Last week, relations between the United States and Ukraine continued to deteriorate. Having already accused Ukrainian President Zelensky of being a dictator and starting the current war with Russia, President Trump directed our United Nations delegation to join with Russia and North Korea to vote against a United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning Russian aggression. This shameful decision may reflect Trump’s hope for a new world order yet which could create more danger for the United States and the rest of the world than he and his supporters understand.
The vote was significant not only because it showed the United States aligning itself with Russia and North Korea, but especially because it reflected a serious and perhaps permanent breach with our allies in NATO. Trump and his supporters have hinted that this vote, as well as his demand for half the profits from the putative exploitation of Ukraine’s mineral resources, may be part of a larger strategy to secure some sort of negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia or otherwise make Ukraine safer. For example, a pro-Trump columnist for the Washington Post, Mark Thiessen, has argued that an agreement on Ukraine’s natural resources would actually commit the United States to supporting Ukraine since should Russia win the war, America would get nothing. Maybe. We’ll see.
Trump says he wants the killing on both sides to end. But given the overall MAGA philosophy Trump has promoted, he may have an additional endgame in mind as well.
Much of today’s MAGA ideology is a recycling of the conservatism of the 1920s and 1930s as advocated by the GOP: Nativism and antipathy to immigrants, protectionism and high tariffs against imports, and, most relevantly, isolationism and an aversion to being entangled in European affairs. The prevalence of these views among the American people represented a reaction to the progressive reforms of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson as well as a backlash against American participation in World War One. They produced three successive Republican landslides in the presidential elections of the 1920s, but they also diminished both the desire and the effectiveness of the United States in preparing to deal with the advances of communism and fascism in the interwar years.
When Trump was running for president in 2016 he condemned President George W. Bush for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and, to his credit, he launched no new wars during his first term. But his approach to Ukraine may ultimately produce a permanent rupture with our NATO allies. They’re already holding summit conferences to determine how best to help Ukraine without American support. They’re decision to function without American help may weaken the alliance even further. And what if Russia succeeds in defeating Ukraine and thus emboldened goes on to invade other Eastern European countries which were either parts of the late (and unlamented by all except Putin) Soviet Union (the Baltic states), or Soviet satellites such as Poland. What then? The United States, as a member of NATO, would be treaty-bound to intervene our NATO allies. Refusal to do so would in all probability destroy NATO for good.
And perhaps that’s the point. Trump may believe we no longer need to be in NATO. Outspoken American isolationists such as Charles A. Lindbergh liked to tell America First rallies that whatever was going on in Europe needn’t concern us. Besides, we had the protection of both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to protect us and therefore needn’t have to worry about being dragged into European wars. Trump may agree. But Lindbergh neither remembered German U-boats in the North Atlantic in World War One nor anticipated Pearl Harbor.
Analysts with CNN and the Wall Street Journal have suggested another possible goal of Trump: They have speculated that what Trump really wants is a great power arrangement among America, Russia, and China by which the world would be divided into three spheres of influence with the United States dominating Latin America, with Russia getting a free hand to dominate Europe, and with China able to do what it wants in Asia. Would such an arrangement lead to the spread of authoritarianism in Europe and Asia, or more wars of liberation against real or perceived aggression by the “Big Three?” Either alternative would make the world less safe, not more.
The best course of action for Trump and the United States to realize that Russia, not Ukraine, is the aggressor and that Putin, not Zelensky, is the dictator and then to help Ukraine either win the war in such a way as to deter future Russian aggression. Otherwise, should America abandon Ukraine, Russia will be able to commit more acts of aggression in Europe, possibly making war against our NATO allies and forcing us to either fight or abandon them. And should America abandon Ukraine and possibly NATO, China might be encouraged to act against Taiwan, North Korea may want to act against South Korea, and Japan may want to develop nuclear weapons and thereby contribute to nuclear proliferation. Contrary to what Trump says he wants, the world will become far less safe, with more killing and more dying as well.
Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville since 1987 and taught politics and government at Tarleton for 36 years, retiring in 2023. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990-2024). He was Mayor pro-tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Stephenville
Economic Development Authority since 2018 and as chair of the Erath County Appraisal District’s Appraisal Review Board since 2015. He is also a member of the Stephenville Rotary Club, the Board of Vestry of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and the Executive Committee of the Boy Scouts’ Pecan Valley District. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.
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