If Trump is to achieve a sustainable Ukraine-Russia peace leading to global peace, he will need to undo, step by step, 40 years of US neo-containment policy that began with the “open-ended” NATO enlargement process in which the Clinton administration hoped to bring almost all of Central and Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, under a NATO nuclear umbrella.

The Clinton administration had secretly planned for Kyiv to become a NATO member as early as 1994, although it was presumably up to NATO to decide if and when Ukraine should join. Yet, by September 1996, the US Congress began to set the stage for Ukrainian membership publicly when it pressed for almost all Central and Eastern European states, including Moldova, as well as the Russian “red lines” of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, plus Ukraine, to join. Belarus and Russia were left out and were not really expected to become NATO members unless they surprisingly “democratized.”

To set the grounds for global peace in the near future:

  1. The Trump administration will need to establish a ceasefire leading to a sustainable peace in Ukraine.

  2. The Trump administration will need to implement a new NATO-Russia Partnership Accord to update the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act and attempt to restore “trust” by way of revising NATO’s defense policies and ensuring greater “transparency” and by seeking arms reductions and arms eliminations.

  3. The Trump administration will need to ameliorate the global geostrategic and political-economic tensions posed by the new “strategic partnerships” forged by the Russian Federation with China, North Korea, and Iran, which have been formed to counter the tightening of US security and defense relationships with Japan, South Korea, Australia, Taiwan, Israel, and other states.

Evidently, we are only at stage one, in which Trump has promised to achieve a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia in 6 months as opposed to his initial claims that he could make peace in 24 hours.

Such a ceasefire deal could prove possible, assuming that Russia and Ukraine can soon reach a “mutually hurting stalemate.” Yet, that may be difficult to achieve, as both Ukraine and Russia “hurt” very differently and asymmetrically. Russia and Ukraine possess very different military, technological and economic resources and capabilities; they also posssess different degrees of allied support, as well as different degrees of social and political resiliency and willingness to accept suffering and loss of life. If the “hurt” is not “mutual,” it opens the possibility that one side or the other may be tempted to continue fighting if they believe they have an advantage or perhaps can gain an advantage after a short truce.

Nevertheless, there are some signs that both Kyiv and Moscow might be reaching such a stalemate, given difficulties in recruiting and high casualties in what increasingly appears to be a “war of attrition.” As many as 1 million people may have been killed on both sides altogether.

Since the beginning of the so-called Russian “special military operation”, estimates claim that between 600,000 and 815,820 Russian soldiers have been killled, captured, wounded or missing. Some 88,726 Russian soldiers were confirmed dead as of January 2025. As of November 12, 2024, there have been as many as 12,867 cases of soldiers going AWOL. As many as 1,000 people may have been prosecuted for opposing the war. Moscow has been having trouble recruiting, with some signs of protest, and is impacted by high casualties. It is not certain that the deployment of North Korean forces in the Kursk oblast has helped significantly.

At the same time, Ukrainian forces may be hurting even more than Russian forces in relative terms, as Russia possesses roughly four times the population of Ukraine. Kyiv is apparently not fully admitting its death toll, high desertion rate, and significant drop in population size and growth. According to Ukrainian officials, 43,000 soldiers have been killed in action and 370,000 more have been wounded, ostensibly “taking into account that in our army approximately 50 percent of the wounded return to service” in Zylenskyy’s words.

But there are still roughly 60,000 missing and 8,000 captured. And other estimates are more than double that amount and put the number as high as 920,000 both killed and wounded or not available to fight. Some 650,000 men of fighting age have fled Ukraine. Kyiv has charged at least 100,000 under desertion laws since 2022.

If official Ukrainian statistics were correct, they do not seem to fully explain why Kyiv is trying to raise its monthly mobilization target to 40,000 troops, while concurrently complaining that it is only bringing in 20,000 fighters each month. President Trump’s hawkish National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, has urged Kyiv to lower the draft age from the current 25 (down from 27) to 18 years old. (The Pentagon can send its teens to war as young as 17 with parental permission.)

In addition to its advantage in troops, population, as well as its larger economy, Moscow has gained control over most of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, in addition to significant parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Should Moscow soon control Pokrovsk, it would control the “gateway” to the Donetsk region due to its railway station and hub of multiple supply highways―one of which leads towards the key strategic cities of Chasiv Yar and Kostiantynivka. Ukraine's only mining area that produces coking coal for steel is near Pokrovsk. The complete closure of the Ukrainian steelmaker Metinvest BV could cut more than half of Ukraine's steel output.

