SUBSCRIBER+ EXCLUSIVE REPORTING – Whoever wins the November 5 U.S. presidential election will face an almost unprecedented set of global security challenges: Wars in Europe and the Middle East (unless they end before then); a tense relationship with China and the possibility of conflict over Taiwan, and an increasingly potent and coordinated group of adversaries – what some have called an “axis of authoritarians” – set against the U.S. and the West. Along with that, a threat of terrorism which has risen to “a whole other level,” as FBI Director Christopher Wray put it, driven largely by Israel’s war in Gaza.
“The global security challenges that the U.S. faces…we haven’t seen anything quite like this since World War II,” General Jack Keane, a Cipher Brief expert and former Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, said at a conference in Colorado Wednesday. He highlighted the Russia-China-Iran-North Korea axis as “a major security threat that we have yet to account for.”
The newly minted Republican ticket – Donald Trump tapped Ohio Senator J.D. Vance this week as his choice for Vice President – has yet to articulate its approach to all of these issues, but public statements by both men, posts on campaign websites, and actions taken by the first Trump administration, make clear that a second Trump term administration would bring fundamental change. The Cipher Brief combed the record for an assessment of how a Trump-Vance administration might address the global hot zones of the moment.
Ukraine & Russia: A major shift
Almost since the Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Donald Trump has repeated a claim that many experts say is both dubious and impossible to disprove: Vladimir Putin would never have invaded Ukraine on his watch.
Trump has also said that if he returns to the White House, he will end the war within days.
“If I were president, the Russia-Ukraine War would never have happened. Never in a million years,” Trump posted on his Truth Social site last year. “But even now, if I were president, I’d be able to negotiate an end to this horrible and rapidly escalating war in 24 hours.”
Trump repeated the claim in his June 27 debate with Biden, and his website says – without specifying how it might come to pass – that “our objective is to IMMEDIATELY have a total cessation of hostilities. All shooting has to stop. This is the central issue. We need PEACE without delay.” Trump also makes the unfounded claim that the State Department's “support for uprisings in Ukraine” was to blame for Putin’s invasion. “Now, we’re teetering on the brink of World War III. And a lot of people don’t see it, but I see it, and I’ve been right about a lot of things.”
The idea of an instant Trump-negotiated peace deal has been met with derision by many experts, but the claim has caused anxiety in Kyiv and many other European capitals, along with fears that Trump and Vance would “deliver Ukraine to Putin.” Such a deal would almost certainly involve ceding territory that Russian forces have captured and held since the 2022 invasion. Some fear it might also require other concessions to Putin, including a guarantee that Ukraine will never be permitted to join NATO.
There is ambiguity here, however; in the June 27 debate, Trump muddied the issue, saying Putin’s conditions for a settlement were probably unacceptable. And while Trump has called Putin “savvy” and a “genius,” he has also said the Russian leader “made a tremendous mistake” in invading Ukraine.
But there is no question that the Kremlin would welcome his return to power, and as for a peace deal, this week Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the one leader in NATO who shares Trump’s views about the war, said that Trump had what Orban called “well-founded plans” for peace in Ukraine.
“Shortly after his election victory, he will not wait until his inauguration, but will be ready to act as a peace broker immediately,” Orban said. “He has detailed and well-founded plans for this.”
On another front there is no ambiguity: Trump and Vance won’t support the continued level of support for Ukraine. The choice of Vance has elevated fears among Ukrainians, who need only do a Google search to learn where he stands on the issue.
"I don't really care what happens in Ukraine one way or the other," Vance said on a podcast with Trump ally Steve Bannon in 2022.
“There are a lot of bad guys all over the world, and I’m much more interested in some of the problems in East Asia right now than I am in Europe” – Vance, to the Munich Security Conference in February of this year.
U.S. support for Ukraine is “inviting Chinese aggression because they know we don’t have the weapon systems to support both Ukraine and Taiwan” – Vance, in January, to Real America’s Voice.
Several Cipher Brief experts have argued that the U.S. can and must do both – offer strong support for Ukraine and deterrence against China. And many believe that a less-than-robust response to Russian aggression will send a message of weakness to Beijing.
“China is watching American resolve on supporting Ukraine very carefully,” former senior CIA Officer Paul Kolbe wrote in The Cipher Brief. “Xi (Jinping) knows that if America will not help Ukraine defend itself against Russia, that there is little chance it will leap to the defense of a much weaker Taiwan, 7600 miles away."
Keith Kellogg and Fred Fleitz, who are expected to take senior national security roles if Trump wins a second term, have proposed that the U.S. continue to support Ukraine’s defense, but that such aid should be contingent on Kyiv engaging in peace talks with Moscow.
