Peace in our time will bring more war

Pete Hegseth announced a major change in US policy on Ukraine today. The most unqualified Defense Secretary ever offered to appease Russia by

• Ending US support for Ukraine’s membership in NATO;
• Abandoning Ukraine’s war goal of regaining control of all its sovereign territory;
• Anticipating an end to most US assistance to Ukraine;
• Excluding US troops from any post-war peacekeeping force;
• Asking European allies to provide such a force without a NATO Article 5 guarantee.

This gives Russian President Putin everything he hopes for except direct and immediate control over the government in Kyiv.

This is not peace through strength

Hegseth claimed he was proposing peace through strength. But that is pure illusion. He is pulling the rug out from underneath Ukrainian President Zelensky. At best (from Ukraine’s perspective), his remarks would make Ukraine a buffer state between NATO and Russia.

But maintaining Ukraine as a buffer state would be impossible. The Europeans would need to monitor a confrontation zone between Russia and Ukraine that is more than 1200 miles long. Kyiv, abandoned by the US, would want nuclear weapons to ensure Ukraine’s survival. That Russia would not allow.

Another Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory would be just a matter of time. And in the meanwhile Russia would be doing everything it could to bring down Zelensky. That wouldn’t be difficult if he agreed to anything like what Hegseth proposes.

I hardly need mention that partition of Ukraine as Hegseth proposes will have a dramatic impact in the Balkans. Serbia will try to grab territory in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as Kosovo. American and European troops will be at risk.

Worse: appeasement of Russia in Ukraine will be a signal to Beijing that Washington won’t defend Taiwan. Some of that damage may already have been done with Hegseth’s speech. He has undermined the deterrence he claims to find vital.

Real peace through strength is the alternative?

The Biden Administration pursued a Goldilocks policy on Ukraine. Enough support to make Russia’s territorial gains slow and costly. But not enough to provoke Russia’s use of nuclear weapons, which Putin has contemplated in the event Moscow faced calamity.

That worked well enough given its objectives. But it wasn’t enough–nor did it intend–for Ukraine to win the war. Kyiv, like Moscow, is struggling with manpower shortages. The only way for it to win the war is with overwhelming technological superiority. Ukraine’s forces have developed a lot of their own weapons and tactics. But they will need more unqualified US and European support to win.

The alternative to Hegseth’s appeasement is to provide that support. That would be real peace through strength.

A Ukraine win would strengthen the West

The implications of Kyiv winning are good for the US and Europe. Moscow would then need to abandon its imperial ambitions. Putin might survive using repression, but only as a much-diminished figure at home and abroad. Russia’s economy and demography will need rebuilding. It will be at least another generation before Moscow can threaten a neighbor.

Reasonable people in Moscow would quickly switch the position on Ukrainian membership in NATO. They would come to see that as the best guarantee of a Ukraine without nuclear weapons. They know better than anyone else that NATO membership has kept Germany non-nuclear.

Europe would gain enormously from the opening of a peacetime free market with Ukraine reconstructing itself. The US would get the privileged access to Ukrainian rare minerals it seeks.