https://www.frontpagemag.com/can-trump-end-ukraines-endless-war/
Trump was elected in part on promises to avoid “endless wars” of the sort that cost American blood and treasure in Afghanistan and Iraq but without resulting in strategic advantage or civilized calm.
Yet as a Jacksonian, Trump also restored American deterrence through punitive strikes against ISIS and terrorist thugs like Baghdadi and Soleimani—without being bogged down in costly follow-ups. During the last four administrations, Putin stayed within his borders only during the Trump four years.
But upon entering office, Trump will likely still be faced with something far more challenging as he confronts what has become the greatest European killing field since World War II—the cauldron on the Ukrainian border that has likely already cost 1-1.5 million combined dead, wounded, and missing Ukrainian and Russian soldiers and civilians.
There is no end in sight after three years of escalating violence. But there are increasing worries that strategically logical and morally defensible—but geopolitically dangerous—Ukrainian strikes on the Russian interior will nonetheless escalate and lead to a wider war among the world’s nuclear powers.
Many on the right wish for Trump to immediately cut off all aid to Ukraine for what they feel is an unwinnable war, even if that abrupt cessation would end any leverage with which to force Putin to negotiate.
They claim the war was instigated by a globalist left, serving as a proxy conflict waged to ruin Russia at the cost of Ukrainian soldiers. They see it orchestrated by a now non-democratic Ukrainian government, lacking elections, a free press, or opposition parties, led by an ungracious and corrupt Zelensky cadre that has allied with the American left in an election year.
In contrast, many on the left see Putin’s invasion and the right’s weariness with the costs of the conflict as the long-awaited global proof of the Trump-Russian “collusion” unicorn.
