Whoever wins the White House faces tough choices on Ukraine

Since August, Ukrainian civilians have been evacuating the eastern city of Pokrovsk, taking everything of value from hospital beds to library books as Russian forces have pushed closer to the strategic rail junction and settlement.

When Americans go to the polls next week in a presidential vote too close to call, few will have heard of a city Ukrainian officials said has been abandoned by more than 80% of its pre-war 60,000 population, with Ukrainian troops digging in to face all advancing Russian counterparts barely 8km away.

Whoever wins the White House must make immediate decisions that will determine Ukraine’s fate.

Ukraine’s fighters have said they believe their struggle is part of the opening stages of a new world war that has started. Whether that turns out to be the case, recent events indicate the Ukraine conflict is quickly internationalising.

On Monday, Nato secretary general Mark Rutte said the presence of North Korean troops within Russia had been confirmed by South Korea, describing this as a “serious escalation”.

Exactly what the North Korean government might get in return remains unclear. Some analysts suspect it will be Russian support to improve their nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles with which the government in Pyongyang has repeatedly threatened the US and Japan.

That is not the only global hotspot tied to the outcome in the Ukraine war.

This year has seen the most aggressive Chinese posturing yet against Taiwan. US officials have warned Chinese leader Xi Jinping has ordered his military to be ready for a full-scale invasion of Taiwan by 2027, while Chinese patrol vessels have also stepped up activity in disputed waters with the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam.

If Russia is regarded as able to defeat Ukraine — or if Kyiv is forced to yield significant further territory without promises of Western protection if it is attacked again — Western officials increasingly worry that Moscow and Beijing may feel emboldened to be more aggressive.

Across Europe, security officials complain about a mounting Russian sabotage campaign many see as a sign of a further fraying of regional peace.

Polish intelligence warned in May that Russia likely had the military capability to seize small areas of terrain from Eastern Nato states such as the predominantly Russian-speaking city of Narva in Estonia, and was only held back from doing so by the fear of a hefty US-led military response.

“If Russia succeeds in Ukraine, China, North Korea and Iran are more likely to do something against Taiwan, South Korea and Israel (respectively),” Ukrainian businessman Victor Pinchuk told a conference organised by his foundation in Kyiv in September.

The gathering drew dozens of senior international policy figures and journalists to Ukraine including former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and retired US general David Petraeus.

“All the world will be drawn into the war,” Pinchuk said.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has made it clear the Ukranian v government wants Nato and EU membership as part of any deal to give up territory, as well as a massive military assistance package to deter Russia from another attack in future. But neither a Donald Trump or Kamala Harris administration looks set to offer that, with Germany also a major stumbling block.

What worries Ukrainians most is a scenario where they are pushed into a deal without long-term security guarantees of adequate protection. Trump’s comments suggest he is considering that as an immediate option on taking office, and even if he doesn’t, a Republican-controlled Congress may put limits on further US arms supplies.

That will have broader implications. Trump and vice presidential pick JD  Vance have spoken of making US military protection more transactional, perhaps based on trade deals or even “insurance payments” to the US government.

What that might look like in reality, no one knows, but those countries most nervous of Moscow, Beijing are Pyongyang are worried.

Behind the trends and worries sit several stark choices and realities.

As it votes in the November 5 presidential election, the US faces growing military overstretch in the Middle East, Asia and Europe, coupled with China’s dramatically growing military clout and Russia’s willingness to tear up the international rule book.

America’s Asian and European allies are rearming themselves to fill the gap, but arguably far too slowly, and Ukraine is reaching the point of exhaustion.

If Ukraine falls, or is publicly abandoned by the West, that may spur China to move against an  unprepared Taiwan, and perhaps Russia against the Baltic states in the hope of permanently shattering the Nato alliance.

Ukraine hopes new Western weapons and the new generation of drones that may enter service next year might turn the tide of battle. But the US and Germany have refused to approve the unrestricted use of long-range missiles, while other new technology remains unproven. For now, battlefield advances often come down to who can field the most combat-effective soldiers.

By some estimates, Ukraine has as few as 30-million people left on its territory after mass flights of refugees and loss of population into areas seized by Russia.

Russia, in contrast, has almost 145-million. That has allowed Russia to keep fighting with a much higher rate of casualties, while the quality of Ukrainian fighters is said to have diminished significantly this year, though Moscow’s decision to turn to North Korea for soldiers is also a sign of weakness.

Ukraine had hoped to persuade European nations to send large training teams to Ukrainian territory to be based between Kyiv and the border with Belarus, something they hoped would help protect the capital and free more troops for the embattled eastern front.

But the plan, initially favoured by French President Emmanuel Macron, was largely abandoned after he lost his parliamentary majority this summer.

All recent US administrations have told Europe it must do more to defend itself as Washington refocuses on deterring China in the Pacific. A Harris or Trump administration will probably double down on the approach, while a likely new Republican-dominated Congress may also put an end to further US support for Ukraine.

A Trump victory, however, might give Europe little time to act.

“If Trump is elected, if we take what he has said, it would be a total surprise if we were not to see an immediate stop to military support for Ukraine,” Norbert Roettgen, former head of the German parliamentary foreign affairs committee and an MP for the opposition Christian Democrats, told an event at London think-tank Chatham House on Wednesday.

“That would mean Europe would have to step in, and we are totally not prepared for that.”

If other countries such as Poland do send troops to Ukraine, preferring to fight there rather than on their own soil later, that too could drive further international escalation and drag Nato into war.

There is also much uncertainty over what approach a Harris White House would take.

While she has proven more willing than Trump to pledge ongoing support to Ukraine’s battle to roll back Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion, what that means will depend heavily on who she appoints to key roles. There is less clarity on whether she will follow through on President Joe Biden’s repeated pledges to go to war if Taiwan should be attacked.

Not all of Trump’s potential top team want to see Ukraine abandoned. Others, including  Pompeo, touted by some as a potential future secretary of defence, argue a Russian victory in Ukraine would dramatically increase the chances of a Chinese Taiwan invasion.

Whoever wins next week's US election, that argument is likely to rage in public and private.

Others argue if the US can coordinate well with allies in Asia and Europe, it can hold the line. Those allies, however, are now worried they cannot count on Washington.

In January last year, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol publicly hinted his government might seek nuclear weapons to counter North Korea's atomic arsenal, before signing an agreement not to do so in return for a heightened regional presence of US nuclear-armed submarines.

Meeting Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda last week in Seoul to discuss the Warsaw government’s purchase of hundreds of South Korean tanks, artillery pieces and rocket launchers, Yoon condemned the potential use of North Korean troops against Ukraine.

In the past, Polish officials have suggested they might pursue nuclear arms if they felt abandoned by their Nato allies, though it is not clear whether that was on the agenda for Duda's trip to South Korea behind the scenes.

Earlier this month, Zelensky suggested if Ukraine could not lock itself into a formal alliance with the West, only nuclear arms could secure its safety, though he then rolled back the comments after a backlash from Russia and Ukraine’s Western allies.

There is a lot at stake in how the next US president handles Ukraine and the world. There are few easy answers, but lots of ways in which it could get more dangerous.

Reuters