On Ukraine war, will Trump channel JFK or LBJ?
On Ukraine war, will Trump channel JFK or LBJ?
Donald Trump will inherit Joe Biden’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine on January 20.
Biden
has made clear he’ll never negotiate an end to his failed war that
includes any concession whatsoever to Russian security interests. Biden
is furnishing Ukraine with billions more in weaponry to prevent a
Ukraine collapse on his watch. He’ll be damned if he allows a US defeat
in Ukraine in his last year to bookend his accepting a US defeat in
Afghanistan in his first year.
That
presents a huge dilemma for Trump whose who routinely called for a
quick end to this senseless war during his successful campaign.
But
just like in his first term, Trump may be trumped on negotiating peace
and disengagement by the US war party. Trump achieved nothing in terms
of détente with North Korea or cutting America’s bloated 34,000 troop
presence in NATO Germany. He may also fall victim to the same dread
Biden has of being president when Ukraine does sue for peace, losing
four provinces, committing to neutrality between East and West,
including no NATO membership as the basis for a ceasefire.
Trump’s situation recalls the dilemma both JFK and LBJ faced over US involvement in America’s lost war in Vietnam 611 years ago.
JFK
inherited his predecessor Ike’s 700 ‘advisors’ and Vietnam and ironclad
US commitment to keep South Vietnam free from communism. By the end of
1962 Kennedy hiked the advisors to 11,000, incurring over 50 deaths in
their non-combat role.
But
by spring of 1963 JFK, more a realist than fanatical Cold Warrior,
understood that no US presence could save South Vietnam from defeat. He
began to secretly plan for a full US withdrawal. In May, 1963 he had
Defense Secretary Bob McNamara draw up a withdrawal plan. Kennedy made
this plan official policy with his National Security Action Memorandum
263, dated October 11, 1963. It called for withdrawal of 1,000 advisors
by December and rest of the now 16,000 personnel out by the end of 1965.
The 2 year gap to complete the US pullout was due to waiting till after
his reelection to avoid political pushback from Republicans that could
jeopardize his reelection.
This
was US policy on the day JFK died. Had Kennedy lived there is no basis
for believing he would not follow through on his pledge to end US
military involvement in Vietnam.
When
Lyndon Johnson became president, he immediately cancelled National
Security Action Memorandum 263. His administration, Congress, the
military and compliant national media all rallied around the fiction of
complete continuity between JFK and LBJ on Vietnam. Johnson began
pouring in more advisors before pivoting to direct US warfare after he
hyped the August, 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident to militarize US action
against North Vietnam. LBJ famously remarked ‘I’m not going to be the
first US president to lose war’.
In
so doing Johnson destroyed his presidency and his legacy, along with
over 58,000 soldiers killed, 150,000 inured, of which 21,000 were
permanently disabled.
That
is the dilemma Trump most likely is grappling with today. Will he
follow thru with his campaign pledge to end America’s proxy war with
Russia without total victory for our Ukraine proxies? Or will Trump
succumb to the tragic Lyndon Johnson syndrome of continuing to pour
hundreds of billion in US treasure, if not US lives, into a lost cause
America should never have provoked.
Based
upon Trump’s sorrowful record of caving to the war party in his first
term, the latter course is the safer bet. But we should all work to push
President Trump on Ukraine to channel JFK, not LBJ.
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