What ‘peace through strength’ really means
President Donald Trump is a surprising man. After a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky late last month at the United Nations General Assembly, he issued a Truth Social post announcing he believes that nation “would be able to take back their Country in its original form and, who knows, maybe even go further than that!” Trump subsequently announced that he supported NATO countries shooting down Russian aircraft violating the alliance’s airspace. It seemed to be a complete shift in European security policy. Kremlin spokesmen in Moscow were thrown into apoplexy by the sudden shift, and Western analysts reacted with stunned confusion.
But perhaps his reversal should surprise the commentariat less than it has. When Russian President Vladimir Putin began his 2022 invasion, of course, Democrats sought to present Trump as sympathetic to Russian aggression and suggest that he was hostile to democracy itself. While he certainly adopted troublingly dovish rhetoric regarding Russia during his four years in the political wilderness, we would do well to remember that he sent lethal aid to Ukraine in the waning days of his first administration — in other words, taking the very steps on which the Biden administration sometimes dragged its feet. The far harder line against the aggressor nation than many expected is not so out of alignment with his earlier positions as the media suggest.
And, of course, the shift follows several weeks of changing rhetoric from the president. After a much-hyped and inconclusive meeting with Putin in Alaska, for example, Trump criticized his predecessor for doing too little to support our friends in the war. “Crooked and grossly incompetent Joe Biden would not let Ukraine FIGHT BACK, only DEFEND,” he posted on Truth Social. While the final outcome of the negotiations remains highly uncertain, many of the measures he said he was considering even before the New York pronouncements are far more hawkish than anything the prior Democratic administration pursued. That is without even mentioning the fact that he positioned two nuclear submarines to circle Russia to demonstrate American resolve ahead of the Alaska meeting. Although isolationist elements still play a sizable role in the Trump administration’s decision-making, they are only one faction among several vying for influence. And clearly, they are not winning the argument.
Read more in The Washington Examiner.
