Fact: President Joe Biden has all the appearances of a lame duck. When a person of authority is unlikely to succeed himself there is a palpable loss of power.
Unless.The perception and hopefully the reality of a continuation of a strong Alliance compensates for the status of its leading figure. In capability the United States is the leading member of the Alliance that is, with Ukraine, fighting Russia. What we now need is an assertion from Former President Donald Trump that the U.S. will remain a stalwart member of the Alliance. A failure to do that will weaken Trump if he is president again.
The Alliance operationally is the Ukraine Contact Group (It is called the Ramstein Group because it meets at the U.S. Ramstein Air Force base in Germany) and it contains 57 member nations. (Link) The Group currently is led by the United States. The documented support of this Alliance assures that Ukraine will ultimately have a strong position at the negotiating table.
In every foreign conflict there are first and last years—provocation and settlement. The first year of the Alliance for a free Ukraine is, of course, long past. Knowing what we now know should we have engaged? My view, an unalterable yes. Regardless, we are engaged and the Congressional leaders of both Parties have been supportive.
The resulting war has seriously weakened Russia. It lost the semi-neutrality it had with Finland and Sweden. Russia borders Finland for 833 miles, now 833 miles with the NATO alliance.
It has dissipated wealth and talent as a large number of its most talented left Russia early in the war. It has also dissipated whatever goodwill might have existed in Ukraine for the Russians. And now its only unqualified supporters overseas tend to be North Korea and Iran. They are principally motivated by a hatred of our country. Neither provide Russia strong trade partnerships.
Imagine: The Ramstein Group of 57 nations is in one way or another fighting Russia, Iran and North Korea (active Russians allies). Relatedly the stronger the Ramstein Group, the more wary the Chinese about accelerating its support for Russia or invading Taiwan.
But, back to the first and last. America’s strength abroad and its internal strength for international alliances received a serious set back as the Afghanistan war resulted in an embarrassing retreat. We left and the Taliban took over. As the Ukraine war enters the third year we must have a tight understanding of what victory is. Eventually Ukraine and its allies will get out of the war. Hopefully the end will be a favorable boundary map for Ukraine along with a positive trajectory toward membership in NATO.
Donald Trump knows how to conduct successful negotiations. His business career assured that at any given point he was involved in some sort of buy or sell negotiation. We are told that he was “a tough customer”. And he knows, but probably won’t admit, that a loss to Russia will cause severe friction in NATO and weaken the Alliance for the next time around. And there will be a next time around and especially if the Ramstein Group and Ukraine together fold.
Recall Kenny Rogers’ admonition to the young gambler “You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em—Know when to fold ‘em—Know when to walk away”. In war the strong do not walk away. The strong make sure the last year is worthy of the first.
Fact Checking
Article after article regarding last week’s debate mentioned the need for fact checkers and a somewhat instantaneous posting. Presumably by the debate host.
Fact checking is important, but my sense of a gifted debater is that he/she know the facts so the pushback can be immediate. Most of the questions and their contexts can be anticipated; the debaters need to be able to correct the record. While the media can fact check over the next few hours; the debaters need to do it with confidence at the time.
If a candidate is not verbally adept with knowledgable answers he/she should not appear in a presidential debate. Or negotiate with Congress or with our foreign enemies. Golf scores are irrelevant.
Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.
Richard Gnospelius says
I agree with Mr. Sikes. It seems quite obvious that we have arrived at a point where our country has either the weakest or most confused Presidential candidates in our history. An interesting question is “How did (or could) the leaders of our two principal political parties have ignored the obvious defects of these two empty suits and allowed us to arrive at this sad point, where no easy solution is apparent? I know some will be very unhappy with what I’m saying, believing “Trump is Wonderful”. I really don’t care what people think about what I’ve said here. The undeniable fact is that Trump, while sadly somewhat popular, is massively and obviously defective. I don’t know where we go from here, but it’s going to require some very inspired and creative leadership, as well as a lot of eating of humble pie. I gather Biden can’t be legally removed from the presidential ballots in states where he has won his party’s nomination. So whatever the solution is, it’s going to have to be a very creative one. Meanwhile, it appears our country has weak leadership, and those looking forward to WWIII think it much easier to wage than when we had strong and intelligent Presidents. I hope somehow we can regain our Global standing.
Paul Rybon says
To assert that Ukraine’s position is stronger now is ignoring reality. Putting on a brave face has cost them a ruined country with little for it’s citizens to come back to. As usual, Donald Trump was right. Should have negotiated when there was something to save. And Russia is not weaker. The great alliance that our leaders thwarted in the past, has come to be.
The party responsible for these disasters should be put at the feet of our inept negotiator-in-chief Joe Biden. We shouldn’t wait until January to retire him. Whether he becomes POTUS or not I’m almost certain Donald Trump can be counted on to help alleviate this international nightmare.