Come January 20, 2025 — Inauguration Day — President-elect Donald Trump will have a golden opportunity afforded to few leaders in the history of humankind: winning a global war by enabling Ukraine and Israel to defeat the new “Axis of Evil” threatening democracy.
Winning begins in Ukraine.
Trump can boldly succeed where President Biden has failed due to his evergreen escalation paralysis.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is betting that Trump won’t seize on the opportunity. Indeed, the Kremlin is desperately counting on winning via negotiation.
On Tuesday the Wall Street Journal reported that foreign-policy advisers close to Trump put forth multiple plans to freeze the conflict, seemingly validating the Kremlin’s reasoning.
Speaking in Sochi at the annual Valdai Forum, Putin stated in the wake of Trump’s victory over Vice President Harris that, “I very much expect that our relationship with the United States will eventually be restored.”
Alexander Dugin, the intellectual Svengali of Putin’s modern-day imperialism, went further.
He declared that “We have won,” and added that “The world will be never ever like before. Globalists have lost their final combat.”
Maybe. Then again, maybe not.
Trump, after all, is the author of “The Art of the Deal.”
And what Putin wants – complete capitulation in Ukraine by the West – would be a really, really bad deal. Essentially, it would guarantee that Putin alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping would be the winners of World War III.
Trump will be confronted with a very different world when he re-enters the Oval Office. Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea have coalesced into a new Axis of Evil and are acting in concert.
Numerous examples abound.
Oct. 7. didn’t happen in a vacuum. Putin’s fingerprints were all over Hamas’ murderous attack on Israeli civilians and served as a distraction to cover his assault on Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine that began two days later.
Iran, freed by Biden from Trump’s successful first term maximum pressure policy against Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has become a critical arms supplier to the Kremlin of the drones and ballistic missiles used by Russian forces to target AFU soldiers and Ukrainian civilians in Ukraine.
North Korea is now also knee-deep into Ukraine. Not only is Kim Jong-un supplying Putin with 50% of the artillery shells needed in Ukraine, Pyongyang has dispatched several thousand troops to fight alongside Putin’s military forces attempting to push the AFU out of the Kursk Oblast in Russia.
China, meanwhile, has effectively become the Axis of Evil’s banker by buying cheap oil and gas from Russia and Iran. Beijing has also continued its strong support of North Korea, and by extension, the growing nuclear threat Kim Jong-un poses to South Korea, U.S. troops operating in the DMZ and Japan.
Retired Army Gen. Jack Keane was right when he observed on Fox News that Trump will be confronted with a “major strategic shift” and that a new geostrategic reality awaits his return to the White House. Keane warned that, “China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are colluding and cooperating and coordinating together and they’ve become so much more aggressive and assertive.”
Keane also added that, “It’s not isolated that Russia invaded Ukraine. It’s not isolated that Iran operationalized all of its proxies in the Middle East. And also, that President Xi is threatening war in the Indo-Pacific to take Taiwan by force if necessary.”
Putin, Xi, Khamenei and Kim Jong-un to date have been able to count on Biden’s self-inflicted permissive environment to advance their military agendas against the U.S. and our allies – and by the collective failure on Capitol Hill to fully understand the scope and scale of the Axis of Evil’s war against the West.
Now, more than ever, the Trump maximum pressure campaign used to such great success against Iran in the Middle East is needed on a global basis – beginning against Putin in Ukraine.
In this new world at war, Trump giving Putin a win would also give China, Iran, and North Korea a win – and as such, would be self-defeating in terms of winning World War III.
There are encouraging signs Trump gets this. Susie Wiles, his new chief of staff, is as tough as nails. Robert O’Brien is being considered as Secretary of State – and Mike Waltz, a former Green Beret is being considered as Secretary of Defense. Both men are strong in supporting Ukraine and pushing back against Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.
Plus, according to Barak Ravid at Axios, Trump alongside Elon Musk had a positive conversation with Zelensky expressing support for Ukraine. The Kyiv Independent is reporting Zelensky was encouraged by the discussion.
World War III is here and it is Trump’s moment in history to set conditions to win it.
Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as an Army intelligence officer.
