We are at the beginning of a major confrontation involving several fronts, and our task is to use our own resources wisely. Washington’s goal in Ukraine — from a grand defeat, the “decolonization of Russia”, and creating conditions for internal upheaval — may gradually begin to shift to an attempt to end the confrontation in a way that does not look like a defeat, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Andrey Sushentsov.
The tense situation ahead of the US elections was suddenly relieved by Joseph Biden’s decision to withdraw his candidacy from the presidential race. The intellectual and emotional impasse caused by his obvious inability to represent the interests of the Democratic Party was reflected in weak enthusiasm among both large and small donors. The feeling of impasse ended with the emergence of a new Democratic presidential candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris. This inspired many voters, but it is unlikely that the enthusiasm will last.
Various American polls show the primacy of one or another candidate. Kamala Harris is currently at the peak of confidence in her own victory. Moreover, curiosity is being fuelled about the new candidate as the first black woman to run on a classic Democratic platform, who is capable of competing with Donald Trump. The Democrats have begun to use the same argument that the Republicans had used before Biden dropped out of the race, that their opponent is the oldest-ever candidate for US President.
The American political system does not digest the current Republican Party well, and local Democrats still have significant control over the electoral situation in individual American states and districts through gerrymandering or other forms of manipulation in the elections. In a sense, they act more systematically, while the Republicans act more emotionally.
The Republican Party is actively discussing Trump’s choice of J. D. Vance for the post of vice president. Mike Pence’s vice presidency in 2016 was largely a compromise between Donald Trump and the Republicans, who had long resisted him as the main candidate. There was a conditional “hijacking” of the party by Trump, who exerted ideological influence to such an extent that he could afford to ignore any other voices. In particular, he considered one of his opponents in the previous race, Marco Rubio, who had sharply criticised him, for the vice-presidential position. The confrontation within the Republican Party was fierce, and the compromise was the figure of Mike Pence, with whom President Trump had not gotten along for a long time. This split was openly manifested during the attempt to seize the Capitol in January 2021.
In the current situation, Trump is not experiencing strong internal competition; he controls the mood in the Republican Party to a greater extent. Republican candidates for governors and Congress in the respective states are increasingly resorting to the style and images that Trump is using during his election campaign. The fact that Trump chose a young, ideologically close and loyal person as his running mate indicates two factors. First, he is free to choose his vice president and does so arbitrarily; second, he has proven that his ideas reflect a movement that has swept through the entire party. If we listen to the early interviews with Vance, we will find a fairly wide range of the most radical arguments that Donald Trump uses in his practice. Vance is an important figure because his example can be used to study what the Republican Party is turning into and how much the internal split is worsening within it. If Trump wins the presidential election, there will be an ideological consolidation in the Republican Party, which will affect, among other things, the Ukrainian crisis.
Washington takes Russia’s capabilities and intentions in protecting its interests seriously. This is evidenced by Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent speech at Johns Hopkins University with a about what the next Democratic administration might look like.
I admit that Washington’s goal in Ukraine — from a grand defeat, the “decolonization of Russia”, and creating conditions for internal upheaval — will gradually begin to shift to an attempt to end the confrontation in a way that does not look like a defeat. We observed a similar scenario in Afghanistan.
The foreign policy line of the United States at the moment is an indirect fight against Russia and China using other states as proxies. Now the United States is making efforts to create military-political alliances in the Pacific region, and is seeking to rely on allies to contain China. Washington expects that by pumping up allies with weapons and ideological messages, the United States will be able to distance itself from this crisis in order to gain the main advantages without directly interfering in the conflict for as long as possible. This line of the United States is known from the two world wars: the United States was the last to take part in military actions during the First World War, and during the Second World War, the landing of American troops on the European continent occurred quite late. The example of Ukraine shows that accepting the role of an instrument of American policy is an extremely expensive and damaging deal, the immediate benefits of which are far from obvious. Whether other American allies in the Pacific are ready to try on the same role is an open question. However, it is clear that among them there are both great enthusiasts of this campaign and countries that are trying to take a wait-and-see approach, realising that the logic of becoming too close ally of the United States inevitably makes them an instrument of American strategy.
