This is now Trump's war

Plus: "How the establishment Is domesticating populism"

Hi from Moscow, where I’ll be attending the May 9 Victory Day Parade. I have two new articles fresh out of the oven.

For UnHerd, I’ve written about the failure of Trump’s peace-brokering efforts in Ukraine and why this was the result of several strategic mistakes, but on a more fundamental level has to do with the primacist and hegemonic culture that continues to drive the US establishment, even under Trump:

But from the outset, Russia made it clear that any deal had to address far more than the status of annexed Ukrainian territories. For Moscow, the war is about redrawing the global security order. Its demands have always included a new European security architecture on the model of the Helsinki Accords, with limits on NATO expansion and a broader restructuring of the international system — a restructuring that reflects the rise of new centres of power, particularly Beijing and Moscow. In this view, global governance should be based on sovereign equality, regional balances of power and negotiated spheres of influence, not on the universalisation of Western norms or the expansion of Western-led military alliances. In short, Russia is not seeking a truce on narrow terms, but the formalisation of a multipolar world order in which Western hegemony is replaced by a balance among great powers.

Given that, Trump’s insistence on an immediate ceasefire as a precondition for negotiations was never viable. Moscow has long insisted that a truce can only follow agreement on the broad contours of a settlement — not precede it. Trump also misstepped in entertaining a European proposal to deploy “peacekeeping” troops to Ukraine as a stabilising force. For Russia, such a move was unacceptable and would have been seen as a direct provocation rather than a confidence-building measure. Equally unacceptable from Russia’s standpoint was the Kellogg Plan, which envisioned a frozen conflict and deferred NATO membership.

Overall, the US approach to the negotiations amounted to a textbook case of strategic and diplomatic incompetence. This is in part due to the inclusion on Trump’s team of figures like Steve Witkoff and Marco Rubio, who lack diplomatic experience and underestimated the complexity of the conflict.

However, the failure of Trump’s peace initiative also reflects deeper realities within American foreign policy thinking. While his rhetoric may appear to break with the bipartisan interventionist orthodoxy of the past, his “America First” doctrine remains grounded in a belief in US global supremacy — as evidenced by his aggressive trade tactics. This is why Washington could not engage seriously with Russia’s broader demands. As noted, Moscow does not merely want recognition of territorial changes; it seeks an acceptance of the multipolar reality of the international landscape. For the US foreign policy establishment — even under Trump — that remains an unacceptable proposition. Thus, even though Trump may have been genuinely committed, on a rational level, to ending the war in Ukraine, the institutional culture that helped initiate and sustain the conflict remains deeply entrenched.

Read the article here.

Meanwhile, I’ve also written for Compact about how recent events in Romania — where one populist candidate was replaced with another, more palatable one — illustrate the establishment’s evolving strategy for neutralising the populist threat: a dual approach of repression and co-optation:

Simion is the leader of the nationalist Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which had previously backed Georgescu and pledged not to run against him. He launched his campaign after Georgescu was barred, portraying himself as a defender of democracy and national sovereignty and even suggesting he would appoint Georgescu as prime minister if given the opportunity. But the conclusion that Simion’s likely victory in the final round will be a defeat for the establishment may be premature.

Unlike Georgescu, Simion was allowed to run. Why? The answer may lie in the type of populism he represents. On the one hand, Simion holds much more radical positions than Georgescu on cultural and identity issues. He is known for his inflammatory anti-Hungarian rhetoric and for advocating policies that could jeopardize the rights of Romania’s ethnic Hungarian minority, including the abolition of Hungarian-language schools and the use of Hungarian in public institutions. He has also made irredentist statements about restoring Romania’s 1940 borders, which would include territories now in Moldova and Ukraine. In other words, Simion is a genuine ethno-nationalist whose positions arguably warrant the “far-right” label—unlike Georgescu, whose campaign focused primarily on economic policy and Romania’s geopolitical orientation.

On the other hand, Simion is significantly more aligned with establishment interests on crucial issues such as NATO, European integration, and the war in Ukraine. While he is critical of the European Union, his rhetoric stays within the boundaries of conventional conservative euroskepticism, focusing on reform rather than withdrawal. He has expressed disapproval of aspects of the handling of the Ukraine war, but remains openly supportive of NATO and the United States, and has repeatedly condemned Russia. His party, AUR, is part of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament, which is known for its Atlanticist stance and full-throated support of Ukraine.

In this light, Simion represents a new and increasingly common type of political actor: the faux-populist who combines strident cultural nationalism with loyalty to the economic and geopolitical status quo. This dual identity makes him acceptable to the establishment, despite the “far-right” label often attached to him. The real red line, it seems, is not cultural rhetoric, but opposition to globalist economic policies and military alliances such as NATO.

Read the article here.

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Thomas Fazi

Website: thomasfazi.net

Twitter: @battleforeurope

Latest book: The Covid Consensus: The Global Assault on Democracy and the Poor—A Critique from the Left (co-authored with Toby Green)