Given the capricious nature of Donald Trump, a “security guarantee” for Ukraine envisioned as lasting 15 years is about as reliable as one lasting 150 years – or, for that matter, 15 minutes.
It is, in other words, entirely notional, if not theoretical. This is an “America first” administration, and that extends to everything – defence, trade, climate change, and even public health.
As America’s former friends and partners across the world have discovered during both Mr Trump’s terms of office, any security guarantee, any treaty commitment, and any solemn promise made by this administration, or even by its predecessors, can be rescinded with the stroke of a Sharpie.
It is, for example, what President Trump himself did when he signed a flimsy peace treaty with the Taliban and left Afghanistan to their mercies in 2020. Indeed, to be fair to the current president, this would not be the first time the United States abandoned a supposedly invaluable ally to its fate – South Vietnam and Iraq found out the hard way about American resolve. In due course, so might Taiwan.
Volodymyr Zelensky, therefore, would have been wiser to accept than to quibble with Mr Trump’s offer of some sort of security guarantee at their meeting at Mar-a-Lago, with some theatrical gratitude thrown in. As it is, he did manage to persuade the US president to “think about” a longer timescale, which was an achievement. Far more important, though, is the nature of the guarantee. Does it replicate the gold standard of Nato’s Article 5 principle of “one for all and all for one” (itself devalued by Mr Trump’s equivocations)?
For a variety of reasons, it seems improbable that the Trump administration would station American troops and missiles anywhere on Ukrainian soil, and anything less than a physical presence would probably not deter Vladimir Putin if the Russian leader saw an opportunity for a quick victory over a semi-demilitarised Ukraine. Everyone knows President Trump wouldn’t go to war with Russia over Estonia (a vulnerable Nato member), and the idea that he would do so for Ukraine is ludicrous. He’d find a loophole.
Given all of that, President Zelensky would gain more in diplomatic goodwill from the White House by signing a deal – any deal – than he would lose in Ukrainian security, and he should, as soon as he can, accept the US guarantee – and press his more loyal allies in Europe to take on the role of the real guarantors of Ukraine’s borders.
Some, such as Germany’s chancellor Friedrich Merz, have been clear-sighted about this ever since members of the Trump administration went to the Munich Security Conference in February and announced that America was to disengage from Europe. Others in Europe have not been so ready to join the “coalition of the willing” being assembled by France and Britain. Maybe 15 years will be long enough for Europe to get its act together.
So the war goes on, and President Trump, though always upbeat about his own supposed unique diplomatic gifts, no longer even pretends that a truce, let alone a lasting peace settlement, is in sight. Before he was elected, Mr Trump promised that he would end the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours”, and he has consistently appeared optimistic about peace, even after the inconclusive Alaska summit with President Putin in August.
He seems still to be optimistic, but he is not making any predictions about when the killing will cease, and he’s no longer pushing his self-nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. Even after his fairly harmonious (as far as can be glimpsed) talks with President Zelensky, Mr Trump can only speculate that “it’ll either end or go on for a long time”.
Mr Zelensky’s tactic must be to treat Mr Trump with the extravagant respect he expects, agree to painful sacrifices, and sincerely engage in the process in a way that the Kremlin never will. That is essential, both to end the war soon and to marginalise President Putin – to show him as the obdurate imperialist he is. On occasion, this has worked, and Mr Trump has declared himself tired of the Russian leader’s foot-dragging and attempts to “play him along”. Yet it seems to take only a phone call from Putin, whom Mr Trump so admires – and envies – as an absolutist strongman, for the US president to be mesmerised once again. It was graceful of Mr Zelensky to smile indulgently when Mr Trump said that Putin had assured him he wanted Ukraine to be “successful”.
Never straying far from the hotline to Moscow, President Trump knows full well – or should – that the war will only come to an end when President Putin judges that it is in his own interest that this should happen, with a deal so advantageous that there would be no point in trying to push further on the battlefield. The noises emanating from the Kremlin suggest that the Russians still prefer war-war to jaw-jaw, and won’t be offering useful concessions of their own, or taking part in any peace conference. They treat President Trump with the kind of contempt that would usually invite a bombing raid – yet they get away with it.
The war remains all about territory, and, in the longer run, the very existence of Ukraine as an independent sovereign state. The chances are that such matters will be resolved by military and economic means, and not by aimless, naive Trumpian diplomacy – and that is why Europe must ensure that Ukraine doesn’t lose.
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