Joe Biden and NATO are in many ways mirror images of one another: geriatric, immobile, taken advantage of by those around them, and generally past their sell-by date. Indeed, the president’s recent statements at the alliance’s summit—which happened to be celebrating its 75th anniversary—provide a perfect reflection of the delusions surrounding the ongoing war in Ukraine that refuse to relinquish their hold over our future. “[Vladimir] Putin wants nothing less, nothing less, than Ukraine’s total subjugation…and to wipe Ukraine off the map…Ukraine can and will stop Putin.”
Except he doesn’t. And it won’t.
Several weeks ago, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken joined NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to parrot that same company line to the world:
The bottom line is this, the Ukraine strategy that we’ve had and that we’ve been acting on individually and collectively now for nearly two and a half years is showing effective results, effective results in ensuring Ukraine can ward off Russian aggression and it’s done that remarkably well—keep in mind, Putin’s objective from day one has been to erase Ukraine from the map and to end its existence as an independent country, to subsume it into Russia.
If the intention is actually to seek a stable resolution to the conflict in Ukraine, then we must first reject such overt propaganda. This means admitting that Russia is winning the war, and that the country is not a caricature of evil bent on the entirely unfeasible goal of European hegemony.
That Russia is winning is obvious to all honest observers. Moscow is accomplishing its strategic objectives via the steady degradation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF), as well as the country’s industrial capacity, specifically its energy infrastructure. As a result, Russia is slowly pushing the UAF westward while inflicting disproportionate casualties on a smaller population, all while maintaining its own powerful military-industrial complex that strategically allocates its vast resources toward the war effort.
Nor is Russia waging total war against Ukraine in an attempt to subsume the entire country into the Russian Federation. Essentially a reiteration of the terms set out in February 2022, the terms for a ceasefire agreement Putin recently put forward—which would affirm Russian control over the four annexed oblasts, Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson (as well as Crimea), and abandon any NATO aspirations for Ukraine—could serve as a viable foundation for negotiating a peace settlement.
There is a mandate from the Russian people for seeing the war through to completion, since it is now apparent that the current leadership in Kiev, Washington, and the various European capitals will never unequivocally deny the possibility of Ukraine’s NATO ascension. If Russia subsequently attempts to do something like secure a cordon sanitaire around Kharkov in order to reduce the ability for Ukraine to strike Southwestern Russia, or progress further along the Black Sea coast toward Odessa to eliminate positions from which Kiev can launch ballistic missile strikes on Moscow’s naval base at Sevastopol, then a significantly greater logistical and operational approach will be needed.
Still, no nation rejoices in seeing its young men return home in coffins. Russia may hold the advantage in this war of attrition, but consolidating control over the remainder of the annexed territories will likely take much longer and cost significantly more blood.
The terms Putin set out may also have been in anticipation of a new administration in Washington come 2025. If Donald Trump wins the presidency, the prospect for a sustainable peace may be heightened. Details of a potential negotiation process from members of the last Trump Administration have already been released, although the proposal remains unofficial. Still, one would expect Trump to accept the necessity of trade offs in light of the current situation on the battlefield.
Given Putin’s own minimalistic terms in light of the war’s current trajectory, there exists firm ground for negotiations. Diplomacy at its highest level means securing the best possible outcome; compromise is an inevitable part of that process. The point is to make sure that such compromise is strategic, and in the service of one’s higher ends.
Besides political will in overcoming the many entrenched bureaucratic forces standing in the way, ending the conflict means accepting that the ideal geopolitical outcome is often only attainable in speech. Unfortunately, this central axiom of statecraft has been supplanted by an ideological fervency that sees the very act of diplomacy as synonymous with appeasement—an anathema for the self-ordained actualizers of the end of history.
In order to end this conflict, Washington must step back from this lunacy. Its refusal to countenance any resolution that does not include NATO membership for Ukraine is evidence of our leadership’s incompetence, disregard for human life, and ideological blindness. Taking membership off the table is not merely a gesture of good will—it would also directly serve U.S. interests by creating the conditions for a buffer zone in Eastern Europe. This would ensure a balance of power in the region that simultaneously secures the position of the Central European states while also acknowledging—and respecting—Russia’s legitimate defense concerns.
