Nato And Ukraine Have Lots To Fear From A Trump Revival

The success or failure of decisions of monumental importance including going to war can be decided by timing.

- Kim Sengupta

If Argentina’s dictator, Leopoldo Galtieri, had waited just six months to invade the Falklands, there would have been no task force for Britain to retake the islands. The aircraft carriers, Invincible and Hermes, intrinsic to the mission’s success, would have been delivered to Australian and India.

Would Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine have floundered so badly had he waited until 2024 when Donald Trump could possibly be president? Would Trump, the man accused of being the Muscovian candidate for the White House who was prepared to accept the Russian occupation of Crimea, and had faced an impeachment inquiry for withholding military aid to Kyiv really have provided Volodymyr Zelensky’s government with billions of dollars of arms, enabling his country to fight back?

If China’s Xi Jinping, sabre-rattling at present over Taiwan, was to delay any invasion he may have planned what would be the reaction of Trump? After all, he threatened to pull US forces out of the Indo-Pacific and warned allies in the region that they should not expect the US will defend them against Beijing.

It is, of course, far from inevitable that Trump will win the Republican nomination, trailing as he is Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, in the polls. The showing of the candidates he endorsed in the midterm polls has been poor.

More and more senior Republicans including those previously ardently loyal) are now saying it is time for the party to move on. A YouGov poll at the weekend showed that DeSantis had a seven-point lead among Republicans and Republican-leaning voters for the nomination. But it is worth remembering that in 2016, nine months before Trump won the presidency, an NBC News/Waill Street fournal poll had given Ted Cruz a two-point lead over Trump. There is a long way to go before the nominations close. We now await the former president’s announcement.