Plan To End Ukraine War Should Have Happened 3 Years Ago
The text discusses President donald Trump’s approach to the ongoing conflict between Russia adn Ukraine, focusing on his efforts to end the war and establish peace talks. The author points out that Trump’s actions, including a recent call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, have sparked strong reactions from political opponents and allies, with critics viewing his approach as a betrayal of U.S. commitments.
The article states that the war has resulted in over one million casualties and has devolved into a prolonged stalemate, with the U.S. having spent around $175 billion to support Ukraine. The author argues that negotiations are the only viable solution to the conflict,suggesting that Russia may retain territory gained in 2014,while Western nations could provide security assurances to Ukraine.
Despite the potential benefits of peace, there is opposition from both European leaders and certain factions in the U.S. establishment who perceive Trump’s efforts as favoring Russia. The piece further critiques the rationale behind continued U.S. support for Ukraine, positing that it largely stems from political interests rather than a clear national strategy. Ultimately,the author advocates for prioritizing American interests over those of Ukraine or Europe,mentioning that the primary focus should shift towards addressing the broader threat posed by China.
President Donald Trump’s dismantling of the administrative state has driven its left-wing supporters off the deep end. But nothing has set the D.C. establishment’s teeth on edge like Trump’s intention to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Trump has long promised to end the Ukraine war and last week he began to do so. His call last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin jump-started the process by which peace talks can be initiated.
More than 1 million people, soldiers and civilians, have been killed or wounded on both sides. The war has turned now into a bloody World War One-style stalemate.
The United States has continued to pour more than $175 billion into the conflict in order to prop up the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Biden also stripped the U.S. armed forces of strategic reserves of arms and ammunition and tossed them into the furnace of the war.
Terms of Agreement
At this point the only sane plan of action involves negotiations that will lead to a peace settlement and give each side some of what they want.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth probably should not have been so candid when speaking of those terms, but any serious person already knows that the war will almost certainly be brought to a close along those lines. Russia will likely keep the land that it took in 2014, which is largely inhabited by people who are not Ukrainian, and the West will promise to not bring Ukraine into NATO, the factor that probably did the most to motivate Putin’s illegal invasion. Ukraine’s independence will be guaranteed and the West will ensure that Ukraine can defend itself against Russia in the future while contributing to its reconstruction.
Opposition to Peace
That’s the only rational path forward. Yet the response to Trump’s call with Putin, his demand that Ukraine pay back some of what it owes the United States via its mineral resources, and other administration statements has been nothing short of hysteria. Both the Europeans and the president’s domestic political opponents consider efforts to end the war to be a betrayal of America’s allies and a victory for Putin.
A string of headlines in The New York Times on the topic in the last weeks tells the tale of anti-Trump woe: “Left Out of Ukraine Talks, Europe Races to Organize a Response,” “Trump Team Leaves Behind an Alliance in Crisis,” “Trump’s Ambition to Redraw the World Map Ignores Those Affected Most,” “Putin Has Long Wanted More Power in Europe. Trump Could Grant It,” ‘Instead of Discussing Ukraine, Vance Lectures Europeans About Shunning Extremist Parties.”
As far as the Europeans and the U.S foreign policy establishment are concerned, America’s role in this conflict is to just shut up and pay for it while doing nothing to bring about peace.
But there are two problems with this point of view. One is that Trump’s job is to defend the best interests of the United States, not that of Ukraine or the European Union. The other is that they have no rational alternative to ending the war other than the terms that Trump is talking about.
Basis of US Support
In the United States, support for the war in Ukraine has hinged on two factors.
Democrats embraced the war because of the role Ukraine played in the first effort to impeach Trump during his first term.
The Obama administration did nothing when Putin seized Crimea and the Donbas in 2014.
It was only after Democrats seized upon a Trump conversation with Zelensky in which he asked him to investigate the criminal influence-peddling of President Biden’s family to impeach him that those left-wingers embraced and romanticized Ukrainian nationalism.
Establishment Republicans’ claims that Russia’s incompetent army might overrun all of Europe if Ukraine didn’t triumph — as if it were the mighty and numerically superior forces of the Red Army and the Warsaw Pact before the fall of the Berlin Wall — were ludicrous.
Nor can anyone on the left or right in America or Europe define what they mean when, like Biden, they demand “victory” for Ukraine. The notion that Kyiv could conquer a nuclear-armed Moscow is a fantasy. Or can it abolish Russia, still the largest country in the Eurasian landmass, as a nation?
Whose interests are furthered by propagating such myths?
One is the Zelensky government, which will prosper so long as the war continues. After it ends, the Ukrainian leader will be forced to change out of his signature G.I. Joe outfit, cease pretending to be the Winston Churchill of the 21st century, and be reduced to the leader of what remains among the most corrupt and anti-democratic governments in Europe.
The other big loser if peace were to be reached in Ukraine is what some wags have dubbed the “NGO archipelago.” Ukraine has long been the special interest of federal boondoggles like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) that Trump is seeking to dismember. Its many partners in the nonprofit world have feasted on the dubious project of transforming a corrupt former Soviet republic into a Jeffersonian democracy while pulling it into the West’s sphere of influence. The war is a nonstop gravy train for the international community’s multilateral agencies.
None of those who are whining about Trump’s rough treatment of Europe or willingness to pressure Zelensky have a rational alternative. The only other option available would be an endless proxy war.
US Interests
That would not be in the interests of the Ukrainian people who continue to suffer from the continuation of the war. More importantly, it would not be in the interests of the United States.
Since the summer of 2022 the war has been a contest about whether Russia would hold onto its 2014 gains and not whether Ukraine would be independent. There is an argument to be made for considering the maintenance of that country’s independence to be a principle the United States should defend. But the question of who controls the Donbas or Crimea has nothing to do with American national interests.
Similarly, it is unreasonable that the United States should continue spending hundreds of billions of dollars on Ukraine without getting, as Trump has proposed, something in exchange for this otherwise indefensible allocation.
So, Trump is just doing what any statesman not drunk on democracy exportation, nation-building, or Cold War nostalgia would do.
Once the peace is secured the United States can pivot to defending its interests against the real geostrategic threat of the 21st century from which Ukraine has been a costly distraction: China. And a wealthy Europe will be compelled to pay its fair share of the costs of its defense.
It’s understandable that those who are not interested in defending American interests would regret such a turn of events. But that should not concern those tasked with defending them.
Jonathan S. Tobin is a senior contributor to The Federalist, editor in chief of JNS.org, and a columnist for Newsweek. Follow him on Twitter at @jonathans_tobin.
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