Trump’s Ukraine policy rips up the western military ‘consensus’
Niall Mulholland
If anyone had doubts about the second Donald Trump administration unravelling the so-called ‘world order’, they will have had a sobering experience over the last few weeks. Trump has ditched the normal niceties of international diplomacy. He has started talks with Putin regarding the fate of Ukrainians over the heads of the European leaders and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump represents a part of the US ruling class that has concluded that the war in Ukraine is being lost to Russia, with no end in sight. The war is at a great cost to the US treasury, and the US needs to recalibrate its foreign policy. This entails bringing the war to an end as swiftly as possible. Russia would hold much of the territory it has conquered in Ukraine, with bartering taking place over the slice of Kursk in Russia that Ukraine forces are able to still occupy. The White House is also attempting to cultivate better relations with Moscow. It is moving to end sanctions against Russia, and providing opportunities for US big business to invest in the country.
This “America First” approach has shocked the US’s supposed Nato allies and European powers. These powers were in no hurry to end the bloody war. Even without a realistic prospect of a Ukraine victory, they were prepared to support the conflict as long as it wore down Russia and depleted its resources and army.
The post WW2 ‘consensus’ has been ripped up by the US administration and it is no longer a reliable ally to other NATO and European powers. A re-ordering of relations between the major capitalist nations and blocks is unfolding. The actions of the Trump administration mean all the old post-1945 international frameworks are thrown into the air. New alliances and even new institutions and bodies can develop. In recent days, President Macron proposed to extend France’s nuclear arms umbrella on the continent. Since WW2 US imperialism provided the main nuclear ‘deterrence’.
As if the public berating of Zelensky in the Oval Office by President Trump and Vice President Vance was not enough for other NATO powers to stomach, they were further treated to the announcement on 4th March by the White House that military aid will be “temporarily suspended” to Ukraine. “Stopping weapons deliveries and intelligence assistance could badly weaken Ukraine’s ability to hold the line against Russia’s forces”, commented the Financial Times (London, 04/03/25). The stunned Ukrainian authorities admitted that a shortage of anti-air missiles could allow Russia to step up its strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. This blunt message from the White House was followed up on the next day with the news that the US has cut off intelligence sharing with Kyiv. This will seriously hamper the Ukrainian military’s ability to target Russian forces.
The White House’s bullying and gunboat policy is intended to force Zelensky to toe the line as far Trump’s war end plans are concerned. Zelensky earned the wrath of Trump when he refused to sign an agreement during his disastrous visit to the White House that would see the US grabbing much of the rare earth minerals in Ukraine. The joint US-Ukrainian ‘investment fund’ would receive half of all revenues from the “future monetisation” of Ukraine’s natural resources. For Trump, this deal is part repayment for the vast sums given to the Ukraine war machine. But for Zelensky the minerals deal was contingent on the US continuing to give military aid and in the event of a ceasefire to act as a military guard or “backstop” to deter Russia from attacking again. This has been explicitly rejected by Trump, who implied that a peace accord could be struck with a different Ukrainian leader (a long time demand of Russia). “If someone doesn’t want to make a deal, I think that person won’t be around for long.” Following the Oval Office debacle Trump repeatedly expressed his anger with Zelensky for refusing to agree to an immediate ceasefire without ‘security guarantees’ from the US and for suggesting that a peace deal was a “long way off”.
The White House threats and pausing of military aid had its desired results: on 4th March, Zelensky issued a statement saying Ukraine was “ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible”. In an act of contrition and capitulation to the superpower, Zelensky said his row with Trump in the Oval Office was “regrettable”. He was ready to sign a minerals deal with the US “at a time and in any convenient format”. Furthermore, Zelensky appeared to endorse the French president’s proposal for a partial ceasefire that could pave the way for a peace deal with Russia. This grovelling to the White House was not enough for JD Vance. He demanded that the Ukraine government spell out in detail that it is prepared to comply with all the Trump administration’s demands to swiftly end the war on their terms.
