The debate about the war on Ukraine is focused on the ascendancy of Donald J. Trump and its implications. There is currently much speculation about scenarios for Ukraine.
That Trump, who has refused to commit to Ukraine’s victory, will somehow cut a ceasefire deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin in which some amount of Ukrainian territory is ceded to Russia.
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That Trump, who has pledged to end the war in 24 hours, will withdraw military support from Ukraine to force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to negotiate an unfavorable settlement.
And, in some policy circles, there are further variations on this Trumpian “land for peace” theme.
While much more is yet to be revealed about Trump’s policy approach, I suggest that “magical thinking” about the newly elected President’s potential impact on the war’s trajectory is flawed and wrong for several reasons.
It seems obvious to point out that Ukraine is an independent, sovereign nation. While the support of the United States – based on shared values and strategic interests to date – has been appreciated by Ukraine, it is clearly the case that Ukraine is not an American vassal state. It has and will continue to make its own decisions about its own future whether that jibes or doesn’t jibe with American foreign policy.
As part of that, Ukraine knows its own history. Over hundreds of years of resisting Russian colonialism, it has had the bitter experience of unreliable allies who have often lost their nerve at critical junctures. Its contemporary leaders well know this history and, as a result, the need for Ukraine to have the capacity for maximum self-determination rather than reliance on others. As several decision-makers in Kyiv said to me during a recent visit, “we know we have to write our own insurance policy.”
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As one example, as the war has morphed into a technological contest, Ukraine is now the world’s largest manufacturer of military drones and is using homegrown technology to regularly hit strategic targets some 1,500 kilometers inside Russia, not to mention having paralyzed Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
Additionally, the idea that Ukraine would negotiate some kind of settlement because Trump wants one presumes that the Ukrainians are somehow on their strategic knees. But the truth is they aren’t.
In addition to their growing advantage in drone warfare, it should be noted that in the last two months the Armed Forces of Ukraine have withstood, with minimal territorial loss along the eastern front, Russia’s greatest infantry assaults since the beginning of the war. In Kursk, where Russia has lost territory for the first time since World War II, Putin’s forces are woefully failing to regain ground lost to Ukrainians’ spectacular incursion some four months ago. These military developments are occurring on the background of Russia’s teetering economy; two of three of Russia’s biggest property developers collapsed this week alone.
The bottom line here is that the debate about Ukraine’s future doesn’t start or finish with Donald Trump. It starts and finishes with Ukraine itself, and it is a mistake to underestimate that nation’s successful war-craft and state-craft – a mistake that Putin has made to the cost of hundreds of thousands of Russian troops. Indeed, in pressing Ukraine’s case, President Zelensky has said something immutably true about Donald Trump’s approach to leadership and to foreign policy: it’s based on strength and its projection. This is precisely the Ukrainian position in seeking to end the war.
Furthermore, to suggest that the Trump presidency will completely change the war ignores other factors.
First, if the US were to modify or curtail its military aid for Ukraine under Trump, it is not only Ukraine that has modelled this scenario. We can be confident that NATO and the Europeans have very much considered this possibility; they know that they will need to step up, as NATO’s new General Secretary Mark Rutte has now effectively said on several occasions. If proof of this is required, it’s in Russia’s own actions. It has been increasingly operating to undermine European unity behind Ukraine through its cronies in Hungary and elsewhere.
It is hardly the case that a Putinesque great power – which ostensibly can do as it wants in its sphere of influence – is one that accepts some quirky kind of real estate deal made by the president of its historical foe.
Secondly, the idea that Trump can cut a deal with Putin is based on a massive assumption: i.e., that Putin will somehow be satisfied with an arrangement where he gains occupied (or even more) Ukrainian territory. According to his own statements and public positions, Russia’s “special military operation” into Ukraine, slated for three days, has never been limited to capturing and permanently occupying Ukraine’s southern and southeastern territories – presumably those to be hived off. Frankly, that land is not his primary motivator and therefore unlikely to be his primary satisfier.
Rather, beyond his intentionally incongruent and patently ludicrous narratives about fighting Nazis or defending Russian speakers, Putin has alternately talked about fulfilling Russia’s imperial destiny and averting the risk of an expanded NATO. Both of these notions are essentially about restoring Moscow to the status of a great power, which the highly respected Institute for the Study of War has long suggested is Russia’s real goal.
It is hardly the case that a Putinesque great power – which ostensibly can do as it wants in its sphere of influence – is one that accepts some quirky kind of real estate deal made by the president of its historical foe. It is hardly the case that Putin’s own ego and authoritarian temperament will be able to accept that he has been fought to a de facto stalemate by his much smaller, democratic neighbor. Let’s remember that Putin has acted with genocidal intent against Ukrainians and is charged as a war criminal as such.
We will know more about what Trump’s own intentions with regard to Ukraine are in the coming weeks and months. We will see what role his foreign policy appointments, such as Marco Rubio as Secretary of State and Mike Waltz as National Security Advisor, will play; both have taken pro-Ukraine positions at times in the past.
In the meantime, it is foolish to suggest or think that Ukraine is a lost cause. To do so underestimates Ukraine’s capabilities, overestimates the new administration’s reach, and misunderstands the Kremlin’s intentions.
This article originally appeared in Spectator Australia. It is republished with the author’s permission.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.
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