"
Donald Trump is Donald Trump. If he saw Europe as the source of political and resource commitment to Ukraine’s future security that would let him reach one kind of deal, he would jump at it. If Europe is not willing, then he will look for a different kind of success that will be less to Europe’s and Ukraine’s liking. This is the state of play now.
It’s true Mr. Trump might be seeing different opportunities and incentives if the Biden administration had proceeded differently. These possibilities are no longer in play but don’t kid yourself: President Biden wasn’t paralyzed by Russian nukes as if Mr. Putin is suicidal. Mr. Biden wanted to keep the stakes low lest voters at home take fright at his shambling state and promptly disqualify him for the second term that was Mr. Biden’s sole, exclusive priority until he was forced out of the race on July 21.
But the news is also potentially better than it seems. NATO won’t be Ukraine’s savior but the right kind of Ukraine deal can be NATO’s savior. The right kind of peace deal would be a quasi-template for the alliance’s own future. It would internalize one big lesson of the war:
Russia is a conventional military power that can be thwarted, defeated and deterred by conventional means.
It would internalize a second lesson. Banished would be the convenient nuclear fatalism that Germany especially has relied on over the decades to justify its passivity. Europe’s security no longer needs to depend on Washington’s willingness to risk nuclear war over Estonia.
In the post-Cold War world, nuclear threats turn out to be of little actual use to an aggressor at least against the first party-victim of its aggression. If the Ukraine war proves anything, the nuclear taboo holds for a country like Russia because, to put it simply, Russia still needs customers for its oil if it’s to survive.
Ukraine will always be a many-faceted headache for the alliance. No deal would stop it from being one democratic election away from a government bent on riling up voters over stolen lands. NATO wants no part of this. It would be a constant incitement to the Igor Girkins on both sides, i.e.,
nationalist adventurers seeking to embroil the alliance in revanchist intrigues. It would be an incitement to the Kremlin’s strategists, always on the lookout for new ways to test the West’s cohesion.
Mr. Hegseth vaguely walked back his words a day later. But let’s face it: His concession was less a concession than an admission that saves the U.S. a pantomime of negotiating with Mr. Putin over an outcome no more agreeable to the U.S. and its major allies than to Russia.
Meanwhile, it supplies real leverage to keep Mr. Putin outside
the talks that matter, which he should have no role in: What the U.S. and Europe will do for Ukraine after a cease-fire is reached. Does Mr. Trump see it this way? Beats me. Some statements and signals
suggest so. It should be a very simple calculation for
Mr. Putin: Get out now while the getting is good, because Europe and the U.S. are committed to raising the Ukrainian military to a NATO standard even without it being a NATO member.
Mr. Putin has learned his military is no match for a properly equipped NATO force. His Ukraine misadventure is rapidly degrading his ability to compete in the long run. Mr. Putin will continue to pretend his war isn’t a disastrous miscalculation for which his country will be paying for generations to come. The peanut gallery should not be fooled.