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Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security

Can Donald Trump End the War in Ukraine?

A M1 Abrams tank from 5th Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, fires a round during a Combined Arms Live Fire Exercise (CALFEX) at Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany, Mar 26, 2018. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
A M1 Abrams tank from 5th Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, fires a round during a Combined Arms Live Fire Exercise (CALFEX) at Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany, Mar 26, 2018.

Key Points and Summary: Donald Trump’s pledge to end the war in Ukraine faces significant challenges. Ukraine’s peace terms include NATO membership, sovereignty, de facto territorial recognition, and security guarantees.

-However, NATO membership is a red line for Russia, and Trump opposes it as well. Achieving peace may require Trump to provide Ukraine with defensive arms and a broader European security framework that satisfies all parties.

-For Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the challenge is selling a compromised peace to his war-torn nation. While peace won’t come easily, Trump’s unique approach could bring the war to a diplomatic close—if both sides make concessions.

Can Trump Achieve Peace in Ukraine?

The ballooning of Donald Trump’s promise to end the war in Ukraine in one day to the goal of ending it in one hundred reflects an alignment to the reality of how challenging bringing a lasting end to the war will be. 

For Ukraine, an acceptable peace includes four requirements: NATO membership; sovereignty; de facto, but no official, recognition of lost territory; and security guarantees.

NATO membership is a nonstarter, and sovereignty and territorial recognition are readily deliverable. Security guarantees are the conundrum that Trump’s team must solve if they are to deliver on their promise of peace.

If NATO membership is on the table, then negotiations are stillborn. Russia went to war to prevent NATO from coming to Ukraine, and they will continue to fight for that if it is on the table.

Ukrainian sovereignty follows quickly once Ukrainian neutrality is enshrined in the written agreement. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has clarified that at the break up of the Soviet Union, Russia recognized the sovereignty of Ukraine based on a declaration of independence that committed Ukraine to neutrality and that “on those conditions, we support Ukraine’s territorial integrity.”

That territorial integrity must include recognition of new Russian territory, but it is possible to negotiate de facto and not official recognition by Ukraine and the international community. Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted at that when he proposed that “Ukrainian troops must be completely withdrawn from,” the annexed territories but said nothing about Ukraine having to recognize Russia’s annexation of those territories as legal.

That leaves security guarantees. And the success of Trump’s promise to end the war may hang on that item.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that “the only guarantee, currently or in the future, is NATO.” That is not going to happen. Russia won’t negotiate it, and Trump won’t offer it. Trump recently said that if NATO comes to Ukraine, “then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep, and I could understand their feelings about that.” He has made it clear to European leaders that he will not support NATO membership for Ukraine.

Trump has insisted that Europe bears the responsibility of providing any non-NATO peacekeeping force. However, European leaders have insisted that they cannot place Ukraine or their troops in that danger “without a guarantee that the US would support those European armies” if they were to face a future Russian attack. Zelensky also rejected a European peacekeeping force as “the sole guarantee.” He has said that “only European guarantees won’t be sufficient” and can only be acceptable with “a clear understanding of when Ukraine will be in… NATO.”

However, Trump is no more likely to agree to the U.S. guarantee than to agree to NATO because they are the same thing by another name. In neither case has the U.S. been willing—under Biden or under Trump—to commit to direct military confrontation with Russia on Ukraine’s behalf.

This is the knot that Trump will have to untie. His best hope may be providing Ukraine with sufficient arms to defend itself without crossing Russia’s lines on the limits on the new Ukrainian military and without allowing strikes or attacks into Russian territory and a security architecture that is not limited to Ukraine and Russia but transcends the particular fight and addresses a more extensive, comprehensive European security structure.

Russia President Putin. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Russia President Putin. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The knot that Zelensky will have to untie is how to sell a shrunken Ukraine still unprotected by NATO to a nation that could have had all of its territory and little of the death and destruction for the same promise not to join NATO in the first months of the war. His best hope may be Trump.

 Suppose Trump conditions continued U.S. military support for Ukraine on Ukraine’s commitment to negotiate an end to the war, as has been suggested. In that case, Zelensky can tell the nation that diplomacy, including no NATO, is necessitated because continuing the war means continuing it without American support. And that means total defeat.

It will not be nearly as easy as Trump suggested while campaigning. But Trump can bring peace to Ukraine if he can sell a workable security architecture that embraces and satisfies all of Europe and if Zelensky can blame it on Trump.

About the Author: Ted Snider 

Ted Snider is a regular columnist on U.S. foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and The Libertarian Institute. He also frequently contributes to Responsible Statecraft, The American Conservative, and other outlets. To support his work or for media or virtual presentation requests, contact him at [email protected].

Written By

Ted Snider is a regular columnist on U.S. foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and The Libertarian Institute. He also frequently contributes to Responsible Statecraft, The American Conservative, and other outlets. To support his work or for media or virtual presentation requests, contact him at [email protected].

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