Trump's foreign policy II

In the Trump II administration, the Balkans will have the status of a routine issue that can be managed at the bureaucratic and administrative level, because the defined legal and international frameworks of the Balkan countries can change little, without any tectonic change of the balance of forces in global plan. As a result, other incentives will be provided for the introduction of the Balkans into the global agenda of the US and its allies, pushing the countries of this region to seek more persistently to find solutions to the problems they have within the old continent. Kosovo, meanwhile, should take this situation into account and seek its rightful place.

Analysis framework

The following lines analyze the foreign policy that is expected to be pursued by the potentially incoming administration of the former US President Trump, which we refer to hereafter as Trump II. The analysis is based on a public document of a conservative American "think-tank", "The Heritage Foundation", which bears the title "Project 2025" (hereinafter: "The Project"). We certainly do not deal with the micro-managing side of the Project, which, in detail, provides guidance for the new American conservative leadership. We only touch on the issue of strong security, which can be read through its materialization in a country's foreign policy. The project is aimed at maintaining American supremacy in the power struggle with other international actors, primarily with China, which is given supremacy over Russia and Europe. These last two have a different weight and role in American geopolitics, judging by my reading of the Project. It is worth noting that much of what is in the project was said and continues to be said during the presidential campaign by former President Trump, but there are parts of it and approaches that are not visible during the campaign. My reading is based precisely on the gray area between the pages of The Project and Trump's campaign speeches and television screens. The model of action proposed in the Project does not fundamentally differ from the models of the behavior of the great powers in the international order, which have remained the same since the time of the Peloponnesian War, as described by the soldier and historian Thucydides in the 2014th century BC. states in international relations represents a struggle for power, where states balance each other. Every time there is a state or an external power that has more power than others, that seeks not only to maintain superiority over others in the system, but also to balance the ratio of forces so that there is no superiority of one power over others. The only difference is that in modern times, after the Second World War, there is no longer a classical balancer: the great powers, as Henry Kissinger says in "World Order" (XNUMX), are themselves an integral part of the overall international power balance. .

Two words about Trump I

Compared to the first mandate, judged according to the Project, the approach to Russia and the relationship with it are not expected to have any difference. Russia appears as an important actor in international relations, but of a different nature compared to China. This approach is dictated by two reasons - one immediate and the other related to the security anxiety that has accompanied Russian society since its appearance on the scene as a weighty power in security and the European balance of forces. The immediate reason is related to the correct assessment of the Trump administration I (but also in the future, most likely), that Putin's Russia, fearing for internal stability, is ready to enter into adventures with neighboring countries, to demonstrate power . Putin's fear has been and remains largely personal, connected to his person: as a former KGB officer who served in the Soviet empire, he found it impossible to absorb its collapse without any resistance, and for this he is to blame blames the West, just like Hitler did for the First World War, which he blamed on the international conspiracy of the Jews. In an effort to restore history, Putin has given a different meaning, quite substantive, to the policy of the near neighborhood ("near abroad policy"), according to which the countries of the former Soviet empire fall into the sphere of Russian geopolitical interest and influence.

The permanent factor of Russian insecurity

The policy of the close neighborhood has found its justification in Russian insecurity as a result of its geographical configuration: a flat country, endless space, with few mountains as protection, as a result of foreign invasions - the Mongol ones from the south and west, European ones. This brings us to the second reason why in the Trump administration the appeasement of Russia took an important place. As paradoxical as it may seem, such an approach by Trump stems from the deep familiarity his administration has with the Russian problem over the past two centuries, from the time Peter the Great appeared on the scene, creating the Russian Empire in 1721. Since then, the foreign policies of this country have been expansionist, as have been those of other powers of the time. As a result, Western powers have balanced Russia carefully and sometimes brutally, including forcing it to look eastward for territorial expansion. This has left a bad taste and traumatized Russian leaders up to Putin.

At the end of the 1945th century, when Napoleon upended social relations across Europe, overthrowing its dynasties everywhere as well as any legacy of the "ancien regime" in France, the Russian army of Tsar Alexander I was attacking the Ottoman fortress of Ochakov in the south of present-day Ukraine. The Black Sea. The siege of the fortress was the first serious signal of Russian expansionist policies and its intention to break the balance of forces. Britain, as the balancer in the European balance of power, almost entered the war on the side of the Ottomans. Had it not been for the reaction of public opinion and British democracy, the country would have gone to war. Another path was followed to maintain the balance of forces: strengthening the Ottomans. After British experts visited the site of the battle, they had concluded that the Ottomans were far behind any European technological development and needed to be supported to catch up. This required the restructuring of the army and political decision-making in the Ottoman Empire, a process that begins at the beginning of the following century and is known as the Tanzimat. This British approach - as a balancing state, a role the British held until 1905 - was made on behalf of all of Europe. As a strategy, it has been a feature of European politics throughout the entire time until today. The same applies to Russia, which has always rivaled the Europeans, who, after the Napoleonic wars, forced the Russian tsar to seek solutions for his expansionist policies in the East, to the detriment of countries in the land belt of what the British geostrategist, Halford Mackinder called it the heart of the earth (meaning the Eurasian land mass). In order to neutralize this Russian influence in the heartland and its eastern and southeastern belt, the Westerners, in addition to supporting the modernization of the Ottoman Empire, then the Republic of Turkey, have exerted the same influence in other countries of the Far East. It was precisely this Western support that led to Japan's victory over the Russians in XNUMX: over the previous three decades, Japan had succeeded more quickly and effectively than others in reshaping its politics and military, according to technological achievements and political models. Western.

