Of all the imponderable factors, the prospect of single individuals changing the course of world affairs carries the most intrigue.
Without Vladimir Putin, does a revanchist Russia go on a rampage? Had the one-time comedian Volodymyr Zelenskyy not turned politician, would Ukraine have mustered the courage to resist?
Had Donald Trump truly won the 2020 election, would the West have rallied in support of Kyiv?
“A different president sitting in the Oval Office would very readily have taken a different set of decisions, and Ukraine could be in a much worse place today, or Ukraine might not even exist,” US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan observed in the Lowy Interview with Michael Fullilove, released on Tuesday.
Sullivan’s remark was a subtle dig at the likely approach to Ukraine of the incoming Trump administration to Ukraine compared to what unfolded under Joe Biden. Befitting, perhaps, of Sullivan’s reputation for “Minnesota nice”, despite telling Fullilove that traits of patience and affability had been “ground down” by a relentless four years in the White House.
The burden such a job places on an individual can be gruelling. Watching Biden, Sullivan was able to contrast the experience of being vice president to that of being at the top.
“The minute you’re elected, you change. Almost like physically, because you’re carrying the weight of decisions in such a profoundly different way. And so I saw that instantly,” Sullivan said.
The burden such a job places on an individual can be gruelling.
“And then over the course of a presidency, how you make decisions, your instincts, the speed with which you can kind of separate what matters from what doesn’t. It’s a learning curve that just kind of keeps going up.”
Tracing over the past four years, Sullivan reflected on AUKUS (“a generational commitment between allies to enhance our collective power”), Iran’s recent setbacks (“our enemies in the region are weaker”), as well as the prospects for a two-state solution in the wake of the Gaza conflict (“we’re just going to have cycles of violence if we do not generate it”). He spoke of an “investment in alliances” globally, while in the field of technology, “the script had flipped” over expectations that China would become dominant in AI.
And it is China – “the country that has both the desire and the inherent capacity to challenge the United States in all dimensions” – that Sullivan expects will be of most consequence for the Trump administration.
Which leads to another imponderable about the role of individuals, specifically Xi Jinping and Donald Trump. “China and the United States can together solve all of the problems of the world, if you think about it,” declared Trump this week.
Watch the Lowy Interview in full with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Lowy Institute Executive Director Michael Fullilove.
