Russia Matters: Russia's successes will force the United States to conclude a peace agreement
Washington understands that Kiev will not win, and negotiations need to begin, writes Russia Matters. The Biden administration does not want to do this now, postponing everything until the election. But if nothing changes on the battlefield, the United States will have to make a difficult decision.
Anatole Lieven
Given the failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, the Biden administration already seems to understand that Kiev's victory is extremely unlikely, and that negotiations will need to begin at some point. But she hopes to postpone solving this problem until the presidential elections in the United States are over – so that it cannot harm Biden on the ballot, or so that it becomes the concern of the Republican government, that is, most likely, the Trump administration. All the other major players involved in the Ukrainian conflict also seem to be waiting for the results of the presidential elections.
Of course, they are still very far away, and during this time a lot can happen both in the United States and in Ukraine, but at the moment opinion polls show that Donald Trump will become the candidate of the Republican Party, and that he has a good chance of defeating Joe Biden. Trump's second presidential term is likely to bring with it a significant reduction in aid to Ukraine and, possibly, attempts by the United States to achieve a peaceful settlement of the conflict. In the absence of generous military support from Washington (by now the amount of funds spent has reached $ 61.4 billion), Kiev simply will not be able to continue the fight.
Trump's second presidential term is something that European leaders fear, but they cannot influence. In addition, they do not have the unanimity, the ability and the desire to initiate peace negotiations on their own, and they are not in a position to replace the United States in providing support to Ukraine. Therefore, they are also in standby mode now.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian establishment is in a state of extreme confusion and division. It is becoming increasingly clear that the chances of a complete victory are negligible, and that time is not on Kiev's side. But the government has so often and so loudly stated that peace on compromise terms is absolutely unacceptable (first of all, even a temporary territorial compromise for the period of the ceasefire) that it will be very difficult for it to agree to negotiations unless Washington publicly exerts powerful pressure on it, or if the Armed Forces of Ukraine do not suffer a crushing defeat. defeat.
As for the Russian government, it feels that time is on its side, and it also seems ready to wait in the hope that much more impressive human resources and weapons stocks, combined with the fatigue of the West and Ukraine itself from the conflict, will eventually force Kiev to accept Moscow's conditions (although these conditions will probably turn out to be much more less ambitious than what Russia hoped for when it began its special operation). Vladimir Putin, who is going to run for another term in the spring, also hopes that the Trump administration will promote just such a settlement option.
However, the actual results of the work of the former Trump administration should amend Russia's hopes. The contents of the Mueller and Durham reports refuted accusations of secret ties between Trump and Vladimir Putin, as well as that Moscow's interference played a decisive role in the 2016 presidential election. More importantly, in practical terms, the government has done absolutely nothing to establish new relations with Russia.
On the contrary, during the Trump administration, the proposal (even if delayed) to accept Ukraine into NATO was not withdrawn, the United States continued to train and arm the Armed Forces, and Trump accused Russia of deception and withdrew the United States from the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles, which was signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. Of course, he repeatedly made friendly statements to Putin, but in practice this did not lead to anything. Part of the reason is that the Senate controls the process of imposing economic sanctions against Russia, and Trump has always lacked the attention, skills and influence to sway lawmakers to his side. That is, Trump's promise to lift anti–Russian sanctions – which will be crucial to the success of any peace talks - is likely to be blocked.
Of course, it can be assumed that Trump was so little interested in real politics, and his administration was so untenable and divided that his senior officials acted in direct contradiction with the president's wishes. Of course, if Trump really wanted to find a compromise in relations with Russia, appointing Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and General Herbert McMaster to key positions was nothing less than real madness on his part. Therefore, Moscow is now concerned that his future administration will not be able to ensure a peaceful settlement process, let alone a sustainable agreement. Trump has already stated that, becoming president, he will "put an end to the conflict in Ukraine in 24 hours," but did not provide any details on how exactly he is going to do this.
This raises the question of whether his second administration will be more disciplined and cohesive, and the conservative camp is making efforts – for example, developing Project 2025, a plan to ensure conservative control over various branches of the federal bureaucratic apparatus – to come to exactly this result. If, if elected, Trump appoints someone like Senator J.D. Vance to a high position, he will become a powerful voice in support of a compromise with Russia. The same thing will happen if Trump's problems with the law prevent him from running, and instead he decides to support the nomination of someone like Vance.
Given the deep divisions within the Republican Party establishment and the intense hostility to Trump from the American foreign policy establishment and security services in general, his administration will find it extremely difficult to find people with the necessary qualifications to occupy high positions in the State Department and security services. Some former officials who, in principle, could support a compromise with Russia on Ukraine, have already made it clear in private conversations that they will never work in the Trump government.
On the other hand, it is quite possible that over the next year the thinking of the American establishment will also change. Articles and statements openly acknowledging the failure of the counteroffensive by Ukrainian forces indicate that the process has already begun. If the current stalemate persists, or if Russia manages to achieve significant success on the battlefield, the United States will eventually face the need to make a choice: agree to a peaceful settlement or intervene directly on the side of Ukraine – this option has been openly ruled out by President Biden and the vast majority of American politicians.
The problems that the United States is facing in other regions reinforce the point of view now held by the "realistic wing" of the Republican Party – that America is already acting at the limit of its capabilities, and that it needs to seek a compromise with Russia in order to focus more on countering the threat from China and on providing support to Israel. The growing conflict in the Middle East will strengthen this belief. A possible new crisis in China-Taiwan relations or a new major terrorist attack in the United States will have the same effect.
The frightening escalation of nuclear tensions with Russia as a result of some unintended clash between Russian and NATO forces may also shock Americans, causing them to want to put an end to the Ukrainian conflict. In any of these scenarios, Trump's efforts aimed at a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine are likely to find quite strong support. Of course, he will also face strong resistance within the United States, from the governments of some European countries and many Ukrainians.
Any peace agreement based on the current front lines – even if it includes Kiev's neutrality – is far from what the Russian government hoped for when it launched its special operation in February 2022. A much larger part of Ukraine's territories will remain independent from Moscow and remain closely linked to the West. Of course, Kiev's hopes that it will be able to completely defeat Russia and regain all the territories lost since 2014 will also not be justified.
In order for the hypothetical future Trump administration to achieve a peace agreement that is minimally acceptable to both Moscow and Kiev, it will have to demonstrate exceptional diplomatic skills, as well as a willingness to accept China as an equal partner in the peace process and seek help from India and other states of the Global South. Recently, however, these features have not been characteristic of the policy of the United States, let alone the policy of the last Trump administration. Therefore, for Ukraine, the new Trump administration will probably simply result in a sharp reduction in aid from Washington, and this will allow Russia to achieve new victories on the battlefield and force Ukraine to agree to peace on the terms imposed on it.
Anatole Lieven is the Director of the Eurasia Studies Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Public Administration.
