President Trump’s Diplomatic Agenda Unfolding
At a CNN town hall in May 2023, Mr. Trump said: “They’re dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done — I’ll have that done in 24 hours.” He said that would happen after he met with Ukrainian President Zelensky and President Putin. And he kept repeating the claim on the campaign trail.
Days before his inauguration, “Let’s set it at 100 days and move all the way back and figure a way we can do this in the near term to make sure that the solution is solid, it’s sustainable, and that this war ends so that we stop the carnage,” retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s pick to serve as special envoy to Ukraine, told Fox News.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Trump’s choice for secretary of state, told senators at his confirmation hearing on Wednesday that forging a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia would be very difficult. “Conflicts of this nature that have historical underpinnings to it are going to require a lot of hard diplomacy and tough work, but that’s something that needs to happen.”
President Trump launched a salvo of foreign policy initiatives during his first two weeks in office. First came claims to Greenland and the Panama Canal. These were followed by the imposition of tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China although the first two were suspended later for 30 days. The last was his proposal to “take over Gaza”, resettle Gazans elsewhere and create a “Riviera of the Middle East”.
Just as importantly, his executive orders, no doubt welcomed by autocrats elsewhere, are leading to questions regarding the future of American democracy.
As the dust of his salvo settles, the world should prepare for another move about the war in Ukraine. Yesterday, President Trump said he has spoken to President Putin without specifying how many times. Reportedly, he would meet the Russian leader in a Middle Eastern capital later this month. And, in another two weeks, it will be three years since the Russian invasion.
To put President Trump’s possible Russia-Ukraine initiatives in perspective, one can take a brief look at the past.
The Soviet Union became history in only a decade. During the years following its collapse, the former members of the Warsaw Pact, which had remained forcibly under communist regimes since the end of the Second World War, crossed over to the “other side” in exercising their indisputable right under international law.
Nonetheless, the West could have done more to manage Russia’s frustration, try to build a partnership with Moscow, and perhaps change the course of history. Indeed, there were no formal commitments of the kind Russia has referred to, that NATO would not expand even an inch eastward beyond the Oder River. But one may say, in all fairness, that at least some understanding was given.
As NATO expanded, Ukraine witnessed the Orange Revolution, the election of Viktor Yushchenko and later Viktor Yanukovych as president, the extension of the lease of the port of Sevastopol to Russia until 2042, Kyiv’s stepping back from signing an association agreement with the EU, and the Maidan protests at the end of which President Yanukovych’s fled to Russia.
In March 2014, Russia invaded and annexed Crimea. Western reaction to the annexation was measured. Russia was expelled from the G8. Rejection of the annexation became a routine feature of the West’s foreign policy discourse.
On 24 February 2022, after its proposals for a new European security architecture were rejected by the West, Russia launched a military invasion of Ukraine. The people of Ukraine confronted the Russian assault with remarkable bravery and resilience. If President Putin’s initial plan was the conquest of Ukraine or shutting it off the Black Sea, failure to accomplish them was a setback.
On September 30, 2022, President Putin announced the annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia saying the people of those four regions are “Russia’s citizens forever”. The UN General Assembly passed a resolution rejecting the annexation as illegal and upholding Ukraine’s right to territorial integrity.
Recent battlefield developments have not been in Kyiv’s favor. Since January 2022, Ukraine has received about $278 billion in aid, including $75 billion from the United States, though it warns of donor fatigue. Fighting and air strikes have inflicted over 30,000 civilian casualties, while 3.7 million people are internally displaced, and 6.5 million have fled Ukraine. 14.6 million people need humanitarian assistance.[i] There is war fatigue.
Since the Russian invasion, the West, led by the Biden administration, had repeatedly declared its commitment to standing with Ukraine “for as long as it takes”. In a New York Times article published on May 31, 2022, Mr. Biden wrote, “My principle throughout this crisis has been “Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” I will not pressure the Ukrainian government — in private or public — to make any territorial concessions. It would be wrong and contrary to well-settled principles to do so.”[ii]
Today, the Ukraine conflict is no longer a war just between Ukraine and Russia but also one between Russia and the US and some of its NATO partners. However, no matter what is said publicly, European members of NATO would prefer finding a way to end the fighting sooner rather than later because for them a “peaceful” solution is a better option than rising defense expenditures, continuing bloodshed, and the prospect of a more dangerous confrontation with Russia.
President Biden saw the Russian onslaught against Ukraine as an opportunity to weaken Russia and enable Washington to focus on strategic competition with China. Russia’s weakening and isolation have been accomplished to some extent. However, Washington remains bogged down not only in Ukraine but in the Middle East as well and thus far unable “to pivot to the Pacific”.
For some, Washington’s support for Ukraine is the dictate of the “rules-based international order”, a stand against aggression. For others, who also disapprove of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the whole story could have been written differently. Beyond these conflicting views, it has been clear that Ukraine cannot win this war and restore its territorial integrity by force.
NATO’s April 3, 2008, Bucharest summit was a critical point in the history of Europe because Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic had joined NATO in 1999, followed by Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 2004. At the time, Ukraine and Georgia were striving to join the Membership Action Plan (MAP) and thus acquire MAP status, the final stage in a country’s accession process.
