Dosvidanya

The US government has many priorities. Ukraine is not one of them.

Greetings everyone,

This week, I had been writing an essay about the Middle East, and was planning to publish it until news broke, just last week, that several shocks regarding the US government’s abandonment of longstanding positions regarding our support of the sovereignty and security of Ukraine and the rest of Eastern Europe. First, reports emerged that President Trump reached out to Russian President Putin to discuss his plans for a ceasefire in Ukraine. Also, the recently confirmed Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth issued a frank message to NATO allies that the United States would not accept Ukraine as a NATO member (already a remote prospect), would not support any effort by Ukraine to return to its original borders (also a remote prospect), and that the primary responsibility of upholding any ceasefire on the front lines would fall on European countries, as the United States would withhold Article 5 NATO protections for allied troops attacked by Russia in Ukraine. Even though many of Hegseth’s suggestions accurately reflect the grim realities on the battlefield in Ukraine, they still caused serious tremors within the Western alliance.

You may remember from your history class the story of the Yalta Conference of 1945. It was at this conference, held at the Black Sea resort town of Yalta on the Crimean Peninsula, where the “big three” of the Allies, American President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet General Secretary Josef Stalin came together to negotiate the post-World War 2 geopolitical order. While the main theme of the conference were the big three’s plans for the partition, demilitarization, and ultimate denazification of Germany, we often forget the conference’s grim effect on the small states in Eastern Europe. As I alluded to in a previous essay, the small nations between Germany and Russia have a long history of seeing their fates decided by the bigger powers… and subsequently being overrun. In the psyches of these nations, the Yalta conference, besides being the most recent humiliation, is also the most traumatizing.

The ultimate humiliation came when Stalin, surprise, surprise, violated his promise to Roosevelt and Churchill (the latter pushed the matter more forcefully) to allow free elections in Poland and the other small nations of Eastern Europe, some of whom had admittedly been allies of Hitler. In Stalin’s mind, because Russia had been invaded from the west on multiple occasions, Stalin sought to prevent a recurrence of these invasions by establishing a security buffer in Eastern Europe. The self-determination of the nations in this buffer zone was far down his priority list. The overall legacy of the Yalta conference is that the world’s great powers (back then the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union and currently the United States, China, and Russia) should not determine the direction of the international order without the consent of smaller, weaker nations such as Ukraine and the other nations of Eastern Europe I view so fondly. Those who allow such betrayals to occur will always be on the wrong side of history in my book.

So when I saw the recent Presidential post on social media discussing his warm conversation with Vladimir Putin, the man who started an illegitimate war in Ukraine in the first place, and then the more curt mention of his discussion with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, I became deeply concerned. Particularly offensive for my friends in Eastern Europe was Trump’s praise of Russia’s “great history.” While we in America often imagine Russia through its positive contributions the world, such as the sacrifice of millions of lives to defeat Hitler and numerous scientific and cultural achievements, Russia’s neighbors in Eastern Europe tend to focus on the more violent episodes of Russian imperial expansion. It is impossible to understand Russia without being aware of the nation’s contradictions. While Vladimir Putin is no Adolf Hitler, he remains a dangerous individual fully indoctrinated into the KGB mindset of raw power politics and with a history of violating past agreements.

As for Hegseth’s message ruling out Ukraine’s NATO membership and the full restoration of its 2014 borders, I agree that both eventualities are illusions that have only been maintained by the political establishments in NATO countries to maintain our so-called “credibility” by not admitting that Russia has achieved some of its war goals. We have always known that barring a complete collapse of the Russian state, Ukrainian NATO membership is the reddest of red lines for Moscow- an outcome they would most certainly go to war, even with the United States, to prevent. I certainly agree Hegseth’s concessions will have to be offered at some point, but as diplomats are concerned, it is better to offer them during the negotiations, not before them.

President Trump’s quest to end the war in Ukraine is admirable, and I agree that every effort should be endeavored to reach the goal not only of a ceasefire, but a sustainable peace that respects the interests of all parties. I also recognize Vladimir Putin must be included in the process, since his troops are clearly entrenched throughout recognized Ukrainian territory, and an embattled Ukraine has little hope of driving them out. The administration is, frankly, just doing it all wrong. During the readout of the call between the American and Russian Presidents, they promised to begin negotiations immediately and even begin preparations for a bilateral summit in Saudi Arabia- without any reference to the participation of Ukraine or any of NATO’s European allies.

Such a development, a clear reflection of the Yalta Conference, is highly troubling to me. Yes, both Ukraine and European countries are weak economically, diplomatically, and militarily, and thus have minimal leverage in great power diplomacy. And I am also the first one to call out Europe’s particularly Western Europe’s, epic mismanagement of basically everything. However, it is their interests, more than America’s interests, which are more directly affected. As someone who knows history, I am of the firm belief that simply appeasing the side who started the war without any serious corresponding concessions will only encourage more war, not the great peace Trump claims to desire. Ukraine and its neighbors in Eastern Europe have much to gain from a robust peace agreement but also much to lose from a situation where the United States offers Russia everything they want while simply walking away and just hoping that the Russians won’t attack again.

Spoiler alert- they will.

I know many of you may have some questions about my opinions. You may like to point out that it was our previous presidents, whether George W. Bush who first suggested Ukraine as a NATO member, Barack Obama for his weak response to the 2014 Russian annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, or Joe Biden who failed to give Ukraine stronger weapons in 2022, who are more to blame here than the current one. You also may believe that Trump is correct in attempting to negotiate with America’s oldest rival to avoid a global catastrophe- an argument he uses to defend his controversial outreach. However, the president’s strategy of blaming the victim instead of the real aggressor, and outright ignoring appeals of countries with a far greater stake in the outcome of the Riyadh meeting than we do, is simply appalling to me. In my opinion, every single one of these presidents must ultimately face serious questions about their mistakes that led Ukraine to disaster.

I would strongly urge those who are involved in the decision-making in the US government not to go down such a perilous path of simply abandoning Ukraine and our other allies in Eastern Europe who, without the overwhelming power of the United States military, would struggle against a large-scale Russian military attack. Not only would such an abdication be a profound moral failure against an embittered and paranoid Russia, but it would also humiliate the United States before the entire world. Remember what happened in Saigon and Kabul? Just multiply those incidents 50 times over and you will understand the grave consequences of abandoning a vulnerable ally to a grim fate. If Ukraine falls, I would not be surprised if more countries in Europe or elsewhere seek to acquire nuclear weapons.

President Trump’s pursuit of peace is not unreasonable, as it was clear the previous approach of indefinite proxy war was not working. But outright surrender, with only vague Russian promises of a ceasefire, in the face of a nation resolved to establish a “security buffer” in Eastern Europe at the expense of millions of lives and the self-determination of neighboring nations would be a critical error. I can only hope that once real negotiations involving all relevant parties begin, we will see a truly just peace, not a sham peace that only pauses the war before the killing starts up all over again.