On Wednesday, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov was asked whether his country had a “Plan B” if a less Ukraine-friendly administration came to power in Washington. He gave a diplomatic answer.
“We believe in American leadership, and we believe that American people want their partners and allies to be strong as well,” Umerov said, appearing virtually at the Colorado conference.
“Whatever will be the outcome [of the 2024 election], we will be working with America…we've always been through the hard times and we'll find solutions.”
China and Taiwan: Mixed Messages
The Biden and Trump national security teams would agree on this much: The great global challenge for the United States – the “pacing threat,” as many experts have put it – is strategic and economic competition with China.
As President, Trump opened a trade war with China, imposing tariffs that average 18 percent on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese goods.
The Biden administration has kept up the pressure. In May, Biden imposed tariff increases on some $18 billion worth of imports from China across “strategic sectors” from semiconductors to electric vehicles to ship-to-shore cranes, saying the measures were designed to “protect American workers and American companies” from Chinese intellectual property theft.
A second Trump administration would tighten the screws. Trump has vowed to triple these tariffs if reelected, and said he would revoke China’s “most favored nation” trade status, a designation the U.S. granted China when it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. Trump says his policies would “completely eliminate dependence on China in all critical areas,” and ultimately phase out imports of “essential goods” from China.
On Taiwan, the policy picture is less clear. This week alone, the signals from the Trump team were mixed.
On the one hand, the choice of Vance elevates a voice for a stronger defense of Taiwan. The Ohio Senator’s argument for lessening aid to Ukraine is all about shifting priorities to deter Beijing.
“We should make it as hard as possible for China to take Taiwan in the first place,” Vance told The New York Times in June. “We’re not doing that because we’re sending all the damn weapons to Ukraine and not Taiwan.” In a 2023 speech that highlighted the economic risk a conflict would bring to Taiwan’s chipmaking industry, Vance said “We can’t let the Chinese walk into Taiwan…it would be catastrophic for this country.”
But this week Trump sent a far cooler message to Taipei.
“I think Taiwan should pay us for defense,” Trump said in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. Taiwan “stole” America’s semiconductor industry, he added, and he warned that it would be “very, very difficult” for the U.S. to come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of war. “You know, we’re no different than an insurance company.”
Those remarks pushed shares in Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s largest chipmaker, down by 2.4%. And the term “insurance company” likely landed with a thud in Taiwan.
"These comments are another reason why the leadership in Beijing – much like that in Moscow – would prefer a Trump presidency,” Bates Gill, a senior Fellow with the National Bureau of Asian Research, told The Cipher Brief. “Strategists in Taiwan have long had to deal with the prospects of abandonment, but these comments come at a particularly worrisome moment. Beijing will seize this opportunity to test the Trump administration's commitments early on."
Missing from Trump’s “pay us for defense” comment: Taiwan already pays for most of its American weapons.
Beijing has claimed Taiwan as its territory since the People’s Republic of China was founded, and Xi has been public about his desire to reunify Taiwan with the mainland – preferably via diplomacy, but with force if necessary. And he has led a military buildup that many believe is aimed at carrying out that mission.
The U.S. is committed by law to help Taiwan defend itself, but for decades it has adopted a policy of “strategic ambiguity,” balancing support for Taipei with an assurance that the U.S. will not antagonize China by formally recognizing Taiwan as an independent nation or committing to a military response should China invade.
President Biden has on several occasions departed from that “ambiguity,” in remarks suggesting the U.S. would use force to defend Taiwan. Each time the U.S. has dialed back those statements to cool tensions with Beijing.
Taiwanese may have been heartened by Trump’s choice of Vance, but rattled by Trump's comments about paying more U.S. support.
“We’re willing to shoulder more responsibility. This is us defending ourselves,” Taiwan’s premier, Cho Jung-tai, said in response to Mr. Trump’s remarks, adding that “we’re very grateful” for U.S. support.
The Middle East: Narrow differences
In this always volatile corner of the globe, the window of difference between Biden and Trump looks narrower.
Trump’s approach to the region involves strong support for Israel and Saudi Arabia, and a confrontational stance toward Iran. The same could be said of the Biden administration, with the differences a matter of degree.
Trump calls himself “the best friend Israel ever had,” and his administration counted among signature achievements the Abraham Accords, a series of deals between Israel and its Arab neighbors, and the symbolic moving of the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – a change that offended many Palestinians. Trump and Vance have also been forceful in their rhetoric in support of Israel since the October 7 Hamas attacks (as with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Trump claims that the Hamas massacre “would not have happened” under his presidency. “I kept Israel safe...Nobody else will, nobody else can.”)
