Donald Trump campaigned for his second term in the White House on the assumption that he could settle the war in Ukraine within a very short time after having reassumed the Presidency in January 2025. Trump’s optimism was based on his self-confidence as a deal maker and his expectation that personal rapport with Vladimir Putin could cut through the obstacles to any agreement between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Toward this end, Team Trump unleashed a blitz of diplomatic exigency and public relations intended to force Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table. In addition, Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized that they expected prompt compliance with their wishes by Zelensky and Putin for direct negotiations and immediate progress toward a final agreement. In an embarrassing televised confrontation between Trump, Rubio and Vice President J.D. Vance with Zelensky in the Oval Office, Trump and Vance scolded Zelensky for his alleged insincerity with respect to their mandate for peacemaking.
The expectation that a peaceful resolution to the war in Ukraine could be arranged expeditiously by forcing a diplomatic solution on Kyiv and Moscow has now been put to the test and come up short. Regardless of good intentions in Washington, neither Ukraine nor Russia is willing to call it quits on the battlefront. For Ukraine, Russia’s continued occupation of about 20 per cent of their national territory is unacceptable, and the devastation inflicted on Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure will live long in their collective memories. For Russia, and especially for Putin, this war is also existential, not just expedient. Putin lives in a cocoon of denial that Ukraine is a sovereign country and a unique culture. Instead, full of balderdash concocted by his favorite philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, Putin sees the incorporation of Ukraine into Mother Russia as history’s inevitable destiny.
Another reason for the difficulty in bringing an end to the war in Ukraine is that all of Europe has a stake in it. The United States and its NATO allies have supported Ukraine with military assistance, intelligence, and assertive diplomacy that must have come as a complete surprise to Putin and, as well, to many Europeans and Americans. Trump talked down NATO during his first term in the White House, and many observers felt that a second Trump term would revive similar isolationist tendencies that would separate American national security interests from those of Europe. Indeed, some foreign policy experts and commentators continue to doubt Trump’s commitment to European security and the defense of Ukraine.
However, strategic, and political realities create a geopolitical nexus between the interests of the United States and democratic Europe that even doubters in the Trump administration, as well as others on both sides of the Atlantic, cannot pretend to notice. Political reality and strategic necessity dictate that the United States and democratic Europe must stand firm against the attempt by Russia to relitigate the history of the post-Cold War world and return to a new world order of great power competition. A Europe once again plunged into a succession of great power wars or proxy wars will lose both its security and its legitimacy. Dumping the memories of the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment into the dustbin of history, and forgetting the costs of the twentieth century as a “century of total war,” Europeans will relive their worst nightmares instead of reaching their full twenty-first century potential.
The implications of the preceding points are profound, however hard to swallow for generations of people gorged on postmodern philosophy and swilling in portfolios of affluence. First, American leadership is indispensable for the survival of European civilization and democratic values. The United States cannot pretend otherwise. Attempts to change the boundaries of states in Europe by force are inadmissible, and especially if the boundary changers are autocrats whose appetites grow with the eating. Second, the stalemated war in Ukraine can only be broken if Russia begins to calculate that continued conflict is not in its best interest.
Therefore, the U.S. and NATO must be resolute, not only in providing military and diplomatic support to Ukraine, but also in turning up the pressure on Russia to desist its campaign of atrocity. This pressure should not entail a horizontal escalation of fighting to include member states of NATO in combat with Russian forces – but it should do everything short of that to make Russia feel politically isolated and economically stressed. Additional economic sanctions against Russia should be put back on the table, and especially, secondary sanctions against states that continue to purchase Russian hydrocarbons. In addition, NATO should support an expanded campaign of unconventional operations like those devised by the World War II British “League of Ungentlemanly Warfare” and the UK Special Operations Executive (SOE), backfooting Russia in the area of “liminal” warfare as David Kilcullen has discussed it.[i]
Third, however useful support from the European Union might be on the political side of the equation, it cannot substitute for the military and intelligence support provided by the United States and NATO. Member states of the European Union could conceivably provide peacekeeping forces deployed in Ukraine as part of a post-conflict peace and stability operation: performing not as combat troops but as monitors and reporters of infractions against the terms of the agreement. And of course, EU member contributions to the economic reconstruction of postwar Ukraine will be most welcome.
Fourth, and finally, the idea of a “pivot to the east” and focusing U.S. attention on America’s rivalry with China should not be used as an excuse to bail on Ukraine. To the contrary: a debacle in Ukraine will only send to China and to American allies in Asia a message of irresolution and unwillingness to defend vital interests tout court. Weakness anywhere invites potential aggressors to fill a vacuum.
The prospect of continued fighting in Ukraine is a miserable fact to confront. To play shuffleboard with the survival of democracy in Europe is even more dangerous. The U.S. and NATO must substitute stolid resolution and military commitment for the seductive appeals of diplomatic walkabout and peace at any price.
Stephen Cimbala is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Penn State Brandywine and the author of numerous books and articles on international security issues.
Lawrence Korb, a retired Navy captain, has held national security positions at several think tanks and served in the Pentagon in the Reagan administration.
Note:
[i] David Kilcullen, The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West (London: Hurst and Co., 2020), Ch. 4.
This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.
