During her concession speech, Harris said, “While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign. ” She referred to the words “fight” or “fighting” 19 times.

Biden followed with a similar message: “Setbacks are unavoidable, but giving up is unforgivable. As my dad would say, we all get knocked down, but the measure of our character is how quickly we get back up.”

All this is usual rhetoric for politicians, and one would accept it with the understanding that it only addressed domestic affairs. At the same time, the world is worrying about how Trump’s victory would affect U.S. foreign policy, especially the current wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, both of which might escalate into much larger conflicts.   

According to Biden’s NSC advisor, Jack Sullivan, during his CBS interview, “Our approach remains the same as it has been for the last two and a half years, which is to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position on the battlefield so that it is ultimately in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table.”

Trump pledged to end the Ukraine war 24 hours after victory, but obviously, it was just campaign rhetoric.  He criticized Biden for getting America into this war and labeled Zelensky “the greatest salesman on Earth” for how much American money he’s been able to get. However, it is doubtful that Trump can even start negotiations with Putin before entering the White House on January 20. Did he forget how quickly he had to fire his National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, for calling the Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak on December 29, 2016, i.e., 22 days before having the right to engage in foreign policy negotiations? At that time, Flynn was still a private citizen, and the so-called “Logan Act” prohibited them from engaging in diplomacy on behalf of the United States. 

Flynn asked Kislyak to “reciprocate moderately” in response to the sanctions Obama imposed on Russia for “interference in U.S. elections,” pledging to lift these functions after January 20, 2017.  Moscow agreed not to escalate, and as a sign of goodwill, Putin invited the children of American diplomats to the Kremlin Christmas Tree celebration. 

I am unsure about Christmas Tree attendance, but losing Flynn, probably the only one who shared Trump’s vision that “Getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing,” was one of the reasons for the current mega-crisis, including the Ukrainian tragedy.   

We can only hope that this time, Trump will surround himself with loyalists instead of traitors, but no doubt the resistance to his efforts to end this war will be not only from Democrats but from many Republicans in Congress.

U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss., who is in line to become the Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is demanding that President Biden exercise his responsibilities as commander-in-chief and give Ukraine the weapons it needs to make a “substantial difference” on the battlefield in the last days of his term.

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, the House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair, lobbied House Speaker Mike Johnson to support the Ukraine 60 billion aid package last April. McCaul says that he isn’t giving up hope that a second Donald Trump presidency will support Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois, suggests to Trump to “cut through the bureaucracies, the swamp, and the deep state” by putting JD Vance – Vice-President-elect and the Chair of the future Senate, in charge of peace negotiations. In any event, Trump’s landslide victory mandates a new, more realistic foreign policy away from the self-proclaiming hegemony. It is too early to predict whether he can achieve this goal, so help him, God.

Meanwhile, the New York Times has said that “two different futures loom” for Ukraine depending on the outcome of Tuesday’s election, Kamala Harris or Donald Trump.

Much of this is based on the candidates’ rhetoric, and, in the case of Harris, the Biden Administration’s current policy of supporting Ukraine with weapons and aid for “as long as it takes” to defeat Russia. Harris has suggested she would continue this policy, to “stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies,” if elected. She has also accused Donald Trump of being too cozy with Putin and said she would not talk to the Russian president.

For his part, Trump has said he would bring all sides to the table and end the war in a day, and he has been critical of continued U.S aid to Ukraine, which has totaled some $175 billion ($106 billion of which has gone directly to the Ukraine government) since 2022. He has offered no details for how he would end the war or bring the parties together.

But does it matter? In some ways, yes, foreign policy experts tell RS. One side wants to assure that U.S. strategy won’t change, the other advocates for a bold if not abrupt shift that involves a step back from the narrative George Will evinces, that Putin is a barbarian that can only be stopped with more war.

Those same experts say Ukraine is losing, and more weapons and more fighting cannot help. They also point out that official Washington is beginning to realize this too, as is Europe, and a shift toward diplomacy will likely happen no matter who is in the White House come January 2025.

