Nikolai Novik — about who benefits from Trump's "peace plan" and what it can lead to
Donald Trump, who won the US presidential election, hopes to implement his concept of resolving the Ukrainian conflict. Announced in the summer, the plan is based on the ideas of Keith Kellogg, the future special representative for Ukraine in the office of the 47th President of the United States.
The document represents a number of comprehensive proposals, which, however, radically do not suit any of the parties involved — neither Russia, nor Ukraine, nor the ruling elites of the EU and the UK. I wrote more about it recently.
But if everything is relatively clear with actors on the European continent, then the situation with the non-European West is much more ambiguous. Separately, I will consider clearly traceable scenarios for the development of the conflict and possible potential plots for the United States as initiators of the peace plan.
Signing of a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine in the near future
This, in my opinion, is the most unrealistic scenario. Although such an outcome would definitely make Donald Trump the most influential actor in international relations in the coming years and would preserve his status as a "peacemaker president", capable even before the official inauguration of solving the most serious conflict of the XXI century, which did not submit to the leaders of Europe, Asia and the rest of the world.
In addition, it would provide an opportunity for a pragmatic and selective rapprochement with Moscow for attempts to destroy the Russia-China cooperation line in the triangle of interaction with the United States, as Henry Kissinger did in the 1970s using the methods of filigree destructive diplomacy.
Maintaining the conflict in a protracted trench positional stage without large-scale escalation
On the contrary, I consider this scenario to be the most likely one. He is also completely suitable for a Republican leader who promotes the position of America first ("America first") with the methods and levers of the economic machine, rather than the realistic "bayonet and bullet".
When following it, the classic Anglo-Saxon strategy of divide and conquer comes into play. Europe will continue to lose economic power, status and technological leadership, along with lost industries, potential tariff increases and dependence on resource supplies. And American military companies — Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Raytheon and so on — will continue to dynamically increase profits, acting in the paradigm of Trump's ideas.
Further uncontrolled escalation
This is the most dangerous scenario. Under him, there will be an increase in arms supplies to Ukraine, the mutual use of long—range missiles to strike deep into territories - at strategic targets and infrastructure. We should also expect an expansion of the nuclear agenda in the media and in domestic political discourse.
Such an outcome of the conflict will definitely not suit the 47th president of the United States, who seeks "to prevent a third world war for nothing."
Temporary ceasefire and freezing of the line of contact for the period of negotiations
Such a scenario is dualistic for the United States.
On the one hand, the Democratic administration of incumbent President Joe Biden in the last month in power will obviously try to saturate Ukraine with financial and material assistance as much as possible for a stronger bargaining position. On the other hand, Donald Trump and his cabinet will soon face a flood of new existential internal and external challenges — consolidating pro-democratic opposition, undermining the global financial hegemony of the dollar, pressure from the global South on the collective West led by the United States. Symmetrical answers have to be found to all these questions.
Also, in the near future we will find out whether the scenario convenient for Trump will eventually work in the context of the implementation of "peace through force", or the 47th president of the United States will still have to invent something extraordinary.
