State of the Union

What a politician omits to say is often more important than what he says. There were two significant omissions during President Trump’s record-breaking State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

The first concerned Ukraine and the second Iran. Tuesday was also the day that Ukraine marked the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion of their country. Notables from around the world gathered in Kyiv’s Maidan square to mark the occasion. Every Western country was represented – except the United States.

There was no American diplomat, politician or Trump-appointed delegate at this important and moving ceremony. The United States was conspicuous by its absence.

The Ukrainians were also hoping that somewhere in Trump’s speech there would be some mention of support for the Ukrainian cause. There was none. The only mention of Ukraine was in the context of negotiations which repeatedly fail because Trump insists on backing Russian proposals. These include the resignation of Volodomyr Zalensky; the ceding to Russia of all land that Russia currently occupies and more; the  neutering of the Ukrainian military and a pledge that Ukraine never join NATO. In short, total surrender.

Iran was mentioned in Tump’s nearly two-hour speech. But what was not mentioned was Trump’s intentions towards Iran. At the moment the largest concentration of US naval firepower since the 2003 Iraq War is gathered off the coast of Iran.  It includes two aircraft carrier groups which are comprised of two aircraft carriers, each with 75 fighter bombers and a complement of 7,000 personnel. Each aircraft carrier is supported by cruisers and destroyers, supply vessels, support ships and submarines. The cost to the US taxpayer is tens of millions per day.

Why they are there was omitted from Trump’s speech. Are they off the coast of Iran to threaten to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. The ones that were “obliterated” earlier this year. Or are they in Middle Eastern waters to protect Iranian protesters—tens of thousands of whom have been slaughtered by their own government. Or are they there to demand the destruction of Iran’s missile programme. Or, is Trump demanding a regime change and a combination of all of the above.

The fact is that Trump has no clear plan and that is how countries become embroiled in “forever wars.”

Ukraine

How do you calculate a nation’s war morale? Its willingness to fight. Its resilience and ability to absorb blow after blow and retain an air of optimism.

The analysts at the CIA, Royal Services Institute (RUSI) and the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) as well as military attaches are experts at counting men, missiles, tanks and planes. They factor in population sizes and supporting economies; place them on the military/diplomatic scales and come up with what is called the “strategic balance.”

But what they fail to include—what they cannot include—is a calculation that represents a country’s willingness to fight.

At the start of the Ukraine War the Russian military was 4.5 times bigger than Ukraine’s. Its economy was nine times larger, and its population was 3.5 times bigger. As Trump would say: The Russians had all the cards.

Or so it would seem. After four years the Ukrainians fought mighty Russia to a standstill. Putin’s economy appears to be faltering and there are reports of Russian officers forcing their troops at a gunpoint into suicide assaults.

On Tuesday the Ukrainians marked the fourth anniversary of the start of Putin’s War with a moving ceremony in Kyiv. It appeared to reveal that the Ukrainians are as determined to drive Putin’s men from their homes as they were four years ago.

They are protecting their homes, their families, their land, their culture, their history. In 1991 the Ukrainians were given a taste of freedom from the Russian yoke. They liked it. They want to keep it.

There are other similar examples from history. The London blitz; the Vietcong fighting against first the French and then the Americans; the almost medieval forces of the Taliban fighting against first the Soviet Union and then the combined forces of the NATO alliance for 20 long years.

Numbers are important. But there are some intangibles which are difficult to throw into the calculus. As the Ukrainians are currently proving.

France

One of the world’s worst jobs must, at the moment, be that of a career US diplomat in France.

Normally Paris would be considered a plum posting. The sort of assignment you land at the end your career as a thank you for a job well done. Or, if it is at the beginning, a sign that you are a rising star.

I mean who wouldn’t enjoy checking out the book stalls while on a leisurely stroll along the Seine. And let’s not forget expense account lunches at Michelin-starred French restaurants.

Which is why the post of ambassador is usually gifted by the president to a close political friend. In the case of the current ambassador, Trump went one better. He kept it in the family. The president pardoned the father of his son-in-law—Jared Kushner—for tax evasion and appointed Charles Kushner to the cushy Paris job.

The French did not like it. They thought it was an insult to have a convicted felon, appointed because of nepotism, in the US ambassador’s mansion. But they swallowed it for the sake of Franco-American relations. Then the Trump administration decided to stick their nose into internal French affairs.

It started with a comment by the Trump Administration denouncing what it called “terrorism” and left-wing violence in France after the fatal beating of far-right activist Quentin Deranque. This was an unacceptable interference in French internal affairs and a definite diplomatic no-no between NATO allies.

Ambassador Kushner was summoned to the Quai D’Orsay for a diplomatic dressing down by Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barot. The matter might have ended there except that Kushner decided not to go and sent his number two instead.

That is another big diplomatic no-no. When the ambassador is summoned by the foreign minister he goes. If necessary he rises from his sick-bed.

The French government responded by banning Kushner from any contact with any official of the French government. Since all the career diplomats in the embassy report to Kushner, that meant that the entire diplomatic staff was effectively shut down.

Barot said Kushner would only be allowed to resume his duties after he provided an explanation over his failure to respect “the most basic customs of diplomacy”.

Kushner was forced to apologise. In what the US embassy termed a “frank and amicable” telephone call with the foreign minister, Kushner also had to agree to never again interfere in French domestic affairs.

The fact that Kushner meekly accepted this diplomatic slap in the face is a blow for the Trump Administration which has made a habit of interfering in other country’s internal affairs. The administration has gone out of its way to fete far-right activist and convicted felon Tommy Robinson and lauded him as a “free speech warrior.” Their actions over Greenland have been interpreted as an interference in Danish internal affairs. And recently Martin Huckabee, US ambassador to Israel, said Israel had a claim to all the land between the Nile and the Euphrates rivers. He too was forced to apologise.

* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice. He also contributes to “The New World” magazine and lectures on world affairs. He is the author of “America Made in Britain,” two editions of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “The Falklands Crisis.”