Balancing China requires division of labor

This model of balancing Russia in the East and the West has been and remains, more or less, a constant of the foreign policy of the West, for a time under British and then American leadership during the Cold War. The power that must now be balanced and restrained is not Russia, but China. This historical fact is widely reflected in the Project, quite rightly. His idea is this: Europe deals with its own security, while America deals with China. This represents a new division of duties among the Euro-Atlantic allies, not a sign of weakness on the part of America and its allies. Chinese foreign policy, constant without a doubt, aims to control the sea lanes that run from the Western Pacific - through the East and South China Seas - to the Indian Ocean. The Chinese have made this clear many times in their "Belt and Road Policy" project. The project, in fact, is a clear response to the Chinese goal of dominating these roads, where the vast majority of the world's trade and business pass. The land belt of the earth's heartland is now the arena of international balancing and power struggles only on the southeastern and eastern side of the Eurasian mass, beginning from India to Japan. This explains why Pakistan no longer carries the weight it once had, nor does Afghanistan pose a threat to America and its allies as it once did. The rapid rise of China and its tendencies to bully, as a way of dominating and expanding political influence, has dictated the importance of this land belt of Euro-Asian countries. Countries west of China to the borders of Russia remain outside the dynamics of the balance of power between China and the US and its allies. This means that, judging by the Project, a model of cold war between the USA and China is expected to emerge, but much different from the predecessor. Now, always judged according to the Project, Europe will have to take more care of itself and its security in relation to Russia, because it has enough resources: the war in Ukraine has proven that Russia cannot project great force to overthrown the democratic regimes of the former communist countries in its periphery. In this sense, there will be a cold war between Europe and Russia, meaning mutual balancing. The end of the war in Ukraine is likely to create another Berlin – without the wall and barbed wire – in certain parts of southeastern and eastern Ukraine.

The rivalry with China is a battle to maintain American supremacy in the world. When Trump says he will stop the war in Ukraine, he means Putin's departure from the alliance with China. This requires concessions to Russia. It remains to be seen what concessions the Trump II administration offers for such a thing. It is certain that beyond the creation of autonomous zones in the southeast and east of Ukraine and guarantees that Ukraine will not serve as a springboard for Russia's destabilization, no other guarantees can be given. This is due to the fact that such a thing would constitute a loss of American supremacy and an increase in the amount of Russian-Chinese power on the international level. Concessions, as above, are enough to restore Russian dignity in international relations: in such a case, the Europeans and the US would restore Russia to its role as a responsible international security actor. The Westerners have done this with Germany and Japan after the Second World War and with France after the Napoleonic wars. Russia's return to Europe and the West is necessarily quite different from China, which, in the struggle for international power, can mobilize far more resources than Russia. After all, Chinese geopolitics, not Russian, runs counter to the vital economic interests of the US and the West, because it seeks control of the main arteries of world trade and business. In a confrontation between China and the US, which is expected to happen with Trump II, it is unlikely that the "allied" countries of China in the BRICS will lean towards it: even if China wanted to physically control the arteries in question , its resources are not sufficient for such a thing. The US fleet is the only one that patrols the waters of the world's seas and oceans without difficulty. Military confrontation in the East and South China Seas would most likely harm the Chinese themselves. This is because its economy as a whole depends on trade and business with the West. The data show that trade and business within the BRICS countries is negligible, as is the effect of the Chinese "Belt and Road" policy. Clearing, a variant of which is BRICS, succeeded in creating two international orders because the Soviet empire had sufficient strength to maintain the socialist international order it had created. China does not have this power, because its geopolitical position internationally relies on the will of certain countries of the Global South, which feel exploited by the West. Feelings do not produce physical strength. China, therefore, will be forced to maintain the status quo and evolutionary development of its international power, all as a result of the considerable American superiority in the international plan, not only to restrain Chinese power, but also to dictate the pace of development. its universal.

The Balkans, completely on the periphery of events

As in all periods of the development of international relations in the last two centuries, the Balkans has not been a political decision-maker in international relations, but an object that has been acted upon. Never has the land belt of southeastern Europe been the arena of long-term confrontations between the great powers: the civil war in Greece after the Second World War lasted a few years and was quickly closed, being only a tremor and a reflexive effect of the agreement of Yalta (1945) for the division of spheres of interest between the great powers of the time. In the Trump II administration, the Balkans will have the status of a routine issue that can be managed at the bureaucratic and administrative level, because the established legal and international frameworks of the Balkan countries can change little, without a tectonic change in the balance of forces in global plan. As a result, other incentives will be offered for the introduction of the Balkans into the global agenda of the US and its allies, pushing the countries of the region to seek more persistently to find solutions to the problems they have within the old continent. Kosovo, meanwhile, should take this situation into account and seek its rightful place.

(The author is the first president of the Constitutional Court and a professor of law and international relations)