Hague on Ukraine
cturner 20250304
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William Hague wrote an insightful article in The Times, and I will talk about
the significance of it here.


// Mental models

When I read the news, I test my mental models against it. Most of the time, I
feel like I understand what is going on. But from time to time, I see things
playing out and find my mental models cannot fit to it.

This is a recent experience for me. I became aware of international politics
at around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I studied history, and had
a good feel for the post-war settlement. World affairs generally played out in
a manner that my mental models could navigate.


// Russian motives

This changed in 2022, When Russia invaded Ukraine - I could not make sense of
it.

I understood the Russian gangster state. I understood Putin, the adept poker
player. I understood the calculations of small incursions into neighbours. I
understood ramping up in Europe when America was withdrawing from Afghanistan
and focused on China. But still the incentives did not add up.

In time, I found commentary by Peter Zeihan that explained a mentality within
the Russian elite of empire and a sense of existential dread that comes from
weak borders. Most importantly, he had been articulating these views for years
before the invasion.

Things returned to normal. My toolkit once again let me comprehend the news.


// Ukraine

In recent weeks, I have been experiencing a new confusion in observing Trump's
approach to negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.

Here are some things that do make sense,

    US frustration at European 'partners' who behave like trust-fund NEETs
    [1], rarely losing an opportunity to criticise America, yet freeloading
    for decades off the Americans for their defense coverage.

    The strategy of brinkmanship.

    Desire to focus US power against the threat of Chinese aggression.

    The US being the only nation on the planet who could pursue a high tarrif
    strategy and emerge from it as a winner in relative-power terms.

    That Trump has a weak grounding in the post-war international settlement.
    [2]

This does not make sense,

    Making friends with Russia,
        
        Russia have nothing of note to offer as an ally.

        The war has harmed its ability to export energy at scale, and this
        could not be quickly fixed.

        When Nixon and Kissenger went to China, they did so to draw China away
        from Russia and towards the US, using the model of Japan economic
        development as a template.

        There is nothing resembling this here. Once western sanctions kicked
        in, Russia increased its dependence on China for banking. This gives
        the CCP leverage over Russia for the forseeable future. [3]

        Russia has far less power projection than it did at the start of the
        war. Its sole carrier is effectively retired. Its Black Sea fleet is
        crippled. It has lost its Syrian proxy, and with it the naval and air
        bases it had there. The war has weakened the reach of its Wagner
        group, and its resupply options for operations in Africa.

        It does not make sense to want a friend in Russia.

    Fake news,

        Trump made a vituperative outburst in which he accused Zelensky of
        starting the war in the face of all evidence.

        This does not serve a brinkmanship goal effectively, and it risks
        emboldening China.

        It does not make sense.

    Salting the earth against a deal,

        The approach to deal-making. Trump brands himself as a deal maker, but
        his strategy here is plainly awful.

        He gave Putin accomodations at no cost in early discussions.

        In his recent moves to block supply from Ukraine, he has created
        incentive for Putin to delay a deal in the hope of Ukrainian collapse
        in the gap between American aid withdrawl and the European aid
        ramp-up.

        This does not make sense.

    The deal that has been offered,

        I find myself asking, are Rare Earth minerals really that rare that
        the US would base a security guarantee on them.

        This did not make sense for a while. Then I realised that the simple
        answer was the correct one - it does not make sense.

        That begs another question - why is it being offered as the basis for
        a peace deal?


// Hague's insight

William Hague points to answers in his recent article published in The Times,
/How Zelensky misread Trump's White House/,

    "I happened to be in Washington as last week's momentous meetings unfolded
    and observed two striking features of the political atmosphere that I have
    not seen before in America. One is an extraordinary level of loyalty,
    among Republicans in general and members of the new administration in
    particular, to Trump in person and every word he utters. "

    ...

    "The second is a complete conviction among the same people that government
    in America has become bloated, corrupt and wasteful to an extent that only
    drastic action will remedy; and that as budgets are slashed, the true
    scale of that waste will become apparent, with the Biden administration as
    the worst offender in allowing it. That is why entire agencies are being
    closed or suspended and Elon Musk allowed to run riot. And this conviction
    includes the firm belief that aid to Ukraine has been part of the same
    wasteful, unaccountable, corrupted Biden-sponsored spending."

Here is the context I need.

The Whitehouse views Ukraine through a lens that is defined by domestic
political matters. For people in this mindset, the word Ukraine conjurs these
thoughts,

    The US security establishment made a big song and dance about Trump's
    election win in 2016 being the result of a Russian project, with these
    claims later turning out to be complete garbage. [4]

    Hunter Biden was given a plum role with a Ukranian energy company while
    his father was US VP. [5]

    During his first term, Trump sought assistance from Zelensky for evidence
    of Biden corruption, but Zelensky declined to assist. [6]

    The media and government established conspired to cover-up a series of
    stories about Hunter Biden in the leadup to the 2020 presidential
    election.

    Joe Biden had signs of senility even as he won the 2020 election, and was
    propped up in that role as a puppet of the Democrat establishment, in
    service to their interests.

    Zelensky travelled to a marginal US state in the lead-up to the 2024
    presidential election. Prominent Republicans have linked his brand to the
    Harris presidential campaign as a result of this trip. [7]

    A picture of American covert operations that is shaped by Hollywood.