Of course, if Trump does become president he would almost certainly not acquiesce to Putin’s terms without a trade off that helps ensure future stability in the region. Nor should he. For instance, Russia is unlikely to cede the Donbas (composed of the Lugansk and Donetsk oblasts) or Zaporizhzhia and Kherson entirely; but perhaps there is still the possibility of a settlement based on minimal land concessions by each side—so long as a stable land bridge to Crimea is guaranteed for Russia. Further, Russian forces maintain control over the major nuclear power plant in the former oblast—which happens to be Europe’s largest—while the UAF holds both of the major cities in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, respectively. Thus, at the very least there is still the possibility of realistically adjusting administrative borders given the current distribution of forces, and perhaps even a type of negotiated autonomous status for certain disputed areas.
Putin may very well be amenable to such an outcome. Recall that autonomy for Lugansk and Donetsk was one of the primary demands of the failed Minsk agreements. Even at the outset of the war in 2022, Putin simply declared Russia’s recognition of their independence, leaving room for further negotiations. It was only after it became obvious that Kiev, acting as proxy of the collective West, was opposed to any concessions that the annexations took place in October 2022.
A negotiated settlement requires first acknowledging that Russia genuinely wants a permanent solution to the conflict that ensures lasting stability in the region—not any type of temporary pause for Ukraine to rearm and reinitiate hostilities, as Angela Merkel admitted was the case with the Minsk agreements. In reality, convincing Moscow to back away from its demand that the UAF leave all the territory within the four eastern oblasts may be a tough sell at this point. But this can nonetheless serve as the basis for negotiations. Acknowledging Crimea as part of the Russian Federation would be a fait accompli that would nonetheless be a moral victory for Moscow, which the U.S. could then leverage to secure more concrete aims in negotiations.
Despite the fact that it does not make geopolitical sense for Moscow to push any further into Ukraine, guaranteeing Russian respect for the buffer state status of Ukraine in perpetuity is necessary. Thus, a commitment that Ukraine will never join NATO could be accompanied by security ties that ensure the continued independence of the country, with the stipulation that the new territory will not host any U.S. weaponry—or at least certain categories of weaponry that provide offensive capabilities to threaten Russia or the newly created autonomous regions.
Most importantly, the U.S. can help establish a security guarantee in which European countries with a much larger vested interest in the region serve as the direct guarantors to any such deal. Advocates of liberal internationalism can cry “isolationism” all that they want, but America’s priority should be to extricate itself from the situation on terms favorable to its own citizenry.
Regardless of the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, Putin remains ready to secure his ends. If Biden wins and the war fails to deescalate, the likelihood of Russia continuing to push toward both Kharkov and Odessa will significantly increase. Additionally, many Russians—particularly the hardliners in Moscow—may see Kiev as the ultimate prize. The occupation of the oldest Russian city by an explicitly “anti-Muscovite” regime—sitting in the cradle of Eastern Slavic civilization, no less—is an affront to all those who claim lineal ties to the historical Russian identity.
The greatest political threat Putin faces at present is his failure to outmaneuver the hawkish voices imploring him to declare full-scare war against Ukraine, thereby allowing Russia to fulfill its Katechonic destiny. As beach strikes on Russian civilians continue, those voices will grow in both volume and intensity and create serious domestic pressure for Putin. Approaching the confrontation with Russia as an existential matter for the end-of-history ideology has covered up the relative amenability of the Russian president—a man who was once heralded for his desire to be a Peter-like figure of Russian Euro-integration. Thus, Putin has instead been forced into a position in which he is increasingly susceptible to the ideologically driven elements of his own court. A Western leadership that is not committed to the total destruction of the Russian state would likely go far in quelling the hardline Russian voices calling for escalation.
Though there is nonetheless hope for peace in the prospect of a Trump election, rejecting the zero-sum terms proposed by the current foreign policy establishment is undoubtedly the first step in enabling a diplomatic solution to the conflict. Extricating ourselves from the current situation therefore appears a monumental task. Western leadership has brought about international conditions in which Russia does not need to settle for anything less than meeting all of Putin’s stated terms.
At the same time, the U.S. capacity for statesmanship has completely atrophied. We are incompetent, and even where we are not incompetent, we are committed to ideological imperialism. If we are to rediscover the lost art of statecraft, we must first rediscover a national morality of moderation and humility. Above all else, that means replacing a leadership caste that spills American blood and spends American treasure without consequence and without care. As the saying goes, personnel is policy.