However much we might wish otherwise, the war in Ukraine will not end with its borders restored to those of 2014. Then again, unless Vladimir Putin is prepared to gamble on getting away with a nuclear strike, Russia has no realistic prospect of a quick victory so long as the West continues to stand behind Ukraine. As Putin will never give up the territory that Russia has stolen, he would then have three plausible alternatives: press the pause button and wait to see what happens, plug on with the current war of attrition, or cut some kind of peace deal. The Kremlin could handle either of the first two options, but the price of doing so is sufficiently high that Moscow appears to be ready for the third.
If the Trump administration wishes to get Russia to that point (and it does), both the U.S. and Europe must be clear that they will not abandon Ukraine. As far as that is concerned, the Europeans have said the right thing and so has Donald Trump. American help will continue for “as long as we have to” because the alternative would be a win for Putin. JD Vance has talked of deploying “economic” and “military” tools of “leverage” (a word familiar to readers of The Art of the Deal) to encourage a “productive negotiation” with Putin. What that might mean is unclear, but that’s no bad thing. As it is, the U.S. has recently introduced sanctions against tankers carrying oil to Russia and mused about pushing down the price of oil, a critical revenue source for Putin.
Trump does not like to be seen as a loser. Moreover, while his team prefers to focus on China, they must know that if Kyiv becomes the next Kabul it will tempt Beijing to step up the pressure on Taiwan. In that context, the president’s insistence that aid would be “secured” on “the equivalent of $500 billion of rare earth” (something acceptable to Volodymyr Zelensky) was significant. It meant that Trump considers Ukraine — or some of it — on America’s side of the fence. That it involved rare earths, in which China has a disturbingly strong position, was a tacit acknowledgement that the president (rightly) regards the contests with Russia and with China as linked, not a bad message to send.
One incentive for Putin to come to terms now is that any “settlement” will be a useful opportunity for him to regroup before renewing his assault on Ukraine. That this is understood by the administration was obvious from comments by Defense Secretary Hegseth on Wednesday. Instead of peace in our time, he discussed something akin to the armistice that ended the Korean War, backed up by deterrents designed to keep Putin at bay.
Trump’s friendly overtures to Putin (making G-7 G-8 again) are nauseating after the hell Ukraine has been through, but they are probably little more than a New York dealmaker’s schmooze. Even if the Kremlin and the West should come to some agreement, there would be no reason to invite Russia back into a forum for America’s closest democratic allies. It is far too soon to forgive and forget, and to suggest that Putin is in some way being rewarded would infuriate Ukraine and many of our NATO allies, including, perhaps most importantly, the stalwarts in northeast Europe — Poland, the Baltic states, and new recruits Sweden and Finland. There is also the matter of the International Criminal Court warrant that is out for Putin. We are no fans of the ICC, but a fight with our allies over the warrant for Putin, who is nothing if not a war criminal, gains us nothing. Speaking of which, we should insist that the Ukrainian children kidnapped by Moscow should be returned to their families or, if those families have not survived, to the care of Ukraine.
Hegseth has now withdrawn his comment that “the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement,” explaining that was merely his assessment of what’s likely and “of hard-power realities on the ground.” He’s not wrong. Moscow would never agree to it. However, is that the same as agreeing that Russia has veto rights over any Ukrainian membership of NATO? It shouldn’t be.
If the eventual deal includes Ukraine accepting de facto if not de jure the loss of 20 percent of its territory — a bitter pill that may be a little easier for Ukrainians to accept if handed to them by allies acting alongside their president, rather than by Zelensky alone or, for that matter, presented as a fait accompli — it must also leave room for a sovereign Ukraine to make its own military alliances. This would not, however, mean much anytime soon. Acceptance into NATO requires the unanimous consent of all existing members, and for now that would not be forthcoming from either Hungary or Slovakia. And if that duo turned away from Moscow, some other NATO members would, given the mutual defense provisions in Article 5 of the NATO treaty, doubtless balk at admitting a country with such dangerously unfinished business with Russia. But if NATO is off the table, there must be no restrictions on Ukraine’s right to arm itself or be armed by others.
On top of that, “a durable peace for Ukraine must,” as Hegseth correctly points out, “include robust security guarantees . . . [which] must be backed by capable European and non-European troops.” However, if they are deployed in Ukraine, it would be as part of a non-NATO mission without the protection of Article 5. No U.S. troops would be deployed in Ukraine. The administration wants European NATO members to increase their defense spending to 5 percent of GDP (a target, Hegseth noted, that Poland had already met), expand its defense-industrial base, and “provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and nonlethal aid to Ukraine.”
All this was in keeping with Hegseth’s broader message that there must be a more equal division of labor within NATO. Europe should do more to defend itself, while the U.S. concentrates on China. After decades in which too much of Europe has been content to do little more than shelter under the U.S. umbrella, a change was overdue — and it is in Europe’s interest. As indicated above, a peace deal may well only postpone Russia’s efforts to absorb the whole of Ukraine. Should they succeed, they would be a preamble to a longer-term campaign to reestablish mastery over Eastern Europe and, if the opportunity arises, further west still.
Europe needs to understand how high the stakes are, but so does the administration. The Atlantic Alliance has been an astonishing success. It would be a catastrophe were it to break up, particularly at times such as these. The rebalancing of responsibilities within NATO being insisted upon by the White House is not unreasonable, but it is going to take a while, and it is going to take some tact and a great deal of American back-up and support. Hegseth wisely included some conciliatory words in his remarks, including some about America’s commitment “to the defense partnership with Europe,” but the administration must behave in a way that ensures that that commitment remains credible, because if it doesn’t, things could start to fall apart very quickly indeed.