Some over enthusiastic Trump supporters are saying he should be awarded a Nobel peace prize for his attempts to end the war in Ukraine. Trump repeatedly refers to tens of thousands killed in the war, but he is the same president who has called for mass scale ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip. Like his predecessor, Democrat President Biden, Trump is a fervent backer of the Netanyahu government in Israel which carried out mass scale attacks against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. While most world attention is on Ukraine, Trump has backed Netanyahu’s blocking of humanitarian aid and all food supplies going to Gaza. This is a stick with which they try to beat more concessions from Hamas. While opening direct talks with Hamas, Trump also made bloodcurdling threats to Hamas and Gazans that they would be “dead” if Israeli hostages were not released. The resurgence of all out IDF attacks has moved closer.
Costs of war
Vast amounts of money have been spent on funding the Ukrainian war effort by the West, with a major reliance on the US. Yet Ukraine forces are losing. The European powers are aghast that Trump is pulling out US military support for Ukraine. But they do not have the resources or military hardware to even allow the Ukrainian armed forces to continue fighting at the same rate as before, let alone ratchet up their operations. Even if a significant increase in arms to Ukraine by the European powers is to ever materialise, it will take some time to filter through onto the battlefield. By which time Ukraine, at best, will have lost much more territory to Russia.
Now that the US imperialism has signalled an historic breach with Europe, Britain and the major other European imperialist powers have been forced to announce significant increases in their own “defence spending”. Germany and Italy have called for revision of the EU’s ‘growth and stability pact’ to allow for much higher military spending. The EU has pledged it will make available 600 billion euros for the militarisation of the continent. A 150bn euro loan package to “bolster European defence capabilities” was announced on 6 March. Predictably, shares in armaments companies have rocketed in recent days in anticipation of vastly increased spending on weapons of death and destruction.
At the same time as the European governments of all political stripes increase military budgets, working-class people continue to face a cost of living crisis and cuts to social spending. On coming to office last year, the Labour Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, cut pension benefits and refused to undo cruel Tory benefit cuts to young families, citing the difficult economic circumstances. Yet within days of Trump’s announcement of bilateral talks with Putin and his demands for other NATO powers to cough up more to maintain the military alliance, Starmer found billions more to spend on arms.
Trying to act as a “bridge” between Europe and the US, Starmer convened a summit of European powers, Ukraine and Canada in London on the first weekend of March. Starmer repeated his call for “peacekeeping troops” to be sent to Ukraine as part of a negotiated ceasefire. He calls for the US to act as the military guarantor – the so-called “backstop”. This is strongly opposed by Moscow, which points out that many of the European military forces on the ground in Ukraine would be NATO members. One of the main reasons given by Putin for launching his war against Ukraine was to prevent Ukraine joining NATO and enhancing the military alliance’s encirclement of Russia.
‘Peace keeping’ troops
Trump has so far dismissed the idea of peacekeeping troops. He said that US workers on the ground in Ukraine, as part of a post-war reconstruction effort, would be guaranteed enough that no attack should take place by Russia (this ignores the fact that there were American workers in Ukraine at the time of the 2022 Russian invasion). Trump chided Starmer in the Oval Office by pointing out that the UK could not deal with the Russian army on its own and relies on US strength. This is true. The British Army is estimated to be around 80,000 strong – about the numbers that can fill Wembley Stadium. A portion of these forces are not front line fighting soldiers. The UK can only boast two aircraft carriers compared with 12 US navy aircraft carriers. The UK has an estimated 213 or so tanks. Estimates vary widely for Russia’s number of tanks – anywhere between 6,000 to 17,000.
The London summit ended with the differences of opinion amongst the participants. Apart from the UK and to a lesser extent France, no other European country publicly committed to sending troops into Ukraine. They will be all too well aware that stationing troops in Ukraine in a highly combustible militarised zone could lead to clashes with Russian troops. Russian forces are stationed in around 20% of Ukraine’s territory. This could lead to a serious escalation that would drag in several countries.
Nevertheless Starmer is pursuing his plans to create a ‘coalition of the willing’ (the title also given to the disastrous US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003). So far, the response from several European countries and Canada has been supportive, British government officials claim. But there is a lack of firm commitments to put any troops on the ground.
