foreign views of 2020 elections

In his four years as President, Donald Trump has, to an unprecedented degree, taken on difficult and at times politically unrewarding measures aimed at enhancing U.S. national security and tackling trade and espionage endeavors that have harmed the American economy.

Those nations most affected by these initiatives, Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran would like nothing more than to see the 45^th President replaced by a more traditional politician. The fact that all of Trump’s Democratic opponents favor non-confrontational, defense funding reduction policies make them all the more eager to do everything they can to get him out of office. Expect them to do everything they can to make 2020 as difficult as possible to attain that goal.

The president’s restoration of funds to America’s armed forces, his realistic policy towards Iran, his determination to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, his bid to slash Russian influence in Europe by replacing it as a major source of energy and, perhaps above all, his get-tough attitude towards China’s espionage and trade aggression have motivated those nations to do all they can to insure his tenure ends at a single term.

Expect Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang and Tehran to do all that they can to harm Trump’s reputation in 2020. They will do so secure in the knowledge that the utterly left-wing biased American media, in their own bid to unseat the president, will print, broadcast, and upload all they can to end his presidency, without reviewing the critical goals of those four countries.

A Voice of America article noted that: “With North Korea signaling bigger provocations in 2020, some analysts worry the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, could overplay his hand and make a dangerous miscalculation, especially if Kim believes he can affect U.S. President Donald Trump’s reelection chances…The moves suggest an emboldened Kim believes he can hold out for a better deal, possibly because he sees Trump as weakened by impeachment and a tough reelection campaign that is set to enter a more intense phase.”

China’s potential gain from a Trump defeat is vast. Before the 45^th president took office, Beijing’s stunning record of intellectual property theft and unfair trade practices were met with little substantive resistance. The same could be said for its massive increase in conventional and strategic weaponry.

One example typifies the reluctance of prior administrations to met the challenges. During the Obama Administration, China blatantly invaded the Philippines’ offshore Exclusive Economic Zone, a move that was eventually condemned by the World Court at the Hague. Despite the long-standing ties between Washington and Manila, President Obama failed to even lodge a diplomatic protest. It was an unprecedented betrayal, and a green light for further PRC adventurism and aggression.

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Much the same could be said for Russia. During the Obama Administration, the U.S. did little beyond imposing relatively weak sanctions in response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Russia’s annexation of the Crimea. Early in the former president’s tenure, the White House agreed to a nuclear arms deal that gave Moscow, for the first time in history, a lead in nuclear weaponry. China was left totally unrestricted.

It got even worse. In 2012, Obama, believing that his microphone was shut off, told Russia’s Dimitry Medvedev during a meeting in South Korea that he would be “more flexible” in reducing America’s missile defenses after the U.S. elections.

The most significant kowtowing towards Moscow was a side-result of the anti-energy producing policies espoused by the prior president, and his refusal to confront Russia’s use of energy to blackmail Europe.

The controversy over President Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal, and his imposition of tough sanctions on the Tehran regime was a total reversal from his predecessor. Obama championed the agreement, which, even if fully complied with, gave Iran the complete legal right to develop nuclear weapons by 2025. His administration sent, quite literally, pallet-loads of untraceable cash to the Mullahs. Overall, Obama’s policies were a significant tilt away from Israel and moderate Arab states and towards the extremists in Tehran. The Mullahs would like nothing more than to see Trump out of office.

Expect Russia, China, Iran and North Korea to engage in a number of endeavors meant to weaken Trump’s image going into the 2020 election.

Illustration: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

Putin’s Saber Rattling

Earlier this week, President Biden reversed his 2022 decision, authorizing the provision of antipersonnel land mines to the Ukrainian government. It follows an earlier Administration authorization to allow the use of an advanced American missile system capable of striking as deep as 100 miles inside Russian territory. The US election season may be ending, but both Russia and the West show no indication of stepping down the conflict. Russian propaganda continues to swell as the Kremlin increases its threats to use nuclear weapons against the West. Last week Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the pro-Kremlin think tank Valdai Discussion Club (VDC), published an article on growing nuclear tensions in the region. Official Russian language in the last few years has been threatening. Since the US election, rhetoric like that in the Sushentsov article, has approached the level of nuclear blackmail. The VDC article’s main theme centers on Russia’s intent to directly confront the West militarily if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) becomes involved in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. “On the one hand, these threats are intended to frighten the West, but on the other, Russian propagandists themselves are starting to believe in the inevitability of escalation,” according to Ksenia Kirillova of the Jamestown Foundation. On November 11, Sushentsov wrote that “The conflict will reach a completely new level, with unpredictable consequences for Europe and the entire world.” Kirillova points out that Putin’s distorted image of the world is divorced from reality and is causing the Kremlin to issue demands that are impossible to fulfill. Financial and other Russian resources needed to support Putin’s war are growing scarcer at the same time. This week the Kremlin announced a reduction of payments to its soldiers. Recently North Korea acknowledged it was sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine as Putin is running out of bodies to use as cannon fire. The war is not going well for Russia. One question floating around the Washington intelligence community is whether Putin will act out of desperation before President-elect Trump assumes office. In recent months the Russian propaganda machine is spewing out materials from fairly reputable analytical platforms inside the country. Kirillova says that “Kremlin ‘experts’ do not conceal that such threats are only intended to break the West psychologically, as they themselves are not prepared for full-scale nuclear war.” Despite Russia’s lack of preparation for an all-out war with the West, the expanding nuclear rhetoric carries with it an increase in the threat of a full-scale war in multiple theaters of operation. In June 2023 a founder of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Sergey Karaganov, called for “delivering a pre-emptive strike of retaliation” on Poland to force the West to surrender. In the previous month, Dmitry Suslov, a direct of research programs at the policy center proposed organizing “a demonstration nuclear explosion” aimed at intimidating the West. In September, President Putin announced a reappraisal of Russian nuclear doctrine after speaking earlier in the year at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and jokingly calling Suslov a “scary person.” Pavel Baev, writing in the European Daily Monitor, says “Putin intends his announcement to mark an escalation of nuclear brinkmanship and influence the proceedings of future Ukrainian peace efforts.” Putin is expanding the list of environmental conditions that are acceptable for using a nuclear weapon and incorporating it into Russian military doctrine. Baev adds that “The ups and downs of Russian brinkmanship are disconnected from the kinetic battles of the war, correlating instead with Ukrainian peace offensives, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first peace summit in Bürgenstock, Switzerland.” Despite the increase in vitriolic language, in a You Tube video published a week before the US presidential election, Karaganov openly assured the West the primary goal of the escalation is to break the American spirit and that of the West, not outright nuclear war. By Election Day in the US, with political prognosticators predicting a win for former president Trump, Karaganov changed his tune and called for an increased role in nuclear deterrence. Kirillova points out that Western concessions to Russia are unlikely to reduce the risk of nuclear escalation. The distorted reality inside the Kremlin continues to push that President-elect Trump is an adherent of “world government,” that Ukraine will create a nuclear weapon, and Russia must prepare for a nuclear conflagration to achieve its ambitions for a new world order. President-elect Trump has indicated he will not agree to concessions that destabilize Europe, the Middle East or other regions. Going forward a strong US foreign policy may be the most stabilizing course the West can count on to restrain Putin and his intent to rebuild the Russian empire. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept. Illustration: Pixabay

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