Vance is right, Taiwan is way more important to US security interests than getting back control of lands lost by Ukraine to Russia in 2014 itself, writes Prof. Madhav Das Nalapat
Much hand wringing has been happening across the diminishing number of Democrats who want Joe Biden to remain the party Presidential nominee. The reason for such dismay was the selection by Trump of Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate. Vance has a less than flattering view of Biden, and was not mellow in the way some in the Biden campaign had hoped after the President called for tempers and campaign rhetoric to “cool down”.
In plain English, not to attack Biden as much as has been the case with Trump since 2020. What followed during the Republican campaign was no different from the combative signal given by the selection of Vance as the Vice-Presidential pick by the 45th President of the US, who seems comfortably on track to become the 47th as well, especially if Biden continues to head the Democratic ticket.
Both Donald Trump and a day later J.D. Vance were unsparing in their criticism of President Biden during their Convention speeches, and were met by sustained cheering by an energized crowd who had just formalised both as the Republican Presidential and VP candidate for the 2024 polls. Observers would ask how the Biden campaign could have expected anything else, especially after the No Holds Barred attack made by Biden in his NBC interview with Lester Holt the day previous to the speech by Trump.
The US President was unable to conceal his visceral hatred of his foe, a feeling similar to what Biden has felt about Vladimir Putin, although not about Xi Jinping for a very long time. He was angry with Holt by constantly returning to his own gaffes rather than on the “many lies uttered by Trump” during the debate that he had had with him over a fortnight ago.
Having been used to media outlets that were hitherto diligent in covering up for Biden, but which were showing signs of having broken free from White House tutelage, Biden was livid with Holt. He was not venting about the issues, but about the personality of the opponent who Biden defeated in the 2020 race.
Holt politely turned the focus back on Biden rather than on an opponent who had narrowly escaped assassination just days before, and who had garnered public sympathy and admiration for his defiance and courage after an attempt on his life was made by a 20-year-old shooter who had taken too seriously the allegations by opponents of Trump including by supporters of President Biden that he was a “threat to democracy” and indeed, “another Hitler, only worse”. A statement so reeking of prejudice would be hard to match.
Before the assassination attempt, as many as 40% of US voters would have voted for not just Biden but any other candidate opposed to Trump. In his interview with NBC, President Biden gave a clean chit to the US Secret Service, despite its obvious failure to neutralise the shooter before he started firing rounds, bullets which took the life of a US citizen and critically injured two others, besides causing an injury to the 2024 Republican candidate for the Presidency. Biden may not have realised it, but his interview with NBC created a picture of a politician who was either oblivious to reality or was being untruthful.
Any conspiracy theory that tied President Biden or the US Secret Service to the attempted assassination would be wrong, yet a majority of US voters may believe that it was because of the US President or at the least, those close to him, that such a bid was allowed to take place. Inexcusable is the fact that there was a gap of nearly two minutes between the shooter being seen by security personnel and participants in the event and the first round being fired.
Even a 20-second gap between spotting the shooter and taking him down would have been inexcusable on the part of a Secret Service that has gained a justified high reputation for its competence. As a consequence of the lack of sufficiently prompt action on the part of the Service when the assassination attempt was made on July 13 on Donald Trump, it is inevitable that President Biden, who himself chose the current Director of the Secret Service, will get the blame.
Security staff around Trump did nothing while the shooter armed with a rifle brazenly climbed to the roof of a nearby building. A head of steam is building up in the Democratic Party against the stubborn insistence by the President that he wanted to try for another four years in the White House.
Whether he agrees to step down or contest, it is close to inevitable that he would be a single term President. Should the Democratic Party take the risk of choosing an all-women Presidential ticket such as a coming together of Kamala Harris and Gretchen Whitmer, they may still have a chance at success. However, this is only if Biden were to quit the race in favour of the Vice-President before the close of July. August 1 is when delegates will formally vote, and it is likely that such a ticket would get almost unanimous approval.
Trump being Trump may still queer the pitch with intemperate comments the way he did in 2020. His effort to be the national spokesperson on the Covid-19 pandemic that year may have been the cause of his defeat at the hands of Joe Biden. Over-exposure to the media finished off the career as Prime Minister of the UK of Boris Johnson, and the same could be said of Trump in 2020. His choice of Vice-President and in ensuring that even those who had been jailed in a process of going after Trump and his associates in what appears to most as a witch hunt indicate that the 45th President has privately learnt the lessons from his 2020 defeat, and is unlikely to repeat them.
Even now, misstatements happen, such as that “Taiwan must pay the US for its defense”, when the loss of the island country would be catastrophic for the security of the Indo-Pacific from PRC aggression. Governments that are friends of the US across the world grimaced when Trump made that remark, while enemies of the US smiled joyfully.
Surely Trump is aware that Taiwan is already paying for the weapons it gets from the US, as does Ukraine, which gets a huge flow of weapons from the US without paying for them. Vance is right, Taiwan is way more important to US security interests than getting back control of lands lost by Ukraine to Russia in 2014 itself. An objective that is unachievable, and in two years has wrecked the popularity of boosters of the Ukraine war such as Emmanuel Macron, Boris Johnson, Joe Biden and Olaf Scholz.
Both Trump and Vance understood this a long while ago, while the diehard Europeanists surrounding Biden have yet not. Overall, a Donald Trump Presidency would be a far better proposition for the democracies of the world rather than a Europe-obsessed Democratic Party choice for the US Presidency. It would be better for Europeans themselves, for it would force them to accept the fact that the impossible objectives set by Biden, Scholz, Macron and Sunak have become unpopular.
Adding to the cost of carrying on the Ukraine war once the US begins to pull out of the extravagant commitments made by President Biden and other Ukraine War boosters would make them toxic to their own electorates, and ensure they follow the example set by Trump. In an era where the Indo-Pacific is way more vital than any other theatre, and where China and no longer Russia is the adversary, it is Trump and Vance who have their policies aligned not to the past but to the future.
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