An EU ‘defence’ summit on 6 March saw verbal barbs against the US administration but also divisions among the participants. The ‘EU chief diplomat’, Kaja Kalla, rather not diplomatically said the US is making a “dangerous gamble” by cutting off military and intelligence support to Kyiv. Luxembourg’s prime minister Luc Frieden said, “We need more European defence and if one or two countries do not want to share that view, I think that others should go ahead as much as they can”. Ireland, Cyprus, Malta and Austria are EU members and ‘military neutral’ (though some of their governments are making noises about dropping neutrality). Hungary and Slovakia are long-time critics of the war and voice pro-Russian rhetoric. President Macron’s proposal to extend France’s nuclear arms umbrella on the continent met with approval from some smaller EU states. However the outgoing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed worries that it undermines the US nuclear ‘deterrent’ in Germany and the continent. Germany and the UK, especially, will be concerned that France has ambitions to become the dominant power in western Europe.
Trump, much to the great dismay of the European powers, has made it clear that his main intention is to bring the war quickly to an end and to deal directly with Putin. Trump may hope that he can entice Putin away somewhat from the orbit of China. However, Russia has developed closer economic and military ties to Beijing after wartime sanctions were imposed on Russia by the West. Putin will want to keep his options open. And in turn, while the Chinese regime will be relieved to see the end of the conflict in Ukraine, Beijing will want to maintain their enhanced ties with Moscow.
China and US relations
Although slapping new tariffs on Chinese goods, Trump has indicated he does not want an escalation of military tensions with Beijing, at this stage, including over Taiwan. Some commentators have speculated that Trump is considering a Yalta style new imperial carve up of the world between the US, Russia and China. However no international alliances or redrawing of the world order can be stable or long lasting. The 19th century saw the major imperialist powers agree to carve up large parts of Africa and other parts of the world between themselves. But this did not stop an escalating militarisation and increased trade tensions between the major powers. Eventually the mutual antagonisms led to the catastrophe of the First World War. Whatever the short-term to medium term intentions, the antagonistic character of competing powerful capitalist nation states and regional blocs inevitably leads to heightened tensions and outbreaks of conflict. This is even more so the case when a declining power, in historical and relative terms, such as the US, faces a rising economic and military power like China.
Zelensky’s defiance of Trump in the Oval Office has won plaudits from many pro-Ukrainian pundits and politicians in the West. Many people applauded his “standing up” to the bully in the White House. However, this is not the whole picture. Governments in Africa, Asia and Latin America have from the beginning of the war refused to take a pro-Ukraine position. They regarded the motivations of the imperialist powers with scepticism. They were suspicious of Zelensky’s pro-NATO posture and close alliance with Biden. The working masses of these parts of the globe are aware of the cynical machinations of Western powers including in their regions.
But even in Ukraine there is mounting opposition to Zelensky and the continuation of the war. Morale amongst Ukraine soldiers is reportedly low, with mounting desertions and civilians refusing to respond to the military call up. This is hardly surprising given the “meat grinder” character of the war. Whatever the true figures for deaths and injuries given the propaganda pouring out from both sides, a staggering number of people have died. In the hundreds of thousands, according to most estimates. For the last couple of years, the major territorial gains have been made by Russian forces, at a slow pace and at a great cost. The Ukraine army, despite its arming by the West, has increasingly been less of a match for the Russian forces. Huge amounts of overseas war funding have not gone to the military as intended but are lost to Ukraine’s notorious state level corruption. Ukraine faces Russia’s ‘war economy’ operating at full pelt just across the border.
From the start of the war just over three years ago, the Committee for a Workers International (CWI) condemned Putin’s invasion. There could be no justification for the military aggression of Moscow. The people of Ukraine have a right to oppose and resist foreign invasion and occupation. But resistance has not been under the control democratically of the masses making a class appeal to Russian soldiers. Instead, the hierarchical Ukraine armed forces are directed by Zelensky’s corrupt, right-wing regime. These include ultra-nationalist and far right elements antagonistic to national and ethnic minorities within Ukraine.
