Martijn van Ette and Andrew Gawthorpe
We don’t yet know the precise approach that the incoming Trump administration will take to negotiating peace in Ukraine, but we do know that an attempt by Washington to force an end to the conflict is almost definitely coming. Underlining the strategic challenge in the Pacific, the president-elect has consistently called for an end to the conflict and the significant drain on U.S. military resources that it represents. And although there is much to criticize in Trump’s rhetoric about the war, he is responding to a genuine problem: Washington needs peace in Ukraine in order to focus on other global challenges, particularly the rise of China.
But if American policymakers are hoping to cut a deal to end the war and promptly pivot their attention to the Pacific, they may be disappointed. If a peace or ceasefire agreement can be reached in Ukraine, it will almost definitely be based on the current line of de facto territorial control. This is unlikely to satisfy either party. Russia’s significant but failed attacks on Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Odessa at the outset of the conflict indicate that Vladimir Putin’s objectives were larger than solely creating a land bridge between Donbass and the Crimea. In his statements about the war, Putin has also frequently questioned the validity of Ukrainian sovereignty and the separate identity of its people. This indicates that he has goals that are unlikely to be satisfied by an occupation of a mere 20 percent of Ukraine’s land.
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