I’m cautiously optimistic for peace in Ukraine after President Trump’s Alaska summit with Russian President Putin, followed three days later by his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinsky and the top European leaders. On Tuesday, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Trump had arranged a meeting between Putin and Zelinsky.
Here’s something I noticed from the Oval Office meeting. Trump sat behind the Resolute Desk, the European leaders arrayed on the other side. Trump is a showman. On stage left of the desk his staff set up a map of Ukraine. It showed the areas Russia’s army has occupied in red, with the percentages of occupation.
There was no percentage for Crimea, because it’s 100% occupied since 2014. The percentages for the other oblasts, from south to north: Kherson 73%, Zaporizhzhia 73%, Donetsk 76% and Kherson 99%.
Basically, he was saying to Zelensky and the Europeans: How are you going to take these areas back from the Russian Army? But if you want to try, go ahead. We’ll even sell you the weapons – for cold, hard euros, no credit.
Behind the map was a portrait of Ronald Reagan, often held up for restoring American military power and “standing tall” against the Soviets/Russians. Trump sometimes has been urged to be “more like Reagan,” as in the Hill by David Merkel, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, whose portfolio included Ukraine.
But Reagan met with Soviet/Russian leader Michail Gorbachev five times, signing nuclear arms control treaties and winding down the Cold War. The 1988 Geneva Accords, arranged by their diplomats, led to the Soviets ending their decade-long occupation of Afghanistan in Feb. 1989, a month after the Gipper left office. Diplomacy takes time.
Trump’s Oval Office subordination of the Europeans was stunning. In Reagan’s day, the UK was led by the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, and West Germany by Helmut Kohl. Both allies fielded formidable militaries. Now, of the Britannia that once ruled the waves, the UK Spectator reported in May, “the Royal Navy’s fleet in a sorry state…. Britain could only field one of its two carriers, one destroyer, one frigate and one attack submarine.”
Colonel Andre Wuestner, head of the German Armed Forces Association, in February told Reuters Germany has sent so many arms to Ukraine the Bundeswehr’s ground-forces readiness has dropped from 65% to 50%.
Excluding us, our NATO allies comprise 639 million people, to our 340 million; and their economies, using the Purchasing Power Parity tally, total $38 trillion, more than our $30 trillion. When the Ukraine War started in Feb. 2022, they could have ramped up defense spending. Instead, to protect their generous welfare states, their percentages of GDP spent on defense remain stuck at: Germany 1.9%, France 2.1% and the UK 2.3%, compared to 3.4% for the United States. The Europeans have promised Trump to raise that to 5%. But even if they do so, which seems unlikely, it would take a decade to build back their militaries and defense industries.
Meanwhile, Russia has spent the same period expanding its defense industries and troop levels. It’s now on the march westward in Ukraine.
The freeloading Europeans are demanding NATO – meaning the United States – give “security guarantees” to Ukraine as part of any peace deal ceding territory to Russia. But that would mean effective NATO membership and a U.S. military commitment, which Trump has rejected.
However, former Ambassador Chas Freeman brought up on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s podcast another possible arrangement. After Soviet dictator Stalin died in 1953, the new leadership wanted to ease relations with the West. That led to Austria, partitioned like Berlin between East and West, in 1955 uniting with a “security guarantee” of neutrality with no military presence by the Soviets or NATO. That has held for 70 years.
After President Joe Biden’s only summit with Putin, on June 21, 2021, he isolated America by refusing to hold more summits, letting the war drag on. Four years and two months later, Trump is ending that isolation. Peace is not assured. But now there is hope.
John Seiler is on the SCNG Editorial Board