War in Ukraine – the wider context
While Putin is correctly condemned as the aggressor in this war it is necessary to analyse the conflict in the wider historical context. For Marxists, it is never just simply the question of who fired the first shots in a major conflict or war. Following the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, Stalinist bureaucrats in Ukraine, turned-pro-capitalist politicians, quickly moved to declare independence. With nearly 30% of the Ukrainian population made up of ethnic Russians, and given Ukraine’s historic geopolitical significance for Russia, this was never going to be a smooth transition to peace and prosperity. The collapse of so-called “actually existing socialism” and the introduction of so-called “shock therapy” of capitalist restoration in the former Soviet Union, including Ukraine, precipitated a big fall in living standards. There was widespread ideological confusion and disorientation of the masses.
The competing factions of the Ukrainian ruling elites and oligarchs exploited nationalist and ethnic divisions to enhance their own positions. The Ukraine government swung between, broadly speaking, pro-western elites and pro-Russian elites. Tensions came to a head during the so-called ‘Orange revolution’ in 2004. Protests against government corruption and poverty mischannelled to the coming to power of a right-wing, pro-capitalist, pro-Western government. Events took an even more bloody turn in 2014 during the Maidan Square protests. Under the ideological domination of right-wing forces deadly street fighting broke out and the installation of a pro-Western regime. Putin moved to annex Crimea, which has a mainly ethnic Russian population. Military clashes ensued in the east of the country. Proxy Ukraine state forces, including far right elements, like the Azov Battalion, fought separatist militias in the predominantly Russian speaking Donbass region, who had Kremlin backing. An estimated 14,000 people died in the fighting in the Donbass region from 2014 to the outbreak of the full scale 2022 war.
Yet, for a while, the Russian government made overtures to NATO. As the Russian economy and armed forces lay prostrated during the early years of capitalist restoration, Moscow explored the possibility of joining NATO. Moscow even gave logistical support to the US after 9/11. However, the ambitions of US imperialism, the dominant world power at the time, saw the expansion of NATO eastwards. Former Warsaw Pact central and east European countries joined the alliance. Moscow made it clear that NATO membership for Ukraine would be a step too far. It would be crossing a redline regarding the Kremlin’s crucial geo-strategic interests. The obsessive fear of the ruling elite in the Kremlin was that Russia could ultimately face the fate of the former Yugoslavia. During the process of capitalist restoration, Yugoslavia was preyed upon by outside imperialist forces, particularly Germany. The country was broken up by centrifugal forces of nationalism and ethnic hatred, spurred on by local elites, that led to bloody civil wars.
With the population of Ukraine increasingly weary of armed conflict, endemic corruption, and the rule of oligarchs, Zelensky, a TV comedian, was elected in 2019. An ‘outsider’, Zelensky posed as an anti-corruption candidate who sought to bring peace. He even got votes from ethnic Russians. However, under pressure from the EU and NATO powers, Zelensky raised the prospect of NATO membership. He welcomed visiting NATO leaders to Ukraine and arms shipments from the West. In turn, Russia mounted a significant military presence near Ukraine’s border. This was a crude negotiating stick to prevent Ukrainian joining NATO.
Minsk agreements
The Minsk Agreements of 2014 and 2015, brokered by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Francois Hollande, failed. Their stated aims were to lower tensions and bring peace. But they bought Ukraine some time to rearm and upgrade its army with Western aid. An attempt to revive the Minsk agreements in 2019, hosted by French President Macron, also failed. “Moscow was readily breaching the ceasefire,” the Financial Times (London, 04/3/25) asserts, “although Ukrainian forces occasionally also broke the truce”.
Eventually Russia launched its so-called ‘special military operation’ in February 2022, with a march on Kyiv. Putin probably aimed to remove the Zelensky government and put a pliant regime in place. However, Putin underestimated how much the Ukraine army has been modernised and equipped by the West. Ukrainian people, unsurprisingly, did not welcome a foreign army trying to take their city. The Russian forces retreated and regrouped. They concentrated on holding Crimea and expanding the territory that they held in eastern Ukraine. Despite much hyped counter offensives by the Ukraine army, the war over the last two years or so has largely gone the way of Russia. President Biden gave enormous amounts of funding and military hardware to the Ukrainian army. But he was wary of providing the most sophisticated missile and other weaponry demanded by Zelensky. Biden knew this could lead to a spilling over of the armed conflict into other countries, such as Poland.
