After three years of fighting, Russia and Ukraine have established mainly a stalemate, even if the battle is trending slightly in Russia’s favor at present.
Yet Russia is suffering more than 1,000 casualties a day, killed and wounded, and Ukraine perhaps half as many (out of a population only one-fourth as large). Both sides may decide that it is no longer worth sacrificing so much blood and treasure for minimal territorial gains.
President Trump’s return to the White House also changes the conversation, given his emphasis on the importance of ending the fighting soon as America’s top priority in the war (and I believe Trump is correct in this view, provided that Ukraine can remain a sovereign and independent country, even if I disagree with Mr. Trump about the causes of the war and the legitimacy of the Zelensky presidency).
To be sure, the wrong peace deal could embolden Putin to reignite the war somewhere down the road after rearming (if too soft) or permanently poison Russia’s relations with the West and perhaps even increase the odds of war between Russia and NATO (if too harsh) or lead to the overthrow of the Zelensky government in Ukraine and installment of a puppet regime subservient to Moscow (if too impatient/rushed).
Putin may also string out a negotiation process to play for time and greater territorial gains while he keeps fighting.
President Trump has claimed that he could negotiate an end to this terrible war quickly. I commend his priorities. To do so, however, he will need more leverage on both sides.
Time for a New Strategy in Ukraine?
A new U.S. and NATO strategy for the war might give Ukraine one last good chance to liberate stolen and occupied territory in 2025—but not necessarily.
Ending the war soon, in a stabilizing and sustainable way, should indeed be the top priority. Ukraine made some progress in its 2022 counteroffensives but far less so in 2023 or 2024. It has been arming up and gearing up for another try; there is perhaps a small chance it could succeed with a different approach this time.
But sometime in 2025, either in the coming weeks or after a possible Ukrainian counteroffensive, the United States could prioritize ending the fighting, even if Russia remains in possession/control of 15 to 20 percent of pre-war Ukraine.
Ukraine could maintain its political claims on the Russian-occupied territories but would agree not to pursue their liberation on the battlefield. Russia would agree to end the aggression and recognize that because no one can trust it going forward, there will need to be strong international mechanisms to undergird Ukraine’s long-term security.
What a New U.S. Ukraine Strategy Could Look Like
American strategy should include the following additional premises and key elements:
– Unless Ukraine somehow achieves big success in a counteroffensive in early 2025, a different and more limited U.S. and NATO weapons assistance program should be crafted for Ukraine thereafter, emphasizing defensive arms.
That new program should be open-ended since no one can predict if and when Russia will stop its aggression. So should continued economic support for Kyiv from key donors in Europe, North America, and Japan.
– Tougher economic punishment against Russia that gives it more significant incentives to negotiate an end to the war quickly.
China should be pressured to reduce industrial outputs to Russia unless the war ends soon.
Most of all, to create leverage and time pressure, by 2025, Western countries might start tapping a quarter to half of Russia’s $300 billion in frozen assets per year and giving the money to Ukraine.
That should continue until a verifiable peace is reached, at which point Moscow would regain the remaining balance of its assets.
– A declared Western willingness to lift most other economic sanctions on Russia over time if it agrees to and respects genuine peace.
-A willingness to consider other means, besides NATO membership, to ensure Ukraine’s long-term security, as a way to make a deal more palatable to Moscow and thus more negotiable and durable.
Ukraine tanks fighting. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Georgetown Professor Lise Howard and I have written of a concept that would deploy foreign military observers and trainers to Ukraine for years to come as a form of robust tripwire.
Most troops could be European; some would ideally be American to give the mission teeth and credibility with Russia.
Alternatively, as Council on Foreign Relations scholar Paul Stares and I have written more recently, were President Trump unwilling to put any American military personnel on Ukrainian soil, the U.S. role might be to help backstop a European military presence within Ukraine, perhaps with a quick-reaction force based in Poland.
To pressure Moscow to acquiesce, this offer might be time-limited; NATO could state its intention to offer membership to Ukraine if Russia refused to make a deal within say a year from the start of negotiations.
Could This Work?
Of course, even the United States’s more pragmatic strategy can hardly guarantee an end to the war.
Image Credit: Social Media of Ukraine Armed Forces.
Only Russia and Ukraine can make that choice. Realistically, the odds of success in 2025 are probably no more than 50%. But this approach would allow the United States to ensure its core strategic interests in Eastern Europe, including preserving a sovereign Ukraine, limiting and ultimately reducing the risks of escalation, and maximizing the odds of a durable end to the conflict sometime during the Trump presidency.
About the Author: Dr. Michael O’Hanlon
Michael O’Hanlon is the inaugural holder of the Philip H. Knight Chair in Defense and Strategy and director of research in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, where he specializes in U.S. defense strategy and budgets, the use of military force, and American national security policy. He is a senior fellow and directs the Strobe Talbott Center on Security, Strategy, and Technology. He co-directs the Africa Security Initiative as well. He is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and Columbia University and a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board; he was also a member of the external advisory board at the Central Intelligence Agency from 2011-12. In 2023, O’Hanlon published a book titled “Military History for the Modern Strategist: America’s Major Wars since 1861.” The paperback version of the book, with a preface covering the American Revolution as well as the declared wars of the 19th century, came out in 2024. You can follow him on X: @MichaeEOHanlon.
