Stephen Hadley, Daniel Fried, and Franklin D. Kramer
There have been recurring strains in the U.S.-Ukrainian relationship under both Trump administrations. The recent Oval Office blow-up between the two presidents is only the most recent example. But such tensions need not derail a push for peace—which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian people clearly want. U.S. President Donald Trump and the American people also want peace, as do U.S. allies in Europe. Whether the same is true of Russian President Vladimir Putin is less clear. Despite enormous economic cost and a shocking level of casualties, his troops are making slow but steady progress, and he clearly thinks he can win.
The outcome that Putin wants would be a Ukraine that is permanently stripped of almost 25 percent of its territory, demilitarized, and barred from joining the EU and NATO. Agreeing to those terms would mean capitulating to Russian aggression and virtually guaranteeing Ukraine’s future absorption into Russia. Trump has often lamented the Biden administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and the weakness it suggested, and he has said that Putin’s willingness to invade Ukraine in 2022 was encouraged by that weakness. Trump should seek to ensure that the outcome in Ukraine does not demonstrate, even implicitly, any comparable weakness. Accepting Russia’s apparent terms for ending the war would not meet this test.
The best path to end the war will instead follow a “peace through strength” approach. Such an approach would substantially enhance Europe’s role in supporting Ukraine militarily and economically, with a limited but important backup role for the United States; accept the current lines of control between Russian and Ukrainian forces, without recognizing Russian annexation or sovereignty over Russian-occupied areas; and prepare the path for a negotiated settlement—all while considering, in the likely event that negotiations fail, how to achieve a cease-fire through unilateral action.
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