    The military-industrial complex, in broad terms.

Since the 2020 election, Trump has peddled a lie that the election was
"stolen" through ballot boxes. We know this is a lie because in court his team
were able to present nothing resembling evidence of such election fraud, and
then independent judges threw the matters out.

The real conspiracy does not fit into such easy soundbytes: significant
sections of the US media and security establishment dishonestly and
dishonourably conspired against a populist president to return power to the
Democrats and the bureaucractic establishment. (And then used the legal system
to pursue show-trials once Trump was out of office, which brought him back to
prominence.)

Hague's insight is that emotional domestic concerns are the driving force of
foreign policy in the Trump administration as far as Ukraine is concerned.

The Trump machine knows these stakes,

    Its primary motivation is its unhinged hatred of the Ukraine cause due to
    it being a Democrat+elite project. It lashes out at Zelensky for what he
    symbolises, while ignoring that he is the head of state of an ally.

    Its secondary ambition is that Trump will be able to punch the air and
    claim he forged a deal to serve his domestic audience. But it is hedged
    against failure. If things go bad Trump can walk away saying that actors
    should have made a deal. Or that they should have made a better deal.

The white house is ambivalent towards outcomes on the ground, and uninterested
in the dynamics of the conflict,

    It has pitched a ridiculous deal that involves rare earth deposits in
    Ukraine,

        The deposits are not particularly valuable.

        A US mining operation there would not be an effective deterrant. [8]

        Russia no longer has the means to provide the hydrocarbon energy that
        would be needed to exploit the deposits.

        This is a Potemkin village deal proposal.

    Trump has created incentives for Putin to delay a deal in the hope that
    this will allow him to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

    Trump has backed Zelensky into a corner where his only reasonable position
    is to reject the awful deal that is on offer.

This is not a master deal-maker at work.

Rather, the Ukraine cause is set to become collateral damage to the core
mission of the White House machine: to reverse the long march of
socialists-and-kin through US institutions [9].


// Russian weakness and Russia as a US concern

NATO countries would have been able to mobilise against the Russian military
without US support even in 2022. In this hypothetical, it might have led to
losses of Baltic states, and tested nuclear treaties. But there would be no
prospect of Russia doing well from an ambitious project to take territory off
NATO countries. Russia's best case would be a phyrric victory where it gained
some worthless territory at the cost of the sort of catastrophic losses it has
experienced in Ukraine, whilst not suffering a nuclear strike on Moscow.

Russia is weaker now. Through an attack on a non-NATO country it has lost a
lot of young men, there are not many more coming through, it has lost a lot of
equipment, its hydrocarbons industry has been harmed, its nuclear deterrant
has lost credibility and nobody wants to buy its military equipment any more.

Russia looks to be on the verge of an economic collapse.

Given these factors, Russia seems to be a lower concern than China for the US
strategic establishment.

Some in the west may even fear that a total Russian collapse would open
opportunities for China.


// China

China is a more important adversary. China threatens military action against
Taiwan, a well-established developed country. That would directly destabilise
Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Philipines and China itself. And it would lead to
significant inflation through the rest of the world.

Trump's actions on Ukraine have caused a significant loss-of-face for the
western security aparatus in Europe.

So we must ask, does the lack of resolve extend to the Pacific?

My best conclusion: the loss of resolve for European security does not carry
beyond Europe.

Note that at the same time as Trump has been withdrawing from the US, he has
been claiming he will annex Gaza. We must assume that this is mere
brinkmanship, and it seems to have had the right effect on arab states. Still,
it is an entirely different tone and approach than we see for Ukraine.

The US domestic narratives around China are different to those around Ukraine.
The dominant narrative is surely that China takes US jobs.

I think the major risk of the last few weeks is that China will be emboldened
by a misinterpretation of American action against Ukraine, rather than the
reality of a weakened US resolve in the Pacific.

Within the last day of writing, US and Australian submarines have been
coordinating a response to an unwelcome tour by Chinese warships around the
coast of Australia.


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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEET

[2] Bolton claims in a book that Trump was surprised to lean from UK officials
that the UK was a nuclear power at the time of his first presidential visit to
the UK.

[3] If Russia holds on, as a Chinese proxy, this will in time be seen as a
grave Western strategic blunder. It should be striking to us how little we
debated the sanctions, as we applied them. As an alternate strategy, consider
if the West had offered directly military support to Ukraine, but not applied
sanctions.

[4] On this matter, it did not help Trump to have his agent George
Papadopoulos was wondering around bars in London boasting to Australian
diplomats about deals with the Russians for dirt-sheets on Hillary Clinton. Of
course, details like this get lost in the noise.

[5] Was it reasonable for Hunter Biden to style himself as a 'lobbyist' when
his father has that role? Is it reasonable for Joe Biden to allow his son to
continue in his circle while such arrangements persist?

[6] Nor would I have done - associating with a partisan camp of an ally comes
with risks.

[7] This demonstrates the danger of being seen to associate with a partisan
camp of an ally.

[8] We should think back to US oil workers that Iran and Iraq took as hostages
in conflicts in 1979 and 1991 respectively. If anything, it offers Puting or a
future Russian leader convenient access to hostages who can be traded for
spies - a trade that Russia is well-versed in.

[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_march_through_the_institutions