World Economic Forum: Trump and Davos will become a new world disorder

Davos to Donald J. The inauguration of Trump 2.0 is coming up on time, and Europe is worried. Mr Trump is like an asteroid headed for Earth, argued former French foreign minister Hubert Vedrin, and debates about its impact dominate the cozy, global froth that gathers each year in the precious snow of the Swiss Alps.

Mr Trump talks variously about massive new tariffs, seizing Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, cutting US involvement in European defense and increasing European military spending, as well as reducing trade margins with the US.

Mr. Vedrin and other analysts warn that Mr. Trump likes to talk big and then negotiate, and that threats and issues come and go. As former national security adviser John Bolton As he once told USA TodayWorking in Mr. Trump’s White House was “like living in a pinball machine,” as Mr. Trump bounced from one issue to another.

But one of the main topics in Davos could be Ukraine. Mr. Trump has said he wants to end the war in one day, which no one is taking literally, not even his special adviser on Ukraine, Keith Kellogg. Mr. Trump or not, Ukraine is slowly losing the war, and negotiations to end the bloodshed are likely coming this spring.

But the main question is on what basis. Russian President Vladimir Putin has put his country on a wartime economy despite high inflation and high interest rates, putting it in an existential struggle with the West. Despite heavy losses, it has so far been able to make up for the losses with a massive financial boost: 70 percent of its force is contract troops and only 7 percent is conscripted, said Zacky Laidi, a French analyst who advises the EU’s former foreign policy chief. , Josep Borrell Fontelles.

Mr Putin believes he is winning the war and the West is waning to continue supporting Ukraine at high economic costs, argues Leanna Fix of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. So even if Mr. Putin agrees to enter into negotiations with Mr. Trump, he is seen as refusing to agree to an unconditional ceasefire and demanding tougher conditions to end the war.

In regular news conferences and televised appearances at the end of the year, Mr. Putin reiterated his contention that Ukraine is not an independent country. Any negotiation starts from the “current facts on the ground” and It depends on Russia’s position at the talks with the Ukrainians in Istanbul in 2022. He said Ukraine would abandon its NATO ambitions and become an independent country, accepting stricter restrictions. Change the size of the army and some of the laws to comply with the needs of Russia. While it is unclear whether Mr Putin will accept Ukraine’s EU membership or not, his opposition to the weak association agreement between Kiev and Brussels in 2010 In 2013, it led to the Madian uprising.

“Putin wants a world where Ukraine is under control and NATO is back in order,” Ms Fix said. A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic, said Mr Putin wanted “not just an independent Ukraine, but an independent one”.

Mr. Putin’s plan to reorganize Europe’s security architecture, undermine NATO and isolate Washington from Europe should not be ignored beyond Ukraine, said Norbert Rutgen, a foreign policy expert and lawmaker at the Christian Democratic Union. They won the German elections at the end of February. “The future of Europe is a matter of security, and we must make this war a failure for Russia,” he said. Because even if he succeeds in everything, the lesson will work.

It is not clear how to ensure the fall of Russia without increasing the European support of Kiev at a faster and faster rate. European leaders say they need to do this and spend a lot to defend themselves. But they are divided on how much danger Russia represents for them. They have their own financial problems, low growth and an aging population, and while Mr Trump is expected to ask Europe to shoulder much of the burden to support Ukraine, they disagree on how much to spend on their own military.

Mr Trump’s interest in multilateral cooperation and his desire to focus on China have made Europe’s security responsibility “now ours for the first time since December 1941, and Europe is not ready for this fundamental change,” Mr Rutgen said.

Mark Rutte, the new NATO secretary general in Davos, has similarly argued that Europe must do more on its own defense to support Ukraine, so that it can negotiate from strength and deter Russia in the future, whoever the Americans are. President. European allies “need to switch to a wartime mindset,” he said. At the next NATO summit in The Hague, he urges NATO to set a new target of 3 percent or 3.5 percent of GDP for military spending.

“We in Europe need to stop Russia and strengthen our defenses and start getting serious,” said Mr. Laidy, who said that Russia could not be disbanded.

Mr. Rutgen echoed that call. Europe simply needs to act more and more effectively, and through NATO, with less nationalism, he argued. “Europe must understand that the defense industry is about security and not just about jobs,” he said.

Ukrainian leaders understand that negotiations are coming. For a while, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, said that the war could end in 2018. When Ukraine’s borders were fully restored in 1991, Crimea and large swaths of eastern Ukraine were occupied by Russian troops for a long time. Mr. Zelensky, who is visiting Davos, instead emphasized the security guarantees his country would receive after the end of the war, insisting that only NATO membership would be satisfactory.

That’s unlikely, most analysts and officials in Washington and Europe agree. But many, including Mr. Ruth and key members of the outgoing Biden administration, argue that another major boost to Ukraine this year would put Mr. Putin in a difficult position. But it is not clear where that big push will come from.

“We keep hearing that Ukraine is fighting our war, but let’s be honest,” said Charles A. Kupchan, a former Obama administration official and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The United States has a policy without a strategy,” he said, insisting that the West would support Ukraine as long as it would, and that only Ukraine would decide when and how to negotiate, pretending that Washington had no interests of its own. “This is dangerous and is turning Ukraine into a failed state,” he said.

Some see Russia and its desire to continue the war under economic and business pressures, Mr. Kupchan said. But I see the opposite: Russia is safe and Ukraine is running out of manpower or air defense gas, and it’s not like it’s all sitting in Western warehouses – we don’t have it.

But despite the end of the fighting, the most pressing issue everyone agrees on is Ukraine’s future security. Is there any kind of NATO membership and common security that covers only part of the sovereign Ukraine? Even EU membership is considered too far, will it be enough? What will Russia tolerate and can promises not to invade again be trusted?

Some argue — and think Mr. Trump might demand — that Europe should take control of Ukraine’s security and suggest that European troops be sent in after the ceasefire. But to observe the ceasefire or the police? And if so, how many thousands of troops would be necessary given Ukraine’s vast size and long borders with Russia? How much will all that cost? Will it pull its troops away from defending NATO members and undermine their confidence in the alliance’s collective defense commitment? And you don’t need American air cover?

The idea of ​​European troops, first floated by Estonians and sometimes mentioned by French President Emmanuel Macron, has been met with considerable skepticism, including in Poland, which shares a long border with Russia.

A senior German official, speaking on condition of anonymity as part of diplomatic practice, called the whole discussion premature and irresponsible, giving Russia an easy way to divide Europe and America. First, one must see how the war ends.

For Mr. Rutgen, the war is more about territory than Ukraine’s sovereignty. “Ukraine must emerge as a sovereign, viable country,” he said. That at least seems doable, but what remains unclear is how to ensure that an emerging Ukraine is not invaded again.