&w=3840&q=100)
Donald Trump has failed to bring peace to Ukraine and Gaza. Here's why
US President Donald Trump has taken a harsher line on Vladimir Putin recently. Reuters File
Donald Trump surprised many by giving Vladimir Putin just 10 days to reach a peace deal with Ukraine.
Trump's original 50-day deadline was panned by many including leaders of Nato nations and Republicans.
However, Trump now seems to be fed up with Putin, whom he had praised incessantly in the past, over the Ukraine war.
Trump is also struggling to get a handle on Gaza, which many people around the world have for months claimed is a genocide, amid visuals and reports about people facing mass starvation.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
However, Trump has had some successes. For example, the Trump government in June managed to broker a ceasefire between Rwanda and Congo.
Trump also announced he had urged the leaders of Cambodia and Thailand to come to a ceasefire in July.
What explains this?
So, what's the reason behind his failures to bring peace to Ukraine and Gaza?
Trump has been successful in cases where he has leverage. For example, Trump Clearly told Thailand in Cambodia that there would be no trade negotiations until the ceasefire was reached,
However, when it comes to Ukraine, Trump does not have any leverage over Putin . Russia has already brushed aside the threat of sanctions. Besides, Trump has done little to follow through on his threats.
The intricacies involved in the Ukraine and Gaza situations may also be a factor. Trump, for example, seems to still be entertaining the notion of striking a deal with China and Russia to limit each of their spheres of influence.
In West Asia, Trump needs to tread carefully given America's current alliance with Israel. He also needs to take into account his Maga base and their motivations.
(File) US President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, US, April 7, 2025. Reuters
Conversely, the Rwanda-Congo deal was a simpler matter. Trump brokered the peace in exchange for US investors getting access to the DRC's minerals.
The third and final factor is that simpler solutions are easier to achieve. Thailand and Cambodia can simply revert to type.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
It is ultimately also in the interests of the conflict parties. They have had a chance to make their violent statements and reinforce what they will and won't tolerate from the other side. The required investment by an external mediator to end battles that have achieved what the warring sides want anyway – to avoid further escalation – is consequently quite limited.
Attention to detail
Bringing peace to Ukraine and West Asia also requires prolonged engagement and attention to detail. These conflicts are at a stage in which a return to how things were before is not in the interests of the parties or their external backers.
Nudging warring parties along on the path to agreement under such conditions requires a well-designed process, which is absent in Ukraine and failing in Gaza.
Thanks to funding and personnel cuts, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is now required to perform multiple roles. Trump relies on personal envoys with at best limited foreign policy expertise, while insisting he makes all the decisions.
This ultimately suggests that the White House simply may not have the bandwidth for the level of engagement that would be necessary to get to a deal in Ukraine and the Middle East.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
This is a self-inflicted opportunity lost, not only for the United States but also for the long-suffering people of Ukraine and West Asia.
Stefan Wolff is a professor of International Security, University of Birmingham
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Mint
9 minutes ago
- Mint
‘Racist sleazebag': Trump slams Charlamagne Tha God—what did the radio host say about Epstein files to trigger him?
