Trying to make sense of the senseless

Noah Smith, an American columnist and Substacker, and historian Niall Ferguson both made the mistake last week of attempting to rationalise the Trump administration’s fumbling attempts to get Ukrainian peace talks underway.

Niall Ferguson appears to be making a completely reasonable point—one echoed by numerous other observers last week—that it was a mistake for the U.S. to publicly acknowledge that Ukraine can never become a full member of NATO and that the country must cede territory to Russia as part of any peace deal, even if both positions are widely accepted on the Western and Ukrainian sides of the negotiations. This, of course, was before Mr. Trump went on one of his ill-advised social media rampages, effectively accusing Ukraine of starting the war and labeling its sitting president a dictator.

Noah Smith offers a more intricate narrative. He analyzes the world through the lens of a “War Economy,” in which the U.S. is engaged in an existential conflict with China, Russia, and other belligerents to maintain its role as the dominant power in a unipolar world that is increasingly shifting toward multipolarity. Noah argues that this contest is fought across all domains—economically, politically, and militarily—and that it requires a strong and proactive U.S. to underwrite similar strength and activism among its closest allies. He summarizes his analysis of the situation as follows:

Lindbergh-ism — a voluntary retreat to the Western hemisphere — might seem like a way of appeasing the Chinese, at the same time that it allows America’s new rightist leaders to focus all of their energies on Metternichian internal struggles. Part of that idea is to divide the world into three spheres of influence, controlled by three authoritarian conservative powers — China as the ruler of Asia, Russia as the ruler of Europe, and America as the ruler of the Western Hemisphere.3 That certainly fits with Trump’s suddenly bellicose statements toward Canada and other nearby countries.

That’s what I call the Metternich-Lindbergh theory of Trump’s sudden rush to accommodate America’s foreign rivals. It’s basically an early surrender in Cold War 2, but Trump, Musk, & co. may see it as their only option for preserving their vision of Western civilization.

In the case of both Smith and Ferguson, their arguments are coherent and consistent with their previously held and publicly stated views. But in both instances, they make the mistake of attempting to make sense of the nonsensical.

I replied to both of them on X as follows;

Why do we try to apply any considered agency, plan or strategy to this beyond the reality of fundamental and irreconcilable contradictions at the core of Trump foreign policy. We're dealing with a double-layer of volatility and uncertainty. It is one thing to want to do radical things, it is quite another not to have any clue whatsoever about what radical step you want to take, except that you know it must be radical. At this point, the over/under on the US bending over completely to Russia and sending a carrier strike group to the Black Sea seem on par.

Settling the RUS/UKR conflict in way that sets up a new security structure and architecture in Europe, potentially with a much softer hand by the US, requires strategic thinking, finesse and a strong coalition with allies. Mr. Trump has none of the above.

Two realities are now possible. Mr. Trump blew a hole in the U.S. foreign policy machine last week—either he didn’t mean or fully understand what he was saying, and by the end of this week, he and Zelensky will be best pals, with the U.S. pledging its undying support to Ukraine. Or Mr. Trump blew a hole in the U.S. foreign policy machine because he absolutely meant what he was saying, and Ukraine—and Europe—will be sacrificed in any negotiated peace with Russia, either because Mr. Trump doesn’t care or because he wants to teach Europe a lesson in strength and power projection, which his European allies are in no position to muster.

All we can do is sit back and watch the next posts from the president’s various social media accounts. In doing so, we must understand that there is no ‘method to the madness,’ only a thick layer of contradictions and trade-offs deeply embedded in every layer of Mr. Trump’s policies at home and abroad. The sum total of the Trump administration’s political footprint and legacy will be determined by how it navigates and manages these trade-offs and contradictions. But because the president doesn’t recognize they exist—or acts as if he doesn’t—no one will know until they hit him in the face, forcing him to make hard choices even a dealmaker with leverage cannot escape.

In Europe, last week was a stark reminder of the kind of volatile behavior European leaders can expect from Mr. Trump over the next four years. As Karthik Sankaran has pointed out many times, the primary function of Mr. Trump’s presidency is to push Europe toward the realization that the solution to its challenges lies in more Europe, especially in the domains of defense and economics. I agree, and this scenario is now unfolding before our eyes, belatedly and hopefully without interruptions.

But something more profound is at stake in the negotiations for a durable end to the war in Ukraine; the reputation of the world’s strongest economy, with the strongest military. The U.S. has leverage over both sides in the conflict. But it cannot engineer a lasting peace by throwing Ukraine and its European allies under the bus. Even if the U.S. decided to teach Europe and Ukraine a lesson in power politics—an approach that would run counter to U.S. foreign policy interests and likely backfire over time—it cannot expect to strike a deal with Russia either, without simultaneously pledging military sanctions if the deal is broken. Yet, it is precisely such sanctions that Mr. Trump seems unwilling to contemplate.

The early contours of a deal, then, appear to be one struck without Ukraine and Europe in the room, with the implicit expectation that their military forces will handle the fallout if and when Russia breaks a deal they didn’t want in the first place. This would be an inexcusable unforced error by the U.S. from a position of strength.