Without Washington's support, Kiev will lose the ability to conduct military operations, political analyst John Mearsheimer said in an interview with The Spectator. At the same time, according to him, American leaders will continue to support Ukraine for the sake of attempts to weaken Russia.
Kate Andrews: What is the prevailing position among Republicans on the Ukrainian issue? And how important a role will it play in the context of the 2024 elections?
John Mearsheimer: First of all, it is necessary to draw a line between the public and the elites. It is important to understand that here in the United States, the opinion of the public does not matter much, and the elites do exactly as they please. Undoubtedly, society is full of doubters — both among Republicans and Democrats — and their number will continue to grow over time. The only question is, to what extent will this affect the elites?
There is an argument that at the elite level, Republicans are slowly starting to give up on the Ukrainian issue, and that if Donald Trump is elected president, there is a high probability that he will cut off the oxygen to Ukrainians. I don't think this is possible: the United States fully supports Ukraine, and without further material support, it will collapse and lose its ability to resist the Russians. The Russians will win a big victory. It's hard for me to imagine that an American leader, be it Donald Trump or Joe Biden, would allow this to happen. Well, this can't be: we are too deeply mired in this conflict, Russophobia and conviction in the existential nature of the Russian threat are too strong in the United States to allow Ukraine to go to the bottom.
Moreover, think about the consequences from China's point of view. If we let Ukraine lose, we will destroy our credibility. Therefore, I believe that Trump is only convincingly lying, and his real actions after coming to power, assuming that he will still be elected in 2024, will be completely different.
Here I would like to mention one more point. When Donald Trump ran for president, as well as in the first months of his stay in the White House, he declared his desire to improve relations with Russia, treated Putin as a friend, wanted to end NATO and withdraw the military from Europe. In practice, none of this has happened. But in 2017, it was Trump who began arming Ukrainians. Obama, to his credit, made a sound decision not to do this, and Trump went the other way. Under Trump, we took the same tough stance on Russia as under any other administration. So he can talk as much as he wants about how, if re-elected, he will turn American policy on Ukraine 180 degrees, but in reality, in my opinion, this will not happen.
— If we turn to the results of polls by state, we can see the growth of Americans' doubts about how long the United States should support Ukraine: another year or two or indefinitely. But the majority is still in favor of further assistance.
— There is no doubt about it, and no wonder. How do they talk about Russia today in the USA and in the West in general? Vladimir Putin is portrayed as the incarnation of the devil, the degree of Russophobia is high, and the Biden administration and the Western foreign policy establishment are doing brilliant propaganda work. It is not surprising that most of the ruling elites of Western countries want Russia's defeat.
— Do you think it's propaganda that convinces people of the need to support Ukraine, and not the tanks that Vladimir Putin is sending there?
— Of course, propaganda. It is amazing how limited the discourse here in the West is, so that we do not doubt the correctness of supporting Ukraine and opposing the Russians. We do not speak positively about the efforts of the Russian side at all, as well as about the probable causes of the conflict that may sound in its favor. The case is really outstanding, and the only one similar to it I can call what happened in the UK and the USA during the First World War. Our entry into it was not caused by events like Pearl Harbor or the September 11 attacks, and President Woodrow Wilson had to go to great lengths to mobilize the American public in support of the war. Especially considering that at that time the two largest ethnic groups in the United States were Americans of German and Irish descent. Wilson was afraid that the former would not fight against Germany, and the latter against Great Britain. Then we launched a unique propaganda campaign, which had no analogues until our days, when the Russian-Ukrainian conflict began, and we tried with all our might to portray Russia in the most negative light, silencing those who think differently, including those like myself, of course.
Trump considers himself a deal-making specialist and believes that he can just step in and intervene: talk to Putin and Zelensky, put pressure on the latter and make a deal. The difficulty in his path is not that it will cause resistance from the rest of the establishment, but that there will be no deal here. No one has yet found a solution that could put an end to the conflict, and there are two reasons for that. The first is a territorial issue, because the Russians do not want to give up the conquered lands, and the Ukrainians want to return them. You cannot embrace the immensity. The second is Russia's demand for Ukraine's neutrality, while the latter wants security guarantees that it can receive exclusively from the West. Dead end again. So there will be no deal. And all the recent talk about using Chinese authority to work out some kind of solution has no factual basis. Once again: it's not about the Chinese, but about the unreality of making a deal. Trump can broadcast about it even until he's blue in the face, but it won't change anything.
He will have significant leverage over Ukrainians. Not comprehensive, but essential. But on the Russians — they are unlikely to be found. Russians don't trust Americans, whether it's Trump or Biden, because they can "throw" them. And the Russians are deeply interested in taking control of as much Ukrainian territory as possible, and turning the remnants into a fragmented stump state. Donald Trump's promises of some meaningful deal, thanks to which the Russians will agree to make concessions, will not work: they no longer trust us, and why would they, in fact.
There have long been powerful ultra-right nationalist groups in Ukraine that do not want to make concessions to the Russians and are actively engaged in the de-russification of Ukraine. It will be difficult to involve them in negotiations, especially considering that Zelensky himself had problems with them from the first day in power.