At the same time, however, Russian military advances in eastern Ukraine have, to a certain extent, been countered by Ukrainian military advances in the Russian Kursk oblast, plus missile and drone threats to the Russian navy in Crimea and the Sea of Azov. The weakness of the Russian navy’s hold over Crimea undermines Putin’s initial rationale for Moscow’s annexation of Crimea. How, and if, the two sides can bargain their respective territorial gains and losses remains to be seen.

Biden administration efforts to strengthen sanctions against Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegas, 180 vessels of its shadow fleet, plus dozens of oil traders, oilfield service providers, insurance companies, and energy officials, appear to place greater pressure on Moscow to end the war. By adding to already existing sanctions, plus long-range Ukrainian missile strikes against Russian military and energy sites, Biden in his last days of office gave the order to sanction the relatively “middle ground” Russian LNG facilities so as not to threaten European, Turkish, and Japanese gas supplies.

Since 2023, the US has become the world’s major gas producer. The US Plaquemines LNG company has delivered its first LNG cargo to Germany’s Brunsbüttel terminal in an effort to replace Russian fuel. The more Russian gas production is cut out of the European and other markets, impacting Hungary, Slovakia, and Austria, as well as Ukraine, the more prices could increase to the advantage of the US―unless the US, Qatar, Norway, Azerbaijan, and other states, perhaps Iran?, augment production.

In addition to pressure from US and EU sanctions, the impact of a weak rouble, as well as high inflation and interest rates, Moscow must be concerned with increasing Russian dependence upon China for “dual-use” civilian/military technologies and energy exports, and for trade and investments, plus high interest rates on debts to China that have mounted beyond $170 billion since the period 2000-2021. Some Chinese firms want to trade and invest in Russia are dropping out due to US sanctions. Opposition to growing Chinese influence on Russia itself could play a background role in any possible Russian decision to reach a sustainable peace settlement.

Trump could use his newfound US strategic leverage in global energy markets to achieve peace or provoke war. Pushed by American LNG producers, Trump could tighten the LNG sanctions on Russia in an effort to press Europe to buy more expensive American LNG. Or else Trump could use sanctions relief for Russia as a bargaining chip in any ceasefire and peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.

Trump has consequently warned that if there was not a ceasefire deal soon, he would “have no other choice” but to impose tariffs, taxes and sanctions on “anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries… We can do it the easy way, or the hard way – and the easy way is always better.. It’s time to ‘Make a deal.’ No more lives should be lost!”

There is nevertheless a real danger that if Russia eventually finds itself very close to being cut out of its energy and other markets, coupled with deep Ukrainian strikes against Russian energy facilities (as both Moscow and Kyiv escalate attacks on military and energy sites), Moscow could strike out against US and NATO strategic interests―much as Imperial Japan did on December 7, 1941 in attacking Pearl Harbor.

Given its new nuclear weapons strategy, Moscow’s reaction could go far beyond the alleged acts of “hybrid warfare” and traditional sabotage, plus repeated threats to use nuclear weapons that appear intended to splinter the NATO alliance―that is, if President Putin believes Russia is confronted with an “existential” threat, however defined. The more Putin threatens to use nuclear weaponry, the greater the possibility he will feel pressed to act―otherwise, he loses his credibility.

Toward a Ceasefire

To prevent further escalation, it is crucial that the major and regional powers impacted by the Russia-Ukraine war step in and provide additional diplomatic support for peace efforts. This means peace cannot be achieved by the Trump administration alone (despite its “America First” ideology). Trump will need the support of the Europeans, India, Turkey, Brazil, Hungary, Slovakia, Israel, the UAE, and Qatar, among other powers, such as Serbia, which has offered to host peace talks between Trump and Putin―and particularly of China, given the latter’s increasing political and economic influence on Moscow.

As China is a rising global hegemonic challenger to the US, it is crucial that Trump engage in deep negotiations with Beijing with respect to Trump’s threats to “protect” the US economy versus “Made in China.” Trump needs to talk to Chinese president Xi Jinping about the potential impact of US tariffs on China, on the US itself, as well as upon the global economy. He also needs to press for a peaceful resolution to the China-Taiwan conflict― in addition to finding ways to achieve a sustainable peace between Ukraine and Russia with the help from China.

On the domestic level, Trump will need to counter two clichés:

  1. He will need to counter accusations of “appeasement”―the allegations that he could capitulate to Vladimir Putin’s present and future imperial ambitions in Ukraine.

  2. He will need to counter the view that Ukraine cannot remain “neutral” or non-aligned and must join NATO.

As the negotiation process is just beginning to move forward, US and European hawks, who want to pursue the proxy war in Ukraine in an effort to weaken Russia, if not possibly splinter the country into rival republics, have started to raise accusations of “appeasement”―particularly if Trump is seen as making too many concessions to Putin with respect to the possible diplomatic recognition of Russia’s conquest of the Donbass region and Crimea.

