On the morning of Nov. 9, only 72 hours after Trump’s victory in the presidential election, we heard a scurrilous statement emanating from the winner’s camp. A former Trump advisor and campaign staffer by the name of Bryan Lanza lashed out at Ukraine, suggesting it wants to make American soldiers die for the Crimea.
Ukrainian soldiers have been fighting for almost three years now (and incurring huge losses) for both their country and their freedom. But they are also doing it so that Americans do not have to see combat and possibly die in Europe or the Far East. They don’t need American troops. But they do need American weapons, which the previous administration has doled out sparingly, with excruciating delays, and with absurd restrictions on how they can be used.
The advisor’s remarks were so outrageous that they immediately caused a firestorm on social media. Trump’s press secretary had to issue a statement disavowing the remarks, characterizing them as Lanza’s personal opinion. That was perhaps the last bit of relatively good news to come out of Washington on November 9. The worst was yet to come, and it came in the form of the following statement:
“I will not be inviting former Ambassador Nikki Haley, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to join the Trump Administration, which is currently in formation,” Trump posted on social media.
Ukrainian Naivety is Both Good and Bad
“I appreciated working with them previously, and would like to thank them for their service to our country.”
This came after several sources familiar with the process reported that Pompeo was being seriously discussed as a possible contender for Secretary of Defense.
Mike Pompeo is an ardent Atlanticist. He was the architect of the highly successful Middle East Policy in the first Trump administration. He supports Ukraine and had been widely expected to play the same role of wise guardian within a second Trump administration. His plan for Ukraine appeared in July and can be summed up as follows:
Both sides agree to a cease-fire along the entire existing line of contact. NATO takes on the responsibility of defending (in case of a new Putin attack) every inch of Ukrainian territory on its side of the cease-fire line. The West, meanwhile, will never recognize the territory currently held by Moscow as legally belonging to Russia.
This is not a path for Ukraine to win the war. But it is nevertheless a solid plan under the current circumstances. In essence, we are talking about accepting a divided country into NATO (as we did with West Germany in 1953). For a period of time, Ukraine would lose 20% of its territory. But it would throw off Muscovy’s yoke once and for all and be able to integrate itself within the West’s security sphere. I believe a majority of Ukrainians would approve this step in a referendum, albeit with a heavy heart.
But there will be no referendum based on Pompeo’s plan. Putin will, of course, never support such a course of action. As much as Putin seems to be savoring the chunks of Ukrainian territory Russia has seized so far, they will never be enough for him. He needs all of Ukraine. He craves seeing the West embarrassed, ashamed, and helpless after the former Free World is forced to surrender Ukraine.
At the Valdai Forum on November 7, Putin positively glowed. He complimented Trump so many times that I am now certain that he already knew that Trump had no plans to include his former foreign policy guru in the new administration. Instead, the President-elect has chosen a path forward offered by a consummate Ukrainophobe, a man Trump appointed as his running mate in 2024 – JD Vance, Senator from Ohio.
Vance was assigned the task of promoting the plan once it was developed over the course of several sessions of an informal working group consisting of like-minded individuals (Putin, Trump, and their go-betweens, Carlson, Musk, and Orban). The peace plan that these remarkable men came up with is a plan to destroy the Ukrainian state, a plan to resolve the Ukraine issue once and for all.
As with the Pompeo plan, it stipulates a freezing of the conflict. But, whereas the Pompeo plan calls for Ukraine to receive security guarantees from the West according to Article 5 of the NATO charter, the Vance plan forces Ukraine to provide Russia with guarantees of its helplessness. The country would be legally bound to refuse any military aid from the West, including weapon shipments.
In any case, events move on. Trump has apparently chosen his “peace plan” for Ukraine. Ukraine will never agree to it. Trump will threaten to stop all weapon shipments. This is what we will see in January and February 2025 most likely. We needed to think about that before. We need to do it now. Starting with taking stock of our assets and analyzing the potential of what remains of the Free World’s institutions. A Free World whose guilty smile is vanishing before our eyes like the Cheshire cat’s.
The United States
Trump will not appoint Haley or Pompeo to positions within the administration, but he cannot remove recently elected Republicans in both chambers of Congress who on the whole share Haley and Pompeo’s pro-Ukraine views rather than Trump and Vance’s pro-Russia sentiments. Mike Rogers, Michael McCaul, and Mike Turner, the high-profile leaders of this majority, are the authors of a superb report on Ukraine.
These men worked hard for years to expose the Biden administration’s unwillingness to provide sufficient military aid to Ukraine. They managed to overcome strong opposition from Trumpers in Congress and passed a bill to finance this aid. The main objector to the bill? A young senator by the name of JD Vance.
And now all of Ukraine would love to hear these three respected friends of our nation voice their opinion on Vice-President-elect Vance’s peace plan. I hope that we will hear them soon.
Europe
For decades, Europe has nurtured plans for the establishment of a European army, one capable of defending its borders regardless of what is happening domestically with its transatlantic ally. And then, almost out of nowhere, like Venus emerging from the sea, such an army appeared on the scene. It is called the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and it has been protecting Europe for almost three years now from an invasion at the hands of the horde from the East.
But then Trump the White House and for some reason decided to make this efficient European army surrender. He advised Europe also not to rely on US forces and to deal with the defense of its borders on its own. To defend against the very barbarians which the Armed Forces of Ukraine had ground down for three years.
The existential threat now looming will quickly clear European heads and the fundamental question arises: Can Europe provide weapons shipments to embattled Ukraine when Trump has stopped them as punishment for the country’s refusal to capitulate?
The response is contradictory – yes and no. It depends on how combat operations unfold. In a stalemate scenario resulting in a protracted war of attrition along the 1,000-km line of contact between the sides, the answer is no. Europe simply does not have the production capabilities for ammunition that the US has.
But Europe is surely able to provide Ukraine with the high-tech weaponry needed for a blitz victory. An extraordinary threat calls for the adoption of extraordinary military measures – hundreds of state-of-the-art aircraft (F-16s, Mirages, Typhoons, Gripens) operated by Western “volunteer” pilots stationed on air bases in Finland, Poland, and Romania. Dozens of Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) would be absolute game-changers in the Russo-Ukrainian war. They would: 1) establish a de-facto no-fly zone over the entirety of Ukrainian territory, 2) be able to strike Russian aviation deep within Russian territory, and 3) either eliminate the Russian alignment of forces in Crimea or force them to evacuate.
A Ukrainian flag flying over Sevastopol and the symbolic destruction of the Crimean bridge would produce the very current developments on the ground that the dictator in the Kremlin loves to crow about after Russia seizes some Ukrainian village.
I suppose that there are about 10 countries which together possess such potential and are willing to take such a decisive step to guarantee their security.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.
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