Though it comes with far less bluster, the Biden approach to the region isn’t that different. Biden is also a forceful supporter of Israel; he and Trump are both known to have had difficult relationships with Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu; and both men have been critical of Netanyahu’s prosecution of the Gaza war.
“Israel has to be very careful, because you’re losing a lot of the world, you’re losing a lot of support,” Trump told an Israeli newspaper in March. “You have to finish up, you have to get the job done. And you have to get on to peace.”
Biden might have said the same thing.
One potential shift in a Trump-Vance Administration would be a fresh push for an Israel-Saudi diplomatic deal, but Biden administration has pursued such an agreement as well, and it looks unlikely to happen until there is tangible improvement in the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Iran: Center of attention
Animosity toward Iran – much like support for Israel – is a bipartisan issue in Washington, though the record suggests a second Trump Administration may take a harder line.
The first Trump term featured what it called a “maximum pressure” campaign to isolate Iran, and that is likely to continue, with heavier sanctions promised. Many experts believe a second Trump administration would also be more likely to retaliate militarily against Iran when its proxies strike Israeli or U.S. interests in the region.
As president, Trump took two actions that demonstrated that harder line: He abandoned the landmark Iran nuclear deal, ending an arrangement under which international inspectors were permitted to assess Iran’s nuclear program, and the Iranians were limited in the amount of uranium they could enrich. And in January 2020, Trump ordered the assassination of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard leader Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
Last month, Masoud Pezeshkian, a reformist in name at least, was elected president in Iran. Reports suggest he may call for nuclear negotiations and an improved relationship with the West, but experts say further concrete progress isn’t likely – especially if Trump wins.
NATO: Very afraid
“Who’s going to be able to hold NATO together like me?” Biden asked ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in a July 5 interview. As The Cipher Brief reported at the close of last week’s NATO Summit, that question was on the minds of European leaders who are deeply worried about the prospects of a second Trump term.
Trump’s disdain for NATO has been evident for years. He declared the alliance “obsolete” in a 2017 interview, and he has threatened repeatedly to pull the U.S. out of NATO. He has also blasted other member nations for failing to pay their “fair share.”
“I didn’t know what the hell NATO was too much before,” Trump told a campaign rally in Doral, Florida, while the alliance’s leaders were meeting in Washington. “But it didn’t take me long to figure it out, like about two minutes. And the first thing I figured out was they were not paying."
In fact, some 23 of the 32 NATO members now do spend the required 2% of GDP.
At the same rally, Trump repeated a threat to NATO members that he deems delinquent: he would not “protect you from Russia.” (The first time Trump issued the warning, in February, he said he would “encourage” Russia and China to “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO nations that fail to “pay your bills.”)
“Of course they have reason to worry,” former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor told The Cipher Brief. “It’s not just Europeans. Americans are worried as well. There are concerns that the strong support for Ukraine and the strong support for NATO – and therefore the strong support for European security – could be challenged.”
For the moment, many Europeans are “freaked out“, as former U.S. ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker told The Cipher Brief during the Washington summit.
“They don’t like him as a person…They don’t like his vulgarity. They don’t like the threats that he makes about not supporting NATO allies,” Volker said. “You name it, they have anxieties about Donald Trump and they express them constantly.”
But Volker and others said the concerns may be overblown. “My advice to my West European friends is always, ‘Don’t make any assumptions. You don’t know what the policies are going to be’,” Volker said.
Nico Lange, a former chief of staff at the German Ministry of Defense, told The Cipher Brief that NATO nations would do well to boost their collective defense, no matter what happens on election day in the U.S.
“We have to provide for our own security more, regardless of who will be president of the United States,” Lange said.
The unpredictable
Beyond these issues, and the analysis, a few things are worth noting.
First, that Trump himself has vacillated on many major issues, including some of those mentioned here. And for his part, Vance has vacillated on one of the most important issues of all; he once said he was a “Never Trumper” and called Trump “America’s Hitler.”
In other words, their positions on these matters may shift.
Then there is the near certainty that something utterly unpredictable will happen on the global stage, some crisis not mentioned here. Trump’s last year in office was overwhelmed by a global pandemic; Biden’s term has seen both the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Hamas’ massacre in Israel.
If there is a global mantra of the Trump campaign, it is that “Biden has brought us to the brink of WWIII” (as his website claims) and that only Trump himself can bring America back from that “brink.”
“I am the President who delivers peace, and it’s peace through strength. There was a reason we had no conflict, there was a reason we didn’t get into wars, because other countries respected us.”
The Biden administration believes the opposite is true – that it is Trump, and now Vance – who will risk greater danger and conflict for America.
The one thing both sides agree on: The stakes could not be higher.
Ethan Masucol contributed reporting.
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