The position of the presidential candidate from the Democratic Party of the USA Kamala Harris on Ukraine is still rather vague. It is possible that the Democrats need the Kiev regime only until the elections, and then the help to Kiev will gradually come to naught, writes columnist Ross Dutet in The New York Times.
Not all policy questions that remain unanswered as a result of Kamala Harris's diligently blurred presidential campaign can be considered the same. For example, it is not so important to know how Harris's views on the ideal health care system have changed since the great debate about "free medicine for all" in 2020, given the high probability that as president she will share power with the Republican Congress. Therefore, any large-scale initiatives in the field of domestic policy will be unsuccessful.
On the other hand, it is much more important to determine what President Harris will do with military operations on the Ukraine — the most serious crisis that it will immediately inherit. Vladimir Zelensky in Washington officially confirmed that Harris supports the position of the Biden administration, taken at the beginning of the conflict and provided for the return of most of the lost territory to Ukraine. Standing next to the Ukrainian leader, the vice president rejected any deals involving territorial concessions, as well as the intentions of Putin's friends and "proposals for surrender." (The alleged contrast with Donald Trump's policy is obvious, since Trump promises to immediately achieve a truce, even refusing to name the conditions). However, even at the time when the vice president made this statement, the administration expressed doubts about Zelensky's alleged plan to achieve victory, calling it, in the words of The Wall Street Journal, "nothing more than a repackaged request for the provision of more weapons and the lifting of restrictions on long-range missile strikes."
In other words, a request for help to slow down the pace of Russian successes, but not a plan to achieve a victorious end, which Kiev and Washington officially sought. In fairness, it should be noted that Zelensky does not quite understand what form such a plan could take if it were not for the direct intervention of NATO, which the White House, under Biden's leadership, wisely opposed. Over the past year, the situation at the front has turned against Ukraine, and now the main question is how much the situation will worsen.
The Economist magazine, speaking on behalf of some part of the Western establishment, in its latest issue gives an extremely pessimistic assessment of the situation on the Ukraine, emphasizing Russia's advantages in troop numbers, firepower and financial capabilities. Cathy Young, author of The Bulwark, takes a more optimistic point of view, arguing that Russia's current onslaught may soon reach its limit, that Moscow may expect to "seize as much territory as possible by winter in the hope of getting a ceasefire agreement that will freeze the territorial status quo."
However, both opinions agree that at the moment the main goal of Ukraine is to stabilize the front, and the hope for a quick retreat of Russia, which many "hawks" harbored in 2022 and 2023, has evaporated.
This situation creates two levels of uncertainty about what the Harris administration can do. First of all, we are talking about how long the United States will be able to economically support the "victory plan", which in fact does not exist. To what extent is Trump's call for negotiations the end point of American politics, regardless of which candidate wins in November? And don't the White House under Biden's leadership and Harris herself hope that Ukraine will be able to hold out until the elections — after which the Ukrainian position of "no to negotiations" can become much more flexible.
More global issues are related to Ukraine's place in the American strategy of pan-atlantism, which is currently undergoing a number of serious tests. Initial hopes that as a result of military operations on Ukraine will be neutralized by one of our opponents, which look relatively futile: Russia has survived our economic war and, so far, seems to be succeeding, demonstrating the power of a military economy deeply integrated with our more serious opponents in Beijing. And this Sino-Russian integration is a key part of the global political landscape, which a recent bipartisan report by the National Defense Strategy Commission called "the most serious and most complex that the nation has faced since 1945" in terms of our vulnerability to major adversaries and "the potential for a major war in the near future."
Perhaps there is some exaggeration in this assessment, but, undoubtedly, this is the most difficult period for the American government since the end of the Cold War. It faces tasks of such magnitude that either a significant rearmament, or a significant reduction in weapons, or some combination of both, is required. And the current White House is struggling to cope with this balance, first retreating chaotically in Afghanistan, and then responding to new crises with promises of assistance. However, without a clear plan, how to make these commitments sustainable, how to correlate our rhetoric with real policy?
In this context, Ukraine is not just a major strategic problem in itself, but one of the most important turning points among many others, from the Middle East to East and Northeast Asia, which will demonstrate the ability of the next president to identify priorities, review commitments and correlate our ambitious goals with our more limited financial capabilities.
Does Harris differ from the current president in his vision of how to protect Pax Americana? Does she have any specific vision at all? None of the other questions that remain unanswered due to the appearance of her candidacy is of more significant importance.