The former head of NATO Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that regardless of whether he wins, Trump's candidacy will blow up Republican support for Ukraine

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Edited by| Hugh Gey

 Politic   section -  CJ journalist

World – March,15,2023

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   Yet Rasmussen, a right-of-center politician, remains scared of Trump. What disturbs him more immediately than the idea of Trump back in the White House is a far likelier scenario: Trump winning the Republican presidential nomination.

It may seem counterintuitive to fear Trump’s nomination more than his return to power, a less probable but vastly more dangerous outcome. But Rasmussen’s mind is on the war in Ukraine — and what Trump’s candidacy might do to sabotage it.

The former NATO chief serves as an adviser to the Ukrainian government and recently came to Washington to see members of Congress and Biden administration officials. He is lobbying them to supply more and heavier weapons and to make long-term security guarantees to Ukraine.

Just by winning the Republican nomination Trump could shatter the bipartisan front in favor of Ukraine, Rasmussen fears. Trump has been forthright about his views of Russia’s invasion, praising Putin as a clever strategist in the early days of the war and recently suggesting that Ukraine should have ceded “Russian-speaking areas” in a deal with the invader.

Rasmussen says Trump’s apparent Ukraine policy would amount to “surrender.”

“I call it a geopolitical catastrophe if Trump were to be nominated because in the campaign his influence would be destructive,” Rasmussen says. It would move Trump’s terrible ideas closer to the mainstream and make it harder to secure congressional support for the war.

Already, he notes, opinion polls show “a weakening of the support for Ukraine” in the United States. Trump’s nomination could accelerate that, Rasmussen argues: “The mere fact that his thinking appeals to a certain element, a certain segment of the American public, will push American politics in the wrong direction.”

“I really hope that Republicans will get their act together,” he says. “I do hope, I would say not only from a European perspective but from a global perspective, that Republicans will nominate a candidate that is much more attached to American global leadership than Trump and Trumpists.”

Trump’s top rival on the right, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, has echoed him on Ukraine, denouncing what he calls Biden’s “blank-check policy” of generous aid and saying that the fate of Ukraine’s border regions is not an important American concern. This week he described Russia’s savage war of aggression as a “territorial dispute.”

That “blank check” language has become a go-to formulation for Republicans (sometimes including Haley) who want to keep some distance from the war without going full Trump. The catchphrase is about the extent of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s stance. When he declined an invitation to Ukraine this month from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, McCarthy said he did not need to travel to confirm he “won’t provide a blank check for anything.”

It is not clear what that means as a matter of policy, which is not exactly reassuring for Ukraine and its allies.

It is not that the Republican Party lacks committed defenders of Ukraine. There are plenty, but like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell they have tended to speak softly and carry a big omnibus spending bill. An unbending Ukraine hawk, McConnell assured European leaders at the Munich Security Conference last month that Republican leaders value a “robust trans-Atlantic alliance” — whatever other raucous voices in the gallery might say.

The problem is that there is not much in the last decade of Republican politics to indicate that senior legislators can be relied upon to stick to their principles when the most strident factions of the G.O.P. base are moving in another direction. And when it comes to the war, right-wing Twitter bears an uncomfortable resemblance to real life.

There is a pronounced partisan gap on Ukraine: A Gallup poll published in February, around the anniversary of Russia’s invasion, found 81 percent of Democrats wanted Ukraine to reclaim its lost lands even at the risk of drawing out the war, versus 53 percent of Republicans. Only 10 percent of Democrats believed the United States was doing too much to back Ukraine, while almost half of Republicans thought American support had gone too far.

Rasmussen has made three trips to Washington since last fall, using each to press the argument for Ukraine and promote a plan for Western security guarantees. He says he has met with a number of influential Republicans, including Senators Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah), and Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), the chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs — all avowed supporters of the fight against Russia.

Actual Ukraine skeptics have been more elusive. I ask Rasmussen if he met war critics like Senator Josh Hawley, the Missouri Republican who has called the war a distraction from a larger struggle with China, or Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, a new arrival in Washington who as a candidate last year professed indifference to the Ukrainian cause. The answer is a rueful no.

Hawley says he wasn’t at Zelenskyy’s speech because he ‘didn’t want to be part of a photo op’

Rasmussen tells me that before visiting Washington he made a list of lawmakers who had criticized the war and requested meetings with some of them. He was ready to tell them that ensuring Russia’s failure in Ukraine was not a distraction from the contest with China, but rather a crucial opportunity for the West to show its collective power and resolve. He wanted to explain how European governments are doing their part against the Russian menace and to stress that “isolationism has never, ever served the interests of the United States.”

Not one war critic agreed to meet him, he says. Unfortunately for me, Rasmussen declines to “name and shame” the specific members who blew him off.

Rasmussen says he tries to go on Fox whenever he’s in the United States, though he has not managed to get on the air in months. When I ask if he tried for a slot on Carlson’s show, he chuckles: “Not Tucker Carlson.”

If American voters’ enthusiasm for the war may not continue forever, then Rasmussen believes we must make it count now. That means giving Ukraine fighter jets, longer-range missiles, and other arms Biden has resisted sending. If Trump’s opponents cannot beat him in the primary, Rasmussen hopes that perhaps Ukraine can defeat Russia first. He predicts Biden will wind up sending warplanes, calling it merely “a question of time.”

The former NATO boss has nothing critical to say about Biden. When I suggest the president might do more to explain the war to American voters and address their skepticism, he shrugs off the idea. Biden is the best thing the transatlantic alliance has going.

“We are blessed,” Rasmussen says, “by having a true internationalist and globalist in the White House.”