Eric Ciaramella and Eric Green
Introduction
President Donald Trump has signaled that one of his priorities in office will be to end Russia’s war against Ukraine by bringing Kyiv and Moscow to the negotiating table. His administration faces two interrelated challenges. First, it needs to stop the war on terms that advance U.S. interests and protect Ukrainian sovereignty. Second, it needs to ensure that an eventual cessation of hostilities holds and that Russia is deterred from attacking Ukraine in the future.
Russia will have few incentives to negotiate in good faith if Ukraine is unable to reverse current battlefield trends. For well over a year, Russia’s advantages in manpower and air assets have allowed it to push Ukrainian forces back at an accelerating rate, albeit at great cost to Russia. As a result, Moscow is likely to continue to press its advantage—even while negotiating—until Ukraine is able to stabilize the front lines.
Even if Ukraine manages to blunt Russia’s ongoing offensive, Trump has inherited a Western strategy that has not defined an end state or the methods to achieve it. Training and equipping Ukraine and raising the costs on Russia through sanctions and export controls are necessary measures, but not sufficient to achieve peace. For a cease-fire or armistice to endure, two elements are critical. Ukraine needs to possess the capabilities to prevent Russia from achieving its objectives on the battlefield. That goal will require an expansion of Ukraine’s defense industrial base, predictable supplies of weapons and training from foreign partners, and a sustainable model to finance and staff the armed forces. Russia also needs to understand that the consequences of a repeat invasion would be catastrophic—far beyond the costs it has incurred since 2022. As such, true war termination will require the United States and Europe to provide Ukraine with a credible postwar security guarantee.
No comments:
Post a Comment