From Ekspert, Dec. 2, 2024, https://expert.ru/mnenie/amerika-vstupaet-v-perekhodnyy-period/ Complete text:
The [US President Joe] Biden administration, having lost the election [of Vice-President Kamala Harris as his designated successor; see Vol. 76, No. 44-45, pp. 3-8 – Trans.], will remain in power for two and a half more months. Thus, the US constitutional system effectively creates the conditions for a miniature civil war against the incoming [president-elect Donald] Trump administration, with far-reaching consequences for the country’s foreign policy. This primarily concerns the Ukraine crisis as a key element of foreign policy strategy for the Biden administration, which is clearly seeking to exclude the very possibility of a negotiated settlement of the conflict.
Trump’s policies are dominated by domestic concerns. First of all, [Trump proposes] dismantling the “administrative state” with a significant reduction in the state apparatus, as well as the destruction of the Democrats’ ideological legacy of “woke culture” and a focus on marginalized segments of the population. The latter, by the way, will be the main victims of [businessman and Trump associate] Elon Musk’s announced plans to cut the federal budget by $2 trillion. Less than two years remain until the next congressional elections, and it is during this period that the foundations must be laid for the irreversible transformation of the country in line with its historical identity, which the liberal elites have encroached upon.
The [outgoing] Democratic administration bet on war – all-out war at that. However, as a result, Ukraine has turned into a testing ground for demonstrations of Russian weapons based on new principles of physics. This allows Moscow to conduct business from a position of strength both in Ukraine and in its relations with the West in general.
Judging by what President Vladimir Putin revealed at the CSTO summit in Astana [see Vol. 76, No. 48, pp. 7-10], the Oreshnik [Hazel Tree] system is essentially an artificial meteor shower with pure kinetics at work: The warheads of the [ballistic missile] system acquire their destructive potential when they pass through dense layers of the atmosphere at great speed. They are a technological miracle, homing in on their targets from space, at incredible heights and at enormous speeds.
In fact, we have a weapon that is comparable in destructive power to nuclear weapons but environmentally friendly (that is, quite in the spirit of the times – one could say “green”), and therefore usable. Strikes can be announced publicly and carried out in broad daylight to avoid human casualties. With its humaneness, it takes on a PR dimension: Any attempts by the authorities to prevent the evacuation of people from the declared targets of attack will be perceived as attempts to use their own citizens as “human shields.” In this case, responsibility for [any potential] victims falls on the authorities of the country that is subjected to the attacks.
The Oreshnik, with its ability to create elements of a lunar landscape, is an ideal means of destroying any stationary objects, primarily infrastructure, including heavy weapons depots and military-industrial complex enterprises. It creates an asymmetry that makes a return to earlier forms of arms control virtually impossible. At the very least, we will have to wait until China catches up with the US in terms of its traditional deterrence potential: Then we will be able to reach a trilateral equation for strategic stability. As China catches up, the threat of a nuclear conflict will begin to look like an implausible absurdity. In addition, the very nature of the fighting in Ukraine is setting standards for modern warfare that serve as a compelling means of strategic deterrence.
It is not surprising that the position of the future Trump administration has undergone a rapid evolution in this context – from rumors of freezing the Ukrainian conflict Korea-style to Ret. Gen. Keith Kellogg’s statement about “peace through strength.” It is clear that the strength here will be on the side of Russia, not Kiev. Trump’s desire to place responsibility for the phenomenal failure in Ukraine on America’s Ukraine lobby, which clearly has a corruption element, is already evident. Suffice it to recall Elon Musk’s statement about treason committed by former National Security Council employee Alexander Vindman, who received money from a Ukrainian oligarch.
Thus, the intra-American conflict is now playing out on the foreign policy front. A speedy settlement in Ukraine is becoming a geopolitical imperative in the context of Trump’s vision of the world as “a world of strong sovereign states competing with each other.”1 Ukraine does not fit into this definition of great power politics. The time of cynical “grand bargains” and top-secret diplomacy is over. This also dictates the consensus of the [American] elites regarding the higher priority of the Chinese track, not to mention the Middle East (where they clearly cannot do anything without Moscow). In many ways, this is what ensured the almost absolute unity of Republicans around Trump, in contrast to the 2020 election. The Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” directly calls for being guided by national interests (presumably, as opposed to ideological ones) in relations with Russia.
Finally, the reindustrialization of America means tough protectionism – Trump does not hide this. John Maynard Keynes once pointed out that free trade is good when new industries are created to replace lost jobs; otherwise there is no alternative to protectionism. In the current globalization under neoliberal economic policy, this did not happen. It is time to fix this, obviously at the expense of all of America’s trade and economic partners, including its “friends and allies.” A special case is China, with which a military-political détente is possible, accompanied by economic destabilization.
The picture is completed by America’s imperative to focus domestically, similar to how Russia did after the Crimean War. No less important is the factor of Trump’s conservative revolution itself, which is bringing America into line with Russia. [This trend] has been developing for decades in the paradigm of traditional values rooted in Christianity. In this regard, the European Union obviously faces the dire prospect of getting stuck in economic, military-political, ideological and geopolitical limbo between the Atlantic and Eurasia – a threat that independent observers in Europe itself are starting to talk about more and more often.
1[This appears to refer to Trump’s 2017 National Security Strategy, which in fact read: “We will pursue this beautiful vision – a world of strong, sovereign and independent nations, each with its own cultures and dreams, thriving side-by-side in prosperity, freedom, and peace – throughout the upcoming year.” – Trans.]