«Colloque international pour la Paix» (6/11) Hall GARDNER

Trump and the Question of “Peace through Strength” will first discuss the causes of the Ukraine-Russia War as a result of the uncoordinated NATO-European Union “double enlargement.” It will be argued that the more NATO and EU expanded into post-Soviet/Russian spheres of influence and security and particularly toward Ukraine, the more Russia would reach out to China, Iran, and North Korea, etc. and thereby seek to alter the European and global geopolitical equilibrium in a more polarized global system.

Not only was there no real coordination between the US/NATO and European Union as both international regimes expanded their membership into former Soviet bloc/Russian spheres of influence and security, but there was also no substantial US/NATO and EU security and defense coordination with Russia. Moscow had hardly a voice, and certainly not a veto, in the decisions that led both NATO and the EU to enlarge their memberships and that impacted Moscow’s perceived “vital” interests.

This geostrategic reality led Russia and China to forge a strong strategic partnership that manifest itself as early as July 2001 before becoming a “no limits” partnership in February 2022. NATO and EU enlargement eventually provoked a Russian backlash after NATO promised Ukraine eventual membership in 2008 and the EU promised Ukraine a political-economic and strategic partnership by 2012-14. Concurrently, as the EU “widened,” it did not “deepen” in terms of forging a more unified defense capability that would possess greater autonomy from the US and NATO – in case of American political-military overextension and strategic focus on China and/or a Russian revanchist backlash.

Trump and the Question of “Peace through Strength” will then argue that peace between Russia and Ukraine can be achieved by means of establishing a neutral non-nuclear Ukraine. A neutral, non-nuclear Ukraine is not only crucial to re-establishing the post-Cold War European geopolitical equilibrium and a new NATO-European-Russian relationship, but it would also represent the first step toward establishing a new global equilibrium and new global security architecture as well.

If a sustainable peace can be established with respect to Ukraine – accompanied by a new NATO-European-Russian interrelationship that also involves US-European-Russian-Chinese and global arms reductions and arms eliminations – the task of reaching a sustainable peace accord in other regional conflicts will prove much less difficult. By contrast, if the Trump administration fails to achieve a sustainable peace between Ukraine and Russia – a possibility that points to the necessity for the Europeans to develop a more autonomous defense capabilities – the chances of yet another global war will augment.

Will Trump prove himself to be a “peacemaker” as he now claims? Will Trump be able to achieve “Peace through Strength” with respect to the major ongoing conflicts between Ukraine and Russia; Israel, the Palestinians, and Iran; as well as between Taiwan and China, among others? And if so, what kind of peace? Or will Trump’s seemingly erratic unilateralist “America First” tactics – involving high tariffs on both US allies and US rivals alike; cutbacks in USAID and other US “soft power” tools in an effort to reduce the monstrous US budget deficit and mounting debts; in addition to US public support for extreme political parties – exacerbate ongoing conflicts, while fostering new ones?

And finally, it is argued that the world is entering a dangerous “inflection” point that can either lead to wider wars or else steps toward regional and global peace.