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Seven months ago, when the Republican and Democratic primaries began, it seemed that veterans Biden and Trump would make it to the final race, repeating the 2020 election campaign. Both were nominated by a mathematical majority of votes of the delegates of pre-election conventions. After that, surprises began. It was too early to agree on a debate between the favorites, because such debates usually take place after the congresses sometime in September. But this year, the first and apparently last round of debates took place on June 27, 2024. Biden's defeat reduced the flow of financial sponsorship of his campaign and actualized the debate, despite the political incorrectness of ageism (that is, age discrimination), about Biden's ability to withstand a second presidential term. After that, a "black swan" arrived in the form of an assassination attempt on Trump on July 13, 2024, during a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Trump's physical survival gave him carte blanche to nominate the candidate he needed, Vance, confirming that the Republican Party is now thoroughly Trumpist. As a result, pressure on Biden increased from Democrats in the House of Representatives and the Senate, who reminded him that the uncertainty of the presidential nomination could cost the party a defeat in the November 5 election.
Ultimately, on July 21, 2024, Biden announced that he was withdrawing his candidacy in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris. The first reaction of Trump's supporters to this choice was a promise to confidently defeat the candidate from the "socialist state of California." However, Biden's choice does not predetermine the outcome of the August 19-21, 2024 Democratic National Convention. His withdrawal from the race freed convention delegates from the obligation to support a particular candidate. The question of how "left" the Democratic Party is now is an open question. Behind the scenes of the political theater, the Clinton family supported Kamala Harris, Barack Obama considered the position of his wife Michelle, who categorically refused to participate in politics. This makes Harris' chances of becoming a presidential candidate a priority. If this is the case, it can be predicted that such an arrangement of forces will make the campaign more intense and intense.
From a politico-technical point of view, the vast majority of the American media is anti-Trump. For many liberals, Trump is so unacceptable that they will vote for any alternative to him. So far, critics of democracy appear to be the winners in such an arrangement of forces.
It is an open question whether Biden will be able to radically change his attitude towards military and technical support to Ukraine by January 20, 2025, when the new US president will be inaugurated. Most likely not. The architects of the Biden administration's Russian vector policy are CIA director William Burns and the president's national security advisor Jake Sullivan. They insist on avoiding the exit of the Russian-Ukrainian war beyond the borders of Ukraine, which we have been observing all these years. Therefore, we should not expect a radicalization of American support for Ukraine. The key issue is the preservation of bipartisan support for Ukraine by the US Congress even if the Democrats lose on November 5, 2024, and the Republicans gain a majority in both houses of the US Congress.
It should be borne in mind that the new US budget year begins on October 1, 2024, which calls into question US aid to Ukraine in 2025. It is clear that Trump is returning international relations to the days of Kissinger, with his priority of finding balances of interests, rather than consistent defense of liberal values. It is also clear that Trump's position on the Russian-Ukrainian war will crystallize no earlier than November 2024. So far, it is possible to put forward hypothetical versions, based on the experience of his presidency in 2016-2020. It will be recalled that Trump proposed the exchange of territories between Serbia and Kosovo. Trump also criticized Biden's decision in August 2021 to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan. Is Trump ready to admit the defeat of the United States in Ukraine, if he cannot but understand that in this case the pressure of the Putin regime on Europe will increase? Trump also warned Taiwan that it should pay the US for protection. But this does not prevent Trump from considering China, and not the Putin regime, as a strategic enemy of the United States.
At the end of the convention in Milwaukee, Trump said that he is ready to make concessions to Moscow if it breaks away from Beijing. After 2.5 years of Russia's war against Ukraine, the Putin regime cannot afford to renounce its Chinese ally. It is likely that Trump will not surrender Ukraine completely, if only because it contradicts his mentality as a businessman who makes "big deals" and cannot a priori give all the trump cards to the opponent. Is Trump ready to reward the Putin regime for its aggression against Ukraine with the lifting of sanctions, thereby paying the price for ending the war? There are still more unanswered questions. The hundred days of the presidential race from the end of July to November 5 may be the time of the arrival of new "black swans" that will reshuffle all the cards of all the players.
Johnson's mission and Zelensky's night call to Trump
A separate question regarding the recent meeting of ex-prime minister of Great Britain B. Johnson with D. Trump and the latter's telephone conversation with V. Zelensky. These events took place almost simultaneously and are interesting for a number of reasons.
