President Trump rightly points out that America did not engage in new wars during his first term in office. The world was indeed a more stable place before the Biden administration engineered a disastrous exit from Afghanistan. That catastrophe signaled weakness and incentivized the Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as the Hamas attack on Israel. When America is weak, our adversaries grow bold.

The incoming Trump administration will certainly not be interventionist; gone are the days of neoconservative visions of world transformation. Yet neither is it likely to succumb to the capitulationist voices of isolationism that have cropped up on the right and the left. No one knows better than President Trump that making America great again means making America strong again. We need strength to dissuade our adversaries from destabilizing aggressions.
Ukraine will be the first theater in which the Trump administration will be tested. In the wake of the poor performance of the Russian military and the depletion of its manpower Moscow has resorted to bringing in North Korean mercenaries. This internationalization of the conflict represents a significant escalation. The Biden administration has countered this escalation by giving Ukraine authorization to use American missiles that can target sites far inside Russia. For years the Biden team was fearful of provoking Russia and therefore capped supplies to Ukraine, providing enough for Zelensky to keep fighting but never enough to win. That has changed. The prospect for ever greater conflict is therefore growing. This is the stage that President Trump, committed to pursuing peace, will enter on January 20. (READ MORE: North Korea Is in the Fight)
But what kind of peace will it be?
A narrative is circulating among Democrats, never Trumpers, and Europeans that Trump will pull the plug on Kyiv and hand Putin an easy victory. While this vision conforms with the “Russiagate” narrative that the Democratic National Committee has bee...