Most of the Western commentary on the Alaska summit is criticizing President Trump for precisely the wrong reason. The accusation is that by abandoning his call for an unconditional ceasefire as the first step in peace talks, Trump has surrendered a key position and “aligned himself with Putin.”
This is nonsense. What Trump has done is to align himself with reality, and the real charge against him is that he should probably have done this from the start, and saved six months of fruitless negotiations and thousands of Ukrainian and Russian lives. Moreover, by continually emphasising a prior ceasefire as his key goal, Trump set himself up for precisely the kind of criticism that he is now receiving.
He is now entirely correct in saying that he wants “to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire, which often times do not hold up.”
The Russian side made clear from the very start of negotiations that they would not agree to an unconditional ceasefire. Indeed it would have been completely illogical for them to do so, given that military pressure on Ukraine, and advances on the battlefield, are by far the most important leverage that Russia can bring to bear at the negotiating table.
The refusal to recognize this on the part of Western analysts and European governments betrays either an inability to understand obvious realities or a desire that the war should continue indefinitely, in the hope that Russia will eventually accede to present Ukrainian conditions for peace. That would make sense if Ukrainian conditions were realistic, and if developments on the battlefield were in Ukraine’s favor. But some of Ukraine’s demands are completely unacceptable to Moscow, and Ukraine and the West have no way of compelling Russia’s agreement, since it is the Russian army that is advancing (albeit slowly) on the ground and the West cannot provide soldiers to supplement Ukraine’s increasingly outnumbered and depleted forces.
The call for a ceasefire without a peace agreement is also contrary to the real interests of Ukraine and Europe. Such a ceasefire would be extremely fragile, and even if (mostly) observed by the two sides, would lead to a semi-frozen conflict at permanent risk of erupting again. This would make it vastly more difficult for Ukraine to carry out the reforms and economic development necessary for it to even begin to proceed towards membership of the European Union.
It is understandable that NATO governments are distrustful of Moscow’s intentions; but if they are to take a practical and viable approach to peace negotiations they have to recognize that Russians are also distrustful of their intentions, and in part with good reason. In international affairs — and history — there is also no such thing as a permanent and absolute security guarantee, as presently demanded by the Europeans.
Short of the complete defeat and subjugation of one side — which is out of the question in Russia’s case — the best that can realistically be hoped for is a combination of deterrents and incentives that will discourage a return to arms for a long time to come.
A semi-frozen conflict would also be bad for the European continent as a whole. It would create a long-term risk of a return to war in Ukraine and European entanglement in the war, when long-term U.S. military support for Europe in these circumstances is all too obviously no longer guaranteed.
On the other hand, as highlighted last week in Responsible Statecraft, the resulting need and hope for U.S. support would force the EU and European states into deeper and deeper dependence on an undependable U.S., resulting in more of the kind of economic surrender over tariffs and subservience to U.S.-agendas in the Middle East that we have seen in recent months. If continued, such humiliations will undermine the domestic prestige of European establishments and threaten civil peace and liberal democracy in ways that Moscow could never hope to achieve.