Trump has decided to cut the US’s losses and bring the war to a quick end. This is without making any commitment to the US acting as a security guarantor or so-called backstop following a ceasefire or truce. The European powers are desperately scrambling around to see what forces they can assemble. It is estimated by one retired general in the UK that a force of at least 40,000 troops would be necessary to be stationed in Ukraine to act as effective peacekeepers (based on rotation of troops from those countries prepared to participate). Such a commitment of the treasury and personnel of each country in a highly dangerous situation is not something most European governments are keen to entertain.
Can Europe fund the war?
Nor do the European powers have the resources to continue the funding of the Ukrainian resistance to Russia for any considerable length of time. It is estimated by most military specialists that Ukraine will continue to lose ground to Russia the longer the conflict continues, more so after US aid has been withdrawn. For example, the much-championed Ukrainian drone attacks against Russian forces are reliant on US technology.
Zelensky is determined to try to continue the conflict until he has US guarantees that it will act as military backup in the event of a truce or negotiated settlement. Trump refuses to give this guarantee. He regards Zelensky as an obstacle to his aims of reaching an agreement with Putin. Zelensky therefore may well be removed by an internal coup. Sections of the ruling elite in Kyiv, leaned on by the White House, may decide that the game is up for Zelensky. They will deem it necessary to salvage what they can from ceasefire talks. Zelensky also fears going to the polls should they see his ousting. Indeed, this is one eventuality that Trump has promoted.
The events of the last few weeks have underlined that the world has entered a much more volatile, fractured, destabilising, unpredictable and dangerous phase. The ‘new world order’ proclaimed after the collapse of Stalinist states in the late 1980s/early 1990s, is at an end. We are in a new multipolar world. These processes have been maturing for decades. They have come to surface with force with the Trump administration’s tearing up the old post-WW2 consensus. US relations with NATO allies and European powers are bruised and fragile. There are echoes of the pre-1939 period days of openly competing imperialist powers that led to regional and world wars. For many working people and youth these are testing and worrying times; militarisation, a drive by governments for conscription and more nation states pursuing nuclear weapons. The huge social cuts to fund arms expenditure, and an ongoing cost of living crisis, will fuel mass opposition struggles.
A world recession threatens, alongside the ongoing threat of a new financial collapse, as trade wars threaten. The White House tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada and China met retaliatory tariffs imposed by these countries against US goods. If tariffs are carried through (Trump has partially pulled back tariffs on Canada and Mexico after markets fell) they will eventually feed through to workers in all these countries and around the world. Working families will bear the brunt of trade wars in the form of mass layoffs and price hikes.
Socialists and war
Trump’s approach to the war in Ukraine has thrown not just bourgeois governments into disarray but also much of the Left internationally. Marxists cannot entertain any illusions in Putin, Zelensky or Trump or any factions of the competing ruling elites.
Putin represents oligarchs who looted the state-owned economy and enriched themselves at the expense of the working people in Russia. The regime in Moscow is authoritarian and anti-worker. The reactionary nature of the Moscow regime can be measured by the attacks Putin made against Lenin to justify the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Putin accused Lenin of accommodating Ukrainian nationalism and allowing the creation of an “artificial” Ukrainian state. However, it was a correct and sensitive approach of the Bolsheviks on the national question that was a key factor that led to the success of the October 1917 socialist revolution. The young workers’ government in Russia granted self-determination for the Ukrainian people, which meant autonomy for Ukraine in the early 1920s. It was under the iron rule of Stalin that Great Russian national chauvinism was unleashed against other nationalities in the Soviet Union.
The CWI supports those workers and youth who are bravely opposing the war in Russia. We call for this to be linked to a programme for fundamental social and economic change in society; building independent workers’ organisations and a powerful party of the working class. These forces can struggle to overthrow the oligarchic regime and introduce pro-worker policies and a socialist programme.
