Last Monday Donald Trump nominated Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and it is not a good news for the ukrainians.
A Short Biography
James David Vance was born in Middletown in southwestern Ohio in 1984. He enlisted in the US. Marine Corps and was deployed in the Iraq War in 2003. In 2009 he received a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Philosophy and he studied at Yale earing a Law Degree in 2013.
He became famous publishing Hillbilly Elegy in 2016, a book in which he describes his life in Middletown and in Kentucky, underlining the poverty and discontent of the working-class whites in those parts of the USA. In accordance with the critics, the book perfectly explains why the working-class withes preferred Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election instead of Hilary Clinton, although Vance described the former President as Aldolf Hitler.
JD Vance on Ukraine
Soon after the beginning of the war, Senator Vance said: “I gotta be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another”. It was a strong statement that reflect the opinion of many around the country.
What is the key to put an end to russian invasion? JD Vance perfectly made it clear what Ukraine has to do in order to end the war: cede the lands that Russia claims as its own.
In December 2023 Vance declared that providing military aid to Zelensky would change little the course of the conflict. When Joe Biden was pushing Capitol Hill to approve the 60 billion aid package, the senator of Ohio did his best to prevent it. The United States, Vance said, didn’t give the military supplies that were required from the beginning of the war, and that those billions won’t increase arms production which is necessary to support Ukraine. The idea of pushing Russia back to its border was simply proposterous and nobody believed that the ukrainians could do this during the counteroffensive.
Basically, on what assumption is Vance’s thinking based?
First, he believes that Ukraine is a corrupted country. Last year, at the Heritage Foundation, the Senator said that he admires the brave ukrainians but let’s not mistake the courage of Ukrainian troops on the ground with the fact that they have the most corrupt leadership and government in Europe and maybe the most corrupt leadership anywhere in the world. According to Transparency International, Ukraine ranks 104 out of 180 in terms of perceived corruption. Vance do not trust Zelensky and his government. He says that americans do not know where all the dollars US gave to Ukraine have gone, and the Biden administration didn’t truck them down.
Second, western countries don’t produce enough weapons to support Ukraine. In Munich he said that Europe needs to wake up. High GDP is not enough to win wars. The West needs to increase weapons production in order to be ready to fight, because Russia produces three times more than the western countries actually do.
Third, Ukraine has too few soldiers. The senator basic point is that Ukraine needs more soldier than it can actually field. According to Statista, Russia deployed 1.3 million soldiers against 900 thousand ukrainians.
Finally, Ukraine can’t win this war. The USA government can’t support Ukraine in a never-ending war as it did in the past. Of course, this is certainly unknown, but nobody thinks that Ukraine might win without the support of the European Union and the United States.
Fonte immagine: Europe fears weakened security ties with US as Donald Trump picks JD Vance (ft.com)
Back to realism
Vance basically thinks as a realist. He sees the international system as realists do. He has been a victim of liberalism foreign policy adopted by G.W. Bush at the beginning of the century and he doesn’t want the USA to continue throwing money away to export democracy or to protect other democratic countries. He thinks that the american people won’t tolerate another endless war.
In Munich he totally denied the possibility of leaving NATO, and this is a good news for the allies in Europe, but in the meantime, he wants Europe to wake up.
J.D. Vance made the point: the future of the US foreign policy will be in the far east. The peer-competitor of the Unites States is not in Europe anymore, but in Asia. China economic and military power has grown during the last decade and the USA can no longer waste time and dollars in wars that are not their priorities.
The Future of Ukraine
The true question of this analysis is what will happen to Ukraine if Donald Trump and J.D. Vance win the elections this year.
The future is quite uncertain. Both Trump and Vance are not great fans of Zelensky and Ukraine. During his mandate as US President, Trump had a very good relation with Vladimir Putin and may set up negotiation to end the conflict.
Trump and Vance are not a good news for Ukraine. The former President said that Victor Orban told him that China and Russia were afraid of the Trump Administration. According to Trump, under his administration Russia didn’t invade a mile of Ukraine, because Putin was afraid of him. He will stop wars with a telephone call.
Zelensky is concerned about the possibility of Trump winning the elections and it is perfectly understandable. The President of Ukraine said, during an interview with the BBC, that he will be happy if Trump stops the war in twenty four hours, but at what price? Zelensky made it clear that he won’t accept any territorial cession because it would be a great victory for Putin and a defeat for Europe. He said that is not scared of dealing with Trump and his administration, but he recognises that it will be very difficult.
If the USA stops providing support to Ukraine, it is hard to believe that the Ukrainians will win the war, and the ukrainians will have to decide to negotiate or to lose more territories.
