On Ukraine: Why the US-Russia relations were better under Trump than Biden
No, World War III is not coming
Probably the most obvious answer to the title of this article is that Donald Trump was close to Russia. After his victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016, the Trump campaign was instantly accused of being linked with Russian operatives that wanted Trump to win. Soon after his presidency started, inquiries into the nature of the relationship between the Trump campaign and Russia started. A 2016 Senate inquiry found that Vladimir Putin himself ordered the Russian effort to hack computer networks and accounts affiliated with the Democratic Party to find damaging information about Hillary Clinton. Although the Special Counsel to the Russian investigation did not find enough evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with Russia, the Russian investigation haunted Trump for the majority of his term as president.
But in reality, the answer is not as simple. Russia’s favoritism of Republicans is nothing new. In fact, the American conservatives had started to sympathize with Russia long before Trump became president. At the time, these groups of Republicans were limited to people like Pat Buchanan, some who organized around the Ron Paul Institute, and ultra-conservatives who seemingly opened their arms to an authoritarian regime because they were put off by Obama’s progressive policies. Then came Trump who was quite fond of Putin, causing the Republican Party to tolerate (if not, incorporate) his views on Russia.
Putin’s growing influence in the United States, however, was caused by Obama’s neglect of a tougher policy on Russia. In 2009, the Obama administration started the Russian Reset project that could improve the US-Russia relations since the Cold War. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a button with the word “reset” to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, signifying the intention of the Obama administration to mend ties with the Russians.
This project, however, caused the Obama administration to turn a blind eye on Russia. From not interfering in the invasion of Georgia, to canceling the Bush administration plans to make an air system defense in Eastern Europe and standing down in Syria, Obama showed very little strength when it comes to Moscow. In 2012, Obama was caught on microphone speaking to then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev saying that after the November election he would have more flexibility to deal with contentious issues with Russia. Despite the failure of the Russian Reset, Obama continued to not take Russia seriously, and rather chose to focus on normalizing relations with Iran.
In 2014, Obama’s relationship with Russia was tested again when Russia invaded Crimea. This invasion escalated further into the current Russo-Ukrainian War. But Obama’s policy to help Ukraine defend themselves failed as he was distracted by the conflict in Syria and ISIS. And by not putting Russia as his foreign policy priority, Russia was able to further enhance their plans to take parts of Ukraine and prevent them from integrating to Europe.
When Trump became president in 2017, he inherited the Ukrainian mess that his predecessor left him. The Trump administration did not really have a different approach on Ukraine. They had a similar approach to the Clinton, the Bush Jr., and the Obama administrations, which is to help integrate Ukraine into Europe. However, Trump had a personal interest in Ukraine, he wanted the help of President Zelenskiy to open an investigation about the business activities of the Bidens, which could potentially help him to win his reelection in 2020. This puts Zelenskiy in a tough spot as he needed to maintain the bipartisan support of the US Congress but feared that Trump’s resentment towards his inactions would affect the fate of Ukraine should Trump win his reelection.
Despite this shaky US-Ukraine relations, Trump had an entirely different approach on Russia (or foreign policy in general). Trump has publicly praised Putin as a strong leader which caused him not only to buttheads with the Democrats, but also with those inside his own party. However, Trump also imposed harsh sanctions and penalties for Russia. This contradiction between the rhetoric and actual policies could prove to be Trump’s power in handling Russia, whether he realizes or not.
I believe that Trump’s America First policy has caused a lot of uncertainties on the global stage. He challenged NATO and threatened to pull out from the alliance if they did not pay up their fairshare. He cozied himself with authoritarians and dictators like Kim Jong-Un, admiring their strength as leaders that prioritizes their country above anything else. He defunded the USAID which for long has been the American’s way to exercise soft power globally, and cut funding to the United Nations. Also, in a daring move, he moved the US Embassy in Israel from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem. And again, on many occasions he contradicts himself. Praising leaders one day, and criticizing them another day.
Trump’s erratic behavior is the main reason why the world was more in order when he was president. The world is looking at an American president with fear. Trump is playing the bad cop and good cop character at the same time. One day he seems like someone who could press the nuclear button and lead the world into a nuclear war. Another day he is someone who would be a good company for a drink or two. No one can predict his next move (or tweet). And for Russia, this means planning out foreign policy and creating war game plans in Eastern Europe just became harder.
At the same time, Russia still finds Trump useful. He is actually hurting the United States and eroding the American political system. This means that Trump’s withdrawal on the global stage could result in the United States losing influence and power over the world. Intelligence reports on the 2020 election showed that Russia still tried to influence the election. A report suggested that they still supported Trump, another report showed that they were endorsing Bernie Sanders. One could predict that Russia would do anything to support any candidates that are not the typical Republican and Democrat. But sadly for Putin, neither candidate won the election.
World War III is not happening
Joe Biden’s victory signified the return of the sheriff of the world as we know it. This also means that the Americans are now more predictable. Russia might assume that, as President Biden was VP to Obama, he would be as weak as his former boss. This assumption is supported by Biden’s handling of the Russian and Chinese-backed military coup in Myanmar. Sanctions aside, Biden did not do much to interfere. And as expected, further international efforts spearheaded by the United Nations Security Council failed as Russia and China refused to accept any solutions. Biden faced another foreign policy mishap as he withdrew troops from Afghanistan, leaving the country into the hands of the Taliban. Furthermore, like his Democratic predecessor, Biden is also globally ambitious, meaning that American resources are now distributed to a lot of foreign policy activities while domestically they are still trying to recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Given the reality that Biden is facing, I see Putin’s recent move in Ukraine as merely testing the waters. Putin is trying to prove if Biden would follow the same lame foreign policy on Russia that was adopted by Obama. For now, it seems that Biden is reacting in a way that Obama did. Biden is preoccupied by both domestic and other international agenda, meaning that he does not have the resources to have a full-blown war with Russia.
However, Biden could have a tougher stand on Russia and draw the line — invasion of another neighboring country will not be tolerable. This could be tricky knowing that Russia is close with China, and fighting the two could be too risky for the United States. So, the only foreign policy that might be a short-term fix to this issue is to return to Trump’s unpredictability. Biden and the American foreign policy apparatus must find ways to make their Russian policy unpredictable so that Putin would think twice before testing any waters again. This is also hard for Biden as Trump’s unpredictability is simply Trump being Trump — not from a well-planned strategy.
So, I predict that the Biden administration and administrations after will continue to be cautious with Russia. And the United States-Russian relations will always be like a never ending game of tug of war. If this is the case, Russia will slowly escalate their invasion of Ukraine, while the Americans watch from the sidelines like they did in the Russian invasion of Georgia, resulting in the independence of several Russian-backed states from Georgia. The same outcome would probably happen in the Russo-Ukrainian War. Despite the frenzy in the media and social media of another world war, no, World War III is not coming soon, not now, and not ever. Both countries (and China) have too much to lose as the world is now so interconnected, a reality that was absent during World War I and World War II.