While opposing Putin’s invasion it was always necessary for socialists to expose the right-wing, anti-worker character of the Zelensky regime. Severe repression has rained down on those Ukrainians opposing the war and Zelensky’s government. Anti trade union legislation has been introduced by the government under the cover of the war. The Kyiv government introduced discriminatory legislation against Russian and other non-Ukrainian speakers, fuelling the ethnic divisions in the country. Zelensky has not been shy of cosying up with Western imperialist powers. He has incorporated ultra nationalist, far right elements into his regime and armed forces. And the Ukrainian president identified his struggle against Russia with the genocidal policies of Netanyahu.
At the start of the war, the CWI advocated independent working-class action in both Ukraine and Russia. This includes supporting the right of the Ukrainian people to resist foreign invading armies. But we called for this to be based on the democratic self-organisation of the working class across all ethnic lines. And for a programme of fighting for democratic rights and social gains. The war’s course however has seen two bourgeois armies clashing on a long front line. The fiercest fighting is mainly in the east of the country.
The cry for ‘peace with sovereignty’ has grown among the suffering masses in Ukraine. But self-determination for Ukraine must also entail guaranteed rights for all minorities. The majority ethnic Russian areas of Crimea and the east of the country have the right to live free of all occupation and coercion. This means the removal of Putin’s bayonets and also the right not to be under the rule of right-wing Ukrainian nationalist chauvinist governments. It is up to the people of these areas to decide the future in a democratic manner. A referendum organised by independent workers’ organisations, may see these areas opt to become autonomous areas of Ukraine or part of Russia or linking up as an independent entity. Whatever decision is made in a genuinely free referendum, only a socialist society, with a democratically managed and controlled economy, can secure peace and prosperity.
European working class
Beyond the rights of the peoples of Ukraine and Russia, stand the rights of the wider working class of Europe not to be dragged into new devastating conflicts. Nor to suffer huge social cuts to pay for the war machines. European powers are making wild assertions about an existential threat from Russia to justify a huge hike in military spending. But it is also the case that a Europe bristling with arms and facing off a highly militarised Russia will be a much more dangerous place. Any number of incidents could lead to border clashes with Russia forces, for example, sparking serious conflict.
Under capitalism and the rule of pro-capitalist politicians of all stripes, wars and increasing penury for the masses is the ominous music of the future. But the working class will also have its say in matters. Mass movements and struggles can push hard against the militarisation drive and the ruling classes planned new rounds of austerity to pay for it. This was expressed bluntly by a columnist at the Financial Times: “Europe must trim its welfare state to build a warfare state” (London, 5 March).
The workers’ and socialist movement internationally need to put itself to the head of mass struggles. This means adopting an independent class approach against all capitalist and imperialist wars, supporting full rights for minorities. The workers’ movement needs to struggle for democratic rights which are under attack everywhere. Pro-working class politics means opposing the bosses and their political representatives; opposing all the so-called ‘solutions’ imposed by imperialist powers and local ruling classes in Ukraine and Russia. Socialists everywhere need to aid the building of independent working-class movements in both Ukraine and Russia.
The hypocrisy of those imperialists currently supporting the Ukrainian government needs to be continuously exposed. Many of them have supported the Israeli state’s devastation of Gaza. The UK, French and other European powers refuse to apologise for the barbaric methods with which they created and ran their old empires. So-called ‘liberal’ governments are now suppressing domestic critics of their pro-Ukrainian and pro-Israeli governments’ policies.
Capitalism means barbarism
Capitalism does not offer a future. The challenge is to build working class parties with mass support that can fight for power in Ukraine and Russia. Workers’ governments can herald an end to wars and divisions. Rising prosperity under a democratically run economy in the interests of the majority would transform the situation. It would allow the working class of both countries to peacefully agree to future relations, guaranteeing minority rights.
Internationally, strong left and workers’ parties with clear socialist policies can win mass support and contest for power. This would cut across the jingoistic support that warmongering bourgeois parties are attempting to whip up.
While under very different conditions, the October 1917 socialist revolution in Russia points to the way forward for the region. Out of the horrors of jingoism, wars and dictatorial Czarist rule the working class in Russia was able to forge its own mass party and win power. This was a beacon for socialist change throughout the world. The situation today in the region and globally is very different in many ways. Yet the only lasting solution is a socialist federation of the region; ending warfare, ethnic and national divisions, imperialist interference, and lifting the masses out of poverty and want.