US President Donald Trump slammed 'racist' Charlamagne Tha God who spoke on his presidency, pointing out that tax-and-spending law hurts many as it puts 'people in a worse financial situation than they were previously in' and stating Epstein files case is going to be a way for 'traditional conservatives' to take Republican party back from Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. His remarks came during Fox News show 'My View with Lara Trump", hosted by the president's daughter-in-law who previously served as co-chair of the Republican National Committee. 'I wouldn't give it a good rating simply because the least of us are still being impacted the worst," he stated about Trump's second tenure as president. He mentioned he will gain from tax breaks sanctioned in Trump's tax-and-spending law. However, he added, 'There's going to be so many people that's hurt by that bill.' Anything that takes away Medicaid from people and will put people in a worse financial situation than they were previously in, I'm not for.' Charlamagne suggested that the Republican Party will ultimately be reclaimed by 'traditional conservatives', distancing itself from Trump's MAGA movement. He cited the controversy surrounding Trump's refusal to release documents related to convicted sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein as an example of the internal pushback gaining momentum. 'I think there's a political coup going on right now in the Republican Party that people aren't paying attention to. I think this Epstein thing is going to be a way for traditional conservatives to take their party back. I really do. I think that they know this is the issue that has gotten the base riled up, the MAGA base isn't letting this issue go and for the first time they can probably take their party back and not piss off the MAGA base. I think they're going to do that," he further said. Trump took to X and said Lenard McKelvey (real name of Charlamagne) 'knows nothing about me or what I have done'. While calling him a 'dope' for allegedly voting Democratic's Kamala Harris, he called him 'racist sleazebag' and hit out at his use of God in his professional nickname. 'Can anyone imagine the uproar there would be if I used that nickname?' Following the Justice Department's announcement that it will not release any further documents related to the sex trafficking investigation, the Epstein case has come to limelight in recent weeks. The decision sparked outrage among online sleuths, conspiracy theorists, and segments of Trump's base, many of whom were expecting evidence of a government cover-up. Although officials maintain that Epstein died by suicide in his New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial, the case continues to fuel widespread speculation and conspiracy theories due to his connections with high-profile figures, including Trump and several other billionaires. He 'gave President Biden the same hell' when he didn't find the Democrat suitable for doing a good work, 'The Breakfast Club' show co-host informed Lara Trump that his disagreements with the Republican president was not new.
Mint
9 minutes ago
- Mint
US Navy ships are languishing in repair yards
The USS Helena was preparing to leave dock after more than six years of stop-start repairs when a young sailor was electrocuted and died. His death further delayed the return to action of a submarine that epitomizes the Navy's struggles to maintain its fleet. Sonar technician Timothy Sanders had told his mother several times that he was concerned substandard repair work on the submarine would get someone hurt. A Navy report concluded that he died last May after inadvertently touching an electrical source left uncovered by repair workers, his mother said. President Trump has called attention to U.S. shortcomings in building new naval vessels. The Helena's history of costly, sometimes chaotic repairs highlights another problem: America is also struggling to fix the ships and submarines it already has. While Sanders' death is an extreme example of what can go wrong in U.S. shipyards, the shipbuilding and repair industries have long complained that a lack of experienced staff has led to mistakes and delays. Limited dry dock capacity and aging equipment are also challenges. Timothy Sanders was a sonar technician who had expressed worries about substandard work on Navy vessels, his mother said. The problems reflect a lack of investment in public yards after the Cold War-era and a broader decline in the American maritime industry. Those issues are now coming into sharp relief amid a greater focus on naval preparedness. Naval experts are concerned that tardy or substandard work in repair yards will keep ships and submarines out of action during a potential war in Asia—a conflict expected to be fought in large part at sea. Maintenance delays are already causing disruptions. The Marine Corps, for instance, has been prevented from deploying and training on schedule because of the poor upkeep of amphibious warships. The importance of naval readiness was underscored Friday when Trump ordered two submarines to be 'positioned in the appropriate regions," in response to comments by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Repairing naval vessels often takes longer than scheduled. Roughly a third of surface ship maintenance wasn't completed on time last year, Navy officials have said. In recent years as much as two-thirds has been late, and officials have said improvement is needed to hit the Navy's combat-readiness target. One submarine, the USS Boise, will have been out of action for 14 years before it is scheduled to head back to sea in 2029 after more than $1.2 billion worth of maintenance work. Repairing ships on time has become a persistent challenge, Admiral Daryl Caudle, Trump's pick as chief of naval operations, told a Senate confirmation hearing in July. 