In her must-read book “Freedom, Memoires1954-2021”, former Chancellor Angela Merkel, says, “Agreeing to MAP status was not the final decision for membership but it would have represented an almost irreversible political acknowledgment that the two countries would become NATO members – and a prelude to a third major phase of NATO enlargement after the first two waves in 1999 and 2004.[iii]
Chancellor Merkel believed that the admission of a new member must improve the security of that particular country and increase the efficacy of NATO as a whole. The admission criteria therefore assessed each candidate’s military capabilities and also the robustness of its internal structures, and this applied to Ukraine and Georgia too. She also believed that the two countries’ domestic and international challenges made their NATO membership a complicated one. Moreover, she thought that it would be playing with fire to discuss MAP status for Ukraine and Georgia without analyzing the situation from Putin’s perspective.
She says:
“I found it illusory to think that Ukraine and Georgia’s MAP status would have protected them from Putin’s aggression and that this status would have acted as a deterrent, or that Putin would take these developments lying down. If worse came to worst, therefore, was it conceivable that NATO members would have responded by providing military hardware or troops? Was it conceivable that I’d have asked the Bundestag, as chancellor, for a mandate for our army and carried the vote? In 2008? If so what would the consequences have been? And if not, with what consequences, not just for Ukraine and Georgia, but for NATO too?”[iv]
Going to Bucharest in 2008, Chancellor Merkel was also worried about divisions within NATO and remembered how the military intervention in Iraq had split the Alliance and the repercussions for cooperation within the EU.
During the dinner which preceded the official opening of the summit the next day, Chancellor Merkel made it clear that she opposed granting MAP status to Ukraine and Georgia. President Sarkozy backed her reasoning when his turn came.
The next day, at the summit, she made a statement intended to allay any impression that she never wanted to see Ukraine and Georgia join NATO. She said, “One day these two countries will become members of NATO.”
After some negotiation, this sentence was incorporated in the Bucharest Summit Declaration that read:
“NATO’s door will remain open to European democracies willing and able to assume the responsibilities and obligations of membership, in accordance with Article 10 of the Washington Treaty. We reiterate that decisions on enlargement are for NATO itself to make… NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO…”
In 2009 Albania and Croatia, in 2017 Montenegro, and in 2020 North Macedonia became members of NATO. Finally, the Ukraine conflict resulted in Norway and Sweden joining the Alliance, in 2023 and 2024 respectively, bringing NATO membership to 32 nations.
Any future negotiation to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict would address three questions: Ukraine’s membership in NATO, territorial adjustments, and possible guarantees for future peace.
Expecting Moscow to agree to Ukraine becoming the thirty-third member of NATO would be a non-starter. However, Ukraine’s becoming a member of the EU could be an option to be explored. In her book, Chancellor Merkel says that contrary to her opposition to MAP status for Ukraine and Georgia, she was in favor of efforts to draw the two countries – and other interested former Soviet republics – closer to the EU.
Unfortunately, the loss of territory by Ukraine appears inevitable. Non-recognition of Russia’s annexations would likely prove a major obstacle to a peace treaty.
As for meeting Ukraine’s long-term security guarantees against further Russian aggression, a bilateral non-aggression treaty, preferably endorsed by the UN or the OSCE could be a way out. However, these are long shots.
Today, however, Russia wants more than a non-aggression pact; it wants a commitment that NATO would refrain from further enlargement. In other words, Moscow wants NATO to step back from the Bucharest Summit Declaration. In brief, Secretary Rubio is absolutely right in saying that peace in Ukraine would require a lot of hard diplomacy and tough work. A formal peace between Kyiv and Moscow would be a very long shot. And reaching an “understanding” between Russia and the West could prove a greater challenge. Moreover, one cannot discard the possibility that President Putin may opt for a “no peace-no war” situation rather than a formal deal.
Those who believe that “the Ukraine story could have been written differently” are not suggesting that Kyiv should have capitulated to Moscow. They only hold the opinion that taking “another path” could have prevented the loss of life and devastation in Ukraine. What they are saying is that during the Gorbachev and Yeltsin years, the West could have genuinely engaged Russia, encouraged whatever democratic trends existed there, and that the widening fault line between Moscow and the West, and the insistence of the latter on NATO membership for Kyiv provided President Putin with an excuse to invade Ukraine. None of this implies that the former Soviet republics would have to toe Moscow’s line forever and on every issue. These republics are sovereign, independent countries, not Russia’s backyard. However, tolerable, temporary understandings can prevent military conflict during dramatic change. From the Russian perspective, the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major earthquake with continuing tremors such as waves of NATO’s expansion. Nonetheless, until the Bucharest summit, Moscow had not overreached.
At some point after the Bucharest summit, President Putin told Chancellor Merkel, “You won’t be chancellor forever, and then they’ll become NATO members. And I am going to prevent that.” She says, “And I thought: Well, you’re not going to be president forever either.”[v] Indeed, he will not be.
Whenever some form of peace or cessation of hostilities is achieved in Ukraine, Western countries should start thinking about the post-Putin era.
Ms. Merkel’s views on the Russia-Ukraine conflict constitute a reference point for the path toward peace in Ukraine.
[i] https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/conflict-ukraine
[ii] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/opinion/biden-ukraine-strategy.html
[iii] Angela Merkel, “Freedom, Memoires 1954-2021” (Macmillan, 2024), 423-424.
[iv] Ibid, 428.
[v] Ibid, 435.