Such charges―based on false comparisons and analogies between today’s crisis and that of the 1930s―could work to undermine Trump’s domestic and international status―even if he would eventually be able to obtain the best possible peace settlement given poor options and the fact that Moscow has already taken roughly 18% of Ukrainian territory and will dubiously give all of it up. Concerted diplomacy is thus needed to prevent Moscow from taking more Ukrainian territory so that Kyiv does not lose Odessa, for example.

On the other hand, if Trump’s efforts to achieve a peace accord fail to result in a sustainable peace settlement, and if fighting restarts, there is a risk that Trump’s tough rhetoric and “Peace through Strength” efforts, backed by the US military-industrial complex and its hawkish supporters, could result in the renewed buildup of US, European, and Ukrainian military capabilities.

The ostensible purpose of such a US-backed military buildup would be to prevent Moscow from further expanding its hold over Ukraine―but such a buildup could lead the US, NATO and Europeans to enter into direct confrontation with Russia―as opposed to the present “proxy” war.

Toward a Sustainable Peace Settlement

When Ukraine became independent in 1991, it pronounced itself neutral. Kyiv could have remained neutral and non-nuclear after it presumably gave up the massive stockpile of nuclear weaponry leftover from the Soviet Union once it signed the 1994 Budapest Accords―that is, if NATO had not offered Ukraine the possibility of future membership at the 2008 Bucharest summit, a major factor leading to this conflict.

It is now up to NATO and Russia to redefine their entire relationship. The promise of Ukrainian neutrality alone will not, however, prove sufficient, but it could represent a stepping stone to the next stage―a revised NATO-Russia Partnership Accord that would seek to reformulate the NATO-Russia Founding Act. The latter would, in turn, represent a step toward the third stage―the amelioration of global tensions to prevent further alliance polarization between US-led alliances and the network of Russian-Chinese strategic partnerships and/or defense accords with Iran, North Korea and other states.

Negotiations should first consider options of significant arms reductions and withdrawal of Russian and Ukrainian forces from key points of contention, with the establishment of buffer zones, coupled with the deployment of international peacekeeping forces with troops acceptable to both sides under a general UN mandate, perhaps from India, China, Brazil, Turkey or South Africa, among other countries. Later, if greater trust can be established, possible territorial tradeoffs, prisoner and population exchanges, and joint and international sovereignty arrangements over specific territories claimed by both sides should be considered. Joint and international development and energy projects in the Black Sea region could raise funds for war reparations and reconstruction.

Washington and Moscow should concurrently begin discussions on how future strategic arms deals could include all US and Russian nuclear weapons. The US and Russians should also discuss a “transparency mechanism” to meet Russian concerns with the deployment of US-NATO missile defenses and intermediate-range weaponry, and US concerns with intermediate-range Russian missile deployments.

At some point, both bilateral and multilateral negotiations, involving Chinese and European nuclear systems, plus other states depending on their military capabilities, will need to cover the development of new intercontinental and intermediate-range hypersonic missiles as well as the deployment of dual-use weapons, as well as missile defense systems. If possible, “non-strategic” intermediate and medium range, as well as short range “tactical”, nuclear weapons systems should be abolished much as Gorbachev had proposed to Reagan. A general “No First Use” of Weapons of Mass Destruction should be proposed―if nuclear weapons and other forms of WMD cannot be eliminated altogether.

It will not be easy for Trump to gain Allied consensus to engage diplomatically with Russia―as the Europeans have taken a strong anti-Russian stance since the outbreak of the 2022 war. Moreover, Trump is not known for working multilaterally after his problematic first term. His mix of Reagan’s Peace through Strength with Nixon’s madman antics does not inspire confidence.

Trump’s basic psychological complex is that he does not know if he is a Plato timocrat (a neo-conservative with American-first “principles” in modern terms) or an “appeasing” plutocrat without “values” that seeks to negotiate peace for business and profits. In effect, the fact that he flips back and forth between these two Janus positions can lead to the distrust of both allies and rivals, but also to the reduction of his domestic support from those political parties and societal groups with ideological/ value/ moral concerns that have supported him in the past.

Nevertheless, Trump now has the chance in his second term to try to synthesize the approaches of both Nixon and Reagan in his hopes to become a “great peacemaker”!

The questions remain: Will Trump be able to achieve Peace through Strength? Or will his timocrat/plutocrat complex result in World War Trump? Or perhaps what lies ahead is neither global war, nor global peace, but worldwide Hyper-Libertarian Populist Anarchy?

The second Trump season has just begun…

This article is based on my talk: Peace Roundtable #9: Forecasts for Trump 2.0 (f. Hall Gardner, Peter Kuznick, Martin Sieff, and Dr. Ed Lozansky).