'We need a better approach to how we're doing maintenance," Caudle said. The Navy could learn from cruise lines, he added, which typically have better ship availability. Getting vessels back to sea quickly matters more than ever because the U.S. fleet has shrunk. In the late 1980s, the Navy had some 600 vessels. Today it has about 295. Fewer vessels coupled with longer maintenance times creates a vicious circle. Available ships spend longer at sea, suffer more wear and tear, and then require greater attention back at dock. A Navy official said maintenance times were improving, and that there were 49 construction projects under way—worth about $6 billion—that would bolster repair infrastructure. The Navy is committed to addressing the findings of the probe into Sanders' death, and preventing future incidents, the official added. The Navy's difficulties with ship repair increased in the 1990s, when the U.S. halved the number of public shipyards mandated to maintain nuclear aircraft carriers and submarines. The four remaining government-owned yards were set up over a century ago, designed to build wind- and steam-powered ships. They suffer from aging infrastructure, with more than half their equipment past its expected service life, according to the Government Accountability Office. A shortage of experienced workers is a major problem. With some shipyard welders earning roughly the same as fast-food workers, many have left the profession, according to a report by the Congressional Budget Office. Inexperience reduces productivity and increases accidents, adding to delays, the CBO said. To tackle the resulting backlogs, the U.S. needs to invest in more dry docks, naval experts say. Delays in maintaining and fixing ships means the Navy has fewer vessels to deploy at times of increased activity, said Bryan Clark, a naval expert at the Hudson Institute think tank. At one point in 2019, all but one of the Navy's six East Coast stationed aircraft carriers were stuck in docks. The USS Abraham Lincoln had to endure an extended, 295-day trip to the Middle East—the longest carrier deployment in the post-Cold War era—partly because its replacement suffered electrical issues that took longer than anticipated to fix. Delays persist. U.S. destroyers took a combined 2,633 extra days to repair than planned last year, according to a Navy official. The figure was an improvement, they said, without giving comparable data. The Navy has struggled to maintain its ships and submarines, such as the USS Helena, on schedule. The USS Helena, a Los Angeles-class attack submarine first launched in 1986, has become a poster child for the Navy's maintenance problems. In recent years, the vessel has spent more time in dock than out at sea. Submarines have a particularly strict cycle of inspections and maintenance, typically going into dry dock every two years for up to six months. But the Navy has been behind on submarine repairs since the 2010s, when it decided to give priority to other tasks including overhauling aircraft carriers, Clark said. To ease the backlog, the Navy in 2016 decided to send the Helena to shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries' yard in Newport News, Va. The move was supposed to herald the return of private yards to repairing nuclear-powered vessels. However, HII hadn't done repair work in nine years and its skills base had atrophied. Work on Helena, which started in late 2017, was initially slated to take months but the vessel ended up staying at the company's yard for several years. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on everything from painting and cleaning to fitting new hull tiles that help avoid detection and adding underwater microphones, contract data shows. Delays on the Helena were cascading, deferring work on other vessels, including the Boise. The Navy said the Helena was the oldest submarine of its type in the fleet and the maintenance required was more complex than initially envisaged. HII declined to comment. Helena was delivered back to the Navy in January 2022, HII said at the time. The vessel, however, soon needed further work done at a Navy yard. On May 24 last year, Nicole Sanders was at home when she answered the door to see uniformed naval officers. Her son had been killed by a 440-volt shock, almost four times the voltage that feeds a standard U.S. lightbulb, she said the Navy report found. The report hasn't been made public. 'It's akin to having an electrician come into your house and leave wires exposed," Sanders said. After weeks of NCIS inquiries and grief counseling for the crew, Helena sailed to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The visit coincided with the arrival in the area of a new Russian submarine. Shortly after, the Helena left for Puget Sound on what would be her final voyage. Last month, the submarine was decommissioned. 'That long period of repair and maintenance ended up being a waste of time and money," said the Hudson Institute's Clark. Write to Alistair MacDonald at
India.com
9 minutes ago
- India.com
'Not Acceptable': Trump Aide Slams India Over Russian Oil Imports, Accuses New Delhi Of Funding Ukraine War
Days after imposing a 25 per cent tariff on Indian goods, a senior aide to US President Donald Trump criticised India for continuing to buy Russian oil and accused it of indirectly financing Russia's war in Ukraine. Trump's deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, a key advisor to Donald Trump, stated that the former president firmly believes India must halt its purchase of Russian oil. 'What he (Trump) made absolutely clear is that it is not acceptable for India to keep financing this war by buying oil from Russia,' Miller said on Sunday Morning Futures. On Fox News, Miller said, "People will be shocked to learn that India is basically tied with China in purchasing Russian oil. That's an astonishing fact." Meanwhile, India has not yet responded to the matter.
