Supporters of Ukraine had three major criticisms of former President Joe Biden. First, he supplied Ukraine with weapons, but it was always too little, too late. Second, he lacked a strategy beyond supporting Ukraine for “as long as it takes.” Third, as much as he wanted Ukraine to survive, he didn’t actually want Russia to lose, fearing that a collapsed Russian state would cause even more chaos and misery.
These criticisms were justified. But compared to what his successor in the Oval Office is doing, he now looks like pure genius.
Biden achieved three important goals. First, Ukraine survived Putin’s invasion. Second, it won back a good portion of the territory Russia had seized in the first weeks of the war. And third, by helping Ukraine stave off Russia, Biden degraded the Russian armed forces and thereby undermined Russia’s ability to project power in the world.
Those were no small achievements, but they were made to look picayune by Biden’s critics, especially President Trump. Trump has often claimed that there never would have been a war if he had been in charge. The beauty of such a counterfactual is that a false premise can logically entail any and every possible outcome. So, yes, the Russians might not have invaded if Trump had been president in 2022, but they could have just as well have, say, dropped an atomic bomb on the White House.
Counterfactuals are useful for analysis only if they are underpinned by some kind of theory. Perhaps Putin might not have invaded because Trump is tough. But perhaps Putin would have invaded, because Trump obviously admires him and his desire to divide the world into spheres of great-power influence.
Seen in this light, Trump’s counterfactual actually undermines his claim. His consistent accommodationist behavior toward Russia and its dictator seems to be a far more plausible and consequential starting point than his alleged toughness.
Indeed, one could go further and argue that Trump’s pro-Putin line will not only prolong the current war — after all, the Ukrainians have no choice but to fight — but also make a world war more likely by encouraging Putin to test NATO’s resolve by invading the Baltic states. Given Trump’s Putinophilia, it is perfectly plausible that he would cheer Vlad on.
Fortunately, that dreadful scenario is unlikely, thanks to one of the unintended consequences of Biden’s Ukraine policy: Ukraine may actually be winning, and Russia is definitely losing.
The distinguished military historian Phillips P. O’Brien puts it well: “Trump has adopted the Russian talking point that Ukraine is on the ropes and can’t win. Now, admittedly that has been a huge part of the western reporting over the past year. … However, that narrative is finally being challenged. Russian advances have slowed markedly, their casualties are enormous, and the Ukrainian military seems to be making some better choices on how to fight attritional warfare against the less efficient Russian military.”
The facts speak for themselves. The Ukrainians have transformed what was once the second-most-powerful army in the world into merely the second-most-powerful army in Ukraine. Russia’s dead and wounded exceed 800,000, and daily losses are in the range of 1,000 to 1,500. This has forced Putin to seek help from the North Koreans. Ukraine has neutralized the Black Sea Fleet and is degrading Russia’s energy infrastructure.
Russia’s economy is in free fall. Political and economic elites are increasingly dissatisfied with Putin’s disastrous war, while the aging Putin is incapable of generating new ideas. And yes, Ukraine also has many problems, but it will fight on because there is no other alternative. The Russians, in contrast, know they need not die for the megalomaniac in the Kremlin.
O’Brien concludes that the Ukrainians “are in better shape than certainly Trump and Vance are saying — and the media let on in 2024. Are they in great shape? No. They need weapons and support — but the Ukrainians are holding well for now and it’s the Russians who are suffering casualties at a rate that is damaging their operations. Ukraine can win the war — as always the question is whether we want it to.”
Biden was not sure he wanted Ukraine to win. Trump looks like he’s sure he wants Ukraine to lose. So, two-and-a-half cheers for Biden’s Ukraine policy, and three loud boos for Trump’s.
Alexander J. Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, as well as “Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires” and “Why Empires Reemerge: Imperial Collapse and Imperial Revival in Comparative Perspective.”
