Eastern Europe After Trump’s Victory

It could be said that Donald Trump had his own vision for Eastern Europe during his first term. In July 2017, he attended the second summit of the Three Seas Initiative, held in Warsaw. As expected, after the meeting in Warsaw, a large number of commentators wrote about future projects in the fields of energy, infrastructure and digitization that will be initiated by the USA, and in which all Eastern European countries, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, will participate. Basically, the Three Seas Initiative is based on the old geopolitical conception of the Intermarium (Międzymorze), which was elaborated by Jozef Pilsudski immediately after the First World War. The goal was to geographically separate the territories under Soviet control in the east and German control in the west by integrating this area. In principle, Pilsudski’s idea was in complete agreement with the ideas of Halford Mackinder, and therefore the Intermarium could be seen as an instrument of British geopolitics. Likewise, today the Three Seas Initiative can be seen as an instrument of transatlantic geopolitics. However, the problem that existed a hundred years ago is still relevant today. What is the factor of homogenization of Eastern European countries that will cause their integration? The perception of challenges, risks and threats is different, historical experiences, geographical positions, structures of economic systems are different.

The differences between countries and people in this area are so pronounced that it is difficult to combine them all into the same entirety. For the rest, the Eastern European area is already integrated in the EU to the greatest extent, so it is unnecessary to initiate a new sub-regional gathering. Also, tripped up by the American deep state, and usually very superficial when initiating his proposals, Trump also remained vague regarding the Three Seas. Okay, he wanted to strengthen American influence in Eastern Europe, he also had a geopolitical calculation for why he was doing it (the separation of Germany and Russia, which at that time had quite solid bilateral relations, especially in the sphere of energy), but it remained uncertain how he wanted to do it? Apart from the optimistic announcements of a large number of commentators, no further progress has been made in the implementation of this plan. With the departure of Trump and the accompanying crisis that arose during the pandemic, the Three Seas Initiative was also forgotten. It continued to function by inertia, without concrete results. That is why it is questionable whether Trump will return to it in his second term?

Actually, when looking at the current situation in Eastern Europe, the first question is not what Trump can return to, but what will await the American president in that geographical area? The situation has changed significantly in the past four years, the circumstances are far more complex than they were during his first mandate. Of course, the situation has mostly changed due to the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine. The EU, together with the Biden administration, looked at all its decisions related to Eastern Europe through the context of the Ukrainian crisis. And because of that, it contributed to making the circumstances more complicated.

In Moldova and Georgia (which cannot be classified as Eastern Europe, but in the context of the actions of the Biden administration and the EU, shared the fate of Eastern European states), Brussels wanted to open a so-called second front against Russia. Problematizing the situation in Transnistria or South Ossetia represented the possibility of directly weakening Russia’s position, hence the excessive interference of Western actors in the internal affairs of Moldova and Georgia. Without the help of the EU and the manipulation of the elections (with the vote of the Moldovan diaspora), Maia Sandu would not have won the elections in Moldova, and the failed overthrow of the Georgian Dream party from the government in Tbilisi caused a transition to a new phase – an attempt to organize a color revolution. The epilogue in both cases is the destabilization of both countries – political and social – with very uncertain outcomes in the future.

In the chronically unstable Balkans, by trying to discipline the Serbian factor (Serbia and the Serbian entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina), Washington and Brussels worsened the situation in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina (in particular by allowing Albin Kurti to undertake a whole series of highly repressive measures against the Serbian population in northern Kosovo), but also in North Macedonia, where their exponents experienced a complete fiasco in the elections. In Bulgaria, even after seven consecutive elections, there is no viable parliamentary majority, so the agony continues. In Montenegro, a parliamentary majority was somehow created, but after decades of the stabilocratic rule of Milo Djukanović, that majority is difficult to maintain, and tensions in society persist. In Albania, name-calling against Prime Minister Edi Rama, the deficit of democracy and criminalization of the authorities are becoming more frequent, and the country’s depopulation is taking on worrying proportions. Greece still has not recovered from the austerity measures imposed a decade ago, and this was followed by the migrant crisis and the growing tension in bilateral relations with Turkey.

The growth of tension is also detected in Polish-Belarusian relations, the now regular military exercises of NATO forces on the eastern border, in the Western Polesia region (Polesje), are ominous hints that the Ukrainian conflict may even expand. The new EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy will be former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, and former Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius will be the Commissioner for Defense and Space. The growth of the influence of the Baltic republics, which took the lead in the spread of anti-Russian hysteria and demanded broad and comprehensive support for Vladimir Zelensky, is completely disproportionate to their real importance in the EU and NATO, but it is an unavoidable reality, a factual situation that is impossible to change. The governments of the Czech Republic (after the election defeat of Andrej Babiš), Croatia and Romania have consistently followed all NATO and EU actions and fully participated in them, their loyalty to Biden and Brussels has not been questioned at all, so it is difficult to expect that this course will suddenly change.

True, Trump in Eastern Europe can count on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as a strategic ally, he can also count on Orbán’s good relations with Aleksandar Vučić in Belgrade, Robert Fico in Bratislava and Milorad Dodik in Banja Luka. In some perspective, he may be able to count on some new allies in Sofia, Skopje or Prague after the next elections, but that comes with a whole series of preconditions that must be met. In order to fulfill them, Trump’s initiatives are necessary, but it all largely depends on the EU’s future relations with Trump, as well as the situation in Ukraine. The EU has invested too much in Ukraine – militarily, politically and financially, to change its approach lightly now.

Eastern Europe is not divided for and against Trump, although there are many who do not view Trump favorably, primarily in the Baltic states. It is a political space that for the past four years has been atomized by the re-actualization of some old crises or the outbreak of entirely new ones, which contributed both to the polarization of societies within Eastern European countries, and to the increase of inter-state or inter-ethnic tensions in some concrete cases. According to how Trump decides in these specific cases, the attitude towards him will be created as well.

In any case, Trump’s proposals regarding the resolution of the Ukrainian crisis, which he announced during the campaign, will determine further political dynamics in Eastern Europe, but it is illusory to expect that his proposals will lead to a long-term stabilization of the situation. Simply, in the past four years, circumstances have become more complex. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that Trump’s previous initiatives were mostly superficial and sketchy, which in such situations can bring new dilemmas. Also, in those complex circumstances, various manipulations and brokering can be expected. The only thing that is certain after the American presidential elections is that the deep state will not accept such an outcome. If Trump is an obstacle to the realization of their previous ambitions, including those in Ukraine, they will use all the instruments at their disposal to thwart him. There are so many instruments in Eastern Europe that can be used to impede Trump, that it is difficult to list them. Moldova, Georgia, the Balkans, Belarus, these are all topics that can hypothetically be abused.

As in the time of Jozef Pilsudski, many questions are open in the area between the Baltic and the Mediterranean. They would have remained open even if the outcome of the US presidential elections had been different. The victory of Donald Trump is a new moment, it contextualizes the previous processes in a completely different way. But what the outcomes of the ongoing instability will be, it is not worthwhile to predict at this time. After all, future outcomes will be influenced by indicators that are not only unpredictable at the moment, but also unknown.