Trump has a tendency to make bold statements or promises. While "day one" would be a miracle, the real question is whether the 47th president of the United States can facilitate an end to the "endless war," period -- particularly before it escalates into World War III, as some fear.

Victor Davis Hanson (VDH), noted American classicist, military historian, and conservative political commentator, asked the same question in an essay posted on Wednesday, and shared his unique perspective, noting at the outset that "Trump was elected in part on promises to avoid 'endless wars' of the sort that cost American blood and treasure in Afghanistan and Iraq but without resulting in strategic advantage or civilized calm."

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I believe, as do tens of millions of other conservatives, that Trump can indeed avoid future conflicts and wars, while Democrats have demonstrated for decades that they're not particularly good at -- or fond of -- doing. (See: "Joe Biden.")

However, I also believe what VDH believes and included in his essay (emphasis, mine).

But upon entering office, Trump will likely still be faced with something far more challenging as he confronts what has become the greatest European killing field since World War II—the cauldron on the Ukrainian border that has likely already cost 1-1.5 million combined dead, wounded, and missing Ukrainian and Russian soldiers and civilians.

There is no end in sight after three years of escalating violence. But there are increasing worries that strategically logical and morally defensible—but geopolitically dangerous—Ukrainian strikes on the Russian interior will nonetheless escalate and lead to a wider war among the world’s nuclear powers.

Many on the right wish for Trump to immediately cut off all aid to Ukraine for what they feel is an unwinnable war, even if that abrupt cessation would end any leverage with which to force Putin to negotiate.

They claim the war was instigated by a globalist left, serving as a proxy conflict waged to ruin Russia at the cost of Ukrainian soldiers. They see it orchestrated by a now non-democratic Ukrainian government, lacking elections, a free press, or opposition parties, led by an ungracious and corrupt Zelensky cadre that has allied with the American left in an election year.

Look, even if the last paragraph is even partially correct about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as President Franklin Roosevelt said about Spain's brutal dictator Francisco Franco, "He might be a son-of-a-b****, but he's our son-of-a b****." 

To be clear, Zelenskyy isn't Putin. Zelenskyy doesn't want to control Europe. Zelenskyy isn't a sworn enemy of the United States. I could go on, but these are indisputable facts. 

In contrast, VDH explained, "many on the left view see Putin’s invasion and the right’s weariness with the costs of the conflict as the long-awaited global proof of the Trump-Russian 'collusion' unicorn."

That is nonsense, of course, right up there with Hunter Biden's infamous laptop being part of a Russian hoax. 

The Left's Love Affair With Communist China

One needs only to look to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the loony vice presidential running mate of failed Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris, for a perfect example of the left's inexplicable "love" of China. 

VDH encapsulated it perfectly.

Thus, after the 2016 collusion hoax and 2020 laptop disinformation ruse, they [the left] see in some of the right’s opposition to the war at last proof of the Russophiliac Trump perfidy. They judge Putin, not China’s imperialist juggernaut, as the real enemy and discount the dangers of a new Russia-China-Iran-North Korean axis.

And to see Ukraine utterly defeat Russia, recover all of the Donbass [economic region in eastern Ukraine] and Crimea, and destroy the Putin dictatorship, they are willing again to feed the war to the last Ukrainian while discounting escalating Russian threats to use tactical nuclear weapons to prevent defeat.

Democrat pipe dreams aside, this is the reality that incoming President Trump faces. 

It seems hard to imagine that a simple phone call or threat to Putin would end the war. Too much has been lost on both sides, and too much remains at risk on both sides. Again, in my not-so-humble opinion, that is the reality.

But that's exactly what Trump has vowed to do, as VDH recounted.

Trump has vowed to end the catastrophe on day one by doing what is now taboo: calling Vladimir Putin and making a deal that would do the now impossible: entice Russia back to its February 24, 2022, borders before it invaded and thus preserve a reduced but still autonomous and secure Ukraine.

"How could Trump pull that unlikely deal off?" VDH asked.

Ostensibly, he would follow the advice of a growing number of Western diplomats, generals, scholars, and pundits who have reluctantly outlined a general plan to stop the slaughter.

[...]

Trump then might pull off the agreement if he could further establish a DMZ between the Russian and Ukrainian borders and ensure European Union economic aid for a fully armed Ukraine that might deter an endlessly restless Russian neighbor.

It would admittedly be a shaky and questionable deal, given Putin’s propensity to break his word and insidiously and endlessly seek to reestablish the borders of the old Soviet Union.

Europe is mentally worn out by the war, VDH wrote, and "increasingly reneging on its once boastful unqualified support for Ukraine. So, it hopes the demonized Trump can both end the hated war and then be blamed for ending it without an unconditional Ukrainian victory."

The Bottom Line

Europe has been a mess throughout history. Two world wars in the 20th century, and now the war in Ukraine. Whatever the outcome of this "endless war," Europe will never play nice in its neighborhood.