What a Trump Peace Deal for Ukraine May Look Like

By losmostachos @Adobe Stock

Luis Simón and Lotje Boswinkel of War on The Rocks report that there’s been no shortage of speculation on what a Trump peace deal for Ukraine may look like. They write:

President-elect Donald Trump has promised to end the war in Ukraine even before being sworn in. He has explicitly refrained from providing any details as to how exactly he may do that, arguing it would be foolish to show his cards before any such negotiation. Any possible deal entailing a peace-for-territories trade would represent a significant reversal from President Joe Biden’s promise to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” It would also fly in the face of Europe’s preference to continue to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia’s war of aggression. It is therefore important to explore Europe’s response options to a possible Trump-led peace deal for Ukraine. We argue that Europe (i.e., E.U. countries plus the United Kingdom) is unlikely to either prevent a deal from happening or fill the void left by a hypothetical U.S. decision to pull the plug on Ukraine aid. Instead, it should focus its energies on ensuring that any future deal is sustainable and guarantees Ukraine’s survival as an independent country, ideally by bringing Kyiv into NATO and the European Union. To shape the ground for such a deal, Europe should use the right mix of economic, financial, and military incentives. In other words, European countries may be unable to stop Trump’s Ukraine peace deal from landing but, if they play their cards right, they can have a say over the actual landing zone.

What Kind of Deal?

There’s been no shortage of speculation on what a Trump peace deal for Ukraine may look like. A former Trump White House aide suggested a deal may entail Ukraine ceding Crimea and much of the Donbas, limiting NATO expansion and curbing Russia’s military, economic, and industrial dependence on China. More recently, Vice President-elect J. D. Vance outlined the contours of a possible plan that would lead to the establishment of a demilitarized zone in the east while the rest of Ukraine would refrain from seeking NATO membership. An “enforcement mechanism” would then be put in place to prevent either side from breaching the ceasefire and prevent a repetition of the failure of the Minsk agreements. […]

Europe’s Trump Cards

Trump is known for his insistence that Europe should pay for its own security, as well as Ukraine’s, and for his transactional approach to foreign policy more generally. In layman’s terms, the more Trump can get out of Ukraine and Europe, the more likely he is to accommodate European preferences.

Expediting (western) Ukraine’s (and possibly Moldova’s) E.U. membership would be an important move. Relatedly, the European Union, its member states, and the United Kingdom should take the lead in Ukraine’s economic reconstruction and political stabilization. E.U. membership, however, is only likely to work if accompanied by NATO membership and the credible security guarantees that come with it. Moreover, European NATO allies could offer to help fund the potential (but unlikely) deployment of a U.S.-led multinational battalion to (western) Ukraine as part of NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence mechanism, including through E.U. instruments such as the European Peace Facility, in cooperation with the United Kingdom. Additionally, they could offer to complement a U.S.-led multinational battalion with another, European-only, NATO multinational battalion, ideally led by the United Kingdom and France. An offer by NATO’s European allies to fund the modernization of the Ukrainian air force, army, and navy with state-of-the-art, NATO-interoperable capabilities would help too. Relatedly, European NATO members should announce an increase in NATO’s defense spending floor (beyond 2 percent of GDP) and link that to the purchase of signature U.S. platforms and munitions. Last but not least, the European Union and NATO could commit to a broader alignment with U.S. economic, technological, and diplomatic priorities vis-à-vis China. […]

To recap, in the event of Trump pushing ahead with a peace deal for Ukraine, Europe should refrain from trying to prevent the deal from happening and focus instead on trying to influence the deal’s landing zone. Any such deal would entail some sort of trade-off between peace and territories. But the devil lies in the details, and there are many questions about what kind of peace and which territories should conform to the deal. Concretely, European efforts should focus on two key aspects: securing as much of Ukraine’s south as possible, and ensuring the deal is as sustainable as possible, ideally through the offer of NATO and E.U. membership to Ukraine. We have outlined the levers Europe could draw on to influence the deal’s landing zone. While Ukraine’s backers may have failed to carry through “for as long as it takes,” they would still have a chance to fight for an acceptable alternative.

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