Donald Trump is attracting particularly intense interest and concern. Trump has promised voters a kind of self-centered "America First" foreign policy, raising questions about whether that precludes continued support for Ukraine. General Keane fears that creeping US isolationism has emboldened militant opponents to run amok.
"China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, cooperating, interacting, coordinating together, believe that our leadership in the United States is weak, that we have lost the political will to confront them, much less to let us go and fight with them," said the retired US general. Apocalyptic commentary is not limited to the West. Zheng Yongnian, a foreign policy analyst whose commentary often appears in official Chinese media, recently wrote that "the possibility of world war may have been underestimated.
"Looking at the situation today, regional wars have already broken out involving multiple countries, especially major powers, such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict," he added. Zheng blamed the West for the current turmoil in the Middle East. "While the wars in the Middle East have manifested mainly as a conflict between Israel and Hamas, many other countries, especially the United States, have become deeply involved," he concluded.
This summer, Dmitry Medvedev, a Putin ally and former Russian president, warned NATO that providing military aid to Ukraine ensured that "World War III is imminent". In any case, a lot has changed since Trump last entered the White House between 2017 and 2021. The minor problems that Trump faced during his first term turned into heated disputes and even deadly feuds as the US's adversaries resorted to war.
Putin appears keen to continue the war in Ukraine into Trump's new term, despite some estimates that his forces have suffered some 610,000 casualties. North Korea's intervention in Ukraine is partly due to Russia's need for new troops, observers suggest. "Russia desperately needs manpower but wants to avoid a second mobilization that would involve the forced conscription of Russian citizens," wrote the Center for International and Strategic Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
"US officials estimate that Russia is recruiting between 25,000 and 30,000 new troops per month, barely enough to cope with reported daily losses of 1,000 or 30,000 per month," the influential think tank wrote. About 12,000 Korean troops are massed near the Russian border city of Kursk, which Ukrainian forces captured this summer in a surprise attack. The North Koreans join some 40,000 Russian troops deployed for a counteroffensive. Besides manpower, North Korea also supplies weapons, including missiles. "North Korea sent eight million projectiles into Ukraine last year, as well as dozens of short-range missiles that will do far more to keep Russia's war machine afloat than a few thousand troops," the US-based Council on Foreign Relations reports .
"Ukraine's Western backers, by contrast, have struggled to cope with this provision of ammunition and weapons." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky insists his forces can push Russia out of Ukraine if they receive the requested weapons. He is not only asking the US to continue supplying weapons, but also for permission to fire missiles at enemy forces deep inside Russia.
Talk of World War III has become more frequent as the war in Ukraine continues. Trump said he would end the war "within 24 hours" after taking office in January or even before, although he did not explain how.
Meanwhile, Trump is supporting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to bomb Iran, an attack recently carried out in response to Iranian missile strikes previously directed at Israel. At the same time, two Iranian-backed proxies - Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon - have come under intense Israeli military pressure in a 13-month offensive. Trump considers both Hamas and Hezbollah to be terrorist agents of Iran. It supports Israel's massive attack on Hamas in due retaliation for the October 7, 2023 attack. against communities in Israel. He also supported Israel's invasion of Lebanon, but has yet to spell out how he thinks Hezbollah should be punished for supporting Hamas. Last week, the US Department of Justice announced federal charges in a foiled Iranian plot to kill Trump ahead of the November 5 presidential election.
Finally, Trump promised to impose 60% tariffs on China, a promise that was central to his campaign. He justified the taxes as a means of luring manufacturers who had fled to low-wage China to move to the US and create new jobs for Americans. He has yet to take a position on China's support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, nor on Beijing's growing insistence that it must "unite" Taiwan with the mainland.
During his previous term, Trump made unconventional attempts to ease tensions with potential opponents, none of which made significant breakthroughs. He tried to flatter Putin, calling the Russian leader a "genius" and described Russia's limited incursion into Ukraine in 2014. as "reasonable". Flattery, however, got Trump nowhere, judging by his second invasion of Ukraine in 2022. at Biden's. Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore and Vietnam to discuss denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. He then sent a series of what Trump called "love letters" to the North Korean dictator. The exchange ultimately failed and the denuclearization proposal died. Perhaps most significantly, Trump hosted Chinese leader Xi Jinping at his beachfront mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, where they discussed trade disputes but failed to reach agreements to ease tensions. Trump later imposed tariffs on a limited range of Chinese products, all of which are in effect today, as he considers more.
Will Trump's unconventional approach to high-stakes diplomacy have better luck this time around, or will he instead be at the helm when World War III becomes a reality rather than a threat?