‘The American Conservative’: Trump’s Russia – Ukraine reset

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump promised to end the Russia-Ukraine war in a single day. After more than 100 days back in the White House, Trump seems closer to ending America’s diplomacy than Russia’s war, writes Andrew Day, the senior editor of ‘The American Conservative’.

Last Friday, Trump officials announced the administration was withdrawing from formal peace negotiations. Tammy Bruce, the State Department spokesperson, explained, “We will continue to help, but we will no longer fly around the world as mediators in meetings.”

One day earlier, Vice President J.D. Vance had been even blunter, saying the war is “not going to end any time soon.”

As Trump officials reflect on why their intensive efforts didn't produce peace, they should consider the worrisome possibility that Russia’s military appetite has grown with the eating. If Moscow hopes to swallow the Black Sea port city Odessa — which the Kremlin considers deeply Russian — then it won’t soon consent to a settlement in which the current battle lines are frozen and heavily fortified, as Vance recommended last year.

An even more worrisome possibility: Stupid U.S. policies since the Cold War — in particular, NATO expansion and the pledge to bring Kiev into the alliance — have inflamed revanchist and imperialist tendencies inside Russia. Even if the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was motivated largely by normal security concerns — as I believe it was — Russia may have developed an ambition to reassert some type of control over its entire historical sphere of influence, international borders be damned. The increasingly bellicose rhetoric of Russian hardliners throughout the war — figures like the political scientist Sergei Karaganov, the former President Dmitry Medvedev, and the philosopher Aleksandr Dugin — suggest that this is the case.

Hardliners aren’t the only problem. One reason Trump’s attempt at mediation has floundered is that most Russians, including the relative moderates, doubt that America can be an impartial mediator in this war. For them, the U.S. is a party to the conflict, if not the main enemy that Russia is fighting in Ukraine. Considering the Biden administration’s deep involvement in the war — featuring not just weapons deliveries to Ukraine but targeting assistance and logistical coordination — the prevalence of this view is hardly surprising, though still frustrating for a new American president who seeks to stop a war that started on his predecessor’s watch.

That U.S. mediation efforts came to a halt Friday amid a lack of diplomatic progress didn’t surprise me, and not just because of the obvious complexities involved in resolving the war. Earlier in the week, I had participated in U.S.-Russia track II talks that left me more pessimistic about the prospects for peace. Other participants on the American side shared this impression, though not all.

Our Russian colleagues, whether as a negotiating tactic or out of sincere confidence about their nation’s geopolitical and military position, drove a hard bargain and seemed to expect that all of Moscow’s war aims will be achieved, including the demilitarization of Ukraine.

Last week brought signs that Trump really is seeking to ramp up pressure on Putin. Two days before the White House withdrew from peace talks, it signed a long-awaited minerals deal with Ukraine that cements U.S. investment in the country’s future stability and prosperity. Shortly after the deal was signed, Trump authorized a new weapons delivery to Ukraine, the first such move since he took office. Moreover, the U.S. has refurbished a Patriot air-defense system based in Israel and will send it to Ukraine, the New York Times reported this weekend. Meanwhile, the White House and Congress have each cobbled together a sanctions package that would target Russian energy.

Trump is notoriously unpredictable, but these developments suggest that the U.S., rather than continuing to present itself as a third-party arbitrator, will align more closely with Ukraine and try to increase the costs for Russia of sustaining the war.

Simply put, Washington doesn’t have big enough sticks to force Russia to stop the war — the “unipolar moment” truly is over. Fortunately, Trump has managed to engineer a large carrot that could help entice Moscow to make peace. In the opening weeks of the administration, the White House not only reestablished diplomatic contacts with the Kremlin but put on the table a grand U.S.-Russia rapprochement, which Putin seems to desire. In last week’s track II talks, the Russians conveyed a strong interest in better bilateral relations.

Trump is no doubt disappointed that he has failed to resolve the Russia-Ukraine war as swiftly as he promised. Yet he’s not even four months into his second administration, and the conflict, despite the present impasse, is nearer resolution than when he assumed office. Thanks to U.S. pressure, in recent weeks Zelensky and Putin have each executed a remarkable volte-face by expressing openness to direct talks between their nations.

The one-page peace proposal that the White House presented last month is fair and reasonable, and it can still serve as a starting point for negotiations. If the U.S. can get Moscow and Kiev to agree to it, then Trump will have acted as the “peacemaker and unifier” that in his inaugural address he promised to be. Surely that remains a political goal worth pursuing, however challenging it has proven to achieve.

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