“Ultimately the war in Ukraine will be determined by the balance of power on the ground. This very basic fact often gets lost in conversations about the war. Regardless of whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump wins tomorrow, the Ukrainians are facing an extremely dire situation at the front, with the Russian offensive continuing to chip away at Ukraine’s defensive lines in Donetsk and its manpower shortages becoming more of a problem every day the war goes by,” says Daniel DePetris, foreign policy analyst and regular Chicago Tribune columnist.

“I don’t think the outcome of the election will have a decisive impact on the Ukraine war. Ukraine is losing territory at the fastest rate since the war began, and its main problem is manpower, not lack of weapons,” offers Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis for Defense Priorities.

“After the election, Kyiv will have to shift its strategy regardless of who wins because its current approach is not sustainable,” she adds.

In addition to recruitment problems, Ukraine is suffering from high casualties, low morale, and now desertion. Russia has also sustained massive losses, but it is a much larger country and has yet to fully mobilize due to public pressures against a draft. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has tried to compensate by asking for more sophisticated, long-range weapons and the ability to fire them further into Russia, but the U.S. has been resistant and is the deciding factor in that request.

“Regardless of who wins, the next American president will face harsh realities in Ukraine that will demand a change from Biden’s present policies. Russians vastly outnumber Ukrainians and produce far more military materiel than both Ukraine and its Western backers,” points out George Beebe, the director of the Quincy Institute’s Grand Strategy program.

“As a result, Ukraine cannot win a war of attrition with Russia, and is headed, sooner or later, toward a general collapse absent either a diplomatic deal to end the war or a U.S. decision to go to war with Russia.”

Meanwhile, as supportive as the European leadership has been, elections across the region, particularly in Germany — Ukraine’s second biggest weapons supplier — have reflected public exhaustion with the war due in major part to its visible economic impacts. Sanctions on Russia have not “crushed” Moscow’s economy or war effort, but have had negative effects on European energy prices.

“Staying the present course would be a formula for Ukraine’s becoming a failed state, with Europe thrown into growing disarray as a consequence,” notes Beebe.

“The war is coming at a high price for all involved,” offers John Gay, director of the John Quincy Adams Society, noting that whoever wins on Tuesday, Europe has to start making major decisions for itself — in part how much it can do for its own security if and when U.S. support begins to recede.

“Europe needs to be able to deter Russia and defeat a Russian invasion with little direct U.S. support,” he says. “Is the current NATO target of 2 percent of GDP for defense adequate for that?”

So what are some of the differences each candidate may bring to the Oval Office in January?

“I am not convinced that Harris will buck the national security establishment, her advisors, and Democratic leaders in Congress by suddenly pushing for an end to the war in Ukraine. I expect more of the same if she wins,” charges former CIA analyst Michael DiMino.

“A Trump Administration will probably have a much bigger impact on the future trajectory of the conflict. But as I always say: personnel is policy,” he adds.

“If Trump wins, there will be an early push for a peace settlement. He will not meet all Russia’s demands, but Russia may still provisionally accept, in the hope that Ukraine (and Poland) will reject them, and Trump will then abandon Ukraine,” says Anatol Lieven, head of the Quincy Institute’s Eurasia program.

“We will then have to see whether Trump and his administration have the skill and stamina to conduct a complicated and fraught negotiating process.”

“If Harris wins,” Lieven adds, “she will also aim for peace, but the process will be much slower and more hesitant, the terms offered Russia will be much worse, and Russia will go on wearing down the Ukrainians in the hope of a crushing military victory.

“In this case, everything will depend on the progress of the war on the ground, and whether in order to try to ward off a Ukrainian collapse, Harris would be willing to escalate drastically,” says Lieven.

“Anybody who says he knows what Donald Trump would do about Ukraine is lying or delusional. Trump himself doesn’t know,” says Justin Logan, director of Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute.

