Donald Trump wants to end the conflict in Ukraine, but would have fewer guardrails in office. However, Kamala Harris might take a harder line on China than we think.
Last week’s debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris revealed crucial yet complicated differences in the candidates’ foreign policies – especially on the wars now raging in Europe and the Middle East, and the potential for military conflict with China.
It remains possible that Trump is less likely to get the US and its allies into any new war than Harris. The proposition is complicated because, as Harris claimed, Trump will have fewer “guardrails” to restrain his decision-making this time around.
This is precisely what worries Canberra. During Trump’s first term in the White House, some advisers and officials in his inner circle not only counselled restraint, but disobeyed him. Defence secretary Jim Mattis, for example, declined to provide Trump with military options to attack Iran.
The concern now is that the people around Trump will be much less of a cautious or disobedient force.
Yet when Trump was not indulging pet theories in last week’s debate, he spoke with most conviction about bringing the conflict in Ukraine to an end. He wants “to stop all of these human lives from being destroyed”. His pitch was humanitarian: “I want to save lives.”
Not for the first time, Trump bemoaned the costs to America of subsidising the Ukrainian war effort and the risks of escalation into “World War III”. He wants to likewise settle the Gaza conflict “fast”, though he provided no details of negotiating strategy. On that point, he and Harris agree – the Democrat nominee said a ceasefire deal was needed in Gaza to get the remaining hostages out. Their bottom line? Israel has to face the unpalatable reality of doing a deal with Hamas.
Harris’ performance was a study in the art of prosecution. But she also revealed just how tightly tucked she is into the Washington foreign policy establishment. Her references against Trump came principally from the generals she’d spoken to who think her opponent is a “disgrace”. She had Trump on that wall as a pin-up boy for his autocratic mates. He would “give up” on Ukraine. She would “win” the competition with China for the 21st century. Trump, she charged, had ceded ground to Xi Jinping, especially on technology.
How all this plays out in office remains conjecture. But broad themes are emerging.
Trump and his vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance have learnt the heavy cost to US credibility from Washington’s abortive attempts at nation-building in Afghanistan and Iraq. Their plan to end the Ukraine war appears to include the creation of a demilitarised zone.
As Vance put it last week, a “peaceful settlement looks like … the current line of demarcation between Russia and Ukraine”. That means pushing Kyiv to give up Crimea and the Donbas to Putin. Ukraine would maintain its independence in exchange for a guarantee of neutrality – an end to the idea it could join NATO or the EU. That will have neoconservatives in Washington in a state of apoplexy. But it also renders Ukraine a frozen conflict – the new Cold War’s version of the Korean stalemate.
During an interview with The Washington Post earlier this year, Vance said: “There’s a lot of risks to us staying there and trying to encourage the Ukrainians to hold on to Crimea. The question is, how many American lives would it cost to do that? And if the answer is more than zero, then I’m out.”
If that’s the calculus driving their approach to war in Europe, are we sure they will adjust when it comes to weighing up a potential war with China? Vance has repudiated the notion of the Ukraine war being between “good and evil” as a “fairytale mindset”.
Much as the comparison might haunt Democrats, there is a thread of continuity between the Trump and Obama presidencies. The latter continues to attract criticism for “leading from behind”, failing to act when “red lines” were crossed by Syria’s Assad regime, and for “pivoting” to Asia rhetorically rather than putting in extra US military commitments on the ground. But both Barack Obama and Trump were, in their respective ways, reacting to the over-extension of the George W. Bush presidency to focus on domestic priorities.
Trump’s previous form on China from 2017 to 2021 suggests he will be wary of provocation. In that period, it might be argued that Trump acted primarily out of a recognition of Xi’s strength. This won’t hold him back on another round of tariffs targeting China, should he win in November. But will this be the limit of his provocation? The problem for Trump is that Xi is a different proposition now – convinced more than ever, despite wobbles in the Chinese economy, that America is declining.
In a recent podcast, Trump said he has an “idea for China”, though he won’t give details, adding this is “part of its surprise”. What that means is anyone’s guess.
Harris does not have her hand on the trigger for war with China, and has spoken of the need to avoid conflating “competition” with Beijing with seeking conflict. There has been similarly careful language about the need to “de-risk” rather than “decouple”, and to keep lines of communication open.
But as one retired four-star general, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Washington Post last week, “She’s more hard-line than most people think.”
This article was first published in the Australian Financial Review on 15 September 2024.