Donald Trump and his Little Stick Diplomacy
Glauco Ortolano warns Trump that his current approach is unlikely to give him the legacy he wants.
In 1901, Theodore Roosevelt, then vice president of the Unites States, used the expression “Speak softly and carry a big stick” during a speech at the State Fair in Minnesota. Such statement revealed his approach to his foreign policy, which would eventually become known as the “Big stick Diplomacy.” Weeks later, he became the new US president and started applying his so-called big stick policy around the world, especially in Latin America. Donald Trump, on the other hand, apparently has adopted the opposite-type of foreign policy, which, based on his recent diplomatic encounters, sounds more like “Speak harshly and carry a little stick.”
Considering his condescending attitude during his fiery meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office, Donald Trump demonstrated that his foreign policy is based on the same strategy he used during his presidential campaign, or that of keep applying the ad hominem approach, making personal attacks to insult and belittle the opponents instead of debating issues rationally. Such an approach seems to have worked quite well in the US during his presidential campaign but does not seem to be achieving the same level of success in other parts of the world.
By berating his Ukrainian counterpart to intimidate and force him to do what he wishes, which is to achieve his unfulfilled campaign promise of ending that conflict on his first day in office, Trump seems to have only allowed his frustration to give onlookers a glimpse of his true foreign policy approach.
If Trump really wishes to achieve a ceasefire in the Ruso-Ukrainian war, he will have to first show his big stick to the real perpetrator of this conflict, Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who not only ordered the illegal invasion of Ukraine, but is ramping up ‘meat grinder’ attacks to secure a better deal. While Trump accuses Zelensky of “gambling with WW3,” it is Putin who keeps making veiled and open threats to start a nuclear war, not Zelensky.
Roosevelt’s Big stick diplomacy emphasized displaying military prowess during diplomatic negotiations, whereas Trump’s policy is only displaying futile attempts to ridicule the “weaker” party instead of showing his military might to the real adversary. That only emphasizes how little his stick really is.
We should never forget that at the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine was the third nuclear power in the world and had its own “big stick” to defend itself. However, to persuade Ukraine to give up its nuclear arsenal, the US, Russia and the United Kingdom promised to provide security assurances to Ukraine in exchange for its adhesion to the NPT (Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons). When countries signed a series of political agreements that became known as the Budapest Memorandum during the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) conference in Hungary in 1994, things seemed set in stone until Vladimir Putin showed his true colors with his invasion of Crimea first, then other Ukrainian territories in 2022.
Out of the three major signatories of the Budapest Memorandum, Russia was to first to break its vows by shamelessly invading its own neighbor, killing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, and abducting tens of thousands of Ukrainian children. Under the Biden Administration, the US kept its side of the bargain by providing security assistance to Ukraine. However, under Trump’s “little stick diplomacy” he has only shown weakness to Russia. It has been difficult to watch a US president attempting to find a good excuse to disregard the US’ commitment with Ukraine, engaging in his typical ad hominem and performing poker showdowns of the kind seen last week in the Oval Office in front of the world’s media.
If Donald Trump does not make a change in his foreign policy approach, I presume he will not go down in history as the US president who achieved the ceasefire in Ukraine, as he wishes to. Instead, he will be remembered as a weak president who made a canning deal with the Russians to end the Ukraine war, but without Kyiv and other allies at the table and on Russia’s own terms. This type of under-the-table deal only undermines the US’ credibility. That is something the American people do not deserve considering their unwavering determination to foster true and fair peace in the world. Donald Trump cannot place “America First” without honoring the commitments America made first. It goes against its own principles.
Glauco Ortolano is an Associate Professor at the Defense Critical Language and Culture Program of the Mansfield Center, University of Montana. He has taught at the Lauder Institute of the University of Pennsylvania, and more recently courses in Geopolitics. He was also appointed Peace Ambassador by Le Cercle Universel des Ambassadeurs de la Paix.
The views in this post do not represent those of this publication, nor do they represent those of the author's employer.
Photo by Jens Mahnke