“Kamala Harris would be led by her advisers, who will likely come from the Brookings (Institute) cafeteria school of foreign policy,” he adds. “Trump would be heavily influenced by his own advisers. The question is who those advisers will be.”

At the very least, Trump and Harris should be sufficiently allergic to policies that could escalate the war in ways that would make peace impossible.

“No U.S. president, Republican or Democrat, should be eager to shovel tens of billions of dollars a year, forever, into the Ukrainian furnace,” says Gay. “Both sides are escalating the conflict in new ways — bringing in North Korea, seeking looser targeting rules, and more. No U.S. president should be eager to see how far escalation can go before the conflict spreads beyond Ukraine.”

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is Editorial Director of Responsible Statecraft and Senior Advisor at the Quincy Institute.

We have two choices—Donald Trump and Kamala Harris—who aren’t qualified to be dog catcher, let alone President of the United States.

Neither could run for Mayor in a small town and win, because neither is competent enough to articulate in an informed fashion about issues that matter.

It’s come down to praying for a miraculous outcome.

It reminds me of the scene in Avengers: Infinity War, where Dr. Strange evaluates 14 million possibilities to defeat Thanos, and can only come up with one possibility.

Anytime a nation allows itself to be put in a scenario where it has a one-in-14 million shot at survival, there is a problem.

America, we have a problem.

A vote for Jill Stein opens the slim possibility that the Green Party can break through the 5% threshold that would open up federal funding in the next election, creating the much needed possibility of a viable third party candidacy.

But she is not going to be President under any scenario.

That leaves us with Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

When I run the numbers on Kamala Harris, the outcome is always dire—the real possibility that America will be in a nuclear conflict sometime during her first year in office.

She has no strategy for ending the conflict in Ukraine beyond continuing the current policy.

She has called Iran the greatest adversary to America today.

She will get America boxed into a corner where the only exit strategy involves the use of nuclear weapons.

Trump is not better.

And yet…

He has articulated about the danger of nuclear war.

Harris has not.

He has talked about ending the Ukraine war.

Harris has not.

He has opined on the possibility of lifting sanctions against Iran.

Harris has not.

Like Dr. Strange, I have run the numbers on a Trump presidency.

It doesn’t look good.

The odds are 14 million to one that Trump keeps us out of a nuclear war.

But as Avengers: Endgame showed us, sometimes, if you fight hard enough, the odds will end in your favor.

As for the “summits for democracy,” intended to a large degree to isolate Russia and China, many Western countries experienced the rise of far-right nationalist and populist movements. At the same time, the BRICS+ community, where Russia and China play an essential role, is growing fast, exceeding the West demographically and economically.

Biden’s statements about his global leadership and sitting at the head of the unipolar world’s table evoke contemptuous smiles and provide fodder for humorists.

Washington and Brussels cast the fight for Ukraine as an existential fight for freedom, and democracy is now more broadly exposed as the fight for Western hegemony using Ukraine as cannon fodder on the battlefields.

When we turn to the current US elections, no one else but the Washington Post, which refused its many years of policy of endorsing Democrats and decided to stay neutral, admitted that “the light of Biden’s pro-democracy fire has dimmed — and neither candidate in next week’s presidential election appears set to stoke the flames.” Additionally, it states that “Outside the West, it led to mounting cynicism over Washington’s insistence on being the custodian of an international “liberal order.” 

We may not know for days or weeks who the winner is—the archaic system of counting votes, possible cheating or violence on the streets, and lawsuits. The Supreme Court might get involved, as in 2000 during the Bush-Gore battle. Traditionally, Americans vote with their pocketbooks, worrying mainly about the economy, but in times of the threat of nuclear WWIII Armageddon, foreign policy could also be an important factor. If this is the case, they might choose Trump, who promises change, while Kamala will be controlled by the same people responsible for the current dangerous state of affairs. Tighten your belts, folks; the most significant American show has begun.