First, both Zelenskyi's conversation with Trump and Trump's meeting with Johnson took place before Biden's statement about withdrawing from the election race and, accordingly, before K. Harris's statement about running for the presidency. Given that Trump has largely been an "anti-Biden" project, his antipode eager to avenge his loss in 2020, the big question is whether he can now beat Harris, who may not be as authoritative as Biden. , however, is not perceived directly as the antithesis of Trump and his staunch opponent? The latest opinion polls show that now the gap between the Republican candidate (Trump) and the Democratic candidate (Harris) is minimal, approx. 2%.
Secondly, there are certain discrepancies in the theses received by the media after Zelensky's telephone conversation with Trump and those theses of the probable peace plan, which Johnson noted in his author's column in the Daily Mail, and these theses require clarification and additional explanation. For example, after the conversation with Trump, the President of Ukraine did not mention anything about returning to the 02/24/2022 deadline, which Johnson writes about. Also, according to the results of the conversation between Zelenskyi and Trump, there are no clear specifics, which, on the other hand, are present in Johnson's author's blog - about Ukraine's accession to NATO and the EU, the replacement of 70,000 American troops in Central and Eastern Europe with Ukrainian military personnel. etc. General phrases about peace in Ukraine are also interesting. Thus, Zelenskyi declares that "...we agreed with President Trump to discuss during a personal meeting what steps can make the peace fair and truly lasting." Johnson, writing about peace, notes: "I believe Trump can end this [war] on the right terms for Ukraine and the West." Of course, these are only general phrases, but even here there can be ambiguous interpretations.
Thirdly, there are questions about B. Johnson's ability to be an effective communicator and lobbyist, since Johnson is not just an ex-prime minister, but a member of a party that has lost power for the first time since 2010 and is experiencing a significant crisis. Therefore, the chances of the Conservative Party of Great Britain to gain power in the foreseeable future are extremely bleak, and even more bleak in these conditions are Johnson's chances of returning to the prime minister's chair. Therefore, in fact, one should not overestimate his diplomatic efforts. It can be noted that Trump met with Johnson because he himself now has the prefix -ex, but unlike Johnson, his chances of returning to power are more than real. Moreover, current world leaders meet or hold telephone conversations with Trump.
Fourthly, if we even briefly analyze B. Johnson's peace plan, it turns out that we are talking about the capitulation of Russia, because it is proposed to give permission to Ukraine to use Western long-range weapons on the territory of the Russian Federation, to reach the border before a full-scale invasion and to accept Ukraine into the EU as soon as possible and NATO. In the form of an "incentive prize", Johnson proposes to formally leave Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk to Russia (this is not directly mentioned in his article, but crossing the border on 24.02.2022 a priori means exactly this) and to provide "special means of protection for speakers of the Russian language", which will allow Putin to tell the Russians about the alleged achievement of such a goal of the " Special military operation" as the "denazification" of Ukraine. That is, contrary to the utopian requirements of the so-called of the President of Russia V. Putin to give four Ukrainian regions and Crimea to the Russian side, including territories that Russia does not control and where, even, it did not conduct the so-called "referendums", a plan is proposed according to which Moscow will be forced to withdraw from the South of Ukraine, giving up the newly annexed territories and, even, from the occupation of Donbas - the primary goal of the "Special military operation" and will retain only Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk, and the Russian leadership will explain the many thousands victims of the Russian military, thousands of victims of the civilian population of the Russian Federation, the collapse of the economy and repressive sanctions because now Russian-speaking Ukrainians (whose share has significantly decreased) will have "special means of protecting the Russian language" and that the "denazification" of Ukraine has been successfully carried out. Hence. It is not clear for what purpose Johnson proposes the well-known unrealistic plan, because he cannot fail to realize that this is Russia's capitulation and that it will never voluntarily go to the liberation of the occupied Ukrainian territories, unless Ukraine frees them by force, for which it is necessary not only to increase military aid to Kyiv, and to revise its very concept, emphasizing the provision of more fighter jets, air defense equipment, ballistic, cruise missiles, etc. to Ukraine.
All these facts and the latest changes in the presidential race in the USA testify to the growing excitement around this, without exaggeration, worldwide event, the growing degree of confrontation between Democrats and Republicans, because in the conditions of new outbreaks of war, both "hot" and "cold", unprecedented in the past 30 years of world polarization, the election of the head of the White House can either increase contradictions in the world, exacerbate existing and give rise to new conflicts, or give humanity some pause before the very real possibility of the Third World War.