https://thepeacemonger.substack.com/p/trumps-window-to-do-something-useful?
A conversation with George Beebe
Ian Proud
5 hours ago

We are in a strange holding pattern. In Ukraine the weather is turning and everyone is waiting to see how hard the winter hits, and how hard Russia will hit Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. In the Gulf, America’s unresolved war against Iran seems deadlocked, pending the midterms, with the blockage on trade continuing to bear down on the global economy.

George Beebe, director of grand strategy at the Quincy Institute, argues that these tactical stalls reflect something larger: the end of the unipolar moment and a messy American adjustment to a more contested world.

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For three decades after the Soviet collapse the United States faced no serious rivals and could largely impose its preferences. That era is finished.

China is a peer competitor. Russia and Iran have shown they can defend core interests even against American pressure. At the same time the United States is living through the backlash against globalization. Financial and tech centers prospered; much of the industrial heartland did not.

The political result is a country that is both more divided at home and less able to act coherently abroad.

This shows up clearly in Ukraine. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have opened doors and carried messages that ordinary diplomats cannot. The Russians are willing to discuss business deals, but they insist the real issue is the European security order that emerged after the Cold War—one that expanded NATO while leaving Russia on the outside.

The White House has accepted that the talks must broaden, yet the rest of the U.S. government is not ready. The Pentagon, the CIA, and the State Department have spent years supporting Ukraine’s war effort.

Ending the conflict on terms Moscow will accept requires bringing those institutions along, not cutting them out. Yet, after the midterms Trump will have even less political capital to force the bureaucracy to follow him.

The same pattern appears with Iran. A ground invasion is unrealistic. Simply declaring victory and leaving would leave the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab vulnerable, in George’s assessment (I question that, frankly).

One possibility is the Israeli-style “mowing the lawn” approach of repeated strikes that never resolve the underlying problem. I recalled that NATO tried mowing the lawn for years in Afghanistan and it proved a catastrophic failure.

Another, more intriguing option is a trilateral arrangement involving the United States, China, and Russia. All three have reasons to want the fighting stopped: the United States wants lower energy prices and a nuclear settlement; China needs reliable oil supplies; Russia wants a seat at the table of major powers and has never wanted Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.

Given the possibility of a trilateral at the APEC Summit in Shenzen, I suggest that Trump will arrive as the weakest leader in the room, having been rendered a lame duck at the mid-terms.

Yet Beebe is careful not to write Trump off. Xi and Putin may see a lame duck, but they also know that a deal signed now could constrain whoever comes next. Nixon remained active in foreign policy even at the height of Watergate. Still, the window is narrowing.

Europe appears to be shifting slowly on Ukraine. Some leaders fear the United States will either cut a deal over their heads or simply walk away. That fear, combined with the damage Russia’s air campaign is doing to Ukraine’s infrastructure, is pushing individual European governments to talk to Moscow bilaterally rather than wait for a unified EU position that never arrives.

Indeed, as I have suggested regularly over the last year, the politics in Europe is changing rapidly; riots in France and Germany, are more likely to destroy the political appetite for a forever proxy-war in Ukraine than any political initiative of the elites in capitals.

The practical question is whether the United States can still organize a settlement that addresses Russia’s core security concerns and brings the Europeans on board with Trump a lame duck?

Beebe’s answer is cautious. Trump clearly wants an end to the Ukraine war and a more normal relationship with Russia. That desire is one of the few reasons for modest hope. Left to their own devices, political leaders in London, Brussels, Paris and Berlin would sooner wait for all their cities to burn before contemplating a change of tack on Ukraine policy.