Considering 2025 was supposed to be the year for ending the two wars that have raged on, taking countless lives with them, we are sadly saying goodbye to the year without being able to bring about peaceful settlements to both conflicts. Instead, we seem to be ending the year with even more uncertainty about the geopolitical situation around the world, not just these wars. Trump who promised to stop the wars in a matter of days has himself been vacillating and unable to exert pressure on the strongmen leaders – Putin and Netanyahu – of both aggressor countries, Russia and Israel, respectively.
In my opinion, the world expected too much from America’s ability to broker peace under Trump. Part of this high expectation came from the realisation even among western powers that America’s military might is essential, both as assistance and as deterrent. Ukraine has said that if the US didn’t provide security guarantees and military assistance, it would be a signal to Russia to walk all over Ukraine and completely take it over. Unfortunately, America hasn’t provided any iron-clad security guarantees yet, nor is it likely to. It has agreed to sell arms to NATO, which Europe is having to buy in order to help Ukraine defend itself and fight the war.
Trump has said that Ukraine’s war is not America’s war, but Europe’s. And given his America First policies on every front, America is not likely to be much help even though it ought to be pulling its weight. I haven’t read the details of Trump’s 28-point peace plan, but from what I read in the news reporting of it, it was handing over Ukraine to Russia on a platter. Some even called it Putin’s wish-list. I had anticipated this before Trump began his second term and had written about it on my blog.
Ukraine, in its response is reported to have come up with a 20-point plan in consultation with European leaders, both of whom were kept out of the process of arriving at the 28-point plan. Now this is supposed to be discussed with Trump and his team. Who knows what progress it’s likely to make. Anyone who expects the US to be an ally of Europe as in the earlier World Wars, is sadly mistaken, for Trump doesn’t appear to be that kind of American leader. If these peace plans are anything like the 20-point peace plan for Gaza, where the separate state of Palestine is not the main goal, they are unlikely to make much headway.
In the Middle-East, it is Israel, the aggressor country that is the recipient of western military equipment and technological assistance, especially from the US. Netanyahu considers the first phase of the peace plan as done and wishes to discuss the second phase with Trump according to media reports. This when the whole world has watched the so-called ceasefire being violated by Israel which continued to strike inside Gaza time and again. I suppose what Netanyahu means by the first phase having ended is that all Israeli hostages have been returned to their families in Israel. As I wrote about the Gaza peace plan in my earlier blog post, there were no conditions on Israel, no compromises or commitments that they had to fulfill. So, just like that we move into the second phase and once again, Israel will do as it pleases running their writ on the Gazans and indeed, on all Palestinians. In fact, as I read the 20-point Gaza peace plan again, I don’t see any first and second phases or anything of the sort, and I wonder where Netanyahu sees any phases in the peace plan; point 8 was never carried out in full since news reports were full of the Israelis preventing the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza and point 9 about the “temporary transitional governance by a technocratic and apolitical Palestinan committee” has not yet been announced and neither has the “Board of Peace”.
Now, instead of ending these wars, it looks like Trump might start a third war in the Atlantic against Venezuela. This is ostensibly to tackle drug-trafficking across the Caribbean into the US, but the real objective seems to be regime change in Venezuela. Trump was ready to go to war with Venezuela even in his first term in defence of the then democratically elected leader, Juan Guaido, and I remember writing about it then on my blog. Guaido has since faded into oblivion and now we have Maria Corina Machado, the main opposition leader who has also been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize recently. She is a supporter and ally of Trump, just as every opposition leader in Venezuela has always looked to the US.
If anyone has any doubts about Trump’s America First policy on matters of international relations, Trump’s latest National Security Strategy should put all those doubts to rest. I haven’t read the actual document yet and the idea of articulating a national security strategy (read foreign policy) so openly strikes me as strange, but apparently, there have been previous versions of it too by former US presidents. On reading the commentary on it, it is quite clear to me that America has given up on its agenda of promoting democracy around the world and has decided to focus squarely on its domestic economy and the western hemisphere, by which it chiefly means the North and South Americas. In a new Trumpian interpretation of the old Monroe Doctrine, the US is now seeking to keep China out of Latin America.
Europe has come in for some severe criticism in the NSS document, and if anything, this should open Europe’s and Ukraine’s eyes to the reality of any peace plan benefiting Ukraine and its people. Especially since Putin is reported to be in agreement with the American line of thought.
So, as we go into 2026, I think the world needs to be clear-eyed about the need for a rules-based world order without America leading it. Perhaps the world has relied too much on America’s peacemaking and policing capabilities, when it no longer wishes to play this role on the international stage. In an increasingly multipolar world, the importance of the UN therefore becomes even more critical as large world powers seek to carve out their spheres of influence. America First is clearly not in a position to maintain or guarantee world peace. Therefore, other countries need to step up and increase their participation and cooperation both through the UN and other multilateral institutions, including the G20.
Speaking of which, America, supposed to be taking on the presidency of the G20 in 2026, wasn’t there at this year’s G20 Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa. Aren’t all these enough signs of an isolationist United States of America that is perhaps best left to its own devices?
The animated owl gif that forms the featured image and title of the Owleye column is by animatedimages.org and I am thankful to them.
Peripatetic Perch 